Chapter 43 #2
I squeezed her hand, thinking that may be so, but without figuring out how to channel it for true power yet … it was useless. “I would say I’m blessed to have you as my handmaiden,” I told her as I stood.
Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders, watching as Roz jumped from the table to the floor. “Take care of yourself,” I called after it as it slipped back under the dresser. Roz left me a last squeak in reply.
“Come,” I said softly to Alcmene. “Let’s go.”
Her lips pressed tight and she nodded and moved ahead to open the door. “We will not flinch,” I whispered to her as I passed. She nodded in reply and then followed me out.
Outside, soldiers stood waiting with shields braced and spears held rigid at their sides. Tension wound through their ranks. They shifted around me the moment I stepped into the hall, closing around us in a cage of iron and silence.
Alcmene’s hand brushed mine briefly, as if she feared I might vanish if she let go. My spine held straight, though my stomach pitched with every step as they escorted us forward.
The corridor stretched endlessly and the walk to the Great Hall seemed to take twice as long. I could faintly hear the sound of Menelaus’s voice ringing out from within, barking commands I couldn’t make out.
At the threshold, the soldiers halted. One broke rank, strode ahead, and pressed both palms to the doors. His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek, before he pushed them open.
The groan rolled outward like a warning, swallowed by whatever waited within.
I drew a deep breath, gathering the weight of my crown, my title, my spine. “Don’t flinch,” I whispered, to myself as much as to her.
Alcmene dipped her head in acknowledgment and fell in behind me, her footsteps soft as I descended into the mouth of yet another unknown.
The Great Hall was dimmer than usual from the clouds hanging heavy outside. Crimson banners hung motionless from the ceiling, their fabric heavy in the unnatural stillness.
Menelaus slumped in his throne like a man paying dearly for last night’s excess.
His robes sagged from one shoulder, rumpled, his crown tilted so far it seemed ready to slide off altogether.
One hand dangled heavy over the armrest, the other rubbed at his temple between sluggish taps against the marble.
His face sagged; his eyes were bloodshot.
And even from across the hall I could smell the sourness clinging to him.
It struck me then—why had he drunk so much?
Menelaus enjoyed wine as much as any Spartan soldier, but he rarely let it loosen his grip on the world.
He prided himself on vigilance, on a discipline sharper than any blade his army carried.
Yet last night he must have emptied goblet after goblet, drowning himself in wine until he’d lost control entirely.
Had it been the news a soldier had delivered before the feast?
Another village had been struck by the Dread.
The reporting soldier had also mentioned, with clear unease, that the soldiers had discovered an altar to Apollo built in the square.
The soldiers destroyed it on sight, but his voice had quavered as he recounted the story, as though he wasn’t entirely sure they had done the right thing.
Of all the news, it was that detail that had unsettled Menelaus most.
The king’s eyes found me now, and they narrowed. For a moment, my breath snagged. Was this it? The moment he confronted me? My chest tightened, waiting for the blow that could shatter everything.
But then I remembered that fear had never saved me.
So I smoothed my expression and let a gentle smile rise to my lips. I lowered my gaze, then lifted it again with a flutter of lashes, offering him the guise of a queen pleased to be admired.
A distraction. A lure. A reminder that I could wield charm as skillfully as any weapon. Although the king usually made sure it cost me.
The hard glint in his eyes did shift though, caught for just a moment on the invitation I offered. He stared, hard and unblinking, as though trying to place me, to remember some half-forgotten thing lodged in the back of his mind.
The silence stretched until, with a faint scoff, he blinked and straightened.
“It’s about time you arrived,” he muttered, just loud enough for those closest to catch the words.
He jerked his chin toward the smaller throne beside his own, impatience cutting through whatever strange moment had lingered.
“Sit,” he said, the command flat and dismissive, as he turned his gaze elsewhere as if I were merely a piece fallen back into position.
My body moved before my thoughts caught up, and I walked through the hall as if someone else was guiding my steps. Eyes followed me as usual, soldiers, courtiers, concubines, but none met my gaze directly.
I sat down on my throne, my spine straight, as still as an eicon.
Menelaus leaned closer, his breath absolutely rancid. “Try to look like you want to be here,” he hissed, “not like you’re waiting for someone to carry you away.”
He straightened, his voice carrying this time. “Bring in the prisoner.”
The great doors creaked open, the sound reverberating down the hall. Steps came next, the steady cadence of soldiers on command. Achilles entered first.
This wasn’t the man who had stood a breath away from me in the dark last night, danger hovering so near it might have undone us …
This was Menelaus’s captain in full regalia.
His armor was polished, his crimson cloak trailing behind him.
The helmet beneath his arm bore a high, proud crest and his face was set in the cold lines of duty.
For a moment I struggled to reconcile the two versions of him, the warrior forged in bronze and crimson with the man who had nearly unraveled with me only hours before.
Two soldiers marched forward then, their prisoner between them, though nothing in his bearing suggested captivity.
The torches brushed him first, light skimming over damp sandals and the whisper of a midnight cloak. The shadows peeled back with each step he took until they finally yielded, revealing him at last.
The man from the sea. The stranger who had walked across water as if it were earth.
He moved with an ease that mocked the chains at his wrists.
Broad shouldered and tall, his heavily muscled frame filled the space with quiet dominance.
The cloak around him drifted like an animate shadow, black threaded with whispered veins of gold.
Saltwater still clung to him, staining the leather at his sides.
But when the light revealed his face, the hall seemed to forget how to breathe.
He had cheekbones like a sculptor’s dream, lips tilted in wicked promise, and skin kissed in a deep bronze. His eyes were violet flames, mesmerizing and otherworldly.
The same violet that had stared at me in my dream last night. The color that had followed me out of sleep and into waking.
I froze, struck dumb in shock.
Because now they weren’t a dream at all.
They were staring back at me.