I WAS INSIDE TROY — THE WAR THAT DESTROYED A CITY ( A first-person historical-mythic novel narrated by Theron )

The first month of war felt endless.

The first year felt impossible.

After that, time changed shape.

You may have heard that the war lasted ten years.

That sentence is easy to say.

Ten years.

Two words.

Try living them.

At first, everyone believed the conflict would end quickly.

The Achaeans would fail against the walls.

Or Troy would negotiate.

Or some king would tire of losing men.

Or winter would send the Greeks home.

Winter came.

They stayed.

Spring came.

They stayed.

Children who had been carried through the gates during the first alarm learned to walk.

Then speak.

Then ask why there were always soldiers outside.

My three-week trading visit became a year.

Then two.

At some point, I stopped telling myself I would leave soon.

I became part of Troy.

Not officially.

No priest declared it.

No king granted it.

But Myrine stopped calling me “the islander” and began shouting “Theron” when she needed the roof repaired.

Sira trusted me to watch her oven while she visited a daughter.

Makon the potter owed me money and therefore avoided me like family.

And Ione—

Ione simply became part of every day.

War changed ordinary life slowly before changing it brutally.

Food became expensive.

Then certain foods became rare.

Trade routes narrowed.

Caravans arrived less often.

Grain was rationed in difficult seasons.

People grew small gardens wherever water and sunlight allowed.

Goats became more valuable than jewelry.

Bread changed.

Less white flour.

More barley.

Smaller loaves.

No one joked about the porridge anymore.

Water mattered constantly.

Wells were guarded.

Storage jars were inspected.

The city’s lower areas became more crowded as families from farms and villages moved behind the walls.

Rooms designed for five held ten.

Courtyards became sleeping areas.

Workshops became shelters.

Privacy became a luxury greater than gold.

And yet people continued living.

That is what outsiders misunderstand about sieges.

They imagine everyone spending every hour afraid.

No one can sustain fear that long.

Humans normalize almost anything.

People married.

Babies were born.

Arguments continued.

Children played war in streets while real war waited beyond the gates.

Bakers baked.

Potters worked.

Priests sacrificed.

Musicians played at weddings.

We complained about weather.

We gossiped.

We fell in love.

Ione and I never had a dramatic beginning.

There was no song.

No divine intervention.

One evening during our second year of siege, we were carrying water together.

I slipped in mud.

She laughed at me.

I told her I hated her.

She kissed me.

That was all.

Afterward, life simply included her.

We shared meals.

We argued about everything.

She thought I wrote too much.

I thought she worried too much.

We were both correct.

The war became a distant thunder that sometimes moved close.

Trojan forces still fought on the plain.

The Achaeans raided surrounding settlements and supply routes.

Allies came to Troy from neighboring lands.

Men left through the gates.

Some returned.

Some did not.

Funeral smoke became part of the sky.

I stopped recording every death.

There were too many.

Instead I recorded people.

Dymas lost a nephew in the third year.

Sira’s oldest son lost two fingers.

Myrine’s rooster finally died of old age, which felt like the only peaceful death in Troy.

Ione’s aunt became increasingly busy treating wounds, fever, infections, childbirth, and hunger.

Sometimes I helped carry water or clean bandages.

I learned how much of war happened after the fighting stopped.

One night, near the end of the fourth year, I climbed the wall.

The Greek camp still burned below.

It had changed too.

More permanent structures.

Paths worn into the earth.

Storage areas.

Fences.

The Achaeans had built a life around destroying ours.

Dymas joined me.

“Do you remember when we thought they might leave after winter?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“We were stupid.”

“You were stupid. I was hopeful.”

“What is the difference?”

“Hope sounds better afterward.”

I laughed.

Below, a Greek horn sounded.

Troy answered with one of its own.

For years, those signals had divided our days.

I looked at the walls.

Still standing.

The market.

Still open.

The palace.

Still occupied.

Troy had survived.

That survival became dangerous in its own way.

We began to believe endurance meant victory.

Some years were worse than others.

One winter brought so little grain that people ground seeds we had once fed only to animals. Another summer brought sickness into crowded quarters. Fever moved through houses faster than any Greek spear. Ione and her aunt worked until their hands cracked from washing and herbs stained their clothes permanently.

I learned to boil water, clean wounds, hold frightened children still, and lie to dying men when they asked whether they would see morning.

'Yes,' I would say.

Sometimes they did.

Sometimes hope was the last thing I could give them.

War also created strange celebrations. The arrival of a caravan became a public event. A shipment of salt produced cheers. Once, after months without proper olive oil, I opened a jar from my remaining trade stock and shared it with Myrine's household. We dipped bread into it slowly, almost ceremonially.

Ione laughed at us. Then she took the largest piece.

These small pleasures mattered because siege tried to make every day identical. We resisted by noticing differences. The first warm day. A good loaf. A song we had not heard in months. A child recovering from fever.