Eighteen Times She Chose the Mortal

I went to the temple. I placed the insignia—the badge of the second-in-command of the War Council—on the High Priest’s table.The High Priest looked up.His face changed when he saw me. When he saw the black, venomous veins on my neck.“Aresion? What is this? The Tartarean beast’s poison… it’s not gone? Didn’t Cassia give you the healing nectar?!”“High Priest, I’m here to submit a request.”My voice was flat. I pushed a scroll across the table to him.“I wish to leave the War Council. And dissolve my command under Cassia.”“What?” The High Priest stared, his eyes wide with disbelief. Then his gaze locked onto the poison on my neck. His voice trembled. “Without the nectar, and without completing the Soul-Binding today… the Tartarean venom will rot your divine essence! To live, your only chance now is to drink from the Waters of Lethe!”“But those waters… while they wash away the poison, they also wash away every memory from your soul! Every emotional bond!” The High Priest shot to his

Eleven o’clock at night.The door to the chambers opened. A rare sight. Cassia was back.The moment she stepped inside, her eyes shot to the wall above the fireplace.Seeing the empty space where the portrait used to be, she stopped. Panic flickered in her eyes.“Where’s our portrait?” she blurted out, her voice tight.“It fell this morning when you left. It shattered.” I sat on the divine couch, polishing my longsword. I didn’t even look up. “I cleaned it up. Burned it in the fireplace.”“It fell?” She let out a long breath, the tension leaving her body. “Well, if it shattered, it shattered. It was an old thing from eight years ago anyway. I brought you a gift.”She walked over and pulled an enchanted dagger from her bag, holding it out to me.“Aresion. Happy third anniversary.”She smiled, a little guiltily. “I know I’ve wronged you these past few years. I picked this dagger out especially for you today. For your protection.”I stopped polishing my sword and looked at the dagger.Spe

Cassia’s POVI stumbled through the doors of our chambers.Empty.The scent of cedarwood that had always calmed me was gone.There was only a cold, dead silence.I tore through the inner chamber, ripping open his wardrobe, his desk, even looking under the bed.Nothing. There was nothing.Except for that cold, formal document on the table, he had left nothing behind.The High Priest’s words twisted around my throat like a viper.He took a fatal poison for me. His divine power was fading.And I poured the only cure into a mortal with a scratched finger. Right in front of him.What have I done?I scrambled like a madwoman to the fireplace.Just yesterday, I thought his calmness was just him sulking.I shoved my hands into the hot ashes, digging frantically.Through the searing pain, I pulled out a charred fragment of the enchanted portrait.Only half of it remained. The edges were burned black.It was him, eight years ago. Covered in blood, but shielding my wounded body with his own.I ha

Cassia’s POV“Lady Cassia! Where on earth have you been?!”The moment I dragged my broken body back into the War Council's halls, Lycus ran up to me.He was wearing one of Aresion’s old silk robes.He didn’t notice the scorch marks on my armor. He didn’t see the blood on my lips.He just held up his finger—the one with the scratch.“My hand hurt all night. You said you would stay with me, but you left me all alone.” He pouted, demanding to be coddled. “Don’t you care about me anymore?”Looking at his pathetic, posturing face, looking at the clothes he wore—Aresion’s clothes—a wave of pure disgust twisted my stomach.For this broken finger.For this useless, pathetic creature.I had been so blind. I let him suck Aresion’s dignity and life away, bit by bit, until I personally forced my dying, bleeding partner to the Isle of Oblivion.“It hurts, does it?” I stared at him, my voice dead.Lycus paused. He thought I was about to coddle him. A smug smile spread across his face.“It hurts a lo