Page 35 of Aïdes the Unseen
And I?—
I saw her. I basked in her nearness, drank in all that she shared. I watched the realm shift to greet her not as queen, not as consort, but asequal.
She sang to Kerebos when she thought I wasn’t listening, scratching the velvet between his ears and humming lullabies in no language I knew. She wandered the deeper halls with bare feet and a soft laugh that made even the sleeping bones stir. She did not flee from silence. She filled it.
We did not bind one another. There were no chains. No vows carved in stone. She could have left a hundred times, and I would have let her.
But she never did.
The longer she stayed, the more I understood a new kind of power. Devotion. Freely given. Fierce. Unflinching. Not the kind that demanded kneeling. The kind thatstood beside you.
One night, after the river stilled and even Kerebos had curled into sleep, she turned to me in the silver hush of our chambers. We were wrapped in one another, our limbs a tangle of ease, not want.
“I’m not Kore anymore,” she said softly.
“No,” I agreed.
“But I’m not entirely someone else, either.”
I traced the edge of her jaw. “You don’t have to name it. Youareit.”
Her lips quirked into a smile. “You’re not going to give me some dark title? Queen of Ashes? Lady of the Lost?”
I shook my head. “You were never lost.”
She leaned into me then, voice quiet, but certain. “If they come for me…”
I stiffened.
“They will,” she continued, before I could speak. “One of them will try again. Not to persuade. To take. Because I’m nolonger in the sun. Because I’m not so easy to smile over and forget.”
“You think they’ll try to cleave you from me.”
Her gaze lifted. Unafraid. Unapologetic. “No. I think they’ll try tobindme.”
My throat burned with the fury of it. “They’ll find I burn too.”
She laid her hand over my heart. “That’s not why I stay.”
“I know,” I said. “But it is why I fight.”
It didn’t take long. The next came with no noise. No scent of smoke. No iron tang of war. This one came like a breeze you didn’t know was there until your breath was gone. A god of beauty. Of persuasion. Ofdesire.A god whonever asked.
Onlytook.
I felt him first—long before he crossed the gate. Even the spirits paused. The air shimmered with illusion, with soft heat and the hint of roses that never grew here. A glamour meant to charm.
I stepped into the hall as the threshold flared gold. A slender figure appeared at its center. Not a warrior or brute.
An artist of unraveling.
A god who knew how to pull the strings of devotion until they snapped—and re-tie them around his own wrist. He smiled when he saw her. Not at me.
Her.
In that moment, I understood that I would needallmy power. Not because I feared he’d win her. No, I had no fear of him in that. However, if he tried totouchwhat was freely hers, I would bring the whole realm down to stop him.
She stood, radiant and calm, shadow blooming behind her. Not a girl. Not a maiden. Not a victim. Just—herself.More than Kore. More than spring. Just more.
