Page 1 of Aïdes the Unseen
Part One
THE BEGINNING
Chapter
One
KORE
Ihad always known that the world was wide. Broad enough to cradle storms and lullabies and vast enough to bloom with secrets I hadn’t yet learned the shape of. That day, however, the wind held something different in its hands. Not just the scent of jasmine or the pollen-drunk murmur of bees. No, something else pulsed beneath the wildflowers and honeyed sun: a tremble, as though the earth itself had paused to breathe in.
Bare feet brushing over moss and budding crocus, I wandered from the meadows past the sun-stung edges of the forest where ivy whispered gossip to the trees. The path curved into a golden clearing where the veil between realms was soft. So soft that the air shimmered faintly, like it remembered some forgotten god had passed this way before.
Below the hill lay a mortal village. I often watched from afar: children racing with wild hair and wooden toys, old women carding wool and singing lullabies that echoed with fragments of forgotten rites. Today, a festival. Ribbons streaming from tallpoles, pastries cooling on woven mats, laughter like a choir of bells.
But it was not they who held my gaze.
No. It was the stranger standing where the shadow met the sun.
I saw him before he saw me, and, even then,I felt him. The way the warmth recoiled around him. It wasn’t fear or anger, but reverence. As if even light knew not to touch him too quickly.
He stood by the edge of the trees, dressed in simple black, his presence impossibly still in a world that moved constantly. He did not belong here. Not among laughing children and honeycakes.
Yet, he didn’t look out of place.
He was quietpower. The kind that didn't have to speak to be obeyed.
His gaze was turned toward the humans below, unreadable. Though the sun shone bright and golden on the hillside, around him the light thinned, just slightly, like it couldn’t quite reach him.
I stepped closer. The grass cushioned my feet, blooming slightly in my wake, trailing violets and small dandelions. He noticed, whether the movement or the change, I couldn’t say. His head turned just a fraction, as though he’d caught the scent of something he couldn’t name but could not ignore.
I stopped two paces away, heart foolish and fluttering.
“Hello,” I said, sun in my voice. “You’re not from around here.”
His eyes met mine. They were impossibly dark, not cruel or cold, but ancient. Like they had seen the end of stars and not flinched.
He studied me. His silence was not awkward but dense, deliberate. Finally, he answered: “No.”
I smiled. “You don’t say much, do you?”
He looked back toward the mortals. “I do, when I’m somewhere I belong.”
I tilted my head, teasing. “Do you belong here, then?”
A pause. Then, softly: “No. But you do.”
He said it like it was a fact carved into the bones of the world.
I came to stand beside him, both of us watching the humans below. Their joy was loud, warm, oblivious. None of them looked toward us.
“They don’t see us,” I said, mostly to myself.
“I’m shielding them,” he replied. “It’s… easier for them. Mortals have never done well under the gaze of gods.”
I turned to face him fully. “You care if they’re afraid?”
His jaw twitched, but not with annoyance. “I care about the weight of fear. It binds too tightly. I don’t come here to burden.”
