We arrive at the palace out of breath and coated in sticky blood that is not our own. The entire place is in an uproar, soldiers and nobles running about, but it is unravaged compared to the streets. The Erinyes seemed to have focused their ire on those around us. But, turning to look down at the city below, my breath is stolen by what exactly has caused such a stir.

No longer does the Aegean glisten on the horizon.

Sails, painted with the emblems of every kingdom in Greece, crowd the sea. The lambda of Sparta is painted in blood red on more than a hundred sails, matched in number by the lion of Mycenae in bright yellow. Each of the kings I banqueted with only a month before are making a steady course for Troy’s beaches, led by Achilles’s black sails.

My heart thunders in my ears. Hector marches from the palace wearing his armor, flanked by a battalion of his soldiers. His blue cape swirls behind him.

“All Trojans must come behind the walls,” he says with the deep, unyielding voice of a commander. “Even those within the temples. I don’t trust the Achaeans not to take whatever scraps they can find to use against us. These people do not answer to loyalty or honor. Only wealth and power. We will meet them in kind.”

Spartan blood will be spilled this very day. The thought makes me want to retch, and not from squeamishness.

Hector’s battalion follows as he begins down the stairs, more soldiers joining at each level, to the waiting horses below.

Penthesilea strides next from the palace, golden girdle shimmering around her waist, her sharp gray eyes landing on her sister. Hippolyta accepts the weapons her fellow Amazons hand her, strapping them to her body with quick efficiency.

“Where have you been?” The Amazon queen takes in the gore caking all of us. “What happened?”

Hector notices his sister and blanches. “Are you wounded? What happened to all of you? Get in the palace now, Kassandra.”

“The Erinyes attacked us.” The princess’s eyes are wide and unseeing, arms wrapped around her quaking frame. “They ripped those people in half. Right above us.”

Lykou, with a gentle hand at the woman’s hip, nods to one of Hector’s soldiers and the man escorts her away. The earth tilts beneath my feet, an image of a woman being shredded in half above me filling my vision.

“How did they evade Troy’s scouts?” Helen breathes, tan face deathly pale as she watches the ships sail steadily closer.

“How did they get here in such an impossibly short amount of time?” I ask. Apollo assured me that Hermes had been lying, and that Poseidon wasn’t aiding the Achaean voyage.

“Only the gods can say,” Penthesilea answers, frowning at the encroaching army. She turns and snaps her fingers in my direction.

I take an unconscious step back as her soldiers stride toward me, placing in my hands a fresh set of leathers and an array of weapons. The leathers are painted Amazon blue and red, complete with high sandals and bronze vambraces. A helmet is passed over my head, so tight it hugs my face. My blonde curls are tugged through a hole in the top and bound quickly into a taut plait. Wordlessly, the Amazons walk around me, tying on the armor and strapping a sword to my hip.

“You are one of us now, Daphne,” Penthesilea says, nodding at her warriors. “Though your training is yet to be completed, we accept you among our number in thanks for saving my sister in Foloi Forest.”

Something warm and unnamed swells through me, briefly overwhelming the danger that looms beyond the city’s walls. I turn to Lykou, who’s still standing guard at Helen’s side.

“You stay here with Helen,” I command. Indignation at being ordered clouds his already tan face, but I continue, “In case the Erinyes attack again.”

Helen straightens, nodding. “Lykou Xanthippos. To me.”

Without question, my wolf walks to her side. My eyes meet his and I see no question in his gaze. Only loyalty to the end. Hopefully not to our deaths.

Ships in the distance now collide with the sandy beach. Men leap from them, storming up the pale stretch of land. The Myrmidons sprinting in impossible lengths. They breach the first temple in seconds. Trojans flee for the walls of the city. The first of Menelaus’s ships lands next, horses thundering down the planks with a single chariot leading the way.

My chest constricts, fear binding my heart and lungs. I cannot breathe fast enough. The edges of my vision begin to blur, and then darken.

Helen grabs my trembling arms. She’s not gentle about it, her nails digging deep into the tender skin. Something wordless passes between us. Nothing needs to be said. The command is there.

Survive.

I blink, stepping back into myself and straightening. I march alongside Hippolyta, still sticky with blood, and we descend the steps to war.

My breath shudders, arm trembling beneath the round shield I was handed as I passed beneath the golden gates. Civilians stream past us with terrified screams. Farmers herd their livestock into the city, threatening to trample the remaining people still running inside. Paris and his brother Polydorus help them all into the city as best they can, the last rays of the setting sun reflecting off of the golden wall behind them.

“Do not let them near the gates,” Hector yells, thundering past on a black stallion. “Stay beyond the reach of our archers.”

Penthesilea, astride a white horse, rides in the opposite direction with a sword raised above her head. “My daughters! Swords and shields high!”

Torches are lit along the line of soldiers, their flame warming my cheeks. The sun sets beyond the ships, and darkness settles upon us all with preternatural swiftness. There is only one goddess with the power to bring night upon us all so quickly.

And she’s out for my blood.

Fear floods through me. The marching Achaeans swiftly cross the sand toward the Trojan army. The sun is blotted out by the shadows filling the sky; there’s a chorus of gasps from the soldiers around me. Many throw prayers out to gods old and new, some I’ve never even heard of. The terror fragments, sharpening in my veins.

I stand with the Amazons, chewing on the inside of my cheek and watching the encroaching men I trained with. They stop fifty yards short of our army, carriages thundering before them with the Achaean kings standing tall and proud. Achilles is not among them, but this doesn’t surprise me. The Myrmidon king had little patience for politics, even in Sparta. He will wait for the fighting to start.

Menelaus and Agamemnon come to the forefront as Hector rides out to meet them. A shuddering breath escapes me when my king’s eyes pass over me. He doesn’t pause, though, swiftly turning to the approaching Trojan prince.

The heir to the greatest city in the east meets Menelaus’s gaze without flinching. Hector says, “Have you come to apologize, Anax of Sparta?”

“Apologize?” Agamemnon’s thick lips curl back beneath his crimson beard. “We have come to take back what is ours.”

“Helen?” Hector angles his head toward the great walls. “The proud anassa has more honor than you. She’s earned a place here among my people.”

“Not that traitorous whore,” Agamemnon bites out. “The Hellespont.”

A surprised laugh bursts from Hector, loud enough to be heard atop the wall.

Beside me, Lyta says, “They do not even attempt to bargain for the Spartan queen. No efforts for peace. Something festers and rots in the Achaean kings.”

Not something. Someone.

Nyx no doubt whispers in their ears, haunts their dreams.

Hector waves a hand to the north, the glittering Hellespont beyond the line of hills there. “You think that anyone will trade with you ever again? If a single drop of blood falls on this field, the whole world will know the treachery of the Achaeans.”

“Oh, they’ll trade with us,” Menelaus says. “They will even bow to us. If the gods demand it.”

Battle drums begin to rumble on the far reaches of the field. The darkness swells again behind Sparta’s allies, blotting out whatever remains of the sun. Not even a hundred torches could keep those shadows at bay.

“We will see just how gods-blessed the city of Troy actually is,” Menelaus continues, voice like the hiss of a snake. He raises his dory, iron spearhead glinting. He points it at Hector and then, slowly, turns to the right.

To me. Shock grips me by the spine, claws digging into my bones.

“Prodótis of Sparta,” he says, voice booming across the field for all to hear. “If you don’t die tonight, then you will be forced to watch as I take everything and everyone you hold dear. I will slit their throats and throw their bodies from the walls of Troy.”

Hippolyta’s elbow brushes mine, the barest touch. She continues facing forward, glare pinned on the king raising his spear toward me. Another nudge on my other arm from the warrior to my right.

In an old language I don’t understand, Penthesilea yells. I follow suit as her warriors rap their shields once, twice, a third time, before hugging them to our chests. The Amazons have my back always, no matter what poison Menelaus spews.

Arms shaking, he continues to point the spear at my chest. “You best pray to your gods that I do not meet you on the battlefield, Daphne Diodorus.”

My stomach hollows out. Cold, like none I have ever felt, floods through me. Not at the threat, but the implication behind his words.

Your gods, he said. Not the gods.

Agamemnon raises a salphinx to his lips. Before the final note of its call rings, the Achaean army lurches forward.

A black wave of death and divine darkness comes to swallow me whole.