Chapter 36
Sparta had not entered its golden age.
And I was not its golden queen.
A month of marriage to Menelaus had taught me that all my hopes and plans would not come in the shape I’d imagined.
The hall reeked of wine and grease from the banquet I’d put together. Meat juices slicked the marble floor. Musicians sawed at their strings, dancers spun until sweat turned their silks transparent, and the nobles below clapped as though this was triumph, this spectacle of indulgence.
I sat beside Menelaus on a throne that felt more like a shackle than a seat, a laurel crown biting into my temples. To the revelers, I gleamed, a goddess painted in mortal flesh. But my nails scored my palms, and my jaw ached from keeping it shut.
This was not glory. This was a gilded sickness.
Menelaus leaned forward, his forearms corded with muscle, every scar etched into his sun-dark skin on display.
He raised his goblet high, wine sloshing dark as blood, and drank deep.
Rings glittered on his hands as he slammed them down with a crack that rattled the table, and his laughter followed, loud and unchallenged.
The hall laughed with him a heartbeat later, too afraid not to.
The once-golden son of Sparta, still as powerful as any warrior in the room. But his strength no longer served discipline. It served appetite.
And I, his queen, was nothing more than a jewel on his throne and a body in his bed, still trying to figure out how to be more.
I kept my eyes forward as the hall clamored, but the sound scraped over me. The wet rip of meat as men tore into lamb, the shrill wails of flutes, the applause for each lewd jest. They called this place Sparta’s strength. They called it Sparta’s glory.
But I knew better.
Yes, wagons still arrived at my village, grain, salted meat, barrels of oil, all bartered for the gleaming illusion of their queen.
My people were fed. Their bellies no longer clawed at them in hunger, but mine …
mine was a different famine. Each day bled my spirit thinner.
Each dawn I woke with less of myself than the night before, as though my soul were being chipped away, piece by piece.
I glanced over and saw Hetairis lounging across a soldier’s lap.
His hands roamed, greedy and careless, and she arched into it as if they were alone in the room.
My stomach twisted. The image bled into memories of last night …
when Menelaus had summoned me and forced me into her arms while he drank in my humiliation like fine wine.
She had smiled then too, smug that I wasn’t enough to satisfy the king myself.
Her gaze slid across the hall and caught mine. That same knowing curl tugged at her lips.
Scowling, I refused to drop my eyes, wondering why only women seemed to believe that survival required gutting one another.
I shifted, trying to hold in a wince at the bruises I carried under my dress. I had been trained for this, molded into obedience, taught to wear silks and smiles and play the part of queen. I had known what was expected of me, what my duties would demand.
But no lesson had prepared me for Menelaus.
For the way his hunger seeped into everything, for the appetite in him that was never truly sated, no matter how much of me he took, as though desire itself were the instrument that kept him moving.
My only solace, thin as a thread, was that his eyes had not shifted since our wedding night, and I had only to deal with the man.
It was a fragile comfort, but comfort all the same.
Menelaus shifted beside me now, leaning in affectionately in that confusing way of his. After a month I was still half convinced that he didn’t mean to be cruel, he just couldn’t help himself.
I had tried to be demure, to seduce, to be coy, to lead things, but no matter what I attempted he still just pinned me down and took what he wanted, hollowing me out into a shell with every touch.
“My queen,” he murmured, his voice unctuous in a way that made my skin crawl, “I’ve a surprise for you tonight. All the way from your village.”
I went still. A surprise from Amyklai?
For the smallest, most foolish heartbeat, hope flared inside me. Would I finally be given faces instead of ink and papyrus—Calismae, perhaps, or my mother, stepping through those doors at last?
Menelaus lifted his hand and gestured toward the hall doors, his rings glinting like promises I did not trust. “Bring him in!”
Him.
My lips pulled into a snarl at the sight of Menelaus’s surprise.
Ephor Nikandros stepped into the room and bowed so deeply his back dipped into a reverent crescent, his posture groveling rather than respectful.
Hatred scorched through me so hot it felt like a fever.
“My king!” Nikandros called, lifting his arms as though greeting a sunrise. He approached the dais and bowed again, lower, his obsequiousness thick enough to choke on. “What an honor. What a blessing. To bask in your presence.”
Menelaus barked a laugh, lapping up his submission.
Nikandros straightened, his eyes sliding to mine. There it was, the smile he always wore, thin and false. A serpent’s smile dressed in priestly silk. Pretending affection. Pretending loyalty. Always pretending.
“Your Majesty,” he said, plastering warmth across his face, “our god has lifted you high indeed. Amyklai is honored by your crown.”
The words tasted rotten.
My nails bit into my palms as he dared to invoke my village, dared to mimic alliance, dared to bow again as though his presence were a blessing instead of the curse it was.
Nikandros’s oily smile waited for my reply, but I managed a single nod. Nothing more. My throat refused to open. Hatred clogged it too thickly to let sound through.
Menelaus frowned, searching my face for a reason for my rudeness. I kept my expression blank though, and he finally flicked his fingers, as though brushing away a gnat, and Nikandros dipped into another simpering bow before scurrying off to mingle with the nobility like a dog sniffing for scraps.
The banquet lurched back into motion, but my appetite was ruined and I spent the next hour throwing scorn-filled looks at Nikandros that he somehow missed.
I barely looked away until Achilles stepped through the throng with that lethal stillness wrapped around him like a cloak.
He’d been with the troops at the southern border since the day after the wedding and somehow, I’d forgotten what it was like to look upon him.
A war-song given flesh, he moved with the inevitability of a falling star, his presence bending the golden light toward him as if the world itself could not resist his pull.
I drank in the sight of him.
He reached the high table and pulled out a chair opposite us. “Your Majesty,” he murmured as he sat, nodding at Menelaus in greeting. His armor barely made a sound as he shifted and assessed the hall, reading the room like a battlefield.
Then his eyes found mine.
For a moment, his gaze devoured me, hot, unguarded, a collision so fierce it stole the breath from my lungs. Recognition. Warning. Want. All tangled, all burning.
I felt it everywhere.
But just as quickly, he tore his gaze away, ripping it from mine with visible effort, the muscle in his jaw ticking hard. His attention slashed back to the room … until it locked on Nikandros lurking near a cluster of nobles.
Achilles’s jaw flexed. “What’s that snake doing here?” he muttered, too low for most to hear, but not too low for Menelaus.
The king straightened as he eyed his captain. “Who are you talking about?”
Achilles didn’t hesitate. “Nikandros.”
“He’s for my queen,” Menelaus snapped. “Though she doesn’t seem to appreciate the taste of home I’ve given her.” His gaze slid to me again, heavy as a hand on the back of my neck. As if my lack of gratitude had personally wounded his divine pride.
My insides froze, but I kept my face smooth as Achilles leaned forward, elbows braced on the table. “He was brought in for questioning two weeks ago. He was selling the supplies meant for Amyklai’s people. Charging them coin for grain that was already paid for. For medicine meant to be free.”
The hall tilted, just slightly. Nikandros. Smiling. Smug. Breathing.
My vision pricked at the edges. I wanted to lean across the table and hiss, And you let him stand here? In front of me? In front of them?
But queens didn’t hiss in Sparta.
Annoyance flickered over Menelaus’s features, but it didn’t seem to be for the crime. Merely at the inconvenience of hearing it. At the implication that something meant to reflect on his godliness had been twisted … and reflected poorly on him.
“Is that so?” he said in a flat voice.
Achilles lifted his eyebrow. “It is.”
Menelaus stared at him for another moment, his irritation curdling into something like contempt, and I thought for a second he was planning Nikandros’s punishment. The king tipped his goblet back and drank. Long, deep swallows, as if hoping the wine might drown the entire conversation.
And just like that … I knew he wasn’t going to do a damned thing.
My breath thinned, a red haze filling my vision.
“Have you received any more word of disturbances in the East?” Menelaus murmured to Achilles, leaning forward as if he didn’t want to be overheard.
Achilles answered—something about scouting parties and rumors—but the words slid right off me. The king had no intention of addressing Nikandros. No intention of justice. No intention of anything except pretending the stain didn’t exist.
Their voices blurred into meaningless sound as my gaze swept the hall in frustration.
Nobles gossiped behind jeweled cups. Courtiers leaned in with syrup-sweet devotion. Servants slipped between tables like shadows, keeping their heads down, keeping the king’s wine goblet full, keeping their fear tucked neatly beneath their tongues.
Then movement caught my eye.