Chapter 27
When I woke, it felt like surfacing from beneath the River Styx itself—my lungs dragging in air that didn’t feel like mine, my skin slick with cold sweat, the world blurry at the edges, like a fresh painting left out in the rain.
Gods, I thought. How was I still alive?
“No one knows,” came Anysa’s voice beside me.
I blinked. Had I said that out loud?
I forced my head to turn and saw I was in a room, with her seated at my bedside, eyes tired but focused, curls haloed around her face like she’d paced a hundred circles before I stirred.
She offered me a cup of water, and I accepted it with trembling hands, sipping, and grimacing when the coolness brushed my raw throat.
I fought through the thick haze in my head, forcing my eyes to focus. “You’re not … wearing a veil,” I managed.
“We don’t need to anymore! You drank actual poison, Helena. I told you my cautionary tale about trying to impress someone by poisoning yourself. But no, you had to play hero and turn the trial into a tragic ballad the rhapsodes will fight over.”
I took another sip, then slumped back against the pillows. My skin was clammy, and sweat had dried along my collarbone in salt-crusted trails.
But at least the infernal veil was gone.
Roz popped into view, landing on the edge of the bed with a squeak.
Before I could react, it scrambled into my lap, pressing its cold nose and whole small body against me in a frenzy.
Its fur brushed rough and insistent against my skin as it nuzzled again and again, as though it could burrow straight through and anchor itself to me.
“Aww, I’m alright,” I murmured, stroking its fur reassuringly.
“Your little … whatever it is popped up the second it was just me in the room,” Anysa said dryly. “It hasn’t left your side. Makes me miss my pet goat.”
Roz gave a sharp squeak and leaned forward to sniff at her, almost primly, as though the comparison was beneath it. Its ribbon-tail flicked once, crisp as punctuation.
Anysa laughed under her breath. “Gods, it even looks offended. I’m sorry, little buddy.
You’re not the only one trying to recover after what she did.
” She shook her head and looked back at me, shifting closer and tucking her knees beneath her, her braid half fallen over one shoulder.
“You should’ve seen them after you passed out.
The king nearly had an aneurysm. Captain Achilles looked like someone stabbed him in the gut.
The High Priestess started muttering in tongues.
And me? Oh, I had to pretend I wasn’t going to vomit all over my dress. ”
“Menelaus was upset?” I rasped in surprise, my voice still barely audible.
Anysa gave me a look. “Yes, Helena. The king. The guy who wears the fancy clothes and a crown and may or may not be a god? That king.”
I pushed up slightly, heart pounding faster now. “But … why would he—”
“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Honestly, it was the most emotion I’ve seen from him since we got here.”
I stared at the blanket pooled in my lap in shock. Roz huffed like it didn’t believe it either. I rolled my neck, feeling an ache in every cell of my body. “Then what happened?”
“Well … after you went pale, the king started screaming for the poison master. He sprinted over and shoved some kind of syrupy nightmare down your throat. And then you collapsed. Achilles caught you and laid you down like you might shatter. Helena, you were gray. Gray!”
She wiped a hand across her cheek, even though no tears spilled. “Then they moved you here.”
It was only then that I took in the room. Wool drapes, not linen. Marble floors, not limestone. A full-length mirror with gold leaf crawling across the frame like ivy. An engraved headboard shaped like a laurel wreath. I glanced down and saw someone had put me in a silk robe.
“This isn’t my room,” I murmured, forcing the thought into shape as I tried to piece my surroundings together.
Anysa hesitated, then nodded. Her voice softened. “No. These are the kind of rooms they give you … when you’re about to become queen.”
The word collided with me so hard my breath stuttered to a halt.
Queen.
My mouth parted. My gaze darted around the room like it belonged to someone else, like the answer might be stitched into the drapes or painted on the walls. Roz sat back on its haunches and looked too, its nose twitching like queen smelled different.
“No,” I said, except it came out as a whisper because I had no idea how what she said could be true. “I failed the Trial. I’m disqualified. You should be queen.”
“But I’m not,” Anysa said, no hint of malice or jealousy in her voice.
I sat up too fast. The room swayed, and Roz squeaked, sounding alarmed. My hand shot out, catching the edge of the table next to the bed as I tried to steady the riot hammering through my chest.
Queen. I felt it settle beneath my skin, strange and foreign, like ink sinking into papyrus and etching a mark that had never been meant to exist.
I said it again, just to hear it. “Queen.”
It tasted like dawn. Like cool water after working too long in the sun. Relief hit me so hard it bordered on pain. It filled my chest, spread through my limbs, loosened something that had been wound too tight for too long.
How was this possible?
Anysa watched me, her grin faltering into something gentler. “The whole palace is talking. Gods, probably all of Sparta. You’re all anyone can speak of.”
She popped a grape into her mouth. “Do you want to know how it happened?” she asked around a mouthful.
I blinked at her. “I know how I almost died, Anysa. I just don’t understand how I ended up here.”
Her grin widened again as she tossed another grape in the air, catching it without looking before she leaned closer, stage-whispering like we were gossiping in a bathhouse and not discussing my near miss with Hades.
“You should’ve seen the High Priestess’s face when you turned around and chugged a cup of death like you were toasting a victory.
She looked one gasp away from dropping dead herself. ”
“I didn’t chug—”
“You definitely chugged.” Anysa jabbed a finger at me. “You grabbed that chalice like it owed you money, and dared it to kill you. And now here we are. Queen Helena.” She gave an exaggerated bow that nearly knocked over the grape bowl.
My head spun. “So they think me surviving the poison … was a sign?”
“No, although I’m sure that’s part of it. Only some sort of … goddess-like woman could have survived that poison, even with a poison master involved. Antidotes fail more often than they succeed,” she said, raising an eyebrow like I’d been keeping something from her.
I shook my head at the ridiculousness of that, while wondering why Chloé hadn’t been offered the antidote, but Anysa wasn’t done.
“When Menelaus saw you were still breathing after a few minutes, he clapped his hands, looked out at the court, and declared that you were the only one who had truly passed. Not because you had survived, but because you tried to save someone else. Because, he said, a queen does not guard herself. A queen protects her people.”
My lips pursed. I wouldn’t have guessed he would value that in his queen. He certainly didn’t seem to value that in himself as he let Sparta starve and die.
Her eyes scanned my face, searching. “And now, Helena … you’re the people’s queen. The woman who drank death and lived. The woman who chose someone else over herself.” She sat back with a low exhale. “Which means you’ve now got a crown-shaped problem. And it’s growing by the hour.”
I stared at her. “It all seems like madness.”
Roz squeaked like it agreed.
She raised a brow at it and smiled. “Of course it’s madness. Everything about the Trials was. But you survived it, Helena. And that’s what matters right now.”
Anysa’s smile suddenly faltered, and her fingers stilled in the grape bowl. “No,” she said quietly, “that’s not the only thing that matters.”
I looked at her, startled by the sudden hush in her voice.
“You drank for me.” Her throat worked around the words, and for a second, I thought she might laugh it off like she always did.
But she didn’t. Her eyes shimmered instead, wide and wet and brimming with something raw.
“The king would surely have let me die like Chloé, but you turned and drank. Like your life meant less than mine.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
“You were meant to be queen,” she went on, her voice thick now, shaking.
“Helena, you didn’t win because of that pretty face or your walk or any of that nonsense people care so much about.
You won because of what’s in you. Because when it mattered most, you didn’t think of yourself. You thought of me.”
Her eyes spilled over and I watched as tears fell down her cheeks. “That kind of beauty? The kind that burns in the marrow of someone’s bones—that’s the beauty that makes a queen. That’s the kind that saves people.”
She gave a teary little laugh. “And you saved me. You stupid, terrifying, wonderful woman. You drank death for me.”
She brushed her tears away with the back of her hand, embarrassed, then laughed through a sniffle. “Gods, don’t look at me like that. You’ve gone and made me sentimental. I hate being sentimental.”
“You’re allowed in this instance.”
She nodded. “That was very queenlike of you. See, you’re already good at this.”
I let out a hiccupped laugh that almost sounded like a sob and swallowed thickly. “But you wanted this. I didn’t mean for this to happen when I drank from that cup. I was just trying to save you.”