Chapter 2

The moment the flames swallowed the parchment, the Hermes message scroll lit again.

It was a sending from Theron.

His voice carried displeasure.

“Selene, where did you go? Didn’t I tell you to choose the pattern for the vow scroll?”

I leaned against the window, looking at my pale reflection in the crystal pane, and spoke softly.

“I’m a little tired. I came back first.”

From the other end of the scroll, Daphne’s bright voice cut in.

“Then rest well. I already helped you choose the robe and the vow scroll.”

Then came Theron’s low voice.

“See how considerate Daphne is? She’s handled everything for you. Once the wedding rites are over, you should thank her properly.”

Holding the scroll, I suddenly smiled.

Was she truly being considerate?

Or was she ignoring my wishes and deciding everything for me?

I said nothing more and extinguished the sending.

Early the next morning, when I woke, the shared wedding scroll was already filled with three whole pages of golden writing.

I opened the only voice-sending Daphne had left me.

Her sweet, syrupy voice drifted from the scroll.

“Selene, I changed the wedding hymn for you. The one you chose was too solemn. The ceremony should be lighter.”

In the next moment, Theron’s reply appeared.

Yes. The original one doesn’t suit the occasion. The gods and the heads of the divine houses will all be present. Change it to something lighter.

I stared at that line, my fingertips slowly turning cold.

I had spent a month choosing the original hymn.

It was the song that had played when my parents entered their marriage covenant.

They had died too early.

I had once imagined that, during my own wedding rites, when that melody sounded, they might accompany me across the altar in another way.

But now, everyone was saying the new hymn was better.

No one asked me even once.

Selene, do you want this?

I turned the scroll face down on the table, and the room fell instantly quiet.

Beside the bed, my leather trunk was already open.

One by one, I placed inside my spare gowns, my sea-passage permit, a few gold drachmas, and the old necklace my parents had left me.

Deep in the wardrobe hung the bridal robe I had never truly had the chance to wear.

On the table lay the draft of the marriage vow scroll.

The names embossed in gold on its cover stung my eyes.

Theron Erebius and Selene Leukaia

Soul-Bonded Marriage Covenant

I had once thought this ceremony would belong to me at least once.

But in the end, even the robe, the hymn, the vow scroll, and the temple had all been chosen for me by someone else.

The message scroll lit again.

Daphne wrote in the shared wedding scroll:

Selene has never liked making decisions. We can decide these things for her.

Theron replied with a single word.

Good.

I lowered my head and looked at the trunk. Suddenly, it all seemed laughable.

Meles had known me the longest, yet he always stood on Daphne’s side.

When Theron pursued me, he said I was quiet and gentle, someone who made him want to protect me.

But after Daphne appeared, he began saying girls should be livelier, more opinionated.

I wanted to be cherished too.

I wanted someone to hold a bouquet of flowers and ask me, “Do you like these?”

But no one ever asked.

Even this wedding covenant, which I had thought would finally allow me to be the center of my own life, had still become someone else’s backdrop.

I closed the trunk.

The click of the bronze latch was especially clear in the silent room.

Then I summoned the steward of Whitecliff House.

“I won’t be staying in this palace anymore.”

The steward froze.

“Lady Selene, aren’t you moving into the Erebius palace soon?”

I looked out at the gray-blue sky beyond the window and said calmly, “No. I’m leaving Olympus.”