Page 74 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Achilles stood still, watching her.

The silence cracked beneath the wild crash of water against stone.

At last, he spoke.

“I did think this moment would come sooner.” His voice was steady, but it carried a quiet edge, a dark undercurrent. “Perhaps when we were both in Troy.”

Flames rose in her mind: towers collapsing in fire, marble blackened by ash, screams spiraling into the night sky.

The night the city fell.

“You came to the palace,” Helen breathed. “That night.”

Achilles tilted his head slightly. “I told you I would.”

He folded his arms across his chest, a measured motion. The stern lines of his face shifted, almost imperceptibly. A flicker of regret passed through them, his mouth settling into a grim line.

“Though I was late. Odysseus’s creation surprised Trojans and Greeks alike.”

The wooden horse. The golden god behind Paris. The arrow.

Memories crushed in like the ocean closing over her head, dragging her deep. She was drowning in them.

Blood spraying. Bronze singing. His body falling—

Her knees buckled. With a harsh breath, she sank to the ground. One hand braced there, fingers splaying against the stone as the ragged whisper escaped her.

“I saw you d—”

The word broke against her lips.

Achilles didn’t move. He stood cloaked in silence, his gaze fastened to her. Something stirred behind his eyes, a quieter storm.

“So you did,” he said at last.

Helen’s gaze dropped. There, just above the leather strap of his sandal, she saw it—a pale scar, faint but unmistakable.

“The arrow,” she said, barely more than breath. “It struck your heel.”

A rueful smile tipped his lips, though his eyes were shadowed. “Paris’s arrow,” he said. “Guided by Apollo.”

The name lashed her, sharp and brutal.

Helen flinched.

Paris was dead, swallowed by Troy’s ruin. But his name still tore through her like a jagged blade, stirring pain so deep it stripped the breath from her lungs.

Her fingers flexed against the stone. Her breath trembled as she fought for air.

Achilles’s chin lifted, eyes sharpening watchfully on her. Beneath bronzed skin, his muscles tensed until he became terrifying in his stillness. A statue carved from memory and wrath.

Helen’s throat burned. Her mouth was dry as dust. “They said… you were immortal,” she finally managed.

“Immortality belongs to the gods alone.” His voice was like flint striking iron. Storm-filled eyes swept her face, still seeing too much. “My protection was something else. A gift from a goddess.” He paused, studying her. “Though different from yours.”

She looked away, unable to bear the weight of his gaze. Beside them, the river ripped around the rocks, wild and uncaring.

“Why do you stand on the riverbank?” she asked.

“I await you.”

Her pulse stumbled. Fear surged in her veins, cold and familiar, fathomless as the sea. Still, she summoned what courage she had left and slowly lifted her eyes.

His face revealed nothing. A mask of calm, though it veiled something deeper. Then he moved.

The distance between them dissolved like mist. Each footfall was purposeful, each stride echoing heavily with the memory of who he had been. The war he had waged, the ruin trailing in his wake. All the power he’d once loosed on the battlefield was now fixed on her.

Helen did not rise .

Her life had ended long ago, consumed by pain, eclipsed by war. What did it matter now if he delivered the final blow? Or perhaps—

Her breath caught.

This was the Underworld—of that, she was certain. So perhaps death had already claimed her.

Before the thought could settle, Achilles came to a halt before her. Slowly, she tipped her head back to look up at him.

He was taller than memory allowed. Broader. And his beauty, far from fading, had only sharpened, refined by death itself. The proud curve of his mouth. The hard line of his jaw. The restrained ferocity in his gaze. Fierce features that might have belonged to a god but shared the torment of a man.

Finally, she found her tongue.

“Are you here to kill me?” she whispered, unable to steady the tremor in her voice.

He regarded her in silence. The pause lingered until it frayed her composure. But then the iron in his eyes softened, if only slightly.

“You are in the Underworld,” he said, voice deep, almost gentle. “What do life and death mean here? In the world above, I killed many. They say you did the same.” That piercing gaze grew quieter still, searching her face. “Now, we dwell among them.”

Her fingers curled tightly in the fabric of her chiton. A fragile tether. “I will not return above?” she asked.

“No.”

The word fell like a closing gate, echoing with finality.

“Your suffering in the world of men is over,” he continued. “Even now, they destroy themselves in your name. To save Sparta, you were brought here.”

It struck deep, cracking something brittle inside her. Her breath trembled. Before she could stop herself, the guessed truth slipped free—quiet, raw.

“To be with you.”

A beat of silence passed between them. Then—

“Yes.”

For a moment, there was only the hammer of her heart.

Achilles looked past her to the river carving its endless path through the Underworld. “When I first crossed into this realm,” he said quietly, “he was waiting.”

There was no need to ask who .

“We walked the fields together, just as we were. No war, no blood between us. We spoke of all we had endured. All we had loved and lost. Of the men we had become... and the peace we had found.”

His gaze returned to her.

“He asked me what I would do, now that peace was mine. I told him the truth—that I would wait for the soul who had once reached for me across Troy’s ruin. Who tried, even then, to spare others, to keep innocent blood from spilling.”

A pause.

“That I would not turn away from her suffering.”

His voice came lower, steadier. “In life, I loved him as fiercely as the world allowed. But love is not a chain. It does not bind, it frees.” A breath passed. “He freed me. So that I might come to you.”

Helen’s eyes burned. Her throat cinched too tightly to speak.

Then Achilles extended his hand. A warrior’s hand—hard and calloused, made for the grip of a blade, for tearing men from life into death. But in the quiet between them, it became something else entirely.

Not a weapon. An offering.

“Once you reached for me,” he said quietly. “Once, you sought my help. I was blind for too long—lost in pride, drowned in wrath. My hand came too late.”

He paused, and the silence brimmed with something unsaid.

“I would not fail you again.”

Fear and sorrow twisted inside her like a knot she wasn’t sure would ever untangle. But his hand remained between them, open and unshaken.

Once, their hands had touched through blood and fire, the world collapsing around them. Now, her trembling fingers lifted—and found his.

Achilles’s hand closed around hers, warm and strong. With deliberate ease, he drew her to her feet.

The world dissolved at once, fading like fog beneath rain. The roar of the river vanished. The scent of earth and stone faded, replaced by warmth and sweetness—salt air, sun-drenched pine, and the distant hush of waves.

When Helen blinked, they stood on a shore bathed in golden light.

White sand warmly cradled her bare feet, framed by turquoise shallows glimmering with coral and scattered shells.

A breeze stirred her hair, carrying the scent of rain-soaked earth.

Beyond the beach, a forest rose—poplars and alders swaying beneath cliffs of white stone.

Above, the same sky of dark stone stretched, vast and endless. Only now, she noticed that the expanse was studded with gemstone stars, burning brighter than fire, more precious than gold. The heavens here had been carved, not born.

“Come.”

Achilles’s voice was quiet, certain. His hand still held hers—firm, not forceful, its strength steadying.

He guided her from the beach, following a narrow footpath winding through the forest’s cool hush. Leaves whispered overhead, the breeze threading through branches, fragrant with sea and rain.

At the base of the cliffs, the path ended.

There, Achilles paused. With a gentle tug, he drew her forward, stepping aside so she passed ahead of him. His silent presence remained like a promise at her back.

Behind them, the aquamarine sea sparkled through the trees, hushed now.

Ahead, nestled in the cliffside, an arched entryway stood. Its mouth was veiled with white linen, billowing softly in the wind.

The fabric brushed against her bare arms as she stepped through.

Inside, her breath caught.

The chamber glowed with firelight. Smooth stone walls curved inward, laced with veins of cerulean and emerald, gemstones threaded through the rock like rivers of light. Beneath her feet, the stone was cool, polished, seamless.

At the center, a hearth burned with low flame.

It gave off no smoke, only the scent of cedarwood and spice.

Around the fire, cushions and blankets were gathered in soft folds.

A low table nearby held bowls of ripe figs and grapes, silver platters of meats and cheese, and a crystalline pitcher of wine that gleamed with hues she could not name.

Tucked into an alcove carved from the far wall, a bed lay draped with furs and linen. Simple, but generous. A merciful promise of comfort, of rest.

Helen stepped forward into the quiet dwelling, awe rising in her chest. “What is this place?” she asked in wonder.

Achilles stood at the threshold, watching. His presence filled the doorway without effort, solid and still as stone. “A sanctuary,” he said. “A home shaped by our host.”

Helen turned, her brow furrowed. “Our host?”

“The Lord of the Underworld,” he answered evenly. “Hades. And his queen, Persephone. ”

The woman at the river.

Her gasp was soft, but it seemed to echo through the chamber as her gaze swept it again. The firelight, the touches of comfort. The quiet promise of refuge.

A lump returned to her throat. “I cannot imagine I am deserving of this,” she whispered.

The fire crackled softly, the only sound.

It was a long time before Achilles spoke again from behind her, his voice like iron beneath velvet. “You are among the blessed of the Underworld. Recompense for all you suffered in life.”

She turned to face him once more, and her pulse faltered beneath the intensity of his gaze, unrelenting but not unkind.

Her breath hitched. Understanding struck, hard and sudden, lodging in her chest. It sent her gaze skittering away from him. With nowhere to land, her focus fell to the floor.

“I am to remain here... with you,” she murmured.

“Yes.”

A sharp, breathless ache pressed against her ribs.

It spilled through her, curling high in her throat.

Her breath was trapped inside, tangled and tight.

Too much, too fast. And yet some silent part of her, long buried under grief and ruin, reached for it.

For him. Just as he had reached for her in Troy.

Achilles stepped forward, not swiftly or carelessly. He moved toward her like a tide drawing near, unshakable in its course. He stopped close enough that she could feel him—the warmth of him, the weight of his presence. But he made no move to touch her.

He waited.

And in that silence, taut with all that had passed between them, she lifted her eyes.

His were already waiting. Sea-green. Fathomless. They held her with a fire that neither demanded nor consumed. It was a steadier, enduring flame, a vow burning silently. A promise not to conquer or destroy, but to cast light into the darkness where she had been lost for too long.

“There is nothing to fear.” His deep voice wrapped around her like a mantle, smooth against the raw edges of her soul. “You belong to none but yourself. You are safe here. Here, you are home.”

The words sank into her, into the raw, battered places that no longer knew the shape of truth.

She had heard countless promises uttered from sharp smiles with hidden intentions. Words that promised safety, even as they cut deeper. Time and again, life had taught her to trust nothing but the ache of survival.

But this was not life. And he—he was not Paris or Menelaus. Not Theseus or Tyndareus, or even the gods.

She could feel the difference of him singing in the marrow of her bones. His words were unhidden, bare. Holding only raw, unvarnished truth.

Like lightning cleaving a darkened sky, the full weight of everything she had borne crashed down all at once. The weight of the years, the blood, the guilt and grief.

Crushing in its enormity, too heavy for her to bear.

But not for him.

Before thought could intervene, she moved. A step. Then another, drawn by a force greater than fear. Her head bowed as she came to him, leaning forward until her brow touched the center of his chest, the place where his heart beat steadily.

Achilles did not move, standing still as though he had been carved for this moment. Waiting. Enduring. As if even breath might startle her into flight. But she did not pull away. She remained there, breathing in the scent of the river and sun-warmed skin.

Only then did he move.

His arms closed around her—not hastily, but with a strength that spoke of certainty. One hand rose to cradle the back of her neck. The other slid firmly around her waist. A stronghold that did not capture, but sheltered.

The rhythm of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest against her, gradually quieted the tremor inside her. She could feel nothing but the firmness of him, the embrace that held her together when she might otherwise have splintered apart.

“No harm will touch you here.” His oath was low, rough and solemn.

It swelled through her, igniting a flicker of warmth in a place long crusted over with frost. Her breath escaped in a slow exhale, tension bleeding from her shoulders. Her head turned, her cheek finding a place over the steady drum of his heart.

Here—in the place carved out for her, shaped by a gentler will. A quiet haven crafted by a being of grace and soft, glimmering darkness. A foothold where there had been none.

“Rest now,” Achilles murmured, his breath brushing warm against her brow.

And at last, she did.