Dumped the Oathbreaker for His War God Uncle novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Garland
Reborn in the middle of her Selection Day procession, Nysa walks past the fiance who will one day chain her and lays her garland on his uncle, the war god, and the King answers by handing her temple to her stepsister.
The last thing I remembered was a spear going into my chest.
The next thing I knew, I was holding a garland.
White asphodel, still wet from the morning, heavy in both my hands.
Harps were playing.
I was walking down the long gold floor of the Hall of Garlands, and the whole court of the Heights was watching me do it.
My Selection Day.
My twenty-fourth birthday.
Three years before I died.
I knew it the way you know your own name.
I knew the smell of the lilies on the pillars and the squeak of the left harpist's stool.
I knew the ring of white stones at the end of the hall, and the six gods standing inside it in their best.
And I knew the one in the middle, smiling at me.
Phaedon.
God of the Noon Sun, the King's only son, gold hair and gold-brown eyes and a laugh the whole court loved.
Three years from now he would chain me to a wall in the dark under this hall.
He would drink my power out of me one night at a time.
My stepsister would hold the cup.
"Smile," Ismene whispered behind me.
She was carrying my train, as my attendant.
Her gown was white linen with a gold cuff, the same as mine.
She'd had it made the same as mine.
"You look like you're going to a funeral," she said.
"I am," I said.
She giggled, because she thought I was joking.
I kept walking.
My knees didn't shake.
I was the Goddess of Oaths, and I had already died once, and nothing in this room could do worse than that.
Phaedon spread his hands as I reached the stones.
"My lady," he said, warm and low, for the front row.
Last time I had blushed.
Last time I had laid the garland on his shoulders and he had kissed my hand, and the court had sighed.
This time I looked at him for one long breath.
Then I walked past him.
Past the ring.
Past the five other suitors, who turned their heads to follow me.
The harps stumbled and stopped.
At the very back of the hall, by the last pillar, a man stood alone in black leather and a bronze-grey cloak.
He wasn't a suitor.
He was on duty.
Theron, God of War, the King's younger brother, Phaedon's uncle.
The butcher of the Eastern Pass.
Nobody looked at him if they could help it.
He was looking at me.
He'd been looking at me since I came through the doors, I realized.
There was a scar through his left eyebrow and grey at one temple, and his face gave away nothing at all.
I lifted the garland and laid it on his shoulders.
The asphodel looked ridiculous against all that leather.
The hall made a sound.
"Accepted," Theron said.
No pause.
No question.
Just the one word, in a voice that carried to the gold roof.
Behind me someone dropped a cup.
"Nysa."
Phaedon's hand closed on my wrist, hard enough to hurt.
He'd crossed the whole hall in a few strides, and his smile was gone.
"You're confused," he said through his teeth. "You're tired. Come back to the ring and we'll forget this."
His thumb pressed into the bone of my wrist.
I remembered that thumb.
"Swear it," I said.
He blinked.
"Swear on my name that you love me," I said, loud enough for the front row. "Swear it, and I'll come back."
Every god in that hall knew what an oath on my name did to a liar.
His hand would burn black where it held me.
Phaedon let go of my wrist.
Somebody laughed, high and shocked, and stopped.
"I'll take that as a no," I said.
Then the noise broke over all of us.
Gods shouting, councillors on their feet, Ismene saying my name over and over in her soft little voice.
Theron didn't move.
He stood there with my garland on his shoulders and watched his nephew's face.
"Silence."
The King rose from the throne.
He was fifty-eight and tired, and he loved his son more than he loved being fair.
"A garland laid outside the ring," he said. "It has never been done."
"It's been done now," I said.
His eyes went cold.
"Then hear the rest of it," he said. "Your father swore your betrothal contract with me a year ago, on your own name."
My father, in the second row, studied his shoes.
"Your temple was sworn to the Sun House as your dowry," the King said. "You may break your promise to my son. You may not take back his property."
My temple.
The sixty-one white steps on the western terraces.
My priestesses, my faithful, the flame my mother had kept before me.
"It stays with the Sun House," the King said.
Phaedon smiled again.
He reached into his belt and pulled out a ring of heavy bronze keys.
My keys.
He turned, and he tossed them underhand across the gold floor to Ismene.
She caught them against her chest.
"Look after it for me, sweetheart," Phaedon said.
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