Chapter 33
The king was gone.
Gone hunting, as though today weren’t our wedding day at all.
At first light this morning, Menelaus had vanished into the woods with a hunting party, leaving the entire palace suspended in a baffled, breathless hush.
I paced the length of my chamber in irritation, my silk hem snapping around my ankles with every turn.
The priestesses had painted me hours ago.
Swirls of red glitter traced my collarbones and arms, black sigils curled at my throat and wrists …
but all their careful work felt like a costume I’d been forced into too soon.
The lamps glowed warm and amber behind my reflection, catching on the gold filigree of my mirror, on the flower crown braided into my hair, on the necklace and earrings meant to mark me as queen.
If the king ever returned and allowed me to become one.
Why would the king go hunting the morning of his wedding … right after the Dread had breached the palace gates for the first time?
It made no sense.
A loud knock broke through my thoughts.
I froze. “Yes?”
The door cracked open, and Alcmene slipped inside, her cheeks flushed from rushing. In her hands was a rolled scroll bearing Amyklai’s seal. The annoyance drained out of me in an instant.
“A letter came for you,” she said, offering it with a small, breathless smile. “From home.”
My heart lurched as I snatched it from her hands. Calismae’s handwriting curled across the papyrus in bold, joyous strokes, every line tugging my mouth toward a smile I could barely manage.
You’ve done it, she’d written. You’ve won.
The wagons arrived this morning piled high with barley and medicine and barrels of clean water.
Enough to feed the whole village for months.
Your people stood in the square and wept.
The children ran beside the wheels, laughing, their arms overflowing with grain and fruit.
For the first time in years, no one went hungry today.
And Thalessa … she was released from her cell at dawn.
She isn’t doing well, but she breathes the open air again.
A healer was sent from Limnai and she said that with time, she might recover, albeit without her tongue.
Regardless, you’ve given her a chance. A chance she never would have had without you.
We are saved, Helena.
The words bled warmth into me, settling deep into the cracks left by last night, cracks that had opened the moment Anysa’s blood soaked the marble.
I pictured the square as it must have been: the smell of fresh maza rising against dry dust, the sound of children’s laughter drifting like it used to, before the land was cursed.
If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear it. Almost believe that all of this … was worth it.
It was worth it, I told myself fiercely.
But Anysa’s blank gaze immediately appeared in my head and the certainty slipped right out of me.
I bit down on my lip as I rolled the letter with care, trying to savor Calismae’s joy and my people’s salvation. Menelaus had kept his promise. He’d even sent a healer for Thalessa.
And however much I despised that he’d allowed Anysa’s death, however much angst coiled inside me at the thought of standing beside him for the rest of my life … if I wanted him to continue keeping his promises then I had to play nice.
For now.
Future queen or not, I had no illusions about the power balance between us.
I set the folded letter aside and lifted my chin. “Any news of the king?” I asked Alcmene, trying to keep my voice steady. “I still don’t understand how no one in the palace knows why he went hunting this morning. He had to have spoken to someone.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could speak, a burst of cheering rose from outside.
Alcmene’s face lit with relief. “He’s returned,” she said brightly, as though everything were finally, mercifully back on its proper course. My nerves surged at once, surprising me with the flicker of relief that I would become queen today, that all the waiting and uncertainty was finally over.
A knock split the air. Alcmene’s head lifted, her gaze catching mine in the mirror. “It’s time.”
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My hand hovered above the edge of the table, the rolled letter lying there like the last warm thing I’d ever touch.
Another knock sounded, harder this time, impatient.
I rose, the red sash whispering against my skin, and thought of Calismae’s words. Of the wagons already standing in Amyklai’s square. Of children eating their fill. Of Thalessa breathing free air again.
If that was the only good I could wring from today, then I would go to my wedding with it burning in my chest.
The palace guards flanked me on both sides, spears angled to herd rather than defend. With every step, the corridor seemed to draw tighter around us, an unseen noose around my neck.
The guards kept stealing glances at me, quick sidelong cuts of their eyes. One lingered too long and flushed, his mouth tightening before he fixed his gaze ahead again. A younger one at the edge of the line gasped outright, his grip on his spear faltering for a heartbeat.
Alcmene trailed just behind the column, her measured steps a quieter echo of theirs. I wondered, as I had all day, whether my mother would be here today, whether I would see her face in the crowd.
Calismae’s letter had said nothing of Calismae coming, but perhaps my mother …
At every turn, servants bent to one knee as we passed. Some chanted blessings to Menelaus. Others beamed, their voices rising with cheers and well-wishes, all joyous as they watched me walk toward my crown.
As if the Dread had never struck last night.
As if an innocent daughter of Sparta hadn’t been slaughtered for a needless sacrifice.
We reached the antechamber just outside the great hall, where brides were veiled before stepping into the ceremony.
Two of the lesser priestesses waited, veils folded over their arms like burial shrouds.
They approached in perfect unison, raising the sheer fabric high before lowering it over my head.
The gauze slid against my cheeks, settling in a white curtain around my shoulders.
It should have felt the way it had when I was veiled as a chosen—a crown of honor, the start of something I had been desperate for. But now, it was a weight. It pressed down, foretelling endings, of a life lost. This veil was not to set me apart. It was to bind me.
The great doors groaned open, and the throne room unfurled before me.
Every inch gleamed bloodred and gold, ribbons of silk spilling from the ceiling, floral garlands coiling between the marble columns.
On either side of the aisle, nobles stood cloaked in wealth, jewels glinting at their throats, and their smiles stretched too wide.
It was the sort of joy that lived only in the presence of power, and never without it.
Menelaus’s tunic had been cut to flatter, framing the hard-built strength of a seasoned warrior who had won Sparta’s wars and worn its glory like a second skin.
Heavy rings weighted each finger. He was handsome in the kind of way that could charm a room before it realized it had been conquered … handsome, and utterly dangerous.
The sight of him stopped something inside me cold. I wondered if the others saw it too, that beneath all that beauty was the hunger of a man who would drink a kingdom dry if it pleased him.
Blood pounded in my ears, each beat a countdown to the moment I would stand beside him and become another jewel in his crown.
I walked forward and he grinned when he saw me, a wide, wolfish stretch of teeth.
And beneath the grin … something jittered.
Something restless. A tremor ran through his hands.
His fingers kept flexing and curling again, the rings he wore clicking softly together in a nervous, metallic rhythm he didn’t seem aware of.
As I watched, a thin coil of red smoke wrapped his wrist and crept up his arm, vanishing the moment I blinked.
My steps faltered and I stopped outright, frozen mid-stride.
Whispers rose from the watching crowd and their eyes scraped over me. Behind me, Alcmene’s fingers brushed the small of my back. “Go, my lady,” she murmured in a barely audible voice.
I drew a breath I couldn’t feel and forced my feet to move again, my eyes still locked on Menelaus. I watched his hands, his wrists, every twitch and tremor, waiting—half dreading, half expecting—for that curl of red smoke to return.
But there was nothing … and he continued to stand there smiling like nothing was amiss.
A tight, uneasy flutter climbed my throat. Maybe it was stress twisting my vision. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe the horror of last night had cracked something in me.
My gaze flicked once to the crowd, hopefully or perhaps foolishly searching for a familiar face. I didn’t find one. Certainly not my mother’s. The absence settled immediately, and I turned my eyes forward before the ache could deepen.
I didn’t look at the nobles flanking the aisle or the flutist whose fingers trembled around his reed. I didn’t look at the High Priestess standing rigidly near the platform, her mouth arranged into something similar to dismay.
And I absolutely didn’t look at Achilles.
Even as I walked down that long aisle, even as a hundred gazes lingered along my skin, I refused to look.
Achilles’s presence pressed against me all the same. I could sense him along the eastern wall, standing with his soldiers, helmet tucked beneath one arm, jaw set in a way that spoke of held back violence. A force barely contained.
If I looked at him, if our eyes met, I might break.
I might run.
Or beg.
So I kept walking.
I fixed my gaze on the throne and on the king who was about to claim me.
Every step forward was another nail hammered into the Helena I had once been. Helena of Amyklai. Helena, who ran through the red dirt. Helena, who loved her village and dreamed of a union that would split the sky.