The night before Troy would fall, the air hung thick with a sense of something ancient and inevitable. The city, still burning with the flicker of distant torches, seemed to hold its breath—suspended in time, on the precipice of destruction. But for those who lived within the walls, the end was still a secret. They believed themselves victorious, a belief borne from the gods’ silence, from the seeming retreat of the Greeks after ten long years of war. But Cassandra knew, as she had always known, that this peace was nothing but a lie.
She wandered through the empty streets of Troy, her feet tracing familiar paths, but her mind elsewhere—lost in a maze of visions. The walls, tall and strong, had stood against the siege for so long. The city had withstood the worst that the Greeks could offer. Yet, as the sun dipped below the horizon, a terrible truth tainted the air. Tomorrow would bring their undoing. She could feel it as palpably as the weight of her own heartbeat.
Troy was alive with the murmur of celebration. The Trojans, drunk on hope and the thrill of seeming victory, poured into the agora and the palace. Music and laughter bathed the air, a holy tide of joy. But Cassandra could only hear the whispers of the earth beneath her feet, the trembling of the ground as it prepared to swallow them whole.
She knew what the Greeks had left behind.
The wooden horse. She had seen it in a vision—a wooden beast, hollowed out, its belly filled with death. The Greeks would leave it as a gift, but it was a false offering of peace. And when night fell, they would emerge from its dark innards, and the city would burn.
Cassandra could not stop it. Her warnings would fall on deaf ears, as they always did. The prophecy had been spoken. The future was already written. And all she could do was watch.
The moon rose, full and cold, casting a pale light over the city. Cassandra’s gaze lifted to the stars above, but there was no comfort in their cold twinkle. The gods were silent, indifferent. Her gift, the curse of prophecy, had long since lost its meaning. She could see what others could not, but no one listened.
She passed the gates, now wide open to allow the troops and merchants to come and go, and there, in the distance, she saw the shadow of something moving—a figure coming toward her through the haze of the torchlight. Her breath caught. It was her brother, Paris. His face was a mixture of exhaustion and relief, but something more lingered in his eyes.
Paris’s eyes scanned the night, his voice laced with unease as he said, “We’ve won, Cassandra. We’ve beaten them. The Greeks are retreating. Tomorrow, we will have peace.”
Cassandra’s voice was a whisper, distant, as though she were speaking to a ghost, when she replied, “No, Paris. Tomorrow we die. You do not see it, but I do. The horse… they will bring it inside the gates, and with it, we will fall.”
Paris laughed softly, shaking his head, and said, “You are always so certain, sister. There is no more war. This is the end of it. I will not hear your prophecy of doom tonight.”
He moved to walk away, but Cassandra caught his arm. Her grip was tight, desperate, her fingers trembling.
Cassandra’s voice broke with urgency as she pleaded, “Please, Paris—hear me! You are blind to the truth. The gods have already decided. They have turned away from us. There is no salvation in the horse. It is a trick. If you let it in, we will die.”
But he pulled his arm from her grasp with a soft chuckle, turning his back on her, and said, “Maybe one day you will find peace, sister. But not tonight.”
Then, he was gone.
Cassandra stood there, watching him retreat into the heart of the city. She felt the tears sting her eyes, but no sound escaped her lips. She had begged them, over and over, but the city—her people, her family—had grown numb to her warnings. To them, she was a madwoman, a curse to be endured, but never believed.
She walked, aimlessly, toward the temple of Apollo, her mind a blur of images—shadows, flames, the sound of cracking stone, the screams of the dying. Every step she took brought her closer to the inescapable future, but no closer to a way to prevent it. The gods had sealed her fate long ago.
There was no comfort in the stone columns of the temple, no sanctuary from the future that she saw so clearly. The air around her was thick with the scent of incense and the cold stillness of the god she could not reach. She sank to her knees, her hands pressed against the worn stone floor, as if to steady herself against the trembling ground beneath her.
In the distance, she heard the sounds of celebration again—the clinking of cups, the shouts of triumph. They did not know what she knew. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t. And yet, it didn’t matter. Her curse was not the gift of prophecy, but the agony of knowing that no one would ever listen.
The night stretched on, and as Cassandra looked out toward the horizon, she saw the first flickers of the Greek ships, still on the water—silent, waiting.
By the time the first light of dawn touched the walls of Troy, it would be too late.
And so, she sat in the silence, the weight of fate pressing down on her shoulders. Tomorrow would come, and with it, the end of everything she had ever known.
But tonight? Tonight, there was only the quiet knowledge that she had tried, one last time, to change it all.
Tomorrow, the horse would arrive.