War has raged outside the walls of Troy for the past seven years. Safe inside the royal palace, Briseis, a spirited young Trojan princess, sits back as her famous cousins, Hector and Paris, fight against the Greeks, who encroach upon Troy's borders...
"What's your name?" Briseis' eyes blinked open. A brilliant, blue sky studded with golden stars, too vibrant and perfect to be real, domed over her head. The stars swirled around, bumped, and blurred into each other.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I asked you what your name is?" Her back was propped up by a mountain of feather cushions. They were so soft that she would have been happy to sink into them and never get up. "Did you not hear me?" A man stood at the table across from her, holding a pitcher. Briseis's parched throat ached. The sound of pouring water was an exquisite torment. "Or have you lost your voice?" Briseis opened her mouth, but all that came out was a weak croak. The man...Achilles...her captor...stepped forward with a glass of water, one last act of mercy before he killed her. Even a condemned man gets his last meal. Achilles held the cup to Briseis's lips. The water might be poisoned, her means of execution, but she didn't care. If she didn't have anything to drink, she might crumble to dust and blow away. So she gulped down the whole cupful until she started to cough. "My name is Briseis," she managed to say once she caught her breath. Achilles put the cup down on the nightstand. "So you've found your voice again?" "My father is Prince Anchises of Troy." If Briseis was going to die, she should let the Greeks know who to return her body to since chivalry dictated that they allow her to have a proper burial. "King Priam is my uncle." As if she hadn't said anything, Achilles went back to the table where he'd been standing. He unbuttoned his padded arming doublet and put it on the table where the rest of his armor was laid out. Blood rushed to Briseis's cheeks when he untucked his shirt from his braies and hose and pulled it over his head. How dare he undress in front of her as she were a servant. Maybe he didn't want to soil his clothes with the blood of a defenseless woman?
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
