Blood On The Styx – Penn Cassidy

My father celebrated my ‘first kill’ with a feast. The court poets composed verses about my courage. By the next day, the dead thief was forgotten, and I was being trained to kill more efficiently.” “That’s horrible,” I whispered. To my surprise, he didn’t take offense. “It was my life. The only one I ever knew.

Thetis was pleased. She saw it as the first step on my path to glory.” He looked down at his own hands—large, strong, made for violence. “She would visit me sometimes, appearing from the sea foam. She never embraced me, never spoke words of com- fort. She spoke only of my destiny.” I studied him, for the first time seeing beyond the legendary war- rior to the small, lonely boy who had been so deliberately warped into this perfect instrument of death.

For the first time, I felt some- thing other than fear or hatred. Something dangerously close to pity. “What was your father like?” Achilles took the wine cup back. “Peleus was conflicted. He was immensely proud of my strength. But sometimes, I’d catch him watching me with something like worry, or maybe it was fear.” He set the cup down. “Once, when I was twelve, I overheard him argu- ing with my mother.

He told her I was becoming something inhu- man, that my eyes were empty when I fought.” “And what did she say?” “She said that inhumanity was precisely the point. That I was never meant to be merely mortal. She reminded him that he’d chosen to marry a goddess, not a simple woman.

And that their son was destined for glory, not happiness.” “As if the two are mutually exclusive,” I murmured. Achilles’s lips curved in a sad, knowing smile that, for the first time, reached his eyes. “Aren’t they, Princess? Name one hero from the old stories who ever managed to find both.” I opened my mouth but found no counter-example. All the great heroes died young, violently, or utterly alone.

“I used to think I had no choice,” I said finally. “That my path was set by my birth, my fam- ily, the rigid expectations of Sparta.” “And now?” “Now I know there’s always a choice. It may be between two ter- rible options, but it’s still a choice.” I gestured around the tent. “I chose to follow Helen to Troy. And you, Achilles, you choose to kill for a tyrant king.”

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Formatted with Vellum 1kitap1.com/en CONTENTS Introduction Pronunciation Guide Foreword Prologue Chapter 1 Penelope Chapter 2 Hector Chapter 3 Achilles Chapter 4 Penelope Chapter 5 Hector Chapter 6 Penelope Chapter 7 Achilles Chapter 8 Hector Chapter 9 Penelope Chapter 10 Penelope Chapter 11 Achilles Chapter 12 Hector Chapter 13 Penelope Chapter 14 Hector Chapter 15 Achilles Chapter 16 Penelope Chapter 17 Hector Chapter 18 Achilles Chapter 19 Penelope Chapter 20 Penelope Chapter 21 Achilles Chapter 22 Hector Chapter 23 Achilles Chapter 24 Penelope Chapter 25 Achilles Chapter 26 Penelope Chapter 27 Penelope Chapter 28 Hector Chapter 29 Achilles Chapter 30 Penelope Chapter 31 Achilles Chapter 32 Penelope Chapter 33 Penelope Chapter 34 Hector Chapter 35 Achilles Chapter 36 Penelope Chapter 37 Hector Chapter 38 Penelope Epilogue Where to find me 1kitap1.com/en INTRODUCTION They call my cousin the face that launched a thousand ships.

To me, Helen was just family, and my only job was to stop her from setting the world on fire. She did it anyway. When she ran off with a Trojan prince, I made a choice. I followed her into the heart of an enemy city, becoming a traitor to my own people. I gave up my home, my future, and my betrothal, all to pro- tect the one person who always seemed destined for ruin.

I thought I was prepared for the consequences, but I was wrong. I never expected to find an ally in Prince Hector, the commander of Troy’s armies. He was my enemy, a man I should have feared. But in the quiet moments between battles, we discovered a connection that felt dangerously real.

He was the calm in a storm I didn’t know was coming. That all changed when Achilles captured me. The golden demigod, the butcher of the beach. He told me I was nothing but a spoil of war, a prize to be claimed.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: c420e6c08f1684b2
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,673,421 bytes (2.55 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 333
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 535.66 minutes
• Total Words: 107,133
• Total Characters: 608,269
• Average Words per Page: 321.72
• Average Characters per Page: 1826.63

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