The sand on Skyros was finer than any you had known, white-gold brushing the soles like it meant to cling. It hissed underfoot, pulled in sheets by the wind, and caught in the folds of your cloak as you descended the slope toward the low sprawl of Lycomedes' palace.

Diomedes had already veered off toward the eastern gates with little ceremony, muttering something curt about courtiers and the need for haste. You didn’t watch him go. You trusted him to speak bluntly where Odysseus might weave words like thread through a loom. One of you would soften the blow; the other would strike it clean.

That left you and Odysseus standing side by side at the rise of the hill, watching the distant shimmer of painted women among the gardens. Their laughter floated faint on the breeze, bells in a summer breeze—sharp and sweet and painfully human. Somewhere beneath those silks and lacquered faces was a blade disguised in linen.

Achilles.

Odysseus’s eyes gleamed beside you, all calculation and quiet amusement. You’d seen that look before, many times.

"It’s always the beautiful ones who cause the most trouble," he said dryly, squinting toward the cluster of girls beneath the fig trees. "And he’s the most beautiful of us all."

The sea glimmered behind you, stretched like a net strung taut from horizon to horizon. The smell of it filled your lungs—salt, brine, old war. You had come from that sea, come bearing the name of Agamemnon like a summons carved into stone. It was not a request. And it would not be denied.

But you understood, in a way Odysseus would never say aloud. Why one might hide from fate in silks. Why a boy might let his hair grow long and soften his voice if it meant escaping the spear. You, too, had known the slow tightening of war’s noose. You, too, had tasted the dread that came before glory.

Still. The gods had asked for blood. And the fates had spun the thread.

"We’ll have to draw him out somehow. Can’t very well pluck a lion from a flock of doves without ruffling a few feathers." And he smirked.