“Always,” Achilles replied to Ajax, the two strongly gripping each other’s forearms in a warrior’s handshake.

  They, along with the soldiers around them, sat quietly in the wooden trap they had decorated as a gift. They had sealed themselves inside their own lie.

  The air within the hollow beast was thick with resin and sweat, the scent of fresh-cut timber barely masking the iron tang of armour and fear. Splinters pressed through linen and into skin. Helmets rested in laps to keep from scraping the curved walls. No one dared shift too suddenly; even breath felt treacherous.

  A single shaft of light pierced through a knothole above, as thin as a blade. It moved whenever someone outside passed by, shadows sliding over the cramped faces of kings and killers alike. Eyes met. Looked away. Returned again. No one spoke.

  Beyond the timber belly of the horse, Troy lived.

  Sandals scraped against stone. Spears knocked against shields. Distant voices rose and fell in debate. The men inside could not see the city, but they could hear its pulse; suspicious, curious, triumphant.

  “Burn it.”

  The word carried clearly through the wood.

  Several inside stiffened. One man’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword until his knuckles whitened. Another closed his eyes and whispered a prayer to gods who had long since grown bored of listening.

  Silence.

  Then laughter.

  “Fools,” a different voice scoffed. “It is an offering.”

  The debate rolled on like thunder too distant to strike, yet near enough to promise ruin.

  Inside the horse, sweat gathered and crawled down spines. The chamber felt smaller by the heartbeat. Hotter. Whether from fear or something else, none could say. One soldier swore the air shimmered faintly, as though the wood itself held a trapped sun.

  Minutes stretched into eternities until a violent jolt was felt. The entire structure lurched, throwing men against one another in muffled chaos. Dust rained from the rafters, catching in throats and stinging eyes. Ropes strained outside. Wood groaned like a wounded beast.

  The grinding of massive wheels against stone echoed up through the hollow frame. Each rotation felt like a tolling bell. The men swayed with the motion, boots scraping for balance, hands bracing against the ribs of the horse as Troy dragged them inward.

  Outside, cheers began to rise - faint at first, then swelling. The city was welcoming its doom with celebration. The gates of Troy opened with a sound that seemed to split the sky itself, iron and oak shrieking as they parted.

  Within the wooden beast, no one smiled. They knew this was the moment history would remember.

  Achilles crouched within the curved belly of the horse, steadying himself against the timber as he peered through a narrow slit between the boards. The city passed in fractured strips of light and colour. Crowds filled the streets — men in bronze, women draped in bright linens and silks, children darting forward to toss flowers against the towering wooden frame. Petals struck the wood and slid down its sides while cheers rose in waves around them.

  Rows upon rows. Hundreds gathered to celebrate what they believed was a victory.

  Achilles felt his heart pound, not with fear but with fierce certainty. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Not the long stalemate beyond the walls, not the endless disputes among kings, but decisive action. They had breached the city that had claimed itself untouchable. Through cunning rather than siege, Troy had opened its own gates.

  He glanced across the dim interior at Odysseus, who stood braced against one of the beams, composed and watchful. A restrained smile touched his face. The strategist’s gamble had worked.

  The grinding of wheels began to slow. The cheers outside grew louder, echoing through the hollow chamber, until at last the horse shuddered to a halt. Dust drifted down from the rafters. The sudden stillness pressed heavily on the men inside.

  Voices circled them. Laughter. Praise. The thud of palms striking wood in admiration. A spear butt knocked lightly against the frame, and several men stiffened, hands tightening around concealed hilts. One careless shift, one dropped blade, one creak at the wrong moment could unravel everything.

  But no command came to split the structure open.

  Gradually the crowd thinned. The noise receded down the streets of Troy as celebration carried on elsewhere. Footsteps faded. Doors closed. The city settled.

  Inside the horse, the men remained crouched in suffocating heat. Sunlight warmed the timber until the air grew thick and stifling. Sweat traced down their backs beneath armour they dared not remove. Breathing was measured and shallow. Time stretched, slow and punishing.

  They had crossed the threshold, but victory could not begin until darkness fell. So, they waited in silence, sealed within the wooden beast at the heart of the city listening as Troy rejoiced around them, unaware that night would bring its ruin.

  Yet, a pair of eyes watched them. Eyes that had been present from the first plank laid, from the earliest whispers of strategy that had shaped the grand design. They did not blink. They did not waver. Through every crack in the timber, through every slit that let shafts of sunlight slip inside, those eyes saw. No soldier could hide. Not a trembling recruit, not a seasoned warrior, not even Achilles, whose confidence burned as bright as the fires of battle.

  The light caught the edges of those eyes, making them gleam like molten metal. They burned against the dim interior of the horse, pressing into the backs of their skulls, tracing the outlines of every breath and heartbeat. Achilles felt a prickling along his skin, as though the eyes were not content with watching. They hungered

  As the sun descended toward the horizon, the heat inside the chamber seemed to thicken. Shadows stretched long and menacing, yet the eyes outshone them all. Inferno’s gaze was not bound by wood or strategy. It threatened to pierce the flesh itself, to burn through the horse and incinerate their carefully constructed deception. Every clever plan, every meticulous precaution, risked being undone in a heartbeat, turning the vessel meant to deliver triumph into a coffin of screams.

  Achilles’ fingers twitched along the rough timber. His breath caught and slowed, each inhalation sharp and measured, though a part of him refused to portray fear. Somewhere deep in the hollow, others shifted nervously, catching the tension that radiated from the eyes outside. Even the walls seemed alive, as if Inferno’s heat seeped into the wood itself, and the shadows inside quivered with anticipation.

  Time thickened. The sun sank lower. Outside, the city continued its oblivious celebration, but within the horse, everything narrowed to that gaze. Every heartbeat was counted. Every whispered breath monitored. It was a silent threat, absolute and unavoidable.

  Silent and controlling, Inferno lingered, unseen by mortal eyes. Behind Achilles, he breathed slow and low, listening to the wind outside. It had been restless all day, swirling through the streets and catching in the horse’s timbers, but now it softened, lowering to a gentle breeze, then stillness. The calm was deliberate, a signal woven into the world itself.

  Above, light footsteps tapped against the wood, delicate and purposeful. Each knock echoed faintly through the hollow belly. Zephyra’s touch upon the city had spoken: the moment had come.

  Inferno’s hand pressed against Achilles’ shoulder. Heat flared beneath the skin, subtle but undeniable, threading into his nerves. A pulse of fire that was not fear, not passion, but will. A suggestion made irresistible.

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  Achilles jerked forward, muscles coiling with energy. His hand found the hatch, gripping the edge as though it were an extension of the fire now coursing through him. Around him, soldiers shifted in anticipation, their own hearts drumming faster, senses sharpened by forces unseen.

  The air inside the horse seemed to hum. Breath carried a faint warmth.

  Then the horse creaked, the first sign of movement. The attack had begun, not by mortal strategy alone, but with gods shaping both mind and matter. Winds stilled, wills were guided, and strength surged in every arm. Through subtle whispers of influence and the shifting currents of air, victory was no longer uncertain. It had begun.

  Achilles raised his helmet over his head and lowered it over his face. Turning his neck to each man that stood in front and beside him, he nodded at them as he readied his sword from his waste, unlatching the trap door and opening it up. Achilles peaked his head outward, observing the quiet city of Troy. Not a soul was left roaming the streets. A slow pacing of footsteps against stone could be heard across different corners of the city; guards being spotted at the heavy entrance doors of Troy. Achilles threw out a ladder of rope, leading the charge. As he reached the bottom, he crouched to the ground moving silently across the stone, hidden behind the shadow of a building. An army of men followed, disappearing into the shadows, their footsteps drowned out by the quick bursts of wind created deliberately by Zephyra, allowing them to sneak past the homes and guards that may threaten their failure.

  Inferno watched from the wooden horse, his eyes burning brightly at each solider as they snuck to the entrance of Troy. His army shifted as he took a step forward, falling through the exit door and crashing down into the stone, his knees bent slightly upon landing before slowly rising, his helmet rising upward as he looked out at the city. His cape flowed outwards as it was brought back to form, aggressively whipping around at the stone. As he turned his chest to Achilles and his men at the entrance, he witnessed them ambush the Trojan guards, slashing their throats and executing them in a matter of moments.

  Inferno breathed in and then let out a long exhale of smoke from his helmet. As he stepped away from the horse, he held out his hand, a spear of flame forming before him. He drew it back, gripping the centre of the spear with a burning rage, one that he had felt in countless wars before; the spear burning until its light became blinding. With a roar of strength, Inferno thrusted the spear from his hand, kicking himself forward as it flew with rapid speed. Flashing past city, the spear connected with the gates if Troy, the crack impact leading to a devastating explosion of flame, the gates crumbling into a pile of scattered flame creating an opening for the rest of the Greek soldiers waiting outside.

  Zephyra halted her flight in the air at the explosion, snapping her neck to the doors. Hundreds of Greek men stormed the city, roars and shouts filling the streets in a matter of moments. Trojan guards and military personnel rushed out from their posts in an attempt to defend the attack, archers mounting themselves upon buildings. Zephyra dashed through the air, curving the direction of arrows to miss their targets, while aiding the speed of the Greeks, changing the direction of the wind to match their charge forwards, their speed confusing the Trojans as they watched them rush down the streets like bulls.

  Inferno looked upwards at Zephyra’s contributions, nodding in her direction before looking back down at the destruction before him. Bodies began to fill the streets, blood spilt and sprayed across marble walls and stone floors. Fires were set to homes, screams of terror lost in black smoke as it rose from the city like a cry for help. A surrender.

  Inferno followed the charge of the Greeks, moving through flame as though it were mist bending around him. Smoke rolled across the rooftops, and from the narrow streets behind the Greek line came the rising cries of Trojan reinforcements pouring forward to defend their city.

  He stopped.

  With a powerful leap he descended from a burning rooftop, embers trailing from his armour as he fell. He struck the stone street before the Trojans with such force that cracks splintered outward beneath his feet. Before the Greeks could turn in surprise, he swept his arm behind him, and a towering wall of fire roared into existence, sealing the street and cutting off retreat. The flames did not flicker wildly, they stood like a living barricade, hemming the Trojans into the choking heat of their own city.

  Hundreds of soldiers filled the street ahead of him. Bronze cuirasses gleamed dully through the haze. Shields of ox-hide and bronze overlapped in a wavering wall, spearpoints jutting forward in disciplined rows. Some men held swords instead, their grips tight, their breathing shallow. Though the streets burned around them, they stood their ground.

  A low vibration began within Inferno’s armour, a sound like distant thunder trapped beneath metal. The soldiers felt it in their chests before they understood what they were seeing.

  “It cannot be,” one man whispered, his voice cracking.

  “The God of Fire stands against us,” another shouted, as if volume might deny the truth. “He aids the Greeks!”

  At the front of the formation, a warrior lifted his sword high despite the tremor in his arm. “Strike him down!” he cried. “If our city is to burn, then let the gods burn with it!”

  The shout gave the others courage. Desperation hardened into resolve. Their homes were already aflame, their families scattered. With shields raised and spears levelled, they surged forward as one body, bronze flashing in the firelight.

  Inferno did not retreat.

  One soldier, driven more by terror than bravery, hurled his spear with a desperate shout. The weapon sliced through the heated air toward Inferno’s chest.

  Inferno shifted.

  He did not step aside in any ordinary sense; his form seemed to ripple, as though the air itself had displaced him. The spear passed through the space he had occupied and clattered uselessly against the stones behind.

  The Trojan line crashed forward in its wake.

  Shields locked. Spears thrust in disciplined rhythm. Bronze flashed in the firelight as the formation sought to swallow him in numbers.

  Inferno did not draw a weapon. His hands clenched.

  The gauntlets encasing his fists were as dark as cooled magma, but fractures laced across them like veins in stone. From those cracks poured molten light, slow rivers of orange and white that pulsed brighter with each beat of his fury. Heat rolled from him in suffocating waves, distorting the air and making his outline shimmer.

  The first spear lunged for his throat.

  He slipped inside its reach before the wielder could adjust, one hand snapping out to seize the shaft. The wood ignited instantly beneath his grip, flame racing toward the soldier’s hands. Inferno yanked the man forward and drove his other fist into the centre of the bronze cuirass.

  The sound was not a slash, but a ringing impact - metal struck by something far heavier than flesh. The breastplate caved inward, glowing at the point of contact before splitting along its seams. The soldier collapsed without a cry, smoke rising from the ruin of his armour.

  Inferno was already moving.

  A sword swept toward his side; he dipped beneath it, his cape of black smoke unfurling in the motion. It was not cloth, but a living mass of shadowed vapour that coiled and lashed with every step he took. The more he moved, the thicker it grew, tendrils whipping across the faces of the men around him. Eyes stung. Vision blurred. Shapes dissolved into heat and darkness.

  Out of that smoke, a burning hand emerged and caught the rim of a shield. Bronze hissed beneath his fingers. The metal softened in an instant. He tore it free and struck its owner across the helm within the same motion. The helmet buckled; the man dropped where he stood.

  The formation began to fracture.

  They tried to surround him, pressing inward from all sides, shields raised to crush him by sheer weight of numbers. Inferno lowered his stance and surged forward, not retreating but plunging directly into the tightening ring. His cape exploded outward in a vortex of smoke that swallowed them whole. Within that churning haze, men shouted in confusion, blades striking blindly at shadows.

  Inferno moved among them unseen.

  A downward blow shattered a spear haft and continued into the man’s jaw, snapping his head back with a burst of sparks. A pivot, a backhand, another cuirass dented inward, glowing white before splitting open. He seized one warrior by the helm and drove him bodily into another, their armour fusing where molten metal touched molten metal.

  Every strike was singular and decisive.

  He did not brawl wildly. He did not trade blows. He flowed from one body to the next, each movement efficient, each impact final. Swords cut through drifting smoke and found nothing. Spears thrust toward his silhouette only to meet empty air as he shifted, dashed, and reappeared at another angle entirely.

  To the Trojans, it became impossible to tell where he truly stood.

  They saw only glimpses - a flare of orange light within black vapour, the outline of a gauntlet moments before it struck. The street rang with the sound of bronze deforming under unbearable heat. Shields split. Greaves dripped at the edges. Leather straps snapped and curled away in smoke.

  Still, they charged him. Still, they tried to hold their ground.

  But each attempt to close with him ended the same way: a single, brutal impact that crushed armour and flesh alike, leaving another warrior fallen at his feet.

  Yet Inferno did not slow. The more he moved, the thicker the smoke became, and the brighter the molten cracks in his gauntlets burned. His rage fed the heat; the heat fed his motion. He advanced through them like a living furnace given shape, leaving behind a trail of shattered bronze and smouldering bodies.

  By the time the last of the hundred understood what they faced, their ranks had thinned into scattered pockets of men fighting shadows.

  Inferno stepped through them without pause, his fists still blazing, his cape still writhing, and wherever those molten hands fell, another defender of Troy fell with them.

  As the fires rose from each building, and bodies pooled around Inferno, the war only continued to rage on. Quake shattered the earth’s tectonic plates, creating earthquakes that crumbled Troys buildings, the rest of the city’s walls falling into ruin. Statues and temples that safely gathered dust among city streets fell to the ground in pieces.

  As for the seas, Trojan ships and docks had no chance of conquering Hydrasyra’s wrath. The ocean was hers to command, leaving each ship to withstand waves the size of Troy’s walls. Storms flooded the deck until they were drowned by each crashing and endless wave, men and their ships left to remain forgotten in the depths of Hydrasyra’s domain.

  Victory was certain. The Greeks marched to cut down the last of what stood in their way. Achilles remained standing. Battling at the corner of the city, an archer stood hidden from sight. His breath racing as he watched Achilles slay the last of the Trojan army. With a bow and arrow in hand, he grits his teeth, rising from the roof without fear. Achilles stood breathless, his body scattered in cuts and dirt, sweat pouring from his armour, unaware of the archer drawing his bow.

  And as the archer’s fingers left the string, a whip of air flew with the arrow, bending rigorously as it flew towards Achilles ankle.

  Yet the arrow did not strike Achilles. Its flight brought to a stop as a flaming gauntlet had caught it. Inferno clenched his fist, snapping the arrowhead, leaving it to fall to the ground. The archer stood in fear, scattering from the roof and running off into the chaos. Achilles turned his body towards the snap, his eyes narrowing as he saw the body of blackened armour, a cape of endlessly flowing smoke, and piercing eyes of molten lava staring directly at him.

  “Achilles. I must commend you for your victory against the Trojans,” Inferno spoke as he approached Achilles, each footstep leaving a burning stain of ash against the paddock of dirt and grass they stood within.

  “I know you. I’ve heard your voice before,” Achilles responded in recognition, his grip on his sword tightening as he stepped back from the Elemental. “The one they call Inferno.”

  “God of flame. Forgotten for a mortal’s name. You stand between man and divinity.”

  “If I threatened you whilst I lived,” Achilles answered, unflinching, “I will eclipse you in death.”

  Inferno grunted. “You are nothing!” he growled, lunging towards Achilles and sending a barrage of flaming punches towards him. Achilles dodge each strike, his sword clashing against his gauntlets, sweat flying from his skin as heat surged past him. Achilles managed to strike at Inferno’s armour, his sword barely scratching the god. Inferno laughed, catching Achilles’ wrist and crushing it in his hand.

  Achilles let out a cry of pain as he dropped to his knees.

  “I witnessed your birth,” Inferno spoke, circling behind Achilles, kicking his back and forcing him to the ground. “Witnessed the day you were blessed by the River Styx.”

  Inferno knelt, his gauntlet wrapping around Achilles heel. “And so now. I will be the one to strip you of that blessing!”

  Before Achilles could reach for his sword, Inferno’s gauntleted hand came down against his heel. The impact was blunt and absolute — a crack of bone beneath metal and the sudden collapse of resistance. Achilles dropped, his strength leaving him in a quiet exhale rather than a cry.

  Blood dripped from Inferno’s gauntlet in slow, deliberate drops as he rose.

  The air around him seemed to tighten, heat lingering in the wake of his movement. His hand hung at his side, stained and heavy, the violence of the moment etched into the stillness that followed. For a heartbeat there was nothing but the distant clash of battle and the faint crackle of fire.

  The space where Achilles lay felt separate, a small pocket of silence amid the chaos. Dust settled. No hand twitched. No breath stirred the air.

  “Thus falls the lion of Troy.”

  Gods bent the flames.

  And one god chose to end a legend himself.

  But history does not remember who killed him.

  Did Achilles deserve this end?