They locked me in the temple cellar to die in childbirth. They forgot one thing: my father is Hades, and the dead always come when I call. I'm on the birthing stone. The contractions come faster, harder, ripping through me. Alexios holds my hand. His eyes are soft. Wet, almost. "Hold on, Lyra. Just a little longer. We're about to meet our child." I'm drenched in sweat. I smile at him anyway. Then the priestess walks in with a black clay cup, and the air fills with the bitter, sweet stink of poppy and something else, something older, something my mother once warned me about. I think — thank the gods, it's the draught for the pain. Alexios lets go of my hand. Steps back. The priestess tips the cup to my lips. I'm so thirsty. I swallow without thinking. The taste is wrong the moment it hits my tongue. Iron and ash and burnt laurel. Hera's herb. The binding draught. The one midwives whisper about — the one that closes a woman's womb until they let it open again. I hear Alexios speak above me. "Make sure she drank it all. She doesn't deliver until Selene does." I stare at him. He doesn't look at me. He glances at the water-clock dripping in the corner. "Selene's at six fingers. Two more hours. Hold her." I try to scream. I try to spit the draught back up. It's already in my blood. The pain in my belly — savage, clawing — stops. Just like that. Like a hand closing around my womb and squeezing it shut. … They drag me down to the cellar beneath the temple. Cold stone. One oil lamp. Calista is waiting at the door, twirling a bronze blade between her fingers. "Don't blame Alexios, Lyra." "Selene is carrying Castor's son. The first grandson of this house. The oracle named him heir." "Even if you push yours out first? It's still a girl. Still useless." I clutch my belly. The contractions are fighting back against the draught now, slow and brutal, and the world goes black at the edges. "Get the healer," I whisper. "Please. The baby — please —" Calista laughs. She walks in. Crouches in front of me. Taps the flat of the blade against my cheek. "Push? Push what?" "The draught holds you three more hours. Selene's already on the couch upstairs." "Be good. Wait. When her son is in the world, you can squeeze out whatever you like." She stands. Looks at the temple guard at the door. "Watch her. If she screams, gag her." The door slams. I'm on the floor. Blood soaks through my gown. They took every charm and talisman from me at the temple gate — said the gods would be jealous. That was a lie. Alexios didn't want me calling for help. He didn't want anyone to hear me die. I curl onto my side. Try to breathe. But all I can see is his face. Cold. Calculating. Like a man counting coins. Not a husband. Not the father of my child. … Three months ago, Castor — Alexios's older brother — was thrown from a chariot at the games. Killed instantly. He left Selene three months pregnant. At the funeral pyre, old Lord Heliades clutched Selene's hands like she was the only thing left of his bloodline. "Bring him into the world safe. The House of the Sun cannot end." Him. Already a him. As if the oracle had whispered the answer into his ear at the moment Castor's chariot shattered. I stood three steps behind him. My hand on my own belly. Mine was already showing — five months along, full and warm and kicking, and I thought — surely now. Surely the old man will turn to me. I knelt down. I touched his sleeve. "Father. Don't grieve. We have a child coming too. Alexios and I , we'll honor you all our days." He looked at me. His eyes passed across my belly the way a man's eyes pass across a stone in the road. Then he turned back to Selene. He never said a word to me. Not at the pyre. Not at the feast that followed. Not for three months after. I understand now. The moment Castor died, the moment the oracle named Selene's son the heir , my daughter became an inconvenience. A threat. A girl-child born ahead of the chosen boy. A whisper of bad omen. A small, breathing reminder that the gods can change their minds. They were never going to let her draw breath. I just hadn't been told yet. … "Ahhh —" Another wave. Worse than the last. The draught is fading. The baby is coming. I drag myself to the door. Pound on it with both hands. "Someone — please — the baby is coming — save my baby —" Silence on the other side. Nothing. I scream until my throat tears. Until I taste blood in my mouth. Finally the guard answers. Bored. Annoyed. "Quiet, woman. Calista said wait." "But the baby — the baby —" "Then it dies. That's fate. Should've been carrying a son." I slide down the door. Shaking. Freezing. It isn't fate. Someone in this temple wants my baby dead.
I don't know how long I've been bleeding on this cellar floor. The blood keeps coming. My gown is soaked through. The stone beneath me is warm and sticky. My vision starts to slip — gray at the edges, then black. That's when the door creaks open. It isn't Calista. It isn't the guard. It's Theia — the old priestess of Asklepios who has served this family for forty years. The woman who pulled Castor screaming into the world. The woman who pressed an oil-blessed hand to my belly the day I was first married into this house and whispered, strong child, my lady. A blessing. She sees me on the floor. The blood. Her face goes white as bone. " Lyra. Why in all the gods' names are you down here?" "Alexios told me you were resting in the upper chamber —" I try to speak. Nothing comes out. I just point at my belly. The tears won't stop. She drops to her knees beside me, faster than a woman of her age should be able to. Her hands are trembling. She lifts the hem of my gown only enough to see what she needs to see, then drops it again, and the breath she sucks in is sharp and ugly. " Mother of the gods — the child is crowning. Your waters broke hours ago." "You need the birthing altar. Now." She tries to lift me. The moment I move, something hot rushes out between my legs. Blood. So much blood. Her hands shake. She turns to the doorway and shouts in a voice that cracks like old timber — " Help! A woman is dying! Anyone — anyone —" The corridor is empty. Dead silent. This temple belongs to House Heliades. They built every column of it with their gold. And tonight, for Selene's birth, they cleared everyone out. Every priestess, every midwife, every acolyte — all upstairs, on the third tier, waiting on her. Theia grabs the bronze warding-bell from the wall. She rings it. Once. Twice. The sound dies in the cold stone and goes nowhere. "I'll carry you up myself, child. Stay with me. " She is sixty years old. She gathers me into her thin arms anyway. I am dying. I know I'm dying. I can feel the baby pressing down. Trying to come. But she can't. The draught is still in my blood, weakening but holding, and the contractions come and stop and come and stop. This is the worst kind of labor. The kind that kills both of us. "Theia —" I claw at her robe. My voice is barely a thread. "Save the baby. Please. Save her." "Don't speak like that. You're both going to live. Both of you. I have not lost a mother in this house in forty years and I am not losing one tonight." She stumbles up the stone stairs. Her old knees give twice. She catches herself against the wall and keeps going. She bursts onto the main floor. Runs toward the altar room. We reach the doors. We both stop dead. The altar room is wide open. It's empty. The birthing stone — gone. The sacred basins — gone. The bronze instruments, the linens, the herbs, the priestesses' tools, the incense braziers, every vial of every healing draught — gone. Just an empty room. Bare flagstones. Four walls. Theia doesn't move. She stands there holding me, and a sound comes out of her throat — a thin, choking noise, like someone has her by the neck. "This — this can't be —" "I blessed these tools at sundown. They were here." Footsteps echo down the corridor. Calista walks toward us, two terrified servant girls trailing behind her. She sees us. Her eyebrow lifts. "Theia. What are you doing down here?" "Selene is on the third tier. Why aren't you with her?" Theia points at the empty altar room. Her voice cracks. " Where are the tools? Where are the herbs? Where is everything?" Calista shrugs like a child caught stealing figs. "They're upstairs." "Selene is having a hard birth. She needs the best of everything. What if something went wrong? You think a common altar would be enough for the heir of this house?" Her eyes drift to me. She smiles. "Oh — Lyra. Are you having yours now?" "You'll have to wait. Selene isn't finished yet." "Be patient." I look at her painted face. The careful curls. The gold pinned in her hair. And I remember. Six months ago. Walking through the agora arm in arm with her, laughing, while she leaned against my shoulder and said — "You're better to me than any blood sister, Lyra. I love you more than my own." I bought her a Phoenician necklace that day. Real lapis. The kind a princess would wear. Now I'm on a temple floor, bleeding to death, and she's smiling down at me like I'm an animal at slaughter. What a joke.
Theia tears through the storage chamber like a woman possessed, ripping open chests, throwing aside linens. The shelves are bare. No bronze clamps. No clean cloths. Not even a strip of boiled linen. "The herbs! The bloodroot! The womb-tonic!" A young temple girl whispers from the corner. "They were carried up. To the third tier." "Lord Alexios's order. Everything goes to Selene first." Theia slams her thin fist into the wood. The shelf splits. Her knuckles split with it. She turns to me. Her eyes are red and her lips will not stop shaking. "Forgive me, child. Forgive me —" "There is nothing left. Nothing." Calista glides over. Pats her shoulder like she's comforting a senile aunt. "Don't fret, Theia." "She hasn't delivered yet. Once Selene is finished, we'll bring everything back down." Her eyes drift to my belly. "And if the babe comes out anyway? She's a girl. One less mouth. The House of the Sun won't miss her." Theia can't take it anymore. "Calista — this is murder. I have served this house for forty years. I pulled you into the world with these hands. And now you would let your own kin bleed out on a stone floor for a prophecy?" "Murder?" Calista laughs, sharp and bright. "Mind your tongue, old woman." "Women die in childbed. They always have. The temples are full of their names." "And this is the business of our house. Our blood. You serve us. You do not decide for us." She waves to the temple guards. "Take her to her cell. She's overwrought. Bar the door." "I'll see to Lyra myself." Two guards seize Theia under her thin arms. She thrashes against them with a strength that shouldn't belong in a body her age. "Lyra! Untie every knot on you! Your sash, your hair, every braid — tear them loose! Eileithyia hears a bound woman last! Call her name! Call her name until your throat bleeds!" "Don't give up! The child can still live! Lyra —!" Her voice fades down the corridor. Calista shuts the door. Turns to me. Slow. Calm. She pulls a small bronze hand-mirror from the folds of her gown. It is a speaking-glass — Hecate's craft, blessed by her lesser priestesses. Nobles use them to whisper across distances. Calista taps the rim three times and breathes Alexios's name into the metal. The polished bronze ripples. His face surfaces in it like a reflection rising in still water. "Brother. Lyra is starting to push. Want to watch?" The image of Alexios shimmers — he's standing outside Selene's birthing chamber, women rushing past him in the background. "Calista. Stop playing." "Selene isn't well. The midwives say the child's heartbeat is slowing." Calista turns the mirror toward me. "Look at her, brother. So much blood. Maybe she'll go before Selene does." Alexios glances at me. Just once. Then he looks away. "Make her wait. The healers will come down once Selene delivers." "Lyra. Be patient. I can't leave." The image dissolves. Bronze again. Calista shrugs. Slips the mirror back into her sash. "You heard him?" "In my brother's heart, Selene comes first." "You? You're a womb. Nothing more." "And a womb that fails its purpose gets thrown away." I close my eyes. I don't want to look at her face anymore. My hand slides behind me. Finds the inner seam of my gown. Beneath the embroidery, sewn into the lining, is something small. Hard. Cold. A black iron ring. My father slipped it into my hand the night before my wedding. He pressed his forehead to mine and whispered — "Lyra. The House of the Sun runs deeper than you think. If anything goes wrong — anything at all — break this ring. Break it, and we will come." I laughed at him then. "Father, Alexios is good to me. His family treats me like a daughter of their own." What a fool I was. What a sweet, smiling fool. My fingers find the ring. Pull it free of the threads. I close my fist around it. And I squeeze. The iron cracks against my palm. I feel it splinter — a sharp, clean snap, no louder than a twig breaking. But somewhere far below the earth, in a hall lit by black flame, my father has just lifted his head. He has felt it. Father said — once you break that ring, we will be there before the sun moves a finger's width across the sky. Half an hour. Maybe less. But half an hour… Can my baby wait half an hour?
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