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A decision

Author: Author Calypso
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-30 01:29:58

ALTHEA

I don’t want to be out here. The forest is too quiet, the way it always is after a big storm. Branches still drip with old rain. Leaves shine slick and green. Every time a bird flits out of the brush, my heart jumps.

But we’re low on meat. Theo led a small group of us out to hunt. I tagged along mostly so no one would ask why I stayed behind. Now I trail near the back, bow strung across my chest, trying to look like my mind isn’t somewhere else entirely.

Leo walks a few paces ahead of me, joking with Aaron. Their laughter bounces through the trees. I try to smile, but it feels thin. My mother’s face keeps drifting up behind my eyes. Her voice. The last day we spent together, before everything fell apart. I wonder if she was still alive, if she’d be proud of me, or disappointed in me for the path I’ve chosen. Somehow, I think she’d be proud of me, I look down at myself, and almost laugh at the sight that meets me, I hardly even recognize myself now, mud on my boots, hair tangled
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  • The Mate Games   Varya’s diary entry 15

    Many decades ago…They told me I wouldn’t survive.And yet, here I am.Writing again with the same hands I thought would give out before sunrise. Breathing with lungs I believed would collapse before I’d ever see another full moon. I was supposed to die in that bed, skin cold, heart hollow, soul empty. That was what I believed. What I accepted.But death didn’t take me.I don’t know why.It wasn’t some miracle. It wasn’t because the gods changed their minds or because the goddess pitied me in my suffering. If anything, I think they turned their faces away, like they often do when mortals become too much trouble. But still… something kept me here.Maybe it was punishment. Or maybe it was something crueler, a chance to live and remember. To wake up and feel every consequence of what I did. Every loss. Every silence. Every night I hear his name in the wind and wonder what path he walks now.But the truth is… I didn’t die.Lira returned.It was weeks later, after the fever broke, after th

  • The Mate Games   Secrets in ink

    ALTHEAAfter Asher asks me to leave, I do my best not to let the tears that sting the back of my fall. His silence had echoed louder than any thing he could have said, and the door closing behind him might as well have been a guillotine falling. I don’t breathe. Not for a long time. My eyes are fixed on the door, my chest rising in shallow gasps, like my body doesn’t know what to do without him standing there, looking at me like I’d torn his soul in half. Then I turn and leave for my room, praying to the goddess I don’t see anyone else.Because I did.I never meant to. Not like this. Back in my room, the quiet stretches on, until it feels like the walls are pressing in. I decide to go to the library. At least the books there could be an escape from my dreadful reality. Walking to the far end of the room where an old bookshelf stands, dusty and mostly untouched. I don’t know why I go there—maybe because I can’t stand still. Maybe because I need something, anything, to distract me fro

  • The Mate Games   A broken heart

    ASHERThe room spins.Not literally, but it feels like it. Like the air’s been knocked out of me, and I’m still standing only because I haven’t told my body it’s okay to fall yet. I stare at her , at the girl who used to be my world, and everything inside me is too loud and too quiet at the same time.She flinches under my gaze. But to her credit, she doesn’t try to offer any excuses or pretend anymore. But at the same time maybe that’s what hurts the most, the way she just stands there, calm, while my world tears apart again.She’s not the girl I thought she was.She never was.“I need you to excuse me,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake — somehow. She hesitates a beat, before she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.It’s quiet. Almost too quiet. My fingers curl into fists at my sides, but I don’t want to break down. I don’t want give her that power over me.I pace around the room. My mind a fucking mess.Each step feels heavier than the last, like my legs are made of stone.

  • The Mate Games   Opening up to him

    ALTHEAElena’s eyes are too wide. Her whole body shakes like she’s trying to hold herself together with sheer will. The dagger in her hand glints faintly in the moonlight, but she isn’t holding it to threaten, she’s holding it like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.“I ran,” she says, voice rasping. “Mira stayed behind to distract them. There were guards, two, maybe three. She said I needed to find you.”“Where?” I whisper, grabbing her arms. “Where is she?”“She’s near the east corridor, locked in. But not for long.” Elena’s voice breaks slightly. “They’re moving people. Separating them. I think something worse is coming.”Before I can speak again, more footsteps echo from deeper in the hall, and I know we don’t have time. I pull her with me, deeper into the shadows, whispering that we’ll come back for Mira, that I’ll figure it out, that she has to stay hidden until I do.But even as I say it, a knot forms in my chest. One that doesn’t go away, not even after Elena is safely hi

  • The Mate Games   A decision in the night

    ALTHEACaroline’s eyes meet mine one last time before she slips away. Her hand squeezes mine briefly, warm, quick, grounding, and then she’s gone, vanishing through the door like smoke. I don’t ask where she’s going. I already know. She’s always been better in motion than in silence.The scream still echoes in my head. I can feel it in my bones, in the thrum of my pulse. Something’s happened.I grab the robe from the hook by the bed and throw it around myself as I move. My fingers fumble with the tie at my waist as I creep into the hall, the air thick with tension. The palace is no longer quiet. Footsteps echo somewhere ahead, hurried and heavy. Shouts rise and fall in bursts. There’s a metallic clanging, steel striking stone, or maybe doors being flung open, and I follow the sounds, keeping my steps light, my breath even.By the time I reach the main corridor, others have gathered. Figures in dark coats, some with sashes slung across their chests, others in plain clothes with red sti

  • The Mate Games   A midnight visit

    ALTHEAI sit on the edge of my bed, the covers untouched, one of the lights is still on, flickering in the far corner casting restless shadows across the walls. The night has swallowed the palace in silence, but my thoughts are loud, tumbling over each other in sharp, relentless waves. Everyone else has retired. I should be sleeping too. But I can’t. Not with everything I know now.Madeline isn’t just behind the rebellion. She is the rebellion. She’s the thread tying everything together, the voice in the dark, the hand guiding the knife. And Elise… Elise had been beside me this entire time, smiling, nodding, watching. Waiting.I stare at the door, still half-expecting someone to burst through it. After everything I said to Elise, after what I know, it wouldn’t be out of character for them to try to silence me. But that’s the thing, I don’t think they will. Because Madeline hadn’t looked scared when I said her real name. She hadn’t begged, denied, threatened. She’d simply watched me. L

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