Page 69 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

“We must burn it.”

Laocoon’s voice boomed through the hall.

The words fell heavily into silence.

The stillness was broken by Paris’s scornful hiss as he rose from his throne beside Priam’s. “Have you lost your wits?”

He threw a hand toward the window. Outside, the great horse towered just beyond the city walls.

“A symbol of Poseidon’s favor, and you would have us spit in his face?” he demanded.

Laocoon sat stiffly between his sons, jaw clenched. “The sea god fights for the Greeks,” he replied tersely. “He guided their ships to our shores. Poseidon hasn’t favored Troy since the days of King Laomedon.”

His words were met with wrath.

“You speak foolishness,” Paris snapped. “You are a priest of Apollo, but he has not destroyed our enemies.We must honor the other gods to secure their aid as well.”

“Paris, be silent.” King Priam’s voice rose over the hall, quietly commanding. His gnarled hands gripped the arms of his throne as he rose slowly. “Laocoon has long prophesied in Apollo’s name.” The old king’s weary eyes rested on the priest. “His counsel will be heard.”

With a brooding glare, Paris sank back into his seat.

Priam’s gaze shifted. “Chryses,” he said, addressing the man seated across from Laocoon. “You, too, have petitioned Apollo on Troy’s behalf—and the sun god has answered you before. What do you see in this?”

Chryses rose slowly, one hand trailing to his oiled beard in silent thought. He wore no gold, no ornaments, only the plain robes of a priest and the quiet certainty of a man whose prayers had once summoned a god’s wrath .

“The Greek camps lie empty,” he said thoughtfully. “Their ships are gone. A single, drunken straggler where an army once stood.”

The stillness deepened as Chryses paused.

“Let us accept this gift as an omen,” he said at last. “Poseidon’s gaze turns back to Troy in peace.”

The solemn pronouncement broke like a wave through the chamber. Murmurs swelled into a tide of approval.

Only Laocoon and his sons remained silent, their faces grave.

***

From the high window of Paris’s chambers, Helen watched the towering horse roll through the city gates. Drumbeats echoed through the streets, mingling with the roar of the crowd, a swelling current of hollow victory.

But icy tendrils of dread snaked down her spine, cold as death itself.

“It is false,” she said tightly, watching. “They would never abandon their cause—Agamemnon or Menelaus.”

Beside her, Andromache rocked her son, her fingers stroking his soft curls with absent, trembling tenderness. Her sleepless eyes followed Helen’s gaze to the celebration below.

“Then we must be ready to flee,” she said, her voice hollow.

Helen didn’t answer at once. A moment longer, her gaze lingered on the crowd, the revelry. Then she turned, reaching to grip Andromache’s hand. “You must escape,” she said, low and firm. “Save your son. Flee while you can.”

“And you?” Andromache asked, the words barely holding shape.

Helen shook her head slowly. “They will find me.”

It was not fear. Only certainty, as sure as the tide returning to shore. She had lived too long in Menelaus’s shadow to believe otherwise. The Greeks would come—soon.

Achilles had been the last fragile thread of hope. Not for salvation. She was long past such illusions. But for something infinitely more fragile.

Mercy.

She had witnessed the storm he became after Patroclus’s death—rage reborn, a god’s fury stitched into mortal flesh. But beneath the blood, the smoke, the splintered bone, she saw the anguish carved into him.

A wound too deep to close. One that had driven him nearly to madness, and then to vengeance. To Hector.

But when Hector collapsed beneath Achilles’s spear, there had been no triumph in it. No glory or honor. Only silence, a deeper kind of ruin. Another echo of agony reverberating across the plain.

In that moment, Achilles had lifted his head, his eyes finding hers. From where she stood, locked behind Troy’s walls, Helen had met his gaze across distance and death.

Two souls adrift in the wreckage. Strangers in fate, bound by sorrow. The recognition had been brief, but it was enough. Enough to break something open in her.

Enough to hope.

That a man so undone by love, by loss, might yet be moved to mercy. That vengeance might run dry. That he might turn away, taking Agamemnon’s beleaguered army with him, opening her cage door as he left. That fury might give way to something softer. Compassion. Restraint.

She had clung to that trembling hope like a woman drowning. Until the servant girl returned with his message.

It was brief, written in heavy strokes by a rough hand—

Stay where you are.

Four words, sharp and final as a blade.

She read them once. Then again. Willing them to change, to mean more. To offer something beyond the silent promise of ruin. But there was nothing. Only harsh command and the shadow of wrath to come.

The hope she’d nurtured, foolish and desperate, withered in her hands. No mercy would come. Only fire. She would burn with the rest of them, the lives that her presence had damned.

Now, in the city below, Paris led the procession. Pride blazed in his eyes, the arrogance of youth and false triumph—a boy playing at godhood. He looked up to the window, seeking her face.

Swiftly, Helen turned away.

The city roared in celebration, bells tolling to commemorate the Greeks’ retreat. Cheers rang through the streets, a chorus of relief. But she felt none of it.

The empty camp. The vanished ships. It was illusion, crafted of smoke and shadow. She knew Menelaus. She knew Agamemnon. They would die on Troy’s shores before abandoning their conquest.

As the moon climbed higher, the celebration waned. Families drifted home, laughter softening as they carried yawning children through quiet doorways.But from the lower halls of the palace, Paris and his men’s revelry raged on in a raucous, drunken feast ringing into the night .

When the city finally sank into stillness, she left Paris’s chambers. A dark cloak swirled around her shoulders, her hood drawn low over her face. Even the guards on the first level were gone, drawn into the celebration.

Outside, the streets lay deserted, the scents of smoke and wine lingering. She moved quietly toward the city square.

There it stood.

The horse loomed ahead of her. Massive wooden flanks arched skyward, a creation of brutal craftsmanship. It towered over Troy like a blasphemous idol, some monstrous falsehood posing as a token of divine favor.

Cautiously, she approached.

Her breath turned soft, shallow, as she passed beneath the towering legs. The sharp tang of fresh-hewn timber filled her senses.

Tilting her head back, she stared up, ears straining for any sound—the scrape of metal, the rustle of fabric, a single breath.

But there was nothing. No sound save her own breathing.

Like a serpent nesting beneath her ribs, dread coiled, cold and patient.

She cast one last glance at the towering figure—dark against the starlit sky—before turning toward the palace, her hands trembling beneath the folds of her cloak.

Deserted now, the streets lay quiet and still. The city slumbered, blind to the shadow creeping ever closer.

But Helen felt it, the crushing weight of certainty settling like stone across her shoulders.

The silence was the loudest warning of all.