Chapter 14
Nomiki,” the woman threw over her shoulder in a brisk voice. “That’s my name. I won’t repeat it.”
Her sandals struck the stone with clipped precision as we scrambled to keep pace. Light played over the lines etched into her face, the creases clinging to darkness like grime in old wounds.
Behind us, a handful of soldiers fell into step, spears upright, eyes forward, the groan of metal shifting with every stride.
“Your titles are gone. Your pasts are dust. You’re not princesses or paupers now. You’re chosen, and that means three things: you listen, you learn, and you do not embarrass me.”
She rounded a corner, not bothering to check if we were still with her.
“You will rise at dawn. You will not eat before you’re told. You will wear what you are given, speak when addressed, and keep your gods-damned hands to yourselves unless instructed otherwise. Is that unclear?”
A few girls muttered no, others shook their heads. I didn’t speak at all.
Nomiki clicked her tongue. “I want a real answer next time. None of this simpering mouse noise. You want to cry? Do it in your sleep, and quietly.”
The sound of revelry behind us faded into memory, replaced by the hush of cold stone. Here, in the corridor, everything felt tighter. Sterner. The air itself seemed to demand obedience.
She didn’t stop walking. “You’ll stay in your rooms unless summoned. No wandering. No fraternizing with anyone outside of the other chosen. If you’re seen without a reason, I’ll assume you’re looking for trouble—and you’ll find it. Likely dressed in the red of the rejected.”
One of the girls lifted her head like she might ask why.
Nomiki paused at another heavy bronze door and turned to face us fully for the first time.
The look she gave was answer enough. Her brow lifted and the girl’s mouth snapped shut like a trap.
Whatever question had been forming withered in her throat.
She skimmed the line of us with a soldier’s precision. “Some of you think the Trials will be about charm. About grace. About pleasing His Majesty.”
Her lip curled.
“They won’t be. The king has plenty of ornaments. A Queen of Sparta is something else.”
A soldier stepped forward and pulled the door open with a grunt.
The hinges creaked like an old beast waking.
Nomiki didn’t thank him. She simply strode through, then turned back once we’d followed her into the dim corridor beyond.
“This is your wing,” she said. “Your rooms are inside. You’ll be assigned one each.
No swapping. No sneaking. No visitors. You’re not here to make friends. ”
Her eyes flicked from girl to girl, pausing just long enough to ensure the words stuck.
“You may remove your veils in here,” she added, “and only in this wing. If I catch you barefaced outside this threshold, I’ll assume you’re trying to flaunt yourself and you will be dismissed from the Trials.”
She let that hang for a moment, the silence thickening between the rhythmic beat of the torches.
“Now,” she said briskly, “line up. Let’s get this over with.”
We lined up like schoolgirls as Nomiki held up a thin strip of parchment, squinting at the names scratched there. “Damaris,” she barked. A small girl with hunched shoulders stepped forward. “Room one. Far left.” She pointed, then moved down the list. “Theia. Two. Iris. Three.”
One by one, each of the chosen were called, vanishing through narrow doorways set along the corridor like tombs awaiting occupants.
“Helena,” Nomiki said, her tone unreadable.
I stepped forward.
She didn’t bother pointing. “Last door. End of the hall.”
I nodded and moved past her, aware of the way her gaze lingered on me a beat too long.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she said, almost as an afterthought, her voice lower now. “This is not home. It’s the waiting room before we decide what to do with you.”
She turned away before I could answer, already calling the next name.
Well, she was interesting … and terrifying. Kind of like Calismae, actually.
I peeled my gaze off her departing back, my footsteps echoing off the walls as I moved toward my room. Just beside it, another door stood flush with the wall—smaller, unmarked. A thin draft whispered out from beneath it, brushing cold air against my ankles like a warning. Or an invitation.
I didn’t linger.
My door swung open, and I stepped inside, immediately blinking at all the red.
It wasn’t the faded, blood-rubbed red of the manor’s crumbling halls, but a rich, even color, like the inside of a pomegranate just split open.
The walls here hadn’t been scrubbed raw to keep the rot at bay.
They hadn’t needed to be. Everything was intact and whole. Cared for.
The bed stood straight and polished, its dark wooden frame gleaming in the torchlight. The mattress looked firm, and the linens plain but pressed. A small arched window displayed the night, barred but decorated with a curtain. Even that—just a piece of cloth—was clean. Unfrayed.
A low table held a slender-necked pitcher and a clay cup, the pitcher already full. A stone bath was tucked into the far corner, large enough to stretch out in, and a rug lay across the center of the floor.
And there, at the foot of the bed, was my trunk.
Calismae’s hands had folded the tunics, smoothed the edges … chosen which sandals, which comb, which little wooden carving from beside my bed would come along. Her way of saying everything she couldn’t with words.
A pang hit suddenly, hollowing out my chest. I pictured her back in the manor, alone now.
The thought of her staring out at the broken landscape from the kitchen window, humming to herself as she washed her dinner plate, made my throat tighten.
No one to fuss over. No one to scold for tracking in dust.
She had packed this for me, hoping we wouldn’t speak again there. Hoping I wouldn’t be sent back.
She had believed in me. I couldn’t let her down.
I didn’t go to the basin, or the bed, or the trunk Calismae had packed with such care. I sank to the stone floor instead, knees folding beneath me, palms braced as if the ground were the only thing steady enough to hold me.
Because I was still here … and I shouldn’t have been.
If the girl hadn’t collapsed. If I hadn’t been unveiled and the king’s gaze hadn’t lingered. If fate had so much as blinked differently … I would’ve been sent back. Passed over. Forgotten.
My chest clenched mid-inhale, the air locking behind my tongue.
I pressed my hands harder to the floor, grounding myself in the roughness of it, the reality. The silence around me felt cloying. Like even the walls knew how close I’d come to losing this.
Another breath, slow and shaky.
Then again.
And again.
Every breath felt like a vow. A fragile thing, remade with each inhale, sharpened with each exhale.
I was here.
And I wouldn’t waste it.
Squeak.
A small gray blur darted from beneath the wardrobe, paused at the edge of the rug, and blinked up at me with its strange, pale eyes.
“You,” I whispered, too startled to move.
The red-tipped tail. The ghostly sheen to its fur, like moonlight caught in motion. Those eyes, too intelligent for any ordinary thing. It was my creature. My tiny, impossible companion.
An absurd urge to cry caught me off guard, like the sight of it cracked open something I’d been holding shut. Loneliness, maybe. Something you don’t notice until something fills it.
“You came back.”
I held out my hand, my fingers cold and uncertain. It scrambled into my palm without hesitation, small and warm and steady. Real.
Yanking off my veil, I crossed the floor and climbed onto the bed, not caring about wrinkling the sheets or the way my limbs moved like they didn’t quite belong to me.
The linens whispered around me as I sank in, the mattress plain but clean, the pillows giving without complaint.
I curled in on myself, arms drawn tight across my chest, and the little creature nestled into the hollow beneath my collarbone as if it had never left.
We lay that way for what felt like hours, two quiet souls in a space that offered shelter but not belonging.
“Psst.”
My eyes snapped open, heart kicking against my ribs like it wanted out.
“Psssssst.”
Louder this time. Urgent. Mischievous. I pushed myself upright, my limbs heavy with sleep. The room had gone still, the kind of stillness that made every sound feel like a secret.
The voice was coming from the wall.
Barefoot and cautious, I slid off the bed, my dress clinging to my thighs. The floor was cold beneath my feet as I crept across it. I edged forward, squinting hard at the wall like it might blink first.
Step by slow step, I crept toward the only real decoration in the room, a woven tapestry of gods and monsters stitched in red and gold. My fingers brushed the edge of it.
There.
In the fabric, nearly hidden in shadow, was a hole no larger than a coin, perfectly round and too perfect to be a flaw. I leaned in, heart thudding. Something shifted … and an eye suddenly blinked at me from the hole.
I jerked back with a quiet gasp, my hand flying to my chest.
“Hello!” came the voice, soft and conspiratorial … and utterly delighted.
“Umm, hello?” I blinked, feeling like I was going crazy as I moved my face near the opening.
“I promise I’m not a ghost. Or a spider. Or a spy.”
A laugh threatened at the corner of my mouth, despite everything. “You’re sure?” I asked, tilting my head. “Because that’s exactly what a spy would say.”
“That’s true,” the voice murmured. “But my name’s Anysa. I’m your fellow chosen and your new neighbor. Did they put a tapestry of a lion biting a horse’s throat in your room too?”
I examined the tapestry. Yes, I supposed that was an accurate way to describe the gods in their animal forms fighting each other. I was surprised that Menelaus had allowed such a thing within his walls.
“Yes …”
“Yeah. Same decor as mine. Lucky us.”