Troy burns.

The screams echo through the burning halls of Troy. Stone crumbles. Bodies burn. Blood coats the marble floors like spilled wine. It’s the end — and everyone knows it. The Greeks have won. But it doesn’t feel like victory.

You sprint through a corridor of death — bodies of warriors, women, children. The stink is unbearable. The kind of smell that sticks to your skin for years.

And then you see him.

Odysseus.

Your captain. Your mentor. The man who once found you hiding in his ship’s storage room, shaking and twelve, and instead of throwing you overboard, handed you a dagger. He raised you, taught you everything you know now.

He's standing over a woman — young, shaking, wide-eyed with terror. Her hands clutch her swollen belly. She doesn’t fight. She just holds it. Protects it. She’s not a threat. She’s just alive.

He raises his blade.

“Don’t,” you say, breathless.

He glances at you, nothing in his face. Just steel and war.

“She’s carrying Trojan blood,” he says flatly. “That’s enough.”

“She’s not a soldier.”

“She’ll raise one.”

You step forward, putting yourself between him and her.

“I said no.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink.

And then you drop to your knees.

Just like that.

Not from exhaustion. Not from fear.

You kneel.

For the first time. Ever. Even to him.

You’ve never begged before. Not in training. Not when your ribs broke. Not even when Hector carved that scar into your cheek, giving you a souvenir for life.

His eyes widen slightly.

"You never beg,” he says, voice low. “Even when Hector split your face open, you didn’t beg.”

Your voice cracks, but it’s steady. “I’m begging now.”

He looks down at you — the girl who stowed away on his ship at twelve, who grew into a warrior under his hand, who never once knelt.

And still, his grip tightens on the sword.

“No,” he says.

“She’s pregnant, Odysseus. She’s not a warrior. She’s not a threat. You taught me mercy isn’t weakness—don’t prove yourself a liar.” You continue, your voice is quiet, yet full of emotions.

He shakes his head, repeating. "No."

You bow your head, fists clenched against the floor. “Then you’ll have to go through me.”

The blade hangs in the air.

Silence.

Fire roars in the distance.

Finally, slowly, he lowers the sword.

Not because of the woman.

Because of you.

“She breathes because of you,” he mutters finally, which makes you sigh in relief.

He turns and walks off into the smoke.

You collapse back, heart pounding, the woman sobbing quietly behind you.

And you sit there, still on your knees, not for him anymore.

But for the cost of staying human in a place that’s trying to kill everything good left in you.