The meeting with Lord Antenor changed nothing and everything.
Helios had walked into the noble's estate expecting traps. Instead, he found an old man with kind eyes and a quiet voice, who asked about his mother, his training, his thoughts on the city's defenses. Antenor listened more than he spoke. At the end, he simply said: "If you ever need protection, my house will offer it."
No demands. No strings. Just an offer.
Helios didn't trust it. In his past life, kindness from powerful people always came with a price. But he nodded, thanked the lord, and walked home with a heavy feeling in his chest.
They're watching me now, he thought. The nobles. The council. Maybe even the king.
He was right. Two weeks later, the war found him.
---
The Achaeans had landed at the mouth of the Scamander River.
Not a full army—not yet. A raiding party, five hundred strong, testing Troy's defenses. They had burned three villages and were marching toward the western plain. The Trojan army was scrambling to respond.
Helios heard the news from Androkles, who came to the courtyard at dawn with a grim face.
"They're calling up everyone who can hold a spear," the scarred man said. "Even the reserves. Even the boys."
"I'm not a boy."
Androkles looked at him. "You're nine."
"In years. Not in anything that matters."
The scarred man was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded. "Your mother won't forgive me."
"My mother knows what I am."
"Does she?"
Helios didn't answer. He went inside to strap on his sword.
---
FLASHBACK — SIX MONTHS EARLIER
The night after the Luwian raid, Karya had sat him down at the kitchen table. An oil lamp flickered between them, casting shadows on her tired face.
"There's something I should have given you long ago," she said.
She reached into a wooden chest and pulled out a small leather pouch. Old. Worn. Tied with a leather cord that had turned dark with age.
"The priestesses of Apollo gave me this the night you were born. They said it came from the temple's inner sanctum. That it was meant for you."
She untied the pouch and poured the contents onto the table.
A pendant. Gold, circular, smaller than a coin. Etched with symbols Helios didn't recognize—the sun, a bow, a lyre, a laurel branch. And two small blades, folded, no larger than his thumb, nestled in the leather like sleeping children.
Helios picked up the pendant. It was warm. Warmer than it should have been.
"What are they?" he asked.
"The priestesses didn't say. Only that you would know when to use them."
He touched one of the folded blades. It unfolded in his hand—smooth, silent, extending into a short sword of golden-white metal that seemed to drink the lamplight. The blade hummed. His fingers tingled.
"They're mine," he said. Not a question. A fact.
Karya nodded. "They've been waiting for you."
Helios folded the blade back. It collapsed into its tiny form, fitting perfectly into the pendant's housing. He slipped the cord around his neck. The pendant rested against his chest, warm and alive.
"Thank you," he said.
Karya touched his cheek. "I don't know what you're going to become. But I know you were meant for something bigger than this city. Bigger than me." Her eyes were wet. "Just... don't forget where you came from."
Helios covered her hand with his own. "I won't."
He had worn the pendant every day since.
---
END FLASHBACK
---
The battlefield was not what Helios expected.
In his past life, he had seen war through screens—drone footage, news reports, Hollywood battles. Clean. Distant. Editable.
This was not clean.
The western plain stretched wide and flat, browned by summer heat. The Achaean raiders had formed a crude line—spearmen in front, archers behind, a handful of mounted scouts on the flanks. They were not professional soldiers. Pirates, mostly. Men who fought for plunder, not glory.
But they had numbers. And they had nothing to lose.
The Trojan force was smaller—three hundred foot soldiers, fifty archers, a cavalry unit that hadn't arrived yet. Helios stood in the second rank, behind a shield wall of men twice his size. His bronze sword felt heavy in his hand. His pendant was warm against his chest.
Androkles was beside him. "Stay close. Don't be a hero."
"I'm not a hero."
"Good. Heroes die."
The Achaeans advanced.
---
The first clash was chaos.
Shields slammed together. Spears thrust through gaps. Men screamed—in rage, in fear, in pain. Helios smelled blood and sweat and shit. Someone stepped on his foot. Someone else fell against him, then staggered away with an arrow in his shoulder.
He couldn't see. Couldn't think. The press of bodies was too tight, the noise too loud.
This is not training, he realized. This is survival.
An Achaean broke through the shield wall—a big man with a bearded axe, swinging wildly. He cut down a Trojan soldier and turned toward Helios.
Helios moved.
Not fast. Not slow. Exactly.
He stepped inside the axe's arc, let the blade whistle past his ear, and drove his sword into the man's throat. The Achaean gurgled, dropped his axe, and fell.
Blood sprayed across Helios's face. Warm. Salty.
He didn't have time to wipe it off. Another Achaean was coming.
---
The battle lasted two hours.
Helios lost count of how many men he killed. Five. Maybe six. He stopped keeping track after the third. His body moved on its own—cut, parry, pivot, thrust. His mind floated somewhere above the chaos, watching, analyzing, surviving.
At some point, his pendant grew hot. Not uncomfortably—powerfully. He felt a warmth spread through his chest, down his arms, into his sword. The bronze blade began to glow—faintly, golden, impossible.
An Achaean saw it. His eyes went wide. "Demon—"
Helios cut him down.
The glow faded. But the damage was done. Men on both sides had seen it. Whispers spread through the line: The boy is burning. The boy is not human.
The Achaeans broke first.
Their line collapsed. Men turned and ran, dropping shields, throwing away spears. The Trojans chased them across the plain, cutting down the stragglers.
Helios did not chase. He stood in the blood-soaked grass, breathing hard, sword dripping.
Androkles appeared beside him. The scarred man had a gash on his arm and a wild look in his eyes.
"You're glowing," Androkles said.
"I know."
"What does it mean?"
Helios looked at his sword. The bronze was still warm, still faintly golden. He touched his pendant. It was cooling now, settling back to normal.
"I don't know," he said. "But I think I'm about to find out."
---
That night, the camp was alive with stories.
The Trojans had won. Not decisively—the Achaeans would be back—but enough to celebrate. Men drank watered wine and roasted a stolen goat and talked about the battle.
They talked about Helios.
"The boy killed six men."
"Seven. I saw him cut down a giant."
"He was burning. His sword was on fire."
"Son of a god. Has to be."
Helios sat apart from the fires, cleaning his sword with a strip of cloth. He didn't want to hear the stories. He didn't want to be a legend. He just wanted to survive.
Androkles sat down beside him.
"You're not going to be able to hide from this," the scarred man said.
"I'm not hiding."
"You're sitting in the dark, alone, while everyone else is celebrating. That's hiding."
Helios looked at him. "What do you want me to do? Dance? Sing? Tell them I'm just a normal boy?"
"You're not normal."
"I know."
"Then stop pretending." Androkles took the sword from Helios's hands and set it aside. "You have a gift. Or a curse. Or whatever you want to call it. But it's yours. And if you don't claim it, someone else will."
Helios stared at the fire. The flames flickered, gold and red, and for a moment he thought he saw faces in them—old faces, from his past life. Colleagues. Competitors. People he had beaten and people who had beaten him.
"I don't know what I am," he said.
"Then find out." Androkles stood. "But don't do it alone. That's how men become monsters."
He walked back to the fire, leaving Helios alone with the dark and the stars.
---
Lysander was waiting at the house when Helios returned.
The boy had heard about the battle. His face was pale.
"They're saying you killed a dozen men."
"Half that."
"Still." Lysander swallowed. "Are you okay?"
Helios thought about it. His body was tired. His mind was numb. But underneath the exhaustion, something was stirring—a warmth, a light, a question that had no answer yet.
"I don't know," he said. "But I'm alive."
"That's enough?"
"For now."
Lysander nodded slowly. "Can I still train with you? Even though you're... whatever you are?"
Helios almost smiled. "Especially because I'm whatever I am."
Lysander grinned—the same crooked grin he always had. "Good. Because I'm not scared of you."
"You should be."
"Maybe. But I'm not."
He ran off into the night, leaving Helios alone on the doorstep.
Helios touched his pendant. The gold was warm, pulsing gently, like a second heartbeat.
Whatever I am, he thought, I'm still me.
He went inside to find his mother.
---
END OF CHAPTER NINE