Page 110 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Perseus, whose wit and courage had slain vicious Medusa.
Her tales had always ended the same way—
“Honor, Achilles, is mankind’s greatest treasure. The gods honor those who show honor.”
A brittle crunch broke the silence.
He looked down to see the delicate shell splintered in his palm. Steadily, the tide surged between his fingers, sweeping the broken pieces back to sea.
He had believed her then. In the bright, boundless days of boyhoodwhen the world glittered with purpose and promise. But now, he knew better.
On Troy’s blood-soaked shores, honor had become a hollow thing—utterly meaningless. It had not spared Patroclus. Nor Hector. Nor the thousands who’d died before them. It would not spare the thousands whose deaths waited a single breath away.
Achilles’s jaw tightened.
He was a pawn. Agamemnon’s most fearsome weapon. A great warrior lured to war by illusions of glory and renown, a song as old as time.
And what had followed...
Months of slaughter. Fields filled with the corpses of shepherd boys and farmers who’d barely learned to hold a spear before they were turned out. Sent to face him. His wrath.
Senseless death beyond the counting. All for the vanity of kings too proud of bend, too blind to see the ruin they wrought. And their broods—advisors, priests, nobles—churning like vipers in a pit, seeking advantage and wealth, and caring nothing for the cost.
No shred of honor in any of them. None but—
A bitter laugh scraped from Achilles’s throat, carried away on the whipping wind as the first raindrops pattered against the sand.
Hector.
Hector had been different, this he could admit. A man of honor, willing to admit his mistake in the wild thrum of battle.
A son of Troy burdened with his brother’s pride, flung into the jaws of death by a father too stubborn to yield. Hector, forced to defend a transgression he himself would never have contemplated. Hector, husband and father—now gone.
Achilles could still see his eyes in those final moments. Stern, resigned to the Fates. Prepared to defend his homeland, even as he knew he would fall.
In his death, there had been no satisfaction. No triumph. Only a tide of grief nearly as fierce as the one that had crashed for Patroclus.
Cold rain needled his skin as Achilles turned from the sea, the memories sitting like a blade in his gut. The sky wept in cold rivulets, the waves churning restlessly ahead of the storm.
He strode back to his tent, the sodden sand sucking at his sandals. As he ducked inside, his ears caught the faintest sound—the rustle of fabric. Every muscle coiled with sharp instinct, and he halted.
“Show yourself.”
From the back of the tent, a small, hooded figure slowly stepped forward. The hood fell, revealing a pale, pinched face framed by mousy hair clinging to damp cheeks. A servant girl, far too young to be standing alone amid a war camp.
Fearful eyes watched him, but she dropped into a wobbling curtsy. “My lord.”
Achilles’s eyes, already cold, narrowed as he stepped forward. “Who are you?” he asked, the low demand wrapped in warning.
She looked like she might faint but clasped her hands together and answered, “I serve the Spartan queen, Helen.”
The words landed like a deafening drumbeat in the quiet hollow of the tent.
For a moment, he said nothing, searching her face for deceit, for cracks in the fragile truth she offered. But her plain features held only raw sincerity.
“She sends you to your death,” he said flatly.
Outside, the sky rumbled in agreement, a growl of thunder shaking the ground.
