Page 4 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Coarse ropes bit Helen’s wrists, the fibers grinding against her raw skin. Bruises bloomed across her body as the ship pitched violently over churning seas, each wave dragging her further from Sparta.

Her whispered prayers to Poseidon had been answered with silence.

But when the ship’s hull finally slid onto sand, she dared—briefly, foolishly—to hope. Perhaps the sea god had granted her deliverance.

That hope was swiftly dashed as she was drawn roughly from the ship’s belly. A soldier hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and pain wrenched through her. Helen gasped, the noise lost to the cold night air that nipped her tear-streaked face.

She was dumped unceremoniously into a horse-drawn cart. It lurched forward, trundling away from the unfamiliar shoreline.

In the distance, the horizon glowed with fire.

As the cart creaked closer, the flames separated into a sea of torches, the light spilling from towering stone walls of a vast city.

Helen recognized it instantly.

Troy.

The name slammed into her, heavy as a fist, dredging memories from a lifetime ago. Fragments resurfaced, unbidden: sunlit streets, grand halls, and exotic markets.

She had walked these streets once as a child, her small hand clasped in her father’s. King Tyndareus of Sparta had brought her here on a diplomatic visit, where they had been received as honored guests in King Priam’s court.

Those had been hopeful days. Then, a promise of unity had blossomed between two great kingdoms of the Aegean Sea—Sparta and Troy. But the years since had turned that promise to ash. The friendship had withered to dust.

It had all begun with Helen’s marriage .

When she came of age, Tyndareus had considered wedding her to one of Priam’s handsome sons. It had been expected, a gesture to honor a natural ally and seal the friendship in bloodlines.

But the Fates—or, more likely, her father’s greed—had warped the course of her life.

In an abrupt change of heart, Tyndareus had bound her in marriage to coarse, brash Menelaus. As a suitor, Menelaus’s only true worth had lain in his powerful elder brother, Agamemnon. Lord of Mycenae, richest of the Greek kingdoms, and most feared.

As her husband, Menelaus became king of Sparta at Tyndareus’s death.

King Priam’s stony silence had been felt across the Aegean.

The alliance between Troy and Sparta had frayed further as Agamemnon’s thirst for power grew. His armies began to prowl beyond their borders, conquering Mycenae’s weaker neighbors with little effort. Grim tales had followed—cities razed, temples desecrated, innocents butchered.

Menelaus was a brute, but he wasn’t blind. He’d seen the growing rift between Sparta and Troy, the fragile bond hanging by a thread. Desperate to keep a valuable trading partner, Menelaus had invited the Trojan princes to his court, hoping to rekindle goodwill.

On the final night of their visit, as Sparta had drowned itself in wine and celebration, Helen had sought solitude in her chambers.

Then came the shadow. A rough hand had silenced her scream, dragging her into darkness. All the while, Menelaus lay in the next room, drunken and oblivious, entangled with his concubines.

A distant shout jerked Helen back to the present.

Ahead, Troy’s gates groaned on their hinges, slowly opening. The cart jerked forward, dragging her into the city’s cold embrace.

The streets she remembered were unrecognizable now. Years earlier, flower petals had fallen like rain. Priests had chanted blessings. The royal family had awaited them with open arms.

Now, those same streets were cold, empty. The palace loomed in silence beneath a bright moon, its warmth extinguished, its welcome long forgotten. The soldiers flanking the cart glanced uneasily at her, making no effort to hide their discomfort. But no one spoke.

The cart stopped before the palace, and she was drawn from it by rough hands.

Torches cast flickering shadows through the atrium as they entered. The air grew colder, the silence heavier. Entombed by dark marble, they passed through stone archways, moving further into the palace.

Footsteps echoed like hollow drumbeats against the stillness as they ascended a spiraling staircase. At the top, a long corridor stretched, lined with braziers, flames dancing and illuminating the frescoes along the walls.

There, the gods gazed down at her in exquisite detail, radiant and indifferent: Apollo’s chariot blazing across the sky, Poseidon creating the first horse from sea foam, Prometheus breathing life into mankind.

A hand landed heavily on her shoulder, and Helen flinched.

The guards steered her through a doorway into the bedchamber beyond. The ropes binding her wrists were cut, sudden freedom stinging her raw skin.

She looked up expectantly, but the guards stepped back into the corridor. The door slammed shut, a bolt scraping into place.

For a moment, Helen was too stunned to move. Then she stumbled to the door, slapping her palms against the wood. “Wait!” she cried to anyone listening. “I must see King Priam!”

Fading footsteps answered her.

She pounded on the door until her hands throbbed. The skin split open, and her blood stained the wood. Her shouts eventually faded into hoarse whispers. Finally, she sank to the floor, exhaustion settling heavily over her battered body.

None of it made sense.

Priam was no fool. He was wise, a seasoned king. Too wise to provoke Sparta’s wrath with such a grave insult—abducting its queen.

The king was old, yes. But not mad.

Dawn crept through the window, and the door creaked at last. And then, slowly, it opened.

Helen looked up swiftly, hope rising in her chest. But it wasn’t King Priam who stared back at her.

Instead, a boyish face with dark features appeared in the doorway. Paris, second son of Priam, crossed the threshold. His gaze was already fixed on her.

“Helen,” he greeted her, offering a swift bow of his head. “You are most welcome here.”

His voice was smooth, familiar. Too familiar. She had spoken to him only once before, a dry exchange of pleasantries at a banquet. Yet now, his words dripped with the warmth of long familiarity. A casual intimacy, unwarranted and uninvited .

Helen rose to her feet, gathering her composure like armor. “Why have I been brought here?” she asked, hating the slight waver in her voice.

A breath of silence lingered between them.

“The gods have willed it,” Paris replied solemnly. But a flicker of triumph lit his gaze, betraying him.

A bitter retort rose on her tongue—that the violent abduction she’d endured spoke of mortal hands, not divine will. But she swallowed it.

Paris stepped deeper into the chamber, his steps unhurried. The door settled shut behind him with a muted thud, quiet but final.

A cage door closing.

Alarm prickled against the back of her neck, primal and instinctive.

Careful , something whispered inside her.

Helen shifted subtly, easing one foot back, but she met his gaze with practiced calm. “My lord,” she said as gently as she could manage. “Surely you understand I cannot remain here. I must speak to King Priam and arrange passage to Sparta. There are many who will be searching for me.”

The words were soft, carefully designed to persuade, not provoke.

Paris smiled, slow and condescending, as he moved closer. “I think not,” he replied silkily. “You’ll find my chambers comfortable enough.”

A rush of cold dread shot through her, the walls shrinking as his meaning became horribly clear.

“ Your chambers?” she echoed, the words stumbling on the edge of fear.

His smile widened but it was too warm, too certain.

In that instant, clarity struck with brutal force. This wasn’t the will of kings or gods. It was the desire of one man.

Her instincts screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go. The chamber shrank, the air turning thick and hard to breathe. Instinctively, she knew what came next.

He struck swiftly, violently—a falcon grasping prey with talons.

His hands caught her wrists, his hard grip abrading the raw skin. Her feet left the ground, the bed rushing up to meet her, and the impact drove the air from her lungs. Then he was on her, crushing her to the mattress.

Ripping fabric reached her ears, but it was strangely muted, dimmed by numbness stealing over her body. His hands curled around her knees, roughly jerking her legs apart. There was a stab of pain. His body jerked against hers, his hips rutting between her thighs.

Her vision had gone dark, the world sliding out of focus. A dull roar rose in her ears, drowning out everything else. A strangled moan broke against her ear and Paris’s fingers bit against her hips, his frame curling over her like a funeral shroud as he finally became still.

After a lifetime, his body slipped away, its suffocating weight lifting from her. In a mockery of gentleness, he tugged her torn chiton down, smoothing it back into place.

Helen flinched as he tried to draw her close, her body wooden against his. Paris didn’t seem to care, his eyes roving her with unguarded male satisfaction. His lips moved, shaping words that dissolved into nothing.

A damp kiss brushed her mouth, then he released her and stood. From the bedchamber door, he offered parting words wrapped in a smile—hollow courtesies lost to her. The door shut with a thud that echoed through her, the bolt sliding back into place.

Helen lay still.

Around her, the chamber blurred into a smear of shifting shadows.

Then, uncontrollable trembling took the place of stillness, wracking her body.

Her teeth chattered so hard, it felt as if she were splintering apart.

Grasping a blanket from the bed, she pulled it around herself.

The linen was thin, but she clung to it anyway, wrapping it around her shoulders like fragile armor.

When the shaking finally subsided, aching stillness returned to her—a hollow, crushing quiet. Weariness seeped into her limbs, dulling the jagged edges of fear and grief. It overpowered her, dragging her into sleep’s oblivion.

For a while, the world—and all of its pain—ceased to exist.