For the Most Beautiful by Emily Hauser Page A

tiles of the floor.
    Suddenly a loud, echoing crash resounded through the halls of the palace.
    â€˜What was that?’
    I started up. Lygdon was staring at the closed doors of the Great Hall.
    The sound came again – a shuddering, bellowing crash, like an earthquake.
    â€˜Lygdon – what is happening?’ I demanded again, clutching at the edges of the altar.
    He turned back to me, gripping the handle of his axe. ‘It sounds – it sounds as if—’ He shook his head.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜It sounds as if the Greeks are ramming the gates of the upper city.’
    My mouth went dry. ‘What shall we do?’ I whispered.
    Before Lygdon could answer, a splintering blast of breaking wood split the air, then a creaking, shuddering, heaving sound as the gates were forced open, followed by cheers and roars and the pounding of feet against earth.
    â€˜They’re in,’ Lygdon said, stunned. ‘The Greeks are through.’ He turned to me. ‘Come with me, Princess, quickly – we have to get you to the back gate.’
    I could hear Lyrnessan soldiers in the corridors beyond the Great Hall regrouping, interspersed with sounds of clashing metal that sent a chill of terror through my entire body. I prayed with all my heart that one of them was Mynes, that he was still alive …
    I slipped from the altar, numbly, my legs barely moving beneath me.
    Lygdon placed his hand upon the bolt of the door and held out his other arm towards me. ‘Come, Princess, quickly!’
    I could hear fighting, the clash of swords and spears ringing through the echoing halls of the palace, nearer and nearer. I half ran, half stumbled towards Lygdon …
    And then I froze.
    The whole palace was suddenly deathly silent.
    And the silence was more terrifying still because it meant there was no one left to fight. None, except Lygdon.
    Then came the sound.
    Boo-oom.
    The hall reverberated with physical shock. Something had struck the double bronze doors with enough force to make a visible dent in the moulded metalwork.
    Lygdon leapt away and raised his axe, tightening his grip. I fell back towards the altar, my fingers white as I clung to the riveted edge.
    Then it came again.
    Boo-oom.
    The dent was larger, hollow, caving in.
    Boom. Boom. Boom.
    And then—
    A fist punched through the door with impossible strength, and the metal gave a shattering, booming sound like the crashing of a wave on to the shore as it split. Two hands thrust through and pulled away the bronze, ribboning it into curving folds of shining metal as easily as if it were soft clay. And in the hole there stood a man.
    And yet it was not a man. His eyes glittered in the dark, the skin of his arms and chest tight over smooth muscles, like a shining young snake. His strangeness was painfully gorgeous, his slim height framed by the gap in the door.
    There was a second of silence in which Lygdon took in the full impact of the man before him. Then he let out a whisper, like the slice of a blade on the air: ‘Achilles.’
    The man reared towards the ceiling as Lygdon charged – and it was so fast I did not even see it, beyond a flash of steel and the spurt of blood from Lygdon’s neck. Achilles was past him before he had even hit the floor.
    My skin was wet with the cold sweat of fear, my fingers slipping against the stone of the altar, every instinct screaming at me to run, yet I knew I had nowhere to go. The beam of moonlight filtered down from the circular opening in the roof above the hearth directly on to the altar top, and caught my thin white robe in its glow.
    Achilles saw me. I felt his dark eyes lock on to mine and I knew that the end had come, and I prayed for death. Death over slavery. Anything over becoming a Greek slave.
    â€˜Apulunas, god of the Trojans, our protector,’ I whispered, through the dry spittle on my lips, and I made the sign of the goddess of luck again with my fingers, my hands trembling