Chapter 41 #2
“See the world,” he said softly. “I’ve seen its cruelty.
But there’s beauty too. More than any priest could describe.
Forests that sing at dusk. Rivers that glow with starlight.
Markets where a hundred languages fill the air.
There’s a city near the Nile where the walls are painted with stories older than Sparta.
And farther east, there’s a temple built atop the bones of a giant. ”
I swallowed. “You’ve really seen those things?”
“I have,” he said. “And I would take you. If I could.”
If.
The word slipped between us with the quiet danger of a spark seeking tinder.
“If you could,” I repeated. I smiled sadly, and it felt fragile. “Do you think you can keep any of your promises?”
“Yes.”
“And what if you can’t?”
He was silent again as he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “Then I’ll die trying.”
My breath caught.
Before I could tease him further, my fingers grazed another scar, one I hadn’t noticed before. It sat just beneath his ribs, small and oddly shaped, nothing like a blade or spearpoint.
“This doesn’t look like a blade,” I murmured.
“It wasn’t.”
I glanced up. He wasn’t smiling now.
“That one …” His breath shifted, something darker passing through his gaze. “That one was from Nemesis’s whips.”
I froze.
Nemesis.
The goddess of retribution. The one who hunted pride and punished those who strayed from the balance the gods demanded. Old stories painted her with wings as black as night and eyes that never missed a sin.
Which meant it hadn’t just been a whip.
It had been a god’s whip.
He almost never spoke of those years, of the war he and Menelaus had waged against the gods before magic had vanished from Sparta. Even when pressed, he dodged or deflected, always changing the subject with a joke or a glare.
But now … he didn’t look away.
“She caught me on the cliffs outside Delphi,” he said quietly.
“Menelaus and I had tracked her priestesses for days. We thought we were prepared. We weren’t.
” He huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.
“She moved like a shadow. I barely saw her. One strike from her lashes and I was on the ground, bones shaking like they’d splinter. ”
I swallowed hard. “How did you get out?”
He hesitated, shifting on the bed. “Menelaus saved me,” he finally said.
I sat up, the sheets sliding farther down my body. “How? Achilles, how does he have that kind of power? Where did it come from?”
His jaw locked and he shook his head once. “I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t,” I echoed, studying him.
Not wouldn’t. Not didn’t want to.
Can’t.
He held my gaze, and the look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know, that something besides fear or loyalty was binding him.
Something more powerful.
Something that kept his tongue still no matter how much he might want to speak.
Menelaus had secrets carved into the spine of this kingdom, and Achilles was apparently shackled by one of them.
I sighed and sank back into my pillow, disappointment tugging at me even though I knew I had no right to aim it at him. Whatever bound Achilles’s tongue was not of his choosing, and it would be cruel to resent him for chains he couldn’t break.
Maybe I would never learn the king’s secrets.
“Do you know what your name means?” Achilles asked suddenly, obviously eager to change the conversation.
I blinked. “Helena. Light. Or torch, depending on the translation.”
He nodded. “That’s what you are to me. A flame that lights up the darkness of the world. The beacon that I will follow for all my days.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I murmured, nestling closer, resting my head on his shoulder. “Tell me another story about your travels, great Achilles.”
He snorted and then was quiet for a second. “Have I told you of the River Titaressus?”
“No.”
“It’s a tributary of the Peneus in Thessaly. Legend has it that it’s part of the Styx. They say if you step into it with a truth on your tongue, the water will either part for you … or drown you.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound very liberating.”
“It is,” he said. “Because it teaches you to only speak what your heart believes. Not what your fear commands.”
I tilted my head. “Have you ever crossed it?”
“Twice,” he said. “Once when I was a child. I told it I wanted to be the greatest warrior Sparta had ever seen.”
“And the second time?”
His voice lowered. “I told it I didn’t want to die alone.”
My heart pounded.
“Tell me about this one,” I whispered, brushing a scar that traced beneath his collarbone like a lightning strike stilled in skin.
Achilles turned his head to look at me. His hair was tousled from my hands. “A spear tip from the Aetolian border skirmishes. I was sixteen. They thought I was too young to be on the front lines.” A pause. “They were wrong.”
“Do you regret it?” I asked, pressing my palm flat against his chest, over the faintest sliver of a mark near his heart.
“Regret what?”
“Living through them all.”
His hand came up, cupping mine where it rested. His skin was calloused, rough with use, but his touch was so gentle I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes.
“Sometimes,” he said honestly. “There are days the weight of it crushes me. The friends I’ve buried. The enemies I didn’t. The decisions I’ve made in the name of a place that forgets how much I bleed for it.”
“And other days?”
“Other days,” he said, “there is you.”
He kissed the inside of my wrist, reverently. “I would earn each scar again if it brought me back to this bed. To this breath. To you.”
Gods help me.
But belief was not the same as trust. And promises, I had learned in my life, were currency made of wax, soft and melting when fire touched it.
I looked at him, and the thought clawed through me … how long would he still be mine? How many nights before the gods or fate or Menelaus ripped him away?
“I want to believe you,” I breathed, the words trembling like a confession.
His forehead pressed to mine, and his voice was urgent. “Then believe me.”
My lashes fell shut. Somewhere beyond these walls, thunder rolled, the air shifting with the promise of rain.
But I stayed where I was, clinging to the fragile, impossible now.