And so she did.
The tears that poured from her eyes, salty and warm, released the quiet pain she harbored for so long. Unleashed it. Gave it a physical form in this world.
Her body still ached. Parts of her she’d preferred to save for the love she longed to cherish were stolen. Her future was fated the day she’d been given it. The day of her birth. She could no longer be the carefree princess who loved to stroll through the manor’s gardens or lose an afternoon watching new fawns prance around their mothers. She was the spring queen. The ruler of the eastern realm. The patron of dawn.
Not only that, but she was now a wife.
She leaned over the cold, metal railing, overcome with the deepest sense of dread and now emptied of all her mind’s contents. The darkest depression from the thickest shadows in her mind crept up her throat, drying her eyes with a new type of sadness.
This was for the best. This is right.
Chapter 2
Procyon, like a parasite, remained by Tethys’s side in the weeks that passed after the wedding and coronation. Every night as the sun sank beneath its horizon, foreboding weighed on her chest until she could barely breathe. After Procyon fell asleep, she’d peel his sleep-heavy limbs from hers and escape to the balcony. Although the fresh night air was a small reprieve from the stench of entangled bodies, his touch lingered on her skin like a brand.
Amidst the cricket chirps and rustling gardens below she’d weep for her older sister, begging the stars to whisk her away to their heavenly resting place.
Polaris never answered the plea.
Day after day, in a blur of numb monotony, the sun rose gently in the sky and Tethys, haunted by moments from the night prior, was already awake to greet it.
This morning, like most, she sat on the settee in the study, mindlessly flipping the pages of a leather-bound tome in her lap. Leaning against the armrest, she huffed asigh and reread the words of a sentence for the third time. The joy she felt from her books was now simply a nuisance. She wanted to feel numb, devoid of all emotions.
And so, she turned her head to the window and watched the sun rise above the horizon. She prayed for the day when her body wouldn’t ache and her head wouldn’t scream filthy memories at her. But she was immortal. That day might never come.
“My queen…” After what seemed like hours passed, a servant entered the study and bowed his head low. “Keeper Obscuros requests your presence this morning.”
Tethys stiffened. “Was the king alerted as well? He hasn’t yet risen for the day.”
“The primordial requested your presence alone, my queen,” the servant said, shuffling his feet.
“Alright. Thank you, Phaon,” she replied, nodding to the servant. He bowed again stiffly, and, like a field mouse alerted of its predator, scurried out the richly carved door and disappeared down the hall before it clicked shut.
Obscuros only held council when absolutely necessary. With the passing of millennia, the leash he kept on his immortal children loosened. The tethers of trust, thickening with time, were strongest with the eldest daughter. Now it would take an event of catastrophic measure for Polaris to be called to council. In more ways than one, she’d simply vanished into the snowy blur of the North, left to rule her people as she pleased—unbothered and entirely trusted. Altair followed suit shortly after, melting into the seaside like the rising tide. Even Procyon, despite his short fuse, Obscuros trusted to reign amongst the westerners entirely. Until war broke out, of course.
Tethys, on occasion, endured the daggers of their father’s frigid indifference during their discussion of eastern mortals at war or the western blight causing shallow grain stores. She and Procyon were always summoned together, though. This would be the first council he’d requested ofher alone.
Tethys closed the book she’d been reading and returned to her bedchambers with a lingering wariness that wrapped its talons along her throat.
“I’ve been wondering where you ran to.” Procyon smirked. His thick brown hair was still disheveled with sleep.
“I was in the study reading. Father has called on me this morning,” Tethys said, wrapping a shawl around herself.
“Obscuros? Called uponyou?” He sat up, disbelief wrinkled across his brow. “It must be important, then. I’ll accompany you.” Procyon rose from their bed.
Tethys flinched as she watched his naked body stretch away the cramps of sleep. His casual demeanor felt just as much a violation of her body as everything else.
She stifled a shudder and suppressed the memory, fixing her pained gaze on the small forget-me-nots carved along the bedposts.
“Dress quickly, then. I’d prefer to stay in Father’s good graces,” Tethys said.
“Tethys, darling girl, I hate to break it to you, but that ship sailed long ago, and I don’t foresee it returning to port anytime soon,” Procyon scoffed and disappeared into the bathing chamber. Tethys bit her tongue before her retort could escape the narrow space between her parted lips. She didn’t need to flare his temper this morning. Not with the unknown cause of Obscuros’s summons trembling along her fingertips.
An hour later, they stood before the massive oak carved doors of Venia’s High Council. Tethys’s scalp ached from the pins clasping her curls in place, her skin oiled beneath the thick paste of makeup the chambermaids applied.
“Well, shall we enter the wolf’s den?” Procyon flashed her a grin and held out his hand. Out of tradition, she placed hers in his. He grasped her fingers a bit too tightlyand ascended the marble steps.
Golden sunlight gleamed through the chamber’s arched windows, illuminating the grand marble table at its center. Four gilded armchairs with ivy carved up their back rests sat vacant. At the head of the table, however, was Obscuros. Shadows slithered at his feet like hungry eels.
