Page 113 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Honor is mankind’s greatest treasure.
His mother’s whisper, carried in the breath of the sea.
And the servant girl’s trembling plea—You must believe me. Helen of Sparta is honorable.
He did.
In the distance, the sky and sea were a seamless void of black. Fissures of lightning separated the heavens from the sea, illuminating the dark beach as Achilles returned to his tent.
Inside, dim firelight danced along the canvas walls. The girl watched him warily as he reached into the flames, pulling out a charred piece of kindling, ember glowing faintly. The scent of smoke filled the air as he bent over the parchment.
For a moment, he stared at Helen’s words, the quiet despair in them. Then, with bold, black strokes, he wrote his reply beneath hers.
As he handed the parchment back to the servant girl, he reached behind his tunic. His fingers hooked the leather cord he’d worn since boyhood. A coin dangled from it, smooth from years of wear, gleaming faintly in the firelight. With a sharp tug, the cord snapped.
Achilles pressed the coin into her palm. “Take it,” he ordered. “If anyone stops you, tell them you are a whore favored by Achilles, a son of Phthia.” He nodded down to the coin. “A Phthian coin to prove your word.”
The girl’s face heated at his crude phrasing. It was absurd, laughable even—this timid girl claiming to service him. But his name alone would protect her. None would dare risk his wrath on the chance the story was true.
She bowed her head once, wrapping her cloak tightly around her slight frame. “Thank you, lord.”
As she turned to go, he stopped her. “Girl.”
She paused at the tent’s edge, looking back.
“They have no way to breach the walls,” Achilles said, staring into the fire. “This is why Troy still stands. When the walls fall, flee north. You won’t survive otherwise.”
Her throat worked once. She nodded, then slipped into the rain.
Outside, Achilles watched her go, a small figure blending into rain-slicked shadows. She moved swiftly, her feet light on the sand as she slipped through a gap in the guards’ patrol.
As he turned back to the tent, a familiar voice cut through the night.
“I did not take you for a fool, son of Peleus.”
Achilles cocked an eye toward the figure approaching on the beach. “You’re the one trudging through a storm, son of Laertes.”
Odysseus pushed back his hood. Rain slicked his hair, running in rivulets down his face.But his eyes were bright blue in the lightning that forked the sky.
“Should I fear a little water?” he asked mildly. Then his expression darkened. “Not as much as you should fear Agamemnon’s wrath if he finds you hosting Trojan emissaries.”
Achilles folded his arms, ignoring the rain slicing coldly against his skin. “Things are dire indeed if servant girls now pass as emissaries,” he replied dryly.
Odysseus didn’t smile. “Things became dire the moment you killed Hector.” His voice was steady, but tension lived beneath the calm. “He was reasonable, far more so than Priam or Paris. Our only chance to negotiate the war’s end, and now his body rots behind your tent.”
Achilles didn’t flinch. “I returned the body.”
Odysseus’s brows lifted, then narrowed. “Why?”
He looked out across the rain-swept camp, his mouth twisting. “Honor still breathes, if only barely. Would you have me smother it entirely?”
The king of Ithaca studied him in silence.
Achilles knew that look, knew the keen mind behind it, always watching, calculating. It was Odysseus’s mask—the easy manner, the wry blue eyes. A mask worn so well many forgot it was there at all.
But Achilles knew what lay beneath.
Cunning. Wild and razor-edged. Sharper than any blade, more dangerous than Achilles’s prowess in battle. Strength could batter down walls, but guile slipped in the cracks, unseen. And Odysseus wielded it formidably, shaping the battlefield long before swords were ever swung.
