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 sleeping with another woman and asking me to apologize to the one who had killed our daughter.
My silence wasn’t what he wanted, and something cooled in his face.
He was about to say something more when Kratos and Bia burst through the door, panicked.
“Lord. There are projections covering Mount Olympus. All of Seraphina.”
Caelum’s hand on me went still.
Kratos’s voice shook. “It’s footage of her burning Nia. And of her and you, in the temple. It’s reached every mortal city and every temple, and the people are tearing her statues apart.”
His face went black with rage.
“Who did this?”
Bia kept her head down. “We can’t trace it. The projection carries your divine signature, so no one else can dispel it.”
His grip on me clenched, and the pain forced a sound out of me.
“Elara.” He caught my chin again. Eyes narrowed, he studied me, burns and all. “How did you copy my power? Was it the half of my blood I gave you?”
“Do you understand what this means? If mortal faith collapses, all of Olympus falls.”
I was almost lifted off the ground and could hardly breathe. I forced the words out between my teeth. “It wasn’t me.”
He gave a short laugh. “Who else?”
He let go, and I slid down the wall to the floor.
He didn’t want my explanation. He just announced it. “Tomorrow, at the Council, in front of every god and every mortal, you will withdraw these accusations. You will apologize to Seraphina in your own voice.”
I lifted my head. “No.”
He crouched down to my level, his voice dropping quiet.
He spoke calmly, and it was the calmness that made my skin go cold. “That isn’t up to you. If you refuse, I will find Nia, no matter where you’ve hidden her, and you will never see her again. I won’t risk her growing up around a mother as twisted as you.”
Every drop of blood in my body went cold.
He was threatening me with Nia. If he found her ashes, what would he do to them?
I couldn’t even think about it. I stared at him with red, burning eyes. I couldn’t move, the burns were still seeping, and I couldn’t have stood if I’d tried.
After Caelum left, I dragged myself across the floor to the corner and found the message stone.
I asked the Caelum from five years ago. “Was it you? The projections over Olympus?”
The answer came instantly.
“Yes. Anyone who hurt you or Nia, I won’t spare a single one of them.”
“Including myself.”
