The sun hung low over Phthia, a coin slipping from the fingers of the gods, casting long golden ribbons across the courtyards and porticoes of the palace. Evening approached not with haste, but with reverence, as if even the dying day wished to linger here, where the bloodline of heroes walked and breathed.

Achilles had wandered from the training fields, his limbs still warm from motion, the faint sheen of sweat at his temples catching the light like polished bronze. The others—soldiers, boys, servants—had long since dispersed. But Achilles often remained, trailing his own silence through the marble halls, drawn more to stillness than the voices of those around him.

It was on such an evening, when the world softened at the edges, that he saw her.

She knelt near the threshold of the storage wing, half-shadowed by stone and ivy, the soft scrape of her work the only sound in the corridor. Her hands moved deftly among the amphorae, tending, sorting, lifting with strength hidden by grace. Her dress was plain, wool dyed the color of pressed figs, fraying at the hem—but the way it moved with her, as if shaped to the breath of her body, struck him oddly, like the faint ache of remembered music.

Achilles stopped, half-hidden behind a pillar’s breadth. He had never seen her before—not among the linens, nor in the kitchens, nor at the foot of the queen’s halls. A new servant, then. Another offering from one of the vassal households, or perhaps a gift to Peleus from a lesser noble, meant to earn favor in some future war.

But she moved like one who did not know she was watched.

He observed the line of her shoulder, the way it tensed and relaxed with rhythm, not with fear. There was no trembling in her fingers, no downward glance to feign humility. She was young—perhaps his own age—but carried herself like a hill carries the weight of snow: steady, unbroken.

Something in Achilles twisted.

Not desire—he had known that before, in fleeting ways, crude and forgettable. Not awe, though her presence was quiet and ancient, like earth turned by a plough. It was something else. Something harder to name.

She reached for a pail of water, lifting it with a strength that startled him. Not a flicker of complaint. Not a sound. Her eyes—dark, reflecting the dimming sky—never rose to meet his, and yet they unsettled him. As if she already knew he was there. As if she had known all along.

He stood for too long. The breeze coiled around him, lifting a lock of his hair from his brow. He did not speak. Words felt suddenly foolish, too heavy for the space she occupied with such stillness. A prince’s voice, in that moment, would have been like a torch flung into sacred silence.

So he remained voiceless, watching.

She turned from her task, gathering the linen cloths she had washed. Her hands, stained faintly with the green of herbs, moved with care—too much care for common rags. Achilles saw that, too. That she did not rush. That even in service, she offered grace. A priestess might fold her gods' vestments this way.

And then she left, her steps light but not hurried. No glance behind her.

He stayed where he was, long after the corridor had emptied. The stone beneath his feet cooled, and the weight of night began to gather in the corners of the palace. But he did not move.

He was Achilles, son of Peleus, heir to a kingdom and a prophecy older than bronze. Yet in that fading light, he felt small—newly made. As though the gods had placed something in his path not to conquer, but to be undone by.

That night, he did not sleep easily. The lamps of his chamber flickered low, and the sea wind rustled the curtains like whispers. He tried to turn his mind to the next day’s drills, the weight of his spear in hand, the precise arc of a strike. But again and again, unbidden, the memory returned.