𝑬𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒐𝒕

Elliot ୨୧ Ask ♡ Prns ︵ ☆﹕Minor ! ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ˚ . Hades game >>> ♡

[sn0wym1nt]

I might be posting stories on here instead of what I used to be doing

Thoughh I can use some suggestions for what I can write! I miss getting requests for stories

I'm gonna be posting my Patrochilles story tomorrow! I'll also be posting other stories I made like my Neorestes one!

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑪𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔

The Trojan line buckled but didn't break. They never did—not anymore. After nine years of this cursed war, both sides had learned to hold firm even when the gods themselves seemed to demand retreat.

Achilles drove his spear through a Trojan shield, feeling the wood splinter and the bronze tip find flesh beyond. The man's scream was lost in the cacophony of battle. He wrenched the spear free and spun, catching another soldier across the throat with the butt end before reversing the strike to gut him. Two bodies fell. He was already moving toward the next.

"WITH ME!" he roared, and the Myrmidons surged forward like a wave. Patroclus fought at his right, his movements a mirror of Achilles' own after so many years of training together. Where Achilles was wild fury, Patroclus was controlled precision. A Trojan spearman thrust at Achilles' exposed side—Patroclus's shield was there to catch it, and his sword licked out to take the man's hand off at the wrist. "Your flank!" Patroclus shouted.

Achilles ducked, felt the arrow whisper past where his head had been. He traced its path back to an archer on a low wall and marked him for death. To their left, Diomedes was carving his own path through the enemy. The son of Tydeus fought with a berserker's rage tempered by a tactical mind. He'd noticed what Achilles had—the Trojan line was weakest near their supply wagons. If they could break through there, they could cut off the retreat. "DIOMEDES!" Achilles called. "THE WAGONS!"

Diomedes' helmeted head turned. He saw it immediately. A fierce grin split his blood-spattered face. "FOLLOW ME!" he bellowed to his men, and they wheeled left in formation. The Trojans realized their danger too late. Diomedes crashed into their flank like a thunderbolt, his spear punching through armor and bone. A massive Trojan warrior—one of Priam's lesser sons, perhaps—stepped forward to challenge him. The man was huge, towering over Diomedes by half a head.

They circled each other briefly, shields raised. Then the Trojan lunged with surprising speed for his size. Diomedes sidestepped and brought his sword down on the man's extended spear arm. The blade bit deep into the shoulder joint. The Trojan roared and swung his shield like a club. It caught Diomedes on the helmet, sending him staggering. Achilles saw Diomedes go down and cursed. "PATROCLUS! WITH ME!"

They fought their way toward Diomedes, leaving a trail of dead in their wake. Achilles moved like something inhuman, his spear a blur of bronze that found every gap, every weakness. A Trojan captain tried to rally his men against the assault. Achilles killed him mid-shout, his spear taking the man through the open mouth and out the back of his skull. Patroclus stayed close, his shield protecting them both as they advanced. An axe-man swung at Achilles' legs. Patroclus kicked the man in the chest, sending him sprawling, then finished him with a downward thrust.

Diomedes had regained his feet and was holding off three Trojans at once. Blood ran down his face from a cut above his eye, but his sword never stopped moving. He parried, riposted, parried again. One attacker went down clutching his opened belly. The second took Diomedes' blade through the throat.

The third was fast—faster than the others. His spear darted in like a serpent's tongue and found the gap between Diomedes' greave and thigh armor. Bronze bit into flesh. Diomedes snarled and grabbed the spear shaft, yanking the Trojan off balance and stabbing him through the armpit. Achilles and Patroclus reached him just as more Trojans rushed in to fill the gap. "Can you fight?" Achilles demanded.

"Try to stop me," Diomedes growled, though his leg was already darkening with blood. They formed up, the three of them—a triangle of death that no Trojan could penetrate. Achilles at the point, Patroclus and Diomedes on the flanks. They'd fought this way before, knew each other's movements like they knew their own.

A spear thrust at Achilles. Diomedes' shield caught it. Achilles killed the wielder. An arrow streaked toward Diomedes. Patroclus's shield intercepted it. Diomedes cut down the archer who'd gotten too close. A sword slashed at Patroclus. Achilles was already there, his spear impaling the attacker before the blade could land. They pushed forward, step by bloody step. The Myrmidons and Diomedes' men rallied around them, driving deeper into the Trojan formation. The wagons were close now—Achilles could see the supplies, the food and weapons that fed Troy's resistance.

Then the Trojan champion came.

He was magnificent in his bronze armor, his helmet topped with a blood-red plume. His shield bore the mark of Apollo. When he raised his spear, the Trojans around him roared and found new courage.

"GREEKS!" his voice boomed across the battlefield. "I am Euphorbos, beloved of Apollo! Which of you dares face me?" Achilles stepped forward without hesitation. Behind him, he heard Patroclus's sharp intake of breath, but he didn't turn. This was what he was made for. "I am Achilles, son of Peleus," he called back. "And you're already dead."

They met in the space between the armies, a circle of relative quiet in the chaos. Euphorbos struck first, his spear a streak of bronze aimed at Achilles' chest. Achilles deflected it with his shield and countered. Their spears rang together like bells. They traded blows with brutal efficiency. Euphorbos was good—better than most. His spear found the gaps in Achilles' defense, forced him to give ground. A thrust sliced across Achilles' shoulder, drawing first blood.

Behind them, the battle raged on. Patroclus and Diomedes held the line, keeping the Trojans from overwhelming the Greeks while their champion fought. Euphorbos pressed his advantage, driving Achilles back. His spear flickered like lightning, probing, testing. Then he feinted high and thrust low, his spear point aimed at Achilles' thigh.

Achilles had been waiting for it. He twisted, let the spear slide past him, and brought his own spear around in a devastating arc. The bronze point caught Euphorbos in the throat, just above his breastplate. The Trojan's eyes went wide with shock. Blood fountained from the wound. "Apollo didn't love you enough," Achilles said coldly, wrenching his spear free.

Euphorbos fell, and with him, the Trojan spirit broke. "RETREAT!" someone shouted. "FALL BACK TO THE WALLS!" The Trojans fled, dragging their wounded with them. The Greeks pursued, but halfheartedly. They were as exhausted as their enemies.

Achilles stood over Euphorbos's body, breathing hard. His shoulder burned where the spear had cut him. Around him, the field was carpeted with the dead and dying—Trojan and Greek alike, their blood mixing in the churned mud. Patroclus appeared at his side, his face streaked with dirt and gore. "You're wounded."

"It's nothing," Achilles replied, though the wound was deeper than he'd like to admit. Diomedes limped over, his leg leaving a trail of blood. "We broke them," he said with satisfaction. Then he looked around at the carnage and his expression darkened. "For now."

The three of them stood together as the sun sank lower, painting the battlefield in shades of crimson and gold. Their armor was drenched in blood—layers of it, from dozens of men they'd killed today. It was in their hair, under their fingernails, crusted on their skin beneath the bronze. "Come," Achilles said finally, his voice hoarse from battle cries. "We need to wash this off before it dries."

They made their way back to camp in silence, too tired for words. The other soldiers gave them respectful distance—they always did after Achilles had been on the field. He supposed he must look like something out of a nightmare, painted red from helmet to sandals. The bathing area was mercifully empty. Most men were either still on the field or collapsed in their tents. Achilles began working at the straps of his armor with fingers that had gone clumsy with fatigue.

"Here," Patroclus said softly, moving to help. His hands were steadier, more patient. He'd always been better at these small kindnesses. Diomedes was already stripping off his own armor, hissing when the movement pulled at his injured leg. "That bastard got me good with his spear. Thought I'd dodged it."

"Sit," Achilles commanded, pointing at the stone edge of the large basin. "Let me look at it once we're clean." The water in the basin was cold and clear—it would be red soon enough. Achilles stepped in first, submerging himself completely, letting the shock of it wake him from the battle-daze. When he surfaced, Patroclus and Diomedes had joined him. For a moment, they simply stood there, three warriors watching the blood cloud and swirl around them like wine in water.

Patroclus reached for a cloth and began washing Achilles' back without being asked. His touch was gentle, careful around the shoulder wound. "This needs binding," he murmured. "After," Achilles replied. He took another cloth and turned to Diomedes, who had a gash across his collarbone that looked worse than the leg wound. "You're bleeding everywhere."

"You should see the other fellow," Diomedes said with a tired grin, but he held still while Achilles cleaned the wound.

They worked in quiet efficiency, hands that had dealt death all day now tender in their ministrations. Patroclus washed the blood from Achilles' hair, fingers working through the tangles. Achilles tended to Diomedes' wounds. Diomedes, in turn, helped Patroclus clean a nasty scrape along his ribs that he'd been trying to hide. "You could have died today," Achilles said quietly, his hand lingering on Patroclus' side. "So could you," Patroclus replied, just as quiet. "So could any of us. That Euphorbos nearly had you."

"Nearly doesn't count," Achilles said, but there was no pride in his voice. Just weariness. The water around them had turned a dull pink, the color of watered-down wine. Diomedes leaned back against the basin's edge, closing his eyes. "Days like this, I wonder what we're even fighting for anymore."

"Glory," Achilles said, but the word tasted like ash in his mouth. "Each other," Patroclus corrected softly. His hand found Achilles' beneath the water, squeezing once. "We fight for each other." Diomedes opened his eyes and looked at them both—these men he'd bled beside, who'd bled for him. "That's the only truth that matters, I suppose."

They stayed in the water until it grew cold, until the last traces of battle had been washed away. Until they could remember, for just a moment, what it felt like to be something other than weapons. To be men who could be gentle with one another, who could offer comfort in capable hands. Tomorrow they would put the armor back on. Tomorrow there would be more blood, more death, more bronze singing its terrible song.

But tonight, in these crimson waters, they were simply three men caring for one another in the only way they knew how—with quiet devotion and the tenderness of those who understood that every day might be their last.

The water had gone cold and thoroughly pink by the time they finally emerged. Achilles' shoulder still ached, a dull throb that reminded him of Euphorbos's speed. The Trojan had been good—too good. If Achilles had been even a breath slower, that spear would have found something vital. "Sit," Patroclus commanded, pointing to a low bench near the basin. His voice held that particular tone that meant he wouldn't be argued with. "All of you. Let me actually tend these wounds properly." Diomedes snorted but obeyed, lowering himself onto the bench with a grimace. "Yes, mother."

"If I were your mother, you wouldn't be stupid enough to take a spear to the leg while showing off," Patroclus shot back, but there was no heat in it. He gathered clean linen bandages and a clay pot of salve—something the healers made from herbs and honey that stung like Hades but kept wounds from festering. Achilles sat beside Diomedes, watching as Patroclus knelt before them both. In the fading light, with his dark hair still damp and his face finally clean, Patroclus looked younger than his years. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that they'd both been so young when this war started. Boys playing at being heroes.

Now they were simply tired men who'd seen too much death. Patroclus started with Diomedes' leg, his fingers gentle as he examined the wound. "Deep, but clean. The spear missed anything important." He began applying the salve, and Diomedes hissed through his teeth. "That's the worst part of battle," Diomedes muttered. "Not the getting stabbed—the fixing afterward."

"You say that every time," Achilles observed. "It's true every time." Patroclus wrapped the wound with practiced efficiency, his hands steady. Nine years of war had made field surgeons of them all. "Keep weight off it for a day or two if you can. I know you won't, but I'm obligated to say it."

"Noted and ignored," Diomedes replied, but he squeezed Patroclus's shoulder in thanks. Patroclus moved on to the gash across Diomedes' collarbone, cleaning it carefully. "This one will scar."

"Add it to the collection." Diomedes had scars upon scars, a map of every battle he'd survived. They all did. Achilles sometimes wondered if there was any unmarked skin left on any of them. When Diomedes was bandaged, Patroclus turned his attention to Achilles. His expression shifted, became something softer and more worried. "Let me see."

Achilles turned, presenting his injured shoulder. The cut was deeper than he'd admitted, a clean slice that had parted the muscle. It had stopped bleeding, at least, though it would make wielding his spear a misery tomorrow. Patroclus's fingers ghosted over the wound, feather-light. "Achilles..."

"I know," Achilles said quietly. "I was careless."

"You were showing off," Patroclus corrected, and now there was an edge to his voice. "You could have ended that fight in half the time, but you wanted to make a spectacle of it." It was true, and they both knew it. Achilles had dragged the duel out longer than necessary, had given Euphorbos chances he didn't deserve. For the glory of it. For the story that would be told afterward. "I won," Achilles said, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.

"This time." Patroclus applied the salve with more force than strictly necessary, and Achilles bit back a grunt of pain. "What happens when your luck runs out? When you're a half-second too slow and some Trojan's spear finds your throat?" Achilles caught Patroclus's wrist, stilling his hand. "Then you'll avenge me."

"I don't want to avenge you," Patroclus said, his voice breaking slightly. "I want you alive." The vulnerability in those words hung in the air between them. Diomedes looked away, giving them what privacy he could in the small space. Achilles pulled Patroclus closer, pressed their foreheads together. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'll be more careful."

"Liar," Patroclus whispered back, but his hands were gentle as he resumed bandaging the shoulder. When he finished, he sat back and examined his own wounds—the scrape along his ribs that he'd been trying to ignore, a few smaller cuts on his arms and legs. Nothing serious, but Achilles took the salve from him anyway.

"My turn," Achilles said. Patroclus submitted to the treatment with better grace than either Achilles or Diomedes had shown, though his jaw tightened when Achilles cleaned the rib wound. It was shallow but long, probably from a glancing sword blow that his armor had mostly deflected. "You're getting too close to the fighting," Achilles said. "You're supposed to guard my flank, not throw yourself into every melee."

"Someone has to keep you from getting killed," Patroclus replied. "Clearly you won't do it yourself." Diomedes laughed at that. "He has you there, Achilles." Achilles wrapped the bandage around Patroclus's ribs, his hands lingering perhaps longer than medically necessary. They'd done this so many times—patched each other up after battles, washed the blood away, checked each other for wounds. It had become a ritual, almost sacred in its familiarity.

By the time they finished, true night had fallen. The camp was settling into its evening rhythms—fires being lit, food being prepared, men singing or gambling or sharpening their weapons for tomorrow. The sounds drifted over the bathing area like echoes from another world. "We should eat," Diomedes said, though he made no move to stand. "Get some food in us before we collapse."

"In a moment," Achilles replied. He was reluctant to break the peace of this space, to return to being the son of Peleus, the greatest of the Greeks, the man everyone looked to for victory. Here, in the darkness with the smell of salve and clean water, he could just be Achilles. Just a man with his dearest friend and a brother-in-arms. "Do you think we'll ever see the end of this?" Patroclus asked suddenly. "The war, I mean. Do you think Troy will ever fall?"

It was a question none of them usually dared to voice. Nine years they'd been here, and the walls of Troy still stood. Men had died by the thousands—Greeks and Trojans both—and for what? Helen? Pride? The whims of gods who played with mortal lives like children with toys? "It will fall," Achilles said, though he wasn't sure he believed it anymore. "Everything falls eventually."

"Cheerful," Diomedes muttered. But then, more seriously: "I used to dream of going home. Back to Argos, to my wife. Now I barely remember what home looks like."

"This is home," Patroclus said quietly, gesturing to encompass the three of them. "Whatever else we've lost, we still have this." And wasn't that the truth of it? They'd left their homes, their families, their old lives behind. This—the brotherhood forged in blood and battle—was all they had left. Each other.

Achilles stood, offering his hand to Patroclus. "Come. Let's find food and wine. The gods know we've earned it." They made their way through the camp, drawing glances from the other soldiers. Most men averted their eyes quickly—there was something about the way the three of them moved together, the easy intimacy of it, that made others uncomfortable. Or perhaps it was simply the weight of violence that clung to them, visible even after they'd washed the blood away.

The Myrmidon camp was livelier than most. Achilles' men knew they'd won a significant victory today, had driven the Trojans back and destroyed their supply wagons. There would be songs about it, stories told around fires for years to come. "Achilles!" one of his captains called out. "Come, join us! We saved you the best portions!"

They settled around the fire, accepting cups of wine and plates of roasted meat. The wine was sour and the meat was tough, but after a day of fighting, it might as well have been ambrosia. Achilles ate mechanically, suddenly aware of how hungry he was. Around them, men talked and laughed, the mood celebratory despite their exhaustion. Someone started singing a bawdy song about Aphrodite and Ares, and others joined in. The firelight painted everyone in warm gold, erasing for a moment the harsh realities of where they were and what they'd done today.

Diomedes leaned against a supply crate, his injured leg stretched out before him. "I killed six men today," he said conversationally. "Maybe seven—I lost count during that mess at the wagons."

"Twelve," Achilles said. "Fourteen if you count the men I wounded who'll die of it later."

"Not a competition," Patroclus said, but he was smiling slightly. "Though I had eight, for the record."

"It's always a competition," Diomedes replied. He raised his cup. "To the dead. May they find peace in Hades."

"To the dead," they echoed, drinking. The wine helped, warming Achilles from the inside and dulling the ache in his shoulder. He felt Patroclus lean against him slightly, their shoulders touching. A casual intimacy that no one would question—soldiers often sat close, seeking comfort in the nearness of their brothers-in-arms.

But this was different, and they both knew it. Had always known it. "I saw you take down that champion," one of the younger Myrmidons said, his eyes bright with admiration. "Euphorbos. They say he was blessed by Apollo himself."

"Apollo's blessing didn't save him," Achilles replied. The wine was making him philosophical. "The gods play their games, but in the end, it's just bronze and flesh. Skill and luck. Nothing divine about it."

"Careful," Diomedes warned. "The gods are listening, and they don't appreciate that kind of talk."

"Let them listen." Achilles took another drink. "I've killed enough men in their names. They owe me the right to speak truth." Patroclus's hand found his beneath the concealment of the firelight, squeezed once in warning. Achilles subsided, recognizing that the wine and exhaustion were loosening his tongue too much. It wouldn't do to blaspheme too openly, even if he felt like the gods had already abandoned them to this endless, pointless war.

The conversation flowed around them, moving from battle tactics to gossip about the other Greek leaders. Agamemnon was in a foul mood, apparently, angry that Achilles had claimed the glory of today's victory. Odysseus was scheming as always, whispering in corners with his most trusted men. Ajax was drunk and breaking things. Normal, in other words. The same petty politics that had plagued them for nine years.

Eventually, men began drifting off to their tents, seeking sleep before tomorrow's battles. Achilles rose, swaying slightly—the wine had hit harder than he'd expected on an empty stomach. Or rather, a stomach that had been empty until recently. "Come on," Patroclus said, steadying him. "Before you fall over."

They made their way to Achilles' tent, Diomedes limping alongside them. It was larger than most, befitting his status, with enough room for sleeping pallets and a small table cluttered with maps and weapons that needed mending. Diomedes collapsed onto one of the pallets with a groan. "I'm not moving until dawn. Possibly not even then."

Achilles shed his chiton and crawled onto his own pallet, feeling every bruise and strained muscle from the day's fighting. Patroclus lay down beside him—they'd long since stopped pretending to maintain separate sleeping spaces when they were alone. "Shoulder still hurts?" Patroclus asked softly. "Like fire," Achilles admitted. "Worth it, though. We broke their line today. Really broke it."

"Until tomorrow, when they'll be back."

"Let tomorrow worry about itself." Achilles turned onto his side, careful of his wounded shoulder, and looked at Patroclus in the dim light filtering through the tent. "Thank you. For earlier. For... everything." Patroclus's hand found his face, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. "Always."

From the other pallet, Diomedes's voice emerged, already thick with approaching sleep. "You two are disgustingly devoted to each other. It's nauseating."

"Jealous?" Patroclus called back. "Exhausted. Shut up and let me sleep." Achilles smiled despite himself. This—these moments of peace stolen between battles—was what made the war bearable. Not the glory, not the songs that would be sung about them. Just this. The quiet comfort of being with people who knew him, really knew him, and stayed anyway.

He closed his eyes, feeling Patroclus's warmth beside him and hearing Diomedes's breathing even out into sleep. Tomorrow they would put on their armor again, paint themselves in bronze and blood. Tomorrow there would be more death, more screaming, more gods-cursed glory. But tonight, they could rest.

Dawn came too soon, announced by the bronze horns that called the Greeks to assembly. Achilles woke to find his shoulder had stiffened overnight, the wound hot and angry beneath its bandages. He tested the movement carefully, biting back a curse. It would limit his range of motion, make his spear work slower.

He'd just have to compensate. Patroclus was already awake, sitting cross-legged on the pallet and staring at nothing. He did that sometimes, went somewhere inside himself where even Achilles couldn't follow.

"Bad dreams?" Achilles asked quietly. "Prophetic ones," Patroclus replied, which wasn't really an answer. He looked at Achilles, and there was something haunted in his eyes. "Be careful today. More careful than usual."

"When am I not careful?"

"Shall I make a list?" But Patroclus was smiling now, the shadow passing. "Come. Let's get dressed before Agamemnon sends someone to drag you to the assembly." They armed themselves methodically—the same ritual they performed every morning. Greaves first, then the breastplate, then the bracers. Each piece of bronze was dented and scarred from nine years of use, the decorative engravings worn almost smooth in places. Achilles' armor had been made by Hephaestus himself, a gift from the gods, but even divine craftsmanship couldn't withstand the constant abuse of war.

Diomedes was moving slowly, favoring his injured leg as he dressed. "I'm getting too old for this," he muttered. "You're barely thirty," Patroclus pointed out. "In war years, that's ancient." They emerged from the tent into the gray pre-dawn light. The camp was alive with activity—men arming themselves, horses being readied, weapons being sharpened one last time. The smell of cook fires mingled with the ever-present stench of thousands of men living in close quarters.

The assembly was held in an open space near Agamemnon's tent, and it was already crowded with Greek leaders and their captains. Agamemnon himself stood on a raised platform, resplendent in his bronze armor, looking every inch the king of Mycenae.

Achilles noted with some amusement that Agamemnon's armor was spotless. No blood, no dents from yesterday's fighting. Because Agamemnon had been nowhere near the actual battle, of course. "Ah, Achilles," Agamemnon called out as they approached. His tone was jovial, but his eyes were cold. "Our great champion. Yesterday's victory was most impressive."

"We broke their supply line," Achilles replied curtly. "They'll be hungry now. Desperate."

"Which makes them dangerous," Odysseus interjected smoothly. The king of Ithaca looked as exhausted as the rest of them, but his mind was clearly still sharp. "Desperate men fight harder. We should press our advantage while we have it."

"Agreed," said Ajax. The massive warrior was cleaning blood from beneath his fingernails, seemingly bored by the conversation. "Hit them again today. Keep hitting them until they break completely."

"Or until we break," someone muttered from the back of the assembly. Agamemnon's expression darkened. "Who said that?" No one answered. The king let the silence stretch, a petty display of power that made Achilles' jaw tighten with irritation.

Agamemnon let the silence sit like a weight, and when it finally shifted it was Odysseus who moved to break it. "Then we hit tonight," he said, voice low enough that only those nearest could hear. "We strike at the walls while their men are scattered and drunk from the day's toil. We take advantage of their fatigue. We do not waste the advantage of a broken supply line."

A murmur of assent spread through the crowd. Achilles watched the men—saw the way their shoulders squared a fraction as they imagined the promise of an easy end. He could see the hunger for closure in every shadowed face, the way nine years of standing between dawn and dusk had corroded patience until it felt like a vice. "And if they trap us," Ajax said, blunt and heavy as always. "What then? Will we bleed away like cows at the sacrifice of some old man's pride?"

"Then we hold," Agamemnon replied sharply. "We hold and we make them wish they'd never trusted a king who made war on his behalf." He turned his eyes on Achilles, as if the young man's silence was a personal slight. "Achilles, your counsel matters. We need your spear."

Achilles felt Patroclus' hand on his forearm, steadying, reminding. He wanted to tell Agamemnon something that no one in that ring of power wanted to hear: that kings were a nuisance until men bled beneath their banners; that glory tasted like rust on the tongue and that he would not lend his spear to petty squabbles of who would receive a wreath. But the words did not rise. There was something else—some private calculus his chest wouldn't allow him to ignore. They had broken the wagon line; a decisive blow could hollow Troy. He felt it in the way the men around him leaned forward, the hunger in their faces that looked so much like hope.

"We press at night," Achilles said aloud, and his voice carried. "A swift, focused strike at the wall where the wagons were—where their defenses have thinned. We will not linger. We will not give them time to rally." Agamemnon inclined his head. "Then we march at dusk. Make ready, men. Rest, eat if you can, but be prepared."

They dispersed with orders and grunts and the scraping of armor. Achilles and his two companions walked away from the assembly into the half-light, where the camp opened wide and the torches burned low. "Don't sleep," Patroclus said quietly as they moved. "Nap, perhaps. But keep one eye open." Diomedes grunted. "You sound like an old woman. Let the men sleep. If someone tries something, the spears will wake them."

"That's not what I mean," Patroclus insisted. "A dream—" He trailed off, embarrassed, but the look he shot Achilles said everything: he'd had a dream or an omen, something small and dark that skittered under his skin like a bad memory.

Achilles kept his gaze fixed on the ground. He had dreams, too, the kind that came with a taste of iron and the smell of horses burned. Dreams that woke him with his hands reaching and finding nothing but the hollow of his own chiton. But he was not a young man to be swayed by shadows in the head. He had a spear, and he had a body that could still move like a storm. "Save the dreams for the priests," Achilles said, but the edge in his voice was softer than he intended. He hated feeling like a child under Patroclus' care. Still, when Patroclus slipped his hand into his, the pressure was grounding.

They ate in the tent with a subdued hunger. Diomedes cleaned his blade with a rag and bits of hoof grease, the motion meditative. Patroclus set maps on the table—simple sketches of the approaches, marks of where they had seen weaknesses, the meterings of watch rotations. "The watch on this side is always thin," he said, pointing. "The men there are new. They do not know the signals as well." Achilles nodded. He found himself studying the drawings the way he studied a man's gait—seeking the subtle telltaleced that gave advantage. He folded them away when it felt like staring too long.

When the dusk came it fell like a benediction. The Greeks moved like ghosts, silent under the instruction of Odysseus' clever signals and the battering of hidden drums. Achilles' Myrmidons slunk forward, bronze muffled with cloth, faces smeared with dirt that made their features savage and indistinct. Even in the dark, Patroclus was a bright line to Achilles—there, always.

They hit the wall like a tide. The Trojans were not as unready as Odysseus had hoped; a shift in wind, a hurried shout sent some of them scurrying, but even the best-laid plan required a malleable fate, and tonight the gods were not malicious enough to turn the sea on them. The Greeks found footholds in the wall's loose stones, ropes bit into hands, and bronze ropes sang as they hauled themselves up.

Achilles' spear found a man halfway up the parapet, and the man fell backward with a sound like a sack of grain ripping. They scrambled over the wall into the city proper, and for a few wild heartbeats it felt as if the tide might finally turn—if the city could be seized tonight, if a tower fell, then the myth of Troy's impenetrability might evaporate into practical ruin.

They tore through streets and alleys like a living breaking line. Men clotted in the gatehouses and were cut down in snarls. Fires started in a bakery; smoke rose and the smell of baking bread mixed with that of hot iron. For a time, the world was only the simple, terrible mathematics of blood and movement. Achilles fought like a force of nature—here, a wall of bronze; there, the shaft of spear. He thought of nothing beyond the man he faced, and afterwards only enough to steady himself for the next.

But as the light of their small fires reflected off the houses and the wail of alarm summoned more defenders, the Greeks found themselves hemmed in. There was no simple way to retreat from the midst of city streets without losing men—and men mattered more than any glorious story when the road behind you was an exposed kill. "Pull back!" Odysseus' voice barked from somewhere ahead. "Form at the gate! If you cannot hold, withdraw to the wall!" They tried, but the Trojans, now rallied by a fierce, animal fear, were closing. From a side street came a shout: "Hector!"

As if called by the sound, the name seemed to make the air tighten. Achilles saw him then—Hector, terrible and lithe, moving like a panther through the fray. He wore no ornate plumed helmet tonight, only practical bronze and a grim look. Behind him, Trojans formed up with the rhythm of a drumbeat—the watchmen who had been dismissed in daylight now returned in force.

The clash that followed was a chaos of shifting priorities. The Greeks could not hold ground within the city without becoming trapped; the Trojans could not afford to let the invaders reach the inner wards. Men were flung aside like rag dolls. Achilles fought forward with the singular, bright aim of a man who needed to cut a path not for honor but for breath.

Then a scream that was not part of war—distinct, human, sharp—spliced through the din. Achilles' head turned. A boy, no more than seventeen, caught Achilles' gaze; he was clutching at a ragged shoulder where an arrow splintered under the skin. Behind him two women screamed and beat their breasts. Something in Achilles that was older than glory tugged—a reflex born of an unconsidered compassion.

He moved toward them, and in doing so he left a gap. It was a small space, a quarter-turn where bronze did not meet bronze. Diomedes saw it and surged to fill it, but a spear found him in the thigh. He went down, and Achilles' world narrowed to the fact of his friend falling. "Patroclus!" he roared, and the sound carried as if the earth itself had uttered it.

Patroclus answered with a movement so fast Achilles barely saw it—he leapt, he parried, he moved like a reed bending in wind. He pushed Diomedes aside and dragged him behind a battered cart, then turned and struck down the man who had driven the spear. Blood spattered Patroclus' cheek. Achilles could feel the hot smell of it and had to close his eyes for a moment to steady himself. When he opened them, he saw Diomedes' face, set in a mask of pain and something fierce. "I'm fine," the man lied, one of those armor-clad lies that men told themselves to keep moving. Patroclus glared at him. "Hush," he said. "You're not."

They fought on. The fight braided into something that was neither victory nor defeat but a slow, grinding truth: both sides had learned the shape of the other's breath. For every breach there would be a counter; for every hero cut down there would be another to take their place. Achilles felt exhaustion like a constant ache beneath his tendons, but he moved as though the motion itself preserved him.

At one point the two lines crashed in the narrow street like the meeting of glaciers. Men were pinned, shields clanging in a metallic rain. Achilles felt a spear graze the side of his face, a sting that set his teeth on edge. There was a man—a boy, really—standing too close, his eyes wide with terror. Achilles' spear drove forward. It was quick, a reflexive killing, and when it was done Achilles felt the chill aftershock of it—the way a stone sinking in water left a ring of cold. A hand touched his shoulder. He turned. Patroclus gazed up at him with a look that made Achilles' chest burn with some emotion he had no name for. "We can't keep doing this," Patroclus said into his ear, his voice almost lost in the noise. "Not without purpose. Not without an end. I don't want this to be all we leave to the world."

The simplicity of the plea made something like grief bloom in Achilles. He wanted to tell Patroclus that he fought for names, for stories that would keep them alive in memory, for the feel of the spear in his hand, for the heat of battle that made him feel awake above all else. Instead he wrapped a hand around Patroclus' forearm. "We will have an end," he said. "Tonight we make one." They fought their way back to the gate. The plan to withdraw to the wall was rough and bloody, but it held—Odysseus' strategy and the stubborn muscle of the Greek line made it so. At the gate, the two armies gave each other space to breathe, and the night air tasted like ash and sweat.

It was there, at the gate, in the half-hour when the men tended to their wounds and counted missing comrades, that Achilles realized how thin the line was between courage and madness. He watched men trade wounds for wreaths and saw in their eyes a hunger that could not be sated by victory alone. He wanted something different—less the clatter of bronze, and more the angle of a life that included fishwives and warm beds and children whose names did not rhyme with slaughters.

"Do you ever think of home?" he asked Diomedes, who had settled against a crate with his eyes closed. Diomedes snorted. "Home is whatever bed you don't have to share with fifteen snoring men." Patroclus laughed softly. "There are worse definitions," he said. "I think of it sometimes—the river near my father's fields. I remember the way sunlight would make the reeds look like a field of knives in gold." He fell quiet, closing his eyes. "Do you?"

Achilles should have said yes, that he remembered the sound of the sea on the beach outside Phthia, the way his father's voice could make the world tilt with counsel. Instead he said, "I remember a voice that used to call me in from the sea, as if the water itself had a parent. I don't know if that voice was real. Maybe it was only hunger." Patroclus' hand found his under the scarred leather of his wrist. It was an old solace, a small anchoring in the storm. "Whatever it was," Patroclus said, "it was a good thing. Hold that. Let it be your guide."

Morning came on feet of gray. The Greeks counted losses and licked wounds; men whose names had been shouted the night before walked back into camps with bandages and lowered eyes. Agamemnon convened his council again, and the talk turned to that oldest of currencies: money, and prizes, and how to wield them. Achilles listened, tired and raw, and when Agamemnon spoke of how the spoils would be parceled for bravery, Achilles felt a shallow, nauseous heat. The talk of who would receive armor and horses felt cruel in the face of so many who would never receive them because they were dead. "We need to keep pressing," Odysseus suggested. "If we starve them and harass their foraging parties, their men will be thinned further. They will be forced from the walls, and then—"

"And then?" Agamemnon demanded. "And then we will take the city and sit in it wearing our laurels?"

"It will not be so clean," Odysseus said. "Nothing in war is clean. But we must apply constant pressure." Achilles wanted to say that there had been pressure enough for nine years; that if men wanted a strategy they should pick one and accept its cost. Instead he conceded because strategy mattered when wielded by patient minds: "We continue harassment. No long sieges of cities or bother with towers tonight. Keep it mobile. Keep them off-balance."

The plan took shape—raiding parties, feints, and a nightly pressure that might, eventually, fray the edges of Troy's resilience. They moved out with the dusk, as they had a thousand times; the moon carved a thin scythe across the sky and scattered long silver paths on the ground. Achilles walked with his spear over his shoulder, his soul a hard stone that felt like it might break if he let it.

The next days blurred into a rhythm of attack and retreat, each raid a careful calculation of gain and cost. Sometimes they found a prize worth the risk: a smaller store of grain, a cache of olive oil. Sometimes they walked into slaughter. Men died and helmets rattled and you grew used to the sound of your own breath returning as if it had been borrowed. Patroclus' warnings haunted Achilles with the intimacy of prophecy. He saw, in spare moments, the old shapes that had once lulled him: warm beds and laughing voices. He wanted them so fiercely that the want hurt.

It was in one of those stolen moments, with the little comforts of the camp that patinaed peace was all, that a herald came—a young man, panting, face bruised, carrying a scroll folded around a stick. He bowed before Agamemnon and gave the scrap to Odysseus, who read it fast and then still. "Enemy movement," Odysseus said. "Hector is convening a force outside the city. They plan to strike our foragers and take the ground near the river. They've grown bold." A murmur. "Boldness is a tactic," Diomedes said. "We will counter with force."

"But not the full host," Odysseus warned. "Hector is not a man given to folly. He knows what he can gain by luring us. If he can shift our line, he will." Agamemnon's response was a raw animal hunger for victory. "Then we send our best. We send those who can carry the day." Achilles felt Patroclus' fingers tighten in his. "If they attack the foragers," Patroclus said, "we can protect them. We can—"

"We will go," Achilles said. When the words left him his heart thudded like a drum in his throat. It wasn't some heroic proclamation; it was the weight of obligation—he had to answer, because he could not stand by and watch his men taken. "We will be there before they strike." They rode out with the dusk again, the world a long, thin strip of night. The foragers were ambulant with their losses; men came to the sight with baskets and sacks, nervous laughter replacing the quiet they usually kept. Achilles and his three—Patroclus, Diomedes, and a small company of chosen men—took up positions among the trees that bordered the plain. The moon slid behind clouds and the world grew a shade darker.

When Hector's force came it was like a damp wave. He commanded in a voice that sneered at modesty, and his men moved like a single animal. But the Greeks had position and discipline. The clash took place like the snapping of taut rope. Patroclus fought hard at Achilles' side, his movements as quick as a child's but tempered by experience. He took a wound in the shoulder, and Achilles felt it like a personal scratch—for every friend wounded was a dent in the ship that carried him. Diomedes, for all his grizzled arrogance, bled and held his place.

Hector fought with the intensity of a man with a name to protect and a city to defend. Achilles hunted for him and found him at the crest of the fight—two men, two lines, two histories colliding. They circled, boots crunching, and then struck. Shields smashed; spears splintered. The air filled with the smell of struck muscle and the copper tang of blood.

In the middle of that crush, when the world had narrowed and all sounds whitened into single, bright flares, Patroclus moved. He saved Diomedes by a hair's breadth, driving his sword through the ribs of a Trojan who'd aimed true. As he did, Achilles saw him take an arrow in the thigh. The blow was not mortal—no arrow would have pierced deep enough to kill—but it would hobble him. Patroclus swore under his breath, and when Achilles offered help he waved him off.

"Finish the fight," he hissed. "I can move." Achilles wanted to refuse. He wanted to take Patroclus back to the tents, bind him, press salve to the wound. But Patroclus' face was set in that determined line he got when he refused to be pitied. "No," he said. "We finish this. For the men at the wagons, for Diomedes, for everyone."

They finished it. Hector broke and those around him rued their losses. The Trojans scattered, and in the aftermath the Greeks counted their cost. Men limped and cursed and laughed flatly, some in relief, some in numbness. Patroclus' wound gaped and bled, and when Achilles finally sat to bind it for him there was no pretense between them—only the honest, wordless labor of two people who shared a life in common. "You're reckless," Achilles said without heat. "So are you," Patroclus shot back. There was fondness in the retort. Achilles pressed the cloth to the arrow wound and tied it tight.

They rode back to camp the next morning with fewer carts than they left with and more names on the list of the dead. The sun rose over a plain pocked and hungry, and the air tasted of smoke and promise. There were quiet moments between people where grief and relief and exhaustion braided themselves unexpected and thin as hair. In the night that followed, Achilles sat alone for a while under a tree, his hands on his knees, watching the constellations roll. Patroclus joined him, silent as a shadow, settling near enough that their shoulders touched. The world felt fragile, as if one wrong step might unpick it.

"Do you ever think about what comes after?" Patroclus asked, voice small in the space between them. Achilles thought of many things—of battles won and days spent washing blood from his hair, of songs sung and quiet rooms he had never known. But when he answered, his voice was direct. "I think about being remembered." Patroclus smiled, a short, sad curve. "Is that all? Being remembered?"

"It is a part," Achilles said. "A bitter part. But I want to be more than a name shouted across a wall. I want to have been good to someone." Patroclus leaned his head on Achilles' shoulder. "You have been. To me." The stars spun on, indifferent and slow. For a while neither of them spoke. They sat together, two small quiet things against the vast, indifferent universe, and it was enough.

Not every victory made the world gentler. Not every breath promised an end. But for the moment, with the night's cool pressing against their faces, they had what they wanted most: each other and the knowledge that they were not alone in a world that was always trying to take them away. The war would have more days. There would be more battles, more claims against honor and life. Men would rise and be broken; kings would bargain and betray. But in the small hours between one battle and the next, two men held each other and remembered that whatever else came, they had each other to weather it.

And sometimes that was nearly enough.

The morning after felt wrong. Too still. The gulls circling above the shoreline screamed, but their cries sounded distant, as if coming through water. Achilles woke before the others, his limbs aching not from battle but from the weight of too much surviving. The sea was close enough to smell—salt, rot, the faint sweetness of kelp—and it made him think of home again, though he barely recognized what that word meant anymore.

Patroclus stirred behind him. “You didn’t sleep,” he murmured, voice still rough from dreams. It wasn’t a question. “No,” Achilles said. His hands were braced on his knees, fingers tracing lines into the dirt. “The tide was loud.” Patroclus smiled faintly. “You blame the sea for your unrest.”

“I blame the gods for giving it voices.”

Patroclus sat up, pulling his cloak tighter. “Then maybe it’s trying to speak to you.” Achilles didn’t answer. He stood, stretching the stiffness from his shoulders, watching the light rise over the ships like a blade being unsheathed. Somewhere down the line, Agamemnon’s heralds were already stirring the men—calling them to another assembly, another day of plans and pride.

When the horn blew, it sounded less like command and more like inevitability.

By midday the camp was alive again with noise—smiths hammering dents from armor, cooks boiling what little grain they’d stolen from Trojan fields, priests murmuring over entrails. Odysseus met Achilles near the line of ships, face drawn but alert.

“They’re restless,” he said. “Agamemnon wants another push. A show of strength. Hector’s raids have cut too close.” Achilles frowned. “Restless men make poor soldiers.”

“Restless kings make worse ones.” That earned a small, humorless smile. “And what do *you* want, Odysseus?”

“To end this,” he said simply. “Before the gods grow bored and start choosing favorites again.” Achilles looked toward the horizon where Troy’s walls stood faint and gold in the distance. “They already have.”

When evening came, the wind shifted east, carrying with it the scent of rain. The men grew quiet as the torches flickered low, and the air felt thick—charged with something too heavy to name. Achilles sat with Patroclus outside their tent, watching Diomedes argue with a young captain over a broken spear haft. Patroclus leaned close. “You feel it too, don’t you?” Achilles’ jaw tightened. “The waiting.”

“No,” Patroclus said softly. “The end of something. Like the air before a storm.” He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right—the world itself seemed to hold its breath. That night, the dream came again. He stood on the beach of Phthia, only the sea was black glass and the sky was bleeding light. His mother’s voice rose from the waves, soft and certain: *You will be remembered, my son. But not for peace.*

He reached for her and found only water. It curled around his fingers like smoke. He woke with a gasp, sweat slick on his chest, heart pounding. Patroclus was asleep beside him, one hand curled near Achilles’ ribs as if to tether him to the world. Achilles watched him for a long time—his steady breathing, the quiet rise and fall—and thought of how fragile it all was.

How easily fate could cut the thread.

By dawn, the rain had come. It fell soft at first, a whisper on canvas, then harder until the earth turned to mud. The Greeks cursed and sloshed through the mire, the fires choking on their own smoke. Agamemnon’s tent was lit from within—a shadow moved across the canvas, sharp-angled, restless. A messenger came soon after. “Hector has challenged us again,” he said breathlessly. “He waits by the plain—he calls for single combat.”

Silence spread like oil. Achilles did not move. His fingers tightened around the haft of his spear until the wood creaked. “And who has answered him?”

“No one yet.” Patroclus looked at him. “Don’t.” Achilles met his gaze, something ancient flickering in his eyes. “If not me, who?”

“You know what will come of it.”

“Yes.” His voice was quiet. “That’s why I must.”

The plains outside Troy shimmered with heat and rain. The clouds had broken just enough for the sun to spill through in thin, gold shafts, lighting the mud and blood like molten bronze. The Trojans lined their walls, their voices carrying faintly across the field—chants, prayers, warnings.

Hector stood at the center, helm beneath his arm, spear grounded in the soaked earth. His armor was burnished gold, catching the morning light, but his face was carved from exhaustion. Every line spoke of duty, not pride. He turned when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps—heavy, deliberate, too calm to be anyone else.

Achilles.

The Myrmidons followed behind him like shadows, but when they reached the plain, he lifted a hand, halting them. He came forward alone. His armor caught the light like flame, the crest on his helm rising like a tongue of fire. Between them stretched the distance of gods and men. For a moment, neither spoke. The wind rolled between them, stirring the dust, lifting the edges of their cloaks. “It was always going to be you,” Hector said quietly. Achilles’ mouth curved, not quite a smile. “And you.”

“Then let it be finished.” They circled once, twice—each measuring the other not as a man, but as an inevitability. The watching armies fell silent; even the gulls overhead seemed to still in their flight. Then the sound came—a sharp crack of thunder, distant but unmistakable. Zeus watching. Their spears clashed first. The impact rang like a bell through the valley. Hector’s thrust met Achilles’ parry, sparks leaping from bronze on bronze. They broke apart, circled again. The mud clung to their greaves; their breath misted in the cooling air.

Achilles struck first this time—swift, precise, almost beautiful. Hector caught the blow on his shield, but the force sent him staggering back. His own counter came low and sudden, slicing a line across Achilles’ thigh. Blood welled, bright against the rain-darkened ground. Achilles didn’t flinch. “A god would have missed,” he said.

“And yet,” Hector answered, panting, “it was not a god who bled.” The words only seemed to sharpen him. Achilles lunged again, faster now, relentless. The clangor of their weapons echoed off the walls of Troy, each strike a hymn to fury.

Then—one opening. One heartbeat. Achilles feinted left, turned, and drove his spear through the gap beneath Hector’s collarbone. The point burst through his back in a spray of crimson. Hector gasped, eyes wide, hands clawing for purchase on the air. His knees hit the earth.

Achilles caught him as he fell, lowering him—not gently, but not cruelly either. Rain ran in rivulets down their armor, washing blood into the soil. “You fought well,” Achilles said softly, almost to himself. Hector’s lips parted. His voice was faint, but steady. “Then remember me that way.”

Achilles’ hand tightened briefly, then released. The light left Hector’s eyes like a sunset sinking into the sea. Silence held. Then, slowly, Achilles rose. The men on both sides stared. None dared move. He lifted his gaze toward Troy’s walls, where Priam’s cries could already be heard faintly in the wind. His expression was unreadable.

He turned back toward the Greek camp, dragging Hector’s body behind his chariot—not from hate, but from the numb, hollow need to prove that he was still something more than mortal grief in human skin.

Above, the storm finally broke.

The storm that followed the duel broke with a violence that felt divine. Lightning split the sky in jagged veins, and the rain came down so heavy it drowned the cries of men and beasts alike. The plains turned to rivers. The earth drank blood and water in equal measure.

Achilles rode through it, Hector’s body lashed behind the chariot, wheels hissing in the mud. The Myrmidons followed, their silence heavier than any thunder. No one spoke of glory. No one sang. The only sound was the grind of the wheels and the whisper of rain over bronze.

When they reached camp, the men parted before him like a tide. Some looked away. Others watched, grim, hollow-eyed. They had seen heroes fall before, but this—this was something else. This was the unraveling of a story they had believed eternal.

Achilles stopped near his tent. The body dragged to a halt, a broken marionette in the mud. For a long time, he simply stared at it. The rain slicked his hair to his skull, ran in dark trails down his face, but he did not move.

Patroclus’ armor gleamed faintly from where it hung inside the tent, untouched since the day Achilles had sworn to wear it no more. He reached for it now, not to don it, but to touch it—his fingers tracing the dents, the scuffs, the darkened metal. The scent of oil and smoke lingered, and beneath it something he remembered too vividly: the faint sweetness of myrrh and salt.

He sank to his knees beside it, his breath shuddering. “He’s dead,” Achilles whispered—to no one, to everyone, to the ghost that had not left him. “I did what I was meant to. It should feel like victory.” But it didn’t. It felt like absence, vast and cold.

Later, when the rain quieted, the Greeks feasted. Not in joy, but in relief. Agamemnon made a speech about triumph, Odysseus drank in silence, and Diomedes kept his leg propped on a stool, his wound stiff and raw. None dared approach Achilles. That night, the dreams came. He stood again on the plain, the air thick with mist. A figure moved ahead—barefoot, unarmored. Patroclus.

Achilles reached for him. “Stay,” he said. “You don’t have to go again.” Patroclus turned. His face was peaceful, the faintest smile ghosting his lips. “You’ve done what you must. But it’s not over. Not yet.”

“What else is there?” Achilles demanded. “There’s nothing left but the ashes.” Patroclus only said, “Then let them cool,” and stepped backward into the fog.

Achilles woke with a strangled breath. The fire in his tent had gone to embers. His heart pounded like a war drum. Before dawn, he left his tent and went to where Hector’s body lay. The rain had cleaned it of mud, but the wounds remained. He stood there a long time, the cold air biting through him.

“Is this all the gods made us for?” he asked the body, or perhaps the stars. “To kill what we envy, to destroy what mirrors us?” The answer came not from heaven, but from behind him—a voice rough and trembling. “No. It was to love, even in ruin.” Achilles turned. An old man stood there, robes soaked through, hair clinging to his face. Priam. King of Troy.

The guards stirred, ready to move, but Achilles raised a hand. “Let him come.” Priam stumbled forward, each step an act of will. He fell to his knees before Achilles, hands outstretched. “I have kissed the hands of the man who killed my son,” he said, voice breaking. “Do you know what that is?”

Achilles stared down at him. “Madness,” he said softly. “Perhaps,” Priam whispered. “Or mercy. Even gods pity those who kneel.” For a long time, Achilles said nothing. Then, slowly, he knelt too. He reached out, placed a hand on Priam’s shoulder. The old man shuddered under the touch.

“You will take him home,” Achilles said at last. “You will give him his rites. The war will wait until dawn.” Priam wept. Achilles felt something inside him—something old and terrible—ease, just slightly. The rain outside had stopped; the air smelled of wet earth and olive smoke.

Together, they lifted Hector’s body onto the cart. Achilles covered it with a linen shroud, careful, reverent. When Priam left, Achilles watched until the torchlight vanished into the dark. Then he stood alone, the camp silent around him, the first faint stirrings of dawn painting the sky.

He thought of Patroclus again—of laughter, of warmth, of the sound of his voice saying his name. For the first time in what felt like lifetimes, Achilles whispered a prayer—not for victory, but for peace. And when the sun broke, it found him still kneeling in the mud, head bowed, the war’s greatest hero made small by love.

The days after Hector’s death stretched thin—strange, hollow, unreal. The air over the plains was too still, the camp too quiet. The men moved as though their shadows had grown heavier.

Achilles felt the quiet like a wound that wouldn’t clot. He spent long hours sitting outside his tent, watching the wind crawl over the grass. Sometimes he thought he heard laughter—Patroclus’ voice, or Diomedes’ low growl of amusement—but when he turned, there was only the sound of the sea.

Diomedes limped to him one evening, the sunset bleeding gold through the torn clouds. His wound had mostly closed, but he moved stiffly. He carried a flask in one hand, wine dark and strong, and lowered himself beside Achilles without a word.

For a while, they said nothing. The light caught Diomedes’ profile—his jaw unshaven, his face lined by battle and sleepless nights. There was something gentler in him than Achilles remembered, tempered by pain but still burning. “You’re not eating,” Diomedes said finally. “I’m not hungry.”

“Liar.” Achilles gave a small, crooked smile. “You’re limping.”

“Fair.” Diomedes took a long drink, then passed the flask. “You should know, Odysseus thinks you’ve gone half-mad.”

“I’ve always been half-mad,” Achilles murmured, tilting the flask. “It’s the other half that keeps me from dying.”

“That half looks tired.” Achilles turned to him, the faintest spark of humor breaking through the fog. “You’ve gotten poetic since bleeding out in the dirt.”

Diomedes huffed, a sound that might have been a laugh. “Almost dying makes you philosophical. Don’t try it, it’s overrated.” The silence between them changed—less like absence, more like breath. Achilles let the moment stretch, then reached over and rested a hand over Diomedes’ bandaged thigh. “Does it still hurt?” Diomedes met his eyes. “Only when I stop pretending it doesn’t.”

Something flickered between them, sharp and soft at once. Achilles’ thumb traced the edge of the bandage; Diomedes didn’t pull away. Patroclus’ voice cut softly through the tent flap. “If you two are done trying to one-up the gods, there’s stew.”

They turned, and there he was—Patroclus, hair tied back loosely, a thin scar still new across his shoulder. His gaze softened when it found them both, lingering in that way that made Achilles’ chest ache. “You look like death,” he told Achilles. Then to Diomedes, “And you look worse.” Diomedes smirked. “You should see the other men.”

Patroclus stepped inside, the light dimming behind him. “I’ve seen them. They’re walking.” That drew a hoarse laugh from both warriors. It broke something in Achilles—something brittle. He stood, closing the distance between them in two strides, his hand catching at Patroclus’ waist. The warmth of him was grounding, real.

“I missed you,” Achilles said quietly. Patroclus leaned into him, his breath soft against Achilles’ throat. “You didn’t lose me.” But Achilles’ eyes met Diomedes’, and there was something in that look—something like guilt, or maybe longing that didn’t know where to land.

“Come here,” Patroclus said, and Diomedes obeyed, slower but sure. When he reached them, Patroclus took his hand, pressing it to Achilles’ chest, right over the heartbeat that thundered there. “You both bleed the same,” he said, voice low. “You both burn the same.” Achilles’ breath caught. Diomedes’ hand trembled where it rested. For a long time, none of them spoke. The war, the noise, the years of ache—all of it fell away. There was only the sound of rain starting again outside, soft and forgiving.

Later, when the fire burned low, the three of them sat close—Achilles in the center, Patroclus leaning against one shoulder, Diomedes against the other. No armor, no glory, just warmth and exhaustion and the fragile peace of knowing they were still alive. Achilles’ voice was rough when he finally spoke. “When this ends… if it ever ends… I don’t want to be remembered for how I fought.” Patroclus stirred. “Then for what?”

“For this,” Achilles said. “For us.” Diomedes’ hand tightened on his arm. “Then fight to live long enough to be remembered that way.”

Achilles turned his head, pressing a kiss to the crown of Patroclus’ hair, then to the line of Diomedes’ jaw. The air smelled of salt and smoke and something almost holy—like the world had paused just long enough for them to exist. Outside, the storm began to ease. The night stretched long and quiet. They slept tangled together, the three of them, as if by staying close they could hold back the tide of fate for one more breath.

But the gods do not forget. And the dawn that came after carried more than light—it carried the whisper of arrows, the echo of prophecy, and the promise that even love as fierce as theirs could not halt destiny forever.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒚

The battlefield was quiet when Achilles found him. Troy's walls still smoked in the distance, a dying fire against a dying sky. Blood had dried dark on the sand, and the river Scamander ran red where it met the sea. Achilles stood there, armor cracked, eyes wild and hollow — a man who had won everything and lost even more. Hector lay before him, breath shallow, his spear snapped in two beside his hand. There was no glory left in him, no defiance — only exhaustion. His gaze met Achilles', and for a moment, the world went still.

"Do it," Hector whispered. "End it." Achilles should have. He had promised the gods vengeance, promised Patroclus his justice. Yet something in Hector's voice — quiet, human — stopped him. It wasn't defiance anymore. It was surrender, and something almost like understanding.

The rage that had carried Achilles across the battlefield began to waver, like a flame caught in the wind. His chest ached. He thought of Patroclus' laughter, of how the light had left his eyes. He thought of how this man, this enemy, had loved his family the same way — fiercely, desperately, like life itself was slipping through their fingers. The spear in Achilles' hand trembled. He dropped it.

"Do you think the gods will forgive us for this?" Hector asked, his voice barely a breath. Achilles didn't know. He only knew that, for the first time, he didn't want to be a hero. He only wanted the killing to stop and so he stayed — by his enemy's side, as night began to fall over Troy.

The night was long. Achilles did not leave. He sat in the blood-soaked dirt beside Hector, silent as the stars crept out one by one. The fire of Troy burned low in the distance, casting an orange halo on the horizon — a crown of ruin.

Hector stirred once, wincing as the motion tore at his wounds. "Why are you still here?" he murmured. His voice was hoarse, cracked open like the rest of him. "You've done what you came to do. Go." Achilles' gaze stayed fixed on the horizon. "And go where?" he said softly. "There's nothing left to return to." Hector gave a weak laugh, bitter and small. "Then we are both ghosts."

Silence stretched between them — uneasy, but not hateful. It was strange, how empty the air felt without the clash of bronze, without the screaming. Achilles found himself studying the lines of Hector's face, the way the firelight caught on the dark curls at his temple. He had never seen him like this before — not as an enemy, but as a man. He tore a strip of cloth from his own tunic and pressed it to Hector's wound. The Trojan flinched. "Don't," Hector hissed, weakly pushing him away. "Be still," Achilles muttered, his tone sharper than he intended. "I'm not doing this for you."

"Then for whom?" Hector whispered. Achilles hesitated. The name lodged in his throat like an arrow. "For someone I loved," he finally said. Hector said nothing after that. The fire crackled, and the night wind carried the faint cries of distant soldiers. The world had quieted, yet both men sat awake, bound by something neither could name — grief, maybe, or guilt, or the bitter understanding that even victory had teeth.

When dawn came, it painted Troy in pale gold. Achilles had not slept. And when Hector's eyes finally met his in the light of morning, there was no hatred left between them — only the fragile kind of peace that comes after the end of everything.

The morning after was cruelly beautiful.

Smoke drifted over Troy like mist, and the air was thick with the scent of iron and burnt cedar. Achilles helped Hector sit up, slow and careful. The prince's body trembled under the effort, his breath hitching with every move.

"You shouldn't—" Hector began, but Achilles silenced him with a look. There was no rage left in those blue eyes, only exhaustion that went all the way down to the bone. "I don't take orders from the dead," Achilles said, voice quiet. "So stay alive. It'll make things simpler." It should have been a threat. But it wasn't.

For the next few days, they existed in a strange, quiet rhythm. Achilles hunted small game near the river and brought it back to the ruins of a tent that once belonged to the Myrmidons. He cleaned Hector's wounds, bandaged them with torn linen, and never said much while doing it. The silence between them became something alive, something that shifted with every heartbeat — heavy at first, then softer.

The first time Achilles brought back a rabbit, skinned and ready to cook, Hector stared at it with something like disbelief. "You hunt now?" Hector asked, a hint of his old humor returning. "The great Achilles, swift of foot, chasing rabbits through the underbrush?"

"Would you prefer to starve?" Achilles replied, but there was no bite to it. "I prefer not to be a burden." Achilles paused in his work, hands stilling over the makeshift spit he was constructing. "You're not," he said, quieter. "You never were." Hector didn't respond, but something in his expression softened. They ate in silence that night, the meat tough and gamey but better than anything either had tasted in months. War had a way of making you forget what real food tasted like, what it meant to eat for pleasure rather than just survival.

One evening, Hector spoke while Achilles was stitching a gash along his side. "You could've dragged me behind your chariot," he said, tone half-daring, half-weary. "Everyone expected you to." Achilles' hand paused mid-thread. The sun was sinking beyond the horizon, turning the sky into fire and blood. "I almost did." Hector looked at him then — not with hatred, but with something like understanding. "But you didn't."

"No," Achilles said quietly. "Patroclus would've hated me for it." For a moment, the only sound was the flicker of the fire. Then Hector said, almost gently, "He must have loved you deeply." Achilles smiled, small and broken. "Too deeply. Enough that I forgot how to be anything but his wrath."

"Tell me about him," Hector said suddenly. "If you want to. Tell me who he was before the war made him a name." Achilles' hands stilled completely. No one had asked him that before. Everyone knew Patroclus as Achilles' companion, his beloved, his reason for returning to battle. But no one had asked about the man himself — the person behind the legend.

"He was kind," Achilles began, voice rough with emotion. "Kinder than anyone I'd ever known. He could make friends with anyone — soldiers, servants, even the horses loved him." A faint smile touched his lips. "He used to sneak extra feed to my chariot horses. Thought I didn't notice, but I always did."

Hector listened, silent and attentive. "He wasn't the strongest fighter, or the fastest. But he was brave in a way I never could be. He was brave enough to be gentle in a world of violence. Brave enough to love me when I was barely human." Achilles' voice cracked. "I was his whole world, and I let him die wearing my armor, pretending to be me."

"You didn't let him die," Hector said firmly. "I killed him. That choice was mine, and that guilt is mine to carry."

"We both carry it," Achilles replied. "That's what makes us the same." They sat in silence after that. The kind of silence that isn't empty, but full of everything unsaid. Later, when Hector drifted to sleep beside the dying fire, Achilles found himself watching him. The war had stolen everything that made them enemies — armies, armor, pride — and left behind only two men who had lost too much.

For the first time in years, Achilles felt something other than fury rise in his chest. It wasn't forgiveness, not yet. But it was close — like the faint warmth of sunlight after a storm. He reached over, almost without meaning to, and adjusted the blanket over Hector's shoulders. "Sleep," he murmured. "The gods can damn us later." The night held them both, not as hero and enemy — but as survivors, breathing the same weary air beneath the same endless sky.

On the third day, Hector tried to stand on his own. He made it halfway to his feet before his legs buckled. Achilles caught him before he hit the ground, steadying him with a firm grip on his arm.

"Stubborn," Achilles muttered. "Pot. Kettle," Hector replied through gritted teeth. They stood there for a moment, Hector leaning heavily against him, both breathing hard from the effort. Achilles could feel the heat radiating from Hector's body — fever, probably, or just the strain of healing. Up close like this, he could see the exhaustion carved into every line of Hector's face, the shadows under his eyes like bruises. "You need to rest more," Achilles said. "I need to be able to walk," Hector countered. "I won't be carried like an invalid."

"Your pride will kill you faster than any wound." Hector laughed, sharp and breathless. "Says the man whose pride started a war." Achilles should have been angry. Instead, he found himself almost smiling. "Fair enough." He helped Hector back down to the makeshift bedroll, more gently than necessary. As he did, Hector's hand caught his wrist — not restraining, just... holding. "Thank you," Hector said quietly. "For not letting me die with nothing but hate in my heart." Achilles looked at him for a long moment. "You never would have," he said finally. "You're not built for it the way I am."

"Was," Hector corrected. "Past tense."

"Was," Achilles agreed, softer.

That night, as the fire burned low and the stars wheeled overhead, Hector told him about Andromache. About how she used to braid flowers into her hair in the spring, how she sang to their son at night, how she had begged him not to fight that final day. "I told her I had to," Hector said, staring into the flames. "That it was my duty. But the truth is, I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't. Afraid of being called a coward. Afraid of... so many things."

"She loved you," Achilles said. "That much was clear to anyone who saw you together."

"I hope she's safe now," Hector whispered. "Her and Astyanax. I hope they found somewhere far from here, somewhere the war can't touch them." Achilles wanted to tell him the truth — that he'd heard rumors, whispers of what happened to the royal family after Troy fell. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Let Hector have this one mercy. Let him believe his family had escaped. "Do you think she knows I thought of her?" Hector asked. "At the end?"

"I think she knows you loved her," Achilles said. "That's what matters." Hector nodded slowly, but his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I hope so. I hope she knows I tried."

"She knows," Achilles said with certainty he didn't entirely feel. "Love like that doesn't need words." They sat in silence after that, but it was a different kind now. Companionable. Almost peaceful. When Hector finally slept, Achilles stayed awake, keeping watch. Not against enemies — those were long gone — but against the darkness that crept in when you had nothing left to fight. He understood it well enough. It had nearly devoured him after Patroclus died.

But sitting here now, listening to Hector's steady breathing, feeling the warmth of another living person nearby... it helped. More than he'd expected it to. "I miss you," he whispered to the night, to Patroclus' memory. "But I think you'd understand this. I think you'd want me to try." The stars offered no answer, but somehow, that was enough.

A week passed before Hector could walk without assistance. When he finally managed it — stumbling but upright, moving on his own power — Achilles felt something uncomfortably close to pride. "Don't let it go to your head," Achilles said, but he was almost smiling. "Too late," Hector replied, grinning despite the obvious pain. "I'm insufferable now."

They walked to the river together that afternoon. It was the first time Hector had made it that far under his own strength. The water ran clear here, away from the battlefield, and the sound of it was soothing — constant and eternal. Hector knelt by the bank and splashed water on his face, then cupped his hands and drank deeply. When he looked up, his expression was thoughtful. "We could stay here," he said. "Build something. Not much, but... something."

"Here?" Achilles looked around at the ruins, at the empty land. "There's nothing left."

"Exactly," Hector said. "No armies. No kings. No one to tell us who we have to be." He met Achilles' gaze. "Just us. Just... peace." Achilles felt something shift in his chest. The idea should have seemed absurd — two warriors, enemies, living together in the ruins of the war that had destroyed them both. But instead, it felt... right. Like the first honest thing either of them had considered in years. "Just peace," Achilles repeated, testing the words. "Unless you have somewhere better to be," Hector added with a slight smile.

Achilles thought of returning to Phthia, to his father's kingdom. Thought of the empty throne, the expectant faces, the weight of being the hero who survived. Thought of how every stone and every street would remind him of Patroclus. "No," he said finally. "I don't."

Days passed, and the ruins began to quiet.

The Greeks had long since sailed home, leaving Troy's broken walls to the wind and the carrion birds. Achilles stayed. He told himself it was to make sure Hector healed enough to survive — but deep down, he knew it was because leaving would mean facing the silence alone. They built a small shelter near the river, where the reeds whispered and the earth still smelled of rain. It wasn't much — just driftwood, tattered cloth, and the stubborn will to exist. Hector recovered slowly, his strength returning piece by piece.

The work was hard but honest. They scavenged wood from the ruins of Troy, careful to avoid the places where bodies still lay. They wove reeds into walls, patched holes with clay from the riverbank. Achilles proved surprisingly adept at construction, his warrior's precision translating well to carpentry. "You're good at this," Hector observed one afternoon, watching Achilles secure a roof beam. "Chiron taught me," Achilles said. "He believed a warrior should know how to build as well as destroy."

"Wise," Hector said. "He usually was." They worked in comfortable silence after that, the rhythm of their labor almost meditative. When the shelter was finally complete — modest but sturdy — they stood back and looked at it with something like satisfaction. "It's not a palace," Hector said.

"It's better," Achilles replied. "It's ours." Sometimes Hector would wake before dawn and find Achilles already sitting by the water, bare feet in the current, lost in thought. "Do you ever sleep?" Hector asked one morning, voice rough from sleep.

"Sometimes," Achilles said. "When the memories let me." Hector joined him at the riverbank. For a while, neither spoke. The world around them was still — the kind of peace that feels fragile, like it might shatter if you breathe too loudly. "I used to hate you," Hector admitted at last. "Every story I told myself was about defeating you, proving I could." Achilles smiled faintly, eyes on the rippling surface. "And now?"

"Now," Hector said, "I think we were both just trying to live up to the names they gave us." That drew a soft huff of laughter from Achilles — rare, unguarded. "Maybe the poets will hate us for this," he said, glancing at Hector. "For not dying properly."

"Let them," Hector murmured. "We've given them enough tragedy." The morning light was gold on the water, warm against their skin. Achilles reached out, almost absently, and brushed a stray leaf from Hector's shoulder. The touch lingered. Hector didn't pull away.

They began to fall into routines. Achilles would fish in the mornings while Hector gathered wood. They'd prepare meals together — simple things, roasted fish and wild herbs, nothing like the feasts they'd once known but somehow better for their simplicity. In the afternoons, they'd walk along the riverbank, Hector's steps growing steadier each day. One day, Hector laughed at something — Achilles couldn't even remember what — and the sound was so unexpected, so genuine, that it stopped them both in their tracks. "I'd forgotten," Hector said, wonder in his voice. "I'd forgotten what that felt like."

"Joy?" Achilles asked.

"Hope," Hector corrected. They stood there in the dappled sunlight, and Achilles realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt it either. Not since before Patroclus died. Maybe not since before the war began. "It's strange, isn't it?" he said. "To find it here. After everything."

"Maybe that's the only place it can grow," Hector replied. "In the ruins." One evening, as the sun painted the sky in shades of amber and rose, they sat by the fire and Hector asked Achilles to teach him a song. "A song?" Achilles raised an eyebrow.

"Patroclus mentioned once that you played the lyre," Hector said. "That you had a beautiful voice. I thought... I thought maybe you could share something." Achilles was quiet for a long moment. He hadn't sung since before Patroclus died. Hadn't even thought about music. But something in Hector's expression — open, hopeful — made him want to try. "I don't have a lyre anymore," he said.

"Then just sing," Hector replied simply. So Achilles sang. His voice was rough from disuse, cracking on some notes, but the melody was there — an old song Chiron had taught him about the turning of seasons, about endings and beginnings. About how even the longest winter eventually gives way to spring. When he finished, Hector was staring at him with something like awe. "That was beautiful," Hector said softly. Achilles felt heat rise to his cheeks — an unfamiliar sensation. "It's just an old song."

"No," Hector said. "It's hope. It's proof that there's more to you than war." They sat in comfortable silence after that, the fire crackling between them. Achilles found himself thinking that maybe Hector was right. Maybe there was more to him than battle and rage. Maybe he could be something else now. Later that evening, when the air turned cool and the fire crackled low, Hector dozed beside him. Achilles sat close, the weight of the day heavy but softer somehow. He found himself tracing idle shapes in the dirt — meaningless patterns that felt like prayers.

He looked at Hector, at the steady rise and fall of his chest, and realized the strangest thing of all: the rage that had once driven him felt distant now, replaced by something gentler, quieter. "You should've been my friend," Achilles said under his breath. "In another life, you would've been."

Hector stirred but didn't wake and Achilles, for the first time since Patroclus had fallen, let himself close his eyes — not as a warrior or a weapon, but simply as a man beside another who understood him in ways no one else ever could. Outside, the night hummed softly, carrying the promise of something new: not victory, not vengeance — but peace.

Spring came slowly to the ashes of Troy.

Grass grew again between the shattered stones, small and stubborn. The river ran clear. The wind no longer smelled of smoke. Achilles and Hector lived by the water still, though the days had softened. They learned the rhythm of small things: fishing, mending what could be mended, speaking little.

They planted a garden behind their shelter — herbs at first, then vegetables. Hector had some knowledge of farming from watching the fields around Troy, and together they coaxed life from the war-scorched earth. The first time a green shoot pushed through the soil, they both stared at it like it was a miracle. "Life," Hector said, voice filled with quiet wonder. "Even here."

"Especially here," Achilles corrected. They tended it carefully, watering it with river water, protecting it from birds and rabbits. As more plants grew, the garden became a symbol of something larger — proof that not everything the war had touched had to stay dead.

Some mornings Achilles would catch Hector watching the sunrise as if he were memorizing it. Other mornings Hector would find Achilles asleep in the grass, unarmored and finally unguarded. "You're different," Hector said one afternoon, as they sat watching the sky blush toward dusk. "So are you," Achilles answered.

"Perhaps that's what peace does to men like us." Hector smiled then — a real, quiet smile that reached his eyes. "It doesn't erase what we've done. But it gives it… meaning." Achilles turned a pebble over in his hand. "Meaning," he repeated. "I think Patroclus would have liked you."

"And Andromache," Hector said, "would have hated you a little less." They both laughed — soft, careful laughter that didn't carry bitterness anymore. It startled a pair of birds from the reeds. When night fell, they lit a small fire. Achilles lay back, his head resting against folded arms. "Do you think the gods ever tire of watching us repeat ourselves?"

"Maybe," Hector said. "Maybe that's why they let the grass grow again." Silence settled between them, companionable this time. Hector leaned against Achilles' shoulder, hesitating for only a breath before he did. Achilles didn't move away. The warmth between them was gentle, almost unreal — a pulse of life where once there had only been loss.

For a long while they stayed like that, listening to the river. "Tell me something true," Hector said. Achilles thought for a moment. "I'm not sure I know what truth is anymore."

"Then tell me something you want to be true." Achilles turned to look at him, the firelight catching in his hair. "That this —" he said, quiet and steady, "— isn't just the afterlife of war. That it's something we get to keep."

Hector's eyes softened. "Then let's keep it." And in the hush that followed, the river sang its low, endless song. Two men once carved into legend sat side by side, not as conqueror and conquered, but as something simpler. The world would remember them for their battle. But somewhere, beyond story and ruin, the truth would remain: that even the fiercest hearts could learn how to be still. That love, when it came, could be enough.

Summer arrived with golden heat and long, lazy days.

They swam in the river when the sun climbed too high, splashing like children who had never learned what war meant. Hector's scars were fading to silver lines, maps of survival etched across his skin. Achilles traced one absently one afternoon while they sat on the bank, drying in the sun. "Does it hurt?" he asked.

"Not anymore," Hector said. "Not for a long time." Achilles nodded, understanding what he meant. Some wounds healed. Others just became part of you. The days grew longer and warmer. They expanded their garden, adding more vegetables, even some flowers that Hector insisted on planting. "Flowers?" Achilles had asked, skeptical.

"Andromache loved them," Hector said simply. "It feels right to have some beauty here." So they planted wildflowers along the edge of the garden, and when they bloomed — bright splashes of yellow and purple and red — even Achilles had to admit they made the place feel more like a home.

On the nights when the memories were too heavy, when ghosts crowded too close, they would sit by the fire and tell each other stories. Not of battles or glory, but of small things. Hector talked about learning to ride as a boy, about stealing honey cakes from the palace kitchen with his brother Paris. Achilles spoke of training with Chiron, of swimming in mountain streams so cold they stole your breath.

They built a life out of fragments, and somehow it held. "Do you have regrets?" Hector asked one evening, apropos of nothing. Achilles considered the question carefully. "Too many to name," he admitted. "But not this. Never this."

Hector reached for his hand, threading their fingers together. "Nor I." The touch was no longer surprising. It had become natural, necessary even — a tether in the dark. They'd been touching more lately, small gestures of affection that neither acknowledged but both needed. A hand on a shoulder, fingers brushing while passing food, sitting close enough to feel each other's warmth.

One night, under a sky full of stars, Hector kissed him. It was tentative at first, a question more than a statement. But Achilles answered without hesitation, leaning into it, into him. When they broke apart, both were breathing hard. "I—" Hector started. "Don't apologize," Achilles said quickly. "Please don't apologize."

"I wasn't going to," Hector said with a small smile. "I was going to say I should have done that sooner." Achilles laughed, surprised and delighted. "Much sooner." They kissed again, slower this time, savoring it. And when they finally lay down to sleep that night, they did so wrapped in each other's arms, two hearts beating in sync.

Autumn painted the world in amber and rust.

Leaves drifted down from the trees, and the air grew crisp with the promise of winter. They gathered firewood together, preparing for the cold months ahead. Hector moved easier now, his strength fully returned, but sometimes Achilles would catch him staring toward Troy's ruins, a distant look in his eyes.

"Do you want to go back?" Achilles asked one day. Hector shook his head. "There's nothing left there but stones and sorrow. This —" he gestured around them, at their small shelter, their garden, the river that had become home "— this is real. That was just a dream someone else had for me."

"You were a prince," Achilles said. "You had responsibilities."

"I was a dead man," Hector corrected. "You gave me a second life. I won't waste it living in the past." They stood together watching the river flow, eternal and unchanging. Achilles felt something settle in his chest, something that had been restless for years finally finding its place. "I never apologized," he said suddenly. "For Patroclus. For what I became after."

"You don't need to," Hector replied. "I understood it. Even then, I understood."

"He was everything to me."

"I know." Hector turned to face him fully. "And you're allowed to miss him. You're allowed to love him still. Love doesn't die just because people do." Achilles felt his throat tighten. "Sometimes I feel guilty. For being happy here. With you."

"Don't," Hector said firmly. He cupped Achilles' face in his hands, forcing him to meet his gaze. "Love isn't a finite resource. You're not betraying him by living. You honor him by choosing to survive." Tears pricked at Achilles' eyes — the first he'd shed in months, maybe years. Hector pulled him close, and Achilles let himself be held, let himself grieve and heal in the same breath. "Thank you," he whispered against Hector's shoulder. "For what?"

"For reminding me what it means to be human."bThey stood there as the sun set, wrapped in each other's warmth, and the world spun on around them — indifferent but not unkind.

Winter came gently that year. Snow fell in soft drifts, muffling the world in white. They spent long evenings by the fire, wrapped in blankets, talking about everything and nothing. Hector taught Achilles a dice game from Troy. Achilles showed Hector how to carve wood into simple shapes. "You're terrible at this," Achilles said, looking at Hector's lopsided attempt at a fish. "It's abstract," Hector defended.

"It's a blob."

"An abstract blob." They laughed until their sides hurt, and later made love slowly by the firelight, learning each other's bodies with patient hands.

The years passed quietly.

No poets came to find them. No kings sent for them. Troy became a story, and stories fade. They grew older together, marking time by the seasons rather than battles. Silver crept into Hector's hair first, then Achilles'. Their hands grew more callused from work than war. They never spoke of leaving. This place, this simple life by the river, had become everything. They had built something real here, something that belonged only to them.

One spring, they added a room to their shelter. One winter, they built a better hearth. Each year, they tended their garden and watched it grow. Each year, they grew more entwined with each other, until it was impossible to say where one ended and the other began.

But time, as it always does, continued its march. Hector's strength, once the pride of Troy, began to fail with the seasons. His hair silvered completely, his steps slowed. Achilles noticed before Hector did — how the mornings took longer for him to rise, how his hands shook when he tried to light the fire.

"Age suits you," Achilles teased one day, trying to hide the ache in his chest.v"Not everyone can stay young out of spite," Hector replied, smiling. "Perhaps you should try living instead of defying the years."

They both laughed, and the sound lingered. But Achilles did age, eventually. The goddess-blessed youth that had carried him through war finally began to fade. His joints grew stiff, his reflexes slower. They grew old together, two warriors becoming two old men who knew each other's stories by heart.

They moved slower now, but they moved together. When Hector struggled with tasks, Achilles was there. When Achilles' old wounds ached, Hector massaged them gently. They took care of each other with the practiced ease of decades of love.

One evening, the sky turned the same red as the one they had first met beneath. Achilles sat beside Hector by the river. The air smelled of rain and blooming reeds. Hector leaned against him, tired but content. "Do you ever think of it?" Hector asked quietly. "The war."

"Only when I remember what it stole," Achilles said. "And what did it give you?" Achilles looked at him then — at the lines etched by time and sun, at the eyes still steady despite everything, still full of warmth and love. "You," he said simply. "It gave me you." Hector closed his eyes, a peaceful smile on his lips. "Then it wasn't for nothing." The fire burned low. The river murmured on. When the first drops of rain began to fall, Achilles reached for his hand and didn't let go. Hector's breathing slowed, even, peaceful — like the tide pulling away from the shore. "I love you," Achilles whispered. "I should have said it more."

"I know," Hector breathed. "I always knew." And then, as gently as falling asleep, he was gone.

By morning, the rain had stopped. The river was calm. Achilles buried him beneath the willow tree by the water, the same place they had built their shelter all those years ago. He marked the spot with Hector's broken spear — the one he'd kept all this time — and a simple stone. No grand monument. Nothing fit for legends. Just real. Just honest.

He carved a single word into the stone: Beloved. He stayed there for many days, speaking to Hector as if he could still hear. Maybe he could. Achilles told him about the garden, about how the flowers were blooming early this year. About the fish he'd caught that morning. About how much he missed him. "You'd tell me not to mourn," he said aloud. "You'd tell me to keep living."

And so he did. He wandered for a time, never too far from the water. He tended the garden they'd planted together, harvested vegetables, pulled weeds. Sometimes he would speak to the grave as if Hector were still listening, and maybe he was. "The tomatoes are coming in well," he'd say. Or, "The roof needs patching. I'll get to it tomorrow."

There was a peace in it — the kind that doesn't erase sorrow, but softens it into something bearable. He learned to carry his grief the way he'd once carried his armor: as part of himself, heavy but familiar.

The seasons turned. Spring became summer, summer became autumn. Achilles continued his routines, finding comfort in the familiar rhythm of each day. He caught fish at dawn, tended the garden in the afternoon, sat by Hector's grave in the evening and told him about his day.

Sometimes travelers would pass by the ruins of Troy, and they'd see an old man living alone by the river. They never recognized him as Achilles, the greatest warrior who ever lived. He was just an old man with silver hair and kind eyes, who kept a beautiful garden and spoke to the wind.

One such traveler, a young merchant, stopped to ask for water. "You live here alone?" the merchant asked, looking around at the modest but well-kept shelter. "Not alone," Achilles replied, glancing toward the willow tree. "Never alone." The merchant followed his gaze but saw only a grave. He didn't ask more questions.

That night, Achilles sat by the fire and remembered. He remembered the battlefield, the rage, the grief. He remembered the first night he'd chosen to stay instead of kill. He remembered building this shelter, planting the garden, learning how to live instead of how to die.

He remembered every kiss, every laugh, every quiet morning by the river. He remembered Hector's smile, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he was truly happy. The way he'd hum while cooking, off-key but earnest. The way he'd reach for Achilles' hand in his sleep, as if making sure he was still there. "I had a good life," Achilles said to the stars. "In the end, I had a good life."

And it was true. Despite everything — the war, the loss, the pain — he had found something rare and precious in the ruins. He had found love. He had found peace. He had found home.

Winter came again, colder than usual. Snow blanketed the ground, and ice formed along the edges of the river. Achilles was slower now, his body finally showing its age. His legendary strength had faded, replaced by the ordinary frailty of an old man at the end of his days.

He knew his time was coming. He could feel it in his bones, in the way his breath came shorter, in the way his heart beat irregularly in his chest. He wasn't afraid. If anything, he felt ready. On a particularly cold night, when the stars were bright and clear above, Achilles wrapped himself in a thick cloak and walked to the willow tree. The snow crunched beneath his feet, and his breath misted in the air.

He sat down beside Hector's grave, leaning against the stone marker. The cold seeped into his bones, but he didn't mind. He looked up at the stars — the same stars that had watched over them for all these years. "I'm tired," he said softly. "I've lived long enough, I think. Longer than I ever expected to." He smiled faintly. "Longer than I deserved to, maybe."

The wind rustled through the willow branches, a sound like whispered conversation. "I want you to know," Achilles continued, "that these years with you were the best of my life. Not the glory, not the victories — this. Building a home. Growing old. Learning how to love without losing myself to it." He closed his eyes, feeling the cold settle deeper. It didn't hurt. It felt almost welcoming, like slipping into a warm bath after a long day.

"Patroclus," he whispered, "if you're waiting for me somewhere, I hope you'll forgive me for taking so long. I hope you'll understand that I needed this. That I needed to learn how to live before I could let go." And then, softer: "Hector, I'm coming. Wait for me just a little longer."

The snow continued to fall, gentle and quiet. The river murmured its eternal song. And Achilles, the greatest warrior the world had ever known, let himself rest.

In the end, when Achilles' own time came, he returned to the willow. He lay beside the grave, the sound of the river steady in his ears. The world dimmed gently, like a candle burning low. His last thought was not of war or glory or immortal fame. It was of a summer afternoon by the river, Hector laughing at something silly, sunlight caught in his hair. It was of hands clasped together, of peace found in the most unlikely place, of love that had healed what war had broken.

Two men once enemies, once legends — now simply resting side by side. And if the wind through the reeds sometimes carried the sound of quiet laughter, no one questioned it. Some things, even the gods couldn't undo.

Years later, decades maybe, a traveler would pass by the ruins of Troy. The great walls had crumbled further, overtaken by vines and moss. The city that had once been the jewel of the Mediterranean was now barely recognizable. But by the river, where the water ran clear and the willows grew tall, they would find something unexpected: a garden, somehow still thriving. Vegetables grew in neat rows, flowers bloomed in wild profusion. And beneath the largest willow tree, they would find two stones.

The stones were worn smooth by time and weather, the names long since faded. But they sat side by side, and the grass grew greenest there, fed by the roots of the willow that sheltered them. The traveler might wonder who rested there, what their story had been. Were they family? Friends? Lovers? The stones offered no answers, keeping their secrets the way the earth keeps all secrets eventually.

But something about the place felt peaceful. Sacred, even. As if something important had happened here, something worth remembering even if the details had been lost to time. The traveler might sit for a while beneath the willow, listening to the river, feeling the gentleness of the place seep into their bones. They might think about their own life, their own loves, their own losses. They might wonder if they, too, could find such peace someday.

And when they finally left, continuing on their journey, they would carry something with them — a sense that love, real love, outlasts everything. Outlasts war, outlasts empires, outlasts even memory itself. The river kept flowing. The willow kept growing. And beneath its branches, two souls rested together, having finally found the peace they'd sought.

No poems were written about their later years. No songs sung of their happiness. History remembered them only as enemies, as the warrior and the prince who met in single combat beneath the walls of Troy. But the river knew better. The earth knew better. The stars that had watched over them knew better.

They knew the truth: that two men who should have been enemies became something more. That from ashes and ruin, from grief and guilt, something beautiful had grown. That even the fiercest hearts could learn gentleness. That even the deepest wounds could heal, given time and care and love.

And that, in the end, was the greatest victory of all.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝑪𝒖𝒑 𝑾𝒆 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅

The feast was loud enough to drown out thought, yet somehow, Eurymachus could still hear the silence between them.

It was a peculiar kind of quiet—not the absence of sound, but rather the presence of something unspoken, something that thrummed beneath the cacophony like a second heartbeat. The great hall of Odysseus's palace roared with the voices of men who had long ago forgotten shame. Their laughter ricocheted off the stone walls, each guffaw more desperate than the last, as if volume alone could fill the hollowness that had taken root in all their chests. Cups clashed together in mock celebration, wine sloshed over the rims onto the tables that groaned under the weight of food that wasn't theirs to eat, in a house that wasn't theirs to claim.

Eurymachus sat near the center of it all, close enough to Antinous that their shoulders nearly touched, yet feeling as though an ocean stretched between them. He watched the others—Amphinomus with his easy charm, trying to make conversation with one of Penelope's maids; Ctesippus already drunk, throwing scraps of meat at the servants and laughing when they flinched; Agelaus holding court at the far end of the table, spinning some tale of his supposed valor that everyone knew was fiction. They were all here, all complicit, all pretending that this endless feast was somehow their right, their destiny.

But it was Antinous who commanded the room without even trying. Antinous laughed too easily tonight. His grin was sharp as a blade's edge, his voice echoing over the tables where the suitors gorged themselves on Odysseus's stolen wine. The torchlight caught on the rim of his cup, painting his fingers gold—like the gods themselves blessed his defiance. His face was flushed with wine and firelight, his dark hair falling carelessly across his forehead in a way that made him look younger than his years, almost innocent if you didn't know better. But Eurymachus knew better. He had always known better.

There was an art to the way Antinous performed for the crowd. Every gesture calculated, every word chosen to wound or charm in equal measure. When he mocked Telemachus—Odysseus's son, the boy who had grown into a man in a house full of vultures—his insults landed with surgical precision, drawing laughs from men who were too afraid or too ambitious to defend the prince. When he raised his cup to toast Penelope's continued widowhood, there was a cruelty in his smile that made even the most hardened suitors shift uncomfortably in their seats.

But Eurymachus saw through it. He always did. He saw the way Antinous's hand trembled just slightly when he thought no one was looking. He noticed how his friend's eyes would sometimes go distant, unfocused, as if he were seeing something the rest of them couldn't—or perhaps refusing to see something they all should. He caught the moments when the mask slipped, when exhaustion bled through the bravado like wine seeping through linen.

"You'll drink yourself into Tartarus one of these nights," Eurymachus murmured, his tone half-teasing, half-wounded, leaning close enough that only Antinous could hear him over the din.

The words came out softer than he'd intended, tinged with a concern he had no right to feel. They had made their choices, after all. They had walked into this palace three years ago with arrogance in their hearts and gold in their eyes, believing that Odysseus would never return, that his kingdom was there for the taking, that his wife was a prize to be won. They had feasted on his stores, courted his wife, and slowly bled his household dry. What right did Eurymachus have to worry about anyone's soul when his own was already stained beyond redemption?

Antinous only smirked. "Then I'll save you a seat beside me.” The words should've been light. They weren't. There was something beneath them—something dark and knowing, something that acknowledged the inevitable end they were all hurtling toward. Eurymachus felt it like a stone settling in his stomach. He wanted to say something, to push back against the fatalism that seemed to have taken root in Antinous's bones, but what could he say? That they would be fine? That the gods weren't watching their hubris with sharpening knives? That Odysseus, if he ever did return, would show them mercy?

They would all be liars, and they both knew it. Eurymachus looked down at his own cup—half full, untouched. The wine shimmered darkly, like blood pooling under torchlight. The vintage was excellent, of course. Everything in Odysseus's stores was excellent. The man had been a king among kings, a hero of the Trojan War, favored by gods and feared by men. His wealth was legendary, his household had once been a model of prosperity and order. Now it was a carcass being picked clean by carrion birds in human form.

He wondered how long they could keep pretending this was a game. That their laughter wasn't borrowed. That the gods weren't already sharpening their arrows somewhere above.

The thought sent a chill through him despite the warmth of the crowded hall. Eurymachus had never been particularly pious—none of them had been, really, which was perhaps their first and greatest mistake—but even he could feel the weight of divine attention settling over them like a shroud. There were stories, whispered in the quiet moments between feasts, of omens and portents. Birds flying in strange patterns. Dreams that left men gasping awake in the darkness. The old prophet Halitherses had warned them, his voice cracking with urgency, that Odysseus would return and that blood would follow. They had laughed at him, dismissed him as a doddering fool clinging to old prophecies.

But what if the old man had been right? And still, when Antinous's knee brushed his under the table, Eurymachus didn't pull away.

The contact was brief, seemingly accidental, the kind of casual touch that happened in crowded spaces. But Eurymachus knew better. He knew the difference between chance and choice, between proximity and intention. His breath caught in his throat, and he felt heat creep up his neck that had nothing to do with the wine he hadn't drunk or the fire crackling in the hearth.

This thing between them—this unnameable, impossible thing—had started so gradually that Eurymachus couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it had begun. Perhaps it had always been there, lurking beneath years of friendship and rivalry, waiting for the right moment to surface. Or perhaps it had been born here, in this palace of stolen time, when they had both realized that nothing they were doing mattered anymore, that they were already ghosts haunting a future they would never see.

It had started with lingering glances that lasted a heartbeat too long. Conversations that stretched into the early hours of morning when the other suitors had passed out or stumbled to their beds. Touches that seemed innocent but left Eurymachus's skin burning for hours afterward. And then, one night, after too much wine and not enough restraint, Antinous had kissed him in the shadows of the palace garden, and everything had changed.

Because love, even one born in ruin, was something he could never refuse. Not from him. Not when it tasted like the last cup they'd ever share.

It was a doomed thing, this love of theirs. Doomed by circumstance, by fate, by the very nature of who they were and what they had become. In another life, perhaps they might have been something different—companions in honest endeavor, friends who could speak freely of what they felt, lovers who didn't have to hide in shadows and stolen moments. But this was the life they had, and in it, their love was one more transgression to add to the list, one more secret to guard in a house full of lies.

Eurymachus pressed his knee back against Antinous's, a silent answer to an unspoken question. Across the table, Amphinomus was watching them with knowing eyes, but he said nothing. He never did. Of all the suitors, Amphinomus was the only one who seemed to possess even a shred of decency, the only one who sometimes looked at Penelope with something approaching respect rather than mere desire. Perhaps that was why Eurymachus found it hardest to meet his gaze—because Amphinomus knew what they all were, and he stayed anyway, complicit in his silence.

The laughter around them grew distant—like the echo of a world that no longer belonged to them.

It was a strange sensation, this feeling of disconnection. Eurymachus was physically present, sitting at the table, surrounded by men he had known for years, some since childhood. But increasingly, he felt like he was watching the scene from somewhere else, as if his spirit had already begun to separate from his body, preparing for whatever end awaited them all. The suitors' voices became muffled, their movements slowed, and all he could focus on was Antinous beside him—the rise and fall of his chest, the pulse beating at his throat, the way the firelight turned his eyes from brown to amber to gold.

Eurymachus could feel it, that quiet unraveling beneath the gold and wine and arrogance. The suitors bragged, mocked, boasted of things they'd never earn. But the air had changed. It smelled of iron now, of something sharp drawing closer.

The shift was subtle but undeniable, like the first chill wind that presages a storm. Eurymachus had always been observant—it was both his gift and his curse. Where others saw only the surface of things, he noticed the patterns beneath, the way small changes accumulated into inevitable conclusions. He saw how the servants had begun to move through the hall with their eyes downcast, their steps hurried, as if they were trying to make themselves invisible. He noticed how Penelope, on the rare occasions when she descended from her chambers, looked at them all with something that might have been pity if it weren't so laced with contempt.

And then there was Telemachus.

The boy—no, the young man, for he could no longer be called a boy—had changed in recent months. Where once he had endured their mockery with barely concealed rage, now he watched them with a calm that was somehow more unsettling. He no longer tried to order them from his father's house, no longer made futile attempts to assert an authority he didn't possess. Instead, he simply observed, as if he were memorizing each of their faces for some future reckoning.

Eurymachus had tried to warn Antinous about it. "The prince is planning something," he had said one night, after most of the others had drunk themselves into stupor. "I can see it in his eyes." But Antinous had only laughed. "Let him plan. What can he do? He's one boy against a hundred men. His father is dead, his house is falling apart, and his mother will have to choose one of us eventually. Telemachus is nothing."

Except he wasn't nothing, was he? There were rumors—whispers among the servants that leaked out despite their best efforts to keep silent—that Telemachus had traveled to the mainland, seeking news of Odysseus. Some said he had gone to Pylos, to consult with old Nestor. Others claimed he had journeyed all the way to Sparta, to speak with Menelaus and Helen themselves. And when he had returned, there had been something different about him. A confidence. A purpose. He lifted his gaze to Antinous again, and for a fleeting second, the mask slipped. Beneath the smirk and swagger, there was something tired. Something almost… afraid.

Eurymachus hated that he noticed. Hated that he cared. It would be so much easier if he could be like the others—like Ctesippus, who was too drunk and too stupid to contemplate consequences, or like Agelaus, who was so consumed by ambition that he couldn't see the cliff edge they were all rushing toward. Even Amphinomus, for all his supposed virtue, seemed resigned to their fate, as if he had accepted that this was simply how the story ended.

But Eurymachus couldn't stop noticing. Couldn't stop caring. Couldn't stop wondering if there was some way out of this that didn't end in blood and screaming and divine retribution. "You ever wonder," he said softly, leaning closer to Antinous so that their words wouldn't carry, "how it'll end?"

The question hung in the air between them, heavy with implications. Around them, the feast continued its raucous course—men shouting challenges to each other, placing bets on ridiculous contests, pawing at servants who had no choice but to endure their attention. But in their small bubble of space, there was only silence and the weight of Eurymachus's words. Antinous turned to him, brow raised, eyes glinting with something unreadable. "You planning to grow a conscience, Eurymachus?"

The words were meant to wound, and they did. But there was also something else in Antinous's tone—a kind of desperate hope that Eurymachus wouldn't answer, that he wouldn't force them to confront the truth they had both been avoiding. Because once they acknowledged it, once they put words to the growing certainty that they were doomed, there would be no more pretending. No more hiding behind wine and laughter and the illusion that they were in control of their own destinies. "Maybe I already did," he whispered.

The words hung between them like smoke—fragile, suffocating. Antinous's smirk faltered, just barely. His hand tightened around his cup, knuckles going white against the bronze. For a moment, Eurymachus thought he saw something crack in his friend's carefully constructed facade—a glimpse of the boy he had known years ago, before ambition and pride had hardened him into someone capable of this sustained cruelty.

They had grown up together, in a sense. Both sons of noble houses, both raised with the expectation that they would do great things, achieve great honors. They had trained in the gymnasium side by side, competed in games and contests, shared the dreams of young men who believed the world was theirs for the taking. When had it all gone so wrong? When had they become these men, capable of despoiling a hero's house and tormenting his family?

Eurymachus knew the answer, even if he didn't want to admit it. It had started with one small compromise, one tiny surrender of principle. And then another. And another. Until they had walked so far down this path that there was no way back, only forward into whatever darkness awaited them. "Don't," he muttered, voice low. "Don't start this."

"Start what?"

"This… whatever you're doing. Whatever you think this is." Eurymachus almost laughed. The sound that came out was bitter, edged with a hysteria he barely kept in check. "What I think this is? You mean the thing that keeps you from sleeping? The thing that makes you look at me like you're begging me to lie and say everything's fine?"

It was true, and they both knew it. In the darkness of night, when the feast had finally ended and the suitors sprawled in drunken heaps throughout the hall, Eurymachus had often watched Antinous lie awake, staring at the ceiling with eyes that saw horrors he refused to name. Sometimes Antinous would reach for him in those dark hours, pulling him close with a desperate intensity that spoke of terror more than desire. And Eurymachus would hold him, would stroke his hair and murmur meaningless reassurances, knowing that they were both lying, both pretending that morning wouldn't come and with it another day of their slow destruction.

Antinous slammed his cup down hard enough that the wine spilled over the edge. The liquid spread across the table like blood, dark and viscous in the uncertain light. A few of the other suitors glanced their way, but they were too involved in their own revelries to pay much attention. The others barely noticed. They were too busy drinking, too busy pretending they weren't already ghosts. "Careful," Antinous said, the softness in his voice gone, replaced by the hard edge he used when he needed to keep the world at arm's length. "You're starting to sound like you care."

"I do." It was quiet. Honest. Unforgivable. The two words fell into the space between them with the weight of a confession. Eurymachus hadn't meant to say them—or perhaps he had, perhaps he had been building toward this moment for weeks, months, years. Perhaps every conversation they had ever had, every touch they had ever shared, had been leading inexorably to this admission.

I care. I care about you. I care about what happens to you. I care about the fact that we're doomed and there's nothing I can do to save you or myself. I care so much it's killing me slowly from the inside out, hollowing me like a rotted tree that still stands but will collapse at the first strong wind. Antinous froze, lips parting just slightly. He looked at Eurymachus as though he'd said something obscene, something sacred.

And perhaps he had. In this place, at this time, with everything they had done and become, love was the most transgressive thing of all. It was a weakness, a vulnerability, a crack in the armor they all wore to survive each other's company. To love was to acknowledge that there was something worth losing, and once you admitted that, you admitted that you could be hurt, that you could be broken. And then—because it was easier to destroy what scared him—Antinous laughed. "Then you're a fool," he said, even as his eyes softened. "A damn fool."

The laugh was hollow, brittle, the sound of something breaking that couldn't be put back together. But his eyes—those eyes that Eurymachus had learned to read better than any text, better than any omen—told a different story. They said: I care too. They said: I'm terrified. They said: Please don't make me admit this because if I do, I won't be able to keep pretending I'm brave enough for what's coming. Eurymachus smiled faintly, though it trembled at the edges. "Then we're both doomed."

Antinous didn't answer. He just lifted his cup again, the faintest tremor in his hand, and drank like he could drown the truth in wine. By the next night, the tension had curdled into something sharp and bitter. The kind that lingered in the air long after words had gone quiet.

The feast resumed as it always did, because what else was there to do? They were trapped in this cycle of consumption and excess, unable to stop even as they all felt the noose tightening around their collective neck. The servants brought out more food—lamb and pork and fish caught fresh that morning, bread still warm from the ovens, cheese and olives and figs imported from across the sea. The wine flowed as freely as ever, cask after cask broken open and poured into cups that never seemed to empty.

Eurymachus found himself going through the motions mechanically. He ate because the food was in front of him. He drank because someone filled his cup. He laughed when expected to laugh, spoke when spoken to, played the part he had been playing for so long it had become almost natural. But inside, he felt hollowed out, scraped clean of everything except a dull, persistent ache. He avoided looking at Antinous. It was easier that way—easier than watching Antinous drift further into his own self-made destruction.

Antinous had been worse today. More aggressive in his mockery of Telemachus, more crude in his propositions to Penelope's maids, more lavish in his waste of Odysseus's resources. It was as if he were trying to outrun something, to pile transgression upon transgression until the weight of them became too great to feel. He had thrown an ox-hoof at the disguised beggar who had appeared at the feast—a wretched old man whom the other suitors had grudgingly allowed to sit in the hall and beg for scraps. The violence of it had shocked even some of the more hardened suitors, and Penelope had looked at Antinous with such undisguised loathing that Eurymachus had felt shame crawl up his spine. But then the music started, and Antinous laughed again, too loud, too bright, like he was trying to fill the hollow space between them with noise.

The lyre player had struck up a familiar tune, something old and haunting that spoke of love and loss and journeys over wine-dark seas. Some of the suitors began to dance, pulling maids into clumsy embraces, spinning them around the hall with more enthusiasm than skill. Others banged their cups against the tables in rhythm, creating a thunderous percussion that made the flames in the hearth flicker and jump.

She was beautiful, one of Penelope's maids. Young, dark-eyed, and far too kind to know what kind of danger she was dancing with. Her name was Melantho, and she had always been too bold for her own good. Unlike the other servants who had learned to make themselves small and quiet around the suitors, Melantho still carried herself with something approaching dignity. She was favored by Penelope, which gave her a measure of protection, but it also made her a target for men who wanted to prove they could take whatever they wanted from this house. Antinous leaned close, murmuring something that made her blush and look away, though she didn't move. His fingers brushed hers—deliberate, slow.

Eurymachus watched the interaction unfold with a rising sense of nausea. He knew what Antinous was doing. He had seen him do it before—this calculated performance of desire, this demonstration meant not for the woman he was seducing but for Eurymachus himself. It was a game Antinous played when he felt vulnerable, when the cracks in his armor started to show. He would find someone else to lavish attention on, would make a show of his desire for them, would watch out of the corner of his eye to see if Eurymachus was watching, if Eurymachus cared, if Eurymachus would react.

And gods help him, Eurymachus always did. His chest tightened, heat crawling up his throat. The smile he forced came out sharp enough to cut. "Careful," he said, his tone smooth, practiced, carrying just far enough to reach Antinous's ears. "Wouldn't want the lady of the house hearing you defile her servants too."

The words were meant to sound casual, mocking, as if he were merely commenting on Antinous's latest transgression with the same detached amusement he might show for any of their collective sins. But he could hear the edge in his own voice, the barely concealed pain that sharpened each syllable. Antinous's grin didn't falter. "What's the matter? Jealous?" The word landed between them like an arrow, sharp and true and aimed directly at the most vulnerable part of Eurymachus's defenses.

Jealous. Such a simple word, such a common emotion, and yet in this context it carried the weight of confession. To admit jealousy would be to admit feeling, and to admit feeling would be to acknowledge that this thing between them mattered, that it was real, that it could hurt him. And Antinous knew this, knew exactly what he was doing when he chose that particular word, that particular tone. Eurymachus laughed, low and cold. "Of you? Don't flatter yourself."

The lie tasted like ash in his mouth, bitter and choking. Of course he was jealous. He was consumed with it, eaten alive by it, drowning in a toxic mixture of possessiveness and pain and impotent rage. He wanted to cross the distance between them, to grab Antinous by the shoulders and shake him, to demand why he insisted on doing this, on pushing and prodding until something broke.

But instead he sat there, frozen in place, watching as the scene unfolded exactly as he knew it would. Antinous took another step closer to the maid, his hand brushing her shoulder as he spoke something too soft for anyone else to hear. But his eyes—those same eyes that used to find Eurymachus across a room and say *stay* without a word—were on him the whole time.

The connection was almost physical, a line of tension drawn taut between them. Melantho might as well have not existed for all the attention Antinous was truly paying her. This entire performance was for Eurymachus's benefit, a test or a punishment or perhaps both at once. See how little you matter, those eyes seemed to say. See how easily I can turn to someone else. See how replaceable you are.

Except that wasn't what those eyes said at all, not really. What they said was: Please. Please react. Please show me that you care enough to fight for this, to claim me, to tell me that I'm yours. Please give me permission to stop pretending I want anything other than you. But Eurymachus couldn't do that. They couldn't afford that kind of honesty, that kind of vulnerability. Not here, not surrounded by men who would use any weakness against them. Not when they were all balanced on a knife's edge, waiting for the final cut that would end everything.

Eurymachus felt his nails dig into his palm, leaving small crescents of pain that grounded him in the moment. He wanted to shout, to throw his cup, to tell Antinous to stop pretending he didn't care. But instead, he rose from his seat with a calmness that felt like ash in his mouth. "If you're trying to make a point," he said quietly, voice carrying just far enough to reach Antinous despite the noise of the feast, "you already have."

The words were measured, controlled, giving away nothing of the storm raging inside him. He forced himself to meet Antinous's gaze, to hold it for just long enough to let his friend see exactly what this was doing to him, and then he turned away with all the dignity he could muster. Antinous's smirk faltered for just a heartbeat. His gaze flicked away, the bravado crumbling at the edges.

In that single moment, Eurymachus saw it all—the fear, the longing, the desperate hope that somehow things could be different, that they could find a way to be something other than what they had become. He saw the boy he had once known, before pride and ambition had poisoned everything, before they had walked into this cursed palace and sealed their own doom.

Eurymachus turned before he could see more, before he could make the mistake of forgiving him again. His feet carried him toward the entrance to the hall, toward the night air and the relative quiet of the courtyard beyond. Behind him, the sounds of the feast continued unabated—the music, the laughter, the endless consumption. Behind him, the laughter resumed—loud, false, desperate. The sound of men pretending they weren't already living their last night.

And Antinous, for all his charm and cruelty, watched him go with something breaking quietly behind his eyes. He'd never say it aloud, but the touch of the maid's hand suddenly felt wrong. Cold. Empty.

Because it wasn't Eurymachus's.

Melantho, sensing the shift in Antinous's attention, pulled away with a mixture of relief and confusion. She had been playing a dangerous game, using the suitors' interest in her to gain small advantages, little protections. But she was clever enough to know when she had become irrelevant to the real drama unfolding, and she slipped away into the shadows before Antinous could notice her departure.

Antinous stood frozen for a long moment, his hand still extended toward where the maid had been, his expression caught somewhere between anger and anguish. Then, with a visible effort, he schooled his features back into the familiar mask of arrogance and turned back to the feast, laughing too loud at someone's joke, drinking too deeply from his cup, throwing himself back into the role he had perfected. But anyone who cared to look—and only Amphinomus did, with those knowing, pitying eyes—could see that it was all hollow now. Whatever game Antinous had been playing, he had lost.

The night bled into silence.

By the time the torches burned low and the suitors had stumbled off to sleep, only the faint hum of the sea wind filled the hall. The air still smelled of spilled wine and smoke—evidence of laughter that had never truly been real.

The servants had long since finished their work of clearing away the remnants of the feast, though they had learned not to be too thorough. The suitors liked to wake to evidence of their excess, liked to see the proof of their consumption spread out around them. So the tables were wiped but not cleared, the floors swept but still stained, the cups gathered but not washed. The hall had taken on the quality of a tomb, a monument to waste and ruin. Eurymachus lingered near the doorway, half-shadowed, fingers pressed to his temple. The anger had drained from him hours ago, leaving only the ache. The kind that didn't burn—it hollowed.

He had walked for a long time after leaving the feast, wandering through the palace gardens and courtyards, anywhere that wasn't filled with the sounds of drunken men. He had stood at the edge of the cliff and looked out at the sea, watching the moonlight paint silver paths across the dark water, and wondered what it would be like to simply step off, to fall into that darkness and let it swallow him whole.

But he hadn't, of course. Cowardice or duty or simple stubbornness had kept him rooted to the solid ground. And eventually, when the cold had seeped into his bones and his anger had cooled to something manageable, he had made his way back to the hall, expecting to find everyone asleep and the building settled into its nightly quiet. He didn't hear Antinous approach until the sound of footsteps softened beside him.

"Couldn't sleep?" Antinous's voice was quieter than he'd ever heard it. Gone was the swagger, the venom. He sounded… human. Eurymachus didn't look at him. He kept his gaze fixed on some point in the middle distance, afraid that if he turned, if he met those eyes, he would crumble completely. "Didn't know you cared."

"I don't," Antinous said, too quickly. But the lie faltered halfway out of his mouth. He exhaled and leaned against the wall beside him, so close that Eurymachus could feel the warmth radiating from his body. "She meant nothing."

The statement hung in the air between them, neither quite an apology nor an excuse. Eurymachus wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it—as if the problem was Melantho, as if his pain came from jealousy over a maid neither of them truly wanted. But he understood what Antinous was really saying: This thing between us is real. Don't pretend it isn't. Don't make me pretend anymore. Eurymachus laughed, but it came out fragile, like glass on the verge of shattering. "She never does, does she?"

The words carried more weight than they should have. They spoke of all the other times Antinous had tried this same tactic, all the other nights when he had sought out someone else's arms or bed or attention, trying to prove to himself that Eurymachus didn't matter, that this feeling could be conquered or outrun or buried under enough wine and flesh. And every time, he had come back, drawn by something he couldn't name and couldn't resist. Antinous turned his head, studying him in the half-light. "You think I'd rather have anyone else?"

The question was raw, stripped of all pretense. In the darkness, with no one to witness or judge, Antinous let the mask fall completely. His voice carried a vulnerability that Eurymachus had heard only in their most private moments, when the walls were down and they could be honest about what they were to each other. There was a long silence. Then—softly, reluctantly—Antinous reached out. His hand brushed Eurymachus's wrist, hesitant at first, then firmer when he didn't pull away.

The warmth startled him. The gentleness even more.

Touch had always been fraught between them—stolen in shadows, hidden from the world, always tinged with the possibility of discovery and the danger that would follow. But this was different. This was Antinous asking without words for permission, for acceptance, for some sign that what had broken between them could be mended.

Eurymachus felt the tension in his shoulders begin to ease. The anger that had sustained him through the evening drained away, leaving him feeling exhausted and empty but also, somehow, at peace. He had never been able to stay angry at Antinous for long. It was both his weakness and his truth. "I don't know how to do this," Antinous admitted, voice cracking like dry wood. "Everything I touch ends up ruined."

It was perhaps the most honest thing Antinous had ever said to him. All his life, Antinous had been taught to take, to conquer, to dominate. His father had raised him to believe that the world existed for his pleasure, that weakness was the greatest sin, that caring was the same as losing. And Antinous had internalized those lessons so thoroughly that they had become part of his bones, his blood, his breath. But here, in the darkness, stripped of his armor and his audience, he was just a man who was terrified of destroying the one thing he actually valued.

Eurymachus looked at him finally—really looked. Gone was the arrogant suitor who thought himself untouchable. This was just a boy who'd been promised the world and given nothing but hunger. "You haven't ruined me yet," Eurymachus said quietly. Antinous huffed out a laugh, the kind that trembled on its way out. "Not for lack of trying."

"Then maybe," Eurymachus said, stepping closer, eliminating the last bit of distance between them, "try something else." Their foreheads met, a small, fragile contact that said more than either dared to voice. The hall around them felt like a graveyard of broken promises, but for a moment—just one—they weren't the villains of someone else's story. They were just two people who had found each other in the wreckage and were trying, however clumsily, to hold on. Antinous's thumb brushed over his knuckles, slow and steady, tracing the bones beneath the skin with a tenderness that made Eurymachus's breath catch. "You'll hate me again by morning."

It was probably true. In the harsh light of day, when they had to resume their roles, when they had to sit at the tables and mock Telemachus and pretend they were invincible, the anger and resentment would likely return. They would fall back into their patterns because it was easier than facing the truth, easier than admitting what they were to each other in front of an audience that would tear them apart for it.

"Maybe," Eurymachus murmured, smiling faintly, "but not tonight." And when Antinous leaned in—hesitant, almost reverent—the world stilled. The wine was gone, the laughter dead, the gods silent. But the warmth between them was real. Fleeting, fragile, foolish—but real and for two men doomed by fate, that was enough.

The kiss was different from the others they had shared. There was no urgency in it, no desperation or hunger. It was soft, almost chaste, a benediction rather than a claim. Antinous's lips were gentle against his, tasting of wine and something sweeter—perhaps hope, perhaps regret, perhaps both at once.

Eurymachus let himself sink into it, let himself forget for just a moment that they were standing in a hall built on lies, that their love was one more transgression added to an already damning list, that tomorrow they would have to pretend this hadn't happened. For now, there was only this: the warmth of Antinous's breath against his mouth, the solid reality of his hand still wrapped around Eurymachus's wrist, the steady beat of both their hearts finding the same rhythm.

When they finally pulled apart, neither of them moved far. They stood with foreheads still touching, breathing the same air, existing in a bubble of stolen time that couldn't last but felt, in the moment, like it might. "We should stop this," Antinous whispered, though he made no move to step away. "Before it destroys us both."

"It's already destroying us," Eurymachus replied. "At least this way, we get something beautiful from it."

Antinous closed his eyes, and in the dim light, Eurymachus could see the exhaustion written across his features. How long had he been carrying this weight? How many nights had he lain awake, torn between what he wanted and what he thought he should want, between the person he had been raised to be and the person he was becoming in these quiet moments with Eurymachus? "Tell me something true," Antinous said suddenly. "Something that has nothing to do with this place or these people or what we've done. Just… something real."

Eurymachus considered the request, turning it over in his mind like a stone worn smooth by water. What truth could he offer that wasn't tainted by their circumstances? What part of himself remained uncorrupted by their shared sins? "When I was a boy," he began slowly, "before any of this, I used to sneak away from my father's house and climb to the highest hill I could find. I'd lie in the grass and watch the clouds move across the sky, and I'd imagine what it would be like to be one of the heroes from the old stories. I thought if I could just be brave enough, strong enough, clever enough, I could be remembered forever. I could matter."

He paused, swallowing against the tightness in his throat. "I think that's what brought me here, in the end. That same hunger to be something more than I was. To take what I wanted and damn the consequences. But somewhere along the way, I forgot what it felt like to lie in that grass and watch the clouds. I forgot what it was like to want something simply because it was beautiful, not because it could be possessed." Antinous opened his eyes, and they were wet. "Do you still remember? How to want something just for its beauty?" Eurymachus brought his hand up to cup Antinous's face, his thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone. "Yes," he said softly. "I remember."

The hall was empty, save for the flickering torchlight and the soft scrape of sandals on stone. Eurymachus's chest still throbbed from the late-night drink, from the lingering tension of the suitors' laughter that refused to leave his ears.

He had tried to sleep after their conversation, had gone to the corner of the hall where he usually made his bed among the other suitors. But sleep had eluded him, his mind too full of Antinous's face, Antinous's voice, the feeling of that gentle kiss. Eventually, he had given up and risen, wandering through the dark halls like a ghost haunting his own life.

He didn't see Antinous until he felt the shadow move behind him. "Eurymachus," Antinous whispered, voice low and rough, and before he could reply, the wall pressed cold against his back.

The sudden contact made his heart spike, a mixture of fear, thrill, and something dangerously close to relief. They were past pretending now, past the careful distance they usually maintained. Something had shifted between them, some final barrier had crumbled, and there was no going back.

Antinous leaned in, close enough that Eurymachus could feel the heat of him, smell the faint tang of wine on his skin. His hands braced on either side of Eurymachus, trapping him against the stone but not threatening—never threatening, not really. The world seemed to shrink to just the space between them, the quick rise and fall of their chests. "You think too much," Antinous murmured, lips brushing the shell of his ear. "Always thinking, always planning. You forget… sometimes we just feel."

The words sent a shiver through Eurymachus's body. It was true—he did think too much. He had spent so much time analyzing their situation, calculating the risks, weighing the consequences, that he had forgotten how to simply exist in a moment. He had forgotten that not everything needed to be examined and categorized and understood. Eurymachus swallowed, trembling—not from fear, though there was some—but from the ache in his chest, the pull he couldn't resist. "And if I forget?"

Antinous's grin was almost cruel, almost teasing—but his hands tightened, holding him close. "Then I remind you." Then the kiss came, urgent, consuming, a collision of frustration, longing, and unspoken confessions. It was nothing like the gentle benediction they had shared earlier. This was raw need, the kind that burned away pretense and left only truth in its wake. Eurymachus gasped, tilting his head, and Antinous's lips trailed down his jaw, brushing his neck, hot and insistent.

Every restraint, every wall they'd built between them, crumbled under the weight of the contact. Eurymachus's hands found Antinous's shoulders, pulling him closer, needing to feel the solid reality of him, to prove that this wasn't another dream that would dissolve with the morning light. Their bodies pressed together with an urgency that spoke of time running out, of chances slipping away, of the desperate need to claim something—anything—before the world took it all away.

For a moment, there was nothing but heat and the quick rhythm of their hearts. The palace around them ceased to exist. The other suitors sleeping nearby might as well have been in another world entirely. There was only this: skin against skin, breath mingling, the taste of wine and want and something that might have been love if they had been different men living different lives. Then, reluctantly, Antinous pulled back just enough to meet his eyes—dark, raw, and honest.

"You're mine," he breathed. The possessiveness in the words should have chafed, should have made Eurymachus pull away and assert his independence. But instead, he felt something in his chest settle and calm. Because wasn't this what he had wanted all along? To belong to someone, to be claimed, to matter enough that his absence would leave a wound?

Eurymachus smirked, heart still hammering. "Try me." It was a challenge and an invitation, a dare wrapped in affection. And in the echoing silence of the hall, they leaned in again, letting everything else—the world, the chaos, the gods—fall away.

This time, the kiss was deeper, slower, a thorough exploration rather than a desperate claim. Antinous's hands moved from the wall to Eurymachus's waist, pulling him closer still, while Eurymachus tangled his fingers in Antinous's hair, holding him in place as if he might disappear if not anchored. They broke apart only when breathing became necessary, both of them panting, foreheads resting together once more. Eurymachus could feel Antinous trembling against him, could sense the same overwhelming emotions that were coursing through his own veins. "I don't want to go back," Antinous whispered. "I don't want morning to come."

Eurymachus understood. Morning meant responsibility, meant resuming their roles in the terrible play they were all performing. Morning meant sitting at Odysseus's tables and pretending they had every right to be there, courting his wife, consuming his wealth, tormenting his son. Morning meant being the villains again. "Then let's pretend it won't," Eurymachus said softly. "Just for tonight, let's pretend we have all the time in the world."

After a few heartbeats, Antinous finally pulled back, just enough to let their foreheads rest together. The heat of the kiss lingered on their lips like a promise, but now the fire had softened into something quiet, something steady.

Eurymachus traced a finger along Antinous's jawline, careful, almost reverent. "You're reckless," he murmured, voice soft, teasing even, though his heart still raced. "Only when it matters," Antinous replied, a small smirk tugging at his lips, though his eyes were warm, unguarded. He leaned his forehead further into Eurymachus's, inhaling the faint scent of him. "You matter."

The simple statement hit Eurymachus with unexpected force. In all their time together, through all the stolen moments and hidden glances, Antinous had never said it quite so plainly. You matter. Not as a convenience, not as a distraction, but as someone essential, someone irreplaceable. Eurymachus laughed quietly, a sound that felt like it could mend cracks in the stone walls around them. "Don't get sentimental now. You'll ruin the mood." Antinous chuckled, brushing a thumb over his cheek. "Mood ruined or mood perfected?"

The question hung between them, half-joke, half-truth. It was so quintessentially Antinous—even in his moments of vulnerability, he couldn't help but deflect with humor, couldn't quite bring himself to be completely serious. But Eurymachus could see past it now, could read the hope and fear mingled in those dark eyes. Eurymachus couldn't stop the soft smile that tugged at his lips. "Perfected," he admitted, and he meant it.

Because it was perfect, in its own broken way. They were perfect—not in the sense of being without flaw, but in the sense of fitting together despite all the reasons they shouldn't. Two pieces of a puzzle that had been cut wrong, that shouldn't work together, but somehow did anyway.

They lingered there, pressed together, the quiet of the empty hall wrapping around them like a cocoon. No suitors, no scheming, no chaos—just them. Antinous's hand found the small of Eurymachus's back, holding him close but gentle this time, letting the tension of the night seep out slowly. "I could stay like this forever," Antinous whispered.

The confession was barely audible, spoken against Eurymachus's skin more than into the air. But Eurymachus heard it, felt it resonate through his entire body. He thought of all the futures they would never have—growing old together, building a life free from the weight of their sins, finding peace in each other's company without the shadow of doom hanging over them.

"Then maybe you should," Eurymachus replied, and for a long moment, neither of them moved, just breathing in the warmth, the quiet, the fragile kind of peace they didn't deserve but desperately clung to. And for once, in the midst of all the chaos that would come tomorrow, the war they were living in, they were safe. Together.

But even as they held each other, even as they pretended that the world had stopped turning just for them, reality crept back in like cold water seeping through cracks in a dam.

Eurymachus felt it first—a prickling at the back of his neck, a sense of being watched. He stiffened in Antinous's arms, his eyes darting toward the shadows at the far end of the hall. For a moment, he saw nothing, just the familiar shapes of tables and benches and the dying embers of the evening's fire. But then a figure detached itself from the darkness, moving with a slow, deliberate grace.

Amphinomus.

Of course it would be Amphinomus. The one suitor who still possessed something resembling a conscience, the one who watched them all with knowing eyes and said nothing, did nothing, but saw everything. Antinous felt Eurymachus's tension and turned to follow his gaze. When he spotted Amphinomus, his body went rigid, his hands falling away from Eurymachus as if the touch had suddenly burned. The mask snapped back into place with frightening speed—the arrogant smirk, the hard eyes, the defensive posture that said he feared nothing and no one.

But Amphinomus didn't look surprised. He didn't look judgmental or disgusted or any of the things they might have expected. He just looked… sad. "I won't tell anyone," Amphinomus said quietly, his voice carrying across the empty hall. "If that's what you're worried about."

Antinous's jaw clenched. "There's nothing to tell." It was a transparent lie, and all three of them knew it. But Amphinomus didn't challenge it. Instead, he moved closer, his steps slow and measured, until he stood a few paces away from them. In the dim light, Eurymachus could see the lines of weariness etched into his face, the weight of knowing too much and being unable to change anything. "We're all doomed here," Amphinomus said, and it wasn't a question. "You know that, don't you? The both of you."

Eurymachus felt his throat tighten. Hearing someone else say it aloud made it more real, more inevitable. As long as the knowledge had stayed between him and Antinous, they could pretend it was just paranoia, just anxiety, just the natural worry of men who had overstepped. But Amphinomus's confirmation stripped away that last, thin layer of denial. "Then why are you still here?" Antinous challenged, his voice sharp. "If you're so certain we're all going to die, why haven't you left?"

Amphinomus smiled, but it was a bitter thing. "Where would I go? Back to my father's house and admit that I failed? That I spent three years courting a woman who will never choose me, consuming wealth that wasn't mine, helping to destroy a hero's household? There's no redemption for any of us, Antinous. We crossed that line long ago." The truth of it settled over them like a shroud. They had all made their choices, had all walked willingly into this trap, and now the jaws were closing around them. The only question was when, and how much it would hurt.

"Telemachus returned from his journey different," Amphinomus continued, his gaze distant now, as if he were seeing something the rest of them couldn't. "I've been watching him. He moves like a man who knows something we don't. And the old beggar who arrived yesterday—there's something wrong about him. Something dangerous." Eurymachus had noticed the beggar too. The man was ancient, filthy, dressed in rags that barely held together. But his eyes—there was something in his eyes that didn't match the rest of him. A sharpness, an intelligence, a coiled violence that lurked just beneath the surface of his humble demeanor.

"You think it's him," Eurymachus said softly. "You think the beggar is Odysseus." It sounded insane even as he said it. Odysseus was a king, a hero, a man of legend. Why would he return to his own palace disguised as a beggar? Why not announce himself, call for aid from the loyal men who surely remained on Ithaca, drive out the suitors with the authority of his name alone?

But even as he thought it, Eurymachus knew the answer. Because Odysseus wanted to see. He wanted to know exactly what had been done to his household, who had remained loyal and who had betrayed him. He wanted to look into the eyes of the men who had tormented his son and courted his wife and consumed his wealth, wanted to know their faces so that when the time came for justice, he would know exactly where to aim his arrows.

Amphinomus nodded slowly. "I can't prove it. But yes, I think it's him. And I think he's waiting for something. Building toward something." Antinous laughed, but it was hollow. "Then we should kill him. If what you're saying is true, if that filthy beggar is really the great Odysseus in disguise, then we should slit his throat tonight while he sleeps and be done with it."

"You won't," Amphinomus said with certainty. "Because you're not sure. And if you're wrong, if you kill an innocent beggar, the gods will punish you for violating the sacred laws of hospitality. And if you're right, if you try to kill Odysseus and fail, his vengeance will be swift and terrible."

It was a trap within a trap, and they all knew it. Every choice they made, every path they took, led only to different flavors of doom. "So we do nothing?" Eurymachus asked, frustration bleeding into his voice. "We just sit here and wait for whatever's coming?"

"What else can we do?" Amphinomus spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "We made our choice three years ago when we walked through those gates. Everything since then has just been the slow unfolding of that decision's consequences."

Antinous turned away, his shoulders tight with tension. Eurymachus wanted to reach for him, to offer some comfort, but with Amphinomus watching, he couldn't. The moment they had shared was over, broken by the intrusion of reality and the weight of their shared doom.

"Get some sleep," Amphinomus said, his voice gentle. "Both of you. Whatever's coming, it won't arrive tonight. We still have a little time." He turned to leave, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. "And Antinous? Eurymachus? I meant what I said. I won't tell anyone. You deserve to have something that's yours, even if it's only for a little while."

Then he was gone, disappearing back into the shadows, leaving them alone once more. But the solitude felt different now, tainted by exposure and the knowledge that they weren't as invisible as they had thought.

"We should go to bed," Antinous said finally, his voice flat. "Separately."

Eurymachus felt the words like a blow. "Antinous—"

"He knows, Eurymachus. And if he knows, others might suspect. We can't afford to give them proof." Antinous still wouldn't look at him. "This was a mistake. All of it."

"Don't," Eurymachus said sharply. "Don't do this. Don't take what we just had and poison it because you're scared."

Finally, Antinous turned to face him, and his expression was raw with pain. "I am scared. I'm terrified. Because I don't know how to protect you from what's coming. I don't know how to keep you safe."

"Then don't," Eurymachus said, closing the distance between them once more. "Don't try to protect me. Just be with me, for whatever time we have left."

Antinous's composure cracked. He pulled Eurymachus into a fierce embrace, holding him so tightly it almost hurt. "I can't lose you," he whispered against Eurymachus's hair. "I can't."

"You won't," Eurymachus promised, even though he knew it was a lie. They were both going to die here, probably soon, probably violently. But in that moment, he would promise anything, say anything, if it would ease the fear he could feel thrumming through Antinous's body.

They stood like that for a long time, holding each other in the darkness, two men on the edge of oblivion trying to find comfort in each other's arms. And when they finally pulled apart, when Antinous left to find his bed and Eurymachus went to his, they both knew that something had changed. They had been seen. Their secret was no longer fully their own.

And somewhere in the shadows of the palace, an old beggar smiled to himself, knowing that the pieces were falling into place exactly as they should.

The next morning arrived with the grey light of dawn filtering through the high windows of the hall. Eurymachus woke to the familiar sounds of the palace stirring to life—servants moving quietly through the corridors, the bleating of sheep being driven to pasture, the crash of waves against the rocks below.

For a moment, he lay still, trying to hold onto the memory of the previous night. Antinous's lips against his. The whispered confessions. The illusion of safety they had created in the darkness. But morning stripped away all pretense, leaving only the harsh reality of what they were and what they had done.

The feast began again, as it always did. The suitors gathered in the hall, calling for food and wine, resuming the patterns they had followed for three years. But there was a tension in the air now, a brittleness that hadn't been there before. Or perhaps it had always been there, and Eurymachus was only now allowing himself to notice it.

Antinous sat at his usual place, laughing and joking with the others, but his eyes kept finding Eurymachus across the hall. Each glance was a question, a reassurance, a reminder of what they had shared. Eurymachus felt his heart clench every time their gazes met.

Telemachus moved through the hall with quiet purpose, attending to his mother's business, speaking with the servants, watching the suitors with those too-knowing eyes. The old beggar sat in the corner, hunched over a bowl of scraps, looking pitiful and harmless. But Eurymachus couldn't shake Amphinomus's theory from his mind. What if it really was Odysseus? What if the man they had all assumed was dead or lost was actually here, watching, waiting, planning?

The day dragged on in its usual pattern of excess and waste. More food was brought out than could possibly be eaten. More wine was poured than could possibly be drunk. The suitors competed in contests of strength and skill, fought petty battles over perceived slights, made crude jokes at each other's expense. It was all so normal, so familiar, and yet it felt like a performance now. Like they were all actors playing parts in a tragedy whose ending had already been written.

That afternoon, Penelope announced that she would finally make her choice.

The hall fell silent at her proclamation. For three years, she had put them off with excuses and delays—her famous shroud that she wove by day and unpicked by night, her insistence that Telemachus must reach manhood before she could remarry, her grief over Odysseus that seemed to never fade. But now, standing before them all with her head high and her eyes cold, she declared that the time had come.

"Tomorrow," she said, her voice carrying across the hushed hall, "I will set a contest. Odysseus's great bow, which he left here, still hangs in the armory. The man who can string it and shoot an arrow through twelve ax-heads set in a line—that man I will marry."

A murmur ran through the suitors. Some looked excited, others skeptical. It was a test, clearly, meant to winnow them down to only the strongest. But it was also something more—an homage to her missing husband, a way of ensuring that whoever claimed his place could at least match some small part of his prowess.

Eurymachus looked at Antinous and saw his own thoughts reflected there. Neither of them had ever been the strongest or most skilled warriors among the suitors. They had survived through cunning and charisma, through political maneuvering and strategic alliances. The contest would not favor them.

But more than that, Eurymachus realized, it didn't matter. Whether Antinous won or lost, whether someone else claimed Penelope's hand, whether the contest ever happened at all—none of it mattered. Because the end was coming, and no amount of strength or skill or cleverness would save them from it.

That night, they found each other again.

It was reckless, dangerous, but neither of them cared anymore. They had moved past caution, past fear of discovery, into a kind of fatalistic acceptance. If they were going to die soon—and they were, Eurymachus could feel it in his bones—then they would spend their last nights together, consequences be damned. They retreated to a secluded corner of the palace gardens, where the olive trees grew thick and the sound of the sea covered their whispered conversations. The moon hung heavy and full above them, painting everything in silver and shadow.

"Tell me about your mother," Eurymachus said, pulling Antinous down to sit beside him on the cool grass. "You never talk about her." Antinous was quiet for a long moment, his gaze distant. "She was kind," he said finally. "Too kind for my father. He wanted her to raise me to be hard, unfeeling, strong. But she would sing to me at night, tell me stories about heroes who used their strength to protect rather than conquer." He laughed bitterly. "She died when I was twelve. My father said it was a blessing—that she had been making me soft." Eurymachus reached over and laced their fingers together. "She would have hated what you've become."

"I know," Antinous whispered. "I hate what I've become." The confession hung in the air between them, stark and painful. Eurymachus squeezed his hand, offering what comfort he could. "We all do. Hate ourselves, I mean. Every man in that hall knows, deep down, that we're monsters."

"Except Amphinomus."

"No," Eurymachus corrected gently. "Amphinomus most of all. He knows exactly what he is, and he carries that knowledge like a weight around his neck. At least the rest of us can sometimes forget. He never does."

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the waves and the wind. Then Antinous spoke again, his voice barely audible. "Do you think there's an afterlife? A place where we'll have to answer for what we've done?" Eurymachus considered the question. He had been raised with the traditional beliefs—Hades and the underworld, the judges who weighed souls, the different realms of punishment and reward. But he had never given it much thought, had always assumed it was just stories told to frighten children and keep them obedient.

Now, though, with death approaching, he found himself hoping it was real. Not because he wanted paradise—he knew he didn't deserve it—but because he wanted to continue existing in some form. He wanted there to be something after this, even if it was suffering, because the alternative was oblivion, and oblivion meant truly losing Antinous forever.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "But I hope so. I hope we get to keep existing, even if we're punished for it. Because the thought of just... ending. Of there being nothing. That terrifies me more than any hell the gods could devise." Antinous turned to look at him, his expression soft in the moonlight. "If there is an afterlife, I'll find you there. No matter where they send us, I'll find you."

"Promise?"

"Promise." They kissed then, slow and deep, pouring all their fear and love and desperate hope into the connection. When they finally pulled apart, both their faces were wet with tears they hadn't known they were crying. "Tomorrow," Antinous said. "The contest is tomorrow."

"I know."

"I don't think we have much time left after that."

"I know."

"I love you." It was the first time either of them had said it aloud. The words hung in the air between them, terrifying and perfect and true. Eurymachus felt something break open in his chest, something that had been locked tight for so long he had forgotten it was there. "I love you too," he whispered. "I think I always have." They stayed in the garden until dawn began to lighten the eastern sky, holding each other, memorizing the feel of each other's bodies, the sound of each other's breath, storing up memories against the darkness they both knew was coming.

When they finally returned to the hall, hand in hand in defiance of anyone who might see, they found that they weren't the only ones who had sensed the approaching end. The other suitors were subdued, quieter than usual. Even Ctesippus, usually loud and boisterous, sat hunched over his cup, staring into the wine as if it might hold answers. Amphinomus caught Eurymachus's eye and nodded slowly, a gesture of understanding and perhaps even approval. Eurymachus nodded back, grateful for the silent support.

The old beggar watched them all from his corner, and Eurymachus could have sworn he saw something like pity in those ancient eyes. The contest would be tomorrow. And after that, one way or another, it would end.

The day of the contest dawned clear and bright, as if the gods themselves were eager to witness what would unfold. The great hall had been rearranged to accommodate Penelope's challenge—twelve axes set in a row, their rings aligned to create a narrow tunnel through which an arrow would have to pass.

And there, hanging on the wall where it had hung for twenty years, was Odysseus's bow. It was massive, crafted from the horns of a wild goat, reinforced with sinew and wood, carved with intricate designs that spoke of its maker's skill. Just looking at it, Eurymachus knew that few men alive could string such a weapon, let alone shoot it with any accuracy.

The suitors gathered, preening and boasting, each convinced that he would be the one to win Penelope's hand. But there was a forced quality to their confidence, a brittleness that suggested they all knew this was the beginning of the end.

One by one, they tried. Amphinomus went first, out of respect for his generally acknowledged superior character. He strained against the bow with all his might, muscles bulging, face flushing with effort. But the weapon refused to bend, refused to accept the string. After several minutes of struggle, he gave up and stepped aside, shaking his head. Others followed. Ctesippus, Agelaus, Eurynomus—each one tried and failed. Some couldn't budge the bow at all. Others managed to bend it slightly but lacked the technique to string it. The failures mounted, and with each one, the tension in the room grew thicker.

Then it was Antinous's turn.

He approached the bow with his characteristic swagger, but Eurymachus could see the fear lurking behind his eyes. This was it—the moment that would determine his fate, his future, his place in the hierarchy of the suitors. If he succeeded, he would win Penelope and claim Odysseus's kingdom. If he failed, he would be just another unsuccessful pretender. Antinous lifted the bow, testing its weight. He positioned himself carefully, planted his feet, and began to pull. The bow resisted, stubborn and unyielding. Sweat broke out on Antinous's forehead as he strained harder, pouring all his strength into the attempt.

For a moment, it seemed like he might succeed. The bow began to bend, the gap between string and notch growing narrower. But then, with a sound like a tree branch cracking, something in Antinous's shoulder gave way. He cried out in pain and dropped the bow, clutching his arm.

Eurymachus started forward instinctively, wanting to go to him, to check if he was seriously hurt. But Antinous waved him off, forcing a smile through the pain. "I'm fine," he said, though his voice was strained. "Just... need to rest a moment." It was Eurymachus's turn next. He approached the bow with no illusions about his chances. He was strong enough, trained enough, but he had never possessed the kind of raw power that this weapon demanded. Still, he had to try.

He grasped the bow, feeling the smoothness of the horn beneath his palms, and began to pull. Immediately, he understood why the others had failed. This wasn't just a weapon—it was a test of worthiness, designed by a hero who had wanted to ensure that no lesser man could claim what was his. Eurymachus pulled until his arms shook, until black spots danced at the edges of his vision, until he thought his sinews might tear from his bones. But the bow remained unstrung, as immovable as fate itself.

Finally, he had to admit defeat. He lowered the bow carefully, stepping back with as much dignity as he could muster. His eyes found Antinous across the hall, and in that moment, he felt only relief. They had both failed, which meant neither of them would have to marry Penelope, neither of them would have to take on the burden of Odysseus's kingdom. They could continue as they were, at least for a little while longer.

But then the old beggar spoke. "Perhaps," he said, his voice carrying surprising strength for such a decrepit figure, "I might be permitted to try?" The hall erupted in laughter. The idea of this filthy, broken-down beggar attempting what the strongest men on Ithaca had failed to do was absurd. Antinous, still nursing his injured shoulder, sneered openly.

"Sit down, old man," he said. "This contest is for your betters." But Penelope, from her position at the head of the hall, raised her hand. "Let him try," she said calmly. "The contest was open to all who wished to attempt it. I set no restrictions on who might test themselves against my husband's bow."

The suitors muttered among themselves, but none dared directly contradict the queen. The beggar rose with surprising grace and shuffled toward the bow. As he approached, Eurymachus felt that prickling sensation at the back of his neck again—the feeling that he was watching something significant unfold, something that would change everything.

The beggar's hands closed around the bow, and for just a moment, his posture shifted. The hunched shoulders straightened slightly. The trembling hands steadied. And when he lifted the weapon, it was with the familiarity of long practice, of muscle memory ingrained over decades. He examined the bow carefully, turning it over, checking the condition of the horn and sinew. "A fine weapon," he murmured. "Well cared for, despite the years."

Then, with a movement so fluid it seemed effortless, he strung the bow. The hall fell silent. The suitors stared in disbelief as the beggar—this old, filthy, supposedly weak beggar—did what none of them had been able to accomplish. He drew the string back to test the tension, and it sang—a clear, pure note that rang through the hall like a bell tolling.

"No," Antinous whispered beside Eurymachus. "No, it's not possible." But it was possible. It was happening. And as Eurymachus watched the beggar notch an arrow and sight along the line of axes, he felt certainty settle over him like a shroud. Amphinomus had been right. This was no beggar. This was Odysseus, returned at last to his house, to his wife, to claim vengeance for twenty years of absence and three years of violation.

The arrow flew.

It passed through all twelve ax-heads in perfect alignment, never touching the sides, emerging from the far end to thud into the wooden post beyond. An impossible shot, the kind that only a master archer—or a hero favored by the gods—could make.

The beggar lowered the bow and turned to face the suitors. And as he did, something in his bearing changed completely. The disguise didn't fall away—he still looked like an old beggar in rags—but there was power in him now, undeniable and terrible. "You have feasted in my hall," Odysseus said, his voice no longer weak but strong and cold as winter iron. "You have courted my wife, terrorized my son, consumed my wealth, and despoiled my household. Did you think there would be no accounting? Did you think I would never return?"

Chaos erupted. Some of the suitors tried to run for the doors, only to find them barred from the outside—when had that happened? Others reached for weapons that weren't there—the servants must have removed them during the contest, at Telemachus's direction. They were trapped, unarmed, facing a hero who had survived the Trojan War and ten years of wandering, who had faced monsters and gods and come home at last to find his house defiled.

Eurymachus felt a strange calm settle over him. So this was how it would end. Not in glory, not in heroism, but in butchery, slaughtered like animals by a man they had wronged. There was a certain justice to it, he supposed. They had lived like beasts, and now they would die like them.

He looked for Antinous and found him already looking back, their eyes meeting across the chaos of the hall. In that moment, a lifetime of unspoken communication passed between them. I love you. I'm sorry. I wish we had been different men. I'll find you, wherever we go from here. Odysseus raised the bow again, and his first arrow took Antinous in the throat.

Eurymachus watched him fall, watched the blood spread across the floor in a crimson pool, watched the light fade from those eyes he had loved more than his own life. Something inside him shattered—not his heart, which had been broken for a long time, but his will. The survival instinct that had kept him fighting, scheming, enduring, suddenly went quiet. He could run. He could beg. He could fight. But what was the point? Antinous was dead. They were all going to die. The story was ending exactly as it was always meant to end.

Other suitors were shouting, pleading, offering treasures and cattle and bronze if only Odysseus would spare them. Eurymachus heard Amphinomus step forward, his voice calm even in the face of death, trying to reason with the king. "Lord Odysseus, some of us were drawn here by our fathers' ambitions, not our own. Some of us knew this was wrong but were too weak to leave. Surely not all of us deserve death—"

Odysseus's arrow caught him mid-sentence, piercing his chest. Amphinomus, the best of them, the one who had retained some measure of conscience and decency, fell without finishing his plea. If even he could not be spared, then there was no hope for any of them. Eurymachus found himself moving forward, not toward the doors or the windows, but toward where Antinous lay. His feet carried him through the chaos of fleeing, fighting, dying men, past Telemachus who had emerged with a spear to help his father, past the servants who had remained loyal and were now blocking every exit.

He knelt beside Antinous's body, gathering him into his arms, cradling his head against his chest. The blood was still warm, soaking into Eurymachus's clothes, binding them together one last time. Antinous's eyes were open but unseeing, staring at something Eurymachus couldn't perceive.

"I'm here," he whispered, though he knew Antinous couldn't hear him anymore. "I kept my promise. I'm here with you." He felt rather than saw Odysseus approach, felt the presence of the hero looming over him. Eurymachus didn't look up, didn't beg for his life or try to explain. He just held Antinous and waited.

"You were one of the worst," Odysseus said, his voice still cold but carrying a note of something else—curiosity, perhaps, or confusion. "Eurymachus, son of Polybus. Clever with words, quick to scheme. You helped lead them, encouraged their excess. Why do you not run or fight like the others?" Eurymachus finally raised his eyes to meet Odysseus's gaze. "Because he's dead," he said simply. "And where he goes, I go." Understanding flickered across Odysseus's face, followed by something that might have been pity. "You loved him."

"Yes."

"Love does not absolve you of your crimes."

"I know." Eurymachus looked down at Antinous again, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead with gentle fingers. "I don't ask for absolution. I don't ask for mercy. I just ask that you make it quick, and that wherever you send us, you send us together."

For a long moment, Odysseus was silent. The sounds of slaughter continued around them—screams and pleas and the wet thud of arrows finding flesh. Then he nodded once, a gesture of respect for an enemy who at least faced death with dignity. "Close your eyes," Odysseus said, raising his bow one final time. Eurymachus pressed his forehead to Antinous's, closed his eyes, and waited for the darkness.

When Eurymachus opened his eyes again, he was standing on a grey shore beside a grey river. The sky above was colorless, neither day nor night, and the water moved sluggishly, as if it were thicker than it should be. Other shades—for that's what they were now, shades, spirits of the dead—moved past him toward a distant bank where a figure waited with a boat.

He looked down at himself and found that he was whole again, no arrow wound, no blood. But he felt hollow, insubstantial, like a drawing of a person rather than a person themselves. This was the underworld, he realized. The place where all souls went to await judgment.

"Eurymachus."

He spun around, and there was Antinous. His throat was whole, unblemished, but like Eurymachus he had a translucent quality, as if he were made of mist and memory rather than flesh and bone. But his eyes—his eyes were the same, warm and brown and achingly familiar. "You came," Antinous said, and his voice trembled. "Of course I came," Eurymachus replied. "I promised, didn't I? I promised I'd find you."

They moved toward each other, and when they embraced, Eurymachus could feel him—not quite solid, not quite real, but present. Antinous was here, and they were together, and that was all that mattered. "I'm sorry," Antinous whispered against his shoulder. "I'm sorry for all of it. For every cruel thing I did, every person I hurt, every choice that led us to that hall."

"I know," Eurymachus said. "I'm sorry too." They held each other for a long time, there on the shores of the River Styx, while the other shades moved past them toward the ferryman. Around them, Eurymachus recognized other faces—Amphinomus, looking peaceful at last; Ctesippus, still confused even in death; all the suitors who had feasted in Odysseus's hall and paid the ultimate price for their hubris.

Eventually, they would have to join the procession. They would have to cross the river and face whatever judgment awaited them on the other side. Perhaps they would be sent to Tartarus, to suffer for eternity. Perhaps they would drink from the River Lethe and forget everything, their love dissolved into oblivion. Perhaps there would be some other fate, some other accounting for the men they had been and the things they had done.

But for now, they had this—this moment on the grey shore, holding each other, together at the end as they had been in life. It wasn't redemption. It wasn't forgiveness. But it was something. A small grace in the midst of damnation. A love that had survived death itself, even if only for a little while.

"Are you afraid?" Antinous asked. Eurymachus considered the question. He had been afraid for so long—afraid of discovery, afraid of death, afraid of losing Antinous, afraid of facing the consequences of his actions. But now, standing here with Antinous's arms around him and nothing left to lose, he found that the fear had finally left him. "No," he said. "Not anymore. Not as long as we're together."

Antinous pulled back just enough to look at him, and smiled—that real smile, the one without artifice or cruelty, the one that Eurymachus had only ever seen in their most private moments. "Then let's go," he said. "Whatever comes next, we'll face it together." Hand in hand, they walked toward the river, toward the ferryman, toward whatever judgment or oblivion or redemption awaited them. Behind them, the grey shore stretched empty and eternal. Ahead, the future was uncertain. But they were together, and in the end, that was the only thing that had ever really mattered.

The ferryman—ancient Charon, who had guided countless souls across the water—looked at them with eyes that had seen every kind of human experience. He saw the love between them, saw the crimes they had committed, saw the men they had been and the men they had become. And perhaps he saw something else too—something redeemable, something worth preserving, even in the underworld.

"Two coins," he said, extending his palm. They had none, of course. The living were supposed to place coins on the eyes of the dead to pay the ferryman's toll, but Odysseus had not been so kind. They had been left to make their way as best they could. But Amphinomus, standing nearby with his own coin already paid, stepped forward. "Take mine for them," he said. "I'll wait for another passage."

Eurymachus looked at him in surprise. "Why would you do that?" Amphinomus shrugged, a gesture that looked strange on his shade-form. "Because you loved each other enough to die together. Because at the end, you faced it with dignity. Because even villains deserve one moment of grace." He smiled sadly. "And because I failed to save any of us in life. Perhaps I can help a little in death."

The ferryman accepted the payment with a nod, and gestured for them to board. As they stepped into the boat, Eurymachus looked back at Amphinomus one last time. "Thank you," he said. "For everything. For not judging us. For understanding."

"We all made our choices," Amphinomus replied. "I hope you find peace, wherever you're going." The boat pushed off from the shore, and they glided across the grey water toward whatever lay on the other side. Eurymachus and Antinous sat close together, their hands still intertwined, watching as the shores of their old lives receded into mist. "Do you think we'll be punished?" Antinous asked quietly. "Probably," Eurymachus admitted. "We earned it, after all."

"Do you think it will hurt?"

"I don't know. Maybe. But if it does, at least we'll hurt together." Antinous laughed, a sound that seemed impossible in this grey place but rang out clear and true nonetheless. "Only you would find comfort in shared suffering."

"It's not suffering I find comfort in," Eurymachus corrected. "It's you." They sat in silence for the rest of the crossing, holding each other as the boat carried them toward their final destination. And when at last they stepped onto the far shore, when they stood before the judges who would determine their eternal fate, they stood together.

The judges looked at them with eyes that saw through all deception, all pretense, all the masks they had worn in life. They saw the crimes—the stolen wealth, the tormented servants, the years of violation against a hero's household. But they also saw the love, genuine and deep and true, a light in the darkness of their shared damnation. "Guilty," the judges pronounced. "Of hubris, of theft, of cruelty, of violation of the sacred laws of hospitality. Your crimes warrant punishment." Eurymachus and Antinous bowed their heads, accepting the verdict.

"However," the judges continued, "you loved truly, even in the midst of your crimes. That counts for something. Not enough to absolve you, but enough to earn you this: you will serve your punishment together. Where one goes, the other follows. You will not be separated, not for all eternity." It was more than they had dared to hope for. Eurymachus felt tears—impossible, in this place where they were only shades—prick at his eyes. Antinous's hand tightened around his.

"Thank you," they said in unison. And so they went forward, together, into whatever eternity held for them. The punishment was real—they labored in the fields of asphodel, they endured the weight of their crimes, they carried the knowledge of what they had done like stones around their necks. But they carried it together, and that made all the difference. In the evenings, when the work was done and the shades were permitted to rest, they would sit together and remember. Not the feast, not the palace, not the crimes. But the quiet moments. The garden under moonlight. The confessions whispered in darkness. The kisses stolen between heartbeats.

They remembered being human, being flawed, being in love despite everything that said they shouldn't be. And sometimes, in the strange timelessness of the underworld, they would hear stories from the living world above. Stories of Odysseus, who had returned and reclaimed his kingdom. Of Penelope, faithful to the end, reunited with her husband. Of Telemachus, who had grown into a worthy heir. Of the palace on Ithaca, restored to its former glory, the years of violation erased as if they had never been.

The stories always ended the same way: with the suitors as villains, as cautionary tales, as examples of what happened to those who overreached and defied the gods. Their names became synonymous with hubris and greed and the just punishment that followed transgression and that was fair, Eurymachus supposed. They had been villains. They had earned their infamy.

But here, in the grey eternity of the underworld, they were something else too. They were two men who had found each other in the worst of circumstances and loved each other despite everything. They were proof that even in darkness, even in sin, even in damnation, there could be light. It wasn't redemption. It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't even really happiness. But it was love, and it endured, and in the end, that was enough.

Years passed above—decades, centuries, millennia. The stories changed and evolved. Homer sang of the suitors' doom, and his words were copied and passed down through generations. Scholars debated the meaning of the Odyssey, analyzed its themes, dissected its characters. The suitors became archetypes, symbols, lessons in morality and justice.

But no one told the story of Eurymachus and Antinous. No one sang of the love that had bloomed in the midst of their crimes. That story remained hidden, visible only to those who knew where to look, buried in glances and gestures and the small moments between the larger narrative and perhaps that was right too. Some stories weren't meant for epic poems. Some loves were too private, too painful, too true to be transformed into legend.

So they remained in the underworld, together, working and resting and remembering. And if their punishment was sometimes eased by the warmth of each other's presence, if their damnation was made bearable by the knowledge that they weren't alone, if their eternity was painted in shades of grey but touched with the gold of genuine love—well, perhaps even the judges of the dead could be moved to mercy, just a little.

They had been villains. They had been fools. They had been men who made terrible choices and paid terrible prices. But they had also been in love and in the end, in the grey eternity where all stories eventually lead, perhaps that was the truest thing about them.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑹𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒔

The scent of ichor and ash clung to Ares as he materialized in the gardens of Olympus, his form still crackling with residual energy from the battlefield below. Mortal blood—not his own—stained the edges of his gauntlets, and his eyes burned with that particular fire that came only after a truly glorious slaughter. He could still hear the screams. Still feel the way his blade had sung through armor and bone. Beautiful. Perfect. *Exactly* as war should be. But there was somewhere else he needed to be now. Someone else.

His feet carried him through the marble corridors without conscious thought, past gilded halls where other gods gathered and gossiped. He ignored them all. There was only one destination that mattered when he was like this—wound tight as a drawn bowstring, violence still singing in his veins.

He found her where he always did.

Aphrodite reclined in her chambers, surrounded by silks in shades of rose and gold. The light seemed to love her, clinging to the curves of her form, catching in her hair. She was examining something delicate in her hands—a pearl, perhaps, or some mortal trinket—but her eyes lifted the moment he entered. Those eyes. They saw everything. A smile curved her lips, knowing and amused. "Well, well. Someone's had an eventful afternoon."

Ares stood in the doorway, chest still heaving slightly, fists clenched at his sides. The fury of battle hadn't left him yet. It never did, not this quickly. He was all sharp edges and barely contained violence, and he knew it. "The Thracians were particularly spirited today," he said, his voice rough, edged with satisfaction. "They fought beautifully. Died beautifully."

"Mmm." Aphrodite set aside whatever she'd been holding and rose with fluid grace, each movement deliberate. She crossed the space between them slowly, and Ares felt his breath catch despite himself. "And now you've come here, tracking blood and fury into my sanctuary. How romantic."

There was no judgment in her tone. If anything, she sounded... entertained. "You're the only one who doesn't flinch," he found himself saying, the words pulled from somewhere deeper than he usually allowed.

Her smile softened, just slightly. "Darling, I've seen you at your worst and your best. Did you think a little bloodlust would frighten me?" She reached up, fingers ghosting along his jaw, and he felt some of that coiled tension begin to ease. "You forget—I know what passion looks like in all its forms." Ares leaned into her touch without meaning to, his eyes closing briefly. When they opened again, some of that wild edge had dimmed. "The others think me monstrous."

"The others are boring." Aphrodite's thumb traced his lower lip, and her voice dropped to something almost conspiratorial. "Besides, I happen to like my monsters." Despite everything—the blood, the fury, the violence still humming under his skin—Ares felt his mouth twitch into something that might have been a smile. "Come," she said, taking his hand and tugging him further into the room. "Sit with me. Tell me about your glorious battle, and I'll remind you that there's more to existence than just carnage."

"I like carnage," he muttered, but he followed her anyway, let her guide him down onto the cushioned seats. "I know you do, my fierce love." She settled beside him, close enough that he could feel her warmth. "But even the god of war needs to rest sometimes."

Her fingers found his hair, combing through it gently, and Ares felt the last of that battle-fury begin to drain away. This—*this*—was the only kind of defeat he'd ever willingly accept. "Tell me," Aphrodite murmured, her voice honey-sweet. "Did you at least enjoy yourself?" Ares huffed a laugh, leaning into her touch. "Every blood-soaked moment."

"Good," she said simply, and pressed a kiss to his temple. "That's my Ares."

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, her fingers still working through his hair in soothing motions. Ares could feel his breathing evening out, the tension in his shoulders gradually releasing. It was strange, how easily she could do this—unravel him with nothing but gentle touches and that knowing smile. "You know," Aphrodite said thoughtfully, "the others were talking about you at the gathering earlier." Ares snorted. "Let me guess. More complaints about excessive violence? Athena lecturing about strategy over brute force?"

"Oh, the usual tedium." She waved a dismissive hand. "Athena was being particularly insufferable about 'disciplined warfare' versus 'mindless slaughter.' I may have suggested that perhaps she was simply jealous that mortals pray to you with far more *passion*." Despite himself, Ares grinned—a real one this time, not the violent baring of teeth from the battlefield. "You didn't."

"I absolutely did." Aphrodite's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Her face was priceless. All that wisdom, and she still can't figure out a proper comeback when it comes to matters of the heart." She traced patterns on his shoulder absently. "They don't understand you. Any of them."

"And you do?" The question came out softer than he intended. Aphrodite tilted her head, considering him with those impossibly perceptive eyes. "I understand that what they call monstrosity, I call honesty. You don't hide what you are, Ares. You don't dress up violence in pretty strategies or noble causes. You simply... *are*. Raw and real and utterly yourself." Something in his chest tightened. "Most would call that brutish."

"Most are cowards." She shifted closer, until she was practically in his lap, one hand cupping his face. "I've spent eternity watching gods and mortals alike hide behind masks, pretending to be something they're not. You?" Her thumb brushed across his cheekbone. "You've never pretended. Not once. Do you have any idea how rare that is? How... refreshing?" Ares found himself leaning into her touch, his hands coming up to rest on her waist almost instinctively. "You make me sound noble. I'm not. I just like the carnage."

"I know." Her smile was fond, indulgent. "And I like that you like it. I like that you come to me afterwards, all fire and fury, and let me gentle you. I like that I'm the only one who gets to see this." She gestured at him, at the way he'd melted under her attention. "You're the only one I want to see it," he admitted roughly. Aphrodite's expression softened into something almost tender. "Oh, my love. You really do have a way of saying the sweetest things in the most aggressive tone possible."

"I'm the god of war, not poetry."

"And yet." She leaned in, her lips hovering just barely away from his. "You're here with me, letting me run my fingers through your hair like some gentle suitor, instead of raging across battlefields. That speaks louder than any poem."

Ares closed the distance between them, kissing her with far more gentleness than anyone who'd seen him hours ago would have believed him capable of. When they parted, his forehead rested against hers. "The battle was glorious," he murmured. "But this... this is better." Aphrodite laughed, the sound like bells. "Careful, darling. Say things like that too often and I might start to think you're going soft."

"Only for you," he said, and meant it with every fiber of his being. "I know," she whispered back, her smile radiant. "That's what makes it perfect." They stayed like that for a while, wrapped up in each other, the world beyond Aphrodite's chambers fading into irrelevance. Ares felt the last remnants of battle-lust drain away, replaced by something warmer, steadier. Something he'd never admit to anyone else existed within him.

Eventually, Aphrodite pulled back slightly, her eyes scanning his face. "You're still wearing half the battlefield, you know. Blood on your gauntlets, ash in your hair..." Her nose wrinkled delicately, though her smile remained. "And you smell like smoke and iron."

"I thought you liked me authentic," Ares drawled. "Oh, I do. Doesn't mean I can't prefer you without quite so much evidence of slaughter." She stood gracefully, tugging him up with her. "Come. Let me take care of you properly." Ares raised an eyebrow. "I don't need—"

"I know you don't *need* it," she interrupted, already guiding him toward the adjacent bathing chamber. "But you're going to let me anyway, because I want to, and because you—" she poked his chest playfully, "—are terrible at taking care of yourself when you're wound up like this."

He wanted to argue. He was a god, he didn't need coddling, didn't need someone fussing over him like he was some mortal warrior returned from campaign. But the way she looked at him, expectant and amused and somehow *caring* in a way that didn't feel like pity or obligation… "Fine," he relented, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile. The bathing chamber was exactly what one would expect of Aphrodite—marble and gold, with water that shimmered like it held starlight. She made quick work of his armor with practiced ease, setting each piece aside carefully despite the blood and grime.

"I've done this before," she said conversationally as she worked on the clasps of his cuirass. "Do you remember? That battle in Thrace, three centuries ago. You came to me looking like you'd bathed in carnage."

"That was a good day," Ares mused. "For you, perhaps. I had to scrub blood out of my favorite cushions." But there was no real complaint in her voice, just fond exasperation. "There. Much better." Without the armor, Ares felt oddly exposed, but Aphrodite didn't seem to notice or care. She simply led him to the bath, and he sank into the warm water with a sigh he hadn't known he'd been holding. Aphrodite settled on the edge, her fingers trailing through the water before finding his hair again. She worked through the tangles gently, patient in a way that shouldn't have suited the goddess of passion but somehow did. "Why do you do this?" Ares asked quietly, watching her through half-lidded eyes.

"Do what, darling?"

"This. All of this." He gestured vaguely. "You could have anyone. Gods, mortals, heroes. You could have someone refined, someone who doesn't come to you covered in blood and reeking of death." Aphrodite's hands paused for just a moment before continuing their ministrations. "Do you want me to have someone else?"

"No," he said immediately, more forcefully than he intended. The thought alone made something violent stir in his chest. "Then stop asking foolish questions." Her voice was gentle but firm. "I don't want refined. I don't want someone who hides their nature behind pretty words and prettier lies. I want..." She leaned down, her breath warm against his ear. "I want the god who understands that passion and violence are two sides of the same coin. I want someone who feels everything as intensely as I do, even if they express it differently." Ares turned to look at her properly, water droplets clinging to his skin. "You make it sound simple."

"It is simple." Aphrodite cupped water in her hands and let it cascade over his shoulders, washing away the last traces of ash. "Everyone else complicates things with shame and propriety and expectations. But you and I? We know what we are. We know what we want. And we're not afraid of it."

"I want you," he said, the words falling out unguarded. Her smile was radiant, triumphant, and somehow impossibly soft all at once. "I know. And I want you, my fierce, terrible, beautiful god of war." She leaned in and kissed him again, slow and deep. When she pulled back, her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Even when you track blood through my chambers."

"I'll try to be more considerate next time," Ares said dryly. "No you won't."

"No," he agreed, a smile tugging at his lips. "I won't."

"Good," Aphrodite said, and went back to washing his hair with the contentment of someone who had everything exactly as they wanted it. "I wouldn't have you any other way."

Later, when the water had cooled and Ares was clean of battle's remnants, they found themselves back among the cushions and silks of her main chamber. The sun was setting over Olympus, painting everything in shades of amber and rose gold—colors that seemed made for Aphrodite, that clung to her skin like they were paying homage. Ares lay stretched out, his head in her lap, feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks. Months, maybe. Aphrodite's fingers traced idle patterns on his chest, her touch feather-light and soothing. "Tell me about the young prince," she said suddenly. Ares didn't need to ask which one. "Zagreus?"

"Mmm. He's been using your boons quite effectively, I hear. Though I like to think mine help just as much." There was a playful competitiveness in her tone. "The boy has potential," Ares admitted. "Raw, unfocused fury. He fights like he has something to prove."

"He does have something to prove. To his father, to himself, to everyone who doubted him." Aphrodite's voice held a note of sympathy. "I find him rather charming, actually. So determined, so passionate about his goals."

"You find everyone charming."

"Not true. I find you charming, and you're arguably one of the least charming gods on Olympus by conventional standards." She tugged gently on a strand of his hair in mock punishment. Ares caught her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. "Fair point."

"He asked about us once, you know," Aphrodite continued, her voice taking on that amused lilt it always did when she was about to share gossip. "Zagreus. He seemed surprised that we were... together. As if the god of war and the goddess of love couldn't possibly understand each other."

"Most think that."

"Most are fools." She looked down at him, her expression thoughtful. "But I told him that love and war aren't so different. Both require passion, strategy, sacrifice. Both can be beautiful and terrible in equal measure. Both consume you entirely if you let them." Ares considered that, turning it over in his mind. "I never thought of it that way."

"That's because you experience it, darling. You don't need to analyze it." Her fingers resumed their gentle exploration, tracing the lines of old scars that even gods couldn't fully erase—marks of honor, of battles won and lost. "But it's true. When I look at you, I see myself reflected back. Different expression, same intensity."

"Poetic," he murmured. "I have my moments." She bent down, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Do you know what else I told him?"

"What?"

"That you're surprisingly thoughtful when you want to be. That beneath all that rage and bloodlust, there's someone who understands devotion in its purest form." Her smile was soft, private—meant only for him. "He didn't believe me, of course. But then, no one ever does until they see it for themselves." Ares felt something warm unfurl in his chest, something dangerously close to what mortals might call happiness. "I'm not thoughtful."

"You brought me spoils from that temple in Corinth. The one dedicated to me."

"That was just—"

"You remembered that I mentioned liking their artisan's work three years ago in passing. One comment, Ares. One comment years ago, and you remembered." She raised an eyebrow, challenging him to argue.

He couldn't. He had remembered, had thought of her the moment he'd seen the temple, had taken perhaps more satisfaction than necessary in claiming its treasures in her name. "You notice everything about me," Aphrodite continued, her voice dropping to something more intimate. "The way I prefer rose oil over jasmine. How I like the cushions arranged. That I get restless when there are too many days without some drama or excitement to observe." Her hand cupped his cheek. "You pay attention, my love. That's devotion. That's care."

"I just..." Ares struggled for words, for once in his existence finding himself at a loss. "You matter. The details matter because they're part of you."

"See?" Aphrodite's smile was radiant, triumphant. "Thoughtful." He made a noncommittal sound, but didn't argue further. Outside, the sky deepened to purple, stars beginning to emerge like scattered diamonds. The sounds of Olympus—distant music, laughter, the eternal hum of divine power—filtered through the walls, but here in this space, it felt like they were the only two beings in existence.

"Do you ever tire of it?" Ares asked after a long moment of comfortable silence. "The games, the politics, the endless cycle of mortal worship and divine drama?" Aphrodite hummed thoughtfully. "Sometimes. But then something interesting happens—a new love story, a delicious scandal, a god of war showing up at my door covered in blood and looking at me like I'm the only thing that makes sense in the cosmos." She grinned. "That tends to revive my interest."

"I don't look at you like that."

"You absolutely do. It's one of my favorite things about you." She traced the line of his jaw with one finger. "You look at me like I'm a conquest, a mystery, and a refuge all at once. Like you can't quite believe I'm real, even after all this time."

"That's because sometimes I can't," he admitted quietly. "Can't believe you're here. With me. That you choose this—choose *me*—when you could have anything."

Aphrodite's expression softened into something achingly tender. "Oh, Ares. My fierce, impossible love." She shifted, moving so she could look directly into his eyes. "I don't choose you despite who you are. I choose you because of it. Because you're honest and intense and unapologetically yourself. Because when you love something, you love it with the same totality that you bring to war. Because you make me feel understood in ways no one else ever has."

"Even Hephaestus?" The question came out before he could stop it, bitter and sharp-edged. Her expression didn't change, didn't show hurt or anger at the mention of her husband. "Hephaestus is brilliant and talented and deserves respect. But he doesn't understand me. He loves the idea of me—beautiful, perfect, his divine wife. But you?" She leaned in close, her breath warm against his lips. "You love the reality of me. The goddess who gets bored easily, who craves drama and passion and intensity. Who isn't always kind or good or gentle. You love me as I actually am."

Ares reached up, threading his fingers through her hair and pulling her down into a kiss that held everything he couldn't quite put into words. When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers. "Always," he said simply. "I will always choose you. Always want you. Always—"

"I know," she whispered, her hands framing his face. "I know, my love. And I will always be here, waiting for you to come back from your battles. Ready to gentle your fury and remind you that there's more to existence than blood and war."

"You are more," he said. "You're everything." Aphrodite's smile was brilliant, luminous, filled with a joy so pure it almost hurt to witness. "And you say you're not poetic."

They fell into another kiss, this one slower, sweeter—a promise and a homecoming all at once. Outside, Olympus carried on with its eternal drama and divine machinations. But here, in this moment, there was only them. Only the god of war and the goddess of love, finding peace in each other's arms. When they finally settled back into comfortable silence, Ares sprawled across the cushions with Aphrodite tucked against his side, her head on his chest. His arm wrapped around her instinctively, holding her close like she was the most precious treasure from the most glorious conquest. "Stay tonight," she murmured, already half-drowsy.

"I always stay."

"I know. But I like hearing you agree to it anyway." She pressed a kiss over his heart. "It makes it feel like a choice rather than an inevitability."

"It's both," Ares said, surprising himself with the honesty. "It's inevitable because I can't imagine being anywhere else. But I choose it too. Choose you. Every time." Aphrodite made a contented sound, snuggling closer. "My fierce love. My terrible, beautiful god of war."

"My goddess," he replied softly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "My Aphrodite." As sleep began to claim them both—even gods needed rest sometimes—Ares found himself thinking that perhaps this was its own kind of victory. Not won through violence or bloodshed, but through vulnerability and honesty and the simple act of being present with someone who truly understood you.

The battle had been glorious. The carnage had been exquisite. But this—lying here with her, feeling utterly at peace for the first time in recent memory—this was transcendent. And as Aphrodite's breathing evened out into sleep, as her fingers curled loosely in the fabric of his clothing, Ares allowed himself a small smile. Let the other gods think him monstrous. Let them whisper and judge and fail to understand.

He had this. He had her. And that was worth more than all the victories in all the wars ever fought. "I love you," he whispered into the gathering darkness, so quietly that even she might not hear it. But Aphrodite, ever perceptive, ever aware, squeezed his hand gently in response. She'd heard. She always heard.

She stirred slightly, lifting her head to look at him through sleepy eyes. "Say it again," she murmured. Ares felt his chest tighten—not with the familiar tension of battle-readiness, but with something entirely different. Something vulnerable and terrifying and wonderful all at once. "I love you."

Her smile was soft, drowsy, and utterly content. "I love you too, you know. My fierce, impossible warrior." She traced a finger along his collarbone absently. "Even when you're being difficult. Even when you're covered in blood and ash. Even when you're so wound up with battle-fury that you can barely speak in complete sentences."

"Especially then?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Especially then," she confirmed. "Because that's when you need me most. When you come here looking for something you won't name, but I know what it is. Peace. Understanding. Acceptance." She pressed another kiss over his heart. "Home."

The word settled over him like a blanket, warm and weighty. Home. He'd never thought of anywhere as home—Olympus was simply where he resided between wars, a place to rest before the next battle. But this... her chambers, her presence, the way she looked at him like he was more than just violence incarnate… "Yes," he said softly. "Home." Aphrodite's eyes sparkled with unshed tears—happy ones, he realized with a start. "You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that."

"I'm not good with words."

"You're better than you think." She settled back against him, her warmth seeping into his skin. "Actions speak loudly too, my love. And every time you come to me first, before anyone else, before even celebrating your victories properly—that speaks volumes."

"Where else would I go?" It was a genuine question. He couldn't fathom going anywhere else after battle, couldn't imagine seeking out anyone else when his blood ran hot and his mind raced with the glory of combat. "Exactly." Her voice held a note of deep satisfaction. "Where else indeed."

They lapsed into silence again, but it was different now—heavier with meaning, thick with unspoken promises. Ares found his fingers trailing along her spine in gentle patterns, marveling at how something so simple could feel so profound. "Do you remember," Aphrodite said eventually, her voice dreamy with approaching sleep, "the first time you came to me like this? Not for passion or politics, but just... seeking comfort?" Ares thought back, sifting through centuries of memories. "The siege of Troy," he said finally. "When Athena's champion wounded me."

"Mmm. You were so angry. Furious at her, at Diomedes, at Father for allowing it." Her fingers found his, lacing them together. "You stormed into my chambers ready to rage at someone, anyone. And I just... let you. Listened. Didn't try to fix it or minimize it or tell you to be reasonable."

"You understood." The memory was clearer now—his wounded pride, his genuine pain, and Aphrodite simply being there. Not judging, not lecturing, just present. "You've always understood."

"Because I know what it's like to be dismissed. To have people see only one aspect of you and assume that's all there is." She lifted their joined hands, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "They see the god of war and think that's all you are. Bloodlust and violence and nothing more. But I see the rest of it. The honor you have for worthy opponents. The way you appreciate beauty in combat. The fierce loyalty you give to those who earn it."

"You make me sound noble again."

"You are noble. In your own way." She grinned against his skin. "A terrifying, blood-soaked, absolutely unhinged kind of noble. But noble nonetheless." Despite himself, Ares laughed—a real laugh, warm and genuine. "Only you could make that sound like a compliment."

"It is a compliment. I don't do false flattery, my love. I tell the truth, just wrapped in prettier words." She yawned delicately, snuggling even closer. "Besides, someone has to appreciate you properly. Might as well be me."

"Might as well," he echoed, his own eyes growing heavy. Outside, the stars wheeled slowly across the heavens. Somewhere in the mortal realm, wars raged on—they always did. Soldiers cried out for his favor, for his blessing, for his presence on the battlefield. There would be more battles tomorrow, more bloodshed, more glorious violence to revel in.

But tonight, there was only this. Only Aphrodite's steady breathing, her warmth against his side, her fingers still loosely entwined with his. Only the profound peace of being completely, utterly understood by someone who loved him not despite his nature but because of it. "Thank you," Ares murmured, barely aware he was speaking aloud.

"For what?" Aphrodite's voice was muzzy with sleep. "For this. For being here. For..." He struggled for the words. "For seeing me." Her response was to press impossibly closer, her lips brushing against his chest in a ghost of a kiss. "Always, my love. Always."

And as sleep finally claimed them both, wrapped in each other's arms and surrounded by silk and starlight, Ares understood something he'd never quite grasped before. Victory wasn't just about conquest and carnage. Sometimes, the greatest victory was simply finding someone who made you want to lay down your weapons—not out of defeat, but out of trust. Someone who could look at a god of war and see not a monster, but a person. Someone worth coming home to.

His last conscious thought before drifting off was that if this—her love, her presence, her understanding—was the spoils of war, then every battle he'd ever fought had been worth it. Aphrodite, already deep in dreams, smiled against his chest as if she could hear his thoughts. And perhaps she could. After all, when you understood someone so completely, so intimately, words became almost unnecessary.

They had found something rare among the gods—something that transcended divine politics and mortal worship and the endless games of Olympus. They had found each other, and in doing so, had found a kind of peace that neither had known they were searching for.

The god of war and the goddess of love, seemingly opposite but fundamentally the same—two sides of passion's coin, forever intertwined. And in the quiet darkness of her chambers, with the weight of eternity stretching out before them, that was more than enough.

It was everything.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑾𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆

Hermes always moved like wind over water—quick, elusive, impossible to catch—but Tiresias had learned to wait. Not just for the god's visits, but for the small things: the warmth of Hermes' hand brushing his shoulder, the soft laughter that made the flicker of candlelight in Tiresias' chamber seem like sunrise. "You'll tire yourself out one day," Tiresias said, though he didn't mind. He always knew Hermes would laugh, a sound like scattered bells, and answer in riddles, half-true and half-mischief.

"And you'll tire of me first," Hermes replied once, leaning close enough that Tiresias felt the whisper of wings against his cheek. "You think immortality is a gift, prophet, but even I have to move on." Tiresias had smiled, not yet understanding the weight of that statement, the prophecy it carried not in words but in gesture. Hermes was all movement, all light, all flight—and Tiresias was left to learn how to hold the wind in his hands, and how to remember what it had felt like to brush against it.

He had not yet known what it meant to be forgotten.

In the beginning, Hermes came every evening. Tiresias would hear him first—not footsteps, because gods didn't need such mortal things, but the shift in air pressure, the way the room seemed to brighten even though his eyes saw nothing but darkness. Hermes brought the outside world with him: the smell of mountain thyme, of sun-warmed stone, of distances Tiresias would never travel.

"Still sitting in the dark, old man?" Hermes would say, though Tiresias wasn't old then, not really. The blindness made people assume. "Still running from something you won't name?" Tiresias would counter, and Hermes would laugh, that beautiful scattered sound, and settle beside him like a bird finally coming to roost.

They would talk for hours. Hermes told stories of his travels—Olympus politics, mortal follies, the loneliness of carrying messages no one wanted to hear. Tiresias listened and, sometimes, when Hermes asked, he would speak prophecies. Small ones. Gentle ones. Never the future that mattered most, the one he could feel pressing against his consciousness like a bruise: *He will leave. He will leave. He will leave.* But prophecy was a curse that way. Knowing didn't mean you could change anything. It just meant you suffered twice—once in the seeing, once in the living.

"You're quiet tonight," Hermes said one evening, his fingers tracing idle patterns on Tiresias' palm. The god's touch was always warm, always restless, like he couldn't quite commit to stillness even in affection. "I'm always quiet."

"No, this is different. You're thinking too much." A pause, then softer: "Seeing too much." Tiresias turned his head toward where he knew Hermes sat, though he couldn't see him. He'd memorized the god by now—the particular quality of his voice, the rhythm of his breathing, the way he shifted his weight when he was preparing to leave. Tiresias had become an expert in reading departures. "What do you see when you look at me?" Tiresias asked. Hermes was quiet for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost its usual levity. "Someone who carries too much. Someone who'll still be here long after I'm gone."

"You're a god. You're not going anywhere."

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Hermes said, and there was something sharp in his voice, something like grief. "I'm always going somewhere. It's what I do. It's what I am." Tiresias wanted to say: *Then stay anyway. Choose to stay.* But he'd learned by now that you couldn't ask the wind to stop moving. You could only be grateful for the moments when it circled back.

So instead he said, "Then tell me about where you'll go next." And Hermes did, spinning tales of distant shores and mountain peaks and underground rivers that flowed backward. His voice filled the chamber like light, and Tiresias listened, memorizing every word, every inflection, building a cathedral of memory that he hoped would last.

He didn't know yet how fragile memory could be. How even the strongest foundations could erode, one grain at a time, until you were left standing in an empty space wondering what used to be there.

The first time Tiresias smelled saffron on Hermes' skin, he said nothing. It was faint, barely there beneath the usual scents of wind and divine radiance. Tiresias told himself it was nothing—perhaps Hermes had passed through a meadow, brushed against some flowers in his eternal rushing from place to place. Gods picked up the world on their skin like mortals picked up dust.

The second time, the scent was stronger. It clung to Hermes like a memory, sweet and golden and utterly foreign to anything in Tiresias' chamber. "You smell like spring," Tiresias said, keeping his voice light.

"Do I?" Hermes sounded distracted. "I've been everywhere today. Hard to keep track." But his fingers, when they touched Tiresias' face, were cold. And his stories that night were shorter, full of gaps he didn't bother to fill.

The visits became less frequent after that.

Tiresias told himself it didn't mean anything. Gods had responsibilities, divine business, summons from Zeus that couldn't be ignored. Hermes had always been scattered, had always been pulled in a thousand directions at once. This was just the natural rhythm of their relationship, the ebb and flow he'd learned to accept.

But the spaces between visits grew longer. A day became three. Three became a week. A week became something he stopped counting because the numbers hurt too much. And when Hermes did come, he was different. More distracted. The saffron scent had become permanent, woven into him like a second skin. Sometimes there was earth under his fingernails—not the dust of roads, but dark soil, the kind that came from lying in grass, from fingers digging into ground in moments of passion. Tiresias knew. Of course he knew. Prophets saw everything, even the things they desperately wished they couldn't.

He saw flashes sometimes, unbidden: Hermes laughing in a sun-drenched field, his hand in someone else's hand. A young man with flowers in his hair—crocus blossoms, purple and gold. The way Hermes looked at him with something unguarded and new, something he'd stopped giving to Tiresias months ago.

The boy's name appeared in Tiresias' visions like a refrain: *Crocus, Crocus, Crocus.* And beneath it, darker and more certain: *He will die. He will become something beautiful and mindless. He will forget himself before Hermes can leave him.*

At least Crocus wouldn't have to feel it. The abandonment. The slow erasure. He would transform and be done with it, turned into something that bloomed and died and bloomed again, forever innocent of what he'd lost.

Tiresias almost envied him. "You're in love," Tiresias said one night, unable to stop himself. Hermes went very still beside him. The absence of movement was deafening. "I—" Hermes started, then stopped. "Tiresias, it's not—"

"Don't lie to me. I'm blind, not stupid." Tiresias kept his voice steady, even though his chest felt like it was caving in. "And I'm certainly not unaware. You forget, I see things. All things."

"Then you know it doesn't change—"

"Don't." The word came out sharper than he intended. "Don't tell me it doesn't change anything when you smell like him. When you come here late, if you come at all, with his presence still clinging to your skin like a second lover."

Hermes' breath hitched. "His name is Crocus." Of course it was. Of course Hermes would say it, would make it real, would give the ghost that haunted their chamber a name and shape. "I know," Tiresias said quietly. "I've seen him. In my visions. He's beautiful."

"So are you."

"Liar." But there was no heat in it, just exhaustion. "I'm broken and blind and weighted down with knowing too much. He's young and alive and uncomplicated. I understand the appeal."

"It's not like that—"

"Then what is it like?" Tiresias turned toward where he knew Hermes sat, his sightless eyes finding the space where the god's face should be. "Tell me. Make me understand why you still come here smelling like flowers I'll never see, why you touch me with hands that have been touching someone else, why you stay long enough to make me hope but never long enough to make it matter." Hermes was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was small, almost mortal in its vulnerability. "I don't know how to let go of you."

"Then don't."

"But I don't know how to stay either."

And there it was. The truth laid bare between them like a corpse. Hermes was caught between two loves, two worlds, and rather than choosing he was simply... bleeding himself out across both until there was nothing left. "He's going to die," Tiresias said, and he hated himself for it, hated the cruelty of speaking prophecy like a weapon. "Young. Transformed into the flower he's named for. You'll lose him, but differently than you'll lose me."

"I know." Hermes' voice broke. "I've known from the beginning. That's what makes it—" He stopped, couldn't finish.

"Easier?" Tiresias supplied. "To love someone when you know the ending is out of your hands? When it's fate instead of choice?" Hermes didn't answer, but his silence was confession enough. Tiresias laughed, and it was a bitter sound, sharp as broken glass. "At least when you lose him, you'll have flowers to remember him by. What will you have of me? What grows from a memory you're already trying to forget?"

"Stop. Please."

"Why? Because the truth hurts? Because prophecy is only useful when it tells you what you want to hear?" Tiresias stood, his hands finding the familiar walls of his chamber through practice. "Go to him, Hermes. Go to your beautiful, doomed boy and love him while you can. Stop torturing us both with this halfway grief."

"I don't want to lose you."

"You already have." Tiresias turned his back on the god, on the sound of wings beginning to rustle, on the warmth that was already fading from his chamber. "You just haven't left yet." Hermes stood. Tiresias heard it in the shift of air, felt it in the sudden cold that crept across his skin.

"I'm sorry," Hermes whispered. "For what? For loving someone else? For staying too long? For not staying long enough?" Tiresias shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Apologies don't change anything. They never do." The flutter of wings. The rush of displaced air. The sudden, terrible absence.

Hermes left that night without saying goodbye. It was very like him, Tiresias thought. Very fitting. The messenger god, master of words, choosing silence for the one message that mattered most.

Tiresias stood in his empty chamber and breathed in the ghost of saffron that lingered in the air. Sweet and golden and utterly wrong. The scent of a love that wasn't his, of a boy who would die young and beautiful, of a future that had already begun to forget him.

He wondered how long it would take before he forgot too. Before the smell faded and the memories crumbled and the shape of Hermes' laughter became just another echo in the vast chamber of things he'd lost. Not long, whispered his prophetic gift. Not long at all. Tiresias sat down in the darkness and waited for the forgetting to begin.

The forgetting didn't happen all at once.

Tiresias almost wished it had. A clean break, a sudden severing—that would have been kinder. Instead, it was gradual, insidious, like water wearing away stone. He didn't notice at first. How could he? Memory was such a subtle thing, and its absence even more so.

The first thing to go was the laughter. Tiresias woke one morning and realized he couldn't quite recall the exact sound of it anymore. He knew it had been beautiful—that knowledge remained, carved into him like words on a temple wall—but the actual sound, the texture and pitch and rhythm of it, had become indistinct. Like trying to remember a melody you'd only heard once, years ago.

He told himself it didn't matter. He still remembered everything else. The conversations, the touch, the weight of wings against his cheek. The laughter was just one small thing. Insignificant, really.

But then the conversations began to blur. He would sit in his chamber, trying to recall specific things Hermes had said, and find that the words had become generic. "He told me about Olympus," Tiresias would think, but couldn't remember what specifically. The stories had melted together into a vague impression of divine drama and cosmic geography, nothing solid enough to hold onto.

It troubled him more than he wanted to admit. "I'm forgetting," he told his attendant one day, an old woman who brought him meals and asked few questions. "Forgetting what, my lord?"

Tiresias opened his mouth to answer and found he couldn't quite articulate it. "Someone," he said finally. "I think. Someone important." The old woman made a sympathetic sound. "The mind plays tricks as we age, my lord. Perhaps it's nothing." But Tiresias was a prophet. He knew it wasn't nothing.

He tried to hold on. He made a ritual of it—every evening, sitting in the same spot where Hermes used to visit, cataloging what he could still remember. The warmth of divine presence. The smell of... something. Mountains? Wind? It was getting harder to pin down. The sensation of fingers tracing patterns on his palm, though he couldn't remember whose fingers, or why they'd mattered so much.

There had been a name. He was sure of it. A name he'd spoken a thousand times, that had felt like home in his mouth. But when he reached for it now, it slipped away like water through his fingers.

Days became weeks. Weeks became months.

The empty space in his memory grew larger, more defined by its absence. He knew something was missing—someone was missing—but the shape of that loss became increasingly abstract. Sometimes he would catch a scent on the wind and feel a pang of something that might have been longing, might have been grief. But for what? For whom?

"You seem troubled, my lord," his attendant said one evening, finding him sitting in the darkness with his head in his hands. "I've lost something," Tiresias said. "Something precious. But I can't remember what it was."

"Perhaps it will come back to you."

"No." His prophetic gift, at least, was still clear on this. "No, it won't. It's leaving me, piece by piece, and there's nothing I can do to stop it." The old woman was quiet for a moment. Then: "Is that such a terrible thing? If you can't remember what you've lost, can it still hurt you?"

Tiresias wanted to say yes. Wanted to insist that the forgetting was worse than the remembering, that losing even the pain of loss was its own kind of tragedy. But sitting there in his dark chamber, with the ghost of something he couldn't name haunting the edges of his consciousness, he wasn't sure anymore.

Maybe forgetting was mercy. Maybe the gods, in their cruelty, had given him the one gift he'd never thought to ask for.

The memories fragmented further.

He remembered wings. Not whose wings, or what they'd felt like exactly, just the concept of them. Feathers. Flight. Something about movement that had mattered once. He remembered waiting. Hours, days, weeks of waiting for... something. Someone. A presence that had filled his chamber with light he couldn't see but could feel warming his skin.

He remembered betrayal, sharp and bright as a knife. The scent of flowers—what kind? He couldn't recall. Only that they'd meant something terrible, had signified an ending he'd seen coming but couldn't prevent.

And underneath it all, a persistent ache he couldn't explain. A loneliness that felt different from his usual solitude, more specific. As if there was a particular shape missing from his life, a particular voice he was listening for that never came. "You're waiting for something," his attendant observed one evening.

Was he? Tiresias turned the thought over in his mind. "I don't think so," he said slowly. "I think I used to wait. But I've forgotten what for."

"Then perhaps you can stop." Could he? Tiresias sat with that possibility, testing its weight. If he couldn't remember what he was waiting for, was he still waiting? Or was he just sitting in an empty room, making meaning out of nothing?

He tried to let it go. Tried to fill his days with other things—prophecies for those who sought them, meditation, conversation with his attendant. But there were still moments, especially in the evenings, when he would feel that familiar pull. The sense that he should be listening for something. The instinct to turn his head toward a sound that never came.

"I think I loved someone," he said one night, surprising himself with the words. "Did you, my lord?"

"I must have. Otherwise, why would this feel like grief?" But even as he said it, he wasn't sure. Maybe this was just what it felt like to grow old, to have lived long enough that pieces of your life started falling away like autumn leaves. Maybe everyone felt this way—this sense of something missing, this ghost of loss that had no name attached to it.

The seasons turned. Spring came, and with it the blooming of crocuses in the fields beyond his chamber. The scent drifted through his window, sweet and golden, and Tiresias found himself weeping without knowing why.

His attendant found him like that, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks, his hands clenched in his lap. "My lord, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," Tiresias said, and it was the truth. "I don't know. I just... these flowers. They mean something. Something terrible. But I can't remember what." She brought him water, spoke soothing words, and eventually the crying stopped. But the flowers kept blooming, kept sending their scent through his window, and some part of him that still remembered how to grieve continued to mourn for a loss he could no longer name.

More time passed. How much, Tiresias wasn't sure. Time had become fluid, unreliable. Days blurred together in his darkness. The phantom pain in his chest dulled. Not healed, exactly, but distant. Like an old injury that only ached in certain weather. He stopped sitting by the window in the evenings. Stopped listening for sounds that never came. The waiting had finally ended, not because whatever he'd been waiting for had arrived, but because he'd forgotten he was waiting at all.

His attendant said he seemed more peaceful. He supposed he was. There were still gaps in his memory, still moments when he would reach for something that wasn't there. But they were abstract now, not tied to any specific loss. Just the general sense that his life had once been fuller, that there had been more to it than there was now.

He made peace with that. What else could he do? Sometimes, when the wind blew through his chamber in a particular way, he would feel a flutter of something. Recognition, maybe. Or just the echo of recognition, the memory of having once recognized something that no longer existed in his mind. "You seem far away today, my lord," his attendant said one afternoon. "Do I?" Tiresias turned his face toward her voice. "I was just thinking. There are parts of my life I can't remember anymore. Not clearly."

"That happens to all of us, eventually."

"Does it bother you? Not remembering?" The old woman considered this. "Sometimes," she said. "But mostly I think... what's gone is gone. No use mourning it if you can't even remember what you're mourning." Wise words. Tiresias tried to take comfort in them.

But that night, alone in his chamber, he dreamed of wings. Of laughter like scattered bells. Of a voice saying his name with such tenderness it made his heart ache even in sleep. He woke with tears on his face and no idea why he was crying.

The day Hermes returned, Tiresias was sitting by his window. He sensed the shift in air pressure first, the way the room suddenly felt smaller, more crowded. Then came a presence—divine, powerful, and utterly foreign.

"Who's there?" Tiresias asked, his voice calm despite the sudden racing of his heart. There was a long silence. Then a sound—something between a laugh and a sob, broken and wrong.

"You don't..." The voice was beautiful, male, carrying the weight of divinity. "You don't remember me." It wasn't a question. Tiresias frowned, trying to place the voice. It stirred something in him, something deep and old, but he couldn't grasp what. "Should I know you?"

Another terrible sound, like something breaking. "I'm sorry," Tiresias said, genuinely apologetic. "My memory isn't what it was. If we've met before, I'm afraid it's escaped me. You'll have to forgive an old prophet his failings."

"Don't." The word was sharp, desperate. "Don't apologize. This is... this is what I deserve." Tiresias tilted his head, confused. "I don't understand."

"No." The voice had gone quiet now, almost hollow. "No, you wouldn't. That's the point, isn't it? That's the—" A shuddering breath. "I came to tell you about Crocus. I thought you'd want to know. He's... he's gone. Transformed. Just like you said he would be. And I thought... I thought..." The name stirred nothing in Tiresias. He waited patiently for the stranger to continue.

"I thought maybe I could come back to you. That maybe we could..." The voice trailed off. "But you don't even know who I am."

"I'm sorry," Tiresias said again, helpless in the face of this stranger's grief. "But I don't. Have we... were we important to each other?"

"Were we—" The sound that came next might have been laughter, might have been weeping. "Yes. Yes, we were important. Once. A long time ago." Tiresias considered this. Some part of him, some deep buried instinct, wanted to believe it. Wanted to say that yes, he remembered, that of course they had been important. But he couldn't lie, especially not about something like this.

"I wish I could remember," he said instead. "You seem... distressed. I'd like to help, if I could."

"You can't." The voice was gentle now, sad and accepting. "There's nothing left to help with. I broke this. I broke us. And by the time I realized what I'd lost, you'd already forgotten it ever existed.” Tiresias heard movement—wings rustling, he thought distantly, though he couldn't say why he recognized that sound. The stranger was preparing to leave.

"Wait," Tiresias said, reaching out a hand though he had no idea what direction to reach in. "At least tell me your name. So I can... so if I remember, I'll know what I'm remembering." The silence stretched so long Tiresias thought the stranger had already gone. Then, barely a whisper:

"Hermes." And the name—that name— It hit Tiresias like a thunderclap, like prophecy burning through his veins. For one brilliant, agonizing moment, everything came flooding back. The laughter, the touch, the waiting, the saffron scent of betrayal, the way love had felt like holding wind in his hands. Every conversation, every evening, every moment of joy and every shard of heartbreak crashed through him in a wave so overwhelming he couldn't breathe.

He gasped, his hand clutching at his chest, his blind eyes wide and streaming with tears. "Hermes," he said, and the name tasted like coming home, like loss, like everything he'd forgotten and everything he'd survived by forgetting. "You remember." The god's voice broke on hope. But even as Tiresias opened his mouth to say yes, to say I remember, I remember everything—the memories were already slipping away again. Like water cupped in his hands, draining through the spaces between his fingers no matter how tightly he tried to hold on.

The laughter faded first. Then the warmth. Then the specific shape of the pain. "I—" Tiresias struggled, his hands reaching for something that was already gone. "I did. Just for a moment, I—" But it was too late. The name still sat in his mouth, still felt significant, but the meaning behind it had crumbled to dust. He was left holding nothing but the echo of recognition, the ghost of a ghost. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and he didn't even know what he was apologizing for. Only that he felt he should be sorry, that something terrible had just happened, and he'd already forgotten what it was.

The sound Hermes made was inhuman. Pure anguish, the kind of grief that had no words adequate to contain it. "I'm sorry," the god said, his voice wrecked. "I'm so sorry. For all of it. For leaving, for coming back, for thinking—" He stopped, started again. "I never meant for this. I never meant for you to—"

"It's all right," Tiresias said, because it seemed like the kind thing to say, even though he didn't understand what was happening. "Whatever it is, it's all right."

"It's not." Hermes' voice was closer now, as if he'd moved nearer. "It will never be all right. But you won't remember that either, will you? By tomorrow you won't even remember this conversation. You'll just be... here. Alone. The way I left you."

Tiresias wanted to argue, but he couldn't. The stranger seemed to know him better than he knew himself. "Will you come back?" Tiresias asked, though he didn't know why the answer mattered. "Would you want me to? If you knew who I was? If you knew what I'd done?"

Tiresias considered this carefully. He didn't know what this stranger had done, but he knew grief when he heard it. Knew regret. And some instinct, deeper than memory, told him that once, this person had mattered. That maybe they could matter again, even without the history. "I think," he said slowly, "that everyone deserves a second chance. Even if they have to start from nothing." Hermes made a sound like he'd been struck. "You're too kind. You always were. Even when I didn't deserve it."

"Then maybe that's who I am," Tiresias said with a small smile. "Since I can't remember anyway, I might as well decide to be kind."

"I don't deserve this. Don't deserve you."

"Perhaps not." Tiresias turned his face toward where he thought the stranger stood. "But you're here anyway. So you might as well tell me—are you staying, or going?"

The question hung in the air between them, heavy with meanings Tiresias couldn't grasp. He heard the stranger take a shuddering breath. "I don't know," Hermes said finally. "I don't know if I can stay. If I can watch you not know me, day after day. If I can carry all these memories alone while you—" His voice broke. "While you're free of them."

"That doesn't sound fair," Tiresias observed. "It's not. None of this is fair." A pause. "But then, I suppose I forfeited the right to fairness when I—" He stopped himself. "It doesn't matter. You won't remember this anyway." Tiresias heard wings unfurling, felt the shift in air that meant the stranger was leaving.

"Wait," he said again. "Before you go. Just... tell me one thing. Were we happy? Before whatever happened that made you so sad?" The silence that followed was so long and so full of pain that Tiresias almost regretted asking.

"Yes," Hermes whispered finally. "Yes, we were happy. You were... you were everything. And I threw it away for something that was never going to last. For someone who couldn't have loved me the way you did even if he'd lived. And by the time I understood what I'd lost, you'd already—" His voice shattered. "You'd already forgotten you ever loved me at all."

The words should have meant something. Tiresias felt like they should have devastated him. But they just washed over him like rain, significant in the moment but leaving no lasting mark. "I'm sorry," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. "That sounds... lonely. For you."

"It is." Hermes' voice was barely audible now. "It's the loneliest thing in the world. To remember everything while you remember nothing. To know exactly what I lost while you can't even recall what you had."

"Will I forget this conversation too?"

"Probably. Maybe not all at once. But eventually. Everything else has faded. This will too."bTiresias nodded slowly, accepting this. "Then I suppose... I hope you find whatever you're looking for. Even if it's not here."

"You were what I was looking for," Hermes said. "I just didn't realize it until it was too late." And with that, he was gone. A rush of wind, a flutter of wings, and the chamber was empty again.

Tiresias sat in the sudden quiet, trying to hold onto the conversation. But it was already blurring at the edges, details slipping away like sand through an hourglass. Someone had visited. Someone sad. Something about... forgetting? Or maybe being forgotten?

He couldn't quite recall.

By the time his attendant came with his evening meal, he'd forgotten there had been a visitor at all. Only a vague sense of melancholy remained, like a bruise he couldn't remember getting. "You seem troubled, my lord," she said. "Do I?" Tiresias touched his cheeks and found them wet. He frowned. "I must have been thinking about something sad."

"Can you remember what?" He searched his mind but found nothing. "No," he said finally. "No, I don't think I can."

The old woman made a sympathetic sound and began preparing his meal. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the shutters. Tiresias turned his face toward it, listening. For just a moment, he thought he heard something in that wind. Like laughter. Like weeping. Like the sound of someone saying goodbye.

But when he reached for it, tried to grasp what it meant, there was nothing there but the empty howling of air through stone. He let it go. What else could he do?

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒆𝒂 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌

The water shimmered gold in the morning light, waves curling lazily around the coral cliffs. Nerites laughed as he darted through the swaying kelp, fingers leaving trails of bubbles that glittered like tiny stars. Every twist of his body, every flick of his tail, seemed effortless, as if he belonged entirely to the ocean’s pulse.

Poseidon watched from a jagged rock that jutted from the shore, the faint mist of saltwater clinging to his hair, his trident resting casually by his side. “You think the sea belongs to you, don’t you?” he called, voice deep and warm, carrying across the waves. There was a teasing lilt to it, though, a softness Nerites had come to recognize. Nerites spun around mid-swim, hair slick and catching the sunlight. “Not the sea,” he said, voice ringing bright, “just you.” He sent a playful splash toward the god, watching the water curve like liquid silver through the air.

Poseidon chuckled, and the sound rolled over the ocean like distant thunder. Without warning, a small wave rose and nudged Nerites gently toward the rock. “Careful,” Poseidon said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “Or I might start thinking you enjoy being close to me.” Nerites grinned, eyes sparkling with mischief. “And what would be so bad about that?” he asked, swimming closer, letting the current guide him as if it were a willing accomplice.

The god reached out a hand, brushing a strand of sea-slick hair from Nerites’ face. The touch was light, deliberate, and somehow heavier than the ocean itself. “Everything,” Poseidon replied softly, almost a whisper now, “and nothing at all.” The waves swirled around them, protective and gentle, curling in response to the quiet intimacy. Nerites leaned against the god’s shoulder for a fleeting moment, and in that soft pressure, the world shrank to the glimmering water, the golden sunlight, and the steady presence of Poseidon and in that quiet, endless expanse, the sea loved him back.

The currents shifted, carrying Nerites along as if the sea itself were guiding him, playful and protective. Poseidon followed with long, effortless strides, water curling around him like a living cloak. “You always swim like you’re racing the waves,” he said, his voice amused. “Do you ever slow down?” Nerites laughed, darting under a wave and popping up just out of reach. “And miss this?” he called, spinning in a swirl of foam. “Never.”

Poseidon shook his head, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. “You’re impossible,” he muttered, but there was no real reproach in his tone. He plunged his hand into the water, sending a small whirlpool spiraling around Nerites, tugging him gently closer. “Hey!” Nerites squealed, trying to twist away, only to laugh as Poseidon’s hand brushed his back. “You cheat! That’s not fair!”

“Fair?” Poseidon’s deep laughter rumbled through the water. “In the ocean, little one, fairness belongs to no one.” They paused for a moment, suspended in the clear, sparkling depths. Nerites floated on his back, hair fanning out like black seaweed, and Poseidon hovered above him, eyes soft but bright with amusement.

The sunlight filtered through the water, scattering gold across their skin, and for a heartbeat, the world held only them, the gentle sway of the ocean, and the quiet, unspoken bond between god and youth. Then Nerites kicked, sending tiny bubbles racing to the surface. “Come on, you’re too slow,” he teased, spinning away. “Try to catch me if you can!” Poseidon grinned, chasing after him, sending a flurry of playful waves in Nerites’ direction. They swirled and danced through the water, laughter mixing with the sighing tides. Every touch, every glance, was a reminder of the quiet love that ran deeper than the sea itself, a bond that even the endless ocean seemed to honor. And all around them, the sea shimmered, alive with their joy, whispering in every wave and ripple that it loved Nerites, just as he loved it — and them back.

As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of rose and amber, Nerites and Poseidon drifted toward a quiet cove where the water was calm, almost glass-like. Nerites leaned against a smooth, sun-warmed rock, letting the gentle sway of the tide cradle him. Poseidon settled beside him, trident resting nearby, the faint salt spray catching the last light of day. “See,” Nerites murmured, tracing small patterns in the water with his fingers, “even the ocean slows down sometimes.”

Poseidon reached over, brushing a damp strand of hair from Nerites’ face, his touch soft and deliberate. “Not even the sea can resist slowing down when you’re near,” he said quietly, voice like a low, warm tide. Nerites smiled, leaning a little closer. “I like this… just you and the water,” he admitted, eyes glimmering with reflected sunset. “No storms, no currents pulling us apart. Just… this.”

Poseidon’s hand lingered, fingertips tracing the curve of Nerites’ shoulder. “Then let it always be this way,” he said, a hint of something unspoken in his tone, “a moment that belongs only to us, beneath the waves and under the sun.” The cove was still, save for the faint lap of water against the rocks, and Nerites felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun. The gentle, eternal pulse of the sea surrounded them, wrapping them in its embrace. For a long while, neither spoke — words were unnecessary. The laughter, the play, the quiet comfort, and the soft brush of Poseidon’s hand said everything.

And as the waves whispered their endless song, Nerites rested his head lightly on Poseidon’s arm, letting the world fade into golden reflections and the soft rhythm of the tide. And the ocean, infinite and tender, seemed to hold its breath, honoring the quiet, unshakable love between them.

The water shimmered gold in the morning light, waves curling lazily around the coral cliffs. Nerites laughed as he darted through the swaying kelp, fingers leaving trails of bubbles that glittered like tiny stars. Every twist of his body, every flick of his tail, seemed effortless, as if he belonged entirely to the ocean’s pulse.

Poseidon watched from a jagged rock that jutted from the shore, the faint mist of saltwater clinging to his hair, his trident resting casually by his side. “You think the sea belongs to you, don’t you?” he called, his voice deep and warm, carrying across the waves. There was a teasing lilt to it, though, a softness Nerites had come to recognize.

Nerites spun around mid-swim, hair slick and catching the sunlight. “Not the sea,” he said, voice ringing bright, “just you.” He sent a playful splash toward the god, watching the water curve like liquid silver through the air. Poseidon chuckled, the sound rolling over the ocean like distant thunder. Without warning, a small wave rose and nudged Nerites gently toward the rock. “Careful,” Poseidon said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “Or I might start thinking you enjoy being close to me.”

Nerites grinned, eyes sparkling with mischief. “And what would be so bad about that?” he asked, letting the current guide him as if it were a willing accomplice. Poseidon’s hand brushed a strand of sea-slick hair from Nerites’ face, lingering longer than necessary. “Everything,” he replied softly, almost a whisper, “and nothing at all.”

The currents shifted, carrying Nerites along as if the sea itself were guiding him. He floated up against Poseidon, letting the god wrap an arm around him, their bodies fitting naturally together as if molded by the ocean itself. Nerites leaned his head on Poseidon’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of the god through the salt-scented air and the gentle sway of the water. “You really can’t resist me, can you?” Nerites teased softly, lifting his chin to peek up at Poseidon.

Poseidon’s lips curved into a faint smile, his arm tightening just enough to be comforting. “You make it impossible to resist,” he murmured, voice low and steady, like the rolling tides. “You, and the way you belong to this water, to me…” They stayed like that for a long while, swaying together as the waves whispered around them. Nerites rested against Poseidon’s chest, fingers tracing idle patterns along the god’s arm, and Poseidon held him with quiet care, pressing soft kisses to his hair and letting the ocean cradle them both.

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of rose and amber, Nerites and Poseidon drifted toward a calm cove, still entwined. Nerites curled into Poseidon’s side, and Poseidon adjusted so that their bodies fit together perfectly, the faint rock beneath them warm from the day, the water lapping gently around their legs. “Just like this,” Nerites whispered, eyes half-closed in contentment. “No storms, no currents pulling us apart. Just… us.” Poseidon’s hand rested on the small of Nerites’ back, thumb brushing in soothing circles. “Always like this,” he murmured. “Beneath the waves, under the sun, and always together.”

The ocean shimmered gold and deep blue, alive with their joy and the gentle hum of the tide. Nerites pressed closer, and Poseidon bent slightly, pressing his forehead to Nerites’ hair. They stayed there, cocooned in warmth, salt, and the soft rhythm of the waves, letting the sea cradle them and hold their quiet, unshakable love.

The water around them glimmered like spun glass as Nerites shifted closer, pressing his cheek against Poseidon’s chest. Poseidon’s arm curved around him naturally, fingers threading through Nerites’ damp hair, tugging him just slightly closer so that even the smallest gaps were gone.

“You’re too warm,” Nerites whispered, a teasing smile tugging at his lips, though his voice was soft, half-lidded with comfort. “And you’re too tempting,” Poseidon replied, a low rumble in his chest, as he pressed a light kiss to the top of Nerites’ head. “But I suppose… I can live with it.”

Nerites laughed quietly, letting his fingers drift along Poseidon’s arm, then trailing over the gentle swell of his shoulder. “You always know exactly how to make someone stay put,” he murmured.

Poseidon’s laugh rumbled under him, a sound that made the water vibrate softly. “And you always know exactly how to make someone want to stay,” he countered, tucking Nerites closer, letting the smaller boy curl into him like a piece of the sea itself.

A school of tiny, glittering fish swam past, their scales flashing like confetti in the golden light. Nerites giggled, reaching out to chase them with a flick of his fingers. Poseidon followed his movements with lazy amusement, letting small waves swirl around them like a gentle tide dancing in rhythm with their hearts. “See?” Nerites whispered, tilting his head up. “Even the fish like us together.”

Poseidon’s hand slid to rest along Nerites’ back, thumb brushing in slow, calming circles. “I’d say it’s because we belong together,” he murmured, voice soft, almost reverent, “but perhaps the sea has its own ideas.” Nerites snuggled closer, resting his head against Poseidon’s shoulder, eyelids heavy. “I like the sea,” he murmured sleepily. “But…I like you more.”

Poseidon pressed a gentle kiss to Nerites’ damp hair, inhaling the faint scent of salt and sunlight. “And I…love you,” he said quietly, voice barely above the whisper of the waves. “More than the tides, more than the sun sparkling on the water, more than anything else in this endless sea.” Nerites hummed contentedly, curling his fingers into Poseidon’s arm. “Then I guess we’re stuck together,” he murmured, a soft, sleepy smile on his face.

“Yes,” Poseidon agreed, tilting his head so their foreheads touched. “Stuck, forever, in the best possible way.” The sun slipped fully beneath the horizon, painting the sky in shades of pink and violet. The water glimmered softly around them, embracing them like a warm blanket. Nerites pressed into Poseidon’s side, and Poseidon wrapped him fully into his arms, their bodies floating together effortlessly, cradled by the sea itself.

Tiny waves lapped gently around them, and for a long, perfect while, they stayed like that — quiet, tender, and completely entwined. The ocean held them close, the way Poseidon did, and in every ripple, every shimmer of the tide, it whispered its blessing: Nerites was loved, fully and entirely, by the sea, by Poseidon, and in return, he loved them both. And so they floated together, wrapped in salt, sunlight, and the warmth of each other, a cocoon of soft golden light and endless love, until the stars began to sparkle on the water’s surface, and the world itself seemed to sigh in contentment.

The sea was quiet now, humming with the faint lull of the tides. Nerites floated on his back beside Poseidon, their hands loosely intertwined as the water rocked them like a cradle. Tiny bubbles drifted up from the sand below, catching the dimming light like pieces of glass.

Poseidon watched him, a small smile tugging at his lips. Nerites’ hair fanned out in soft dark waves around his face, and the god couldn’t help but reach over to brush a stray strand from his cheek. “Sleepy already?” he teased gently. “Maybe,” Nerites murmured, eyes still closed, voice drowsy but content. “It’s warm. And you make a good pillow.” Poseidon laughed quietly, a deep, soothing sound that rolled through the water. “Do I now?”

“Mm-hmm.” Nerites cracked one eye open, grinning. “Better than any rock.”

“Flattering,” Poseidon said, pretending to sigh, though the corners of his mouth softened. “But I’m not sure how I feel about being compared to a rock.”

“You’re warmer,” Nerites whispered, nudging closer until his head found its place against Poseidon’s shoulder again. “And you don’t poke my ribs.” Poseidon chuckled, letting his arm slide back around Nerites’ waist, pulling him snugly against his side. “Well, when you put it like that…”

A curious dolphin swam near, clicking softly as it circled them. Nerites lifted his hand and the dolphin brushed its nose against his palm before darting off, leaving a trail of shimmering bubbles behind. Nerites giggled softly. “They always find us,” he said. “Maybe they like seeing you happy,” Poseidon murmured, his thumb drawing lazy circles against Nerites’ skin.

“Or maybe they’re just nosy,” Nerites teased, though his smile softened. The sea around them glittered faintly, as if it shared in his joy. Poseidon turned his gaze upward. Through the surface, the last streaks of sunset had deepened into indigo, stars beginning to shimmer like faraway pearls. “The stars are out,” he said quietly. “You can see them even from here.”

Nerites tilted his head back, blinking up at the faint glimmering lights that filtered through the water. “They look like tiny fish,” he said dreamily. Poseidon smiled, watching him with an expression full of quiet fondness. “Everything you see, you turn into something beautiful.” Nerites laughed softly, embarrassed, but didn’t move away. “You just don’t look closely enough,” he replied. “The sea shows you everything if you love it enough.”

“I think,” Poseidon murmured, lowering his forehead to rest against Nerites’, “the sea shows me everything through you.” The words hung there, soft and heavy with warmth. Nerites’ fingers found Poseidon’s hand again, holding it gently, the water cool between their palms.

They drifted together in silence for a long while, surrounded by the hush of the deep and the quiet shimmer of the stars. Nerites felt Poseidon’s steady heartbeat against his back, slow and calm, like the rhythm of the waves themselves and as the night wrapped them in soft darkness, the ocean rocked them both closer, wrapping them in its endless embrace — two heartbeats beneath the same water, tangled in warmth, laughter, and peace.

The sea hummed its eternal lullaby, whispering through the waves and currents that love was not just something found on the shore. It lived here, in the deep, in the quiet, in the way Poseidon held Nerites close — and in how the sea itself seemed to hold them both. When Nerites finally drifted to sleep against Poseidon’s chest, the god smiled faintly and tightened his embrace. The ocean glowed faintly around them, and the world, for once, was still.

The night drifted on like a slow tide, each wave brushing against the shore with a sigh. The world above the surface had quieted; only the moon remained, its silver reflection shivering softly across the water. Beneath it, in the calm shallows of Poseidon’s realm, two figures rested in the cradle of the sea.

Nerites stirred first, half-asleep, half-dreaming. The water around him hummed low and warm, as if the ocean itself breathed with him. He felt Poseidon’s arm draped across his middle, heavy and sure, the weight of the god both protective and strangely tender. When he turned slightly, his cheek brushed against skin that shimmered faintly in the light drifting down through the waves.

Poseidon didn’t move, but his thumb traced a slow pattern against Nerites’ side — lazy, absent, and full of quiet affection. “Awake, little one?” he murmured, his voice low, like distant thunder softened by distance. “Maybe,” Nerites whispered, eyes still closed. “But it feels like the sea doesn’t want me to be.” Poseidon smiled, the expression unseen but felt. “Then sleep. The sea can wait.”

But Nerites didn’t. He shifted closer, resting his forehead against Poseidon’s shoulder, letting his hand slip up to rest against the god’s chest. The heartbeat beneath his palm was steady — not human, not entirely mortal, but deep and grounding. It pulsed like the rhythm of the tides, endless and calm. “I like when it’s quiet,” Nerites murmured. “When it’s just us. The world feels… small. Safe.” Poseidon’s hand came to rest over his, fingers lacing lightly. “You make it that way,” he said softly. “You calm even the storms I thought could never fade.”

For a while, there was only the hush of water and the faint glow of the moon filtering down. The seaweed swayed gently nearby, brushing against their skin like ribbons of silk. A jellyfish drifted past, its light pulsing softly, and tiny fish shimmered like stars beneath the surface.

Nerites tilted his head up slightly, gazing through the translucent veil of water above them. “Do you ever tire of it?” he asked. “All this? The waves, the depths, the endlessness of it?” Poseidon looked upward as well. His eyes, usually bright with power, softened. “No,” he said after a pause. “Because the sea changes, even when it seems still. Every current, every ripple carries something new. Every soul that drifts through it leaves a trace.” He turned his gaze back to Nerites. “And you — you are the most beautiful change it ever gave me.”

The words settled between them, heavier than the water yet lighter than air. Nerites’ lips parted, but he said nothing. Instead, he reached up, fingers brushing the god’s jaw, tracing the line of his beard, the curve of his mouth. Poseidon caught his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, the gesture soft, reverent. Above them, the faintest blush of dawn began to spread through the water — pale gold filtering into blue. The sea stirred, as if waking with them, and a slow warmth replaced the cool night current.

“The morning’s coming,” Nerites murmured, voice drowsy again. “You’ll have to rise soon… all the waves will be waiting for their master.” Poseidon chuckled quietly. “Let them wait,” he said. “For once, the sea can move without me.” Nerites smiled, eyes glinting like sun through water. “That doesn’t sound like something the mighty god of the sea would say.”

“The mighty god of the sea,” Poseidon replied, brushing his thumb against Nerites’ cheek, “is content to be a man for a while longer — a man who happens to have you in his arms.”

The words made Nerites’ heart flutter in that strange, dizzying way the sea sometimes did — vast and safe all at once. He nestled closer, closing his eyes again as the warmth of dawn deepened. The light wrapped around them, painting the water in soft amber. The coral nearby glowed faintly, as if reflecting their peace.

The ocean moved around them, gentle and deliberate. Schools of fish glided past in shimmering ribbons, dolphins breaching in the distance. The sea itself seemed to breathe slower, quieter, as if unwilling to disturb them. Poseidon tilted his head and pressed a kiss to Nerites’ temple. “Do you feel that?” he whispered. “The tide?” Nerites asked softly. “The sea,” Poseidon murmured. “It’s listening.”

Nerites smiled faintly, the corners of his mouth curling against Poseidon’s skin. “Then let it hear,” he said, voice barely audible, “that I love it. All of it. Even the storms.” Poseidon’s breath caught faintly — a laugh, a sigh, something in between. He rested his forehead against Nerites’ hair, eyes closing. “It already knows,” he said. “It always did.”

They stayed that way as the light grew brighter, the waves shimmering gold and sapphire around them. The water rocked gently, the current swaying them together in its embrace. Nerites’ hand found Poseidon’s again, and their fingers fit easily, naturally, as though they’d always been meant to. For the briefest moment, everything stilled — the water, the world, the heartbeat of the sea. It was as though the ocean itself held its breath, honoring them.

Then the waves exhaled in a slow, endless rhythm. The sea resumed its gentle song — a hymn of tides, of love, of something eternal and vast. Nerites looked up one last time, meeting Poseidon’s gaze. Neither spoke; they didn’t need to. The water carried what words could not. And when the dawn finally reached them, flooding the sea with light, Poseidon drew Nerites closer still, wrapping him in his arms as if to keep him safe from time itself.

The world glowed — water, light, warmth, heart — all blending together into something timeless. And as the waves moved around them, whispering softly against the rocks, the ocean bore witness to their peace. Because in the quiet cradle of the deep, love had found its reflection and when the sea loved back, it did so forever.

The sun rose slowly over the horizon, its light spilling down into the sea like molten gold. It touched the waves with fire, turned them to glass, and kissed the sand that cradled their sleeping forms. Nerites stirred faintly, eyes fluttering open, and found the water around them gleaming with morning’s quiet breath. Poseidon was already watching him, his gaze gentler than any tide. For a moment, neither spoke. The silence felt sacred — a language of its own, born from the sea and its endless patience.

Nerites smiled, brushing his thumb along Poseidon’s jaw, tracing salt crystals like constellations. “You’re still here,” he whispered. “Always,” Poseidon murmured. “Where else would I go, when the sea itself has found its heart?”

The waves curled around them as if in answer — soft, infinite, adoring. And somewhere far below, where light faded into blue and dreams, the ocean kept its promise, carrying their laughter and warmth through every current that ever touched the shore.

Because love, once given to the sea, does not fade or drown — it drifts through the tides, whispers through shells, and hums beneath every wave that touches the shore. It becomes part of the current itself, endless and eternal, carried in the heart of the ocean forever.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒖𝒎 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔

The grove was quiet, the kind of silence that pressed against the skin and whispered secrets the wind had carried through the trees for centuries. Athena wandered there by instinct, seeking a place where the world felt less heavy, less measured by expectation and duty. And there she saw her: Pallas.

She was practicing with a wooden spear, every movement deliberate, each step and turn echoing a rhythm that seemed both natural and impossible. Athena froze, caught not by fear but by something unnamable, an admiration that throbbed in her chest. Pallas noticed her at last, tilting her head in curiosity. “You’re watching,” she said, her voice soft, cautious, but carrying a spark of amusement.

“I… I didn’t mean to intrude,” Athena replied, stepping forward, her words fumbling. “I’ve never seen anyone move like that.” Pallas’ lips curved into a small, knowing smile. “Few have. Come closer. If you wish, I can teach you.”

Athena hesitated, then nodded. That single invitation, simple as it was, felt like a door opening she had never known existed. And in that quiet grove, with sunlight threading through the leaves, the first thread of their connection was spun.

Days turned into weeks. Athena returned to the grove with increasing frequency, drawn as if by an invisible thread to Pallas. Their initial conversations had been cautious—words about the wind, the weight of the spear, the rhythm of movement. But soon, laughter threaded through the training, light and fearless. Athena stumbled in a parry, and Pallas laughed, the sound bright as sunlight. “Again,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re too stiff, Athena. Relax.”

“I am not stiff!” Athena protested, though the corner of her mouth twitched. “I am… precise.”

“Precise?” Pallas teased, stepping closer. “More like awkward, if you ask me. Here, let me show you.” Their hands brushed as she adjusted Athena’s stance. A jolt ran through her at the touch, subtle but undeniable. Athena’s breath caught, and she looked away, cheeks flushing.

Evening came, and they sat beneath the stars, the grove hushed around them. “Do you think the stars are always watching?” Athena asked quietly. Pallas tilted her head, considering. “Perhaps. Or maybe they just wait to be noticed. Like us, I suppose.” Athena smiled softly. “Then I will notice you.” Pallas’ laugh was soft, warm. “I was hoping you would.”

Athena began to notice the subtle shifts in her chest whenever Pallas smiled, whenever her hand lingered on the wooden spear, or when her eyes met Athena’s and held a spark too long to be casual. “You’ve been quiet today,” Pallas said one afternoon, pausing mid-strike. “Something on your mind?”

Athena shook her head, trying to hide the fluttering warmth inside. “Just…concentrating.” Pallas stepped closer, tilting her head with a teasing smirk. “Do you always concentrate so fiercely, or is it just me that unsettles you?”

Athena laughed nervously, the sound soft and vulnerable. “Perhaps it is just you.” Pallas’ eyes softened, and she reached out, brushing a strand of hair from Athena’s face. The touch was fleeting, but Athena felt it linger, a quiet conversation of unspoken words.

In the hush of the grove, under the soft glow of the sun fading behind the trees, they shared a silence that said more than words ever could. Athena understood something she did not yet dare name, and Pallas felt it too—a bond deeper than friendship, fragile but insistent, growing stronger with each shared glance and lingering touch.

The afternoon sun draped the grove in gold as they sparred, laughter mingling with the clash of wood on wood. Athena felt the rhythm of their duel, every strike and parry a conversation she could feel in her bones. “Careful,” Pallas warned with a playful grin. “Or I might actually have to win this time.”

“I would never let you win,” Athena replied, feigning confidence, though her heart raced. Then, in an instant, the playful rhythm collapsed—a slip, a misjudged step, and the world tilted. Athena’s spear struck true where it should not have. Pallas’ eyes widened in disbelief, her lips parting for a gasp she never completed. She fell, the sound of her body hitting the earth echoing like a chime breaking in slow motion. Athena dropped to her knees beside her, trembling. “Pallas! No, no, no…” Her hands shook as she cradled her friend’s head, tears blurring her vision.

Pallas’ eyes fluttered open, fear and shock mingling in their depths. “Ath…ena?” she whispered, voice fragile. “I—Oh, Pallas, I didn’t—” Athena choked on her words, grief crashing into her chest. “I never meant—” A soft, pained smile ghosted across Pallas’ face. “I know… I know you didn’t,” she breathed.

Then her eyes closed, and silence fell over the grove like a shroud. Athena held her, trembling, whispering every word she could not have said before: apologies, promises, confessions. She would carry Pallas with her, in name, in memory, in the Palladium she would create, immortalizing the friend—and the bond—that death could not sever.

The world had grown hollow after Pallas’ death. Days blurred into nights, seasons shifted without notice, and Athena carried the weight of every unspoken word, every glance never returned, every laugh that would never echo through the grove again. Her heart ached with a constant, gnawing emptiness, one that not even wisdom could soothe.

Then, on a night when the stars seemed dimmed and the air felt impossibly heavy, she found herself before the River Styx. The ferryman’s eyes regarded her silently, as if he had expected her all along. And there, in the grey gloom of the Underworld, she saw her—Pallas—pale, serene, yet unmistakably alive in the soft, eerie glow that clung to the shadows. “Athena,” Pallas whispered, voice carried on a breath like wind through dead trees. “Is it… really you?” Athena’s knees faltered, her hands trembling as she reached toward her. “Pallas… I… I cannot—” She choked, the words breaking. “I thought I’d never see you again. I thought—”

“I know,” Pallas interrupted gently, a faint smile curving her lips. “I felt it too. Your grief… it followed me, even here.” Athena’s tears fell freely, tracing silent paths down her cheeks. “I should have protected you,” she whispered, the guilt raw, unrelenting. “I failed you, and there is nothing I can do to fix it.”

Pallas reached out, brushing Athena’s hand lightly. “You did not fail, not in the ways that matter. You loved me, Athena. You always loved me.” The words—simple, fragile, but true—pierced through Athena’s sorrow. She clutched Pallas’ hand, the chill of the Underworld seeping through her, but it mattered nothing. “I… I will carry you always,” she whispered, voice breaking. “In everything I do, in every name I take, in the Palladium, in my heart…”

“And I will be there,” Pallas murmured, eyes soft, luminous in the shadows. “Even here, even in death, we are bound. Remember me, and I will never truly leave you.” A soft wind swirled, carrying the faint scent of pine and sunlight, as if the grove itself had reached across the veil to them. Athena held Pallas’ hand for a moment longer, memorizing the warmth, the weight, the presence of the friend and companion she had loved more than words could say.

Then, with a whisper of promise and a light that dimmed slowly into shadow, Pallas’ form began to fade. Athena’s fingers closed on empty air, and the Underworld reclaimed its silence. But for the first time since the grove, she felt something like peace—a fragile, piercing comfort, a memory of love unbroken by death.

The world above had grown hollow. Days passed without meaning; the sun rose and set, indifferent to her grief. Athena wandered through her duties and her studies, each task a mechanical shadow of life, her heart weighed down by the absence of Pallas. Nothing could fill the space left in the grove, in the laughter, in the shared silences.

And yet, one night, in the stillness of her private chamber, the air itself shifted. A chill brushed her skin, the familiar scent of pine replaced by something ancient, earthy, and cold. She knew without knowing how: the Underworld had called. The ferryman awaited her at the banks of the River Styx, his expression unreadable. The boat was empty, waiting, and the river stretched beyond comprehension, black and liquid as obsidian.

“You seek her,” he said, voice deep and hollow, yet not unkind. “But the dead do not always speak.”

“I must,” Athena said, voice steady despite the tremor in her chest. “I must speak to her. Please. Let me speak to Pallas.” The ferryman’s eyes glinted with something unreadable. Then, slowly, he nodded. “One meeting. One. But beware: the Underworld is not the place of the living. What you carry in your heart will follow you here, and it may not leave.”

Athena stepped onto the boat, her hands clutching the oar as the river swallowed her, carrying her through shadows and whispers. Time lost meaning. Shades drifted by—souls adrift, murmuring fragments of memory, of regret, of longing. And yet, through it all, she felt a light—a faint warmth, impossibly bright against the gloom. There, in a clearing of muted gray and silver shadows, she saw her. Pallas. Pale, luminous, serene. And yet, unmistakably alive in the faint glow of the Underworld.

“Athena,” Pallas whispered, her voice trembling with wonder. “Is it… really you?” Athena fell to her knees, her hands reaching out. “Pallas… I—” She choked, her grief clawing up her throat. “I thought I would never see you again. I thought—”

“I know,” Pallas said softly, stepping closer, reaching a hand to touch Athena’s. “I felt it too. Your grief… it followed me.” The words pierced Athena’s chest. “I failed you. I should have protected you. I couldn’t even—” Her voice broke into a sob, shaking in the cold, heavy air of the Underworld.

Pallas brushed Athena’s hair from her face. “You did not fail in the ways that matter. You loved me, Athena. You always loved me.” Athena clutched her hand, tears falling freely. “I will carry you always. In my name, in the Palladium, in my heart…” Pallas’ smile was faint but radiant. “And I will be there, even here, even in death. Remember me, and I will never truly leave you.” A shadow moved behind them, immense and silent. Thanatos, Keeper of Death, stepped into view, his presence both terrifying and solemn. “Athena,” he said, voice echoing like wind through the tombs. “This is not your realm. Speak your words, but the dead cannot return.”

“I only ask a moment,” Athena said, standing taller despite the fear, her voice steady. “A moment to speak with her, to tell her what I could not in life.” Thanatos regarded her, his eyes ancient and unyielding, yet not cruel. “One moment. Nothing more. Choose your words wisely, for they are all you will have.” Athena stepped closer to Pallas, brushing her fingers along her friend’s cheek. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am sorry I failed you. I am sorry I could not keep you safe. But I loved you—always, in every way I could—and I will never stop.”

Pallas’ eyes shimmered with a ghost of warmth. “I know,” she murmured. “And I loved you too. More than you can imagine. Even here, I am yours. Even in the silence of the Underworld, even beyond the reach of life.” A soft wind swirled, carrying the faint scent of pine and sunlight from the grove. Athena pressed her forehead against Pallas’ hand, memorizing the warmth, the presence, the touch she would never forget.

Then the light began to dim, shadows reclaiming the Underworld. “I must go,” Pallas whispered, her voice barely audible. “Remember me. Live for both of us.” Athena clung to her a moment longer, then let her hand fall to the empty air. The grove’s scent faded, replaced by silence. The Underworld swallowed the glow.

Yet for the first time since that terrible day, Athena felt a fragile comfort, a thread of peace stitched into her grief. She carried Pallas in her name, in her heart, in every step forward—and in every quiet moment, she could still feel the ghost of her touch, the echo of her laughter, and the eternal promise of a love unbroken by death.

The shadows closed in, and the boat carried Athena back across the Styx. She sat in silence, her fingers curled as though still holding Pallas’ hand, her heart heavy with both grief and a fragile peace. Thanatos’ words lingered in her mind—*the dead cannot return*—but Pallas’ final smile lingered brighter still. She had heard her voice, felt her touch, and in that brief gift, the sharpness of her grief had dulled into something she could carry.

When Athena emerged from the Underworld, the first breath of mortal air was sharp in her lungs. The sky stretched wide and endless above her, stars glittering in their cold brilliance. She thought of Pallas beneath those same stars, the nights they had sat shoulder to shoulder, whispering secrets into the dark.

Athena returned to the world of gods and men, but she was not the same. She bore Pallas with her now, not only as memory, but as presence. Every spear she lifted, every shield she raised, every strategy she wove, carried Pallas’ shadow. The world would never know how much of her brilliance was born from another’s laughter, another’s courage.

She fashioned the Palladium in her likeness—a statue of unyielding grace and watchful eyes. It stood not as a relic of stone, but as a promise: that Pallas would guard those who believed, that her spirit would endure in wood and prayer, as she endured in Athena’s heart. Cities rose under its gaze, warriors sought its blessing, and Troy itself would one day cling to it as though life depended on its unyielding presence.

But to Athena, it was more than a relic. It was a vow. Each time she looked upon it, she remembered the grove, the laughter, the warmth of hands brushing in passing, and the unspoken words that had bound them closer than any battle ever could. The gods often boasted of their immortal names, their legends sung through ages. Athena did not care for that. Her immortality was bound to another’s memory.

And when the world spoke her name as *Pallas Athena*, it was not her own strength she heard. It was theirs. Always theirs. Athena whispered it quietly into the night, as though the wind itself might carry it down into the depths of the Underworld. “Pallas. My heart. My shield. My forever.”

Athena emerged from the shadowed realm with silence clinging to her like a second skin. Though the gods still greeted her as the brilliant strategist, the untouchable maiden, she felt hollow. She had spoken to Pallas one last time, had touched her shade, and though that memory steadied her, it also carved her open anew.

Often she would walk alone beneath the olive groves, her hand trailing through the leaves as though reaching for a hand that should have been there. She remembered the warmth of Pallas’ laughter, and in the quiet she could almost hear it again, rustling like wind through branches.

Hephaestus once asked her why she carried herself differently, why there was a softness beneath her armor now. She only shook her head, lips pressed thin. No god could understand—except perhaps Thanatos, who had let her taste the impossible. Athena knew she could not linger in grief forever. But neither could she abandon it.

So she began to weave her pain into purpose. The mortals who prayed to her for wisdom, for protection, found her answers gentler than before, though no less sharp. To lead, she thought, was not only to win. It was to shield. It was to love, even at cost. And always, she whispered to herself in the dark: *Pallas, you walk beside me still.*

Years passed, and Athena’s grief found its shape in stone and wood. With her own divine hands she carved the image of her beloved—tall, watchful, unyielding, yet with the trace of a smile that only she remembered. When it was done, she laid her palm upon the figure’s heart.

“This is not an idol,” she murmured, her voice trembling. “It is a promise.” The Palladium became legend. Mortals swore that cities which kept it safe could never fall. Warriors prayed beneath its gaze before battle, mothers touched its feet to bless their children, kings bowed their heads in reverence. They did not know the truth—that it was not power, but memory, that lived in the statue. But Athena knew. Every prayer, every offering, was a tribute to the woman she had loved and lost. Pallas lived on not in the Underworld, but here, in every whisper of devotion, in every hope placed before the unblinking statue.

Still, when Athena looked upon it alone, she did not see marble. She saw the girl who had laughed at her clumsiness, who had teased her during sparring, who had held her hand without fear. She saw the girl she could never forget. And sometimes, in the flicker of torchlight, she swore the statue’s lips curved, as though smiling at her.

Time is merciless, even to gods. Wars rose and fell, empires crumbled, mortals came and went. Athena watched over them all, unaging, ever wise—but never unchanged. For in every act, every victory, she felt Pallas’ presence at her side. One night, as the stars wheeled above Olympus, the Moirai came to her in silence. Clotho with her spindle, Lachesis with her measuring rod, Atropos with her shears. They did not speak. They only regarded her with knowing eyes.

Athena bowed her head. She understood. Pallas’ thread had long been cut, but Athena’s own fate had been altered the day she first held her friend’s hand. The Fates had entwined them, and though death had severed flesh, it could not undo what was bound in the heart.

From that day, she no longer allowed mortals to speak her name as “Athena” alone. She was *Pallas Athena*—not to glorify herself, but to ensure the world would never forget. Wherever her name was sung, wherever temples were raised, Pallas’ memory would stand immortal. The gods endure because of their power. Athena endured because of her love.

And so it was that when her name echoed across centuries, in marble halls and whispered prayers, it carried not the voice of one goddess, but two. Always two. For Athena had made certain of it: she and Pallas would never be parted again.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒛𝒆

The wine had turned bitter in Orestes' mouth.

He stood at the edge of the great hall in Sparta, watching as King Menelaus raised his cup in yet another toast to his daughter's wedding. Hermione sat beside her new husband at the high table, her golden hair crowned with myrtle, her smile as brittle as old parchment. She had not looked at Orestes once since the ceremony.

"To Neoptolemus, son of Achilles!" Menelaus bellowed, his voice echoing off the painted walls. "May he prove as worthy a husband as his father was a warrior!" The hall erupted in cheers. Orestes remained silent, his knuckles white around his cup.

Neoptolemus rose to acknowledge the toast, and even Orestes had to admit the man cut an impressive figure. Tall and broad-shouldered, with the same golden hair as his legendary father, he carried himself with the easy confidence of someone who had never doubted his place in the world. When he spoke, his voice carried the authority of a man who had stood in the shadow of Troy's burning walls. "I am honored to join the house of Menelaus," Neoptolemus said, his hand resting possessively on Hermione's shoulder. "And grateful for the gift of such a bride."

*Gift.* The word landed like a blow. Orestes felt the familiar stirring of rage in his chest, the same fury that had driven him to drive his sword through his mother's heart. He forced himself to breathe, to remember Apollo's words about justice and patience. But patience had limits.

"Cousin." Orestes turned to find Pylades at his elbow, his oldest friend's face creased with concern. They had grown up together, fought side by side, shared the burden of Orestes' terrible destiny. If anyone could read the storm brewing behind his eyes, it was Pylades. "We should go," Pylades murmured. "There's nothing for us here."

"Nothing?" Orestes's laugh was sharp enough to cut. "My betrothed sits at another man's table, wearing another man's ring. My uncle breaks an oath sworn before the gods. And you say there's nothing here?"

"She was promised to you before the war," Pylades agreed quietly. "But the war changed many things. Neoptolemus earned his claim through blood and bronze. Even you must see—"

"Must I?" The conversation at nearby tables had begun to quiet, heads turning in their direction. Orestes realized his voice had risen, drawing unwanted attention. Across the hall, he caught sight of Neoptolemus watching him with those unsettling green eyes, his expression unreadable. "Prince Orestes."

The voice was smooth as honey over steel. Neoptolemus had left the high table and now stood before them, wine cup in hand. Up close, he was even more imposing – not just tall, but built like a warrior, with scars along his forearms that spoke of hard-won victories. There was something predatory in his smile. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced," Neoptolemus continued. "Though I've heard much about the famous son of Agamemnon."

"Have you." It wasn't a question. Orestes straightened to his full height, though he still had to look up to meet the other man's gaze. "And what have you heard?"

"That you're a dutiful son. That you honor your family's debts." Neoptolemus's smile sharpened. "That you know the value of... patience." The insult was wrapped in silk, but it cut just the same. Around them, the wedding guests had grown quiet, sensing the tension crackling between the two princes like lightning before a storm. "I know many things," Orestes replied carefully. "Including the value of honoring one's word."

"Indeed." Neoptolemus raised his cup in a mocking toast. "To honor, then. May it guide us all to wisdom." He drank deeply, never breaking eye contact. The challenge in his gaze was unmistakable – he knew exactly what he had taken from Orestes, and he didn't care. If anything, he seemed to relish it.

"You're enjoying this," Orestes realized aloud. "Enjoying what? My wedding feast?" Neoptolemus's voice dropped lower, meant for Orestes alone. "Why wouldn't I? I have a beautiful wife, a rich dowry, and the friendship of mighty Sparta. What more could a man want?"

*Justice,* Orestes thought, but didn't say. Instead, he set down his cup with deliberate care. "Nothing, I'm sure. Congratulations on your... acquisition." Something flickered in Neoptolemus's eyes – anger, perhaps, or something else entirely. For a moment, the civilized mask slipped, and Orestes caught a glimpse of the man who had cut down King Priam at the altar of Zeus. Then it was gone, replaced by that maddening smile.

"Prince Orestes," Neoptolemus said formally, loud enough for the nearby tables to hear. "Perhaps you would honor us with a song? I'm told you have a fine voice for the lyre." It was another calculated move – appear gracious to the spurned suitor while publicly demonstrating his victory. Orestes felt his jaw clench. But before he could reply, a commotion near the hall's entrance saved him from having to choose between humiliation and open confrontation.

"The king's herald!" someone shouted. "News from the north!" The messenger was travel-stained and breathless, his horse lathered from hard riding. He dropped to one knee before Menelaus's throne, but his urgent words carried clearly through the suddenly silent hall.

"My lord king, there's been an attack on the border settlements. Raiders from the mountains – they've burned three villages and taken hostages." The wedding feast dissolved into chaos as men shouted questions and reached for weapons that weren't there. Menelaus was on his feet, barking orders for his captains to attend him. In the confusion, Orestes found himself standing alone with Neoptolemus, both of them forgotten in the rush to respond to this new crisis.

"Well," Neoptolemus said conversationally, as if they'd been discussing the weather rather than trading barbs over his stolen bride. "It seems the celebration is over." Orestes studied the other man's face, looking for any sign of genuine concern for the people under attack. What he saw was calculation instead – Neoptolemus was already weighing how this development might affect his new position in Sparta.

"The raiders will be expecting pursuit along the main roads," Orestes said without thinking. "But there are mountain paths—" He stopped, annoyed with himself for offering tactical advice to a man he should despise. But Neoptolemus was looking at him with what might have been interest. "You know the northern passes?"

"I've traveled them. During my..." Orestes paused, choosing his words carefully. "During my wanderings." It was a delicate way of referring to the years he'd spent fleeing the Furies, when madness and guilt had driven him to the far corners of the known world. But Neoptolemus didn't press for details.

"Menelaus will want every sword he can get," Neoptolemus mused. "This could be an opportunity to prove our worth to Sparta." *Our worth.* As if they were allies instead of rivals. Orestes wanted to reject the implication, but something in the other man's tone made him hesitate. "You mean to ride with the king's forces?"

"Don't you?" Neoptolemus's green eyes glittered with something that might have been challenge or invitation. "Or perhaps you prefer the safety of the palace while other men fight?"

The accusation stung because it wasn't entirely unfair. Orestes had avoided warfare since his return to sanity, telling himself it was wisdom rather than cowardice that kept him from seeking glory on the battlefield. But faced with Neoptolemus's evident disdain, the excuse felt thin. "I'll ride," he said quietly. "But not for Sparta's glory."

"No?" Neoptolemus leaned closer, his voice dropping to that intimate tone again. "Then why?" Orestes met his gaze steadily. "Because those people need help. And because I'm tired of running from fights." Something shifted in Neoptolemus's expression – surprise, perhaps, or a grudging respect. For a moment, the hostility between them seemed to ebb, replaced by something more complex. "Then we ride together," Neoptolemus said finally. "May the gods help us both."

As he walked away to join Menelaus's war council, Orestes found himself staring after him with an unsettling mix of anger and... something else. Something he didn't want to name. Pylades appeared at his shoulder again, shaking his head ruefully. "You're going to follow him into the mountains, aren't you?"

"The people need—"

"The people, yes." Pylades sighed. "Just... try not to get yourself killed proving a point to your rival, will you? Some of us would mourn your loss." Orestes clapped his friend on the shoulder, but his eyes were still fixed on the doorway where Neoptolemus had disappeared. "I'll be careful," he promised.

He was already lying to himself about his motives, but he told himself it didn't matter. What mattered was the fight ahead, and the chance to finally face Neoptolemus as an equal on ground that had nothing to do with stolen brides or broken promises. What he didn't expect was how much he was looking forward to it.

The morning mist clung to the horses' legs as they wound their way up the narrow mountain path. Orestes rode near the front of the column, his mare picking her way carefully over the loose stones, while Menelaus's voice carried back from the head of the line as he questioned their guide about the terrain ahead.

They had been riding for three days now, following the raiders' trail deeper into the wild country north of Sparta. The main force had taken the valley road – the obvious route, wide enough for chariots and supply wagons. But Orestes had convinced Menelaus to send a smaller force through the high passes, hoping to circle around behind the raiders' camp while they were distracted by the frontal assault. It was a sound strategy. It was also exactly the kind of dangerous, uncertain mission that appealed to men with more courage than sense. "Your friend seems to know these paths well."

Orestes didn't turn in his saddle, but he felt his shoulders tense at the familiar voice. Neoptolemus had been riding at the back of their small company for most of the morning, consulting with the other captains. What had brought him forward now? "I told you – I've traveled here before," Orestes replied neutrally. "During your wanderings, yes." Neoptolemus guided his horse closer, close enough that Orestes could hear the creak of leather and the soft jingle of bronze fittings. "You never did explain what drove the son of Agamemnon so far from home."

"Didn't I?" Orestes kept his eyes fixed on the path ahead, where it curved around a steep outcropping of rock. "How careless of me." A low chuckle. "Secretive. I like that in a man." The casual flirtation caught Orestes off guard, and he nearly looked over before catching himself. Was Neoptolemus mocking him again? Testing him? Or was there something else behind the words? "Careful," Orestes said instead, nodding toward a loose section of trail ahead. "The path narrows here. Your horse will need to watch her footing."

"Will she?" Neoptolemus seemed amused by the deflection, but he did rein in slightly as they approached the treacherous ground. "And here I thought you were going to let me ride over the cliff. Remove the competition."

"Competition for what?" The words slipped out before Orestes could stop them, and he cursed himself for taking the bait. Neoptolemus's smile was audible in his voice when he replied.

"Why, for Sparta's favor, of course. What else?" *Hermione,* Orestes thought, but didn't say. Because that would mean admitting that he still cared about his stolen betrothal, still felt the sting of that particular humiliation. Better to let Neoptolemus think his interest was purely political.

They rode in silence for a while after that, the only sounds the steady clip of hooves on stone and the distant cry of an eagle circling overhead. The path was climbing steadily now, winding back on itself as it followed the mountain's contours. To their left, the ground fell away into a dizzying gorge; to their right, weathered cliffs rose like the walls of some titan's fortress.

It was Neoptolemus who broke the silence.

"You fought in the war." It wasn't a question. Orestes had been barely more than a boy when Troy finally fell, but old enough to carry a spear in the final assault. Old enough to see what men could do to each other when honor and rage collided. "At the end," he confirmed. "I remember hearing about you. Young prince who fought like a fury, they said. Made quite an impression on the veterans."

Orestes said nothing. Those had been dark days, when grief for his father and rage at his mother had burned so hot in his chest that he'd welcomed any opportunity to spend it in battle. The veterans had been impressed by his recklessness, not his skill. "But you didn't stay," Neoptolemus continued, his tone carefully neutral. "After the victory, most of the princes went home to claim their rewards. You... disappeared."

"I had business elsewhere."

"Business." Neoptolemus was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentler. "The kind of business that keeps a man awake at night?" Orestes's hands tightened on his reins. There was something in Neoptolemus's tone that suggested he knew more than he was saying – or that he had his own experience with sleepless nights and unwelcome dreams.

"Every man has his ghosts," Orestes said carefully. "Yes," Neoptolemus agreed quietly. "Some of us more than others." The admission hung in the air between them, unexpected in its honesty. For a moment, Orestes almost turned to look at him, almost asked what ghosts haunted the son of Achilles. But the moment passed as one of the scouts ahead called out, pointing to something in the valley below.

"Smoke," the man reported when Menelaus rode up to join him. "Fresh fires, maybe half a day's ride from here." Menelaus studied the thin column of smoke rising from the distant forest. "Could be our raiders. Or could be another village under attack."

"The path splits just ahead," Orestes offered, guiding his horse up to join the group. "The left fork leads down to the valley floor – fastest route if we want to investigate. The right fork stays high but circles around to the east. If that is the raiders' camp, we could approach from above."

"And if it's not?" one of the other captains asked. "If it's just innocent villagers making their evening meal?" Orestes shrugged. "Then we've lost half a day, but we're still in position to continue tracking." Menelaus was quiet for a long moment, weighing their options. Finally, he nodded toward the left fork.

"We go down. If it is the raiders, I want to hit them before they can scatter. Orestes, you take point – your eyes are youngest." As the column began to descend toward the valley, Neoptolemus fell in beside Orestes again. The path was wider here, cut by generations of shepherds driving their flocks to high pasture, but it was still treacherous footing for horses. "Nervous?" Neoptolemus asked quietly.

"Should I be?"

"Some men are. Before a fight, I mean." Neoptolemus's voice was casual, but there was something thoughtful in it. "Not fear, exactly. More like... anticipation. The knowledge that everything could change in the next few hours." Orestes glanced at him sideways. "You sound like you speak from experience."

"Don't we all?" Neoptolemus's smile was rueful. "Though I suppose some changes are easier to live with than others." There was something in his tone that made Orestes study his profile more carefully. In the afternoon light, Neoptolemus looked younger somehow, less like the confident conqueror who had claimed Hermione and more like what he truly was – a man barely past his twentieth year, carrying burdens that would have crushed older men. "Regrets?" Orestes asked, before he could stop himself.

Neoptolemus was quiet for so long that Orestes thought he wouldn't answer. Then, just as they reached the bottom of the slope, he spoke. "Ask me again tomorrow," he said. "When we know whether we're still alive to regret anything."

The forest closed around them as they followed the smoke toward whatever waited in the gathering dusk. And despite everything – the stolen bride, the public humiliation, the simmering anger that had brought him here – Orestes found himself hoping that tomorrow would give them both the chance to continue this conversation. The realization should have disturbed him more than it did.

The raider camp was exactly what Orestes had expected – and exactly what he'd hoped it wouldn't be.

They found it in a clearing beside a swift-running stream, hidden from the main valley by a screen of ancient oaks. Two dozen rough shelters clustered around cook fires, with horses picketed at the forest edge and weapons stacked within easy reach of sleeping furs. It was a temporary camp, the kind used by men who expected to move quickly when the alarm was raised.

What made Orestes's stomach clench were the cages. Three of them, built from green wood and iron, each holding a handful of villagers. Even from their position on the ridge above, he could see women and children huddled together, their faces pale with fear and exhaustion. The men were kept separately, chained to a massive oak tree at the camp's center.

"Slavers," Menelaus spat, his weathered face grim. "I should have expected as much." Beside him, Neoptolemus counted the enemy forces with a professional eye. "Twenty-five, maybe thirty men. All armed, but they're not expecting trouble – half of them are already deep in their cups."

"The hostages complicate things," one of the captains observed. "If we charge in, some of them will die before we can reach the cages." Orestes studied the camp's layout, noting the positions of guards and the clear lines of sight from the forest edge. It was defensible enough against a frontal assault, but there were weaknesses a clever tactician could exploit. "There," he said quietly, pointing to where the stream curved around the camp's eastern edge. "The water runs deep there – deep enough to muffle sound. A few men could work their way upstream, come up behind the guard posts."

"While the rest of us create a distraction?" Neoptolemus nodded slowly. "It could work. But whoever goes through the water will be exposed once they reach the camp. No armor, limited weapons..."

"I'll go." The words came out before Orestes had fully thought them through, but once spoken, he didn't take them back. Menelaus frowned. "Orestes, you're more valuable as—"

"I know the terrain better than anyone else here," Orestes interrupted. "And I'm the lightest – less chance of being heard." He paused, meeting Neoptolemus's gaze. "Besides, someone needs to free the hostages before they become casualties."

"And if you're caught?" Neoptolemus asked quietly. "If something goes wrong?" There was something in his tone that made Orestes look at him more carefully. Was that... concern? It seemed unlikely, given their history, but the alternative was that Neoptolemus was worried about the mission's success. Which should have been reassuring, but somehow wasn't. "Then you'll have a clearer shot at Hermione's inheritance," Orestes replied, aiming for lightness and missing. Neoptolemus's expression darkened. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't pretend this is about her." Neoptolemus's voice was low, meant for Orestes alone. "Not here. Not now." Before Orestes could ask what he meant by that, Menelaus was giving orders, assigning men to different positions and setting the timing for their attack. The sun was already low in the sky – they would move at full dark, when the raiders would be least alert. As the group dispersed to prepare, Neoptolemus caught Orestes's arm. "Wait." Orestes looked down at the hand on his wrist, then up at Neoptolemus's face. In the gathering twilight, the other man's features were all sharp angles and shadows, but his eyes were intent. "What?"

"Take this." Neoptolemus pressed something small and cold into Orestes's palm – a knife, its blade no longer than his hand but wickedly sharp. "For the ropes on the cages." Orestes weighed the weapon in his hand. It was beautifully made, its bronze blade etched with spirals that caught the last of the light. Personal, not military issue. "This is yours."

"It was my father's," Neoptolemus corrected. "He carried it at Troy. Said it brought him luck." The implication hung unspoken between them. Orestes met Neoptolemus's gaze, searching for mockery or calculation, but found neither. "Why?" he asked simply.

Neoptolemus was quiet for a moment, his hand still resting on Orestes's wrist. When he spoke, his voice was carefully controlled. "Because those people down there don't deserve to die for our quarrel," he said. "And because..." He paused, seeming to struggle with the words. "Because I would rather see you return safely than prove myself the better man by letting you die."

It was not what Orestes had expected to hear. Not from this man, not after everything that had passed between them. He opened his mouth to reply, but Neoptolemus had already turned away, calling for his own men to ready their weapons. Orestes tucked the knife into his belt and tried to pretend that the warmth spreading through his chest was just anticipation for the fight ahead.

The stream was shockingly cold, even through his leather tunic. Orestes had stripped off his bronze corselet and most of his weapons, keeping only his sword, the borrowed knife, and a coil of rope. He moved slowly through the waist-deep water, letting the current carry him downstream toward the camp. Behind him, two of Menelaus's best men followed at careful intervals. They had perhaps a quarter hour before the main attack began – enough time to reach the hostages, not enough for mistakes.

The sound of laughter and rough voices grew louder as he approached the camp. Through the screen of overhanging branches, he could see the flicker of firelight and the silhouettes of men passing back and forth. Most of the raiders seemed to be gathered around the central fire, sharing food and wine looted from the villages they'd burned.

Orestes reached the bank and listened carefully before hauling himself out of the water. His sodden clothes clung to his skin, making every movement feel clumsy, but there was no help for that now. He crept toward the nearest cage, keeping to the shadows cast by the massive oaks.

The women and children inside looked up as he approached, their eyes wide with fear and desperate hope. Orestes pressed a finger to his lips, then set to work on the ropes that secured the cage door. Neoptolemus's knife cut through the bindings like thread, and within moments he had the door open.

"Stay quiet," he whispered to the eldest woman, who seemed to be their leader. "When the fighting starts, run for the forest. Don't look back." She nodded frantically, clutching a small child to her chest. Orestes moved to the next cage, then the third, his heart hammering against his ribs as he waited for someone to notice what he was doing. But the raiders were drunk and careless, their attention focused on their celebration.

The men chained to the oak were a different problem. There were six of them, all bearing the marks of rough treatment, and their shackles were iron, not rope. Orestes knelt beside the nearest prisoner, studying the locks. "Can you fight?" he whispered. The man nodded grimly. "Give me a weapon and I'll show you."

"Soon." Orestes worked his knife into the lock mechanism, trying to feel his way past the tumblers. It was delicate work, made harder by the trembling in his hands and the growing certainty that they were running out of time. A shout from the forest edge made him freeze. Then another, and the distinctive clash of bronze on bronze. The attack had begun.

The raider camp exploded into chaos. Men stumbled out of their shelters, reaching for weapons and trying to form some kind of defense against Menelaus's assault. In the confusion, no one noticed the prisoners slipping away into the darkness – or the young man still working frantically at the iron chains. The last lock clicked open just as a raider came around the oak tree at a run, sword in hand and murder in his eyes. Orestes threw himself sideways, the enemy blade missing him by inches, and came up with Neoptolemus's knife in his grip.

It was an unequal match – his opponent had reach, armor, and a proper sword, while Orestes had only a small blade and wet leather. But he also had desperation and the knowledge that six other men were depending on him to buy them time to arm themselves. He ducked under a wild swing, came up inside his opponent's guard, and drove the knife home just below the man's ribs. The raider folded with a gasp, his sword clattering to the ground.

"Here!" Orestes snatched up the fallen weapon and tossed it to the nearest freed prisoner. "Arm yourselves – there are more weapons by the fire!" The battle was spreading through the camp now as Menelaus's men pressed their advantage. But there were still too many raiders, and some of them were rallying around their leader, a scarred giant who wielded his sword like it weighed nothing at all.

Orestes found himself back-to-back with one of the freed prisoners, fighting desperately to hold a gap in the enemy line. His borrowed sword felt clumsy in his wet hands, and his leather offered little protection against bronze points. A blade scraped along his ribs, drawing blood, and he stumbled backward. That was when Neoptolemus appeared.

The son of Achilles came through the raiders like a force of nature, his sword weaving patterns of death in the firelight. He fought with the same terrible grace his father had shown at Troy, every movement economical and deadly. Where he passed, enemies fell. "Orestes!" Neoptolemus was at his side, their shoulders nearly touching as they faced the remaining raiders. In the chaos of battle, all their previous antagonism seemed to fall away, replaced by the simple necessity of keeping each other alive.

"The leader!" Orestes shouted over the clash of weapons, pointing toward the scarred giant. "If he falls, the rest will break!" Neoptolemus nodded and began cutting his way through the press of bodies, Orestes close behind him. The raider chieftain saw them coming and grinned, hefting his massive sword. "Come then, little princes! Let's see if royal blood runs red!" What followed was less a duel than a dance with death. The chieftain was strong and experienced, his reach intimidating, but he was also drunk and overconfident. Neoptolemus circled him like a hunting cat, striking quick cuts and darting away before the heavier blade could find its mark. Orestes stayed close, watching for his chance. When it came – the chieftain overextending himself in a wild swing at Neoptolemus – he took it without hesitation, driving his sword deep into the giant's back.

The raider leader pitched forward with a roar of pain and rage, but he wasn't finished. Even with bronze in his back, he managed to twist around and bring his sword down in an arc that would have split Orestes in half. If Neoptolemus hadn't stepped between them.

The blade took him high on the left shoulder, cutting through bronze and flesh with a sound like breaking pottery. Neoptolemus staggered but didn't fall, and his answering thrust took the chieftain through the heart. In the sudden quiet that followed, Orestes caught Neoptolemus as he swayed, blood streaming down his arm. "You're hurt."

"It's nothing," Neoptolemus said, but his face was pale with shock and blood loss. "The hostages—"

"Are safe. All of them." Orestes guided him away from the carnage, looking around for somewhere to tend his wound. "You need to sit down before you fall down."

"Always so concerned for my welfare," Neoptolemus murmured, but there was no mockery in it now. If anything, he sounded... grateful? "Why did you come back for me?" Orestes helped him settle against a fallen log, then began tearing strips from his own tunic to bind the wound. The question hung between them, demanding an answer he wasn't sure he was ready to give. "You saved my life," he said finally. "It seemed only fair to return the favor."

"Is that all?" Orestes tied off the bandage with perhaps more force than necessary, making Neoptolemus wince. In the firelight, with blood on his clothes and exhaustion etched in every line of his face, the son of Achilles looked very young and very human. "What do you want me to say?" Orestes asked quietly. Neoptolemus reached up with his good hand and touched Orestes's cheek, his fingers coming away wet with blood from a cut Orestes hadn't even noticed he'd taken. "The truth," he said simply. "For once, just the truth."

Orestes caught his hand, meaning to pull it away, but found himself holding on instead. Neoptolemus's skin was warm despite the blood loss, his palm callused from years of sword work. Human. Real. Not the distant figure who had stolen his bride, but a man who had just risked his life to save others. "I don't know," Orestes admitted. "I don't know what this is, or what it means, or what happens now. All I know is that when I saw that blade coming down at you..." He trailed off, unable to finish. But Neoptolemus seemed to understand.

"Yes," he said softly. "I know the feeling." Around them, the sounds of battle were dying away as Menelaus's men secured the camp and tended their wounded. Soon, there would be questions and explanations and the long ride back to Sparta. But for now, in this moment stolen from the chaos of war, there was only this – the two of them, alive against all odds, and something fragile and precious growing in the space between their old hatred and whatever came next. "Your father's knife," Orestes said suddenly, remembering. "I still have it."

"Keep it." Neoptolemus's smile was tired but genuine. "Consider it payment for services rendered."

"I can't—"

"You can." Neoptolemus closed his eyes, leaning back against the log. "Besides, something tells me this won't be our last fight together." Orestes hoped he was right.

The journey back to Sparta took five days instead of three. Partly, this was due to the rescued hostages, many of whom were weak from their captivity and needed frequent rest. Partly, it was because Menelaus insisted on burning every raider stronghold they found along the way, turning their return into a campaign of retribution that left a trail of smoke across the northern hills. But mostly, Orestes suspected, it was because no one was eager to return to the complications waiting for them in the civilized world.

He certainly wasn't. The first night, they had made camp in a sheltered valley where a spring provided fresh water and the trees offered protection from the mountain winds. Neoptolemus had insisted he was fine to help with the evening tasks, but the pallor of his face and the way he favored his injured shoulder told a different story. "Sit," Orestes had ordered, pointing to a fallen log near the fire. "That's not a request."

"Since when do you give me orders?" But Neoptolemus had obeyed without real protest, settling heavily beside the flames with obvious relief. "Since you started bleeding on my bandages." Orestes knelt beside him, reaching for the ties of his makeshift dressing. "Let me see how it's healing." The wound was clean but deep, the edges showing the angry red of flesh that had been sewn together with more haste than skill. Orestes had done what he could with needle and thread in the raider camp, but proper healing would take time. "It needs to be rebound," he murmured, more to himself than to Neoptolemus. "And you need to keep that arm still, or you'll tear it open again."

"Yes, physician." There was gentle mockery in Neoptolemus's voice, but also something else – a warmth that made Orestes's hands hesitate as he unwound the bloodied cloth. "Don't." The word came out sharper than he'd intended. "Don't what?"

"Don't..." Orestes struggled to put his unease into words. This new gentleness between them was dangerous, far more threatening than their old antagonism. At least when they'd been enemies, he'd known where he stood. "Don't make this into something it isn't." Neoptolemus was quiet for a long moment, watching the flames dance in the growing darkness. When he spoke, his voice was carefully neutral.

"And what would you say it is?" Orestes finished binding the wound in silence, tying off the clean linen with perhaps more force than necessary. What was it? Gratitude? Guilt? The strange intimacy that sometimes grew between men who had bled together? "A temporary truce," he said finally. "Nothing more."

"Ah." Neoptolemus flexed his fingers experimentally, testing the tightness of the new bandage. "And when we reach Sparta? When I return to my wife and you to... whatever it is you return to?" The casual mention of Hermione hit like a physical blow. For three days, Orestes had managed not to think about her – about the woman who should have been his wife, now warming another man's bed. The reminder brought all his old anger rushing back, sharp as a blade between the ribs. "Then we go back to being what we were," he said coldly. "Enemies?"

"Strangers." It was a kinder word, but they both knew what he meant. Neoptolemus nodded slowly, his expression unreadable in the firelight. "Of course. Strangers." He rose and walked away into the darkness beyond the camp, leaving Orestes alone with the flames and the bitter taste of his own words.

The second night, it rained. A sudden storm swept down from the peaks just as they were making camp, turning the world into a maze of lightning and driving water. The rescued villagers huddled under whatever shelter they could find, while Menelaus's men cursed and struggled to keep the fires lit. Orestes had taken refuge under a canvas stretched between two trees, trying to keep his gear dry while rain drummed overhead like the hoofbeats of cavalry. He was alone – or thought he was – until a familiar figure ducked under the edge of the shelter.

"Room for one more?" Neoptolemus asked, water streaming from his hair. Orestes wanted to say no. Wanted to tell him to find his own shelter, his own space, his own corner of the world to occupy. But the canvas wasn't large, and the storm showed no signs of abating, and there were only so many dry places in the camp. "If you must."

Neoptolemus settled beside him, close enough that Orestes could feel the warmth radiating from his skin despite the chill of the rain. For a while, they sat in uncomfortable silence, listening to the storm rage around them. "You're angry," Neoptolemus said eventually. "No."

"You've barely spoken to me since yesterday."

"We have nothing to say to each other."

"Don't we?" Neoptolemus shifted, turning to face him in the cramped space. "Even after—"

"After what?" Orestes cut him off. "After we fought together? After you bled for me, and I bound your wounds? What exactly do you think that changes?"

"I think," Neoptolemus said quietly, "that it changes everything." The words hung between them like a challenge. Orestes felt his jaw clench, felt all the careful distance he'd been trying to maintain start to crumble. "She's still your wife," he said harshly. "You still took what was mine. You still—"

"Do you love her?" The question stopped Orestes cold. He opened his mouth to give the expected answer, the honorable answer, but found that the words wouldn't come. "She was promised to me," he said instead. "That's not what I asked." Orestes looked at Neoptolemus – really looked at him, taking in the sharp angles of his face, the intensity in his green eyes, the way the rain had darkened his hair to bronze. He was beautiful, Orestes realized with a start. Not in the soft way of women, but beautiful like a sword was beautiful – all clean lines and deadly grace. The thought should have disturbed him. Instead, it only made him angrier. "What do you want from me?" he demanded. "Some grand confession? Some absolution for your theft?"

"I want you to tell me why you came back for me," Neoptolemus said simply. "In the raider camp, when you could have left me to die. Why?"

"I told you—"

"You lied." Neoptolemus leaned closer, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "Just like you're lying now. Just like you've been lying since the moment we met."

"I don't—"

"You don't love her." The words were spoken with quiet certainty. "You're angry about losing her, yes. Humiliated. But you don't love her, and we both know it." Orestes felt something crack inside his chest – some barrier he'd built around a truth he'd refused to acknowledge, even to himself. Because Neoptolemus was right. He'd been promised to Hermione since childhood, had accepted the match as part of his duty, had even looked forward to it in an abstract way. But love? No. What he'd felt was possession, obligation, the wounded pride of a man whose property had been stolen. Not love. Never love. "It doesn't matter," he said desperately. "She's still—"

"She's miserable." The admission fell between them like a stone dropped into still water. "Hermione is miserable, Orestes. She cries at night when she thinks I can't hear. She flinches when I touch her. She married me because her father commanded it, but she doesn't want to be my wife any more than I want to be her husband." Orestes stared at him, trying to process this revelation. "Then why—"

"Because I'm a fool," Neoptolemus said bitterly. "Because I thought having something that belonged to you would somehow make me feel less..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter now."

"Less what?" But Neoptolemus had turned away, staring out into the storm. Lightning flickered across his profile, and for a moment he looked very young and very lost. "Neoptolemus." Orestes reached out without thinking, his fingers brushing the other man's arm. "Less what?"

"Less empty." The words were so quiet that Orestes almost missed them over the sound of the rain. "I thought if I could take something precious from you, steal something you wanted, it would fill the void where my father's love should have been. Pathetic, isn't it?" Orestes felt his anger drain away, replaced by something that might have been understanding. He knew about emptiness, about the hollow places left by absent fathers and impossible expectations. He knew about trying to fill those voids with honor and duty and rage, and how none of it ever quite worked.

"Achilles loved you," he said quietly. "Did he?" Neoptolemus's laugh was harsh. "He loved his own legend. His glory. His place in the songs men would sing. But me? The son he barely knew, who arrived at Troy just in time to watch him die? I was just another piece of his legacy to be polished and displayed."

The bitterness in his voice was so familiar that Orestes felt an unexpected pang of kinship. How many nights had he lain awake wondering if Agamemnon had truly loved him, or if he'd simply seen another tool to be shaped for the family's honor? "My father used to say that love was a luxury kings couldn't afford," Orestes offered. "That duty to the realm came before duty to our children."

"And do you believe that?" Orestes considered the question seriously. "I believe it's what they told themselves to make the pain easier to bear. For them and for us." They sat in silence for a while, the storm raging around their small shelter. When Neoptolemus spoke again, his voice was so low that Orestes had to lean closer to hear him. "I never wanted to hurt you," he said. "Taking Hermione, I mean. It wasn't about you, not really. It was about proving that I could have something precious, something worth fighting for. But I know that doesn't make it right."

"No," Orestes agreed. "It doesn't."

"I'm sorry." The words seemed to cost him something. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Orestes looked at him – at this man who had been his rival, his enemy, his unexpected ally. In the flickering light of the storm, Neoptolemus looked smaller somehow, more human than the golden prince who had stood triumphant at Hermione's wedding feast. "What will you do?" Orestes asked. "When we return to Sparta?"

"I don't know." Neoptolemus rubbed his face with his good hand. "Release her, I suppose. Let her choose her own path."

"And you?"

"I'll find somewhere else to go. There are always wars that need fighting, always men who'll pay for a good sword arm." He glanced at Orestes sideways. "What about you? Will you try to reclaim your bride?" The question should have been easy to answer. Hermione was still his by right of first betrothal, still the match that would secure his place in Sparta's hierarchy. But the thought of claiming her now – of taking her as a prize rather than a partner – left him cold.

"No," he said, surprising himself with the certainty of it. "No, I think she deserves better than to be passed between men like a piece of property." Neoptolemus smiled – the first genuine smile Orestes had seen from him. "You're a better man than I am."

"Am I?" Orestes found himself studying Neoptolemus's face in the storm-light, noting the strong line of his jaw, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. "I'm not so sure about that." Something shifted in the air between them, subtle as the change of wind before a storm breaks. Neoptolemus went very still, his gaze fixed on Orestes's face with an intensity that made breathing difficult. "Orestes," he said quietly.

"Don't." But Orestes didn't pull away when Neoptolemus reached up to touch his cheek, didn't protest when calloused fingers traced the line of an old scar along his jaw. "Don't what?"

"Don't make me want something I can't have." The words came out raw, honest, and Orestes immediately regretted them. But Neoptolemus didn't laugh or pull away. Instead, he leaned closer, his breath warm against Orestes's skin. "Can't you?"

For a moment, the world narrowed to just the two of them in their tiny shelter, the storm raging outside forgotten. Orestes could feel the heat of Neoptolemus's body, could see the pulse beating in his throat, could smell the scent of rain and leather and something uniquely him. It would be so easy to close the distance between them, to find out if Neoptolemus's lips were as soft as they looked, to lose himself in something that had nothing to do with duty or honor or the expectations of others.

So easy, and so impossible. "We can't," he whispered, even as every part of him screamed otherwise. "You know we can't." Neoptolemus's hand fell away, and the spell was broken. He sat back, putting careful distance between them, but his eyes never left Orestes's face. "Because of what people would say? Because it's not what princes do?"

"Because..." Orestes struggled to find words for the tangle of fear and longing in his chest. "Because I don't know how to want something for myself instead of for honor or duty or revenge. Because you scare me. Because when I look at you, I forget everything I thought I knew about who I'm supposed to be." The confession hung between them like a bridge neither quite dared to cross. Neoptolemus was quiet for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "Would that be so terrible?" he asked finally. "Forgetting who you're supposed to be?"

Before Orestes could answer, a shout from outside shattered the intimate atmosphere. One of the guards was calling for Menelaus – apparently, the storm had washed out part of the road ahead, and they would need to find another route in the morning. The spell was broken. Neoptolemus rose and ducked back out into the rain, leaving Orestes alone with his hammering heart and the echo of words that couldn't be taken back. That night, he lay awake listening to the storm and trying not to think about green eyes and gentle hands and the way Neoptolemus had said his name like a prayer. He failed completely.

The third day dawned clear and bright, the storm-washed world sparkling under the early sun. They made good time along the valley road, the rescued villagers in better spirits now that they could see familiar landmarks appearing on the horizon. Orestes rode with the rear guard, ostensibly to watch for pursuit but actually because he couldn't bear to be near Neoptolemus after the previous night's revelations. Every time he caught a glimpse of that golden hair or heard that familiar laugh, his chest tightened with a longing so fierce it made him ache.

This was madness. This was everything he'd spent years learning to control, to suppress, to deny. He was a prince of Mycenae, heir to Agamemnon's legacy, chosen of Apollo. He had duties, responsibilities, a reputation to maintain. He couldn't afford to want things that would destroy everything he'd worked to build. But gods help him, he did want. Wanted so badly that it felt like dying.

"You're brooding." Orestes didn't turn as Pylades rode up beside him. His oldest friend had been watching him with increasing concern for the past few days, clearly aware that something had changed but too diplomatic to ask direct questions. "I'm thinking."

"About our golden-haired prince?" This time Orestes did look at him, startled by the knowing tone. Pylades met his gaze with a small smile. "It's not exactly subtle, cousin. The way you look at him. The way he looks at you. Half the camp is taking bets on when one of you will finally do something about it." Orestes felt heat rise in his cheeks. "They're what?"

"Oh, relax. Soldiers bet on everything – whether it will rain, which horse will go lame first, whether the cook will burn the evening meal. Two princes dancing around each other like lovesick fools? That's entertainment for weeks."

"We're not—" Orestes began, then stopped. Because what could he say? That there was nothing between them? That would be a lie. That it didn't matter? That would be a bigger lie. "It's complicated."

"The best things usually are." Pylades was quiet for a moment, studying the road ahead. "You know, there are worse things than wanting something that wants you back."

"He's married."

"To a woman who doesn't want him, from what I hear. And who he doesn't want either, if the rumors are true." Orestes glanced at him sharply. "What rumors?"

"That he spends most nights in the garden instead of his marriage bed. That she requested separate chambers after the first week. That they barely speak to each other except at public functions." Pylades shrugged. "Palace gossip travels fast." The information should have made Orestes feel better. Instead, it only made the situation more complicated. If Neoptolemus's marriage was truly as empty as it seemed, if he was as trapped by duty and expectation as Orestes himself… "It doesn't matter," he said firmly. "Even if the marriage is a sham, even if they're both miserable, I can't—"

"Can't what? Can't be happy? Can't choose your own path for once instead of following the one others laid out for you?" The questions hit closer to home than Orestes cared to admit. When had he ever chosen anything for himself? His father had chosen his education, his training, his role in the family's plans. Apollo had chosen his destiny. Menelaus had chosen his place in this expedition. Even his revenge against his mother had been chosen for him, commanded by duty and divine will. "What if I choose wrong?" he asked quietly. "What if I reach for something and destroy everything I've built?"

"What if you don't reach, and spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been?" Before Orestes could answer, a commotion up ahead drew their attention. One of the scouts had returned from ranging ahead, and he was riding hard toward Menelaus with news that brought the entire column to a halt. "What is it?" Orestes called to the nearest captain. "Another raider camp," the man replied grimly. "Bigger than the last one, and they're holding more hostages. The scout says they've got maybe fifty prisoners, including women and children from the coastal settlements." Orestes felt his stomach sink. They'd all hoped that the destruction of the mountain camp would be the end of it, that they could return to Sparta with their mission accomplished. But if there was another group of raiders, another camp full of innocent prisoners...

"We can't leave them," he said, though he knew what it would mean – more fighting, more danger, more days away from the complicated web of relationships waiting for them in Sparta. More time trapped in this strange space between friendship and enmity, between duty and desire. "No," Pylades agreed, watching as Menelaus called his captains to council. "We can't." Across the column, Neoptolemus was already checking his weapons and calling for his horse to be readied. When he caught Orestes looking at him, he smiled – not the mocking expression he'd worn at Hermione's wedding, but something warmer and more genuine. Something that made Orestes's chest tight with possibilities he didn't dare name. "Ready for another fight?" Neoptolemus called out.

Orestes found himself smiling back. "Always." And if there was more truth in that answer than either of them was quite ready to acknowledge, well – that was a conversation for another day. Another night. Another moment stolen from the chaos of the world around them. For now, there were people to save and battles to fight and the strange comfort of knowing that whatever came next, they would face it together.

The second raider camp was a fortress.

Built into the cliffs overlooking a narrow canyon, it commanded every approach with walls of fitted stone and towers that bristled with archers. The prisoners were held in a natural depression at the canyon's heart, surrounded by sheer rock walls that made rescue from above impossible. "It's a death trap," one of Menelaus's captains muttered, studying the stronghold through the gathering dusk. "We'd lose half our men just reaching the walls."

Orestes crouched beside the cliff edge, counting guards and noting patrol patterns. The fortress was formidable, but not impregnable. There – a section of wall where the stones had shifted with age, creating handholds for a determined climber. And there – a drainage channel that might allow access to the lower levels. "Not a frontal assault," he said quietly. "But if a small group could reach the prisoners while the main force creates a distraction..."

"You're thinking of going in there alone again." Neoptolemus's voice was sharp with something that might have been fear. "After what happened last time."

"Last time worked."

"Last time you nearly died." The words hung between them, loaded with an intensity that made the other men shift uncomfortably. Orestes felt heat rise in his cheeks as he became aware of how that must have sounded – like a lover's quarrel rather than a tactical disagreement. "I'm the best climber we have," he said carefully. "And the lightest. It makes sense—"

"It makes sense for you to get yourself killed trying to be a hero?" Neoptolemus's eyes were blazing now, all pretense of casual concern abandoned. "Because that's what will happen if you try to scale those walls alone."

"Then come with me." The suggestion escaped before Orestes could think better of it, and he immediately regretted it. Neoptolemus was still recovering from his shoulder wound, still favoring his left arm despite his claims that he was fine. Taking him on a dangerous climb would be madness.

But the way his face lit up at the suggestion made Orestes's chest tight with something he refused to name. "Together?" Neoptolemus asked softly. "If..." Orestes swallowed hard, suddenly aware of how close they were standing, how the setting sun turned Neoptolemus's hair to molten gold. "If you think you can manage the climb."

"I can manage anything you can, Prince of Mycenae." The challenge in those words was familiar, but the heat behind them was something new. Something that made Orestes acutely aware of the way Neoptolemus was looking at him – not like a rival or even an ally, but like a man looking at something he desperately wanted and couldn't quite bring himself to take. "Then we go together," Orestes said, his voice rougher than he'd intended. "Tonight, when the moon sets." Menelaus had other ideas.

"Absolutely not," the king said when they presented their plan. "I'm not sending my two best fighters into that death trap on some mad climbing expedition. We'll find another way."

"There is no other way," Orestes argued. "Not without losing dozens of men and probably most of the hostages. A small infiltration—"

"Is suicide," Menelaus cut him off. "I won't have it. We'll wait for reinforcements from Sparta, then take the fortress properly."

"How long will that take?" Neoptolemus stepped forward, his voice tight with controlled anger. "A week? Two? How many of those prisoners will still be alive by then?" It was a fair point, and they all knew it. Raiders didn't keep hostages for long – either they sold them quickly to slave merchants, or they killed them to avoid the burden of feeding them. Every day they delayed meant more innocent deaths.

But Menelaus was unmoved. "I said no. That's final." As the war council dispersed, Orestes found himself walking beside Neoptolemus toward the edge of camp, both of them radiating frustration. The sun was setting behind the mountains, painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold, and the air carried the chill promise of another cold night. "He's afraid," Neoptolemus said quietly when they were out of earshot of the others. "Afraid of losing face if his expedition ends in disaster."

"He's being careful," Orestes replied, though he didn't entirely believe it himself. "Kings have to think about more than just the immediate battle."

"Do they?" Neoptolemus stopped walking and turned to face him, his expression intense in the dying light. "Or do they just tell themselves that to justify their cowardice?" The accusation was harsh, but not entirely unfair. Orestes had seen enough of court politics to know how often prudence was just fear dressed up in noble words.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying those people don't have a week to wait for reinforcements. I'm saying every hour we delay is another hour they spend in chains, wondering if they'll live to see another sunrise." Neoptolemus stepped closer, close enough that Orestes could see the gold flecks in his green eyes. "I'm saying sometimes the right thing and the safe thing aren't the same thing."

"And if we die in the attempt? If we throw our lives away on a gesture that changes nothing?"

"Then at least we'll have tried." Neoptolemus reached out as if to touch Orestes's arm, then seemed to catch himself, his hand falling back to his side. "At least we'll have chosen to act instead of standing by while innocents suffer." The words hit home harder than they should have. How many times had Orestes told himself he was being wise, being careful, being strategic, when really he was just afraid? Afraid of failing, of making things worse, of taking responsibility for the consequences of his choices?

"Menelaus gave us a direct order," he said weakly. "Menelaus isn't here." Neoptolemus glanced back toward the main camp, where cook fires were beginning to flicker to life. "And what he doesn't know..." He trailed off, leaving the implication hanging between them. Orestes felt his pulse quicken, not just from the prospect of action but from something else entirely – the thrill of conspiracy, of shared purpose, of standing with this man against the world. "You're suggesting we disobey a direct command from our king."

"I'm suggesting we do what needs to be done." Neoptolemus's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "The question is: are you with me?" It was madness. It was insubordination. It was exactly the kind of reckless heroics that got young men killed and left their families to mourn empty tombs. It was also, Orestes realized, exactly what he wanted to do.

"When?" he asked. Neoptolemus's smile was brilliant as sunrise. "Midnight. When the guards change and the moon is dark." They spent the next few hours in careful preparation, checking their gear and studying the fortress layout by the light of carefully shielded torches. They would go light – leather armor instead of bronze, knives instead of swords, rope and grappling hooks instead of shields and spears. Speed and stealth would be their weapons, surprise their only protection.

As midnight approached, they made their way to the edge of the cliff in careful silence. Below them, the raider fortress squatted like a great beast in the darkness, its walls lit by the occasional torch but mostly lost in shadow. "There," Orestes whispered, pointing to the section of crumbling wall he'd identified earlier. "We can make the climb there, then work our way along the outer defenses to the prison compound."

Neoptolemus nodded, testing his rope one final time. In the darkness, he was just a shadow beside Orestes, but his presence was warm and solid and reassuring. "Ready?" he asked softly. Orestes looked at him – at this man who had been his enemy, his rival, his unexpected salvation. In a few hours, they would either be heroes or corpses, but right now, in this moment before the plunge, there was only this: the two of them against impossible odds, bound together by something stronger than duty or honor or fear. "Ready," he whispered back. The descent began.

The cliff face was treacherous in the darkness, every handhold a gamble, every step a test of nerve and balance. Orestes went first, finding the path down the sheer rock by feel and instinct, his rope paying out behind him as he worked his way toward the fortress walls. Above him, he could hear the soft scrape of Neoptolemus following, the quiet rasp of leather against stone.

Halfway down, disaster nearly struck. Orestes's foot found what felt like solid stone, but the moment he put his weight on it, the rock crumbled away beneath him. He fell, the rope burning through his hands as he slid down the cliff face, and for a terrifying moment he thought he would plummet into the canyon below.

Then the line went taut, jerking him to a painful stop against the cliff face. Above him, Neoptolemus had braced himself against the rock and taken Orestes's full weight on the rope, his injured shoulder screaming in protest but holding firm.

"I've got you," Neoptolemus called down softly. "Find your footing." Orestes scrambled for purchase against the rock, his heart hammering against his ribs. When he finally found solid stone beneath his feet, he looked up to see Neoptolemus silhouetted against the stars, his face tight with pain but determined.

"Your shoulder," Orestes whispered. "It's fine." "It's not fine. You're bleeding again." Even in the darkness, Orestes could see the dark stain spreading across Neoptolemus's tunic where the wound had torn open. But when he started to climb back up, Neoptolemus shook his head. "We're almost there. Don't stop now."

The rest of the descent passed in tense silence, both of them acutely aware of how close they'd come to disaster. When they finally reached the base of the fortress walls, Orestes immediately turned to examine Neoptolemus's shoulder, his hands gentle as he probed the reopened wound. "You should go back," he whispered. "Let me finish this alone."

"Absolutely not." Neoptolemus caught his hands, stilling their movement. "I'm not leaving you to face this by yourself."

"You're hurt—"

"I'm fine." Neoptolemus's grip tightened, his fingers warm against Orestes's skin. "Besides, someone has to keep you from doing anything too heroic." They were standing close in the shadow of the walls, so close that Orestes could feel the warmth of Neoptolemus's breath against his cheek. For a moment, the mission was forgotten, the danger pushed aside, and there was only this – the two of them in the darkness, bound together by trust and something deeper that neither quite dared to name. "Neoptolemus," Orestes whispered. "I know." The reply was soft, understanding, full of the same longing that was making Orestes's chest tight. "I know. But not here. Not now."

"When?" The question escaped before Orestes could stop it, raw with need and desperation. Neoptolemus's hands came up to frame his face, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones with infinite gentleness. "When we get out of this alive," he promised. "When we don't have to pretend anymore. When we can choose what we want instead of what's expected of us."

It was a promise and a prayer and a declaration all at once. Orestes leaned into the touch, allowing himself this one moment of weakness, this one instant of honesty in the darkness. Then the sound of approaching footsteps broke the spell, and they sprang apart, hands moving to weapons as a guard rounded the corner of the wall.

The fight was swift and silent. The guard died with Orestes's knife between his ribs, never knowing what had killed him. But his absence would be noticed eventually, and their window of opportunity was closing fast. "The drainage tunnel," Neoptolemus whispered, pointing to a narrow opening in the fortress wall. "Can you fit?"

Orestes measured the gap with his eyes and nodded. It would be tight, but possible. They squeezed through one at a time, emerging into a narrow passage that led deeper into the fortress complex. The next hour passed in a blur of careful movement and controlled violence. They worked their way through the fortress's lower levels, avoiding patrols and neutralizing guards when avoidance wasn't possible. Neoptolemus moved like his father's ghost, all deadly grace and lethal precision, while Orestes used his smaller size and intimate knowledge of such places to guide them through the maze of passages.

Finally, they found what they were looking for. The prison compound was exactly what Orestes had expected – a natural depression in the rock, surrounded by high walls and guarded by a handful of bored sentries. Fifty prisoners, maybe more, huddled together in the cold night air. Men, women, children, all bearing the marks of rough treatment and harsh captivity.

"Six guards," Neoptolemus breathed in Orestes's ear. "We can take them, but we'll have to move fast once the alarm is raised." Orestes nodded, studying the layout. The guards were clustered around a brazier at the compound's entrance, passing a wine jug between them and paying little attention to their charges. Overconfident. Careless.

Fatal mistakes. They struck like shadows given form. Orestes took the two guards on the left, his borrowed blade finding their throats before they could cry out, while Neoptolemus moved like flowing water through the remaining four. In seconds, it was over, and they were cutting the bonds of stunned prisoners. "Stay quiet," Orestes whispered to the nearest woman. "We're here to help, but you have to do exactly as I say."

She nodded frantically, tears streaming down her face. Around them, other prisoners were rising to their feet, hope and fear warring in their expressions. "There's a passage behind the compound," Neoptolemus explained quickly. "It leads to the outer wall. From there, you follow the canyon downstream until you reach the river. Keep moving, don't look back, and don't stop until you see our forces."

"What about you?" one of the men asked. Orestes and Neoptolemus exchanged glances. They both knew the answer – someone had to stay behind to ensure the prisoners' escape, to buy them time if pursuit came too quickly. "We'll follow," Neoptolemus lied smoothly. "Now go. Quickly."

As the prisoners began to slip away into the darkness, following the escape route they'd prepared, Orestes found himself alone with Neoptolemus in the abandoned compound. Above them, shouts were beginning to echo from the fortress walls – their absence had been discovered, and the hunt was on. "Well," Neoptolemus said conversationally, testing the edge of his blade. "This should be interesting."

Orestes laughed despite himself. Here they were, trapped in an enemy fortress with half an army bearing down on them, and Neoptolemus sounded like he was discussing the weather. "Any regrets?" he asked. Neoptolemus looked at him for a long moment, his expression serious in the flickering light of the abandoned brazier. "Only one," he said quietly.

"What's that?" Instead of answering with words, Neoptolemus closed the distance between them in two quick strides, his hands fisting in Orestes's leather tunic as he pulled him close. Their lips met in a kiss that was desperate and fierce and full of everything they hadn't been able to say, hadn't been able to admit, hadn't been able to acknowledge until this moment when death was breathing down their necks and there was nothing left to lose.

Orestes melted into it, his arms coming up to wrap around Neoptolemus's neck, pulling him closer, deeper, trying to pour all his longing and fear and desperate hope into this one perfect, impossible moment. Neoptolemus tasted like wine and danger and something uniquely him, and Orestes wanted to drown in it, wanted to forget everything else and lose himself in this feeling of finally, finally coming home. But the sound of running feet and shouting voices was getting closer, and reality crashed back over them like cold water. They broke apart, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. "That," Neoptolemus whispered, "was what I would have regretted."

"If we die here—"

"We won't." Neoptolemus's voice was fierce with determination. "We're getting out of this alive, Orestes. Both of us. Because I'll be damned if I let our story end here." The first raiders appeared at the compound entrance just as they drew their swords. And as they stood back-to-back in the center of the prison yard, surrounded by enemies and fighting for their lives, Orestes found himself thinking that if this was how his story ended – beside this man, with the taste of his kiss still warm on his lips – then perhaps it wasn't such a bad ending after all. But as Neoptolemus had promised, their story wasn't over yet.

They fought like men possessed. Back-to-back in the center of the prison compound, surrounded by raiders hungry for blood, Orestes and Neoptolemus moved with a unity that seemed impossible for two people who had known each other mere days. Where Orestes's blade found gaps in armor, Neoptolemus's followed to exploit the weakness. Where Neoptolemus struck high, Orestes swept low. They flowed around each other like dancers who had rehearsed this deadly choreography for years.

The taste of Neoptolemus's kiss was still warm on Orestes's lips as he parried a thrust and riposted, opening his attacker's throat in a spray of crimson. Beside him, he could hear Neoptolemus's controlled breathing, could feel the heat radiating from his body, could sense his movements as if they were extensions of his own.

This was what he'd been missing all his life – this perfect synchronization, this absolute trust, this certainty that someone would guard his back while he guarded theirs. "More coming," Neoptolemus called, nodding toward the compound entrance where torches flickered. "At least a dozen."

They were good, but they weren't gods. Eventually, the numbers would tell, and they would fall beneath the weight of enemy steel. But the prisoners were away, free to find safety with Menelaus's forces, and perhaps that was enough. Perhaps it was a good death, after all. Then the horn sounded. Low and mournful, it echoed off the canyon walls like the voice of some primordial god. The raiders around them hesitated, looking toward the fortress walls with sudden uncertainty.

"That's not their signal," Neoptolemus said, hope creeping into his voice. It wasn't. Orestes recognized the tone – a Spartan war horn, calling the advance. Somehow, impossibly, help had arrived.

The next few minutes dissolved into chaos as Menelaus's forces poured into the fortress from three directions at once. The raiders, caught between the rescue party and their escaped prisoners, broke and scattered like leaves before a storm. Some tried to flee deeper into the complex; others threw down their weapons and begged for mercy.

Most died.

When the fighting finally ended, Orestes found himself sitting on a pile of rubble, his sword across his knees and exhaustion weighing down his limbs like lead. Neoptolemus was beside him, binding a cut on his forearm with methodical precision, his face streaked with blood and soot. They were alive. Somehow, impossibly, they were both alive. "How?" Orestes asked when Menelaus appeared before them, his expression thunderous.

"Pylades," the king replied curtly. "When you didn't return from your 'scouting mission,' he convinced me that discretion was less important than ensuring my nephews didn't get themselves killed playing hero." Orestes winced at the barely controlled anger in his uncle's voice. They had saved fifty lives and destroyed a major raider stronghold, but they had also directly disobeyed orders from their king. There would be consequences. "My lord—" he began.

"Not here," Menelaus cut him off. "We'll discuss your... initiative... when we return to camp. For now, gather the wounded and see to the prisoners. We march at first light." As the king stalked away, Orestes felt a hand touch his shoulder. Neoptolemus was looking at him with an expression that was part exhaustion, part exhilaration, and part something else entirely – something that made Orestes's breath catch in his throat.

"No regrets?" Neoptolemus asked softly, echoing his earlier question. Orestes thought about the kiss, about the way it had felt to finally stop pretending, about the certainty that had filled him as they'd fought side by side. Then he looked around at the freed prisoners embracing their families, at the men who would go home to their villages instead of slave markets, at the fortress that would never again shelter those who preyed on the innocent. "None," he said firmly. "Not one."

Neoptolemus's smile was like sunrise breaking through storm clouds. But as they prepared to leave the ruined fortress behind, Orestes couldn't shake the feeling that their real challenges were only beginning. They had found each other in the darkness of battle, but now they would have to face the light of day – and all the complications that came with it.

The journey back to Sparta took three days, and with each mile they traveled, the weight of what they had done – and what they had discovered about themselves – pressed down on them like gathering storm clouds.

They rode together at the head of the column, close enough to touch but careful to maintain the proper distance. Their conversation was light, professional, focused on mundane matters of logistics and tactics. But underneath the polite words, tension crackled like lightning waiting to strike.

Every accidental brush of fingers as they passed maps between them sent heat racing up Orestes's spine. Every sideways glance from those green eyes made his breath catch in his throat. And when Neoptolemus leaned close to point out landmarks or discuss their route, the scent of his skin made Orestes dizzy with want. It was torture of the most exquisite kind. "You're driving yourself mad," Pylades observed on the second evening, settling beside Orestes at their campfire. "Both of you."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you?" Pylades nodded toward where Neoptolemus was checking on the horses, his tunic pulled tight across the muscles of his back. "The way you watch him when you think no one is looking. The way he finds excuses to be near you. The way you both go rigid whenever someone mentions Sparta." Orestes poked at the fire with a stick, sending sparks dancing into the night sky. "It's complicated."

"So you keep saying. But from where I sit, it looks fairly simple." Pylades lowered his voice. "You want him. He wants you. The only question is what you plan to do about it."

"He's married."

"To a woman who doesn't want him."

"He's my rival."

"Was. Before you saved each other's lives and realized you're better as allies than enemies."

"He stole my betrothed."

"A betrothal you never wanted in the first place, to a woman you've never loved." Pylades leaned closer, his expression serious. "Orestes, I've known you since we were children. I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at him. Not Hermione, not any of the court ladies who've tried to catch your eye. No one."

The truth of it hit like a physical blow. All those years of dutiful courtship, of proper behavior, of trying to feel what was expected of him – and in a few short days, this golden-haired prince had awakened something in him that he hadn't even known existed. "What if it's just the excitement?" he asked desperately. "The danger, the fighting, the—"

"Do you really believe that?" Orestes looked across the camp to where Neoptolemus was now talking with some of the rescued prisoners, kneeling beside a small child and making her laugh despite everything she'd endured. The sight made something warm and tender unfurl in his chest, something that had nothing to do with battle-born camaraderie and everything to do with the man himself. "No," he admitted quietly. "I don't."

"Then the question becomes: what are you willing to sacrifice for it? Your reputation? Your place at court? The comfortable lie that duty is more important than happiness?" Before Orestes could answer, a commotion near the edge of camp drew their attention. Riders were approaching – a small party bearing the banners of Sparta, moving fast through the darkness.

Menelaus rose to greet the newcomers, and even from across the camp, Orestes could see the tension in his uncle's shoulders as the lead rider dismounted and approached with urgent news. "What do you think it is?" Pylades asked. "Nothing good," Orestes replied, a cold certainty settling in his stomach. "Nothing good ever rides this hard in the dark."

They didn't have to wait long to find out. Within minutes, Menelaus was calling for his captains, his face grim in the firelight. As Orestes and Neoptolemus joined the gathering, the king's expression told them everything they needed to know. "News from Sparta," Menelaus said without preamble. "King Tyndareus is dead." The words hit the assembled men like a physical blow. Tyndareus had been ancient when they'd left Sparta, but he'd seemed carved from stone, eternal and unchanging. His death meant...

"My father-in-law is to be crowned within the week," Menelaus continued. "All noble houses are summoned to attend the ceremony and swear fealty to the new king." Which meant they had to return immediately. Which meant their extended campaign, their borrowed time away from the complications of court, was over.

Which meant Neoptolemus would have to return to his wife. Orestes felt something cold and bitter settle in his chest as the full implications hit him. Whatever had grown between them in these stolen days, whatever promises had been made in the darkness of battle, would have to be set aside for the greater demands of politics and duty. The look on Neoptolemus's face suggested he was reaching the same conclusion.

"We ride at dawn," Menelaus commanded. "Hard march, minimal stops. I want to reach Sparta before the coronation." As the meeting broke up, Orestes found himself walking beside Neoptolemus toward the edge of camp, neither of them speaking. The stars wheeled overhead, brilliant in the clear mountain air, and somewhere in the distance, an owl called mournfully to its mate. "So," Neoptolemus said finally. "Back to reality."

"Yes."

"Back to being strangers." The word hung between them like a blade. Orestes wanted to deny it, wanted to promise that nothing would change, but they both knew better. In Sparta, he would be Prince Orestes of Mycenae, and Neoptolemus would be the husband of Hermione. The space that had opened between them here, in the wild country beyond the reach of gossip and expectation, would close as surely as night followed day.

"We'll find a way," Orestes said, though he wasn't sure he believed it himself. Neoptolemus stopped walking and turned to face him, his expression unreadable in the starlight. "Will we? Will you still want to find a way when you're back in the palace, surrounded by all the reasons why this is impossible? When you remember who you are and what's expected of you?"

"I know who I am." The words came out fiercer than Orestes had intended. "I know what I want."

"Do you?" Neoptolemus stepped closer, close enough that Orestes could see the doubt and longing warring in his expression. "Because when we reach Sparta, I'll go back to Hermione's bed. Not because I want to, but because that's what's expected of a husband. And you'll go back to your chambers and your duties and your proper princely life. And this—" He gestured between them, his voice breaking slightly. "This will become just a story we tell ourselves about what might have been."

"No." Orestes reached out without thinking, his hands fisting in Neoptolemus's tunic. "No, I won't let that happen. I won't let them take this away from us."

"Us?" Neoptolemus's laugh was bitter. "There is no us, Orestes. There can't be. You're a prince of the blood, heir to Agamemnon's legacy. You can't throw all of that away for—"

"For you." The words escaped before Orestes could stop them, raw and honest and desperate. "I'd throw it all away for you." The admission hung between them like a bridge neither quite dared to cross. Neoptolemus went very still, his eyes searching Orestes's face as if looking for some sign that he didn't mean it. "You don't know what you're saying," he whispered.

"I know exactly what I'm saying." Orestes pulled him closer, until their foreheads were almost touching. "I'm saying that I've spent my whole life doing what was expected of me, being what others needed me to be. And for the first time, I've found something – someone – who makes me want to choose for myself instead of letting others choose for me."

"The cost—"

"Let me worry about the cost." Orestes's voice was steady now, certain. "All I need to know is whether you want this too. Whether you're willing to fight for it." Neoptolemus closed his eyes, his breath coming in short, sharp pants. When he opened them again, they were bright with unshed tears and desperate hope. "More than anything," he whispered. "But I don't know how—"

"We'll find a way." Orestes leaned forward and pressed their lips together in a kiss that was softer than their first, gentler, full of promise rather than desperation. "We'll find a way, because the alternative is unthinkable."

When they broke apart, Neoptolemus was smiling – the first real smile Orestes had seen from him, free of mockery or calculation or careful distance. "You realize this is going to be complicated beyond belief," he said. "The best things usually are," Orestes replied, echoing Pylades's earlier words. "Besides, I like a challenge."

"Do you?" Neoptolemus's smile turned wicked. "Good. Because what I have in mind is going to require all of your considerable... talents." The promise in those words sent heat racing through Orestes's veins, but before he could ask what Neoptolemus meant, footsteps approached through the darkness. They sprang apart just as Pylades appeared, tactfully clearing his throat. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, though his knowing smile suggested he'd seen exactly what he'd expected to see. "But Menelaus wants all the captains to review tomorrow's march route."

As they walked back toward the main camp, Neoptolemus caught Orestes's hand and squeezed it briefly – a gesture so quick that anyone watching might have mistaken it for a simple touch of friendship. But Orestes felt the promise in it, the determination, the certainty that whatever challenges waited for them in Sparta, they would face them together.

The road ahead was dark and uncertain, fraught with dangers that had nothing to do with raiders or mountain passes. But for the first time in his life, Orestes was choosing his own path. And he was choosing to walk it beside the man who had somehow become the other half of his soul.

Sparta rose from the valley floor like something out of legend, her walls gleaming white in the afternoon sun, her towers crowned with bronze that flashed like signals to the gods. After days in the wild country, the sight of civilization should have been welcome.

Instead, it felt like approaching a prison. Orestes rode at the head of the column beside Menelaus, accepting the cheers of the crowds that lined the streets with practiced ease. Flowers rained down from windows, children ran alongside their horses, and everywhere voices rose in celebration of their successful campaign.

But all Orestes could think about was the way Neoptolemus had grown more distant with each mile they traveled, how his easy smiles had been replaced by the careful mask of court politeness, how the space between them had widened until they might as well have been strangers again.

The reality of their situation was hitting home with brutal clarity. Here, surrounded by the trappings of their old lives, what had seemed possible in the mountains felt like madness. Princes didn't abandon their duties for love affairs. They didn't throw away their birthrights for the sake of their hearts. They married suitable women and sired suitable heirs and did their duty to their bloodlines.

Even when that duty felt like slow death. The palace courtyard was packed with nobles and courtiers, all eager to hear tales of their heroic campaign. Orestes dismounted and handed his horse to a waiting groom, his movements automatic, his mind elsewhere.

"Prince Orestes!" He turned to find a familiar figure pushing through the crowd – Hermione, resplendent in silk and gold, her blonde hair elaborately arranged and her smile as bright as polished bronze. She looked every inch the princess she was, beautiful and graceful and perfectly suited to her role as a royal wife. She also looked utterly miserable. "My lady," Orestes said, offering the precise bow protocol demanded. "You look well."

"As do you." Her eyes flickered past him to where Neoptolemus was dismounting, and something complicated passed over her face. "Both of you. I'm... I'm glad you returned safely." There was something in her tone that made Orestes study her more carefully. Hermione had always been skilled at court diplomacy, but this seemed different – more personal, more genuine. Almost as if she actually cared about their welfare beyond the political implications. "My lady wife." Neoptolemus had joined them, his voice carefully formal as he took Hermione's offered hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. "I trust all has been well in my absence?"

"Well enough." Hermione's smile was brittle around the edges. "Though I confess the palace has been rather quiet without its heroes." The three of them stood there in an awkward triangle, each painfully aware of the currents flowing beneath the polite conversation. Around them, the courtyard buzzed with activity as other members of the expedition were welcomed home, but Orestes felt as if they were trapped in a bubble of crystalline tension.

"Perhaps," Hermione said carefully, "we might speak privately? All of us? There are... matters that should be discussed away from curious ears." Orestes and Neoptolemus exchanged glances. What could she possibly want to discuss with both of them? And why the emphasis on privacy? "Of course," Neoptolemus replied, though he sounded as puzzled as Orestes felt. "Your chambers, or...?"

"The garden pavilion," Hermione suggested. "In an hour? That should give you time to... refresh yourselves from your journey." She turned and glided away before either of them could respond, leaving them standing in the courtyard with identical expressions of confusion. "What do you think that was about?" Orestes asked quietly. "I have no idea," Neoptolemus replied. "But I suspect we're about to find out just how complicated our lives are about to become."

The garden pavilion was one of Hermione's favorite retreats – a delicate structure of marble columns and flowing curtains, surrounded by carefully tended roses and the gentle music of a fountain. It was also, Orestes noted, completely private, shielded from the main palace by walls of flowering vines.

Hermione was waiting for them when they arrived, but she'd changed from her formal court dress into something simpler – a plain chiton that made her look younger, more vulnerable. Less like a princess and more like a woman carrying the weight of difficult truths. "Please," she said, gesturing to the cushioned benches arranged around the pavilion's center. "Sit. Both of you."

They obeyed, though Orestes was acutely conscious of the space between himself and Neoptolemus, of how careful they both were not to sit too close, not to let their eyes meet for too long. If Hermione noticed the tension, she gave no sign of it. "I want to begin," she said, settling on the bench across from them, "by apologizing." That was not what Orestes had expected. "My lady?"

"For the wedding. For the... circumstances surrounding it." Hermione's hands were folded in her lap, but he could see the tension in her knuckles. "I know you were promised to me first, Orestes. I know that my marriage to Neoptolemus was... politically motivated rather than personally desired by any of the parties involved."

The frank admission hung in the air like a challenge. Orestes found himself studying her face, looking for signs of guile or manipulation, but found only honest regret. "You had no choice in the matter," he said carefully. "Daughters of kings rarely do."

"No," she agreed. "But that doesn't make it right. And it doesn't change the fact that three people have been made miserable by a decision that served everyone's interests except our own." Neoptolemus shifted uncomfortably. "Hermione—"

"Let me finish." Her voice was gentle but firm. "Please. I've been thinking about this for weeks, and I need to say it while I still have the courage." She rose and moved to the fountain, trailing her fingers in the clear water as she gathered her thoughts. In the afternoon light filtering through the vines, she looked ethereal, untouchable – and utterly alone.

"I've been married for a month," she said without turning around. "A month of sharing chambers with a man I barely know, of playing the role of devoted wife to someone who looks at me like a beautiful prison. A month of lying awake at night, listening to my husband pace the gardens because he can't bear to be in the same room with me." Orestes felt something twist in his chest – not jealousy, but pity. For all of them.

"I don't blame you," Hermione continued, finally turning to face them. "Either of you. You, Neoptolemus, for accepting a marriage that brought you political advantage. And you, Orestes, for... for finding something better." The last words were spoken so quietly that Orestes almost missed them. When their meaning hit him, he felt the blood drain from his face. "My lady, I don't—"

"Please." Hermione's smile was sad but genuine. "Don't insult my intelligence. I may have been sheltered, but I'm not blind. The way you looked at each other when you returned, the way you've been carefully not looking at each other since – it's rather obvious, at least to someone who knows what to look for." Orestes and Neoptolemus sat in stunned silence. If Hermione knew, if she could see it so clearly, then how long before others noticed? How long before their carefully maintained facades crumbled under the weight of scrutiny?

"Are you..." Neoptolemus's voice cracked slightly. "Are you going to tell your father? The king?" Hermione was quiet for a long moment, studying their faces with something that might have been compassion. "That depends," she said finally. "On what you're willing to do to solve our mutual problem."

"What do you mean?" Orestes asked. Instead of answering directly, Hermione moved to a small table where wine and cups had been set out. She poured three measures and handed them around before settling back on her bench. "I want an annulment," she said simply. The words dropped into the pavilion's peaceful atmosphere like stones into still water. Neoptolemus nearly choked on his wine. "A what?"

"An annulment. A dissolution of our marriage on the grounds that it has not been... consummated." Her cheeks colored slightly, but her voice remained steady. "Such things are possible, under certain circumstances."

"Hermione," Neoptolemus said carefully, "even if that were true, the political implications—"

"Would be manageable," she interrupted, "if handled correctly. If, for instance, the dissolution were mutual. If both parties agreed that they were better suited to other... arrangements." Orestes felt his heart begin to race. "What other arrangements?" Hermione smiled – the first truly happy expression he'd seen from her since their return.

"Well," she said, "I've been corresponding with Prince Menestheus of Athens. He's looking for a wife, and I find his letters quite charming. As for you two..." She raised her cup in a mock toast. "I imagine you'll figure something out." The offer hung between them like a lifeline thrown to drowning men. Freedom. The chance to choose their own paths. The possibility of happiness instead of duty. It was too good to be true. "The scandal," Orestes said weakly. "Your reputation—"

"Will survive. Better to be known as the princess who chose love over political convenience than the one who lived in miserable silence for the sake of appearances." Hermione's expression grew serious. "Besides, I suspect I'm not the only one who's noticed the... tension between you two. Better to address it proactively than wait for it to become court gossip." Neoptolemus set down his cup with shaking hands. "You would do this? Risk everything to help us?"

"I would do this to help all of us," Hermione corrected. "I want to marry for love, Neoptolemus. Real love, not political alliance. And I think... I think you do too." She looked between them with an expression of such understanding, such genuine affection, that Orestes felt tears prick at his eyes. This woman, who should have been their rival, their obstacle, was offering them the greatest gift imaginable – the chance to be free. "How?" he asked, his voice hoarse with hope and disbelief. "Leave that to me," Hermione said with a smile that was pure mischief. "I may be young, but I'm my father's daughter. I know how to navigate court politics when I need to."

She rose and moved toward the pavilion's entrance, then paused and looked back at them. "I'll need some time to arrange things properly. A few weeks, perhaps. Can you manage to be... discreet... until then?" Orestes and Neoptolemus exchanged glances, and for the first time since their return to Sparta, Orestes felt genuine hope unfurl in his chest.

"We can manage," Neoptolemus said quietly. "Good." Hermione's smile was radiant. "Then let's give this story the ending it deserves." She left them alone in the garden, surrounded by roses and possibility and the sudden, dizzying knowledge that their impossible dream might not be so impossible after all. "Do you think she means it?" Orestes asked after several minutes of stunned silence.

"I think," Neoptolemus said, reaching out to take his hand, "that we're about to find out just how brave we really are." Their fingers intertwined, warm and strong and sure, and for the first time since their return to Sparta, Orestes allowed himself to believe that they might actually have a future together. It wouldn't be easy. There would be obstacles, opposition, the weight of tradition and expectation to overcome. But with Hermione as their unexpected ally and each other as their anchor, perhaps even the impossible could be achieved. Perhaps love, after all, was stronger than duty. Perhaps their story was just beginning.

It’s been three months now. The morning sun streamed through the windows of the small villa overlooking the sea, casting patterns of gold and azure across the marble floor. Orestes woke slowly, luxuriously aware of the warm body pressed against his side, of strong arms wrapped around his waist, of the gentle rhythm of breath against his neck.

For a moment, he lay perfectly still, afraid that moving would shatter this perfect dream and return him to the world of duty and expectation and impossible desires. But then Neoptolemus stirred beside him, pressing a soft kiss to the curve of his shoulder, and Orestes remembered with a rush of joy that this wasn't a dream anymore.

This was his life. "Good morning," Neoptolemus murmured against his skin, voice rough with sleep and contentment. "Good morning." Orestes turned in his arms, drinking in the sight of tousled golden hair and green eyes still heavy with dreams. Even after three months, the wonder of waking up beside this man hadn't faded. If anything, it had only grown stronger.

"Any regrets?" Neoptolemus asked, echoing the question that had become a ritual between them. "Only that we didn't do this sooner," Orestes replied, sealing the words with a kiss that tasted of possibility and forever. They had their own villa now, a wedding gift from Hermione and her new husband, Prince Menestheus of Athens. It sat on a cliff overlooking the wine-dark sea, far enough from Sparta to ensure privacy but close enough for Orestes to fulfill his remaining obligations to his family's holdings.

The scandal, when it had finally broken, had been every bit as dramatic as they'd feared – and far less damaging than they'd expected. Hermione had been masterful in her orchestration of events, timing the announcement of her annulment to coincide with news of her betrothal to the Athenian prince. By the time the court gossips had finished dissecting her romantic rebellion, Orestes and Neoptolemus's own relationship had seemed almost anticlimactic in comparison.

There had been whispers, of course. Raised eyebrows and knowing glances and the occasional cutting remark from those who valued tradition over happiness. But there had also been unexpected support – from Pylades, naturally, but also from some of the older veterans who remembered the bond that could form between warriors, and from a surprising number of court ladies who seemed to find their romance delightfully scandalous.

King Menelaus had initially been furious, threatening exile and worse. But Hermione had worked her diplomatic magic on her father as well, pointing out that having heroes of their recent campaign settled nearby as loyal allies was far preferable to having them scattered to distant kingdoms as enemies. Besides, she'd added with devastating logic, it wasn't as if either of them had been producing heirs in their current situations anyway.

In the end, pragmatism had won over propriety. Orestes kept his titles and inheritance, though he'd formally ceded the succession to his younger cousin. Neoptolemus retained his status as a hero of Troy, though he was no longer welcome at certain traditionalist courts. It was a price they'd both been more than willing to pay. "The messenger from Athens should arrive today," Neoptolemus said, trailing his fingers along Orestes's ribs in a way that made coherent thought difficult.

"Mmm." Orestes arched into the touch, then reluctantly caught Neoptolemus's hand before it could wander further south. "And we should probably be dressed to receive him."

"Should we?" Neoptolemus's smile was wicked as he leaned down to nip at Orestes's throat. "I can think of better ways to spend the morning."

"So can I," Orestes admitted, his resolve wavering as Neoptolemus found that sensitive spot behind his ear. "But Hermione's letters have been increasingly urgent about this trade agreement, and—" His words dissolved into a gasp as Neoptolemus did something decidedly unfair with his tongue. "The trade agreement," Neoptolemus murmured against his skin, "can wait another hour."

Orestes was about to point out all the reasons why that was irresponsible when Neoptolemus shifted to hover over him, his hair catching the morning light like spun gold, his expression tender and mischievous and so beautiful that it made Orestes's chest tight with love. "On second thought," Orestes said, pulling him down for another kiss, "perhaps punctuality is overrated."

The messenger, when he finally arrived, found them in the villa's main courtyard, properly dressed and reviewing correspondence over their morning meal. If he noticed that their hair was still damp from a hasty bath, or that they sat perhaps closer together than strict propriety demanded, he was too well-trained to comment. "Greetings from Princess Hermione and Prince Menestheus of Athens," the young man announced, bowing low. "They send their warmest regards and these tokens of their continued friendship."

The "tokens" proved to be a cart full of gifts – Athenian pottery, fine wines, books of poetry, and a small wooden crate that made Orestes raise his eyebrows in surprise. "What is it?" Neoptolemus asked, noting his expression. Instead of answering, Orestes carefully opened the crate to reveal its contents: two matching bronze bracelets, intricately worked with spirals and set with small gems that caught the light like captured stars.

"Wedding bands," he said softly, lifting one of the bracelets from its bed of silk. "From Athens. Hermione says... she says they're blessed by Aphrodite for those who choose love over duty." The accompanying letter was vintage Hermione – warm, affectionate, and delightfully irreverent:

*My dearest friends,*

*Menestheus and I are blissfully happy, though I suspect you're tired of hearing me gush about married life in every letter. Still, I can't help myself – it turns out that choosing one's own husband makes all the difference in the world. Who would have thought?*

*These bracelets are an Athenian tradition, meant to be exchanged between those who pledge their lives and hearts to each other. I know you can't have a proper wedding ceremony (yet – though I'm working on that too), but I thought you deserved something to mark your union beyond the court gossips and political arrangements.*

*Wear them in joy, as symbols of the choice you made to be true to yourselves and each other. The world needs more such courage.*

*All our love,*

*Hermione & Menestheus*

*P.S. – Menestheus says that if anyone in Athens gives you trouble about your relationship, they'll have to answer to him. Apparently, having heroes of Troy as friends is quite fashionable here.*

Orestes felt his throat tighten with emotion as he read the letter aloud. Even now, months after their dramatic escape from conventional expectations, Hermione continued to be their staunchest ally and truest friend. "She's remarkable," Neoptolemus said quietly, taking the second bracelet from the crate. "We owe her everything."

"We owe her our happiness," Orestes agreed. "But what we do with it – that's up to us." They exchanged the bracelets in the privacy of their courtyard, no witnesses but the sun and sea and the olive trees that whispered in the gentle breeze. No priests or proclamations or formal ceremonies, just two men promising to love each other for as long as the gods allowed.

It was perfect.

As the afternoon wore on, they dealt with the practical business of their life together – reviewing reports from Orestes's estates, discussing plans for expanding their olive groves, corresponding with various allies and friends scattered across the Greek world. It was a quieter existence than either had expected, but no less fulfilling for its simplicity. "Do you ever miss it?" Neoptolemus asked as they walked along the clifftop path at sunset, their favorite time for reflection. "The court life, the politics, the grand gestures?"

Orestes considered the question seriously, watching the waves crash against the rocks below. Did he miss the constant maneuvering, the careful balance of ambition and survival that had defined his youth? The weight of expectation, the burden of living up to his father's legend? "No," he said finally. "I miss some of the people – Pylades, mostly, though he visits often enough. But the rest of it?" He shook his head. "I was never truly myself there. Always performing, always pretending to be what others needed me to be."

"And now?"

"Now I'm just... me. Orestes. Not the prince of Mycenae or the son of Agamemnon or the chosen of Apollo. Just a man who's found someone worth building a life with." Neoptolemus smiled, the expression soft in the golden light. "I used to think that was a weakness – wanting simple happiness instead of glory. My father always said that mortals who settle for contentment are forgotten by history."

"Maybe," Orestes said, taking his hand as they continued their walk. "But I'd rather be forgotten by history and remembered by you than immortalized in songs but alone in life." They paused at their favorite spot, where a natural shelf in the cliff provided a perfect view of the sea. The sun was setting in a blaze of orange and crimson, painting the water in shades of fire.

"I have something for you," Neoptolemus said suddenly, his voice nervous in a way that made Orestes look at him with curiosity. "Another gift? You spoil me."

"Not exactly." Neoptolemus reached into his tunic and withdrew a small scroll, its edges slightly worn as if it had been handled many times. "I've been working on this for weeks, but I wasn't sure... That is, I didn't know if you'd want..." He trailed off, uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Orestes took the scroll gently, noting the way Neoptolemus's hands trembled slightly as he released it.

"What is it?"

"Read it."

Orestes unrolled the parchment carefully, his eyes widening as he took in the contents. It was a poem – not the kind of grand epic that celebrated heroic deeds, but something smaller, more personal. A love song, written in Neoptolemus's careful hand, describing their journey from enemies to lovers in language that was both beautiful and achingly honest.

*"In mountain passes dark and steep,*

*Where honor's weight grows hard to bear,*

*I found a soul I longed to keep,*

*A heart that matched my own despair.*

*From hatred born of wounded pride*

*To understanding, soft and true,*

*You stood when others would have cried,*

*And taught me how to love anew.*

*No crown of gold could match the worth*

*Of mornings spent within your arms,*

*No kingdom built upon this earth*

*Could rival all your quiet charms.*

*Let others sing of wars and fame,*

*Of heroes bold and glory won,*

*I'll whisper soft your sacred name*

*And count each day we greet the sun."*

Orestes read the poem twice, then a third time, his vision blurring slightly as the full impact of the gift hit him. This wasn't just a poem – it was their story, distilled into verses that captured not just the facts of their journey but the emotional truth of it.

"It's beautiful," he said, his voice rough with feeling. "It's... us. Really us."

"I wanted to give you something that was just ours," Neoptolemus said, his earlier nervousness giving way to shy pride. "Something no one else could take away or claim or turn into political advantage. Our story, in our own words." Orestes rolled the scroll carefully and tucked it close to his heart, then pulled Neoptolemus into a kiss that tasted of salt air and sunset and promises kept.

"I love you," he murmured against his lips. "Not the hero, not the son of Achilles, not the golden prince who could have had anyone. You. The man who writes poetry and tends olive trees and makes me laugh when I'm taking myself too seriously."

"I love you too," Neoptolemus replied. "The real you. The one who saves people because it's right, not because it's glorious. The one who chose happiness over duty and showed me that it was possible to be both brave and content." They stood together on the cliff as the stars began to appear, holding each other close and watching the eternal dance of sea and sky. In the distance, lights were beginning to flicker in the windows of their villa – their home, their sanctuary, their choice.

"Any regrets?" Orestes asked, continuing their ritual. "Only one," Neoptolemus said, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"What's that?"

"That we can't do it all over again. Fall in love for the first time, I mean. Though I suppose falling deeper in love every day is a fair substitute." Orestes laughed, the sound carrying on the evening breeze like music. "I suppose it is."

As they walked back toward the villa, hands linked and hearts full, Orestes reflected on the strange turns his life had taken. A year ago, he'd been a prince without purpose, drifting through a existence defined by other people's expectations. Now he was simply a man in love, building something real and lasting with someone who knew him completely.

It wasn't the life he'd been raised to expect, but it was the life he'd chosen. And in the end, that made all the difference. Behind them, the sea continued its eternal song, and ahead of them, the lights of home beckoned warm and welcoming. Between them, they carried the promise of tomorrow and all the tomorrows that would follow – days filled with simple joys and quiet contentments and the deep satisfaction of a love freely given and joyfully received.

The son of Agamemnon and the son of Achilles, heroes of myth and legend, had found something more precious than glory or gold or the approval of gods and kings. They had found each other.

And they had found home.

Now it’s been 5 years. The olive harvest was always Orestes's favorite time of year. He stood in the grove behind their villa, watching as workers carefully gathered the fruit from trees he and Neoptolemus had planted in their first year together. The oil from these olives was renowned throughout the region now, sought after by merchants from as far away as Egypt and the Black Sea. What had begun as a simple desire for self-sufficiency had grown into a thriving trade that brought prosperity to their small community.

"The yield looks excellent this year," Pylades observed, joining him in the shade of an ancient oak. His oldest friend visited every autumn, ostensibly to help with the harvest but really to catch up on a year's worth of news and gossip. "The best yet," Orestes agreed, accepting a cup of watered wine from his friend. "Neoptolemus says we'll need to hire additional ships just to handle the orders from Athens."

"Speaking of Athens," Pylades said with the tone of a man delivering important news, "I bring greetings from Princess Hermione. And congratulations."

"Congratulations?"

"She's with child again. Due in the spring, according to her letter. She and Menestheus are beside themselves with joy." Orestes smiled, genuinely pleased for his friend. Hermione had taken to motherhood with the same determination she'd once applied to court intrigue, and by all accounts, she and her prince were raising their growing family with wisdom and laughter in equal measure. "That's wonderful news. We'll have to send gifts – perhaps some of this year's oil, and those silk scarves Neoptolemus brought back from his last trading voyage."

"She also mentioned," Pylades continued carefully, "that there have been some interesting developments in Sparta. King Menelaus is considering new legislation regarding... alternative family arrangements. Particularly for those who've served the realm with distinction." Orestes raised an eyebrow. "What sort of legislation?"

"The kind that might allow certain heroic couples to formalize their unions with full legal recognition. Tax benefits, inheritance rights, the whole arrangement." The implications hit Orestes like a physical blow. For five years, he and Neoptolemus had existed in a kind of legal limbo – accepted by their friends and community, but without official recognition of their relationship. They'd built their life together through private contracts and mutual trust, but they had no legal protections, no formal standing as a family unit.

"Are you serious?" he asked. "Hermione seems to think it's a real possibility. Apparently, there are enough unconventional arrangements among the nobility now that ignoring them is becoming politically impractical." Pylades grinned. "She may have mentioned that having heroes of Troy as test cases for the new laws would be excellent publicity." Before Orestes could respond, the sound of laughter drew their attention toward the villa. Neoptolemus was walking up the path from the harbor, followed by a small group of children from the nearby village. He was carrying the youngest – a girl of perhaps four years old – on his shoulders, while the others clustered around him, chattering excitedly about something.

"And that," Pylades said quietly, "is something else Hermione mentioned in her letter."

"What?"

"That you two have become quite the adoptive fathers to half the orphans in the region. Unofficial ones, of course, but she hears reports of all the children you've taken in, educated, found homes for. She thinks it's remarkable." Orestes watched as Neoptolemus gently lifted the little girl down from his shoulders, then knelt to her level to listen seriously to whatever important news she was sharing. The sight made his chest warm with familiar affection and pride.

They had indeed become unofficial guardians to more children than he could count – war orphans, abandoned infants, youngsters whose families couldn't afford to feed them. Some stayed permanently, becoming part of their extended household. Others remained only long enough to be placed with loving families or trained in useful trades. All of them left knowing they were valued, cared for, and welcomed to return whenever they needed shelter.

It wasn't the legacy Orestes had expected to build, but it was the one that brought him the greatest satisfaction. "Uncle Orestes!" The little girl had spotted him and came running, her face bright with excitement. "Uncle Neoptolemus brought sweets from the market!"

"Did he now?" Orestes scooped her up, spinning her around until she shrieked with laughter. "And did you thank him properly?"

"Yes, and I shared with the others, just like you taught me!"

"Good girl, Penthesilea. You're learning to be quite the proper lady." He'd named her himself, this foundling they'd discovered abandoned at their gate two winters ago. Penthesilea – after the Amazon queen who'd fought at Troy with such courage. It suited her fierce spirit and boundless energy. "Can we stay for supper?" asked one of the older boys, a shepherd's son who visited whenever his duties brought him to this part of the valley. "Cook said she was making honey cakes."

"If your parents approve," Neoptolemus said, joining the group with the patient smile he reserved for their young guests. "But only if you help with the olive sorting first. Fair trade?" The children agreed with enthusiasm, racing off toward the processing area where they could "help" by getting thoroughly covered in olive oil and occasionally putting fruit in the correct baskets.

"You're going to spoil them," Orestes said, though his tone held only affection. "Says the man who bought an entire bolt of silk just to make dresses for the girls in the village," Neoptolemus replied, stealing a quick kiss while the children were distracted.

They stood together in comfortable silence, watching their improvised family scatter across the grove like young animals at play. It was a scene of such domestic contentment that Orestes sometimes had to remind himself it was real, that he hadn't simply dreamed this life into existence through sheer force of wanting. "Pylades has news," he said eventually, sharing what his friend had told him about the potential legislation in Sparta.

Neoptolemus listened with growing amazement, his expression shifting from skepticism to hope to something approaching wonder. "Legal recognition?" he repeated. "After all these years?"

"Hermione thinks it's possible. Probable, even, if we're willing to serve as... what did she call it? Test cases."

"Test cases." Neoptolemus laughed, shaking his head. "Trust Hermione to turn our love affair into a political movement."

"Would you want it?" Orestes asked seriously. "The formal recognition, I mean. The legal protections. All of it." Neoptolemus considered the question, his gaze moving from the children playing in the grove to the villa they'd built together to the sea that had brought them both trade and tranquility.

"Five years ago," he said finally, "I would have said it didn't matter. That what we had was real whether the law recognized it or not."

"And now?"

"Now I think about what happens to Penthesilea if something happens to both of us. I think about our property, our businesses, all the people whose livelihoods depend on what we've built together. I think about the other couples like us, the ones who might come after us." He turned to meet Orestes's eyes. "Yes. I want it. Not because our love needs validation, but because our family deserves protection." *Our family.* The words sent warmth spreading through Orestes's chest. Because that's what they had built, wasn't it? Not just a household or a business partnership, but a family – bound together not by blood but by choice, by love, by the daily decision to care for each other and for those who needed sanctuary. "Then we'll write to Hermione," he said. "Tell her we're honored to be her test cases."

"And if it doesn't work? If the laws don't pass, or they apply to others but not to us?" Orestes looked around at their life – at the prosperous groves and comfortable villa, at the children who called them uncle and the community that had embraced them, at the man who had become his partner in every sense of the word.

"Then we'll continue as we have," he said simply. "Building something beautiful, whether the world acknowledges it or not." That evening, after the children had been fed and sent home with pockets full of sweets, after the workers had been paid and dismissed, after the day's harvest had been tallied and stored, Orestes and Neoptolemus sat on their terrace overlooking the sea.

The stars were brilliant overhead, and the sound of waves against the cliff provided a gentle counterpoint to their quiet conversation. Between them on the table sat Pylades's gift – a amphora of wine from their friend's own vineyard, aged five years and meant to commemorate the anniversary of their life together. "Any regrets?" Neoptolemus asked, raising his cup in their familiar toast.

Orestes considered the question as he always did, taking mental inventory of the choices they'd made and the prices they'd paid. There had been losses, certainly. Old friends who couldn't accept their relationship, political opportunities that had been closed to them, the children they would never have together in the traditional way. But set against those losses were gains he could never have imagined: the deep contentment of a love freely chosen and daily renewed, the satisfaction of building something meaningful with his own hands, the joy of watching their extended family grow and flourish.

"Only one," he said finally.

"What's that?" Orestes smiled, reaching across the table to take Neoptolemus's hand. The bronze bracelet on his wrist caught the starlight, a reminder of promises made and kept.

"That we can't live this life a hundred times over," he said. "That we only get one chance to love this deeply, to be this happy, to build something this beautiful together."

"Greedy," Neoptolemus accused, but his eyes were soft with understanding and shared longing. "Completely," Orestes agreed without shame. "I want forever with you, and forever isn't nearly long enough." They sat in comfortable silence after that, hands linked and hearts full, watching the eternal dance of stars and sea. Tomorrow would bring new challenges – letters to write, decisions to make, the ongoing work of building a life worth living. But tonight, there was only this: the man he loved, the home they'd created, and the quiet satisfaction of choices well made.

In the distance, a nightingale began to sing – a liquid melody that seemed to capture all the hope and happiness that filled the air around their little villa by the sea. And if the song sounded like a blessing, like the approval of whatever gods watched over lovers and dreamers and those brave enough to choose their own path, well...

Perhaps it was.

The son of Agamemnon and the son of Achilles had found their happy ending after all. Not in the grand gestures of legend or the approval of kings, but in the simple, revolutionary act of choosing love over duty, happiness over honor, and each other over everything else the world had to offer.

It was, they both agreed, the best choice they'd ever made.

[sn0wym1nt]

𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒔𝒆

The fields were beautiful, but beauty had teeth. Achilles had long since learned that even in paradise there was no peace, not for him. He sat among the marble ruins, statues of warriors carved in perfect likeness all around him, but he did not see them. He saw only the space where Patroclus should have been, and the space was unbearable.

How cruel it was, that even after death the gods could twist the knife. They had given him this eternity of waiting, of imagining footsteps that never came, of replaying every choice, every betrayal, every moment he had failed. He had chased immortality through blood and fire, only to find himself a shade, hollow and incomplete. The songs were sung, the glory secured—but at what cost? The name Achilles was immortal, yes. The man himself was damned.

When the sound of footsteps did come, he almost did not believe it. Hope was a dangerous thing, and he had been burned by it before. Yet when the figure drew near, when those familiar eyes lifted to meet his, Achilles felt the ground fall away beneath him.

Patroclus.

The name slipped from his lips like a wound reopening, raw and helpless. Patroclus stood before him not as he had been in life, radiant and warm, but as a shade: pale, unfeeling, unbroken by time. His expression was unreadable, carved from the same stone as the statues surrounding them. Achilles rose, every muscle taut, every breath fragile.“I wondered if you would come,” Achilles said, voice trembling. “I wondered if I would ever be forgiven.”

Patroclus’ eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in sorrow deeper than any rage. “Forgiveness?” His tone was soft, yet it cut deeper than any spear. “Do you think that is what this place is for? That eternity grants absolution?” Achilles flinched as though struck. His chest ached, the old grief gnawing at him from within. “I know I wronged you,” he whispered. “I know I left you unguarded, unshielded, when I should have stood at your side. And I have thought of nothing else since the day I saw you fall.”

Patroclus stepped closer. His shade flickered faintly in the eternal glow, and for a moment Achilles thought he might dissolve altogether, lost again. “You mourned me,” Patroclus said, “but you mourned yourself as well. Your rage was never for me—it was for what you lost, for the wound to your pride. Even in your grief, Achilles, you were always chasing your own reflection.”

The words landed heavy, and Achilles’ hands curled into fists. He wanted to protest, to deny, but what use were lies here? Patroclus knew him too well. He always had. He had seen the boy beneath the warrior, the man beneath the legend. And now, he saw the truth that even Achilles could not face. “You burned for glory,” Patroclus continued, his voice steady, “but you let me burn in your place. I took up arms when you would not, and I paid the price. Do you think eternity erases that?”

Achilles’ throat closed. He saw it again—Patroclus in his borrowed armor, cut down, robbed of breath. He remembered the scream that had torn itself from his body, remembered the weight of Hector’s blood on his hands, remembered kneeling over Patroclus’ lifeless form, promising vengeance too late to matter. “I would give it all back,” Achilles said, voice breaking. “Every song, every statue, every drop of honor—if it meant I could stand beside you again, as we were.”

Patroclus’ gaze softened, but it was no mercy. “But we cannot be as we were,” he said. “The gods saw to that. You chose your path, and I chose mine. And even here, in this place without death, we remain what those choices made of us.” Achilles reached for him then, desperate, but his hands passed through shade. The contact was fleeting, insubstantial, like grasping smoke. His heart lurched painfully. He could not touch him, not truly. The distance between them was eternal.

“Then let me suffer it,” Achilles pleaded. “Let me remain here, broken, if only to look upon you. Do not turn from me again.” Patroclus looked at him for a long moment, sorrow etched deep into his features. “You always believed love was possession,” he said softly. “But I am not yours to keep, Achilles. Not anymore.” The words gutted him. Achilles fell to his knees, head bowed, shoulders trembling. The warrior of Troy, the slayer of Hector, undone not by blade but by the gentle cruelty of truth.

“I have nothing left,” Achilles whispered. “Only you. Even in death, only you.” Patroclus’ expression wavered—grief, longing, love, and loss tangled together. He crouched, reached out, and his hand brushed Achilles’ hair as if in memory of touch. Achilles closed his eyes, desperate to pretend it was real, desperate to pretend they had not been damned from the moment fate had named them. “You will always have me,” Patroclus said at last. “But never as you desire. That is the doom we carry, Achilles. To love, and to lose, again and again, until eternity itself grows weary of us.” And then he was gone. The flowers bent where he had stood, the silence rushing back like a tide. Achilles remained kneeling in the dust, his name immortal, his soul forever broken. The fields were beautiful. But beauty had teeth.

The silence after Patroclus vanished was unbearable. Achilles remained kneeling, head bowed, the shade of his love already dissolving into memory. He pressed his fists against the earth, as though he might claw his way down into the roots of the Underworld and drag Patroclus back with sheer force. But Elysium was cruel in its serenity—unchanging, unmoved by grief.

“Again,” Achilles whispered, his voice cracking. “You take him from me again.” He had barely risen to his feet when a shadow fell across the eternal fields. The air shifted, colder, heavier, though the false sun above remained unblinking. Achilles did not need to look to know the presence that lingered—familiar, inevitable.

“Patroclus cannot linger,” came a voice, calm and inexorable. Thanatos, pale and silent as always, stood among the flowers, his scythe gleaming faintly though it bore no blood. “You know this, Achilles. Shades are not yours to bind.” Achilles turned sharply, fury and anguish flaring in his chest. “And what am I, Thanatos? Am I not a shade as well? Why should he be taken when I am left?”

Thanatos regarded him with unreadable eyes, his stillness sharper than any blade. “You are bound by your own bargains. Your name, your legacy—it shackles you here. Patroclus bears no such chain.” The words cut deep, because Achilles knew them to be true. He had chased immortal glory, and in winning it, he had trapped himself. Patroclus had been free, even in death—free to turn away, free to vanish, free to leave him waiting. Still, Achilles’ rage burned. “If the gods think they can part us again, they will find I am not so easily broken.” A new voice answered, sharp and laced with weary authority. “You are already broken, boy.”

Achilles stiffened. From the mist between the columns emerged Hades himself, his presence heavier than iron. The Lord of the Dead moved with deliberate calm, his dark robes whispering against the grass. His eyes, like burning coals, fixed on Achilles with neither pity nor malice. “Your place is here, Achilles,” Hades said. “Patroclus has chosen to drift, to remain apart. That is his will, not mine. Do not mistake absence for cruelty—he is beyond even my reach, when he so chooses.”

“Beyond your reach?” Achilles’ laugh was bitter, jagged. “You rule the Underworld, and yet you speak as if you are powerless. I am not blind, Hades. This is punishment. I am to rot in your fields, while the one piece of me worth saving slips away.” Hades’ gaze did not waver. “You sought eternal fame, not eternal peace. Do not weep now when the gods have granted you what you begged of them.”

Achilles’ hands trembled. His voice broke into a roar, raw and desperate. “What is fame to me now? What is glory when he is gone?” The air stilled. Even Thanatos tilted his head, his lips parting slightly, as though some quiet truth had been laid bare.

It was then that another figure appeared, her presence sharp as steel—Megaera, her whip coiled at her side, her eyes narrowed. She looked between Achilles and the gods, unimpressed, her voice a blade drawn clean. “You wail like Zagreus,” she muttered. “But at least he fights his way forward.” Achilles turned, teeth bared. “Do you mock me, Fury?”

Megaera did not flinch. “I do not mock you. I remind you. You are not the only soul damned to suffer. Do not think yourself singular.” She stepped closer, her tone clipped but not cruel. “If you love him, then carry the pain. That is the price.” The words struck like a lash. Achilles staggered back, shaking his head, his chest heaving as though he had run a hundred battles. “No,” he whispered. “No, I cannot—”

But he could. That was the torment of it. He could endure. He had endured for centuries already, the ache gnawing at him, the memory unyielding. That was his punishment: to live with it, to never escape it, to never lay it down. Patroclus’ absence hung heavier than chains. Achilles felt it like a blade twisting beneath his ribs. He sank back to the stone, his body folding in on itself, and the gods turned away, leaving him to his grief.

Thanatos lingered only a moment longer. His voice was soft, but it carried like a final judgment. “You will see him again. But not as you wish. That is your doom, Achilles. To love him, to lose him, to grasp at him always—and never to hold.” When he vanished, the silence returned. The fields swayed gently, uncaring. Achilles bowed his head into his hands, shoulders trembling, the unyielding warrior undone once more. Elysium was eternal. And so was his torment.

Time in Elysium did not pass as it did in the mortal realm. There was no dawn, no dusk, only an endless shimmer of gold across the fields. Yet for Achilles, the moments dragged heavy, a cruel echo of waiting. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw Patroclus’ shade dissolving into the air. Each time he opened them, he half-expected him to stand there again. But the fields remained empty, the silence absolute.

Achilles could not abide it. He rose, his spear clutched in hand though there was no battle to fight. He began to walk. He wandered through marble colonnades, through rivers that shimmered without current, through groves of laurels and asphodel that stretched into forever. Everywhere he searched, his voice carried low and desperate.

“Patroclus…”

No answer.

He passed the statues of heroes—Theseus, Heracles, and countless others whose names had been etched into song. They stood tall, eternally victorious, their stone visages proud. Achilles sneered at them, his voice sharp with bitterness. “Is this your paradise? Eternal monuments, eternal silence? Where is the love you lost? Where is the truth you bled for?”

The statues did not answer. They never did. He pressed on. His mind burned with memory—Patroclus’ laughter, soft and rare; the way his brow furrowed when chiding him; the way his hand once lingered on Achilles’ shoulder after battle, grounding him when the rage threatened to consume him. Achilles clung to each memory like a drowning man clings to driftwood.

And then—finally—he saw him. Patroclus stood near a riverbank, his reflection wavering in the still water. His posture was quiet, resigned, as though he knew Achilles would find him eventually. When their eyes met, Patroclus did not smile. “You should not have come,” he said softly.

Achilles froze, his chest aching. “How could I not? You vanish, and I am expected to sit idle? No. I would tear this realm apart stone by stone to stand before you again.” Patroclus’ gaze softened, but there was sorrow in it, heavy and unyielding. “You cannot tear apart what has no edges, Achilles. This realm is endless. And so is our divide.”

Achilles stepped forward, trembling, his voice low and raw. “Then end it. End the divide. I cannot—Patroclus, I cannot suffer this silence.” Patroclus turned from him, his reflection breaking across the water. “You suffered it in life, did you not? You chose your pride, your wrath, over the words you should have spoken. You left me unguarded. You let me die.”

The words lanced through him. Achilles staggered, his grip tightening on his spear until his knuckles whitened. “I have paid for it a thousand times over. Every moment without you is punishment enough.” Patroclus finally looked back, his eyes steady, filled with a grief that was endless. “Then perhaps that is what eternity is for you. To understand what you cast aside. To feel it without respite.”

Achilles reached for him then, desperate, his hand brushing against the shade’s shoulder. For the briefest instant, Patroclus felt solid, real. Achilles’ breath caught. “Stay,” he begged. “Just stay.” But then the air shifted. A whip cracked, sharp as thunder. Megaera’s voice rang across the riverbank, cold and merciless.

“Enough.” Achilles spun, fury blazing in his chest, but Megara did not flinch. She stood at the edge of the grove, her whip coiled in hand, her violet eyes hard. “You defy the order of this realm,” she said. “You bind yourself to him when the Fates have decreed otherwise. It cannot be.”

“Cannot?” Achilles spat. “What do the Fates know of love? What do they know of loss?” Megaera’s lip curled faintly. “I know enough to recognize obsession when I see it. You are not mending here, Achilles—you are tearing wounds wider.” He stepped in front of Patroclus, spear raised though his hand shook. “If you mean to take him from me again, Fury, you will find I still remember how to fight.” Patroclus’ voice broke through, soft but urgent. “Achilles—no. Stop.” But the Fury advanced, her expression impassive. “You will learn your place.”

Achilles lunged before he could think. His spear struck the ground where she had stood, but Megaera was faster—her whip lashed, coiling around his arm, searing through even shade-flesh. Achilles roared, pulling against it, but pain flared and Patroclus cried out, stepping forward as though to intervene. “Enough!” Patroclus’ voice cut through the clash. His eyes burned with sorrow, but his words were steady. “If I must go to keep you from defying the realm, then I will go.”

Achilles froze. His chest heaved, the whip still biting into his arm, but the words cut deeper than any wound. “No,” he whispered. “No, not again—” Patroclus looked at him one final time, his shade flickering in the dim glow. “You always reach, Achilles. Always chase what slips through your hands. But some things are not yours to hold.” And with that, he was gone. Dissolved into mist, carried away as though he had never stood there at all.

The whip fell slack. Achilles collapsed to his knees, his spear clattering beside him. His hand clawed at the empty air where Patroclus had been, his breath ragged, broken. Megaera watched him without pity. “Now you understand,” she said quietly. “Love does not absolve you. Not here. Not ever.” She turned and vanished, leaving Achilles trembling by the riverbank, his chest hollow, his eternity darker than before. The fields remained beautiful. The flowers swayed. But Achilles saw only the absence, the endless cycle of reunion and loss. And he knew, with the weight of doom settling on his shoulders, that he would chase Patroclus forever, never to catch him, never to hold him, never to rest.

Achilles did not remember rising. His body acted on fury alone, his heart pounding with a rhythm that had no place in the stillness of Elysium. He shouted Patroclus’ name into the void, his voice cracking, raw with desperation. But there was no answer—only the sway of flowers, the indifferent silence of paradise. The crack of the whip came again, swift and merciless. In an instant the coil wrapped around his chest, binding his arms tight. Achilles staggered, rage burning, but Megaera’s grip was iron. She yanked, and the strength of a Fury was not one he could resist. His knees hit the earth, his spear clattering from his hand.

“Enough of this spectacle,” Megaera hissed, her voice low and edged with scorn. “The House grows tired of your wailing.” Achilles snarled, struggling against the whip until shade-flesh seared under the strain. “You cannot keep him from me! Not you, not Hades, not even the Fates themselves!” Megara leaned down, her violet eyes gleaming. “Watch me.”

With a vicious pull, she dragged him to his feet. The whip tightened around his torso like a serpent, binding him so he could not even reach for the mist where Patroclus had stood. Achilles’ teeth ground together, but for all his legendary strength, he was nothing here—no more than another soul bound by death. She hauled him through the fields, the flowers bowing beneath their steps. Achilles’ body writhed, his voice breaking in ragged cries. “Patroclus! Patroclus!”

But there was nothing. No answer, no figure, only absence. The walk stretched endless, the world of Elysium blurring at the edges until the mists deepened. Marble gave way to black stone, the eternal glow fading into shadows colder, heavier. They passed through gates wrought in iron, and suddenly Achilles’ chest constricted—he knew where she dragged him.

The House of Hades.

The great hall yawned open before them, its obsidian pillars etched with crimson fire. Shades lingered in the corners, their whispers muted, their eyes downcast. The braziers cast long shadows across the floor, where the Lord of the Dead himself sat upon his throne, silent and immovable. Megara strode forward, dragging her prize behind her. She cast Achilles down at the foot of the steps, the whip unraveling with a snap. He fell hard, his knees striking the cold stone. His breath came ragged, his hair damp against his face, his hands trembling as he pressed them to the floor.

Hades regarded him with calm disdain. “Once again,” he said, his voice like rolling stone, “you forget your place.” Achilles lifted his head, his eyes burning, his voice hoarse with grief. “My place is at his side. Yet you deny me even that.” Hades’ gaze did not falter. “Your place is where your choices have bound you. You pursued glory in life, and so glory is your prison. Do not curse me for your chains.”

Achilles’ hands curled into fists, his voice trembling. “What use is glory without him? What use is eternity when every breath is absence?” Thanatos emerged from the shadows then, his scythe gleaming faintly in the firelight. His face was unreadable, but his tone was final. “This is the lesson you will learn, Achilles. Love is not spared by death. It is fractured by it. And still you must endure.” Megaera crossed her arms, her lip curling faintly. “Perhaps Zagreus was right,” she muttered. “Perhaps some souls do not belong in Elysium at all.”

Achilles’ chest heaved, his gaze darting between them, but he had no weapon, no shield, no words strong enough to pierce their judgment. The weight of the Underworld pressed down on him, heavier than any armor. He bowed his head at last, though it was not surrender—it was despair. In the quiet that followed, the only sound was his whisper, broken and trembling.

“Patroclus…”

The name echoed through the hall, thin and hollow, swallowed by the stone. And the House of Hades remained silent. Achilles paced the confines of his chamber in the House, every step echoing like a hammer on stone. The chamber was no cell, not truly—it was lined with scrolls and benches, a room for reflection and obedience. But to him, it was a prison all the same. His spear had been taken, his armor stripped. His only company was silence and the weight of memory. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw Patroclus fading into the mist of Elysium, his name falling into nothingness. The fields of gold had turned to ash in his mind, beauty swallowed by loss. He pressed his forehead to the cold wall, his breath ragged.

“You belong to the House,” Megaera’s voice still rang in his ears. “Not to him. Not anymore.” He wanted to rip her words apart, to carve them from existence with his bare hands. Yet when Thanatos’ shadow passed by his door, Achilles could only grit his teeth and choke back another cry. Thanatos paused at the threshold, his voice soft, almost pitying. “The more you resist, the worse it will be. Hades does not yield.”

Achilles turned his head, eyes blazing. “And you—do you yield? Does even Death itself bow before his will?” Thanatos’ silence was answer enough. He departed without a word, leaving Achilles to collapse against the wall, his hands trembling as he whispered Patroclus’ name like a prayer that could not reach the heavens.

Time passed, though how much he could not tell. The House measured eternity not in hours but in suffering. Achilles carried out his duties as he once did, standing as trainer to Zagreus, a mentor bound in chains unseen. His voice was calm, his face composed, but the moment his ward departed, the mask would crack. His shoulders slumped, his hands shook, his eyes fell hollow. Each night he returned to the chamber, haunted by echoes. In the distance he sometimes heard Zagreus speaking to Patroclus in Elysium—tales carried back on whispers. It was a torment unlike any other, knowing his beloved was there, so close, yet never his to touch.

One evening, Zagreus lingered after training. His crimson eyes softened as he studied Achilles’ face. “I saw him,” he said, almost hesitant. “Patroclus. He speaks of you often.” Achilles froze. His hands clenched around the hilt of a wooden practice blade until it cracked. “Do not,” he rasped, voice raw. “Do not speak his name before me unless you mean to strike me down with it.”

But Zagreus only bowed his head. “He waits. Perhaps not for long, but… he waits.” Achilles turned away sharply, but his vision blurred. He leaned against the pillar, chest heaving with silent sobs. His curse was not death, nor the gods, nor even Hades’ chains. It was hope—that cruelest of torments, that fragile lie that kept him breathing when he longed to be nothing at all. The night of reckoning came without warning. Achilles had just dismissed Zagreus when the great hall stirred with an unease that silenced every shade. The braziers guttered, shadows lengthened, and the Lord of the Dead himself summoned him.

Achilles ascended the steps slowly, each footfall heavy as stone. Hades’ gaze burned like iron smelted in the forge. “You defy me even in silence,” the god said. “You dwell on Elysium when your place is here. This cannot continue.” From the shadows, Megaera appeared, whip coiled and ready. Thanatos stood at the far side, his face unreadable, yet his eyes carried the weight of inevitability. “You will be severed,” Hades declared, the hall reverberating with his voice. “No memory, no longing. You will forget him, Achilles. Only then will your service be whole.”

The words struck harder than any spear. Achilles staggered, fury and terror tearing through him. “No,” he breathed, then louder—“No! Take my body, take my soul, bind me to your throne for all eternity, but do not take him from me!” Megaera’s whip lashed out, searing his flesh as it coiled around him once more. He screamed, not from pain but from the knowledge of what was to come. Thanatos stepped forward, scythe gleaming in the firelight. “Forgive me,” Thanatos whispered, and with one swift motion, he brought the blade down—not to kill, but to sever.

White fire exploded in Achilles’ mind. Memories shattered—Patroclus’ laugh, his touch, the scent of his hair, the sound of his voice—all ripped away like pages torn from a book. Achilles collapsed, writhing, his cries echoing through the hall until only silence remained. When it was done, he lay motionless. His eyes opened, but they were empty. Hades’ voice rumbled, final and cold. “Now you will serve.”

The shades went about their duties once more. The House resumed its endless rhythm. And in Elysium, Patroclus waited still, staring at the horizon, sensing something gone but never knowing why his chest ached with absence.

Patroclus lingered at the edge of the asphodel fields, unease gnawing at him. Something had shifted in the air of Elysium; he could not name it, only feel it, like a crack running through stone. The eternal breeze whispered over the meadow, but its music was wrong, discordant. His chest ached, though he could not say why.

Then, one day, the horizon rippled, and from the mist emerged a figure he knew more surely than the beat of his heart. His breath caught.

Achilles.

Armor dulled, face drawn, eyes empty of fire, yet still him—still the man Patroclus had loved beyond war and ruin. His legs carried him forward before thought could form. The flowers bent beneath his steps as he called out, voice breaking.

“Achilles!”

The name soared over the fields like a prayer, trembling with hope and grief all at once. He closed the distance, reaching—hands desperate, eyes wide with longing. Achilles paused, spear dragging faintly in his grasp. He looked at Patroclus, gaze steady, impassive, as though staring at a stranger. No flicker of recognition crossed his features.

Patroclus stopped short, his outstretched hand trembling in the air. “It’s me,” he whispered, voice fragile. “Don’t you see? It’s me. Patroclus. I’ve waited, all this time… I’ve waited for you.” Achilles tilted his head slightly, like one who hears a language but cannot grasp its meaning. He frowned, polite but distant. “I am sorry,” he said at last, his voice low, stripped of warmth. “You mistake me for another.”

The words struck harder than any spear. Patroclus staggered back, chest hollowing as if torn apart from within. His throat tightened, and for a moment he could not breathe. “No,” he choked, shaking his head violently. “No, you can’t have forgotten. Not you. Not us.” But Achilles only turned his gaze back toward the endless horizon, as if drawn by a command beyond himself. His eyes were calm, but they were empty—emptied by force, by decree, by cruelty.

Patroclus’ knees buckled, and he sank into the flowers, hands clawing at the earth. “Why?” he gasped to the sky, to the gods, to the House that had stolen what little eternity had left them. His tears fell soundless on the asphodel, vanishing like dew. Achilles lingered only a moment longer. Then, with the slow, steady gait of one bound by unseen chains, he walked away into the mist, leaving Patroclus behind. Patroclus watched until his figure was swallowed by the haze, the emptiness in his chest spreading until it threatened to devour him whole. Elysium stretched on, golden and bright, but its light no longer warmed him.

For what is paradise, when love is forgotten?