“I heard you’re going to be engaged to Agamemnon, sister,” Helen murmured softly, her eyes tracing the familiar lines of Clytemnestra’s face.
Clytemnestra turned to look at Helen, her gaze sharp yet composed. Though they were sisters, the bond between them had always been shadowed by the strange circumstances of their birth. It was said that after Zeus seduced their mother, two sets of twins were born: one pair carrying the mortal blood of Tyndareus, their supposed father, and the other bearing the divine blood of Zeus himself.
The mortal twins were Clytemnestra and her brother, Castor, while Helen and Pollux carried the mark of the gods. Both sets of siblings were blessed with striking beauty, but Helen and Pollux possessed something beyond mere charm—a quality that set them apart, a divine allure that was undeniable. Helen, in particular, was said to be the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth, a beauty so intense it could unsettle the strongest of men. Pollux had inherited strength and abilities from Zeus, gifts that set him apart even among mortals.
Despite the close bond between Castor and Pollux, who treated each other as true brothers, Helen’s relationship with Clytemnestra was fraught with tension. Clytemnestra had grown up in Helen’s shadow, forced into constant comparison. Over time, she distanced herself from Helen, not out of hatred, but as a way to preserve her own sense of self. She couldn’t bring herself to despise her younger sister, but neither could she fully embrace her.
And now, she was to leave. The family had arranged her marriage to Agamemnon, a powerful king, one known for his strength and command. Today would mark her final day here as a daughter of Tyndareus. Soon, she would be a queen.
“Yes, it’s true,” Clytemnestra replied with a hint of finality.
Helen’s eyes softened, almost curious. “Are you happy about it, sister?”
Clytemnestra raised an eyebrow, as though the question itself were absurd. “Happy? Marrying the most powerful king in all the lands? Of course I am. It’s every woman’s dream to marry a man of such strength.” Her tone was cool, almost defensive.
“But you’ve never even met him,” Helen continued, a note of quiet defiance in her voice. “You don’t know him, don’t love him. Is his strength really all that matters? Is that enough for love?”
Clytemnestra laughed, though there was little humor in it. She regarded Helen with a look that mixed frustration and pity. “Helen, your innocence is charming, but naïve. One day, you’ll understand that love has little to do with it. Someday, you’ll be married off, too, to a man who may not please you in the slightest. In fact, I doubt any man will be to your liking. Every man who looks at you sees only your beauty, the allure you carry as Zeus’s daughter. They see you as a prize, a conquest. They’d risk kingdoms for the chance to possess you.”
She sighed, glancing away as if to distance herself from her own words. “They look at you like you’re a rare jewel, Helen, something to be won. And when that day comes, you’ll see that love is the least of your concerns.”
Helen listened in silence, her heart caught between admiration for her sister’s resilience and a quiet sadness for the path laid out before them both. She wondered if Clytemnestra’s words were prophetic, if her future, too, would be determined by forces outside of her control, by desires that were not her own.
“You will certainly never find a man who can see past your beauty, Helen. All men will look only at your beauty, nothing more. The sooner you accept this, the better your life will be,” Clytemnestra’s words cut through the evening stillness like a blade. They were sharp, perhaps too sharp, but beneath her harsh tone, there was an unmistakable glint of concern, a sister’s care cloaked in caution.
Helen’s gaze dropped to the ground, her golden hair falling over her face as she absorbed her sister’s warning. She knew there was truth in Clytemnestra’s words, painful as they were. From her father’s halls to the palace of every man who had ever laid eyes upon her, Helen had seen it—the feverish awe, the reverence that bordered on worship, but all of it fixed solely on her appearance. Her beauty had been her curse, a jewel that gleamed so brightly it blinded anyone from seeing her true self beneath it.
Their father, Tyndareus, loved her, of that she was sure, but Helen knew that his love had limits. His influence could only protect her for so long, and in his wisdom—or perhaps resignation—he likely had a plan to keep her safe from the cruel desires of men. But she feared his plan, knowing that it would almost certainly come at the cost of her happiness. Safety was often a cage.
“Be careful, sister,” Helen whispered softly in the end, her voice laced with the vulnerability she seldom let slip through.
Clytemnestra’s face softened as she reached out, pulling Helen into a gentle embrace. For a moment, she held her younger sister tightly, letting her arms speak the words her pride would not allow. Beneath her affection, however, lingered the sting of resentment, a simmering jealousy she loathed to admit. She hated herself for feeling it, for wanting to be free of Helen’s side so that she could remember her as the innocent, sweet sister she adored, untainted by the jealousy her beauty evoked.
The two sisters lingered in their embrace until finally, Clytemnestra released Helen, her words etched into Helen’s mind long after her footsteps faded.
°°°°°
When Helen opened her eyes, the morning light spilled gently across the ceiling of the royal chamber she had been granted, its luxurious grandeur almost oppressive in its silence. She looked around the vast room—gilded with elegance, as lonely as it was beautiful, much like the chamber she had shared with Menelaus. Though ‘shared’ was a generous word. She and Menelaus had hardly been able to share anything at all, let alone a bed. Before he could fully lay claim to his beautiful bride, news had arrived of his father’s death, pulling him back to his homeland. And when he returned at last to collect Helen and finally claim her as his own, Paris of Troy had already spirited her away.
It was no wonder that Menelaus raged so furiously; he had been robbed of his prize, his claim on the woman deemed the most beautiful in the world, by none other than a foreign prince he had welcomed as a guest in his own halls.
But Helen’s thoughts drifted back to her present captivity. She scarcely felt the difference between the bonds of marriage and her present state. She had been bound to Menelaus’s palace as surely as she was now held in Troy. Paris’s face was different, his voice gentler perhaps, but Helen saw through him easily enough. Beneath his charm, he was just another man who did not see her for who she truly was.
One night, he had dared to ask if he could share her bed, and she had refused him without hesitation. No, he was not special, not at all; he was as blinded as the others.
Slowly, Helen rose from her bed and walked to the large arched window, gazing out across the expanse of Troy that stretched below her. Dawn painted the rooftops in soft hues of pink and gold, casting long shadows that seemed to mirror the weight pressing down on her heart. A week had passed since Lyrnessus had been destroyed, razed to the ground by Greek forces who rained down violence and fire upon the city, all because of her.
Guilt settled heavily on her shoulders each day, an invisible cloak she could not discard. Innocents had perished, lives had been shattered, and all of it traced back to her. And yet, what could she do? Each morning, she awoke to the same gilded room, the same bound fate, and the same bitter knowledge that she was powerless to undo the harm her beauty had wrought.
Helen’s mind drifted once more to the remnants of her dream, replaying the distant memory like a faded, bittersweet echo. It was the same conversation with her elder sister, Clytemnestra—a talk that had taken place over a dozen years ago, yet still lingered in her subconscious, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. She’d dreamed of that discussion again today, and the intensity with which it clung to her stirred something deep within.
Why had this memory surfaced so vividly? Was it merely a reminder of the painful truth she’d been forced to accept—that her life was never hers to control, not truly, not in a world where her beauty shackled her as firmly as any chain? Or was it something more, a whisper from the past telling her she would always be bound to others’ desires, tethered to their ambitions and anger until the end?
“Sister…” Helen murmured softly to herself, her heart tightening with worry as her thoughts turned to Clytemnestra. She wondered what her sister’s life had become. She had heard the rumors—their powerful, ruthless husband Agamemnon had sacrificed their own daughter, her young and innocent niece, all in the name of this endless war. All for the sake of a bloodstained cause that Helen herself was blamed for.
It was all because of her, once again.
“She probably hates me now,” Helen muttered, her voice barely a whisper. A bitter smile pulled at her lips as she thought of her sister, bound to a man who had thrown their child’s life away. She could hardly blame Clytemnestra if resentment had poisoned her heart.
And it wasn’t just her sister. The weight of Troy’s hatred clung to her like a shroud. Helen knew that the Trojans, too, despised her, cursing her name with every defeat, every loss. Prince Hector was relentless in his protests, urging Paris to send her back to Greece. Helen wished he would. The thought of returning had crossed her mind countless times, yet Paris held firm, refusing to yield, as if keeping her was a twisted form of honor or pride.
Among them all, Andromache, Hector’s wife, bore the most potent loathing toward her. Helen could feel Andromache’s hatred every time their eyes met, the silent reproach that told her she was the embodiment of every sorrow Troy had endured since the war began. And then there was Kassandra, the peculiar, tragic princess of Troy. She, unlike the others, did not seem to loathe Helen entirely; yet every day, she would visit her chambers and beg her to leave, her eyes haunted by visions no one else could see.
With a weary shake of her head, Helen drew herself from her thoughts, focusing on the simple act of preparing for the day. She dressed herself slowly, as though putting on armor, readying herself for yet another day of condemnation, another day of bearing the hatred she had no power to soothe.