Chapter 9 - CHANGED: Sold To Whom?(2)

Helenos slammed the door to his chamber and leaned against the cold stone of the corridor. His body was shaking violently, racked by a terror that went far beyond mere physical discomfort. It was a failure of the soul.

Menelaia.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't plan. He couldn't think. All he felt was the crushing weight of the timeline initiating the disaster, and the sickening realization that he was utterly, irrevocably weak.

He needed a moment of silence. He needed someone to lean to.

He slipped down the back staircase, and quietly ran, reaching the stable area where the air was thick with hay, with the smell of earth.

He found Lysandra near the back stalls, inspecting Hera’s saddle.

She wasn't preparing it for a grand parade; she was switching out the heavy, ceremonial leather for a plain, light endurance harness—a peculiar and highly suspicious change for a war-mare who was usually only used for show.

Lysandra’s body was taut with an unusual tension. She was focused, her back to him, but her movements were quick, efficient, and filled with a rare, anxious energy.

Helenos didn't speak. He walked swiftly behind her and, driven by pure, frantic instinct—the desperate need for physical grounding and uncomplicated comfort—he wrapped his arms around her waist and clung to her tunic.

Lysandra froze instantly. Her back went stiff. Helenos felt a strange, momentary heat radiate from her neck.

“Prince,” Lysandra hissed, her voice a sharp exhalation of surprise that bordered on a gasp. He felt her muscles tense as she struggled to maintain her composure.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered, burying his face in the rough wool of her tunic. His carefully constructed facade of indifference, the only thing he had left, had completely dissolved. “I can’t. She’s coming. She’s going to own me. I can’t think. I I can’t be brave, Lysandra.”

Lysandra’s initial tension gave way to a brief, almost imperceptible tremor before she regained control. He felt her hands hover over his, uncertainly, then pull back.

“Let go, Helenos,” she said, the urgency back in her voice, but this time, laced with a strange, nervous flutter that betrayed her shock. “You must let go. Someone will see. This cannot happen.”

“I don’t care,” Helenos pleaded, holding tighter for one more agonizing moment. He knew he was being selfish, dangerous, and utterly stupid. I just need to stop the noise. I need the feeling of solid, non-terrified reality for one second.

“Stop.”

The coldness of her last sentence cut through his fear. He finally loosened his grip instantly, stepping back as if burned. The cold reality of their vast social difference, and the forbidden nature of their contact, settled over him.

“I—I apologize, Lysandra,” Helenos stammered, his face flooding with shame. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m just terrified.”

Lysandra quickly turned, her movements efficient. She deliberately avoided his eyes, focusing instead on the strap of the harness. Her cheeks were slightly flushed—a subtle, alarming sign of the extreme stress the contact had caused her.

“The Queen is selling me to Menelaia at dawn tomorrow,” Helenos explained, his voice flat now, filled with fatalism. “Leda says she is going to sell me like a wine. She doesn’t love me like a son, she looks at me as if I am a piece of jewelry that could be sold away with a price”

Lysandra stopped her work entirely. She raised her head, her eyes finally meeting his, and there was a flash of something in them—a deep, complex emotion.

“You believe she sees you as a currency, a card to be sold,” Lysandra echoed, her voice low and heavy. “But she does not. She loves you, Helenos. She believes in the prophecy of your perfection, and she loves you so fiercely that she would defy the gods to keep you safe from this marriage.”

Before she could continue, a sharp, ragged sob cut through the quiet of the stable.

“Helenos!”

Leda stood framed in the stable doorway, her silk robes flowing, her face terrifyingly naked of all royal pretense. She was weeping—not the strategic tears of a Queen, but the raw, shaking sorrow of a mother whose world had just ended. She had been searching for him.

Clytemnestra stood silently behind Leda, her arms crossed beneath her chest, her dark eyes fixed on Helenos. A faint, cold smirk touched the corner of her lips, like a look of complete, unsurprised judgment.

Leda didn't run to him immediately. She simply stood there, staring—not at the saddle, but at the space between Helenos and Lysandra, at the visible tremor in her son's body, and the shame on his face.

“…”

“Helen…os,” Leda choked out.

She stepped forward, her eyes fixed entirely on Helenos. She did not look at Lysandra, who remained frozen, head bowed, the picture of professional neutrality.

“Why… Why…”

“…I was trying to stop it,” Leda whispered, the words ragged. “I bought time. I defied the counsel of the Elders. I told Menelaia she would have to wait. I was going to send you to a shrine, anywhere, until I could find a path free of this curse! I was going to risk war to keep you from her.”

She walked toward him slowly, her movements heavy with despair.

“And you,” she whispered, her voice snapping with sudden, agonizing betrayal. Clytemnestra shifted her weight, the smirk hardening. “You… you run from my fear and have a.. a relationship a slave?”

Leda reached out and snatched his wrist, pulling his hand away from the stall post. Her eyes were not filled with rage at the devaluation of a prize, but with profound, shattering disappointment in her son's perceived choice.

“You contaminated yourself,” Leda choked out, tears streaming down her face. “You broke the sacred oath of purity I swore to the Swan Queen for you. You threw away the one thing that made you worth fighting for. The one thing that made you untouchable in the eyes of the gods and the men who would claim you!”

She released his wrist only to grab his shoulders, shaking him once, violently.

“I did everything for you!” Leda screamed. “Every breath, every diplomatic lie, every act of defiance was to keep you safe, to keep you whole, to keep you free from the hands of these conquerors! And you chose to betray me with a moment of dirt and filth! You chose this disgrace!”

He felt Clytemnestra’s cold gaze pressing down on him from behind Leda, judging his humiliation.

“Go!” Leda shrieked, pointing toward the door. “Go to your rooms! Clean yourself! I want you to look flawless for her! I want you to be so perfect that she never doubts the purity of the prize she is claiming!”

Leda’s voice dropped to a final, devastating whisper, filled with crushing despair. “The consequence of your choice. You have given me a reason to surrender. She can take you. I am done with you.”

Helenos, humiliated, terrified, and crushed by the burden of his mother’s shattered love, fled.

***

Leda remained kneeling for a long, shuddering minute, her sobs echoing in the sudden silence. Clytemnestra finally stepped forward and placed a hand on Leda's shoulder, pulling her up with unsympathetic strength.

“Mother, please. The matter is settled,” Clytemnestra said, her voice sharp and final. She then turned her cold eyes to the stable door, where a pair of palace guards now stood, alerted by Leda's screams.

Clytemnestra pointed a commanding finger at the bowed, motionless figure of Lysandra.

“You,” Clytemnestra called out, her voice cutting through the silence. “The slave who soiled the Prince. You have contaminated royal property. Guards! Take this slave to the subterranean cells. She is to be held without food or water until the Spartan Queen leaves. Her fate will be decided by the new owner of the prize.”

The two palace guards moved immediately. They roughly hauled Lysandra to her feet. Lysandra did not resist. Her body, though strong, offered no struggle. She simply allowed the guards to bind her wrists with a leather thong. Her eyes, however, remained fixed on Clytemnestra, a depth of chilling understanding in their gaze that Clytemnestra either missed or deliberately ignored.

Clytemnestra led her sobbing mother away toward the palace interior.

The stable was left dusty, quiet, and now completely empty save for the horses. Lysandra, the stable hand, was gone—not vanished, but dragged away to the deepest prison, a direct casualty of Helenos's low mental strength and his desperate need for comfort.

Helenos was alone.

Only with his fate trailing right behind him.

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I read your comments. I knew the pace got a bit too fast… but I didn’t wanted to change it. But after seeing your advices, I change my thoughts. Hope you like this.

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