Heir of Troy: The Third Son

The city woke to grey skies and the smell of rain coming in from the sea.

The winter had been long, longer than anyone could remember. The old men said the gods were holding their breath, waiting for something. The women said the cold had settled into the stones themselves, that the walls would never be warm again. The children didn’t say anything. They had learned to keep their voices low, to watch the horizon, to listen for the sound of ships that never came.

But today, there was news.

Ampelos arrived at the palace just after dawn, his cloak wet with sea spray, his face tight with something that was not quite fear and not quite hope. He went straight to the war room, and within the hour, the others had gathered.

Hector was already there, standing over the map. Paris came in from the eastern wall, his bow still in his hand, his fingers raw from the morning’s practice. Arsini arrived with Helen, the two of them carrying tablets and scrolls—the endless accounting that kept the city alive. Miros stood near the door, his useless arm bound against his chest, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

"The Greek fleet has not sailed," Ampelos said without preamble. "My contacts report confusion in their camp. Disputes among the kings. Some of them are threatening to withdraw their ships."

"Withdraw." Hector’s voice was flat. "Why."

"The Sea Peoples. Agamemnon’s son attacked a settlement in the northern islands. Burned it to the ground. Killed everyone." Ampelos paused. "The Greek kings are not happy. They fear retaliation. They fear their own shores will be attacked while they’re at Troy. The coalition is fracturing."

"Fracturing," Paris repeated. He set his bow against the wall. "This could be our chance."

"It could be." Hector did not take his eyes from the map. "Or it could be the thing that brings them to our gates sooner. If Agamemnon fears the Sea Peoples are about to attack his allies, he may decide to strike Troy quickly before dealing with them. A short war. A fast victory to hold the coalition together."

"Can he do that."

"He has fifty thousand men and Achilles. He can do whatever he wants." Hector finally looked up. "What else does the intelligence say."

"The Sea Peoples have gathered. All of them. Every tribe. Every chieftain. They’re moving west, toward the Greek coast." Ampelos’s voice was grim. "They say they will burn every city from the coast to the mountains. They say they will not stop until they reach Mycenae."

The room was silent. Arsini set her tablets down on the table, her face pale. "They’re going to attack Greece first."

"Before they come for us."

"Or instead of coming for us." Hector traced a line on the map with his finger—the coastline of Greece, the islands of the Aegean, the distant shape of Troy on its hill. "If the Sea Peoples attack the Greek coast, Agamemnon has two choices. He can sail to defend his allies, abandoning the war against us. Or he can sail to Troy, leaving his allies to burn." He paused. "Either way, we have time. Time we didn’t have before."

"Time for what," Paris asked.

"Time for Lysander to return. Time for the walls to be strengthened. Time for the allies to send their ships." Hector’s voice was steady, but there was something underneath it—a sliver of hope that he was trying very hard to contain. "We’ve been preparing for this war for two years. If the Greeks are delayed by the Sea Peoples, we use that delay."

"And if they’re not delayed," Arsini said. "If Agamemnon decides to ignore the Sea Peoples and strike us anyway."

"Then we fight. Same as we always planned." Hector looked at her. "The walls are ready. The fire ships are ready. The cauldrons are in place. We’ve done everything we can do. Now we wait for him to make his move."

Paris walked the eastern wall in the grey afternoon, his bow in his hand, his eyes scanning the horizon. The sea was choppy, the waves tipped with white. A storm was building somewhere far out, beyond the edge of sight. He could feel it in the wind, the way it shifted and pressed against the stone.

Antenor found him there, silent as always. The old hunter had a way of appearing without sound, of standing beside a man without announcing himself. Paris had stopped being startled by it weeks ago.

"You’re restless," Antenor said.

"I’m always restless."

"Today more than usual."

Paris lowered his bow and turned to look at the sea. "The Greeks are fighting among themselves. The Sea Peoples are marching on their coast. And we’re here, waiting, wondering which storm will reach us first."

"That’s war. Waiting and wondering. The fighting is the easy part."

"The easy part." Paris almost laughed. "You’ve been in more battles than I can count, and you call the fighting easy."

"Fighting is simple. You draw the bow. You loose the arrow. You hit or you miss. There’s no ambiguity." Antenor leaned against the wall, his weathered hands resting on the stone. "Waiting is different. Waiting gives your mind time to imagine all the ways you might die. All the ways the people you love might die. That’s the hard part."

Paris was silent for a moment. "How do you do it. How do you wait without going mad."

"Who says I haven’t gone mad." Antenor’s mouth twitched in something that was almost a smile. "The madness is just quieter now. I’ve learned to live with it."

"That’s not comforting."

"It wasn’t meant to be." Antenor pushed himself off the wall. "Now draw your bow. The light is fading, and you still need to practice shooting into the wind. If the Greeks come, the wind will be against you. Better to learn now."

Paris drew his bow. The string bit into his fingers. The wind pressed against him, cold and insistent. He sighted down the arrow at a target that Antenor had set up near the far tower—a straw dummy wrapped in old sailcloth, swaying slightly in the breeze.

He released.

The arrow flew wide, caught by the wind, and clattered against the stone below the target.

"Again," Antenor said.

The supply office was quiet in the late afternoon. The lamps were burning low, and the smell of clay and old parchment hung in the air. Helen had been working since dawn, cataloguing the medical supplies with the meticulous care of someone who understood that numbers could mean the difference between life and death.

Arsini was across the table, going through the grain reports. She had not spoken in over an hour, her brow furrowed with concentration. Lysander’s absence hung over the room like a shadow. Neither of them had said his name since he left. Neither of them wanted to be the first to break the silence.

"There’s a problem," Helen said finally.

Arsini looked up. "What kind of problem."

"The wound supplies. The dressings for deep cuts—the kind that need to be packed and wrapped. We have less than I thought. The last shipment from Caria was supposed to include two hundred measures of linen, but the manifest shows only one hundred and forty." Helen set the tablet down. "If the Greeks attack and we have mass casualties, we’ll run out of dressings within weeks."

"Can we make more. We have flax in the stores. The women in the settlement can weave."

"They can. But it takes time. And the flax in the stores is already allocated for other purposes—clothing, tent repairs, sail cloth." Helen paused. "I can reallocate some of it. It’ll mean fewer new tunics for the militia, but they’ll survive. The wounded won’t."

Arsini stared at her. "You’ve been here for weeks, and you already understand the supply chain better than half the men on the council."

"I’ve had good teachers." Helen smiled faintly. "And I’ve had a lot of time to learn."

"Time." Arsini set down her own tablet. "We keep saying that. Time. We need time. Time for the walls to hold. Time for the allies to arrive. Time for Lysander to come back." She stopped, her voice catching on his name. "And meanwhile, we count grain and linen and hope the numbers add up."

"The numbers always add up," Helen said quietly. "It’s the people who don’t."

They sat in silence for a while, the lamps burning low, the sound of the city filtering through the walls—the distant hammer of the smiths, the cry of gulls over the harbour, the low murmur of voices in the corridors. Ordinary sounds. The sounds of a city that was still alive, still breathing, still refusing to surrender.

"When this is over," Arsini said, "if we survive... what do you want to do."

Helen considered the question. "I want to see the sea from the tower. The way Paris described it in his letters, years ago. Before all of this."

"And after that."

"I don’t know. I’ve never been good at imagining the future. I’ve spent so much of my life just trying to survive the present." She paused. "What about you."

Arsini was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "I want to open a school in the settlement. Not one of the existing ones—a new one. For the children of the refugees. The ones who lost their parents in the crossings. The ones who have no one else."

"You already have schools."

"I have schools that teach reading and arithmetic. I want one that teaches other things. How to tell a story. How to remember where you came from. How to make something beautiful out of something broken." She smiled, a small, sad smile. "I don’t know if that makes sense."

"It makes perfect sense." Helen looked at her. "You’ll do it. When this is over, you’ll build that school."

"You sound certain."

"I am certain. You’re too stubborn not to."

Arsini laughed—a real laugh, the first in days. It felt good. It felt like a small rebellion against the fear that had settled into the city’s bones.

Cassandra stood at the edge of the temple courtyard, her face turned toward the sea. The evening had turned cold, and the wind was coming in from the north, carrying the smell of rain. She had been there for hours, her bare feet on the cold stone, her dark hair loose around her shoulders.

She was not alone. The old priestess from the temple had come out to check on her, had wrapped a cloak around her shoulders, had offered her food and water. Cassandra had accepted the cloak but refused the rest. She could not eat. Not when the threads were pulled so tight.

"The thread under the earth," she murmured to herself. "It’s moving. It’s almost reached its end."

The old priestess looked at her but said nothing. She had learned long ago not to ask Cassandra to explain.

"He’s close," Cassandra continued. "Lysander. He’s reached the seventh door. The final test. The thing that has been waiting for him since before the walls were built." She paused. "I can’t see it clearly. I can only feel the weight of it. The importance."

"Will he come back," the priestess asked.

Cassandra was silent for a long time. Then she said, "He will come back changed. Whether that change is a gift or a curse... I cannot see."

She turned from the sea, toward the northern towers, where the watchmen stood their posts through the cold night. The fires were low, just visible in the gathering darkness. Three points of light against the darkening sky.

"Something is coming," she said. "Not just the Greeks. Not just the Sea Peoples. Something else. Something that has been waiting for this moment since the beginning."

She fell silent. The wind stirred her hair. The first drops of rain began to fall.

The fires appeared at midnight.

The watchman on the northern tower saw them first—three points of light, far out on the plain beyond the walls. Not the signal fires of the coastal watch. Not the cooking fires of the settlement. Something else. Something moving.

He called out, and the other watchmen came running. They stood on the wall in the rain, peering into the darkness, trying to understand what they were seeing.

"What is it," one of them asked.

"I don’t know," the first watchman said. "But it’s moving. And it’s coming this way."

The fires grew brighter. Closer. The watchmen could see shapes now—dark figures on the plain, carrying torches, moving in a long, ragged line toward the city.

Not an army. Not a fleet. Something else.

One of the watchmen ran for the war room, his feet slipping on the wet stone. The others stayed on the wall, their eyes fixed on the approaching lights, their hands tightening on their spears.

The fires came on.

And in the temple courtyard, Cassandra opened her eyes and spoke a single word, so quiet that no one heard it over the sound of the rain.

"They’re here."