Page 73 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Retrieving a length of rope from his chariot, Achilles returned to Hector’s still form.
Silent horror churned in Helen as she watched him kneel. His dagger flashed, cutting through Hector’s ankles. He worked with grim precision, binding the limbs with steady hands.
Rising again, Achilles looked to the terrace once more. Contempt radiated from the ground, his wrathful gaze sweeping from Priam to Paris. Then, his eyes slid past them, finding her.
Helen was still, stricken in the path of his black gaze. Darkened with bloodlust, the rawness in his stare carved through her, cutting down to the bone. She felt flayed, exposed—her soul laid bare to the carnage he’d wrought.
Tears were slipping down her cheeks, though she scarcely felt them.
They fell for Hector, dead for his brother’s pride. For Hector’s son, an infant who would never know his father’s arms. For Andromache, whose heart had been carved out.
Tears fell for the ruin unraveling in hername, for the endless waste reeking of burned flesh and trampled honor. For love reduced to ash. A waste so monstrously complete, it could never be undone, never be made right.
But beneath it all, deeper still, another pain smoldered, unbearable. One she had not dared to acknowledge until now.
Her tears fell forhim. For Achilles, whose rage knew no end. Whose own grief had driven him to this—this desecration, this moment of sheer, wanton destruction.
The truth of it was a blade between her ribs. Too deep to pull free, too sharp to reconcile. But there it was—she grieved for him, too.
And he saw it.
Behind the fury burning in his hollowed eyes, something flickered—raw recognition. His brow furrowed. His chest lifted with a broken breath that mirrored her own, as though he, too, was splintering apart from within.
It passed between them like lightning across a storm-wracked sea. A recognition that struck too hard and too deep to speak aloud.
A woman cursed by beauty.
A man cursed by wrath.
For a breathless instant, they saw each other plainly.
But then—it vanished. The moment snapped like a bone underfoot.
Achilles stiffened, and the walls slammed down. His gaze hardened, turning empty and lifeless as Hector’s corpse.
She watched as he turned away, mounting the chariot. Blood-slick hands seized the reins and, with a sharp flick, drove the horses forward.
The body lurched behind the chariot, limbs dragging limply through the dust. A jagged smear of red trailed in its wake.
Priam’s breath broke into shuddering sobs, his thin frame trembling. Silent tears slipped into his white beard as he watched his son’s body disappear—bouncing lifelessly over the stones, swallowed by the rising storm of dust.
***
She could barely recall guiding Andromache back to her chambers.
Her hands had moved on instinct. She steered them, steadied the weeping widow, but her hands were numb. The hands of someone else.
Hector’s son stirred in his cradle, cooing and babbling softly, unaware of the chasm opening beneath them. Andromache sat unmoving, arms folded around herself like a fortress, her eyes wide and vacant, staring into that abyss.
Servants hovered in the periphery, quiet and quick-footed, shadows flitting at the edges of Helen’s vision.
Time unraveled, becoming broken and disjointed. Finally, a guard appeared, summoning her back to Paris’s chambers.
He was waiting.
Paris’s hand clamped around her wrist like a shackle, jerking her to him with force that made her stumble.
“Out,” he barked at the servants, who scattered without hesitation.
