Chapter 2

Half an hour later, Victoria and Ares finally rose.

I returned to my small room for a quick wash, changed into clean clothes, and went to the main hall to set out breakfast.

Ares sat behind the table, and his gaze landed on me. He paused. "Why are you dressed like that?"

I instinctively tightened my collar, pressing my lips together nervously.

Ares never knew restraint in bed. He always left marks on me—bite marks, bruises, finger-shaped imprints. My only option was high-collared garments to hide them, even when they clashed with what I'd normally wear.

Victoria gave him a gentle push, her voice sweet and coy. "You forget? Nysa's a mute. She can't speak."

I nodded quickly.

But Ares raised an eyebrow, studying me with open interest. "This little mute of yours is rather pretty, in that pitiful, waif-like way."

Victoria feigned jealousy, chiding him playfully. "And what's that supposed to mean? Don't tell me you've got your eye on her."

She shot me a glance—the warmth in her eyes plummeting to nothing, a blade's edge hidden beneath.

Ares laughed, unbothered. "I haven't even accused you of anything, and you're already accusing me."

He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a clear ring of teeth marks on his forearm, his expression somewhere between amused and challenging. "Come on. Tell me—is this your handiwork from last night?"

Those marks hit me like a slap across the face. Last night he'd been too rough, pushing me past my limit. I'd clenched my jaw against the pain but couldn't hold back a cry. In a frenzy of desperation and fury, I'd bitten him.

I knelt on the floor, hands ice-cold, body rigid.

Sure enough—the instant Ares' footsteps carried him out of the hall, scalding tea came splashing toward me.

I jerked my head up and met Victoria's face, twisted with rage.

The next second, her palm cracked across my cheek hard enough to fill my mouth with blood. "You worthless mongrel—how dare you leave marks on his body? Are you trying to provoke me?"

Before I could utter a single word in my defense, the servants she'd summoned bound my hands and feet and dragged me into the confinement chamber.

No water. No food. Nothing but darkness and myself.

Ares had departed to inspect the war territories. He wouldn't return for three to five days—which meant Victoria had no use for me, and I could be left to rot here just as long.

Victoria also sent people in. Every night, they administered punishments.

They were careful about it—nothing that would leave conspicuous scars. But they could make me wish I were dead.

By the third day, I was barely clinging to life.

A bowl of chicken broth was slid under the door—my sister Phoebe had been worried about me and found a way to send food in.

My younger sister. Born to my mother and a mortal man. She was human too, scraping by at the border between the human and divine worlds, unable to even set foot inside the realm proper. She knew nothing about the body-double arrangement—only that I served as Victoria's handmaiden.

"Nysa, I heard you were punished. What did you do to upset her?" Phoebe had also sent word through a messenger.

I couldn't answer her.

All I could do was ask the low-ranking servant who relayed the message: When would Ares return?

The servant said, "He should be back tonight. He'll go to the mistress's bedchamber as usual."

I let out a breath of relief. Once he returned, Victoria would need me.

I also asked about recent happenings in the divine realm.

The servant sighed. "Nothing major. Only that Apollo's condition has worsened. Thaniel says there's nothing more he can do. Geneteira wants to find him a wife before he goes, so he might leave behind an heir—but no one's willing."

Apollo.

Above Ares, there was an elder brother—the one who should have been the most likely heir to Zeus's power and position. But his life had been borrowed. If not for a forbidden art performed by a healing god named Thaniel, barely extending his life by thirty years, he would have been stillborn.

Perhaps fate had shown him a sliver of mercy: in his youth, his brilliance was unmatched, his radiance blinding. He was hailed as the most extraordinary genius in ten thousand years.

But at eighteen, an "accident" cast him into the abyss. Since then, he'd been confined to the Lake Heart Temple, waiting to die.

And marrying a dying god meant a lifetime of confinement. Never mind noble goddesses—even the lowliest handmaiden would flee from such a fate.

But it was precisely because of his decline that Ares had been able to seize control of the divine clan.