Semua Bab After Our Daughter Died, the King of the Gods Begged Me Back: Bab 1 - Bab 9

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 projec

Something jealous flashed in his eyes. He caught my chin in one hand and forced my head up.“Who were you talking to?”Before I could answer, he wrenched the message stone from me, and the moment his own divine power registered in it, a small, possessive smile touched his lips.“Sweetheart, I see. You’re jealous.” He looked at the burns on my body, and something softened in his eyes that wanted to be tenderness. “Seraphina is the Goddess of Flame. A mortal cannot defy her. You understand?”He took out a salve infused with his own power, and his touch was light, almost gentle. “Her fire was a little hot. I’ll speak to her, and she won’t treat you that way again. Stop being difficult. Apologize to her at the Council tomorrow, and this will all be behind us. All right?”I watched his hand on me.Five years ago, he had cradled my face and told me I was the only one. I told him I liked white roses, and he had planted the whole divine mountain with them, with his own hands.And now he was sl

The Caelum of the present stared at the figure in the doorway who shared his own face, and he couldn’t move.It took him a long time to speak. His voice was tight. “Who are you?”The younger Caelum didn’t answer. He crossed the hall, walked up to his older self, and struck him in the face.The older Caelum’s anger flared, but before he could lash back, the younger one shoved the urn into his hands. His voice came out raw.“This is your daughter’s ashes. Don’t tell me you can’t even feel that.”Caelum trembled. He couldn’t accept it.He gripped the small urn and poured his whole power into sensing it.The more he felt that familiar bloodline, the whiter his face became.“Impossible.” The word broke apart in his mouth. “Elara hid her. Somewhere…”His younger self stared at him, the look cold enough to reach bone. “If I had known what I’d become, I would have killed myself first.”Caelum had no answer. He clutched the urn, his knuckles bloodless, and he looked like something had been pull

Caelum found me at Nia’s grave.The wind on the cliff was loud, and the stone was small with her name carved on it. The younger Caelum was on his knees in front of it, his forehead pressed against the stone, his shoulders shaking and not stopping.I sat on a rock beside him and watched, and I didn’t say anything.The older Caelum came up the mountain path at a run. He was thinner, the hollows under his eyes were deep, and he hadn’t slept in days.He ran over and reached for my hand.I pulled it back.He flinched, but he didn’t stop. He crouched so he could meet my eyes, his voice fast and broken. “Elara. I know everything now. What Seraphina did to Nia, I really didn’t know. I just—”He swallowed, looking for a version of it he could live with.“I just wanted you to stop being so stubborn. I wanted you to lean on me. I thought if I sent you to Tartarus, you’d come back softer.”I looked at him.So this was the reason. He had thrown me into hell because he wanted me “softer.” He had han

Caelum was chained in the deepest level of the Pit of Lightning.By my order, every pain that touched him there was something Nia or I had already lived through.The time-reflection looped scenes of Nia’s abuse and forced him to watch, frame by frame. He was made to kneel on stone slabs the way Nia had, sometimes for half a day. He was burned with divine flame, then healed, then burned again. They wouldn’t let him die.He couldn’t die. The Pit doesn’t give that to anyone.Seraphina ended faster.Without godhood, her body rotted quickly. She was kept in the burning circle, taking the same divine flame Nia had taken, every day.The guards told me she cursed for the first few days. She called me a filthy mortal. She called Nia a damned omen. She called Caelum an ungrateful traitor.After a while she didn’t have the strength to curse, and only her lips moved.After a while more, even her lips stopped.I had someone describe how she looked at the end to Caelum.He didn’t react.But that sam