Dumped the Oathbreaker for His War God Uncle novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Iron House

In the war god's cold fortress Nysa sets the terms of a revenge marriage, Eudora arrives with trunks and gossip, and a temple dove warns that Ismene will whip the priestesses at dawn.

The Iron House was colder than a tomb, and two dogs the size of ponies met us at the door.

They were grey and shaggy and silent.

They walked straight past Theron and put their noses into my hands.

"Traitors," Theron said to them.

"They have taste," I said.

The bigger one leaned on my legs until I staggered.

An old woman with one eye and a ring of kitchen keys came down the hall, took one look at me in my Selection gown, and turned to Theron.

"You went out to stand by a pillar," she said. "You came back with a wife."

"Not yet," he said.

"Close enough." She squinted at me. "Have you eaten, girl?"

"Not since yesterday," I said.

Not since I died, I thought, which was nobody's business.

She stomped off, muttering about bread.

Theron unhooked my garland from his shoulders and hung it on an iron peg by the door, between a spear and a horse blanket.

It was the only soft thing in the hall.

The walls were black stone.

The fire was small.

There was a war map on the long table, weighted at the corners with knives.

"You live like this?" I said.

"I live on the border," he said. "This is where I sleep when the King wants me close."

"It's like a barracks with a roof."

"It is a barracks with a roof."

The old woman came back with a loaf, a wedge of white cheese and a jug of black wine.

Theron poured for me.

He stirred a spoon of honey into my cup before he handed it over.

I had always taken honey in my wine.

I'd never told him that.

I'd barely said a dozen words to him in my life.

"Everyone does it that way in the Eastern Pass?" I said.

"Everyone sensible."

He sat across from me and cut the bread with a knife from the map.

He didn't ask why.

He didn't ask anything.

He just ate, and waited, and let the dogs lie on my feet.

So I told him.

"I need a husband for thirty days," I said. "Until the Feast of First Light."

"And after?"

"After that, you can set me aside and I'll never trouble you again."

"What happens at the Feast?"

"The King names his heir," I said. "And his heir swears on my name that he's kept every oath he ever swore."

Theron's knife stopped.

"Phaedon has broken more oaths than he's eaten dinners," I said. "If he swears that on my name, his hand burns black in front of the whole Heights."

"He knows that."

"Yes," I said. "So he needs me married to him first. He needs me where he can get at me."

I didn't say what he'd do once he had me.

I didn't say chains.

I drank the wine instead.

"I want him ruined," I said. "In public. In front of every god who ever clapped for him. I want him never to sit on that throne."

"Done," Theron said.

I put my cup down.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"You don't want to know why?"

"You'll tell me when you want to."

"He's your nephew."

"He's my brother's son," Theron said. "We've never liked each other. He was six when he told the court I'd kicked his dog."

"Did you?"

"He didn't have a dog."

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it, and it surprised us both.

He looked at me across the table.

Then the front door banged open, and the dogs went off.

"Down! Down, you overgrown rugs, I'm on her side!"

Eudora came in backwards, dragging a trunk.

Two more trunks came behind her on the shoulders of a scared young legionary, who put them down and fled.

Her red-brown curls were coming out of their pins.

She had a wineskin on one hip and my second-best cloak over her arm.

"I quit the Sun House," she said. "I'd been there one week as a guest and I quit. I brought your things. I brought your good shoes."

"Eudora."

"I brought your terrible bedspread with the owls."

She dropped onto the bench beside me and kissed my cheek with a loud smack.

"You beautiful lunatic," she said. "Phaedon smashed the big mirror in the Hall of Garlands with his fist. There's glass everywhere. Ismene's crying in a corner and your stepmother is screaming at your father."

"What's my father doing?"

"Nodding," she said."

She looked at him then, properly, and went a little quiet.

"My lord," she said.

"Eat something," he said, and slid the cheese across.

She ate something.

"The court thinks you've lost your mind," she told me with her mouth full. "Half of them think he threatened you. The other half think you're pregnant."

"By who?"

She pointed her cheese at Theron.

"I met him this afternoon," I said.

"Nobody believes that, darling. Look at him."

Theron didn't blush, but he did get up to put a log on the fire.

Something fluttered at the high window.

A white dove, from my temple.

It came down on the war map in a flurry and stood on the Eastern Pass with a slip of paper tied to its leg.

I knew the handwriting before I had it unrolled.

My head priestess, who was seventy and had taught me my letters.

Her hand was shaking on the page.

"The Lady Ismene will hold a swearing on the temple steps at dawn. Every priestess will swear herself to the Sun House. Any who refuse will be whipped."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend