Chapter 16
The fire in the hearth was burning low, shadows softening the edges of the stone chamber. Some of the girls lingered around the long table, their voices quieter now, dulled by nerves and bruised egos from two days of … queen lessons.
I sat near the end, hands wrapped around the rim of my cup, staring into what was left of the watered wine. My back still ached from yesterday’s posture drills, my cheeks sore from polite smiling. Queens, apparently, weren’t allowed to feel.
Anysa dropped into the seat beside me with the grace of a collapsing tent and tossed her veil aside. She groaned and stretched her legs under the table, knocking into mine.
“Well,” she said dramatically, “today I learned that I moan like a dying goose. My teacher actually mimicked the sound back to me. Mockingly. In front of the others.”
I blinked. “A goose?”
She nodded solemnly. “A dying one. Specifically. I told her I’ve never heard a goose die. She said, ‘You have now.’”
Despite myself, a small huff of laughter escaped me. She grinned, victorious, then rested her cheek on her folded arms.
“I used to think I was kind of pretty,” she mumbled into the crook of her elbow. “Not, like, you-are-our-ruin-prophesy or sacrifice-a-kingdom pretty like you. But decent. And now I’ve spent the last two days trying to learn how to pour wine while making eye contact without looking constipated.”
“That’s a … visual,” I said, fighting the twitch of my lips as one brow crept up in disbelief.
She groaned again, louder this time. “Because it happened! I asked if I should lean back while I’m doing it, and she said, ‘Not unless you want to look like you’re struggling through a bowel movement.’”
I laughed harder than I meant to, wine sloshing in my cup. Anysa had a way of dragging laughter out of me, even with the first Trial still looming. It wasn’t relief exactly … but it was something. A breath in the middle of drowning.
Across the room, a disdainful look sliced our way.
Chloé’s cup hovered inches from her lips, but she didn’t drink. Just watched us, her eyes glittering with contempt.
She was from one of the favored villages—Kynosoura. Her father oversaw horse breeding for the king, and rumor had it her mother once served in the High Temple. She carried herself like someone who believed the crown already belonged to her.
Now, her amber-ringed eyes narrowed as if our joy was something vulgar. She hadn’t said much in the last two days, but her silences were pointed. Polished. Dangerous in their own right.
Anysa leaned closer and whispered, “She looks like she wants to pickle us in brine and serve us with olives.”
My mouth twitched. “With that demonic spoon.”
Chloé didn’t blink.
Neither did I.
Her gaze burned from across the room, chin tilted just enough to suggest superiority, like she was measuring me and finding me wanting. I let my face settle into stillness as I swirled what little wine was left in my cup.
Chloe held it for a moment … then her mouth twitched. A quick, forced blink followed, her gaze darting away for just a second.
Victory.
She masked it fast, turning to the girl beside her with a flippant laugh that came a little too late, and rang a little too false.
Anysa nudged my arm with a grin. “Well, well. That was very queenly of you. Cold and majestic. I feel like I should curtsy.”
I rolled my eyes but grinned.
Anysa leaned in. “So,” she whispered, eyes flicking toward the corridor as if the Trials might be lurking just out of sight, “you think they’re actually going to start tomorrow? Or is this all just some elaborate etiquette-based torture ritual?”
My grin faltered.
Every day they didn’t begin, the waiting burrowed deeper beneath my skin. The silence felt intentional now … like a game to see how long we could endure the uncertainty before one of us cracked.
“I don’t know,” I murmured, tightening my fingers around my cup. “But I’m starting to think the waiting is part of it.”
Anysa made a face. “Cruel. Brilliant. Quintessential Sparta.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but the mood shifted, visibly, tangibly, as the air behind us stirred.
A shadow passed over the entryway as Achilles stepped through.
He was sweat-slick and flushed, chest rising steadily beneath his open leather vest. Dirt smudged the pteruges at his waist, and a shallow cut curved just below his jaw—fresh, but already drying.
His arms, corded with muscle, flexed as he adjusted the short blade at his hip, and more than one girl sat up a little straighter.
He looked like he’d just come from a sparring ring. Or a battlefield.
I tore my gaze away.
Through whispered gossip and too-loud speculation, I’d pieced together that Achilles hadn’t just been appointed captain of the king’s guard. He’d been entrusted with overseeing the security of the chosen during the Trials. Our security.
So why did it feel like he was the danger every time we were in the same room?
His eyes swept the chamber. Assessing. Measuring. Then … pausing.
Anysa leaned close again. “That man does not look like etiquette is part of his training.”
Her eyes suddenly widened and she sat up straighter in her seat. “Gods, I think he’s coming our way!” she hissed.
My back locked, though I kept my fingers loose around the rim of my cup, watching him approach beneath lowered lashes. Anysa blinked fast, glancing behind her as if to make sure there wasn’t someone else in his path.
There wasn’t.
Achilles stopped just before our bench. “Anysa, any security concerns to report?” he asked, his voice low and rough, like it had been wrenched over gravel.
His gaze pressed against my skin, and I had to force myself not to look up, not to rise to meet it.
Anysa sat a little straighter, caught off guard. “Uh—no. Not that I know of,” she said quickly, cheeks blooming pink. “Should there be?” She tucked a curl behind her ear, but his gaze hadn’t flicked to her once. It remained steady. Hot. Fixed on me.
The silence that followed stretched thin.
Achilles didn’t answer. He gave a nod and turned as if satisfied. But his eyes flicked back once more, the briefest glance.
Our eyes met, and something unspoken passed between us. Again.
Fire and challenge and something hotter than either of us had a right to touch.
Then he was gone.
Anysa let out a quiet whistle as he strode out of the room. “Strange,” she murmured, fanning herself with one hand. “It didn’t feel like he was actually interested in my security concerns.”
I glanced over at her, trying to keep my tone neutral. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “I mean he couldn’t take his eyes off you, Helena.”
I scoffed, reaching for my cup. “You’re imagining things.”
“Oh, am I?” she sang, leaning in. “Because from where I was sitting, the mighty Achilles just made a full report … of your face.”
I rolled my eyes. “He looked at me for all of two seconds.”
“Hmmm,” she said triumphantly. “And that’s why you’re so rattled.”
“I’m not rattled,” I said, too quickly.
Anysa just grinned wider, folding her arms. “You keep telling yourself that, Queen of Our Ruin.”
My cup was halfway to my lips when I paused, narrowed my eyes at her, and said flatly, “Don’t call me that.”
“Too late,” she said cheerfully, already testing out how it sounded again. “Queen of Our Ruin. Has a nice ring to it.”
I groaned and muttered something unladylike into my wine.
But the word ruin stuck.
It clung like tar on the back of my throat.
And for some reason, when I thought of it now, I thought of Achilles. All bronze and danger and watching eyes.
If ruin had a shape, maybe it looked like him.
I was still watching the hall when a voice cut through the chatter, smooth and dripping with malice. “Your eyes are wandering, Helena.”
Chloé stood at the end of the table, one hip cocked, her smile all false sweetness. The light caught on her bracelets, flashing like small weapons.
I arched a brow, matching her tone with a pleasant smile of my own. “Do you need something, Chloé?”
Her gaze flicked toward the mural on the wall, the one where Menelaus sat like a god in judgment. “Just a friendly warning,” she said lightly, “the king doesn’t like disobedient pets. Best not to forget what happened to the last woman in his life.”
The words sank into the air, rippling outward like a thrown stone. A few seats down, three of the other chosen girls exchanged nervous looks.
“You shouldn’t talk about that, Chloé,” whispered Damaris, a petite girl with a voice as soft as the doves embroidered along her sleeves. Her wide brown eyes darted toward the mural fearfully.
Chloé only smiled, unrepentant, her ruby-stained lips curving like a knife.
“Queen Cynisca was young,” she said. “Strong, beautiful. You don’t just die in your sleep at twenty-four unless someone wants you to.
” She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr.
“Or unless someone regrets marrying you.”
“I thought she died in her sleep,” murmured Iris, a tall and strong-featured young woman with rouge too bright on her cheeks and an appetite for scandal that rarely went without.
“Hmm. Yes. Natural causes,” Chloé said, feigning thoughtfulness. “And I suppose the bruises were natural too?”
None of this surprised me. Menelaus’s cruelty was legend, carried on every tongue in Sparta. I’d known what I was walking into. But as I looked at the fear tightening the faces of the women around me, I wasn’t so sure they had taken it seriously.
I finally rolled my eyes and caught Anysa’s gaze across the table; she smirked faintly, hiding her unease behind her cup.
“What’s your point, Chloé?” I asked, my tone light, but edged.
Chloé tilted her head, her earrings swaying as she met my stare. “Only that you should be careful,” she said. “The king doesn’t take kindly to women who forget themselves … especially when they start looking at his closest confidant like that.”
Her smile lingered, sweet as poison, and I felt every woman at the table watching for my reaction.