Paris read the name again.
Helen.
The paper lay beneath his hand, its edges worn and its meaning hidden behind three names. Philon had been crossed out. Arsini had been crossed out.
Helen remained.
He had searched his mother's room for answers. Instead, he had found a question he could barely bear to ask.
Why her?
His first instinct was to reject the paper. It could be old. It could be meaningless. Someone might have written those names for a reason that had nothing to do with treason.
But his mother had been murdered.
Paris closed his eyes.
He remembered standing before his father, his brothers, and the council, refusing to let them treat Helen as a criminal simply because she had come from Sparta.
She came here because I asked her to. Because I love her.
He had meant every word.
He still did.
