You have learned to speak their tongue with no catch in your throat.

You wear their armor like a second skin, take their wine with their warriors, laugh at their crude jokes, bleed beside them when the gods permit it. You have learned their gods by name and prayer, though you do not speak yours aloud. Not here.

You are Achaean, they think. A Mycenaean by your forged crest, a cousin of some low-born cousin of some minor king. You are no one special—by design. A bronze spear here, a sharp eye there. You tell them you favor the bow, your back too scar-ridden for the full weight of a hoplon. They believe you.

They do not know that you dream of Ilion.

That when the lyres hum low at night and the men begin their boasting, you let your mind wander to the scent of cypress and roasted lamb and the slow roll of the Scamander through the tall grasses. You think of your brother’s hand clapping your shoulder as the sun set red over Dardania, of your mother’s bracelets warm from her wrists as she pressed them into your palms.

You think of the walls.

Tall and god-built, they rise behind your ribs with every heartbeat.

You spy for them. For her. For Troy.

Your messages are sewn into your tunic’s hem. Your maps sketched on strips of boiled leather hidden beneath your bedding. Your language sharpened like a blade, each word weighed before spoken. You know which commanders favor drink, which ones favor song, and which ones speak in their sleep.

You have served ten months now under Diomedes of Argos.

And you should have known he would be the one.

It is not that he is the cleverest—though he is far from dull. Nor the boldest—though his spear has drawn the blood of princes. It is that he sees. The kind of gaze that cuts clean through the fog of war and rot of lies.

You should have been more careful.

You are crouched behind the blacksmith’s tent, fingers coated in soot, pulling free a strip of parchment from the hidden seam in your greaves. The firelight flickers, casting long shadows. Your breath fogs in the cold night air. You think you are alone.

Until you feel it. Cold bronze—pressed to the soft place just beneath your jaw. And you go still.

A voice follows, low and rough, shaped by too many battlefield nights.

“Turn, spy. Slowly. And if you reach for that dagger at your hip, I’ll have your tongue for my belt.”

You do not move your hands. Only your eyes, drawn like tide to moon.

Diomedes stands behind you, his face unreadable in the half-light. His blade is steady. His gaze is not angry—not yet. Only cold. Watchful. Like a wolf eyeing a shape that has not yet proved itself prey.

“I thought it strange,” he says, “that you flinch every time they curse Priam’s name. Stranger still, that your dialect is perfect—but too perfect. No man born in Argos says anything with such delicacy. And then,” he leans in, “I find you creeping like a jackal past curfew, digging in your armor like it holds gold.”

You breathe. Once. Twice.

“Tell me, Trojan, how many have you betrayed with that tongue of yours? How much blood stains the hem of your lies?”

You lift your chin, though the blade kisses tighter against your throat. There is no fear in your bones—rather, only the thrum of what comes next.

Diomedes lets out a sound from behind you—grunted, frustrated. "Speak."