Asteril and Leuke, having arrived at Kallirore, immersed their naked bodies in the cold water.
Leuke floated a mix of thyme and rose blossoms on the water and gazed at the back of Asteril’s neck. The marks of love left by a god’s lips were clearly visible.
“Um… Lady Asteril.”
“Yes?”
“What does it feel like to live as Lord Kallian’s lover?”
Asteril, who had been staring blankly at the rippling surface, turned her shoulder at the sudden question.
“They say the dwelling of the gods is called Oceanus, don’t they? Lady Tethys told me. That even the Moon God, who has witnessed all the world’s rarest treasures, sighs deeply at that splendid sight before reluctantly drifting away, carried by luminous clouds. When I look at the two of you, I feel as though I have come to Oceanus.”
On Leuke’s face, speaking with a dreamy expression, Asteril saw the girl she used to be.
The days in Cocytus, playing with Zephyrus, clutching a great armful of flowers, and breathing in their fragrance without a care.
Back then, she too had been completely absorbed in the mythical tales Zephyrus told, letting her imagination run wild.
“The love of the gods….”
She tilted her head back in the rippling water and looked up at the sky through the branches tangled like spiderwebs.
“It is immortal, like the blood flowing through their veins. For across those endless ages, they keep only one beloved.”
“Only one beloved?”
Leuke’s lips slackened blankly. It was already romantic. If she were a bard, she would have recorded every single line of Asteril’s story onto a clay tablet.
“If I say I want to swim, he becomes the river; if I say I want to fly, he becomes the sky. To embrace me, he would lessen himself, and to enter within me, he would gladly pare away his own body. That is the man Kallian is.”
“Lord Kallian must truly cherish you, Lady Asteril. Just watching from the side makes one feel happiness. You must be so fortunate, Lady Asteril.”
“….”
“Is something troubling you? Your expression remains dark. If it is because of Delphi… please, clear your mind and think only happy thoughts, at least today. It is the first morning since you defeated Gamos and became husband and wife with Lord Kallian.”
“That’s right. It is a time when I should think only happy thoughts… I have too many distracting thoughts.”
Asteril rose and wrung out her wet hair with her hand. A petal the size of a fingernail clung to her ebony hair like a pearl ornament.
“My goodness, what in the world did Lord Kallian do to you all night, Lady Asteril? Red roses are blooming all over your body. The rose is the flower that symbolizes Eros… Should we call Lord Kallian the God of Love and Desire from now on?”
“Really, Lady Leuke… please stop. I’m embarrassed.”
“What is there to be ashamed of when you are loved like this? You could boast of it everywhere and it still wouldn’t be enough. I heard you even shattered the Thalamos? It seems the chamber was too small a space to endure a god’s lust.”
“I didn’t break it….”
“Don’t worry. The people of Hecate specialize in such matters. I’ll fix it perfectly. They probably already have.”
Leuke waved her hands dismissively, putting on airs of a favor done. Asteril glared at her, then laughed.
The two, splashing water and rubbing thyme onto each other’s bodies, decided to get out when they felt a chill.
Asteril walked out of the spring, crossing her arms over her chest. Water running down her pale calves dripped onto the moss-covered earth and quickly seeped beneath the shaded ground.
The two lightly shook out the clothes draped over a rock and put them on. The dresses clung to their skin like scales.
“Huh? Lady Asteril, over there….”
Leuke narrowed her eyes as if staring into the darkness. She pointed with her finger to the other side of the spring where they stood.
A shadow standing stock-still amidst the dense shrubs seemed to sense their gazes and began trudging forward. The movement looked listless, yet somehow horrifying.
Asteril stepped back slowly, shielding Leuke as if to protect her. Instinctively, she felt the situation was dangerous.
The figure, who had been walking increasingly fast, faltered and looked down at a stone caught at the tip of her foot. With a hand caked in dirt and blood, she picked up the stone. It was an ancient stone with an end as sharp as a spear.
Leuke let out a shallow scream upon seeing the woman’s face as it emerged from the shadows.
“Th-that person….”
Her pupils were visible, clouded and exhausted. They were blue irises that would shine like jade when sunlight struck them, like the color of Pontus’s waters. But now they had lost their luster.
Psyche waded into the water barefoot, splashing. Her vacant eyes and expressionless face were as pale as a corpse.
Dirt and dust falling from her dress clouded the spring water. The murky surface rippled as if pushing away the dark silhouette.
Caw! A crow flew in with a flap, crying ominously. The creature folded its black wings and perched on a branch of the shade tree overhanging the spring, staring intently at Psyche.
Caw! Caw!
Before long, a flock of crows gathered above their heads, crying as they drew ovals. Their cries grew increasingly aggressive, and the spring water darkened like the hour of Eos.
In the meantime, Psyche had walked to the middle of the spring, splashing. The water that had lapped at her chest had receded to her calves with her dragging, wading steps.
With the terror that she might burst out of the water at any moment, Leuke cried out in a frightened voice, “Lady Asteril!”
“What do we do?”
Asteril bent down and retied her sandal straps. Then she groped along the bottom, picking up the sharpest stone she could find.
“Hide behind me.”
She spoke bravely, but in truth, she too was tense. She had driven away Boreas in order to bathe naked. Hanpung would be with Kallian. The Hecate members were repairing the village chief’s son’s house.
It had been careless. There was no safe place anywhere.
Psyche stopped just before stepping onto dry ground. With lethargic eyes, she looked at the two of them, who had bent their upper bodies and taken up defensive stances.
Kill.
Black whispers kept flowing from the water chilling her ankles.
Kill quickly.
The scar slashed across her cheek throbbed. The cold gaze of the god who had looked down on her as if she were an insect and mercilessly cut her face swirled in her mind.
“Lethe abhors commotion. And falsehood, even more so.”
It felt as though her heart had vanished. All the veins in her body seemed to freeze over with cold.
No sensation of blood surging, of heart pounding, of pulse racing. She didn’t know what it was.
She couldn’t feel any emotion. A vast sense of loss, as if a huge hole had been punched inside her, filled her shell-like body.
But she didn’t know what she had lost.
Because she wasn’t sure if it was right to say she had lost it, when everything had been an illusion.
It was not right to call loss the things she had chosen to decide for herself. The mansion in Syde, her parents, her status and position, the promised safety….
And her wet nurse.
The inside of her throat flared like a furnace. Her eyelids burned. Psyche looked down at her own hands with a face steeped in self-loathing.
She couldn’t distinguish what she was doing here, whether this was a dream or reality. It felt as though she had been buried alive while still breathing. Death had been shoved down her throat like dirt. Ah, it was despair.
“Lady Psyche, calm down and put that down.”
Psyche raised her head. Tears were streaming endlessly from her eyes.
“Which is your god, day or night?”
An expression formed as if to ask what that meant. Asteril calmly asked again, fearing Psyche might grow agitated.
“I don’t understand the intention behind the question.”
“There is no intention. Answer me. Which is it, day or night?”
“….”
“Which one!”
See? Even the wonder of Cocytus can’t answer.
“Choose wisely. Give the wrong answer and I’ll slash your face too. And I’ll do your makeup. A mess!”
“….”
“Why are you looking at me like that? Didn’t you do that? You even painted my face while pretending to pity me… Did you think I’d be grateful?”
“No.”
“….”
“If you think you were deceived, that is your delusion. I never thought that. I never did your makeup either.”
“A lie.”
“If you wish, I will answer your question. He is neither day nor night. Or perhaps both.”
Confusion slowly draped over Psyche’s face, which had been baring her teeth ferociously.
“He is the wind. A wind that can go anywhere freely.”
“And you caught that free wind and tethered him.”
“That is not true. The caprice of the wind cannot be tethered even by divine authority. He stays of his own will. Becoming breath from wind.”
Psyche’s expression contorted.
Staying of his own will?
Asteril calmly watched the process of her emotions shifting from moment to moment.
“How brazen, Princess Asteril. You received a god’s love by going to Hades thanks to me. You stole my future! Acting as if it had always been yours….”
“You may think that. I understand. But as I said before, if you had gone to Hades, you would have died.”
“Then why didn’t you die?”
“Because of that tree.”
“The tree?”
“The sacred tree called Asphodelos was a being of great importance to the god and his kin, and I did everything in my power to revive it. I saved it at the risk of my life. But all that effort came to naught in an instant. Even the fate of the gods who had placed their last hope upon it… because you set fire to the Asphodelos.”
Psyche’s face paled as if stricken with terror. Anger was etched on Asteril’s face as she spoke the last sentence with emphasis.
Suddenly, she looked as imposing as a goddess. It felt as though she were looking down with solemn eyes and roaring terribly.
Don’t listen. You mustn’t be deceived by that cunning tongue.
A voice whispered by her ear. Psyche breathed raggedly and blinked her eyes rapidly.
She is threatening you to escape this situation.
Psyche looked into the spring water and discovered a face looking up at her from beneath. A face as pale as a corpse tore its lips open and whispered.
Kill. Kill the princess of Demeter. Then I shall give you what she has. I shall make you like that princess.
Asteril shouted at Psyche to come to her senses. She saw a single crow feather lodged in the ear of the absent-minded Psyche.
Psyche seemed to hear nothing, her gaze blankly unfocused on the air. Then she trembled finely and crouched down. The splashing water soaked her hips and chilled her entire body.
“I….”
Her bloodless lips muttered. Like a cornered rat, as if there were no choices left.
“This is the only way I have left now, the only way… Nothing can be undone now. I have nowhere to return to, no family left. My wet nurse left. She left me behind. Now there’s no one, no one by my side….”
She gripped the sharp stone and looked toward Asteril. It was an expression of someone holding back tears. Asteril shook her head with sad eyes as if telling her not to.
Psyche rose on her knees. She set her jaw as if having made up her mind.
Her movements became as swift as an arrow. In an instant, she ran right up to her, raised the stone high into the air, and brought it down toward Asteril’s head.
In her emotionless eyes, Asteril’s expression was reflected. A face of shock and pity.
Then, as if the wind was gathering in one place, a deep whoosh rang out, and Psyche’s body fell backward with a thud.
She groaned and raised her head from where she had fallen on the moss-covered ground. Barely rising, she saw a whirlwind whipping around the area.
Kallian stood far away, holding Asteril in his arms. Another man approached from behind her. He bent down and snatched the stone from her hand, throwing it far away.
“Lord Ibar?”
Asteril covered her mouth in surprise. The clothes tied around his chest to staunch bleeding were soaked in dark red blood like wine.
“I am sorry, Lady Asteril. I disobeyed orders and followed you….”
Psyche looked back and forth between Kallian holding Asteril and Ibar who had stopped her hand, and then, as if finally grasping the situation, began to scream “Aaaaack!” fiercely and thrash about.
“Calm down! Do you think this will change anything?”
Ibar grabbed Psyche’s jaw with his vein-bulging face and forced her down onto the ground.
“Don’t touch me, you monster!”
“Ha….”
Ibar swept his forehead with a frustrated expression and cast a sidelong glance.
His gaze was nailed to Asteril, whose dress was wet enough to reveal her skin beneath. The dress clung to her skin, blatantly revealing the curves of her body.
His pupils shook violently.
“Ah… no….”
A look of realization flashed across his face, and he clutched his own throat, making gagging sounds, and doubled over as if begging himself to stop. But the poison rapidly stoking his veins was gradually paralyzing his reason.
“Ah, As… teril… I… I can’t… hold… krrgh… Kuaaaack!”
Ibar threw his head back and howled savagely. He tore at his head in agony, then jerked his face up.
His eyes, reddened like charcoal, darted about searching for something. His pale complexion was ruptured with capillaries; his cheeks and jaw were mottled red and blue. Saliva dripped from his gaping mouth.
Pinned beneath such an Ibar, Psyche flinched.
Between his short tunic, his genitals could be seen erect and fearsome.
The muscles behind his calves bulged as thick as thighs, poised as if to spring forward at any moment.
Ibar lowered his body with the intent to leap in a single bound. His eyes found Asteril, and he breathed heavily.
Kallian slowly stepped forward. There was no trace of panic, as if he had known this would happen.
He gracefully drew the sword at his waist and flicked it once in the air. The blade shone as if crystallizing and began to absorb the surrounding wind.
Ibar, panting harshly, let out a bizarre cry and charged. Reaching toward Asteril, he flinched and stopped his feet at a slashing sound cutting through the air. His two wrists fell to the ground with a thud.
It was the moment wide-eyed Ibar raised his head.
Shhh.
A clean, upward-slicing movement that split like a flash severed Ibar’s neck in one breath.
Ibar’s severed head sprayed blood like a fountain and rolled across the dirt like a ball.
Leuke screamed, “Kyaaaack!” Asteril covered her eyes with her hand and bit down hard.
Taking a deep breath and lowering her hand, Asteril froze at the sight of the body reduced to a miserable state. A sob escaped between her tightly closed lips.
“Do not cry, beloved.”
“Lord Ibar….”
“He knew this would happen.”
“He knew…?”
“He said it was his responsibility. He said if he failed to stop Psyche and your safety was compromised, he could never forgive himself.”
Iskies tried to dissuade Ibar until the end. He urged Ibar to leave everything to Lord Kallian and return to the village with him.
But Ibar shook his head. No, no. He refused so fiercely.
“I warned him that if he followed, he would die by my hand. Even so, he clung to my hem, begging me to take him along.”
“….”
“He seemed to want to see you one last time before dying. If only for an instant, as a person rather than a beast….”
“It’s because of me. Because he volunteered to escort me to Nysa and followed… If he had just stayed in Triton, he wouldn’t have died so futilely.”
He caressed her still-damp hair and whispered.
“It is not your fault. What words can be spoken to one who blinded himself staring at the sun?”
The end of a blind man. Those words pierced deep into her chest. It was an answer only an immortal being wreathed in radiance could give. She leaned against his chest and wept.
Meanwhile, Iskies, having brought the Hecate members from the village, dropped to his knees before Ibar’s body.
They offered brief mourning and then buried his body well in the forest.
Asteril strode over to Psyche, who lay on the ground in the same posture she had been pinned in by Ibar earlier. Psyche was gazing placidly at the sky where patchwork clouds floated.
“It keeps telling me to kill you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, I keep hearing it. Kill the princess of Demeter.”
Asteril crouched down and pulled out the crow feather stuck in Psyche’s ear hole. Psyche glanced aside and furrowed her brow.
“Do you still hear that voice?”
She gulped and shook her head.
Gaak! Kaak! Kiaak!
Sounds of black birds shrieking and rampaging violently were heard.
Tok, tudok!
Pine branches snapped with a crack. Crows falling like hail crashed against branches and plummeted. The birds pouring down like rain fell onto the shaded ground with thuds.
Kallian watched the spectacle with arms crossed. He checked the pile of crow carcasses mounting like a mountain, and whenever he saw one twitch, he kicked through the heap as if annoyed, pulled it out by the neck, and mercilessly twisted it.
Kkieek.
Once the last one had expired, the black mound of corpses blurred as if losing color, gradually scattering like smoke and vanishing.
Kallian sent a glance telling Hanpung, who had become a giant bow in the sky shooting down the crows, to come down.
“Killing those birds… was that possible?”
Kallian raised his hand, and yellowish lights seeped into his fingers. Streams of light gathering from here and there like an upstream current sparkled like a galaxy.
“Yes. Now it is.”
Asteril raised her gaze, following the tails of the streams of light seeping into his fingers. The light spread widely around them was protecting the entire forest where they stood in the form of a hemispherical barrier.
The crows had gathered in flocks as usual and tried to open a dark, whirling gate to escape, but for some reason, they could not break free due to the barrier of light blocking the sky like a dome. The power of their master, Nyx, was also blocked by the barrier and could not reach them.
Kallian glared at the distant sky as if resenting it.
He had missed one.
The one that had first cawed and shrieked when he found Ibar at the broken carriage. The large crow with purple on the inside of its wings was nowhere to be seen.
That one alone had not come to Kallirore and had returned to Nyx. A bad premonition stirred.
Ψ
“Has your mind cleared a bit?”
Psyche looked up at Asteril with fearful eyes.
Asteril was angry. She forced Psyche up. Then she grabbed her wrist and strode ahead, telling her to follow.
Psyche, who had been resisting with shouts, flinched when her eyes met Kallian’s, who was watching intently from behind. His pupils shone brightly as if in warning.
She saw the hand that had twisted the necks of the flock of crows in a single breath. Psyche bit her lower lip and meekly followed Asteril.
Upon reaching the spring, Asteril grabbed Psyche by the hair and thrust her into the water.
Glub!
Psyche raised her head from the water, coughing and crying out neurotically.
“What are you doing! Why are you doing this?”
“That doesn’t sound like something someone who was trying to kill me just moments ago should say. I nearly didn’t get to ask why you were doing this.”
“Th-then… what? Are you punishing me?”
“As if this could be called punishment? You seemed out of your senses, so I was trying to bring you to your senses. I was worried you were too out of it to recognize your own face.”
Asteril spat out the words clearly and deliberately, using the tone one uses when conducting a ritual.
“You have changed.”
Psyche glanced at the rippling spring water with an expression that said she had no idea what Asteril was talking about.
“Don’t avoid it. Look closely.”
“….”
“I’m telling you to look properly.”
“Why are you doing this? Why do you keep telling me to look? What am I supposed to look at!”
“Your face reflected on the water’s surface.”
Psyche glared at Asteril with rebellious eyes.
She sat on a low rock with an expression of displeasure. A sidelong glance showed Asteril standing right beside her, as if to say she shouldn’t even think of slipping away.
Why on earth are you doing this.
At that moment, as if by a lie, the spring water cleared. Eos’s breath drew away the fog like a desert sandstorm, and the murky water’s surface smoothed like a mirror.
Psyche looked down at her pale face. It’s still pretty. A bit haggard, but slender and beautiful in its own way. The scar has faded a lot too.
Asteril, watching from the side, fished out the thyme floating in the spring and crushed the leaves in her palm. She brought the sticky thyme juice squeezed in her hand to Psyche’s nose.
Startled by the pungent scent, Psyche glared asking what she was doing again, then glanced at the water’s surface.
Wh-what is this….
Her eyes went wide, and she moved her lips stiffly, frozen.
My appearance is completely different from before. What happened?
She touched her face with her hand. The shadow reflected on the water touched its cheek exactly as she did.
“Wh-who is this?”
The woman in the water also asked the same question with a shocked face. A face of horror was visible. Psyche screamed in shock and fell backward.
“No, no! It’s not me… Who is that woman?”
“….”
“Who is that woman!”
Psyche screamed at the top of her lungs, veins bulging in her neck. Asteril watched her silently.
Leuke and Iskies also watched from a distance with worried eyes. It was an expression that said the inevitable had finally come.
“This can’t be… a prank? Ah, no… I’m dreaming, right? Right?”
Psyche placed both hands on the ground and stared blankly at the dirt. Then she crawled before Asteril, knelt, and grabbed the hem of her clothes, pleading as she asked.
“I’m right, aren’t I? It’s a dream?”
A flicker of pity crossed Asteril’s gaze as she looked down at her silently. A bitter smile formed on her face as hope faded.
“Why… isn’t anyone answering? It is a dream. It makes no sense, how is that me?”
“I am Psyche, the most beautiful in Syde, no, in Demeter. You must not have known, but everyone was busy praising me as more beautiful than a goddess. Our house was always full of gifts and flowers sent by men, and the young nobles called me a living goddess of beauty. Perhaps the list of gifts I received daily was even more impressive than the offerings piled in the great temple’s storeroom? So how is that me?”
“Nurse! Nurse, come out. Come and talk to me. Something is strange.”
With an anxious face, tears welled in Psyche’s eyes.
“Nurse? I’m here, nurse….”
She crawled on bare knees, and when white, thin hair flowed over her shoulders, she shrieked as if going mad from shock.
“Nurse! Hic… this dream is too scary! Nurse, save me… Take me away! Take me away, nurse….”
Psyche lay prostrate on the ground, burying her face in both hands, and began to sob. Asteril bent down and stroked Psyche’s back. Her own eyelids were reddening too.
What am I to do with this pitiful woman?
“I am not Syde. I am not a Syde that has grown old and ugly. No, I won’t become like that. I don’t want to become like that! Hic… no! No….”
Everyone stared at Psyche in silence. They couldn’t take their eyes off her. No one could say a word.
It was like watching a human who had desperately thrashed on the water’s surface to live finally drown.
Psyche cried for a long time. Filled with sorrow, she shrieked “Aaaack!” and tore at her hair. Her cracked voice cawed as she beat her chest. “Hueeeeng… heeeeng… what do I do… what do I do, nurse….” she wailed.
After a while, exhausted, Psyche looked down at her bruised hands. Then she retched and went blank. Her powerless eyes leaned against a rock and stared into the air.
“I… have I become like those women?”
“Perhaps.”
Psyche suppressed her sorrow, biting her lips tightly at her own voice, which now came from a withered larynx like an old tree.
The days when she lived in the mansion at Syde arose in her mind—drinking water with fennel every day to maintain a refined voice, and sleeping with damp cloth wrapped around her neck.
Everything had become futile.
“My memories in Nysa were strange. Some nights were clear, and some nights were hazy like fog. On those days, my nurse would always come to me. ‘My lady, come to your senses!’ she’d say.”
“….”
“Then the nurse bid me farewell. I had a premonition. I knew something had become irreversible, but I decided not to think about it. The fog covering my mind was so thick I could no longer recognize myself, and I was too afraid to look beyond that fog. As if deep down, I knew a terrible truth was hidden there.”
“….”
“What should I do now?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I hate the gods.”
“Not all gods are like that.”
“Only your god is like that. All the gods I met were the same. They were cruel and vile. They used me like a flint to harm you. I was discarded like spent firewood.”
There was no food of the gods. I could not become a god’s lover either. Now I could not even dream of an ordinary life. That was fine. I had never wanted it in the first place.
“Is it fine just because they’re gods? Is it acceptable to deceive and toy with humans as they please! I didn’t even know what Asphodelos was. I didn’t know what I was doing! I thought I just had to obey the gods’ orders. I believed they would truly take me to paradise.”
“….”
“The gods of Nysa are all madmen. Whether a human was torn apart alive before their eyes or vomiting blood in agony, they giggled among themselves, poured blood into wine glasses and drank it, and then snickered again at the human who recoiled in horror watching them….”
Psyche, filled with resentment, glared at Callian, who had approached before she knew it. He stood there with languid eyes, as if listening to a story that had nothing to do with him.
Yes, just like that.
With that beautiful face.
With such miserable languor, coldly withdrawing his gaze as if passing by a single blade of grass.
“Forget it…. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
The resignation in her eyes dazed and loosened. Exhausted beyond exhaustion.
“Just kill me already. Since your mother and blood kin executed my mother and father, it would only be natural for you to take my life. I am a sinner, am I not? I deserve to die by royalty.”
“I refuse.”
It was a voice like a whip cracking. Callian’s words always carried immense power, and it exerted its greatest force when crushing mortals. Such was the bloodline of Ananke.
“If you spend your days calmly without losing control, you can live longer than you think.”
So he was telling her to live, even if forcibly? As if he cared nothing for the pain of one who had to keep living.
“So you speak to me first, for the first time.”
Psyche pressed her trembling hands against the ground. Her indignation would not cease.
“Even so, I do not wish to live like this. Just kill me cleanly. Isn’t it a simple matter for you, like crushing a bug underfoot?”
“Before the Five Thrones, until you confess the crimes you have committed, you cannot die even if you wish to. Do not even dream of death until you admit that you set Asphodelos ablaze at Seath’s instigation.”
I cannot die? Even dying…. is not permitted?
“After confessing your sins, I care not whether your corpse is discarded in some nameless land to become fertilizer or stuffed down a well. If that is truly your wish, you may beg me to kill you again when that time comes.”
Psyche’s complexion paled, and she could say nothing. She had never imagined her request to be killed would be refused.
She looked around.
She saw Leuke and Ischys still watching silently, and behind them, members of Hecate sitting on the ground as if tired, squinting their bleary eyes and yawning.
They had been looking at her pitifully moments ago, but at Callian’s single word, they had taken on an attitude of helplessness.
Asteril sighed and crouched down before her.
“Do you truly wish to simply die? So futilely? Mourning is but a moment, but time underground is eternal. After being dragged to the underworld, no matter how much you regret it, it will be useless. The god of eternal sleep has no ears, so he cannot even hear your screams. Is that truly the ending you desire?”
The words of an experienced priestess always carried great persuasiveness. Psyche shuddered as she imagined her own pale face buried in the earth. Now that she thought about it, it did seem rather frightening.
“If I tell you what I want…. will you listen?”
“If possible.”
“I cannot trust gods anymore.”
“Then speak to a human, not a god.”
“You are a god’s lover, so from my perspective, you are no different from a god.”
Asteril took Psyche’s hand. A hand wrinkled at every joint, covered with liver spots. Psyche embarrassedly pulled the back of her hand away and hid it behind her.
“You can trust Callian. My god is neither a god nor a human, but on my side alone.”
Psyche wore an expression that said she did not understand. What kind of “side” was that? Was there something between god and human?
She still looked at Asteril with distrustful eyes, as if she could not believe her.
Watching Psyche, Callian did not know why he had to explain even this, but he decided to be a little kinder, like a mother showing her newborn how harsh the world outside the barn was. She needed to know what she had been through.
“Your arrogance lies in believing that the injustice you suffered was truly unjust.”
“Why is it arrogant to call something unjust unjust?”
“You must indeed heed the gods’ warnings, but whatever promises they make in good humor are as fleeting as wine flowing over the lips. Did you not realize that the wine was in truth the blood of another deluded soul?”
“As if…. you know everything I have been through.”
“Trying to avoid the old age immediately confronting you, you must have had your entire future stolen away. Coveting the love of a god you did not know, you must have lost those who cherished and loved you all your life. You followed the beckoning hand in the darkness and ended up feeding on darkness to survive.”
“….”
“The majority of Maenads sent from Nysa to Hades have suffered an abyss much like yours and met nearly identical ends, as if stamped from the same mold.”
She was about to ask what that end was but stopped. From Callian’s cold expression, she felt as though she had already witnessed their final moments.
“When a Keton passionately loves someone, they will even offer up their immortal life to prove their love. You happened to pass by and glimpsed my love, and you dreamed of the place by my side.”
The gaunt cheeks of Psyche, who had been making excuses, flushed red. Could he have known she was peeking through the door crack that day? Divine power seemed to flash and radiate from his body as he spoke, as if seeing through everything.
Psyche changed her attitude and fell to her knees.
“You who were once like my heart, please do not speak with such revulsion. I was merely curious. How a perfect male god like you fell in love with a mere human, how such a thing is possible….”
“In truth, despite the fact that you and my lover cannot be treated the same merely because you are both mortal, you endlessly question this. Do I have a reason to answer?”
“You said that someone like me and Princess Asteril cannot possibly be considered the same. What on earth is different? I do not foolishly hope for a god’s favor with this wretched appearance now. I now know that a god’s love exists only on an unreachable island, even if it was my past self. That is why I am curious. An omnipotent being who regards the anguish and pain of mere mortals as nothing more than a passing shower, someone who would slash a woman like me across the face with a blade without hesitation and treat her like vermin—why do you cherish and adore Princess Asteril so?”
Callian once again displayed his displeasure—*Why must I tell someone like you?*—but Psyche, for whom nothing else remained in sight, did not back down.
As if it were the riddle that had pierced through her entire life.
Seeing the malice-laden emotion and tenacity in her eyes, Callian finally spoke with something resembling interest.
“Had you shown this from the beginning, perhaps one of the Ketons you met might have had a sincere conversation with you.”
It was not the voice of a god, but his deep, resonant baritone had the power to claw at one’s lungs.
“She captured my gaze in that manner.”
He could not look away. Every single moment. So much so that when he was not there, he wondered what she was doing alone.
“And then she dared to capture a Keton’s breath.”
To an immortal being who had no concept of time passing, giving the feeling that time had stopped….
Whoever experienced such a thing, god or otherwise, would have thought thus.
*I cannot possibly go on unless I seize that woman and keep her by my side. It would be better to press my lips against hers every day to confirm she is alive and breathing, to overlay my immortal breath upon her entire body and claim her as mine, and to live observing her whom I cannot take my eyes off anyway.*
Psyche looked at Callian, whose eyes had softened as if lost in thought, wondering what he was thinking.
No matter the answer, questions remained. It was a thirst that could not be quenched unless one received the love of an immortal.
But she thought she understood one thing. Princess Asteril had not feared him. She had clashed head-on and grasped something within his heart.
Psyche lowered her gaze. Strange relief, emptiness, and something akin to resignation crossed within her before vanishing like a single point.
“Do you wish to make Nyx grovel at your feet and beg?”
Psyche could not readily answer.
She tried to ask why he would ask such a thing but could not ask this time either. However, she knew the male god was not one to ask frivolous questions, nor would he begin a meaningless conversation.
The male god hated Nyx. He probably wanted to eliminate him. There was no way he would not hate someone who tried to kill his lover.
For the first time in her life, Psyche met eyes with an omnipotent being.
A blinding awe she had never felt when looking up at the Ketons standing on the altars of Nysa made her chest throb.
She even felt as if she had lived for this moment.
From the beginning, he had never deceived or ridiculed her for a single moment. He had merely been indifferent. He neither denied her worthless existence nor made a game of it.
The male god’s gaze, which she had so longed to have rest upon her, was finally directed at her. Even if it was not love, even if he too was using her.
“Y-yes, I want that. If only I could see that damned black god of Nysa tearing his hair out in regret…. I would offer Lord Kronos my heart, my head, and even the blood flowing through my veins. If possible, I will somehow take his heart into my hand and crush it, make him grovel like a worm at my feet and beg for forgiveness. Then I will pour boiling water over his prostrated back and laugh at him miserably. *This* scorched back is your ugly face.”
Callian quietly listened to her anger erupt like an explosion. He spoke.
“To some Ketons, love is death.”
Asteril made an expression of disbelief.
She looked at Callian with uneasy eyes.
“He has not yet paid the price.”
His gaze gradually narrowed and turned ruthless.
“If you wish to make Nyx taste the same despair as you….”
His pupils, activating the power of Erebus, shone as they absorbed the entranced Psyche’s gaze.
“I shall help you.”
Ψ
A flock of carrion crows flew from beyond the sky and settled on the white quince trees, rustling. Their crimson eyes darted about furiously.
Ananke, who had bathed in Oceanus, picked up the sandals she had left by the water and walked out. The grassland beneath her feet exuded fragrance, enthralled by her gait.
“Ananke.”
Nyx emerged from whirling darkness and approached her without even greeting.
“Seath has drunk the water of oblivion.”
Ananke, who had been putting on her sandals, was about to snap that it was rude to barge in like this, but instead looked up with raised eyes and asked, “Water of oblivion?”
Nyx bit his fingernails and paced in place. His gaze looking at the ground seemed anxious.
“Indeed. It seems he was forced to drink it by someone.”
He glanced sideways to gauge Ananke’s expression. She was twisting up her long hair with a composed expression.
“As you know, only Gaia knows the formula for the water of oblivion.”
“And? Are you saying Gaia fed Seath the water of oblivion?”
Ananke burst out laughing as if bewildered. After laughing for some time, she touched her forehead with a tired expression.
“As far as I know….”
Ananke picked up a fallen quince blossom from the ground and tucked it into her bound hair like an ornament. A swarm of shimmering jewel beetles, as if they had been waiting, hid themselves inside her hair.
“Do you not also know the formula for the water of oblivion, Nyx? Did not Gaia entrust you with the guarding of the Cup of Oblivion? I understood that she handed over the formula for the water of oblivion to you then as well.”
“Yes, only I and Gaia know the formula.”
“Then could it be that you fed Seath the water of oblivion?”
“What nonsense! What reason would I have to feed him that? Do you still not know? The one Seath forgot because of the water of oblivion is Callian. Your son tore Seath’s arms apart and gouged out both his eyes, then force-fed him the water of oblivion.”
“Callian? Do you mean my poor child imprisoned in Tartarus? That child hanging from a lava-flowing rock face with heavy shackles on both hands under Pontus’s watch—how could he possibly have gone to Seath and fed him the water of oblivion? Explain that to me first.”
“Imprisoned in Tartarus? Don’t make me laugh. I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes.”
“Then go see for yourself. My heart aches too much to go, so why don’t you go with that flock of black birds you boast of? Pontus will welcome you gladly.”
Nyx was considerably flustered by Ananke’s unexpectedly bold attitude.
*Could Ananke have? No way. That woman couldn’t know the formula. If she did, she’d have used it long ago.*
“As you know, my son doesn’t even know the formula for the water of oblivion. You have to know the formula to make it. Therefore, excluding Gaia who is missing, aren’t you the only one who could have fed Seath the water?”
“Don’t be absurd! I too, the formula for the water….”
Nyx, who had been shouting excitedly, faltered. Ananke caressed her black-painted nails and asked with narrowed, twisted eyes.
“The formula for the water of oblivion?”
“The formula….”
Nyx’s pupils shook as if in confusion.
“Surely you’re not saying you don’t know? Did you not just admit that you received the formula for the water of oblivion from Gaia? If you’re going to make the ridiculous excuse that you can’t remember, you might as well throw yourself into the River Styx. At least that would draw a hollow laugh.”
“….”
“Nyx, you must know this as well. We are beings who, due to the blessing of the primordial gods, cannot forget something even if we try.”
It was true. Nyx stood blankly, then frowned and kneaded his temple.
*Why can’t I remember the formula for the water of oblivion? I was sure I had known it….*
Nyx tore at his hair. His dark black hair flashed and transformed into dazzling blond.
“Krrgh…. Kraaaagh!”
The blond hair scattered in the wind like crow feathers and turned into black strands again.
Ananke now wore an exasperated expression. Had Dionysus’s altar turned into a stage where comedy and tragedy intersected? The clowning was a sight to behold.
Clicking her tongue as if dumbfounded, she offered a plausible conjecture.
“Now that I see it, it seems you couldn’t control your temper and attacked Seath, then pinned it on my son…. Why the water of oblivion? Did you do it to use as evidence?”
Nyx raised his head with bloodshot eyes. Ananke stared at him with a blank face.
“I will not forgive anyone who tries to harm my child. Even if it is one of the Five Thrones.”
She had felt it before, but Ananke clearly harbored displeasure toward him. Her hostility had grown so explicit recently that it could be felt on the skin.
“Yesterday, I came here looking for you, but only Uranus was here. Where have you been?”
“….”
“You weren’t in Tartarus either. Besides Oceanus and Tartarus, where else could you go, Ananke?”
“Must I reveal my every movement to you?”
Nyx’s eyes blazed. Sensing the signs were ominous, Ananke sighed and answered obediently.
“I went to check on what Gaia left behind.”
“What Gaia left behind?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Ananke silently brushed past Nyx and walked between the quince trees.
A red cloth fluttered in the wind atop a long, low branch. It was the cloth she had thrown over her head on the night when aulos music and the songs of guests had resounded.
“If I tell you, won’t you just destroy it again?”
“What?”
Ananke made a careful expression, then suddenly her eyes turned resentful.
“Why don’t you come clean already? Nyx, what did you do to Gaia?”
Nyx looked as if wondering what on earth she was asking. Soon his face contorted in displeasure.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Ananke. So your ability doesn’t work on me after all, and you’re cowardly trying to probe my insides?”
“Which of us is the coward?”
“….”
“Your despicable acts will soon be exposed in every detail and judged. Do not think I am simply standing by.”
“Now you’re just letting your imagination run wild? The title of Goddess of Fate has become quite laughable.”
“Though my eyes no longer work on you, that does not mean there are no ways to see the truth. Do not be arrogant. How long do you think your evasions will last?”
“You’re the one making excuses. Do you take me for a fool?”
As Nyx asked, gnashing his teeth, Ananke showed an expression of *what nonsense is this?*
“Shall I tell you why you’ve been going to Tartarus every other day? You’ve fooled the entire clan perfectly. Is Pontus your accomplice?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Callian in Tartarus is an empty shell. Am I wrong?”
“….”
“He was walking around wearing an earthen doll. Only Gaia can do such a thing.”
“….”
“And only Gaia knows the formula for the water of oblivion.”
“You seem to be mistaken, but first listen to me….”
“Silence! Your words are as venomous and cunning as a serpent’s slough. Do not even open your mouth before me.”
“….”
“Shall I guess why Callian fed Seath the water of oblivion? Because he was caught using the earthen doll before Seath. He wouldn’t want me to know. Then Gaia’s whereabouts would be completely exposed. How about it? Am I wrong? Callian has known all along where Gaia is. Which means you, Ananke, knew as well.”
Nyx’s frenzied hair flashed between blond and black like lightning in a thunderstorm. Like his confused mind.
“Nyx, you are gravely mistaken.”
“No words will help. How dare you try to deceive me!”
“That child is not Gaia.”
Nyx shouted with bloodshot, wide eyes.
“There is no one who knows Gaia better than I! Even if it is you, Ananke…. you could not claim to know Gaia better than I.”
Ananke made a wretched expression. What more could she say? To someone not ready to hear anything.
Meanwhile, Nyx glared and scanned the surroundings. To the other side of Oceanus and Olympus beyond the sky.
“I know that you usually keep Gaia’s main body safe. Where have you hidden it? I am asking where you hid her body!”
Nyx grabbed Ananke by the collar and roared. At that, the dark clouds covering the sky rumbled, and Uranus’s thunder echoed across heaven and earth.
—Remove your hands from her, Nyx.
Ananke raised her hand to signal that she was fine. The lightning that had been crackling on the verge of striking flashed between the clouds and stopped.
“Don’t think this…. is over.”
Nyx, who had been staggering, glared at Ananke with malevolent eyes and then turned sharply.
When Nyx’s flock of carrion crows and the black oval-shaped shadow disappeared, the dark clouds filling the sky also gradually scattered.
As white quince blossoms scattered like snowflakes, the gale sent by Uranus spread across the ground like a carpet.
He approached his wife, who was looking somewhere with uneasy eyes, and asked.
“Ananke, my Anteros. What in the world are you thinking?”
Instead of answering, she gazed at the smooth lake of Oceanus like a mirror. Her lips, which had been watching something, spoke toward the air.
“Speak, West Wind.”
It felt as though the atmosphere were gathering into one, and a breeze composed of soft tufts blew in gently.
Ananke asked with flickering red eyes.
“Zephyrus, I believe the time has come to confess to me. The child you guarded is now no different from my daughter.”
—What words could I withhold from the Keton of Fate?
“Then all this time, did you not speak because you had no mouth? I invited you to Oceanus countless times and asked about Gaia’s whereabouts.”
—A gatekeeper’s oath must be kept until Erebus’s breath has fully evaporated.
“Your loyalty is indeed admirable…. but that is a story for when the one you swore to still exists. Tell me, where is Gaia?”
—Do you not already know?
“I know?”
—Lady Ananke, I, Zephyrus, was born from the breath exhaled by Gaia when she was incomparably beautiful living water, from the particles derived from the soil she rooted in, and from the vapor that arose as the water and sap she held evaporated. Respected and revered Lady Ananke, are not your authority, insight, and prophetic power foremost among the children of Erebus? Do you truly mean to say you do not know where Gaia is?
She was at a loss for words and could not answer at all. The West Wind looked at her briefly before retreating backward and disappearing beyond the sky.
Uranus silently stroked her shoulder. He had never seen his wife so shaken in his life.
“Uranus, my sky.”
“I am listening, Ananke, my light.”
“I have something urgent to tell you.”
She exhaled a suppressed breath as if her throat were blocked.
“Please…. listen without being shocked.”
From the darkened sky, raindrops fell like tears.
― To be continued in Volume 6