Chapter 46 #3
A cry split the courtyard as another assassin lunged, his blade flashing for the kill. Theron’s hand lifted and his fingers carved through the air. Strange words spilled from his mouth, and the sigils on his hands blazed, etching themselves across the air with a hiss.
Steel met light.
The blade shrieked, splintered, and dissolved, falling in gray dust that hissed against the ground. The assassin barely had time to scream before an unseen force slammed into him, flinging his body back. He struck a pillar with a sickening crack, and blood streaked down the white stone.
Chaos erupted. Nobles shrieked and clawed for escape as guards swarmed to the king’s side.
Menelaus surged to his feet. His face was mottled red as his voice thundered over the din. “What trick is this?” He jabbed a shaking hand at Theron, spit flying with each word. “Who let him out?”
Theron smirked as he walked forward, shadows clinging around his form like a cloak.
Another hooded man lunged, a knife raised high.
Theron didn’t so much as turn his head. His hand flicked outward, as lazily as a man brushing away a fly.
The assassin screamed as the weapon in his grip warped, bursting into molten shards before it could reach flesh.
His body was hurled across the courtyard to crumple in a heap in front of us.
The last assassin, the one locked in combat with Achilles, was wrenched suddenly backward.
He crashed to the ground at Achilles’s feet, his limbs twitching before falling still.
A growl rumbled from Achilles, his jaw tight, his grip still clenched on the sword that had been poised for the killing strike.
He glared at Theron, blue eyes sparking like a storm denied its thunder.
Theron’s smirk widened, his violet eyes gleaming as he strolled past the fallen bodies without a flicker of concern, as if their deaths had been nothing more than a casual breath drawn and exhaled.
“Magic,” someone breathed nearby. Not a whisper of awe … but of terror. Most of the people present today hadn’t seen Theron before now, and his power was obviously a revelation to them.
But for the rest of us, the display was just as jarring.
The air throbbed with his magic. The ground beneath my feet seemed to buzz like it had been struck and hadn’t yet stopped ringing.
Theron stopped before the dais. The guards who had lunged in front of us lowered their spears, but their white-knuckled grips on the shafts betrayed their fear.
Menelaus stared at him, his bulk pressed deep into the throne.
He tried for stillness, for the stone-faced indifference of a warrior king, but his hands betrayed him, trembling slightly where they rested in his lap.
His eyes tracked Theron’s every step, pupils blown wide, like a man trying to convince himself he wasn’t already prey.
“You should be rotting in your cell,” he snarled.
Theron tilted his head, a lazy smile tugging at his mouth, that dangerous calm clinging to him. “Well, that’s not very grateful,” he drawled. “Considering I just saved your life.”
Menelaus’s growl vibrated through the courtyard, a sound meant to intimidate, though it wavered at the edges. “A god does not need saving,” he spat.
Theron studied him, his head tilted just enough to make the moment feel intimate and cutting. “And yet,” he murmured with a glinting, knowing gaze, “I melted the bars. And helped regardless.”
The crowd lurched with gasps and frantic whispers.
My pulse jumped with theirs, a tingling shiver racing over my skin.
Menelaus’s gaze snapped from one murmuring mouth to another, his thick fingers flexing against the arms of his throne as though he was holding himself back from reaching out and silencing them by force.
Theron only laughed softly under his breath, lifting his hands. Faint lines marred his palms, glyphs glowing steadily like embers waiting to flare. “You wanted proof of my loyalty, Your Majesty,” he announced, tilting his head. “Well … congratulations. This is it.”
His tone was casual, almost bored, yet every syllable thrummed with something I couldn’t quite read. He made it sound less like devotion and more like a joke only he was in on.
Menelaus frowned, continuing to study him like he was a puzzle he could unravel.
A blur of movement cut through the crowd as one last hooded figure suddenly lunged for the throne, a knife flashing in his hand.
I gasped as Achilles surged forward and hit the assassin with bone-rattling force. The knife glanced off his sword in a shriek of metal before Achilles tore it from his grip and drove him down. The sound of the man’s skull striking the ground carried across the courtyard, silencing every whisper.
Theron began to clap, each beat punctuating the quiet.
“Well,” he said, his violet eyes flashing toward me.
The look lingered a breath too long, searing, predatory, like he’d peeled me out of the crowd and stripped me bare before sliding his gaze back to Achilles.
“Did you enjoy that one? Better late than never, as they say.”
The air thickened as Achilles’s shoulders went rigid, his grip tightening around his sword hilt until the leather creaked. His glare could have split stone, his eyes locked on Theron with a fury that begged for release.
Theron only smirked, as though Achilles’s rage was nothing but kindling to his fire.
“Take him back to his cell,” Menelaus growled, finally finding his voice in the melee.
It took a second for the guards to obey. Their footsteps held the slow uncertainty of men who knew they held no power. But once again Theron didn’t resist. He simply turned and walked calmly between them.
Menelaus lurched from his throne, the talismans around his neck shaking and clanging as he moved.
“Achilles! Dione! With me!” he bellowed, storming down the steps, his robe snapping around him as guards scrambled to part the way.
Achilles moved at once, his sword still in hand as he fell in behind the king.
The High Priestess gathered her ivory robes and also swept after them, her beaded braids flying loose behind her.
The crowd broke into frantic murmurs the instant their figures disappeared beyond the gates. Robes rustled, jewels clinked, fans fluttered like panicked birds. Words hissed and tangled together until the whole courtyard thrummed with anxious noise.
Beside me, Alcmene leaned forward, her eyes wide in shock.
“Happy Thesmophoria,” I whispered in a high, trembling voice, words meant for her alone. No one else could have heard me.
Which was why I froze when laughter drifted in from the shadows, smooth and arching through the air. A sound that didn’t belong to either of us … yet answered me all the same.
My head snapped toward the palace steps.
Theron was nearly swallowed by the archway, his violet eyes glinting as he glanced back over his shoulder. His laugh deepened, rich and mocking, as if he’d heard every word.
The sound echoed long after he disappeared inside.