Warrior Rising (Goddess Summoning #6)(93)

Then his awful words registered on the group and the woman who must be Priam’s wife, the mother of Hector and Paris and Polyxena, threw herself onto the floor at the king’s feet while she tore her hair and wailed. The other woman who had been embracing her didn’t make a sound, but crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

“Get Astyanax. Holding Hector’s son will help her survive this,” ordered the young man as he came into the room.

“Yes, Lord Paris.” A crying servant hurried to do his bidding.

Paris rushed to the fallen woman, whose eyelids were beginning to flutter weakly. He lifted her and carried her to a chaise not far from Priam’s throne. Then Kat was in the young man’s arms. She hugged him hard and she could feel the tremors that went through his body. “You are alive… You are alive,” he whispered over and over, his warm breath mixing with the tears that dampened her hair.

Kat couldn’t do any more than nod. Her mind was in tumult. Her heart felt as if it was shattering over and over.

There was a sobbing gasp from behind them, and Paris released his sister reluctantly, moving back to the chaise. “Andromache, I’ve sent for your son,” Paris spoke softly to the reviving woman. “Astyanax is being brought to you.” He touched her cheek and then he drew himself up and slowly, almost painfully, he turned to his father.

The king was stroking his wife’s hair. Her face was buried in his knees and her wails had become broken sobs. Priam’s face was absolutely expressionless.

“Father,” Paris said brokenly, wiping the back of his sleeve across his face. “He’s dead, Father.”

The old monarch’s eyes rested briefly on his youngest son. His blank expression did not change, but he focused his gaze over Paris’s shoulder as if he was looking into the past.

“You should take your sister to her chamber. I cannot see you when I am mourning my son.” Priam’s voice wasn’t cruel, but it, like his face, was devoid of expression, which made it all the more terrible.

Paris seemed to crumple in on himself. “Father, I am your son, too.”

“Yes, that is something the gods will never let me forget,” Priam said. “Go now. Return to my presence only when I call for you.” He paused, and then added, “Take your woman with you.”

“Come, sister.” Paris held out his hand for hers and, not knowing what else to do, Kat took it and let him lead her from Priam’s throne room. As they passed Helen, she fell into step on Paris’s other side. Kat saw that she kept her head bowed, as if she was trying to obscure her face with her shining hair.

They walked silently through a marble-floored hallway, past several lovely, airy rooms. It was as if despair walked with them. All around them sounds of women crying echoed in the magnificent palace. Finally they came to a silver-inlayed door and Paris stopped.

“I will send maidservants to see to you,” Paris said. His cheeks were still wet and his voice was rough with emotion. “I’m so glad they didn’t kill you, little Xena.”

And as it had been for the brief time she’d been with Hector, she could tell that Paris had loved Polyxena, too. Impulsively she hugged him. “Thank you,” Kat whispered.

Paris clung to her. “It’s my fault,” he said brokenly. “I caused his death. I caused all of their deaths.”

Kat pitied him. He was really not much more than a teenager—he must only have been thirteen or fourteen when he’d taken Helen from the Greeks. These two kids had started a war that had gone on for almost a decade? It hadn’t taken meeting Agamemnon and his cronies for Kat to know what utter bullshit that was. She shook her head at the sad young man. “No, Paris, it’s gone way beyond being your fault.”

“Come, love. Polyxena needs to bathe and rest. Come with me, sweetest one,” Helen coaxed in a voice like poured honey.

Still sobbing, Paris nodded and stumbled away mostly supported by Helen’s arm around his waist.

Kat entered the chamber untouched by its splendor and stood numbly while she waited for the maidservants to come to her. They were there in minutes, grim-faced women who treated her reverently, but who kept breaking into sobs. Kat let them bathe, anoint and dress her in a simple silk robe. They left her wine and food and then, amid whispers and sobs, seemed to melt away.

Feeling detached and unfocused, Kat walked across the room to a huge, arched open window. Gauzy gold curtains picked up what was obviously the light from a fading sun, and shimmered evening colors of rust and orange and yellow. Sounds of fighting men drifted with the warm breeze and Kat stepped out onto a balcony that perched above the front walls of Troy, commanding an amazing view of the battlefield. She didn’t let her eyes look at it, though, just like she didn’t let her ears acknowledge that the one voice she could hear above all the other cries and clashing of two armies was the one that had possessed her Achilles. Instead she gazed beyond everything to the distant, watery horizon and the sun that was dying into the sea. She stared at it until the tears that blurred her vision filled her eyes, spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

Then through grief and noise and confusion Kat heard another sound. Her mind picked it up as it washed over her like clear, cool water over smooth river stones. Something about it reached her, soothed her and brought her subconscious the answer before her thinking mind understood it.

There was a clanking followed by many click-click-clicks, and then a familiar groan she’d heard only once before, when she’d ridden Hector’s wounded stallion through the opening gates of Troy.