Behind the timeless tale you know is the captivating story you never heard: a sweeping epic in which Troy’s strong, yet misunderstood women take center stage in the most famous war in history.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from A. D. Rhine’s Horses of Fire, which is out July 18th.
I know the stories they will tell. I’ve heard the echoes of their songs–songs that will outlive us all. But this song is not theirs. It is mine.
Andromache is cast as the doting wife of Prince Hector, yet her Amazon warrior name means “battler of men.” The only one with the cunning to outwit the invading Greeks, she must gather a band of outcasts and become the military commander she was born to be before the life she and Hector have built is reduced to ashes. Rhea is a war refugee and a horse whisperer who finally earns a place and sense of belonging in Hector’s stables. To save her new home, she must become an unlikely spy and face down a forbidden love that will test all her loyalties. Helen is blamed by all for starting the Trojan War, but no one knows her real story. To escape her tormentor and foil a plot to undermine Hector, Helen must risk everything by revealing her true face to the one who despises her most.
Set in the wider landscape of the late Bronze Age collapse, this realistic and immersive Troy is a perilous battleground for warriors and politicians alike, not a playground where the fate of men and women make sport for gods and goddesses. It’s a harrowing novel of palace intrigue, the transcendent bond of female friendship, and the everyday bravery of invisible heroes in times of war.
The women of Troy are threads spinning on a single loom. Can they reweave the tapestry of fate?
CHAPTER 3
HELEN
FOR HER SAKE.
I flex my stiff hands so they can travel across the loom, weaving a web of many colors.
Crimson.
Indigo.
Black.
Olive.
Violet.
The tapestry’s intertwining threads are the only prayer I have left. And so, my fingers move at a pace my mind cannot, in rhythm with the guttural intonations of the priestess I always wanted to be.
Why don’t you hear me? What can I do to make amends?
The Unnamed One does not answer. It comes as no surprise.
Again, I open my hands. Two pale swans swim in my vision, blurred from my last cup of wine. The rest of my body may be weak, but my hands are more muscular than most. Weaver’s hands. Though clumsy, the fingers are strong, and that alone makes them lovely to behold. Blood rushes to my head as my senses sharpen and the darkness along the edges recedes. A thin crimson stream travels from the bleeding tip of my finger down my arm, past the wrist I’ve imagined slicing into countless times. Yet I’ve never had the courage. Nor the permission. The Unnamed One forbids it.
I see the blood, but I can barely feel a twinge of care or pain. Wrapping the wound in a scrap of cloth, I turn back to the loom. Always, I return to the work. An outpouring of grief, a record of all the deaths my life is bound to.
The deaths they will say I caused.
They aren’t entirely wrong. This land of bright cobalt sea and sky has faded to a mute gray after so many years at war. Sometimes, I feel like the fog from inside my head has grown, on a mission to spread out and consume everything that is good.
The cut in my finger throbs now, a reminder of what awaits. I reach for my wine cup again. Forgetting calls to me from beneath the surface. A few drops of poppy tincture, just enough to eliminate the sweet memories of her face for some moments of peace. One gulp and grief’s bite loosens its fangs. Another sip and the stirring of rage is reduced to embers. The silver cup falls to the floor, jarring me awake for an instant before the lull of walking sleep takes over.
I reach for the tapestry threads, but I can no longer feel them. Feel much of anything.
Is this my altar now? Is the sacrifice of my guilt and my grief before the loom the only consolation I will receive from You?
All pleas to the Unnamed One are in vain. They cannot harness the silent deity’s attention, just as they cannot stop the rivers of blood spilled in my name. A punishment for choices tied in a thousand knots that can never be undone.
For her sake.
As the dense fog swirls, I pray with my hands. The only part of me permitted to speak, but in pictures instead of words. With each loop of thread, I pray into being the struggles of the horse‐breaking Trojans and the bronze‐clad Achaeans. The one part of this story I am permitted to tell, though there are others who would tell it for me.
Crimson for Odysseus and his cunning.
Indigo for Hector and his loyalty.
Black for Achilles and his wrath.
Olive for Paris and his greed.
Violet for Agamemnon and his power-lust.
If they saw this tapestry now, it is possible they would each recognize their faces and their deeds. They would look, but they would not see. The moment I cannot fully escape, no matter how many sips I take from my cup. The thread beneath the threads. A color woven into all the others, so fine it can barely be perceived.
Gold.
Priceless treasure. Delicate yet forged in flame. Beautiful but deadly.
My vision blurs again as the poppy completes its work. The woven figure of a woman standing on the bow of a galley next to a handsome prince contorts and changes shape.
Not treasure taken, but a monster made. A Gorgon with a grotesque head of snakes. Devourer of men. As empty and lifeless as the stone her gaze makes.
For her sake. For her sake. For her sake.
My fingers reach out to touch the threads as if they were the soft curves of her face. Yet they are only threads. This tapestry my only witness to that which can never be revealed—for her sake.
The truth.
***
I BLINK AND time slows, then speeds up all at once. When my eyes open again, the arrowheads are laid out across my workstation like the row of corpses they will soon create. I do not remember doing this, but I must have. Nobody else comes here. Nobody else is allowed. The work I do, I must do in secret.
Paris secured this private space for me, a small room attached to the gardens near the bathing house, a place that smells of jasmine. It is where the Citadel’s women harvest herbs used to prepare the city’s many dead.
I take an arrowhead and dip it into the shallow clay bowl, into the last remaining drops of poison, before returning to my mortar and pestle.
Wolf’s bane is not an easy root to grind, but I do not mind the effort. The release. It’s as if the beads of sweat forming beneath my veil carry crimes that are not so easily wiped clean.
You are made to heal. Never to harm.
The vow of all healers, all Paeanas of Sparta. A land I have not seen in years. A promise I have not been allowed to keep for nearly as long.
Warriors do not realize how much better it is to see the life you are snuffing out. With every batch of poison I make, I must imagine the hundred faceless spirits who will haunt my steps.
“How I love the little noises you make while you work.”
I did not hear him come in behind me. Then again, I rarely do. Pinpricks dance across my skin. I take a long swallow of wine before turning to face him. Slowly, the memories fade. Her pale, helpless face retreats into the fog, and I am able to speak.
“Paris. You are back from the battlefield early.”
“Tomorrow I travel to Cyzicus with Hector to find a new Master of Horses. It seems the old one caught something fatal from an overworked whore.” Paris nods at the drying arrowheads. “Good. The archers have nearly run out. Now that Odysseus has caught wind of our tactics and is returning the favor with fire, Troy cannot afford to hold back.”
I take another drink. Paris speaks as if the entire Trojan army, not merely the archers he commands, will benefit from these poisoned arrowheads. A poison that makes the Achaeans fall to the ground in brief agony, never to rise again. It is the only reason Paris has remained in the army’s good graces despite his unwillingness to fight in the front alongside Hector. If anyone knew the secret behind his archers’ deadly success, the shame would be too much for him. So instead, I bear it for us both.
For her sake.
“This poison.” Paris leans over my shoulder, his hand resting lightly on my hip. Curiosity takes over his fine features and stirs something in the mist around me. Something that almost feels like fear. “What happens if it is ingested?”
I reach for the wine, for the softening of ragged edges and a swirl of accusations. Paris pulls my hand back from the cup. “Tell me what it does.”
I take a deep inhale. “Drinking wolf’s bane is as deadly as a tainted arrow in the flesh. And nearly as immediate. The victim’s muscles will tense into convulsions. They begin foaming at the mouth.” I hear the words, though I cannot feel my lips speaking them.
Paris shakes his head. “Too violent.” His lips press against my bare shoulder. I close my eyes. “Do any of your plants accomplish the same task but with more subtlety?” His next kiss presses to the top of my spine. As if he might seduce the answer from me. “I need one that makes it appear as if the person is dying of something natural. A sickness, perhaps.”
“Why?” I cannot remember the last time I questioned Paris. Judging by his expression, neither can he. The almost boyish light in his gaze dims, exposing the long‐standing grudge he hides from everyone but me.
Hector.
The thought escapes me as a soft gasp, though Paris doesn’t seem to notice. My hands reach for the cup again, wanting, needing its dulling powers. This time, Paris permits it. As the bitter tincture slides down my throat, I tell myself I am mistaken. Paris has long coveted his brother’s position, but he knows well the gravity of the consequences if our misdeeds were ever found out.
Paris pats my cheek. “Do not worry, wife. I have as many enemies as there are stars, yet I am still here.” He kisses me again. “You do your part, and I will do mine.”
Excerpted from HORSES OF FIRE by A.D. Rhine (© 2023 Ashlee Cowles and Danielle Stinson) and published by arrangement with Dutton an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
