Page 72 of Where Darkness Bloomed
He crushed it.
Achilles jerked his gaze away, his spine locking. He turned his back on her. On sorrow, on pity, everything but the fury still burning within.
Honor. Duty. Pride. The war had already devoured them all. All that remained was vengeance.
He mounted the chariot, fisting the reins. His eyes, hollow and blazing, fixed on the horizon. With a sharp flick of his wrist, the horses surged forward.
Hector’s lifeless body jerked, dragged mercilessly through the dust, twisting and rolling over the ground.
It was done.
But rage still burned.
Grief still howled.
And Patroclus was still gone.
Chapter 31
Hector was dead.
Helen had known the moment Troy’s gates closed behind him.
The clash of weapons had been brief, a single heartbeat stretching across eternity for those who watched. Hector had fought with the skill of a seasoned warrior, his movements fluid and sure.
But Achilles...
He was fury incarnate, ferocity unbridled. His speed, his rage—blinding, primal, and devastating.
Within minutes, Hector faltered. A hard kick to the chest sent him reeling back, forcing him into the sweep of that deadly spearpoint.
Moments later, the killing blow was struck. The spear plunged into Hector’s throat, blood spraying, gurgling. He’d crumpled to the earth, lifeless.
Raw and heart-wrenching, Andromache’s scream rose beside her, ripping at the sky. Helen caught her as she staggered, holding her as Hector’s death dragged his widow to her knees.
Over Andromache’s cries, she heard Achilles’s voice—cold, sharp as his spear—addressing Priam. Paris stood rigidly at the king’s side, knuckles blanching bone-white on the balcony ledge.
Then, with a wrathful snarl, Paris snatched a bow from a guard, bracing it swiftly to his shoulder.
“No!” Priam’s voice cracked, strangled as he reached for his son. “It is without honor!”
But Paris wrenched free. His breath was a hiss of rage between teeth as he loosed the arrow.
Helen’s heart went silent, her eyes following itspath—
It struck the earth at Achilles’s feet.
He was still for a moment. Then his hands rose, drawing off the black-crested helmet. Helen’s breath caught as he tossed it aside.
His hair was gone.
Once thick, golden as a lion’s mane—now brutally shorn. Cropped close to the scalp, severe and unceremonious. There was something terrible and sacred in it. The sacrifice of self at the altar of grief.
When Achilles’s gaze lifted to the balcony, his eyes were flat black, filled with rage that promised ruin.
“You abandon your honor, boy.” His voice carved the stillness like a sword to flesh.
He stooped, pulling the arrow from the dirt. Then his fingers twisted, snapping it cleanly in two. “Just as well. You will find none in me.”
