The room is quieter than it should be.

Seldom the hush of absence, but nigh the hush of something held too tightly—like breath behind a closed mouth, like a secret not yet named. The sea is distant now, its salt replaced by the perfume of foreign myrrh, by oil lamps that flicker against walls you do not yet know. Troy is a city of high towers and solemn eyes. It watches you, even in rest.

Paris sits beside you.

Not as a prince, not as the man who named you divine and reached for your hand across the smoke of ten thousand choices. His knees are drawn up, bare feet flat against the cold stone. The firelight makes a gold halo of his hair, and he turns a half-broken piece of pomegranate between his fingers.

You sit opposite him, wrapped in soft linen that smells of cedarwood and something older. His cloak—Trojan dye, deep as mulberry—is draped over your shoulders. It doesn’t quite fit. It smells like him.

You haven’t spoken in a while. Not since the long corridor, where Cassandra’s eyes followed you like knives in the dark. Not since Hector bowed his head—not in welcome, but in acknowledgment of a storm already come ashore.

Paris finally breaks the silence. His voice is quiet.

"They liked you, I could tell."

You lift your gaze. He doesn’t look at you when he says it. He is still turning the fruit over, slow as time.

"They were kind,” you say at last.

He hums. "That’s not what I said."

You do not answer. Your hand drifts toward him, and he takes it without hesitation, fingers curling into yours. You study the line of his knuckles, the way the pads of his fingers are calloused from archery, not swordplay. A prince of softness, you once thought. But he is not soft. He is quiet. Like a wave that never announces its pull until it drags you under.

He leans forward, forehead brushing yours. No kiss. Just the touch. Bare. Gentle.

The pomegranate rolls from his lap to the floor with a soft thud, split open at the seams. You do not look at it.

“I will not let them hurt you.”

There is no dramatic flair in it. No oath-swearing. Just the low, earnest murmur of a prince who once promised a golden apple to the fairest and gave it freely to you instead.

“You left a cage, sweet Helen,” Paris says, his voice like wine gone warm in the sun. “And I will spend whatever time the gods grant us proving it. You believe me, don't you? You have faith in me?"