Dumped the Oathbreaker for His War God Uncle novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Sixty-One Steps

Nysa breaks Ismene's whip on the temple steps and walks the Oath Flame and her faithful out of the temple, until Phaedon reads the King's ruling: Theron must swear for love on her name or burn.

The whip cracked as I reached the top of the sixty-one steps.

My head priestess was on her knees on the white stone in front of the temple doors.

Her cane lay beside her.

Her grey robe was torn at the shoulder, and there was a red line across the old skin under it.

Ismene stood over her with a coachman's whip and my bronze keys on a ribbon around her neck.

Twenty priestesses were lined up behind her, in their grey, with their hands folded and their eyes on the ground.

Behind them, in the courtyard, the morning faithful had stopped with their offerings in their arms.

Bread, oil, little clay tablets with promises scratched on them.

"Swear yourself to the Sun House," Ismene said, in that soft voice. "It's one sentence. Even you can manage one sentence."

"I've sworn myself to the goddess," my priestess said. "Sixty years ago. I don't have another one in me."

Ismene lifted the whip again.

I caught the end of it as it came back.

The leather bit into my palm.

I wrapped it twice around my fist and pulled, hard, and Ismene stumbled forward a step with her mouth open.

"Good morning," I said.

"Nysa." She recovered fast. She always had. "You're not supposed to be here. This is Sun House property."

"Then let the Sun House come and tell me."

I took the whip handle out of her hand.

I set the handle against my knee and bent it until the wood snapped, and threw both halves down the steps.

Eudora, panting behind me after the climb, said, "Oh, good."

I knelt by my priestess and got my arm under hers.

"You came," she said.

"I'm sorry I was slow."

"You were never slow. You were always late. It's different."

I helped her up and put her cane in her hand.

Ismene had found her smile again.

"Look at you," she said, loud enough for the courtyard. "One night in his house and you're breaking things. Is that what the butcher likes?"

"He killed his last bride, you know," Ismene said. "Everyone knows. The night before the wedding. She went into his house and nobody ever saw her again."

"You should be careful what you say on these steps," I said.

"Why? Will your goddess strike me down?" She laughed and spread her arms. "You don't have a temple, Nysa. You gave it away for a man who smells like a horse."

I looked past her at the doors.

They were bronze and tall and open, and inside, at the end of the long cool hall, the Oath Flame burned in its lamp on the altar.

My mother had kept that flame.

"You're right," I said. "I don't have a temple."

I walked past her, through the doors.

The hall smelled of oil and old stone.

I went up to the altar and lifted the bronze lamp in both hands.

It was warm.

I carried it back out into the morning.

Behind me, as I crossed the threshold, the light inside the temple went out.

It went out.

The hall at my back was just a dark stone room.

Ismene's face changed.

"You can't take that," she said. "It's part of the temple. It's in the contract."

"Then it should have stayed," I said.

I started down the steps with the flame.

My head priestess fell in at my side, leaning on her cane.

Behind her, the first of the twenty priestesses lifted her head, looked at Ismene, and walked after us.

Then the next one.

Then all of them, in a grey line, step by step.

The faithful in the courtyard parted for me, and then they came after us too.

By the time I was halfway down, the courtyard was empty, and the keys on Ismene's ribbon were the keys to an empty house.

"You'll come back!" Ismene shouted after me. "You'll come crawling back when he's finished with you!"

At the bottom of the steps, a column of black leather was coming up the terrace road at a run.

Legionaries, thirty of them, spears up.

At their head was a scarred man missing half an ear, and beside him, not running at all, walking was Theron.

He took in the flame, the priestesses, the faithful with their offerings.

He looked up the steps at Ismene, and something in his face made her take one step back into the doorway.

"You left before I woke," he said to me.

"You were asleep in a chair with your boots on."

"I'm a light sleeper. I don't know how you managed it."

"Practice," I said, and handed the lamp to my priestess.

The captain with half an ear was grinning at me.

"Morning, my lady," he said. "We'd have come sooner, but he wouldn't let anybody run ahead of him."

"Captain," Theron said.

"My lord."

Hooves rang on the terrace road above us.

A white horse with gold on its bridle came down at a trot, and Phaedon swung off it at the temple gate.

White and gold, a sun on his chest, not a hair out of place.

He held up a scroll with the King's seal on it and smiled down at all of us.

"My father has ruled on your little garland," he said. "Three days from now, in the Sun Hall, my uncle swears the bridegroom's oath on your name. For love, and for life."

He let that settle.

"If his hand burns," Phaedon said, "the marriage is void, and you come back to me."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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