1
SILVER
If someone told me a month ago that my best friend would walk down the aisle in a sexy pale blue mermaid gown, and that the man waiting at the other end was none other than the dark sorcerer of the underside, prince of darkness, Lucian Saltzin Regis, I would have asked what they were snorting and demanded a hit. For one, the old Kleos would have never worn something as delightfully daring. Her mother wouldn’t have permitted it. And secondly, the sweetheart of the vale didn’t even use to speak to any unders before.
How our world changed in just a few months.
As the maid of honor, traditionally I would have stood right next to her, but the bridal party scattered to the front row seats once we escorted the bride up to her besotted groom, mostly because of the austere woman leading the ceremony.
I wouldn’t say I cowered, exactly, but for the first time in my life, I was pretty glad to be five foot one.
Imposing and stunning, the woman was dark haired and olive skinned, with a classical Mediterranean look, down to the strong nose, which somehow looked absolutely perfect in herenchanting face. She was draped in radiant purple silk and gold that glinted in the way that made it look like liquid sunshine.
Hera, the queen of heaven, goddess of propriety, marriage, broomsticks stuck in arses and cows.
She loved Kleos, or at least, loved the woman whose energy Kleos had claimed. Me? Not so much.
I’d never actually interacted with the goddess, not in this form, not in my actual memory, but all my instincts screamed that it was safer not to.
Though by no mean a scholar of Kleos’s caliber, I couldn’t live in Highvale all my life and not learn a thing or two.
Eons ago, in the Bronze Age, Hera was so sick of her husband-brother’s meandering that she cursed…well, a lot of women. One of them was Leto. The wrathful goddess demanded of her mother, Gaia, that Leto, pregnant with twins, be given no haven on Earth.
The entire fucking Earth.
In the end, it was Poseidon who pushed her ship to a floating island, unanchored to the sea bed—and therefore not attached to the Earth—where she gave birth to twins: the shining Apollo, and Artemis.
Me.
Another mindfuck I would have guessed was the fruit of a particularly good harvest of mushrooms, should anyone have claimed it not so long ago.
When gods died, their energies remained, and sometimes attached themselves to people: Freya for Kleos, and Artemis for me.
It was wild, insane. And yet I couldn’t deny that when I thought the words in my head, a quiet sense of peace came to me, as if to say,yes, that’s right.
Besides, just yesterday, Apollo risked his life against bloody Zeus to get me out of danger, and there was no one else he wouldhave done it for. As fond as he was of his lovers, his friends, even his mother, Leto, Apollo was inherently too selfish to ever defy his father for anything or anyone except his twin.
Dark eyes flashed to me, and a shiver ran along my spine as I looked down at my nails, suddenly shamed for the sin of being born a lifetime ago. From the corner of my eyes, I could see the goddess’s shapely lips curve up. She liked my worry and misery, I would have sworn it.
I forced my attention back on my friends as they exchanged eternal vows.
I didn’t cry. If my eyes got a little misty, it wasn’t my fault. The dome was still broken, and my divine progenitor, being an absolute shit, decided to make it rain.
Poseidon didn’t allow any water through the enormous hole Apollo had made when he’d flown us out of there yesterday, but I was more than positive a drop or two fell to my cheek.
Yes, that was absolutely not tears.
“Sweet, aren’t they?” a raspy voice whispered at my side.
“Mm,” I said, before twirling back.
It sounded like a guy, and I was standing with the bridesmaids. The only one with a penis allowed on this side, Gideon, was too busy bawling his eyes out like a pussy to say anything.
I snorted, recognizing the man lounging behind me.
Except no one else was paying attention to him, which was strange. Apollo definitely wasn’t the sort of man people might overlook. Firstly, because he was devastatingly handsome, but also because of how bloody obnoxious his appearance was, from the broad shoulders in a silky shirt to the long flaming red hair and the crystal dangling from one of his ears.
Mycrystal.
