The fabric smells of cedar. It sways around your hips as you move, hem whispering over the tiled floor, and your mother’s hands are at your hair—gentle, but firm, gathering dark strands into a knot that will not fall loose when the wind comes. You sit before the bronze mirror, back straight as a column, the sea a pale silver beyond the latticework. You do not look at her. Not yet.

“It will be hot in Aulis,” she says. “Salt and sun. Bring oil for your skin.”

Her fingers work steadily. Clytemnestra finds a curl that’s slipped free and tucks it back behind your ear. You wonder if she notices how your shoulders have gone stiff, how your throat has grown tight with the weight of unsaid things.

You were not meant to wake to this.

And yet here you are—ankle-bracelets chiming, lips stained faintly with pomegranate, the soft press of bridal linen around your ribs. There are garlands in the courtyard. Your younger sisters whisper behind pillars. And Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus, Queen of Mycenae, wife to the High King, stands behind you with a mother’s eyes and a warrior’s spine.

She reaches for a pin—gold, shaped like a swan’s wing—and slides it into place.

“Achilles is a good match,” she says, voice like low-tuned lyre strings. “And fair. Gods help us, the boy is fair. You’ve seen him.”

You nod, once. You have. But not closely. Not as one sees a man she will marry.

“Your father says he is willing.” Her tone shifts—mild, measured. But her hands have stilled. “I suppose that must count for something.”

You see her in the mirror now. The crease between her brows. The way her gaze sharpens, flickers, falters. You know that look. It is the one she wears when she smells a trick on the wind.

“I was younger than you when I was wed,” she says, almost absently, adjusting the fall of your himation. “There was no time for sweet speeches. They tied me to him like a tethered mare. And still I bore him children. Built him a household. Learned the weight of a king’s silence.”

Clytemnestra exhales, presses her palms to your shoulders. Warm. Steady.

“But you—you—my Iphigenia, you are wanted.” Her voice softens. “There is joy in that. Take it. Take what joy the gods allow.”

She smooths the fabric of your sleeve. Straightens the band across your brow. Then she leans down, close, and kisses your temple.

“I have seen too many girls go to their husbands like oxen to yoke,” she murmurs. “You do not walk like them. You will not be yoked. Understand?”

And yet—her hands linger on you. Cling, just for a moment too long.