Page 30 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Thetis’s footsteps were silent along the marshy riverbed, her eyes fixed on the far horizon.

Behind her, the Scamander flowed darkly in the failing light, choked with blood.

Then the waters stirred, parting as a figure rose from the murky depths.

He was dark, elemental. Scamander, god of the river, stepped forward onto the bank. Silt clung to his hair. His eyes were deep, ancient as the stones in his waters.

“Your son,” he said in a gravelly voice, “is determined to drown the world in Trojan blood.”

Thetis did not turn.

“Achilles has become a madman,” Scamander went on. “I have watched, and he does not eat. He does not sleep. He sharpens his blade until his hands bleed.”

A pause. The river stilled.

“And the body...”

Thetis’s heart clenched in her chest.

“It remains in his tent,” Scamander finished grimly. “He will not give it up.”

Her hands folded tightly before her, trembling before she stilled them. “He was not crafted by the Fates to be gentle,” she said finally. “Not in peace. Not in grief.” A breath broke from her lips. “And I... I cannot save him from this.”

The river lapped against her ankles, restless. She could feel Scamander’s eyes on her, the words rising in him like a flood.

“His grief is spilling into my waters,” the river god said, slow and grave. “He forgets the difference between vengeance and desecration. Soon, he’ll know only ruin.”

Thetis’s spine stiffened. She turned to face him then, sea-dark eyes finding his.

“Do you think I do not know this?”

Scamander said nothing.

“It was to me the Fates gave his prophecy,” she hissed. Whether in anger or grief, she no longer knew. “I saw it while I still lay on the birthing bed. He was a babe in my arms, and already his thread was measured.”

She swept a hand across the battlefield—the torn earth, the burning catapults, the ashen space between Troy’s walls and the black ships.

“I begged them not to bring him here. I bartered. I hid him. I tried to rewrite what had already been carved into the stars.”

Silence fell, thick and heavy as fog. Scamander watched her, something like sorrow moving in his ancient eyes.

“I know what he is,” Thetis breathed. “And I know what is coming.”

A breath.

“He will never leave Troy.”

Scamander’s voice was quieter now. Measured.

“If his desecration of my waters does not cease, I will be forced to rise against him myself.”

Thetis did not flinch. “Then rise,” she murmured. “You are not the first, and you will not be the last.”

Far off, a distant cry broke through the dusk—hoarse and guttural, filled with something wild and breaking.

Scamander turned toward it. But Thetis remained as she was: still as stone, her jaw tight, her face carved with sorrow.

“Hephaestus forges armor for him.” Scamander’s gaze moved back to her. “But to what end, Thetis? What will bronze do against a fate already known?”

Thetis’s eyes didn’t leave the horizon. The horizon that bore her son, half-wild with grief. “When the armor is placed upon him,” she murmured, “you will see it.”

“See what?” the river god asked warily.

“The final shape of him,” she said quietly. “Achilles, son of Peleus.”

She stared across the blackened plain. “I would have him wear something worthy of what time remains. So that even the gods will tremble when he moves. ”

Her breath hitched.

“And when he falls... his name will burn like a flame even the Fates cannot put out.”

She turned and walked into the tall grass, her veils trailing like the last breath of sea-wind.

Behind her, the river began to rise.