Page 34 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

He had imagined this moment, craved it. He’d expected to feel triumph, the savage pulse of satisfaction, of vengeance sated. But instead, a hollow ache resounded deeper in his chest until each breath was a struggle. The same crushing emptiness that had filled him after Patroclus—

Grief.

Now, for Hector.

The bitter irony of it scraped through him like a blade against flesh. He wanted to laugh. Or roar. Or curse the gods until one finally appeared to strike him dead.

High above, King Priam watched from the terrace, his wizened face wracked with agony.

Achilles’s lips curled in something between a snarl and a sneer, bitterness biting deeper. Hector lay dead of his father’s weakness. Of his brother’s arrogance. Now, this trembling old fool dared to weep for the son he’d sent to die.

Beside Priam, another stepped forward—a younger face contorted with loathing, knuckles white on the balustrade.

Paris.

Achilles’s gaze locked to him. The fire that had begun to die inside him roared savagely back to life. Rage poured into the hollow places grief had carved, a wildfire blazing hotter for all the emptiness it could not fill.

His breath came through clenched teeth, and he stepped toward Hector’s lifeless form.

Planting a foot against the body, he kicked. The corpse rolled onto its back with a dull thud. A wet, sucking scrape filled the air as Achilles wrenched the spear free. Blood slicked the point, sliding slowly down the shaft.

He lifted his head. “Priam!” he shouted, voice cracking the silence.

The old king recoiled from the balcony ledge, his grief-heavy eyes meeting Achilles’s murderous glare.

“Priam!” Achilles roared again, his fury shaking the air. His grip tightened on the spear, as if to drive it into Troy’s heart. “Your son lies dead for his offenses against me in this war born of your house. Of your son, Paris.”

Paris hovered beside his father, lips close to the old king’s ear, whispering. When he straightened, his eyes slid back to Achilles, dark and seething.

Achilles raised the spear, the bloodied point gleaming as it rose to Paris. His voice was cold, deadly, as he called out, “I come for you next, prince.”

Color drained from Paris’s face, and he grew white with rage. But it was weak by comparison, a candle guttering in a hurricane’s path. Then desperation lit wildly in his eyes.

Paris lunged, ripping a bow from the hands of a nearby guard. Beside him, Priam cried out in protest, but Paris shrugged off his father’s hands. With practiced ease, he drew the string.

The twang was soft, just a whisper.

The arrow arced, streaking through the air—

It struck the ground at Achilles’s feet with a dull thud. Harmless and spent.

For a moment, Achilles didn’t move.

Then he reached up, drawing his helmet away. The bronze flashed as he cast it aside, revealing the hard lines of his face. He bent, grasping the arrow, and his gaze dragged slowly back to Paris as he straightened.

“You abandon your honor, boy,” he called.

A sharp crack rang out. The arrow splintered in his hand—broken twigs, nothing more. He tossed them aside.

“Just as well. You will find none in me.”

Without another glance, Achilles turned, striding to his chariot. From it, he retrieved a coil of rope. Then, dagger in hand, he knelt beside Hector.

For a heartbeat, he looked at the fallen man.

Then the blade descended, biting deep as it sliced cleanly through the tendons of the heels. The wet squelch of flesh cut the unnerving quiet. Blood soaked the earth in sluggish pools as he tied off the knots.

Once finished, Achilles rose, and his gaze lifted to the terrace a final time.

Paris stood frozen, pale, his form wracked with impotent hatred.

Just behind him—Helen.

The sight of her stilled him, just for a moment.

Tears traced her cheeks, catching the sunlight like water on stone. A dark-haired woman clung to her, weeping into her shoulder, cries vanishing on the wind.

But Helen’s sorrow ran deeper, quiet and fathomless. It did not cry out. It did not tremble. It welled from some hidden place within her, pure and endless, as if drawn from a wellspring the world had long forgotten .

Achilles’s jaw clenched. His eyes traced the tears dripping down her cheeks, her beauty somehow more radiant through the bitterness of grief.

Did she mourn for the widow who clung to her? Or the dead man at his feet?

He didn’t know.

But he knew that look—a crushing weight too vast for words. The same mantle of iron rested on his own shoulders. It had settled there the day Patroclus fell. And now, with Hector’s lifeless body at his feet, it threatened to bring him to his knees beneath its weight.

For a breath, his fury trembled under that darker force. As if his own sorrow rose to meet hers, clawing through his ribs and turning everything—glory, pride, vengeance—to ash.

Grief for Patroclus. For Hector.

For the years lost, the seas of blood consumed by the ground beneath him. For the loss of himself. And, finally—for her. The woman whose anguished eyes had begun to haunt his nights.

The tide swelled inside him, stretching across the plain, reaching toward—

He crushed it.

Achilles jerked his gaze away, his spine locking. He turned his back on her. On sorrow, on pity, everything but the fury still burning within.

Honor. Duty. Pride. The war had already devoured them all. All that remained was vengeance.

He mounted the chariot, fisting the reins. His eyes, hollow and blazing, fixed on the horizon. With a sharp flick of his wrist, the horses surged forward.

Hector’s lifeless body jerked, dragged mercilessly through the dust, twisting and rolling over the ground.

It was done.

But rage still burned.

Grief still howled.

And Patroclus was still gone.