Page 19 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Helen of Troy.

The title echoed in her mind like a curse.

The Trojans called her that. The Greeks now, too.

But she was not of Troy . She had never been. She was Helen of Sparta, daughter of King Tyndareus—though, more truthfully, of Zeus. A queen by marriage to Menelaus.

Until that night.

Her life had never been a joyful one. But Paris’s actions had damned Troy—and her along with it. When Agamemnon’s army blackened Troy’s horizon like a plague, the Trojans had rightfully looked to her with loathing.

Across the weeks, the months, reports began pouring in. Each one more horrifying than the last.

The Greeks tore through the countryside, leaving nothing in their wake. Villages burned. Fields once golden with wheat were choked, darkened by smoke. The old, the defenseless, women... children—slaughtered. Ripped from their homes, put to the sword or taken as spoils.

Inside Troy’s walls, unrest simmered. Then it boiled.

Crowds gathered outside the palace gates, cries growing louder with each passing day. At first, they begged. But when their pleas were met with silence, they screamed. For her return. For peace. For their dead sons, brothers, relatives.

Within the palace, tempers frayed.

Paris’s fury reached her ears, even through the bolted door, as Priam’s advisors implored him to no avail.

Then Hector came. Not in a whisper, but with thunder in his voice as he stormed through the palace. He stood before his father and brother still in his armor, streaked with dust from the field, feet planted against the stone .

His voice rang through the halls loud enough to shake the columns. “We cannot sacrifice all of Troy for the pride of one man!”

The words had struck like bronze—harsh, inevitable, echoing the battle he had just returned from. It was the cry of a commander fighting to hold back the tide with bloodied, bare hands.

Even the priests, the same ones who had once called her a gift of the gods, advised with solemn eyes and whispered warnings.

Send her back , they all said. End the bloodshed. Save the city.

But still, Paris refused. His wounded pride curdled into something brittle, growing more obstinate with each sunrise. Even as the seasons changed around them. Even as the sky turned black with smoke from endless funeral pyres.

His stubbornness was a blade, a dagger poised at Troy’s heart.

Then came the duel.

In a moment of breathtaking arrogance, Paris had lashed out, challenging Menelaus to single combat. This way, he had declared, he would win Helen in the sight of all men and the gods. Before the gathered armies, Menelaus strode forward, unsheathing his broadsword without hesitation.

Paris had turned toward the balcony, his lips curving as he looked up to her—confident, careless, utterly blind. But Menelaus’s eyes rose to her as well, black with hatred so fierce that bile rose in her throat. Turning from the balustrade, she had retched over the stone.

Four sword strokes. That was all it took.

Blood had streamed from Paris’s leg, then his arm, and Menelaus pressed forward ruthlessly, his sword poised to end it. Panic had clouded Paris’s eyes as he stumbled back. Then he fled, scrambling to the gates as Menelaus’s roar split the sky.

Troy had laughed. The Greeks had jeered.

Coward. Betrayer. Thief.

For his cowardice, Paris blamed Aphrodite. The goddess had spared him, he claimed, moved by the depth of his love for Helen.

But all knew the truth—he had spared himself, dooming Troy.

After Paris’s failed challenge, Agamemnon’s wrath descended like a storm renewed. His armies ripped apart the countryside, a merciless wildfire consuming everything in its path. Bodies littered the fields. Pyres burned night and day, the stench clinging to the land like disease.

Every day since, the sun had risen over new horrors.

Now, Helen stood on the terrace, the weight of her guilt like crushing stone.

Her teeth gritted, her fingers curling tightly against her chiton as she gazed over the battlefield.

Smoke curled into the sky from flaming ladders.

Screams rose too, bodies twisted and broken on the ground—all because of her.

From where he stood at the terrace edge, she could nearly hear Priam thinking the very same.

It took every scrap of self-control she possessed not to fly at the old man, to shake his frail shoulders and scream until her throat bled.

Until he felt every moment of pain and violation and grief that was hers.

She dragged her eyes away from him, looking out again. On a nearby embankment stood the figure who embodied all the carnage yet to come.

Achilles.

He stood with his own men, the Myrmidons, apart from the rest of the Greek army. Bronze armor caught the sun like fire, and a wicked spear rested in his grip. His bare skin gleamed like tempered gold in the harsh heat as he prowled at the head of the men. A lion leading wolves.

She’d heard his name since childhood. Tales of his ferocity, his gift for bloodshed—spoken of with reverence and fear in Sparta’s court.

Favored by Ares , some said. Touched by immortality , others whispered.

As a girl, the stories had thrilled her.

Now, with him standing on the battlefield before her, they filled her veins with ice.

She had watched him for months—watched as he tore through the Trojan army like fury made flesh. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, had fallen to his blade as he moved over the battlefield like a being crafted by the gods for warfare.

But this day, beneath the high sun, he paused.

The angular slits of his helmet turned up toward the balcony.

At first, she thought he studied Priam who had knelt in his morning prayers to Apollo. But he reached up, muscles coiling beneath sun-bronzed skin as he gripped his helmet, lifting it away.

Sunlight caught his hair—long, thick and golden. It fell past his shoulders, gleaming with a warrior’s wildness, a god-touched brilliance too bright for this world. His face was crafted from sharp, unforgiving angles, harsh in its beauty, and his mouth was set in a hard line.

One arm flexed as he tucked the helmet beneath it, the curve of his bicep taut over the bronze. Then his chin tilted, sunlight slanting across his face. His eyes—cold, fathomless, deep as the sea—found hers .

A sharp bolt of fear lanced through her.

Achilles, greatest of warriors, stared up at her. His gaze carved through her as if he could see the darkness lurking beneath her skin. The fear racing down her spine. The grief lodged in her chest like a millstone. The silent defiance hidden in every heartbeat.

In his eyes, Helen saw the shadow of everything already lost—

And certainty of ruin to come.