Outside the Scaean Gates, Hector faced the moment every warrior fears: the moment when survival and honor stop being compatible. Troy was already behind its walls. The city could breathe again—except for the man left outside. Hector, firstborn of Priam, understood what that step forward meant: not courage as an emotion, but courage as a decision. He had watched Paris—whose choices helped ignite the war—fail to carry the weight of it. In that emptiness, Hector saw there was no longer a clean opti