Chapter 22
The wall was cool against my cheek, and I pressed closer, like I might melt into the stone and disappear for just a moment. The moon hung low outside the window, casting its light across the floor tiles, but the voice through the crack made the night bearable.
“I swear to the gods, if she corrects the angle of my wrist one more time, I will stab myself with my spoon and go down in a blaze of improperly buttered maza,” exclaimed Anysa.
I bit back a laugh. “I’m not sure that will be very effective.”
“It’s worth a try. That or I’m going to go back to the belladonna plan.”
I smiled even though she couldn’t see me.
I’d never had a real friend before, but I’d found one in this strange new world I’d been thrown into.
We were rivals, but Anysa never made it feel that way.
A week had passed since the first Trial, and we’d been in queen training from dawn to dusk since then.
Memorializing the day’s events through the wall had become somewhat of a tradition, even if the stone floor was the opposite of comfortable.
I shifted, adjusting my weight, and for a breath, his face flickered behind my eyes. Rain-slicked hair. That unreadable stare. The way he hadn’t looked away when I should have.
The way he’d touched me.
I shoved it down, hard.
There was no room for that now. No room for mistakes.
I was here for Amyklai. For the people starving, dying … praying I’d win.
Nothing would happen again.
I wouldn’t let it.
Anysa sighed dramatically. “Today I also learned how to nod at a Mycenaean envoy without accidentally agreeing to marry him. I’m counting that as progress.”
“Impressive. I mastered holding a wine pitcher. It’s quite the feat, I’ll have you know.”
“A noble accomplishment.” She tapped a rhythm on the wall. “Tell me, did your tutor also remind you that swallowing olive pits is unbecoming of a queen?”
“Only after I choked on one.”
That got a full laugh from her, the kind that echoed in the stone like a blessing. Tomorrow was the second Trial, so laughter was in scarce supply as the seconds ticked by. After the first Trial, I wasn’t sure if I feared failure more than I feared embarrassing myself again.
Anysa always did that, tore a hole in the heaviness and let the light in. Even now, when the palace felt like a trap poised to spring shut around us.
Roz leapt onto my lap with its usual grace and curled into a tight ball with a soft, satisfied-sounding squeak. I scratched its fur in greeting, wondering what it did all day before it came to my room.
“Did you see the dignitary from Delphi today?” Anysa asked. “He sneezed into his hand and then reached out for Chloé’s hand to kiss it.”
I choked on a laugh, pressing a hand over my mouth to muffle it. “No,” I hissed through my fingers, half horrified, half delighted. “Tell me you’re not lying.”
“Please. She’ll probably turn it into a power move. ‘It’s a sign of my divinity,’” she said, dropping her voice into a breathy imitation of Chloé’s voice.
Chloé was still parading around like she was a prize mare.
She walked like she already wore the crown.
Worse, she treated the rest of us like we were ornamental rocks in her royal garden—there to be looked at, maybe stepped on.
She was all sweet smiles when the instructors were watching, and smug little digs the moment their backs were turned.
She seemed to have a particular aversion to me, judging by the full glass of wine she’d spilled down my chiton yesterday, or the foot she happened to jut out to trip me as I walked by the day before.
I snorted at the truth in Anysa’s comment. “She has mentioned her bloodline descends from Apollo several times now. For some reason she’s not scared of Menelaus striking her down because of it.”
“Pssh. It’s because half the court thinks they’re descended from Apollo. Apparently, he got around back in the day, without leaving his descendants any of his power. I’m surprised Apollo hasn’t returned and demanded everyone prove paternity, with how many so-called descendants he seems to have.”
I laughed, then added, “She corrected my pronunciation of Sparta at dinner. Loudly. I appreciated it. I didn’t know it was possible to say it wrong.”
“Of course she did. She’s been training for this her whole life—and by training, I mean backstabbing with a smile and rehearsing her own name like it’s a prayer.”
“She told the etiquette instructor that bowing too deeply is bad for the spine.”
“Well, her spine is probably the only flexible thing about her.”
The silence after our laughter faded stretched longer than usual.
“Have you let yourself think about it very much?” she asked at last.
“What?”
“If you win. What you’d actually do.”
I turned to face the wall more fully, and Roz looked up at me. I petted its head soothingly. “Of course. Every second.” I blinked, thinking about it even now. “Although, it’s easier to focus on getting through everything than getting my hopes up, I think.”
“Indeed.” She paused, then said softly, “I think about it a lot too. Even if maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t think anyone from back home really believes I have a chance.”
My hand paused on Roz’s fur. “Why wouldn’t they?” I asked quietly, leaning closer to the little opening between our rooms so my voice didn’t get lost in the cracks.
Anysa made a tiny noise, halfway between a laugh and a groan. “Well … you remember the pie incident.”
I snorted. Yes, I did.
“People don’t forget things like that in a village our size.
” She hesitated, then added, barely audible, “I was the only girl left in the village that was the right age for the Trials. They had no choice but to choose me. To them, I’ve always been …
a humorous story. A cautionary tale. Not someone who could actually win.
I just—I just hope I can prove them wrong. ”
My chest tightened. Gods, I hadn’t expected that little confession to land so hard.
“All of us are trying to prove something,” I murmured. Through the narrow gap in the wall, I could almost feel Anysa’s breath, thin and wavering. “Every woman here. Whether we admit it or not. We’re not here solely for our villages.”
Some wanted escape.
Some wanted revenge.
Some wanted power or safety or simply a future that wasn’t forced by someone else’s hand.
Maybe I wanted a little bit of all of that.
And some, like Anysa, just wanted the world to stop doubting them.
“I think you already are proving them wrong,” I said softly. “You’re here. You’re standing beside the strongest women in Sparta. That’s no small thing.”
“Thank you,” Anysa whispered, almost shy. “That helps.”
I cleared my throat, trying to get the excess emotion out. “So what would you do if you won?”
“Feed my village,” she said immediately.
“Gods, Helena, you should’ve seen what we ate last winter.
Old lentils and jerky and goat milk when my goat could give it.
My mother tried to sell her sandals for a sack of moldy barley.
All while we watched the palace send shipments of figs for the king’s dogs that lived with the soldiers stationed at every corner. ”
I stared at the wall between us and swallowed hard.
“Moldy barley?” I asked quietly, the words tasting wrong even as I spoke them.
“When we were lucky.” Her voice had flattened. No edge, no emotion—just fact.
My stomach turned. I thought of the gilded platters piled high in the palace kitchens. Of the figs soaked in syrup and wine. Of the soft leather sandals we wore to training. Of the scent of roasted meat drifting through the halls at all hours.
The soldiers’ dogs had bellies full while our people starved.
Heat rose in my chest. Not pity, but rage.
“What else would you do?” I whispered.
“I’d send grains all over Sparta. I’d make sure there were more healers available. I’d—”
She broke off.
“What?”
“I’d find a way to fix the river that used to flow past my back door. You remember hearing about the Eurotas? How it dried up after the gods vanished?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of the fact that there were a hundred other rivers that had dried up right along with it. I wasn’t sure that anyone could fix that though. Maybe Menelaus could, if he had the power people claimed. But he certainly hadn’t done anything about it yet.
“My mother used to say it was the gods taking their tears with them. I used to think it was poetic. Now I just think it was cruel.”
Another silence, heavier this time.
“What about you?” she asked.
I hesitated, thinking. What would I do, truly, if I were given the chance?
“I’d get rid of our ephor,” I said, the words forming before I even realized they’d taken shape.
“What?”
“Nikandros,” I clarified, my hands shaking just thinking of him.
“He’s bled our village dry. Starved families to keep his stores full.
Ordered punishments meant to break people, not correct them.
He’s ruled like cruelty is a birthright.
” I swallowed hard. “If I had the power … he’d be the first to go. ”
He will be the first to go, I thought to myself.
Anysa was quiet, but I felt her attention like a live thing.
“And then,” I said, my breath catching, “I’d take the king through the gates.”
She didn’t speak, so I went on. “I’d make him walk through the villages. Not the polished ones he shares his wealth with, but our villages. The hungry ones, the cracked ones, the ones where the air tastes like red ash and the children’s feet bleed into the dirt.”
“To shame him?”
“No,” I said. “To make him see. Really see. And maybe … maybe do something about it.”
Anysa exhaled. “Do you think that would work?”
I sighed. “I’m not sure. But gods, I want to try. Whoever wins needs to get him to help not just their village … but all of Sparta.”
She was the first to speak again. “Do you think the king will actually let his queen rule by his side?”
I hesitated, the image of Menelaus rising unbidden in my mind, the lion stalking behind him like he really was a god.