After Our Daughter Died, the King of the Gods Begged Me Back

In the projection, the younger Caelum looked like he had been struck by his own lightning. His mouth worked open and shut before he finally forced out a pale, brittle smile. “Sweetheart, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”

I shut my eyes, wishing it could have been.

The Caelum behind me, the one who lived in this present, had no idea who I was speaking to, and my silence only made him angrier.

“Didn’t you tell everyone Seraphina burned Nia to ash? Who exactly are you—” He flicked his hand and the message stone tore itself out of my grip, flying straight to him.

He glanced down at the projection, and his voice cut off.

The face inside the stone was five years younger than his own, and the eyes staring back were red with hate.

For a split second his whole body went rigid, then he caught himself and hurled the stone into the corner.

“You really are getting bolder,” Caelum said, his voice cold with contempt. “A stretch in Tartarus didn’t teach you anything? Now you’re faking time projections just to get my attention?”

He stood over me, looking down.

“I don’t care what game you’re playing,” he said, his tone flat. “Seraphina hasn’t slept for two days because of your lies. Now go to her temple, kneel, and apologize.”

I lifted my head and gave a small, broken laugh.

It was absurd. Seraphina had destroyed my home and burned my daughter alive with her own hands.

And now my child’s father was telling me to kneel in front of her temple and apologize.

The laugh seemed to cut him. He saw the despair in my eyes, the hollowness, and something flickered in his own.

“Don’t worry,” he said, softening, as if he were granting me a favor. “Just apologize, and I won’t let her punish you too much.”

“That’s not possible,” I started to say, but he didn’t wait. With a wave of his hand, Kratos and Bia were already there, lifting me by the arms, and in a single breath they had me outside Seraphina’s temple.

A heartbeat later I was on my knees in the doorway, pinned down.

It was the same as it had been for five years: a mortal woman with no defense against the will of the King of the Gods.

Seraphina felt the disturbance and came out. She wore pale gold, her face composed in that careful, divine pity she had perfected, and she glanced down at me with a delicate curl of disdain.

“Mortals are so disgusting,” she sighed. “Faking her own daughter’s ashes for the King’s attention. But Nia was innocent, and since you’ve apologized, I won’t hold this against you.”

She raised a hand, and a golden cup floated toward me, brimming with flame. “Bring Nia here. This is her cleansing fire for the month.”

The blood roared up in my chest.

She knew. She knew this so-called divine flame had already burned Nia to nothing.

I couldn’t hold it back, and I struck out and knocked the cup from the air.

Flame burst loose. Seraphina didn’t move, and a few embers caught the hem of her gold robe, eating a black scar into the fabric.

Her eyes went cold in an instant.

Caelum was in front of her before the flame settled, his fingers wrapped around hers, his face dark. “Elara, don’t push your luck. Seraphina is trying to help our daughter and this is what you do? Apologize. Now.”

I stayed silent and glared at them, my eyes burning with hate.

They had burned my daughter alive and now they wanted me to apologize. I would rather flay them both. I wanted these high and holy gods to feel what my daughter had felt.

Seraphina caught the defiance in my eyes, and her own narrowed.

“Filthy mortal. Your blood is what tainted Caelum’s divine line, and it’s because of you Nia was born cursed. Instead of repenting, you keep trying to stop me from cleansing her. Poor Nia, to have such a cheap, vicious mother.”

She lifted her hand, and a ball of golden flame hit me square in the chest, the heat scorching my hair black in an instant.

It was like being thrown into a furnace, and my organs were on fire.

I screamed. The pain was something a human body was never built to hold. I rolled on the ground, clawing at the stone tiles until two of my fingernails tore off, blood and burnt flesh smeared together.

I couldn’t stop thinking that this had happened to Nia. Once a month, for five years.

How much had it hurt her, and how frightened had she been?

The thought closed around my chest like a hand, and I couldn’t breathe.

Caelum stood there watching me writhe in the fire, his face giving nothing away, though something flickered behind his eyes that almost looked like ache.

When I was nearly unconscious, he finally lifted a hand, and the flames went out.

I collapsed on the stone, dragging air into my lungs. My skin was a map of blisters and char, and most of my clothes were gone.

Caelum walked over and looked down at me.

“Enough,” he said, his voice flat. “Apologize to Seraphina. Admit you were wrong, and we can put this behind us.”

He paused, then added, “I’ll heal the burns.”

I almost laughed.

What was this supposed to be? Hit me, then hand me candy, as if I should be grateful to these gods, as if I should love them for it.

I pushed myself up onto one arm, shaking everywhere.

I looked him in the eye, my voice coming out raw.

“Caelum. Seraphina was never trying to cleanse Nia of any curse. She burned our daughter alive.”

“Nia’s ashes are in that urn, right now. You can take them and verify.”

His face went dark all the way through before I could even finish.

“Even now,” he said, the rage a low hum in his throat. “Even now you’re saying this. Don’t you have the slightest hope for our daughter? Do you really want her dead?”

“She really is dead. You have to listen to me,” I tried to say.

He waved his hand, and a wall of force lifted me off the ground and slammed me back against the temple’s stone pillar. Blood came up out of my mouth, and I crumpled at the foot of the steps with half my body gone numb.

A flash of contempt crossed Seraphina’s face, then smoothed back into tender concern.

“Don’t be angry.” She laid a hand on Caelum’s arm, her voice gentle and restrained. “Mortals are simply low. She’s not worth your anger.”

His expression eased. He slid an arm around her shoulders and turned away, and the two of them walked back into the temple together.

I lay on the steps, the taste of blood in my mouth drowning out everything else.

My burns were still weeping, and even the wind made me curl into myself.

But I had stopped wanting to move.

I had said what needed to be said, and he had not believed me.

He would never believe me.

Then the message stone in the corner flickered to life again, and the Caelum from five years ago was there.

He took in the state of me, the burns and the blood, and his pupils contracted to pinpoints.

He threw himself toward the projection, his voice cracking with fury and grief.

“Elara! What happened? Who did this to you?”