Helen’s heart skipped as the door opened. Her throat went tight and her breathing stuttered, explanations already welling up and falling away from her lips, useless—but of course, as it had been all the other nights that she slunk away from her husband’s side to seek refuge far from the roar of conversation, it was only Paris.
Only Paris, if such a thing could be said about such a man.
He smiled as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, those lips Helen loved to kiss parting, teeth gleaming, eyes creasing so warmly on his face that Helen could feel it from across the room like sunlight on her skin. At once, the fear that rode in on thoughts of discovery and the icy dread for tomorrow vanished, and for just a moment, all that remained was Paris and her.
But just for a moment. It was hard to forget where they were, surrounded as they were by the house of her husband. No matter the thick animal skins draped on the floors and the silks hung from the ceiling, it was impossible to hide those dark stone walls of Menalaos’ home.
Paris came to a stop just in front of her, and she could see every black curl crowning his head, every dark eyelash, every tiny blemish that couldn’t be seen from a distance. She loved those the best, the little flaws that so few people ever noticed. She could have admired him for hours as she’d done before, tracing a finger over each faded scar from acne not left alone, running her tongue along the chip in a bottom tooth that came from falling off a horse, pressing her lips to the pinkish lines that curled along his torso from a too-fast growth spurt in his youth. She’d memorized them all in the time that Paris had come to stay in Sparta, cradling each murmured explanation close to her heart as he offered them to her.
She would miss them.
“You came.” Paris sounded almost surprised, the way he did every time he found her waiting in his chambers. He also sounded happy.
“Of course.” Helen’s voice was barely above a whisper, but still it felt too loud in the room, silent of all but the crackling of flames from the fireplace. She resisted the urge to check that the door was locked. She would not let her paranoia waste her only chance to truly say goodbye to him.
But now, in this final visit the night before his ship departed once more for the distant city of Troy, the words she had were failing her. There was so much she wanted to tell him, to thank him, to beg of him—more than she could fit in these few final hours or even in the few months that he’d been hosted in her husband’s home. They all clawed their way into her throat at once and lodged there, and when Helen’s mouth opened, nothing came out.
If she didn’t already love him, she would have loved him for the way his face fell in concern for her, his strong brows drawn together and lips turned down, shadowed deeply by the light that came only from the fireplace beside him. He reached forward and cupped her face with his hands, and—she could smell the olive oil on his skin—he asked, “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and reached up to grab his wrists, holding them in place, keeping his hands on her face. She could feel his pulse beneath her fingers. Paris wiped a thumb under her eye, smearing the tears that had begun to fall.
Finally, she managed, “I do not want to say goodbye.”
“Oh.” It was like the word was punched out of him. He let his head fall forward until their foreheads rested against each other, and all Helen could see was his eyes looking back at her, shining. “I’d nearly forgotten.”
It took all the strength she had in her to find the will to continue, and even then she spent a few moments just trying to find words that didn’t make her mouth taste like sand. Paris’ breath was sweet from dinner wine. She shuddered.
“I will miss you,” she told him at last. “Every moment I’ll spend without you I will spend in misery.”
Paris moved his face until it was pressed against her loosened braids. Her face rested on his neck, and she could feel where a beard was beginning to grow in, prickly and soft. “Misery is the last thing I want to bring you.”
“I was already miserable.” His hands tightened, then loosened immediately; she bit back a sob as she continued, “And I survived, just as I’ll survive once more when you leave.”
“I don’t want you to just survive,” Paris said into her hair. “I want you to be happy.”
“You’ve made me happy. It’s enough. It’s more than I ever believed I’d have.”
“I would save you from him.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, raising his head. His eyes were glossy and almost wild as he looked down at her, as he asked both her and himself, “Why can’t I? Why can’t we be happy?”
The question rang in her head like a shout down an empty cave, dark and echoing. She didn’t have an answer for him. All she knew was that was the way things were. She didn’t know why.
Paris must have seen it in her face, the uncertainty. He must have, because he took her hands in his hands, holding them together, and he said her name in a voice more urgent and serious than she’d ever heard him use before.
“Helen,” he said, “Please, will you come with me?”
“What?” She pulled away. He didn’t try to stop her but kept watching with that desperate fervor about him as she took a stumbling step back, grabbing hold of a bed post for balance. The walls in the room towered high around them, and she felt so small holding onto the bed. The fireplace crackled.
“You don’t have to live like this, locked up away from the world. You can be happy,” Paris told her, and she shook her head, closing her eyes like that would keep his words out, keep her from hearing him say, “You deserve to be happy.”
“I can’t just leave,” she said. Her nails dug into the wood of the post. “I’m married. I’m the queen.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Paris said. “None of that matters.”
She heard him move. When she opened her eyes, Paris had drawn close once more, so close she could feel the heat of him through both their robes as he waited for her to speak. She didn’t, not right away, choosing instead to reach out again a trembling hand and allow Paris to recapture it between his own. Her hand looked so pale against his.
“Paris, I—” Her voice broke before she could finish. Paris squeezed her hand. She took a deep breath that shuddered the whole way in.
Helen knew she had to say no. She knew she couldn’t go with him, even if every inch of her yearned to agree and follow him wherever he would go. She couldn’t. She belonged here, at Menalaos’ side—
But then, why her? Any woman could stand beside him, beautiful and silent. Any golden tripod or prize cow could be the trophy he paraded around in his show of power, any body could fill the cold space on the other side of his bed. It didn’t have to be her.
But this—this had to be her. Paris was not asking anyone else. Just her.
“Helen,” he said her name like it was her name, not the title of some untouchable goddess to invoke with closed eyes or a priceless artifact to be hoarded away in a darkened treasury. Helen. Two syllables off his tongue and into the air between them, and it didn’t make those few inches seem any wider than before.
“Please,” his voice was as tender as the way he cradled her hands, as soft, “Please, will you come with me?”
She wanted that life with him, being loved and loving in return. Being looked in the eyes and called by her name, being asked questions and listened to for the answer, being held kindly in the mornings and nights. She wanted it terribly, the sort of way she wanted things when she was still a child and didn’t understand what it meant to be a beautiful woman, the cage that would be.
“Yes,” Helen said, and the smile Paris gave her felt like staring into the sun.