Page 71 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

The gates were open. The Greeks were here.

Helen shot to her feet as the bell tolled, a mournful knell that sent her heart pounding wildly. She forced herself to breathe, to smother the panic clawing at her throat.

Fear was useless now.

At the threshold of Paris’s chambers, she hesitated, listening.

No footsteps. No clash of swords. No soldiers shouting—yet.

She moved swiftly through the corridor, her feet silent against the stone. She peered into each chamber she passed.

Empty.

The servants had fled, abandoning the palace to its inevitable fate. Andromache and her infant son were gone too, and Helen breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

There was no sign of Paris or Priam.They were likely below, already consumed in the chaos.

The air felt thick, unnaturally still, as if the palace braced for the coming blow.

Helen reached the landing above the gardens, and stepped out—

The world shattered.

A discordant roar surged around her, screams and clashing metal. In the distance, flames engulfed the city gates, clawing into the sky. The glow bled across the night, a grim beacon of Troy’s ruin.

Below the landing, the gardens were a battlefield. Soldiers clashed in a frenzied melee, blades flashing, bodies crumpling.

Then—eyes turned, finding her. Recognition flared.

Two Greeks broke from the chaos, sprinting for the stairs that led to her. Helen spun away, but she barely made it a step before a hand latched around her ankle.

A vicious yank brought her down hard against the steps. Stone met her shoulder in a bone-rattling crash. Pain thundered through her, but she barely registered it as her assailant lunged.

She kicked wildly, and her heel struck hard.

A sickening crunch .

The soldier’s head snapped back. A choked scream tore from his throat as blood gushed from his shattered nose, spattering against the steps. He reeled, limbs flailing, then tumbled backward.

Bones snapped like dry branches as his body crashed down the stairs.

Helen scrambled upright, palms slipping against blood-slick stone. Then, another rough hand seized her arm, wrenching her backward.

“I have her!” The voice was a guttural snarl, thick with triumph.

An arm locked around her waist, crushing her hard against a breastplate. The stench of sweat, iron, and death filled her nostrils, suffocating.

But then the man behind her jerked violently. His grip slackened. A breath later, he crumpled forward, dragging her down with him.

Helen tore free of his grasp, falling against the steps. Her hands sank into something warm, thick and wet.

Blood.

It burbled in wet, pulsing gushes from a gaping wound in the man’s throat as he lay beside her, a dagger buried deep. A pool bloomed across the stone, its warmth seeping into her skin.

More shouts erupted. More footsteps charged for the stairs.

But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear her gaze from the sight before her.

Her hands—slick, trembling—were bathed in crimson. Blood painted her fingers, clung to her arms, soaked the fabric at her knees. It was everywhere. And still it came, pouring in throbbing beats from the man’s torn neck.

Move.

Her mind screamed, but her body refused. She was stone, rooted to the bloodied steps. Panic surged, wild and useless, as thunderous footsteps closed in.

A flash of bronze.

A sword sang through the air, fast and bright as lightning.

The soldier reaching for her staggered, eyes bulging as red spray filled the air. His body buckled. The second had barely raised his blade before another strike fell, clean and merciless. His cry died in his throat, severed mid-breath.

A boot lashed out. Both bodies tumbled down the steps, limbs twisting, blood smearing the stone.

Helen flinched at the crash. Slowly, with terror rising in her throat, she lifted her gaze from her bloodied hands to the figure before her. Breath caught harshly in her chest.

Just steps away, half-veiled in shadow and the curling steam from spilled blood, Achilles knelt. Blood dripped from his sword in steady rivulets, thick and dark. His chest rose and fell with eerie calm, breath fogging the chill night air.

He lifted his head. Fierce, sea-green eyes met hers.

Stay where you are.

The words slammed into her again, cleaving through the chaos like a divine command. She had thought them a warning. A threat from a man shaped by violence, devoid of mercy.

Now, she realized—they had been an instruction. A promise.

Her lips parted, but no words emerged. There were none. Only the roar of her heartbeat, and the impossible presence of him here—real, alive, burning at the edges of her world.

As his gaze held hers, something flared in the space between them. A tether suddenly sparking to life. Bright, wordless, as undeniable as it was inseverable. It held for a breathless instant, time folding in on itself.

Amid the violence of the garden, another throng of soldiers surged forward, and Achilles’s gaze broke away from her. It hardened like iron drawn across flame, lethal.

He rose, turning from her. The sword in his hand flashed, bright and brutal. A blur of death.

Blood arced. Bodies fell like wheat to the scythe. He moved without hesitation, meeting each soldier on the stairs with the same swift, unerring strikes. A warrior sculpted for slaughter, cutting down men as if he’d been born for nothing else.

A sudden flicker of movement drew Helen’s attention, her eyes snapping upward.

On the balcony, outlined against the fire-lit sky—

Paris.

The blue robe of Trojan royalty billowed around him. Rage twisted his features, his dark eyes bright with hatred. His fingers curled around his bow, an arrow sliding onto the string.

He raised it, drawing back.

Then, behind him... the air shimmered.

A ripple of gold lit the sky just above Paris’s shoulder. An ethereal figure took shape, radiant and terrible. The god’s eyes gleamed with cold intent as he reached out, brushing a finger along the arrow’s fletching.

“Strike.”

The command reverberated through the air, otherworldly, absolute.

Time slowed to a crawl as the bowstring thrummed.

Helen’s scream clawed its way from her throat.

“No!”

Like an arc of golden sun, the arrow bent and flexed, glinting in the torchlight as it flew across the distance.

It struck.

The point buried deep into the heel of Achilles’s right foot as he felled another soldier with a powerful blow.

For half a heartbeat, relief surged through her. A small wound, nonlethal.

But then Achilles’s body locked rigidly, muscles seizing in sudden, brutal agony. The sword slipped from his grasp, clattering against the crimson stone.

His form folded, collapsing to his knees.

Horror sliced through her as his eyes found her again. They were distant now, dimmed. The gaze of one already fading, already reaching for the edge of the world.

And she knew.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, a thin line that dripped onto his bronze breastplate. Another crimson thread slid from his nostril, trailing down his chin.

Still, he looked at her with those fierce, unreadable eyes.

For a moment, it was only them.

Chaos receded. The fire. The screams. All faded into the backdrop of that gaze—until suddenly, impossibly, he reached out. His hand rose, trembling and bloodied, fingers stretching toward her.

Helen moved without thought. She surged forward, her own hand outstretched—

Hands clamped down on her shoulders, hauling her roughly backward. But not before her fingers touched his .

The slightest brush of skin.

Then she was wrenched away, ripped from the moment, from him.

Crushed between armored bodies, she was dragged through the garden as bronze clashed and men screamed. She twisted in their grip, fighting against the tide of movement, her eyes locked on the stairs.

There, Achilles lay still. His form was crumpled at the foot of the stairs like a broken god.

On the balcony above, Paris staggered. Two arrows jutted from his chest, the fletchings still quivering. Surprise etched his boyish face as he toppled.

Above him, the golden figure streaked away into the smoke-stained sky, away from the brutal chaos gripping Troy.

Flames devoured rooftops, casting the city in a hellish light. Screams rose with the smoke, an unholy symphony of destruction. The great city crumbled beneath the tide of Greek fury as it roared through the streets, laying waste. Every home. Every temple. Every life.

A sharp blow struck Helen’s temple, and light shattered, the pain blinding—

Then the world winked out, succumbing to darkness.