Page 148 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Achilles shifted his weight, arms folding across his chest. He looked out to the sea, where the dark waves rolled without end. “The Trojan men, have they no right to the same?” he asked. What of their women, their children—the ones sheltering behind those walls?”
Odysseus’s jaw tightened, his hands fisting at his sides. “How many Trojans have you killed, Achilles?” he demanded. “Do you even know thenumber?”
The silence between them crackled, turning brittle. The sea crashed behind them, relentless and uncaring.
“Will you fight me now?” Odysseus asked, the words scraping raw in his throat. “Because a captured queen whispers into your ear? Is that what stirs you now—mercy, after allthis?” He threw a hand toward the distant battlefield where oceans of blood had spilled.
Achilles said nothing, watching him.
Odysseus shook his head. “This was always going to end in death.” The words were low, cutting. “That’s the way of war. But the power to end it was placed in my hands. And I will act.”
Achilles’s eyes narrowed, caution rising in them behind the warrior’s stillness. His body tensed like a bow pulled tight. “What do you mean?”
Odysseus didn’t flinch. “A gift,” he said, crossing his arms. “From the gods.”
He offered nothing more, holding the silence.
Achilles stared at him. His head tilted, as though he were reading the truth from Odysseus’s face.
“Athena,” he said at last, nodding slowly. “She counsels you. She would favor your cunning.”
Odysseus gave no reply. He turned, the sea breeze cooling the sweat at his neck as he strode down the beach.
Achilles remained still behind him, wind tugging at his tunic. “What will you do?” he called.
Odysseus didn’t turn.
“Whatever it takes,” he said quietly—to the wind, then to himself, “to go home.”
Chapter 55
Sunlight scattered across the tidepools like spilled gold.
Aglaia moved through them slowly, her bare feet sinking into the sand. Turquoise water lapped at her calves, the hem of her chiton clinging damply to her legs.
She bent, her fingers closing around a spiral shell nestled among the rock and coral. A treasure left by the tide. A reminder that beauty lingered even in the quietest corners.
Behind her, the jagged cliffs of Mount Olympus rose, sharp and indifferent. But in the hidden cove, the wind was gentler. The waves spoke in a softer tongue, whispering to the shore. A pocket of intimacy carved from the rugged coastline.
Then the water stirred. Not far from the tide’s edge, a figure rose from the surf.
Hephaestus.
He strode from the sea, the tide breaking around him like shattered glass. Water sluiced over the corded muscles of his bare chest, down the ridged lines of his abdomen. Soaked linen clung low to his hips, molded to the hard lines of his body.
Aglaia’s pulse faltered as his gaze found her across the water.
The world quieted.
She stepped from the tidepool, the waves slipping away. Her feet met dry sand, the grains pressing warmly against her skin.
He didn’t call her name. He didn’t need to. He came to her with the same long strides she had come to know, unhurried and unstoppable. A breath later, he stood before her.
His hand plunged into her hair, drawing her close. There was no ceremony in his touch, no practiced gentleness or pretense. Only thattempered roughness she had come to crave. His body, sun-warmed and sea-soaked, pressed hard to hers, solid and searing through the linen. He smelled of salt and forge-smoke, of fire and iron. Of home.
His face buried into the curve of her neck, and the scrape of his beard made her blood sing.
“You are warm,” she whispered, her fingers trailing down the iron-hewn muscles of his arm.
