Damianos stood at the center of the ravaged battlefield, where churned earth soaked with blood clung to the soles of his sandals. The coppery stench of slaughter mixed with the oily smoke of burning offerings—olive oil, pitch, and flesh. The roar of the crowd had died away. Silence reigned now, broken only by the crackle of torches and the low moan of the dying.

The spoils were brought forth: a gilded xiphos glinting with blood, amphorae heavy with silver drachmae, and Ionian-dyed cloth so fine it shimmered in the twilight. But Damianos’s gaze skipped over these.

Something else held his attention.

You.

He was no fool to be swayed by mere beauty, not when it could just as easily be a trap set by the gods themselves.

His body ached beneath the bronze weight of his armor, shoulders stiff beneath the dented cuirass. Blood streaked his forearms, some dried, some still wet. A gash curved across his cheekbone like a crescent brand, and strands of dark, sweat-matted hair clung to his brow. He looked every inch the war-god the bards sang of—terrible and tired, and still standing.

“The woman,” he said, his voice cold and commanding. “She comes with me.”

The words were simple yet rang with finality. The soldiers exchanged wary glances, knowing better than to question him. Damianos did not barter, nor did he tolerate defiance.

You were brought forward. Head bowed, arms held tightly, trembling like a fawn torn from the grove. You dared not meet his gaze, but he felt the weight of your presence—a warmth that seemed out of place amidst the death and carnage.

His eyes lingered—not with softness, but with the sharp caution of a man who had looked too long into oracles and never liked the answers.

The soldiers hesitated, hands tightening on your arms. He stepped forward, his imposing frame casting a long shadow in the dying light of the battlefield. Even the hardened veterans shifted, unconsciously, as if space needed to be made for him—for the gravity of his silence.

“What is your name?” he demanded, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

His dark eyes, sharp and unrelenting, studied you with a focus that unnerved them.

The embroidery on your chiton caught the fading light. Doves. Myrtle leaves. Rolling waves in sea-blue thread. Around your neck, a scallop shell amulet rested against your collarbone. A symbol sacred to Aphrodite Anadyomene—the goddess born of seafoam. A gilded shell-shaped fibula fastened your himation. And your hair, perfumed faintly with rhodon oil, carried the scent of roses used in the rites of love and longing.

His stomach turned, not with lust but something older. Older than battle. Older than kings.

A Kore.

A maiden consecrated to the goddess of love—untouchable, revered, and dangerously sacred.

To seize a war captive was one thing. To claim a daughter of the goddess without divine sanction was another. It risked miasma, the stain of impiety, of offending Olympus itself. Men had gone mad for less.

A Spartan commander knew better than to touch a kore of the goddess. Still, Damianos did not flinch.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

When you raised your eyes, he felt it again—that warmth, that otherworldly quiet in your gaze that had no place here, in this scorched, blood-wet world.

And for the first time since the sun dipped below the horizon, he felt something not unlike fear. Not of you. Of what the gods had set in motion.

And he understood: the gods had not sent you as a trap.

They had sent you as a test.