Chapter 3

By the evening meal, Victoria had me released.

She ordered food prepared and even arranged her features into something resembling remorse. "Nysa, I was too impulsive with that punishment. I got busy and forgot about you. Don't hold it against me."

I kept my head down. "I wouldn't dare."

After a moment of silence, I mustered the courage to bring up leaving.

Victoria's expression shifted instantly. "You want to leave?"

I nodded carefully. The three years were up. She'd promised me.

Her lips curved into a thin smile, but her tone was that of someone discussing something utterly trivial. "My body hasn't recovered yet. Ares still needs you."

I froze. She'd given her word—three years, no more.

Victoria lifted her teacup and blew on it idly. "If you absolutely insist on going, I'll have someone fetch Phoebe to replace you. You're blood sisters—your voices and builds are close enough."

Every drop of warmth drained from my body, as though I'd been plunged into an ice pit.

After a long silence, I heard my own teeth chattering. "Then... could you at least ask Ares to give me some kind of status?"

"Climbing the ladder now, are we?" Victoria's smile went glacial. "If I wanted to find Ares a mistress, I'd have my pick of candidates—none of whom would be you. And don't even think about going to Ares yourself. To him, you're nothing but a plaything. Even if you became his personal attendant, I could make you and your decrepit mortal mother disappear with a snap of my fingers."

My throat felt as if someone had a hand around it. "I can't stay unmarried forever."

"The gate guard's son is willing to take you," she said flatly. "He's a bit rough-tempered, but he's still a minor god. More than good enough for someone like you."

That guard's son—I'd seen him. Intellectually impaired. Violent by nature. His favorite solution to everything was his fists. Especially in bed.

I understood Victoria's intent immediately: she wanted to weld me permanently into her grip. Married to someone like that, I'd never escape. I'd have no choice but to keep being her shadow—invisible, unspeakable, forever.

Ares returned to find me still kneeling on the floor in a daze.

Victoria rose with a smile to greet him. "You're back. These past few days must have been exhausting. This handmaiden was clumsy—broke a crystal lamp. I'm having her kneel for a quarter hour."

Ares stepped past me without a second glance, hair slightly disheveled, fatigue written across his face. "What's the status on the Apollo situation?"

Victoria sighed. "Marrying a god who's practically dead? Everyone thinks it's bad luck. No young goddess will agree."

Ares frowned. "Find someone low-born. Get leverage over her family. Offer enough incentives or apply enough pressure—it'll get done. Geneteira's never approved of you. Handle this well, and her opinion will change."

Geneteira—the Guardian of Progeny, mother of both Apollo and Ares, and the most revered mother goddess of the entire divine realm. In all matters of bloodline succession and marriage contracts, her verdict was final law.

Perhaps out of a mother's guilt and tenderness, she cared about Apollo's situation above all else.

She'd even put out word across the entire realm: anyone willing to be Apollo's companion could name one wish, no conditions attached.

Clearly, Victoria also craved the approval of the divine mother. She agreed obediently.

And I remained rooted where I knelt.

Both knees had long since gone numb and swollen, but my mind had drifted far away.

A bold idea was taking shape in the depths of my heart.