With almost childish glee, Helen instructs me to follow as she explores the lush gold and green city. Each day, we follow the twisty Eurotas, delve deep into the Taygetus forest, and pull our cloaks tight as we explore shadowed alleyways and the crowded agora.
No doubt we drive the other guards mad, but Helen delights in this game. Eluding any claim to her that Menelaus has. They are his guards, after all, she tells me one day. And myself? The Shield of Helen was her idea, brought to her in a dream. No doubt the same dream Aphrodite referred to only weeks before.
Menelaus orders even her own child, the toddler Hermione, to be taken from her day in and day out. The pain in Helen’s eyes is tangible. And each day, my distaste for the man—this foreign king who causes my queen so much pain—festers and grows.
Too much trouble, though, and our reins are yanked back.
“Please,” Helen says. “We only ask to go to the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia to pray for our men.”
The queen kneels at her husband’s feet. The sight makes my skin crawl. Her tone is lovely, like a lyre’s final ring, and her head rests across Menelaus’s knee. Her mahogany curls spread across his lap.
I stand at the megaron’s entrance with my hands behind my back. His guards, wearing cloaks of both Spartan red and Mycenaean gray, flank me. Another two of them stand on either side of the king’s throne. Watching me.
He rubs his fingers through her strands of hair, his face pinched in thought. “The way you flaunt your blatant disregard for my rules hurts me, my dove.”
His hand tightens, pulling her head back and baring her neck. Her eyes twitch, the only sign of the pain he must be causing her.
I itch to withdraw my dagger and slice the hand from his arm. The gazes of his guards are a heavy weight. I bite down on my tongue.
The queen draws a star on his thigh with a narrow finger. “Please, my darling.”
“Why would you want to go anywhere when I offer you all you could ever desire right here?” He angles her head up so she’s looking in his eyes. “You have everything you could ever want right here.”
“I wish to talk to Artemis.” Her eyes are imploring.
“Who are you going to meet there?”
“Nobody.” She grimaces as his hand tightens on her hair. “I only wish to ask for her favor during the conclave.”
“A likely excuse. You’ve grown rather skilled at lying since Ephor Diodorus’s daughter joined your guard.”
I shift, tension gathering in my shoulders.
Menelaus’s other hand cups her chin, thumb grazing over Helen’s lips. “Do not cross me again, my dove.”
With a jerk, he releases her. She falls backward, catching herself before tumbling down the dais’s steps.
Eyes stormy with unsaid rage, she inclines her head. “Thank you.”
I let her lead me from the megaron, and not a moment too soon. Any longer watching him jerk her around, and my dagger might have ended up in the base of his spine.
Helen is silent as we ride through the city. She fiddles with the reins. Her voice firm, she says, “Careful how you look at my husband, Daphne.”
My head snaps toward her.
She adds, “Your dislike of the man is too obvious.”
I can’t deny it, though I should. “Am I so easy to read?”
“Call it intuition.” Helen doesn’t meet my gaze and kicks the sides of her horse, spurring the mare onward. “If he notices, too, not even I can protect you.”
The road to the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia is winding and high, on an acropolis above the Eurotas’s reach when it floods every spring. We’re flanked by four of Menelaus’s guards, who watch us both wearily. If we elude them again, it will be their backs whipped at dawn.
Helen dismounts and strides inside without a backward glance at Menelaus’s guards. The men aren’t allowed inside. The priestesses of Artemis Orthia say that if a man steps across that threshold, they will be struck down by divine arrows. No man has been brave enough to challenge that claim. After witnessing the coldness of the goddess of the hunt as she turned my brother into a deer last summer, I don’t doubt the claim, either.
The temple is dark inside, a stark contrast to the bright, elegant simplicity of Demeter’s in Eleusis. The walls and columns are made from carved wood, great trees atop stone pedestals with varying likenesses of the goddess of the hunt carved into them. The walls are painted with black deer and nymphs. Helen’s face is upturned to the staggeringly high ceiling, painted a dark green. “I once considered priesthood.” Her voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear her.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I had a dream, of a lovely child with brown hair and gray eyes the same as mine.” Tears form in the corners of her eyes. “I dreamed of Hermione. Besides, it would have simply been trading one life of servitude for another.”
I struggle to find the words at first, but then I admit, “I considered it once, too.”
Twin priestesses hand us daggers for offerings; as one, Helen and I slice our palms and let the blood drip into the clay bowl at the base of the statue in the center, a stunning likeness of Artemis carved from a single, great tree. The statue points to an arrow, her face pulled into a frown of consternation and a diadem atop her brow.
We’re given red bandages to wrap our hands and I allow Helen space as she kneels before the statue. Helen whispers to the goddess’s wooden feet, and I turn about the small space. Priestesses in red sweep past to make sure the guards do not even peek inside. They sing a song of hunting and the forest, loud enough to drown out Helen’s prayer.
A wave of warm power creeps over my skin. It presses against my core.
Under my breath so that Helen and the priestesses do not hear, I say, “I thought this was your sister’s temple?”
“She’s here, too.” Apollo wears the red cloak and kalyptra of the priestesses, but his presence is unmistakable. “Besides, she can share.”
He does not lie. Artemis’s power emanates from the statue. When I peer closely at her face, it winks.
“Helen will hear what you say to me.”
Glittering light trickles down from the ceiling, dotting Helen’s brow and landing on my outstretched hands. “No, she won’t.”
“Good to see I returned your powers just so you could use them so flippantly.” I reach for a sprig of laurel and rub the leaves between my thumb and forefinger. “Why are you here?”
“The kings will be arriving soon.” Apollo watches Helen. “She needs protecting.”
I let the leaf go as if burnt. “I already plan on doing that.”
A light begins to glow from the corner of my eyes.
Apollo holds out the same golden vambraces he offered before the final challenge. “These will help.”
I should have taken them before the agon. I nearly lost because of my fear.
I will not be afraid this time. And yet…
“I don’t need them.”
The vambraces disappear. “I can help.”
I refrain from grinding my teeth. “I don’t want your help.”
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“I don’t know, Apollo. Why are you so secretive?”
“With good reason, Daphne. I’ve told you this countless times.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. “I still don’t entirely trust you.”
Not just here and now, but at all times. Even after we’ve saved each other’s lives multiple times.
Apollo’s arms drop to his sides. “I will not hurt you, Daphne.”
“Your past says otherwise.”
“Last summer, I thought your distrust misplaced.” Apollo brushes his knuckles across my cheek and my breath catches. “Then I heard of the circumstances around your birth, and of Ligeia’s stories. You were born to hate the gods.”
I clench my teeth, willing my heart to slow its stampeding as he continues, “And then you learned of Koronis, my greatest regret.” He looks up, eyes meeting mine. “You didn’t even ask my side of the story.”
My stomach twists. Maybe that is why he won’t look at me sometimes. Why he’s so cold one moment and then cannot keep his hands from me the next.
Perhaps my heart wasn’t the one broken, but instead it was his.
My voice is gruff. “There are no good reasons for keeping secrets from the people you profess to have feelings for.”
Breathing hard, we stare each other down for a few moments, silently willing each other to break, to submit. But both of us are as unbendable as columns of marble.
A horn at the city gates makes us both look up. The number of notes makes my stomach twist.
Helen leaps to her feet. Her face drains of color. In a blink, Apollo’s gone.
“He’s here already,” she says and turns to me.
Agamemnon.
I begin walking toward the entrance, but her hand snaps out to latch on to my wrist.
“One last game?” Her voice is pleading. “Let’s leave the guards behind.”
They would never deny their queen. The priestesses give us a pair of red cloaks and veils. We leave our horses and walk down the backside of the acropolis, making for the Eurotas. Apollo’s touch still lingers on my cheek.
When we reach the river below and the cover of the shrubs and trees that grow high there, blocking the guards above from our sight, we share a grin.
“Menelaus is going to lose his mind,” Helen says with a breathless laugh.
“Perhaps he’ll finally learn that, as the queen of Sparta, you answer to no one.” I untie my sandals.
She gives me a curious, unreadable look before kicking off her own shoes to start wading across the river. Anglers along the banks stare as we pass, making us both giggle even harder. Their faces would be less incredulous and more horrified if they knew our true identities.
“I’m sure he’ll forget all about us with his brother arriving,” Helen says, as if assuring herself.
The water reaches our waists. I steady her with a hand and we climb out onto the opposite bank in silence. We head for a serpentine trail up the hill behind the palace, our heavy breathing suffocated by our tumultuous thoughts. Before we can pass beneath the arched back entrance of the palace, Helen again grabs my wrist.
She pulls me close, whispering, “I told you before to watch your face. Be even more careful around Menelaus’s brother. Agamemnon’s temper is worse than my husband’s.”
I only have time to nod before she tugs me into the palace. She tears the clasps at her shoulders as she walks, letting the priestess’s clothes fall. Her lithe body, naked for all to see, cuts a quick figure to her rooms.
“Korinna,” Helen yells, striding to her royal suite. “Bring me a green silk gown and the ochre.”
“Why that color?” I ask, handing her the gold bangle she loves to wear each time she sits before an audience. It is two intertwined snakes with emerald eyes.
She takes it and brusquely shoves it up to her bicep. “Agamemnon hates green.”
A laugh escapes me, but I keep a careful eye on the servants spinning around Helen, wrapping the dark chiton around her frame. A golden meander decorates the hem. They clasp it atop a single tan shoulder with an emerald larger than my fist, and weave a fishtail bread with the diadem atop her brow, baring her long, elegant neck.
“Are you ready?” A wicked smile pulls at her lips, the one I’ve come to recognize as the kind that leads to trouble.
I follow her to the megaron and take the space she indicated only weeks before as she sits upon the throne. She crosses her legs, eyes dark. I stand akimbo behind her, hands always within reach of my weapons. A frowning Menelaus enters next and takes the seat beside Helen. He spares her and me nothing more than a cursory glance, his attention focused on the arched entrance to the megaron.
My heart thunders in my chest. Not for fear of my queen’s life, but of the man soon to make an appearance.
Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. He is said to be terrible to behold, and even worse to battle. His temper unruly and his lineage cursed just as Menelaus’s is.
The Brothers Atreus, they call them. Bound forever in blackened blood by the actions of their father, Atreus, who murdered his own brother’s sons and served them up to him in a stew.
Or so the stories say. I glance at Menelaus. Stern, heavy-lidded with dark brows and even darker hair. I cannot help but wonder how this cool, calculating man will compare to the raging fire of his brother, and how much of what they are is shaped by the curse hanging over their heads.
The guards at the entrance straighten, heralding the Mycenaean king’s arrival. Tension begins to knot my shoulders.
Agamemnon strides across the amber tiles, a red cloak streaming behind him. His soldiers, a dozen of them, follow in quick succession bearing swords and shields painted with maroon rampant lions. His wide mouth is split by a broad smile, displaying crooked yellow teeth.
I blink, mouth popping open. The man from Nyx’s dream. With a blade in his chest.
Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, flashes the room a charming smile. Too charming. Like the look of innocence a beggar child gives you while his friends rob your purse. My blood curdles.
“Brother!” he bellows, holding his arms aloft. “Where is the wine?”
Servants hurry over with trays laden with cups. Agamemnon takes one in each hand and downs them in quick succession, then grimaces.
“I forgot how foul the wine is here,” he says under his breath, just loud enough that we can hear him from the dais. He pounds his chest. “Not quite the warm reception I expected, Menelaus. Where are the dancing women? Why is there no boar already roasting on a spit? Is this how you would treat your favorite brother?”
His only brother, actually.
Menelaus stands, hand flexing and unflexing behind his back. “We did not expect you for another week.”
Foolish to admit the failings of our city. Menelaus should let Helen speak. She would never have made such a slight.
“Then your spies are failing you, dear brother,” Agamemnon says, eyes gleaming.
An insult to Sparta and our army. Words will be had tonight with the scouts along Sparta’s roads. Lives will no doubt be taken as a warning. I swallow, throat dry. Hopefully Alkaios isn’t among them.
“Come now,” Helen says, standing and walking toward her brother-in-law. She peeks around him to the entrance. “Have you brought my sister and niece with you?”
When Agamemnon shakes his head, disappointment floods her features. “No. Clytemnestra stayed home like a good wife and sees to Mycenae in my stead. Besides, these talks will bore her to an early grave.”
“Oh?” Helen raises an eyebrow.
“Yes, yes.” Agamemnon waves an irritated hand to the nearest servant, who rushes over with more wine. “Nothing but discussing trade.”
“So many Achaean kings here for mere trade talks?” Helen asks pointedly.
The elder Mycenaean stills, cup of wine raised to his lips. His eyes narrow. “You’re rather nosy, sister.”
I take a step forward despite myself, face carefully blank, watching his free hand and the guards around him.
“Of course I’m curious,” Helen says with a dismissive wave. “You and your brother are bringing a whole army of kings to my doorstep. Any reasonable person would ask why.”
“As a woman,” he says, sneering, “even as Anassa of Sparta, it is not your place to be curious. Your place is in the bedchamber, and the bedchamber alone.”
The shift in the air is palpable. As if the sun in the air above us has turned its direct focus on this Spartan palace. If I could cut out his tongue without losing my head, I would. Cut his head from his shoulders for disrespecting Helen.
Sweat slicks the back of my neck. A dull roar builds between my ears. My rage is matched by the Spartan guards around us. They glare at this foreign king, this suagroi who dares to insult our queen.
The storm inside me is quickly extinguished by Menelaus stepping between his wife and brother. He grabs Agamemnon by the shoulder.
“Must you two always bicker like children?” He indicates a side entrance as he says, “Shall we discuss our other guests in private?”
Grinning salaciously at Helen, Agamemnon lets his brother lead him from the megaron. Spartan and Mycenaean guards follow. Helen watches their retreating backs with curled fists. Before I can say anything, she spins, marching from the room with a straight spine. I can do nothing but follow.
Helen’s room echoes with the childish giggles of her daughter.
Hermione dances on her toes, waving a doll in each hand as she spins and twirls. Helen claps, grinning broadly. It is the first time I’ve seen her smile since Agamemnon arrived this morning.
The smile vanishes when her daughter asks, “How long is Uncle visiting for?”
Helen stands, picking at her white gown. “Not too long, dearest.”
Looking over at the queen and her daughter, doubt sweeps over me. Perhaps I should have accepted Apollo’s help. When all the kings of Greece come for Helen, I don’t know if I’ll be enough to protect them. Especially not when I’m weighed down by fear. I resist wrapping my arms around myself.
My thumb catches on the bandage tied around my hand. It’s still wet from the Eurotas. I peel back the cloth and my mouth pops open.
My palm is completely healed. My breath catches. That’s impossible. I remember clearly the sharp sting of the priestess’s blade.
“Why couldn’t Uncle bring Cousin Iphigenia with him?” Hermione’s voice is the sharp whine of a princess used to getting whatever she wants.
“Because there will be too many people here for her and your aunt,” Helen says, the words wooden. “Perhaps after the conclave your father will let us go visit them in Mycenae.”
The princess’s eyes—so similar to her mother’s—light up. She clasps her tiny hands in front of her face. “Really? Daddy says I’m never going to leave Sparta.”
Helen’s smile is pained. “You are a princess, my darling.” She tenderly brushes Hermione’s hair from her rosy cheeks. “You can do whatever you want.”
The hunger, the longing in Helen’s gaze as she turns to the garden and wall beyond says otherwise.
The Queen’s smile is falsely bright. “What about you, Daphne? Did Ephor Diodorus ever take you anywhere?”
“My father hasn’t left Sparta in more than forty years.” I toss a handful of flowers at the princess’s feet. “But that doesn’t mean I had to stay here. I’ve been to Crete and Eleusis, Thebes and Foloi Forest.”
Hermione gasps. “Will you take me to those places, Mana Mou?”
Helen kneels and catches her daughter with a sharp laugh, burying kisses in the child’s wild, brown hair. “I’ll take you anywhere you want, my darling.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
Menelaus marches into the room. He’s flanked by his guards, the very ones we left at the Sanctuary, and his face is cold and detached. Dread floods my limbs, numbing my fingers.
“What does he mean?” Hermione’s voice takes on a piteous whine. “Will we not go on an adventure?”
“Not tonight, pet.” Menelaus waves to Helen’s handmaid. “Take her to her room.”
The princess begins to cry. Korinna scoops up Hermione and carries her from the room. Her wails fill the halls. Their hollow sadness wrenches my heart. The way Helen’s face twists with pain lets me know that her own heart cracks.
“You didn’t have to hurt her feelings like that.” Her voice is rough and bristling with unspent anger. Her hands clench atop her thighs.
“What a pretty little fool you are,” Menelaus says, walking slowly about the room.
I fight to keep my tongue under control. He pulls the curtains that separate the room from the garden beyond, drawing them closed. The moon and stars disappear. The remaining handmaids light the oil lamps in every corner.
When they finish, he turns to them. “Leave us.”
I move to follow, normally dismissed at the same time, but a pair of guards block my path. Their faces are cold and emotionless.
“No. You stay.” He points to my chest, then to the space beside my queen.
With stiff legs, I march over to where he indicates.
“You were both reckless today.” He pushes the sleeves of his peplos up and ties them atop each shoulder. “I hope you enjoyed your moment of fun, fleeing my guards at the temple.”
Shivers that have nothing to do with the sudden drop in the room’s temperature wrack my frame.
“You flagrantly ignored my rules,” Menelaus continues. “Abandoned the guards I keep for your protection.” He holds out a hand and a servant places in his palm a black, coiled whip. “You disrespected not only my throne, but me, your king.”
“You will not touch my anassa.” Without thinking, I step in front of Helen. I stare down the whip. Dread pinches the back of my neck.
Menelaus’s answering smile is laced with cruelty. “Good. You know who will pay the price.”
“No!” Helen leaps to her feet. “She only did as I commanded!”
She tries to shove me aside, but my feet are planted. I notch my chin high. If the whip isn’t for me, he would turn it on her. I can’t allow that.
“I will not remove you from your post,” he says to me, ignoring Helen. “No, the people and ephors will not have that.” He lets the tail of the whip fall to the floor with a soft click. “One lash for each guard.”
My ears begin to ring. The guards stride past. Helen cries out as I’m shoved past her and flattened against a wall. The guards take each of my wrists and smash them above my head. The Midas Curse flares, covering my entire back. Any relief I might have felt at the golden barrier vanishes when the men dig their fingers into the fabric of my chiton.
The Midas Curse is forced to flee when they shred the fabric along my spine. A gasp steals past my lips. I clench my teeth to keep any other noise from escaping me. The curse pools at my belly, the only comfort Artemis can offer now.
“Five lashes,” Menelaus says, voice remorseless.
Helen begins to scream. There’s a scuffle behind me and I turn just as a pair of Spartan guards haul her backward. Before I can yell at them to let her go, the whip sings through the air.
Its sting is belated, like an afterthought. Then it begins to burn, a line of fire across my spine. I press my cheek against the stone wall, desperate to absorb its chill. The whip is passed off to a guard and I clench my lip between my teeth, panting. It cuts through the air and slices my back.
Under my breath I say, “Don’t let him—”
Another lash. Lightning begins to crackle along my spine.
“Don’t let him know, Artemis,” I whisper. Sweat beads on my brow.
A fourth line spreads like wildfire. My nails dig hard enough into the wall to crack.
“Don’t tell Apollo.” My knees shake, threatening to buckle.
“One more,” Menelaus says. I don’t dare to turn. “For my honor.”
His lash is the worst. It stretches across my shoulders and catches in my hair. Darkness flares in the corner of my eyes.
“He’ll kill them all,” I whisper, then fall to the ground, knees slamming on the hard floor. Finally released, Helen is at my side in a moment, clutching desperately at my arms.
“You’re a monster,” she says to her husband, voice a low growl. “You’re not the man I loved.”
“No,” he says simply. “I’m not.”
A choked sound catches in Helen’s throat.
“I’ll expect you at my side when the kings arrive.” He brushes his hands on his thighs, as if removing them of my filth. He gazes down at us, utterly remorseless and unfeeling. “Let this be a lesson to you. Both of you.”
He leaves us huddled on the floor. Shame begs me to curl into a ball on the floor and hide my face from the watching guards. Helen weeps as birds call outside the room, wild and frenzied. The noise fades away, my ears ringing so loud I can hear nothing else.
I will make Menelaus pay. Even if I lose my own head on my path to retribution.