Page 73 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Helen awoke to the violent lurch of the Spartan ship, tossed roughly by the wild sea. Dull pain throbbed at the back of her skull. Her fingers found the brittle crust of dried blood tangled in her hair. She winced.

Boots crashed down the narrow steps into the hull.

A moment later, Menelaus staggered into view, reeking of wine, his face bloated and ruddy with rage.

It was the first time she’d seen him without a battlefield stretched between them. No distance. No armor. Nothing but the horror and resignation churning in her clenched stomach.

He offered no greeting, though she’d expected none. Only fury.

“Did you spread your legs the moment he looked at you?” Menelaus snarled, voice thick with venom and drink. “Were you moaning for him like a bitch in heat while my men died by the thousands?”

He stumbled closer, spittle spraying from his lips.

“You think they’ll crown you with garlands when we return?” he hissed. “Call you queen again? Sparta will see you for what you are, a harlot in gold.”

His eyes were wild, his breath sour.

“You should’ve thrown yourself into the sea the moment he finished inside you. Spared me the disgrace of dragging a Trojan’s whore back to my bed.”

Helen said nothing.

After everything—the war, the pyres, the gods and blood—her voice was useless. It was no longer hers, forfeited long ago.

To the people of Sparta, she was guilty. To the women, she had sent their husbands and sons to their graves. To the men, she was a curse gilded in beauty.

To Menelaus, a living reminder of his humiliation. Her death was written in his bloodshot gaze.

The only one who might have stood between her and that fate now lay dead beneath Troy’s crumbling towers, felled by an arrow to the heel. With him, with the dead of Troy, Helen of Troy had also died.

What remained of her now was only a shadow.

Menelaus’s sneer deepened. “You want to be kept like a whore?” he spat. “Then I’ll let the men teach you how a common whore fares.”

He lunged forward. Thick hands seized her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin. With a savage wrench, he tore at her garment. The fabric split with a sharp rip, falling around her like leaves in a storm.

Left naked, Helen did not cry out. Did not recoil. Familiar numbness rose like a tide, veiling the sharp edges of fear.

But as Menelaus’s gaze settled on her bare flesh, lingering there—something shifted. The fury drained from his eyes. In its place, hunger rose. Possession.

A predator’s gaze, filled with the need to conquer again what had once been his. To defile. To reclaim. Until her body bore the mark of his ferocity as it had Paris.

Cold clarity settled like a shroud, and she knew—

Death would be kinder.

Abruptly, Menelaus turned away, barking to a servant, “Find her clothing. ”

But before he disappeared up the stairs, he stopped. One hand braced against the beam as he swayed with the ship’s motion. His voice dropped, low and slurred, thick with poison.

“You think you have ruined me? Shamed me?” His shoulders shook with each heavy breath. “I took the city. I burned Troy’s halls and temples. I bled to end the war you began with a quick fuck.”

He turned back to her one last time, eyes raking over her bare form.

“I am a king triumphant, crowned in victory. And you—” his voice curled, thick with contempt, “what are you now?”

He lurched up the stairs, leaving her alone in the dark.

Only when the silence returned did Helen whisper the truth hidden among the small, shattered remnants of her barely beating heart.

“Not yours.”

***

But the gods, for once, were merciful.

That night, Menelaus boarded a separate ship, detouring through Rhodes before returning to Sparta. Poseidon saw to the rest.

A storm rose from the sea, dragging his ship off course with violent waves. One of the many ships lost in the wake of Troy’s ruin.

A week later, Helen reached Sparta.

Menelaus’s absence did nothing to quell the storm that awaited her. The moment her feet touched Spartan soil, rage spilled forth in a torrent.

Guards strained to hold back the seething crowds, their spears crossing in a wall as Helen was forced toward the palace steps.

“Keep her moving,” one of the commanders barked, his hard gaze sweeping the mob.

Women screamed her name, grief-shattered voices raw with anguish for the husbands, fathers, and sons who lay buried in Troy.

“Whore of Troy!”

“Harlot! Where is my son?”

“Slit her throat and be done with it!”

It rose, building into a malevolent maelstrom—screamed curses, spit, stones. An amphora was lobbed. It shattered at Helen’s feet, wine spraying like blood.

The title of queen meant nothing here. She was just a woman, a symbol they hated. One they wanted dead.

But the men... they were worse.

Hordes of them gathered, eyes glinting cruelly. Lewd jeers pierced the air, obscene taunts that curdled her blood. Their voices tangled in a chorus of rage and lust. They grabbed at her hair, her chiton as the guards circled her, shoving the crowd back.

Shock shattered through her when one man locked eyes with her, stroking himself openly.

“You pleased Paris of Troy well enough. Why not me?” he leered, offering his manhood shamelessly to her gaze.

The crowd roared—part fury, part frenzy. But when several men began to scramble up the palace gates, the guards’ swords were unsheathed. Screams tore the air as bronze bit into flesh. Blood spattered the stones, thick and crimson, as the palace door slammed behind Helen.

She stumbled over the threshold of her bedchamber, the door crashing shut behind her. The bolt dropped into place with a final, punishing thud .

She stood there, alone.

Years gone, thousands dead. And she was a prisoner once more—locked within the same walls as before.

Her body folded, sinking to the cold floor. Her breath rose and fell, shallow and distant, as if it belonged to someone else. The chill of the stone seeped into her bones as she lay still—lifeless in all but name.

A corpse cursed with beauty. Beauty that had summoned armies, toppled kingdoms, and turned man against man. Beauty that would destroy until the day she was burned on a pyre. A day she would welcome.

A cold tear slid down her cheek, tracing the hollow curve of her face.

Then the stone beneath her trembled.

The air grew still, silent as the hush of morning. Another shiver rippled through the floor—low and deep, like the stirring of roots beneath the earth.

Without warning, the ground gave way.

Not with a scream, but with a sigh. The world fell inward in a breath of air and shadow, and Helen slipped from it. She felt herself falling, but gently, drifting downward like a petal loosed from its stem.

No terror gripped her. The dark that enfolded her was not cruel or harsh. It was soft and soothing, almost familiar. Like the warmth that follows weeping, the steadying hands of a friend. It wrapped around her, not to take but to carry.

In the dark, she crossed a threshold, one far beyond grief and fear. Beyond the world that had used and possessed her. Time lost its meaning, stretching threadbare. Whether a heartbeat or an eternity passed, she had no idea. Until—

Light.

It bloomed slowly, like night pierced by the first pale star. Cool stone met her feet, and she lifted her eyes.

She stood on the slope of a vast, rugged mountain, where a grove of laurels rooted quietly along the edge of the stone riverside.

An endless land of wild mountains and sweeping green valleys sprawled to the horizon.

Beside her, a thunderous river tore past, its current crashing against jagged rocks, mist rising in soft, spectral veils.

Above, the sky was dark and immense, as if carved from dark stone.

Helen followed the river’s path upstream, and panic bloomed coldly in her chest.

At the peak, a temple towered like a black jewel crowning the mountains. Bronze braziers burned with eternal fire. Rugged peaks framed the temple, the river spilling in raging falls, carving the mountainside in furious rapids.

Panic rose—but it did not crest. Because just then, she felt it.

A presence.

Across the river, beneath the silvered boughs of a laurel tree, a woman stood watching her.

Not a woman, Helen realized swiftly, cold shock rising. A goddess. The soft radiance of her ageless appearance proved as much.

Her chiton was the deep blue of twilight seas. Dark hair fell in loose waves over one shoulder, a wreath of delicate silver on her brow. Shadows laced around her ankles like mist, soft and shimmering, gathering reverently at her feet.

She was a being of impossible grace and quiet power. Not a queen of men, but something more ancient, enduring—a presence both sovereign and gentle. Even the grove leaned toward her, ever so slightly, as if the very earth recognized her, bowed to her.

For a moment, they regarded one another across the dark river. Not as strangers, not quite.

Then, the goddess raised her hand. A greeting. An acknowledgment.

Meant for her.

Helen’s fingers trembled as she slowly lifted her hand in answer.

Across the river, the goddess’s lips tilted into the faintest smile. Emerald eyes caught the light, sparkling, and in the warmth of her gaze, Helen believed—if only for a moment—that all might yet be well. Even as the goddess vanished, mist folding behind her like the last breath of dusk.

“Helen of Troy.”

A deep, commanding voice cleaved the river’s roar.

She startled, spinning swiftly.

The speaker stood at the riverbank, perilously close to the edge, mist rising around him.

Gone was the gleaming bronze, the armor that had once marked him a warrior of legend. Now, only a simple linen tunic clung to his form, belted at the waist.

Sharp, sea-green eyes stared into her, fierce as the blade that had carved his name into eternity. The same eyes that had found her through the smoke at Troy. Through the ruin and the fire, the night she’d never truly escaped .

Her body willed her to move, to speak or flee. But she stood still, held fast beneath the weight of his gaze.

Then her voice slipped from her lips, a whisper on the wind.

“My lord Achilles.”