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Farnkelan screamed overhead, blood in the very timbre of its roars. The dragon’s rage fueled me along. I was getting close to Helen, could feel her tugging at my heart and pulling me closer.

We hurried through the roses and entered the top of the tower. Helen and one of her sisters, though I was unsure which, were fighting in the long hallway. Demons attacked them from all sides, but the warriors of Artemis fought as one. Helen cast vicious hexes, felling demons with a touch of her hand. Iphi was a bruiser with her fists and fast as a snake with daggers. These were the warrior maidens of legend, fighting their way from the palace.

I let out a battle cry and rushed into the fight, taking out demon after demon. I would not stop until she was safe in my arms. My sword rang with battle. The demons here were putting up far more of a fight. They must not have felt Farnkelan’s flames on their hides yet.

I fought a large rage demon, which had to be at least eight feet tall. Its aura inspired the other demons to fight harder and dirtier, spurred by the essence of rage. I rushed the demon with my shield but clanged off him with a jarring backward step. The demon roared with laughter and raised a broadsword over its head. It could easily split me in two.

I darted to the left and plunged my shortsword into the demon’s side. Its laugh turned into a howl, and it dropped to one knee. That was all the opening I needed. I jumped onto the demon’s knee, then vaulted myself onto its shoulders before driving my blade deep into its neck.

“Well done, my lord,” Faren called as he removed a lesser demon’s head.

I allowed the falling rage demon to carry me forward into the soldiers surrounding Helen and her sister. The other demons’ tenacity flagged as the rage demon’s influence waned. They fell before the onslaught on both sides. I cut my way closer and closer to Helen, like a fuse burning toward black powder.

I had almost made it to her when a demon grabbed her from behind and put a blade to her throat. Menelaus. He pushed the silver deep into Helen’s neck, and her blood ran down his blade. Her sister stilled and glanced from me to Helen.

“Stop, or I’ll end her!” he screamed.

The sister cursed and dropped her daggers. The demons around her converged, kicking and punching her into unconsciousness before lifting her limp body.

The air was quiet, the battle sounds of a few moments ago dead and whisked away by the desert winds.

“Now you.” Menelaus motioned for me and my men to drop our weapons.

Helen’s gaze was locked on me, though I could divine no message there. Only her steady confidence shone like a beacon. It chilled my blood. I knew what she meant to do. I shook my head, a silent plea. If Desmerada lied and Helen was still bound, any attempt to use her magics on Menelaus could drive him to kill her. The dagger was already lodged in her neck.

“She belongs to me.” Menelaus dug the blade deeper. “Drop your sword.”

Blood bubbled from her mouth, though she made no sound. I dropped my weapons, and my soldiers followed suit.

Menelaus laughed without warmth. “That’s right, little coward. Same old Paris.”

The demon licked the blood from Helen’s neck. “I’m going to fuck her raw. You’re going to watch. I’m going to make you a permanent fixture wherever we go. Your eyes will never stop seeing me on top of this bitch. You will hear her moan my name every night. And that’s not all.”

The remaining demon soldiers formed a wall around me, the tips of their blades at my neck.

“I’m going to kill every last vampire in the Bloodkeep. Anytime I even hear the mention of a vampire, I will send an assassin. I will hunt and kill your kind until there are none left to befoul the Underworld, or any other world, for that matter. How does that sound, king of the vampires?”

Menelaus smiled. Those cruel eyes were the same ones that looked down on me in the dusty battlefield outside of Troy. The demon believed he had won. Just as he believed it that fated day in front of the gates of Troy. But each time—then and now—there was a piece at play that Menelaus hadn’t considered. The white queen.

Helen’s hands erupted in flame, scorching Menelaus’s sides. He let out a gasp and backed away, keeping his dagger at her throat. He looked down at his body, aghast at the charred, melting flesh.

Desmerada had told the truth—Helen’s magic was no longer bound.

“Stand down, or I will torch him all the way,” Helen called to the demons. The ice in her voice was the perfect complement to the fire in her hands.