Lahat ng Kabanata ng Poseidon's Mistress: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

I returned to House Poseidon before midnight and failed at normal before I reached the stairs. The guards bowed, and I nodded at the correct depth. A servant asked whether I wanted wine sent to my study; I answered no. Another asked if the coastal patrol agreements had been completed; I said yes, though I couldn’t remember whether I’d signed the final copy or left it sitting on Hypatos’ desk like evidence of a man losing his mind. Everything looked the same: white stone, blue tile, silver lamps burning low, the distant murmur of fountains pretending water could be civilized if marble held it tightly enough. I’d kissed Mitha. No. She’d stepped toward me. No. That was worse, because it sounded like blame. We’d kissed. Barely, once, but mutually. That was enough. The sea struck the western cliffs harder as I crossed the main hall, honest where I could not afford to be. Berenice waited in the western sitting room. Of course she did. She wore a pale robe over her nightdre

Berenice stopped waiting three nights later. I’d been giving her my silence and calling it restraint, and that was one of the more cowardly lies I’d been telling lately. The children had gone to bed. Leandros was angry over a training correction; Nereus had fallen asleep with ink on his cheek; and my daughter had asked whether storms got lonely when they had nowhere to go. I’d answered in a way gentle enough to make her smile and false enough to stay with me after she left. Then Berenice entered my study and locked the door. I looked up from a report I hadn’t been reading. She stood with her back to the door, one hand still on the key, dressed in deep blue that made her look every inch Lady Poseidon. Not my jailer—she had been clear about that—but not a woman willing to be made foolish by silence either. “We are done stepping around it,” she said, her tone calm in a wa

House Ares locked down before midnight. Iron gates sealed, inner doors barred, every servant questioned, every guard reassigned, every corridor turned into a throat with teeth. Diokles took command until Androkles could be reached, and no one had the sense or death wish to argue with Zeus when his voice went quiet. Lady Ismene was moved to Lord Ares’ chambers with Alexis at her side, a healer close behind, and Mitha walking beside the bed like a blade given legs. The cut on Ismene’s arm was minor, the one on her cheek even less. That was what the healer said. Minor. A neat word. A useless word. There was nothing minor about blood on a pregnant woman who carried the future of House Ares while her husband hunted rebellion across Olympus. Nothing minor about an assassin reaching her rooms. Nothing minor about Bion, a banished Ares soldier tied to Chara’s abandonment, appearing in the middle of an attack that touched A

Berenice waited until the children were asleep. That was like her. She didn’t spend pain carelessly or let grief spill where small eyes might step in it. Through supper, she sat across from me with perfect posture, her hands folded, her voice gentle when Leandros argued about his lessons, and Nereus claimed one of the kitchen cats had insulted him. Our daughter leaned against her mother’s side, half-asleep before the final course, her dark lashes resting on cheeks still soft with childhood. I watched them and felt the coward in me look for punishment—a shouted accusation, a broken plate, a scene large enough to match what I had done. Berenice gave me none of that. When the children were led away, the room became too large. Servants cleared the table quickly, perhaps sensing a storm even without thunder. I remained seated after the last cup disappeared, listening to water move in the courtyard fountain. It sounded wrong. Everything did. “Come with me,” Berenice said quietly. Sh

No announcement was made. There was no public declaration, no contract drafted, no room assigned, no jewelry delivered in velvet, no formal adjustment to the machinery of House Poseidon. I didn’t stand before my household and name Mitha as anything. I didn’t ask Berenice to smile while I sharpened the blade already in her back. Still, the House noticed. Houses always did. Servants knew when a Lord stopped sleeping in his wife’s bed with any consistency. Guards knew when messengers from Ares were admitted faster than others. Stable hands knew when my horse was saddled too often for errands that didn’t require a horse. Kitchen girls knew when Berenice no longer looked up at the sound of my footsteps with the old, quiet expectation that I might cross the room toward her. Nothing was said. That made it worse. Some bowed lower to me, as if my failure had polished my rank rather than stained it. Some looked away when Berenice passed, which enraged me more than open pity would have.