Chapter 18
Night had cooled the halls to a bearable temperature, and the common area had grown soft with evening routine.
A few of the girls were half curled on cushions, their eyes fluttering as they closed their eyes in exhaustion.
Anysa sat beside me, winding her braid into a tighter coil.
Her earlier lesson had left a smudge on her shoulder, scented oil or bruising, I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t mustered the energy to ask.
I stared down at my plate, nudging an olive in aimless circles.
The maza beside it sat torn and forgotten.
I wasn’t hungry, not after how poorly I’d done in my lessons with Hetairis.
My stomach felt tight, knotted with shame.
Every bite tasted like salt and regret, and I couldn’t bring myself to swallow another.
Nomiki strode into the room with the air of someone perpetually annoyed by our existence. A thin stack of parchment was tucked beneath her arm like it had interrupted something far more important—like her peace.
“Letters,” she announced flatly, her voice cutting through the drowsy hum. “From the outer villages.”
We straightened at once, eager for the first letters from home.
Nomiki’s sandaled feet scraped closer.
“Anysa,” she grunted, handing her a folded square. I caught the slight tremble in Anysa’s fingers as she took it.
Nomiki turned to me. “Helena.”
My fingers fumbled as I reached for my letter, caught between the sting of hope and the apprehension snaking low in my belly.
“Don’t get weepy on the floors,” she muttered as she walked off, already done with us.
Anysa turned to me, her voice hushed. “What do you think—”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I cut in. My words were too fast, too clipped. I stood before she could press. “Goodnight.”
She blinked but didn’t stop me.
I practically ran to my room, closing the door and leaning my forehead against it for a moment. When I turned, Roz was already there, perched on my pillow like it had been waiting, its glowing eyes steady.
I sat on the edge of the bed, and in an instant it leapt from the pillow to my lap, its small claws hooking gently into the fabric of my chiton. The letter sagged in my hand.
“It’s from home,” I whispered. Roz tilted its head, ribbon-tail flicking, and gave a soft squeak—as if it understood.
My free hand moved without thought, brushing over its cool, silken fur. “You want to know what it says, don’t you?” My voice broke into something close to a laugh, though it carried no joy. “Or maybe you already do. You seem kind of interesting like that.”
Roz squeaked and leaned into my palm, pressing its cold nose against my skin, a strange, steady comfort.
I unfolded the letter with shaking hands, immediately recognizing Calismae’s messy scrawl.
Helena,
They let me see Thalessa yesterday. The welts on her back have begun to scab, though some still bleed when she moves too quickly. The nub of her tongue has festered and her mouth smells of iron and rot. She tried to smile when she saw me, but it split the corners of her lips.
She can barely drink. I held the cup for her, and the water dribbled down her chin. She reached for my hand and tried to speak your name.
The soldiers watched the whole time, bored and grinning. I asked for medicine, even just cloth and salt, but they said she was getting just enough to live and not anything more. So I cleaned her wounds the best I could with a bit of wine, and I whispered that you would make this right.
My chest constricted as the words blurred on the page. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the memory from clawing its way forward … the square, the dust rising in the heat, the wet crack of the whip splitting the air. Thalessa’s back matted with blood as we were all forced to watch.
The way her eyes had found mine then, wide and shining with something between bravery and a plea.
I pressed the letter to my chest, as if the pressure could stop the ache spreading through it. Calismae’s words still rang in my head—you would make this right.
Gods help me, I intended to. I forced myself to keep reading.
I hesitate to tell you this, to make the pressure on you greater. But I must. The Goutas’s girl died last night.
They think she ate bad grain, or maybe it was the dried grass her mother had tried to mix in with it to make it heartier. It happened very quickly, but it wasn’t a kind death.
I thought you should know.
Roz crept higher onto my lap as I began to weep, twining its tail lightly around my wrist as if to tether me there, to keep me from unraveling. Its pale eyes glowed up at me, the weight of its gaze saying what no words could.
You have to win, Helena.
I don’t care what they’re making you do, you must save us.
If there’s still an Amyklai left to save.
—Calismae
I stared at the ink until the letters were smeared from my tears. Until I could feel the words burrow into my chest like nails.
I wasn’t winning though. I was failing. Calismae had instructed me on all the things I would need to win … except for this. Sensuality had been a difficult thing for an old woman to teach … and she’d thought I would have my face.
Hetairis rolled her eyes every time I moved. She laughed when I danced. Mocked when I kissed the air instead of claiming it. My beauty made men trip over their feet—but here, under my veil, it meant nothing if I couldn’t use it to command, to conquer, to seduce.
This trial felt like a performance I couldn’t get right. And all I had to show for it were bruises on my pride and the sick twist of shame in my stomach.
Amyklai was starving. Dying.
And I couldn’t even dance right.
My hands clenched around the letter until the edges tore. The pain grounded me. A little.
Roz shifted in my lap, claws pricking lightly through the fabric of my gown. I stroked its fur, but the touch did nothing to quiet the agony inside me.
Rising abruptly, I sent Roz tumbling onto the bed with a startled squeak before it darted back to my pillow. It settled there, its eyes fixed on me, like a glare in miniature.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, rubbing at my face.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” I began walking in a frantic circle along the walls of the room, fingertips dragging over stone, as if I could find an opening.
I seized the window latch and wrenched, but it wouldn’t give.
My reflection blurred in the pane, pale and stricken.
The air felt thicker with every breath. Too close. Too heavy. My chest seized with the sense that the room itself meant to cage me. Roz squeaked again, a soft, mournful sound, but I was already snatching my veil and throwing it over my head with shaking hands as I tugged it low across my brow.
The sheer fabric swirled around my shoulders as I moved, fast now, not thinking … just going.
I pressed my eye to the thin sliver of light as I eased the door open. I’d never tried to leave my room at night, so I had no idea where the guards were stationed.
But there was no one outside my door.
My hands shook with relief as I gripped the doorframe and stepped out, my sandaled feet whispering against the stone as I crept down the corridor, following the curve of the hall until it widened into the main exit.
Gods.
At the end of the hall, two guards blocked the doors, their spears crossed in a silent X.
I spun away, slipping back down the hall, retracing my steps as quickly and quietly as I could, praying they hadn’t heard.
If they saw me now, they’d question me. And I had no answers to give other than Menelaus was destroying my people.
And that, most likely, wouldn’t go over well.
There was possibly another way though …
I walked to the small door at the end of the hallway that I’d never seen opened. It was likely nothing—just storage or a servants’ passage. Still, my feet carried me forward.
I hesitated as I reached it, my fingers closing around the simple bronze handle, expecting resistance as I pressed my palm to it. But it turned.
A soft click echoed into the quiet. The door cracked open and cool air kissed my cheeks. My breath caught. Not just because it was unlocked, but because the breath of wind on my face was from the outside. This was a direct exit from the palace.
Opening the door wider, I flinched as a thread of spider silk brushed across my cheek. Dust stirred at my feet, rising in a lazy spiral as if I’d disturbed a long-held silence. The hinges groaned softly, the sound swallowed by the thick hush of the space beyond.
My pulse thudded in my throat as I stared down the narrow passage, its stone walls cloaked in shadow.
I reached to my right and pulled a torch from its sconce, the flame sputtering as if it resented being disturbed.
Cobwebs clung to the corners, and the faint scent of damp stone and long neglect curled around me.
Beyond the reach of the flame, there was nothing, just darkness and the distant sigh of night.
Slipping through the threshold, I let the door creak shut behind me.
I barely made it down the corridor before my knees dipped and I lurched forward, tripping over nothing … or maybe over everything I couldn’t leave behind.
Pulling myself together, I pushed off, sandals slapping stone as I flew down the steps. Another turn, another drop … and then I stopped short, reaching out and setting the torch into a bracket beside the archway.
Beyond it, the sky stretched wide and dark above me.
The moon bathed everything in its eerie light.
Beyond the palace walls, the sea burned crimson, molten and still.
I dragged in gulps of air, each one rough but steadier than the last, the tight band around my chest loosening grain by grain.
The world no longer spun at the edges, only throbbed, as though my panic had left bruises inside me.
Olive and cypress rushed up my nose, green and bitter. But it wasn’t the scent that stopped my heart.
It was the impossible.
A garden.
A real one.