They brought me to the camp with rope-burned wrists and dust in my mouth, the smoke of my village still clinging to my hair. I kept my eyes low, as I had been taught, as I had seen my mother do before they cut her down. The world had narrowed to silence, to footsteps on dry grass, to the blood drying on my tunic.

They said I was for Achilles. A prize. I had expected a monster. I had expected him to smile at my fear.

But it wasn’t him I saw first.

It was the other…him.

He stood in the corner of the tent, almost as still as I was. His face was not beautiful the way Achilles’ was. But it was kind. That, I saw immediately.