Something about that feels wrong. There's no way she could have known - that's so easy to fake - the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. 

Straight to the point, she may not have much time. 

"Why did you scream?"

She flinches.

"I saw."

"Saw what?"

Perhaps she could prophesy that she will not be believed? Would that work?

"You shall not believe me."

"I swear I will."

"Swear not falsely, village girl. I saw... I saw the god: a day will come when the man you know will be as ash, and in his shape will be a divine terror, the Plague God rampant; and there shall be death, and horror, and fire: Troy shall fall in flames, but you shall not be spared, the Greeks shall not be spared. I watched it all."

Again, the mad urge to do something - kill Ophellios as he sleeps, or...

...or tell the Trojan princess something, anything, something she could bring back to Troy...

...none of what she said will happen. 

Will it?

“Dia. Where were you?”

"My lord." She kneels exactly as she always kneels and kisses his fingers exactly as she always kisses his fingers. "I had gone out to look for you. I feared you might have grown thirsty or hungry, you were gone so long." Her eyes are wide and trusting and she hides her terror as she has these six years. 

The king softens. “You are kind to me. Thank you.”

He steals his hand away to cup her cheek for a moment, and he lets go.

“Rise.”

She stands, heart pounding, eyes open and curious. 

“I am very well indeed. You need not worry about me.” He stretches and goes to sit by his lyre. “Tell me, Dia, how does this sound?”

His skilful fingers pluck away at the strings, his low voice hums, and instantly the woman is taken to another world; Olympus, where the gods themselves play and reminisce over long-faded mortal lovers. 

The song is unfinished. It stops abruptly after only a minute.

She blinks as though woken from a dream. 

It was beautiful. He is beautiful. So why does it send cold terror shooting through her limbs to hear it?

"It sounds... incomplete, my lord. Wondrous, but incomplete."

Ophellios sighs, resting his forehead against the instrument. “It is. I cannot think of how to finish it.”

He looks up at her then, gaze brimming with hope. “Were you ever taught the lyre, or the art of song? Perhaps you could help.”

She was never taught the lyre: her family was poor, her hands needed for weaving and sowing and cooking and countless other things. 

"...I can sing, my lord," she answers after too long a hesitation. She doesn't know what lies down this path, this conversation, and it's like slipping on wet ice. 

Ophellios looks at her like he used to some years ago. His eyes soft, and round, and for a moment utterly captivated.

“You can? Well then, sing as I play! I wish to hear your voice, if it is as lovely as you.”

What does she sing about?!

She's never really studied songs, only heard and repeated them and sometimes made up her own - but then she only opened her mouth and let her heart guide her and here that will get her killed. 

...Safe topics. Safe places. 

She sings loud and strongly of the gods on Olympus - their lovers, their quarrels, those are dangerous - she sings the stories she was told when she was very young, of how the gods were born. 

Not quite.

It is not quite right.

He plays a little longer but stops swiftly again. Ophellios seems disappointed.

“Perhaps I shall come back to this song later. Thank you. You have a beautiful voice, like a nightingale.” 

"Thank you, my lord."

She hesitates. She should deflect, distract him with her body, but her heart is pounding and her fingers are trembling and she's soaked in sweat and he must not be allowed to notice anything wrong - she will withdraw and pray he thinks she took that as a dismissal. 

“Wait.”

She freezes, heart hammering turns around with a sweet smile, tugging her dress down a little. "Yes, my lord?"

“Are you feeling quite well? You have the aspect of a fever about you.” He frowns, standing to feel for a temperature. “Take the next few days off. It is important that you take care of yourself.”

"Oh, my lord! You are so kind - I do feel weary." The relief that floods through her is like the warmth of a hearth in winter. "I will- I will rest, my lord, thank you, thank you," hopefully that just sounded feverish - she goes, and collapses into her cot, and determinedly does not weep. 

Ophellios nods and allows her to be dismissed.

He turns back to his lyre, carrying it with him to bed. Laying down, he plucks at the strings again for a while.

A low note, stepping higher up, twice, quickly – and then a high sound, and a return to the low note again. He plays that motif over and over, seeking an end to the song that does not come.

His mind does not wander far from his unknowing muse – but after some minutes, his hand does wander. It finds the hem of his chiton, slips under – and the relief is so sweet that the guilt does not find him until the end.