Page 161 of Where Darkness Bloomed
She had clung to that trembling hope like a woman drowning. Until the servant girl returned with his message.
It was brief, written in heavy strokes by a rough hand—
Stay where you are.
Four words, sharp and final as a blade.
She read them once. Then again. Willing them to change, to mean more. To offer something beyond the silent promise of ruin. But there was nothing. Only harsh command and the shadow of wrath to come.
The hope she’d nurtured, foolish and desperate, withered in her hands. No mercy would come. Only fire. She would burn with the rest of them, the lives that her presence had damned.
Now, in the city below, Paris led the procession. Pride blazed in his eyes, the arrogance of youth and false triumph—a boy playing at godhood. He looked up to the window, seeking her face.
Swiftly, Helen turned away.
The city roared in celebration, bells tolling to commemorate the Greeks’ retreat. Cheers rang through the streets, a chorus of relief. But she felt none of it.
The empty camp. The vanished ships. It was illusion, crafted of smoke and shadow. She knew Menelaus. She knew Agamemnon. They would die on Troy’s shores before abandoning their conquest.
As the moon climbed higher, the celebration waned. Families drifted home, laughter softening as they carried yawning children through quiet doorways.But from the lower halls of the palace, Paris and his men’s revelry raged on in a raucous, drunken feast ringing into the night.
When the city finally sank into stillness, she left Paris’s chambers. A dark cloak swirled around her shoulders, her hood drawn low over her face. Even the guards on the first level were gone, drawn into the celebration.
Outside, the streets lay deserted, the scents of smoke and wine lingering. She moved quietly toward the city square.
There it stood.
The horse loomed ahead of her. Massive wooden flanks arched skyward, a creation of brutal craftsmanship. It towered over Troy like a blasphemous idol, some monstrous falsehood posing as a token of divine favor.
Cautiously, she approached.
Her breath turned soft, shallow, as she passed beneath the towering legs. The sharp tang of fresh-hewn timber filled her senses.
Tilting her head back, she stared up, ears straining for any sound—the scrape of metal, the rustle of fabric, a single breath.
But there was nothing. No sound save her own breathing.
Like a serpent nesting beneath her ribs, dread coiled, cold and patient.
She cast one last glance at the towering figure—dark against the starlit sky—before turning toward the palace, her hands trembling beneath the folds of her cloak.
Deserted now, the streets lay quiet and still. The city slumbered, blind to the shadow creeping ever closer.
But Helen felt it, the crushing weight of certainty settling like stone across her shoulders.
The silence was the loudest warning of all.
Chapter 60
“If you speak, we will all die.”
Odysseus’s warning was a growl.
Soldiers were simple men. And he preferred a simple plan—
Silence or death.
Thirty-four Ithacan warriors stood before him, eyes wide beneath bronze helmets as they stared up at the towering wooden horse behind him. It was a behemoth, rising toward the heavens like a monster from tales of old.
