Chapter 19
The room was taut with nerves as we waited for the first Trial to begin. We sat cross-legged on richly layered cushions. Just beyond the arched doorway, the familiar clatter of armor echoed … our ever-present guards lingering too close, as always.
“Who knew the Trials would be fun,” one of them muttered, the voice unmistakably belonging to the squat, muscled one with the perpetual leer. I could practically see his crooked teeth flashing as he elbowed the taller one beside him. A laugh followed, amused and ugly.
My stomach twisted at the sound.
I sat with the other girls, my hands folded too tightly in my lap.
I’d been excelling in the queen lessons—the ones about how to bow to a foreign dignitary without breaking eye contact, how to hold a goblet like it was made of spun glass, how to walk across a marble floor without letting my sandals make a sound.
All of that, I could do. Precision, poise, posture …
Calismae had hammered them into me like a soldier drilling with a blade.
But whatever Hetairis hoped to unearth in our other sessions still lay buried deep inside me, untouched and unreachable.
My dancing was atrocious. Every time she circled me, clicking her tongue in disappointment, it became more apparent: Relying on my face all my life had not been a winning strategy.
The silk of my dress clung to me, uncomfortable and foreign.
I shifted, wishing I could disappear into the marble floor.
The other girls whispered nervously as they began drifting toward the concubine they’d been assigned to, leaning in close for last-minute instruction, whispers brushing against perfumed necks like secrets.
One was having her posture corrected with a tap of a fan; another was being shown where to place her hands when she bowed. The room buzzed with quiet urgency, every movement weighed down with what was coming.
“They’re going to think you ate too much feta and not enough greens,” Hetairis said, appearing at my side without warning. “Straighten up and try not to look like you’re marching to your execution.”
I looked up, startled. Her voice was strangely gentle.
She knelt beside me, brushing an invisible speck of lint from my shoulder. Her fingers were soft, her movements oddly maternal. My mouth went dry.
“You’re trembling,” she said quietly, so the others couldn’t hear. Her voice held no mockery this time. Only something that almost sounded like concern. “Here.”
She shifted ever so slightly, angling her body to shield mine from view. The motion was practiced, discreet, like she’d done it a hundred times before. Her gaze stayed fixed on the other side of the room, her face placid, betraying nothing.
She held out a small twist of cloth. When she unwrapped it, I saw a pale green herb nestled inside like a secret.
“Chew this. It’ll help you loosen up. Calm your nerves.”
I stared at it. Suspicion curled in my belly. This was different. My experience with Hetairis thus far was that she didn’t offer comfort, she offered humiliation. My gaze flicked to hers. Was that something different in her eyes? A flicker of weariness maybe … or empathy?
“What is it?”
“An old remedy,” she said. “Used by concubines when they’re summoned before they’re ready. It’ll ease your nerves. Quiet the noise inside you.”
I didn’t reach for it.
Her hand remained outstretched, steady. “It won’t hurt you, petal. You think I’d waste poison on someone so pitifully unthreatening?”
I growled under my breath. Her insults were getting old. Even if my dancing was “pitifully unthreatening.” Which was probably being kind, actually.
She sighed and lowered her voice even more. “It’ll help you let go. Of the fear, of the self-consciousness that’s holding you back. You think this is easy? That every girl who’s come through those doors was born knowing how to turn a man to wax with just a sway of her hips?”
I hesitated still.
“Why are you suddenly being kind?” I finally asked. “Or is the perfume getting to me and I’m just imagining this?”
Hetairis tilted her head, her gaze flicking across my veiled face. “Because they’re going to burn you alive in there. Might as well enjoy the heat.”
I accepted the herb with uncertain fingers, brushing against hers in the exchange. It hovered at my lips before I spoke. “It won’t … make me lose control, will it? Because that was supposed to be the whole point of all of this, you teaching me how to gain it.”
She arched a penciled brow. “Only the parts of you already begging to be lost.”
The High Priestess’s voice rang out from the front of the room, serene and solemn. “We are ready to begin.”
A hush moved through the girls. They straightened their spines and adjusted their veils. The sound of silk brushing silk filled the room.
I looked back at the herb with a frown on my lips.
The thought of taking it turned my stomach …
until Thalessa’s face rose in my mind, her split lips, the blood that had run down her chin as she tried to garble out a cry.
It was like Calismae had known I would need the reminder when she’d written that letter.
Hetairis’s gaze never wavered. “There’s no chance that you’ll win without it,” she murmured, almost sweetly. “Trust me, petal.”
With careful fingers, I slipped the veil up just enough to bring the herb to my lips. My throat tightened as I placed it on my tongue. The taste was pungent and earthy, bitterness filling my mouth. I grimaced, but I chewed … and reluctantly swallowed.
Within seconds, a strange heat began to pool low in my belly. My limbs tingled, and my breath came a little faster. My skin prickled, and I was suddenly aware of every whisper of silk against my skin, every drift of air against my collarbone. Heat climbed my neck.
As I shifted on the cushion, a soft sound escaped my throat before I could catch it. The ache unfurled slowly, sweetly, like something long buried clawing its way to life.
I looked up, panicked, and saw that Hetairis was still there, watching me.
But her expression had changed.
Her eyes glittered with something keen … almost amused. Her lips curled, not with warmth, but with something colder. Something satisfied.
She leaned in, her voice a whisper. “There it is,” she murmured. Then she rose and glided away without another word, the hem of her robe whispering over the floor.
The panic that had filled my lungs only a moment before began to dissolve, drowned beneath the strange warmth flooding me. My fingers no longer trembled. My muscles loosened, as though I’d stepped into a bath of sun-warmed wine.
The ache spread, crawling down my spine, wrapping around my ribs like vines in bloom.
My nipples pebbled, painfully tight against my gown, the fabric brushing them with each breath. A pulse of wetness gathered between my thighs, unwelcome but undeniable.
I blinked, and the world seemed to shimmer at the edges. My thoughts softened. Everything felt distant and dreamlike. Beautiful.
I was floating in warmth and rose-scented mist.
“Rise. It is time,” the High Priestess announced.
My limbs obeyed before my mind could catch up.
I stood, and pleasure rolled between my thighs.
My breath hitched. The simple act of walking …
of putting one foot in front of the other …
became something else entirely. My thighs pressed together with each motion, and the wetness that had begun to gather earlier now slickened further with the friction.
I swallowed hard, my cheeks flushed and my lips parted, the herb dragging me further under its current. Each breath was a threadbare moan caught in my throat. The walls of the corridor seemed to pulse faintly as we walked, my senses heightened to a pitch I hadn’t thought possible.
We were led in a line, veils hiding our faces, the concubines gliding behind us. The hallway was laced with gold-threaded tapestries and flickering torchlight. I could feel everything.
The warm brush of silk from Anysa beside me.
The steady rhythm of sandals against stone.
My heartbeat, slow and deep now, like drums echoing through a cavern.
The girl in front of me swayed her hips with practiced ease, each step a whisper of promise. Another ran her fingers down her throat as if inviting someone to follow. Before, I would’ve felt nervous. But the edges of my thoughts were soft now, blurred.
To my left, a mural filled the wall, half lit and alive in the shadows.
A woman lay draped in the arms of a god with Menelaus’s face, her skin glowing like polished bronze, her head tipped back in ecstasy.
Smoke coiled around them, forming shapes that pulsed and shifted …
claws, wings, open mouths. His hand was tight around her waist, possessive and idolizing.
I saw myself there.
I wanted to step into the wall, into her body, into that moment where nothing existed but power and desire and surrender.
A moan slipped from my lips as the pleasure between my thighs surged with every step, maddening and molten.
Somewhere through the haze, I was faintly aware of Anysa shifting beside me, her attention tilting toward me. “Are you alright?” she whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound beneath the rustle of silk.
I could only nod.
My lips parted, but no words came. My tongue felt heavy, my throat too tight. The world was too much and not enough all at once. It was as if I were being devoured from the inside out by something I didn’t know how to name.
When the doors to the Great Hall loomed before us, my stomach clenched tighter. The ache was deepening now.
Conversation faltered as our feet touched the polished stone. Laughter dulled to murmurs, then to nothing. Goblets were lowered, fans stilled mid-flutter. One by one, heads turned toward us … the veiled procession moving into the heart of the room.