Page 70 of Where Darkness Bloomed
A shallow cut. A warning. A sentence already passed.
Straightening, Hector steadied himself. Beneath the helmet, his face betrayed nothing.
Achilles watched the blood drip down his arm. “Do you hear it?” His voice was low, lethal as he circled closer. “The sound of Thanatos’s wings.”
The air tightened.
“He comes for you.”
Then, like a tempest loosed by the gods, Achilles moved.
Wild, reckless speed surged through him, and he exploded forward. Every muscle burned with blistering rage, his vision narrowing until only Hector remained.
His sword. His breath. His end.
Hector braced, feet digging into the earth, shifting swiftly as he tried to hold the ground. But Achilles’s gaze locked onto the smallest gap, the barest flaw—
The spear left his hand like lightning torn from the heavens, slicing the air.
It struck with a sickening thud.
The blade pierced just above Hector’s collarbone, burying deep, tearing through muscle, through bone and breath. Crimson burst into the sunlight, arcing brightly before watering the ground.
Hector stumbled, his sword slipping from his grasp. His body jerked, a shuddering broken thing, then folded like a shadow. By the time he struck the earth, life had already abandoned him.
He lay still.
For a single, deafening heartbeat, the world became still with him. Not a sound, save Achilles’s own ragged breath, harsh and loud in his ears.
Then a scream rose—a high, keening wail, raw with grief. A widow’s anguish, rising from the balcony.
Achilles ignored it, staring at the crumpled form before him, his chest still heaving. Blood soaked into the ground beneath Hector. His enemy, the cause of his deepest grief.
He had imagined this moment, craved it. He’d expected to feel triumph, the savage pulse of satisfaction, of vengeance sated. But instead, a hollow ache resounded deeper in his chest until each breath was a struggle. The same crushing emptiness that had filled him after Patroclus—
Grief.
Now, for Hector.
The bitter irony of it scraped through him like a blade against flesh. He wanted to laugh. Or roar. Or curse the gods until one finally appeared to strike him dead.
High above, King Priam watched from the terrace, his wizened face wracked with agony.
Achilles’s lips curled in something between a snarl and a sneer, bitterness biting deeper. Hector lay dead of his father’s weakness. Of his brother’s arrogance. Now, this trembling old fool dared to weep for the son he’d sent to die.
Beside Priam, another stepped forward—a younger face contorted with loathing, knuckles white on the balustrade.
Paris.
Achilles’s gaze locked to him. The fire that had begun to die inside him roared savagely back to life. Rage poured into the hollow places grief had carved, a wildfire blazing hotter for all the emptiness it could not fill.
His breath came through clenched teeth, and he stepped toward Hector’s lifeless form.
Planting a foot against the body, he kicked. The corpse rolled onto its back with a dull thud. A wet, sucking scrape filled the air as Achilles wrenched the spear free. Blood slicked the point, sliding slowly down the shaft.
He lifted his head. “Priam!” he shouted, voice cracking the silence.
The old king recoiled from the balcony ledge, his grief-heavy eyes meeting Achilles’s murderous glare.
