With trembling arms, I raise my sword between my brother and me.

“That’s not who you think it is,” I say, nodding to the goddess behind him.

“Helen told me everything.” Alkaios levels a dory at me, the spear made from a shimmering black metal exactly like the Adamantine sword. “How you manipulated her. Stole her from Sparta and tricked her into betraying her own kingdom. All at the behest of the gods.”

“That’s not Helen,” I say, lip quivering. “Helen wasn’t the one manipulated. You are.”

He lunges forward. The spearhead strikes where I just stood. I spin and deflect it. The strike makes my entire arm reverberate, and a hollow ringing fills the space.

“I will bring you to Agamemnon and Menelaus,” Alkaios says, panting slightly. His eyes are wild, dark at the edges. “Or, for my anassa, I will kill you.”

This isn’t the Alkaios I’ve trained with for fifteen years. The brother who taught me how to use a sword, spear, and bow was meticulous with his every attack, ruthless, and fought with a mask that kept me from ever guessing his next jab. Now, his movements are wild, erratic even, as he swings haphazardly at me. I’m deflecting from all angles. I roll beneath a swing and my elbow clips the ground. There’s a burst of sharp pain, then the entire limb goes numb.

“Please, Alkaios,” I say, switching the sword to my other hand. “This isn’t you. Family above all else.”

“You betrayed us first, remember?” He lunges again.

I step back and the spearhead clips the pyxis. It dances on the pedestal. My stomach drops. The jar stops its spinning, but the distraction costs me. The spearhead goes straight for my face.

I turn away just as it slices my cheek.

Blood pours down my neck. I don’t stop moving. With my bad hand I whip out a dagger. I complete the circle and raise both weapons. With the hilt of the sword, I hook the spear from my brother’s grasp and I slice his wrist.

His grip loosens and I fling aside the spear. It cracks on the wall behind me.

“Remember when I nearly drowned in the Eurotas. You and Pyrrhus saved me.” My voice trembles.

“Another lie.” Alkaios punches the air with his good fist.

“The Ring of Gyges,” I say desperately. “It took the memory when you stole it from Hermes.”

“Your parents tried to stop her from taking me,” Nyx as Helen says, her voice raw and bleating. “And she killed them, too.”

“Liar!” My swing goes wide.

“Here, my soldier.” Nyx throws something black through the air.

My brother catches it. The black elongates and splits into a metal star. He jabs and I stumble back from his reach. My spine collides with the marble pillar. The pyxis holding the fate of the world rattles.

The metal star hooks under my arm. It slashes my wrist at the same time his fist catches my chin. I drop the dagger with a gasp.

“I’m your sister,” I say, not recognizing the desperation in my own voice.

“You murdered our parents.”

“I did not!”

He goes on, not caring or not hearing, lost to Nyx’s power and the madness of war that overtakes us all. “You betrayed our kingdom and kidnapped Helen. You’re not my sister. You’re just the monster that killed my mother.”

He leaps forward, both hands wrapped around the star. I swing up to catch the many-edged blade. It snaps in two before I even touch it. The sword catches a half above my head, and I can’t react in time as his other hand punches me directly in the stomach.

I don’t feel anything at first. Then the air blows out of me in a great rush. I stumble, slipping on the warm liquid that now coats my feet. Horror blankets me and I cradle my midriff.

He holds the two halves aloft, one coated in my blood and the other now sweeping for my neck. I raise the sword just in time and both blades screech. I twist with all my remaining strength. The blades wrench free and fall to our feet. I step backward as Alkaios raises the second half.

He leaps forward and punches toward my heart. I barely raise the dagger in time.

It rams into his stomach.

Awareness eddies into his gaze, while blood coats my hands, warm and sticky. I let go as if burnt.

Confusion flits across his face. He looks around, as if just now recognizing where he is. “Daphne, why?”

“No, no, no,” I say, tears streaming down my face. He collapses into my arms and we both crash to the floor.

My hands flutter uselessly over the wound. Numbness has begun to flood my own limbs when I paw at my chest and rip Hermes’s pipes from my neck. He has to heal my brother.

But when I raise the instrument to my lips, no sound comes out. I press it so hard against my mouth, it threatens to splinter. Black spots fill my vision.

“Work, damn you,” I scream at the pipes.

“Prometheus once told me that our magic is a gift that seems valuable at first, but is really a curse.” Nyx’s lavender scent coats my nose before I see her. She towers over us, her edges hazy in my failing vision. “Those pipes won’t work for you anymore.”

“Then how did I open the doorway?” I cup my brother’s face. His eyes flutter, struggling to stay open. “Stay with me, Alkaios.”

“It was imbued with the power of the titans, not Olympus. A curse so strong no Olympian could break it. The blood of my family went into the very stones of that doorway.” She steps over me, toward the pyxis. “And now they’re going to tear the whole city down.”

“No!” I try to climb to my feet, but my legs don’t work. I can barely raise myself even to my knees.

She considers me a moment, hands still outstretched. “You should want this as much as I do. They’re your kin. Your father may be free, but your uncles and aunts are trapped in this very jar.”

“And if you release them, they will kill every single person in this city.” A sob claws from me.

“True.” She drops a hand. “But I never gave a damn about Troy.”

Before I can cry out, she shoves the pyxis from the pillar. Time seems to slow. Singing echoes down the long hallway, broken only by a mournful wail of the wind along Troy’s walls.

The jar shatters on the floor and darkness erupts all around us.