Page 2 of The Night Belongs To Lovers

May you be forever damned, my dark child! I curse you with a shattered heart for this wicked betrayal and for spurning my love and devotion. May you never know peace. May you discover your truest love if I am not the one, and may happiness and passion quickly sour. To wither and rot. May you ever be separated from purest love by endless mistrust and loathing. For destroying me, may you live for all time tormented, alone, and never whole.

Everything returned to the Titan like a harsh slap across his face: all memories, experiences, delights, and betrayals, including that one act he considered the foulest of disloyalties.

He was the Titan Coeus, Lord of the Starry Firmament, twin brother of the Titaness Phoebe, who is The Lady of the Bright Moon. And he had been betrayed by his dearest creation, his beloved—a mortal he made a god and renamed in honour of a most favoured city. Traitor. Usurper. Cannibal.

Olympius—what have you done to me?!

The mocking laughter of the unknown goddess rang once more throughout the Titan’s incorporeal mind.

Olympius did nothing but free himself from bondage. You are responsible for your current condition and these circumstances. The Moraie have smiled upon you this night, Titan, in your darkest hour. They have granted you your dying wish, but as the Wheel of Destiny turns, all outcomes present the possibility for fortune or misfortune. And everything has a price. Death is no refuge from payment.

To fulfill your curse, The Fates have decreed you must be the agent of that directed malediction, for you did not call out to The Erinyes to enact your vengeance. For your spite, you shall haunt Olympius, a constant plague upon him, a spirit composed of hate and fog, smoke and dark purpose, all to ensure his heart never knows peace.

In time, to aid this wicked revenge, you will learn to control this ghostly form, manipulate its shape, size and colour, and even add substance—for a limited duration. You shall endure terrible painshould you ever strive to undo your current circumstances. Seek not, apparition, for it is an unchangeable, unattainable feat—for you.

Apparition?Yes, that was what he knew he was now, for to claim the title of Titan, with superior flesh and blood, would be blasphemy in this incorporeal state. He—It—was a cursed thing.

It was also fixated on the goddess’ last two words.For you? What do you mean, witch? What trickery is this? How may I be released from this horror? Tell me, Secundus-filth!

The goddess ignored the supposed insult.

I am but the messenger, cursed shade, though not fair Hermes, who couriers for the gods. I am the harbinger of fate and fortune; my name and title are not your concern. Though I foresee much, I did not predict this outcome, nor could I have prevented it. For Olympius’ sake, of course, not for you! Opposing The Fates brings forth their vengeful aspect, The Erinyes, and no mortal or immortal should ever seek to anger them.

But I know many things, the answers to mysteries and secret knowledge long forgotten. I know the winding ways around Destiny and how to break curses once enacted.

Love is the key this time, as trite as that may sound to you. But not the treacherous love you once professed to sweet Olympius, for you know no other kind. True love. A hard thing for many to discover, yes, but fortune and luck favour me. I see the time when Olympius finds his soulmate, and I believe their love will break the curse.

You will move against them, as The Fates have decreed, but I am confident Olympius and his true love will outlast your tricks andschemes to live on through Eternity, forever connected in passion, devotion, and peace. You, however, shall remain a ghost until the end of time, forgotten by history.

Unable to locate its pompous tormentor, robbed of the pleasure of focusing its vitriol directly upon the bodiless voice, the apparition sneered, directionless, into The Void.

Anxious and excited to begin experimenting with the potential of its unwelcome form, this newly revealed possibility of controlling it, the shade concentrated hard to project its form of voice loudly across the ethereal plain.

We shall see, little goddess. We shall see.

OLYMPIUS

The Past

THEgod knew that Coriolanus was not yet dead. Yes, his hirsute, muscled body, once Herculean perfection, had been torn asunder by the conspirators’ swords. His corpse, seemingly lifeless, as one would expect from the mortal dead, had been stood upon and mocked by that pompous betrayer, Aufidius. It was also true that they marched this battered figure throughout the streets for all the Volscians to witness that this Roman warrior had perished.

But still, Coriolanus was not yet dead. Not completely. His heart had stopped beating, and what blood remained encased in his mortal shellwas a mixture of liquid and thickset, but that was nothing to a god of his power—a trifle.

Embraced by the darkness that rightly obeyed his command to conceal his presence, the god watched from a close distance, silently seething, as the treacherous mortal bastards placed the great warrior inside a shallow, unmarked grave.

And they said Coriolanus would have a noble memory! Liars! Brutes!

The god knew that though disposed of like rotten meat, the body still held a drop of life’s moisture. It was hardly anything, invisible to a mortal’s eye, but present—and sufficient for the god’s needs.

He allowed the soldiers to finish their vile interment, wanting to enjoy their mocking laughter, thinking they had gotten away with their disrespect and disloyalty, before descending upon them with wrath and swiftly ending their amusement.

But when he did, he did not kill them in his fury, tossing them aside instead, broken and battered but still breathing, a few paces from the burial site. They were being saved, unconscious, for a later part of this undertaking.

Sullying himself, the god used his prodigious strength to remove Coriolanus from the insult meant to be his final resting place; the grime and loamy earth disgusted him as he dug up the great warrior and placed him on the cold ground. He could have used his ability to move matter through intent and will, but the god wanted a physical connection to the task from start to finish.

And there, amid the dried blood and cleaved flesh, was the nearly imperceptible, quickly fading rose colour upon his cheek. That was all the god needed to detect before beginning the transformation. That one, true last spark of life in a body, for all practical matters, dead.

The god smiled. Coriolanus would be his first and last creation, for no other would or could ever be more wonderful or perfect. The prideful and inflexible mortal warrior was his mother Veturia’s invention, but the newborn, vengeance-seeking warrior-god would be his.

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