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Bride. My stomach twists nervously. Andlord. The demonis more powerful than I knew—I have not yet heard of one who holds dominion over a host of nymphs.
“A rare choice, certainly.”
One of them giggles. Another edges closer to me, then holds my hair back from my face, inspecting me. Her hands brush my ear, soft and silken, but there’s no mistaking the way she’s appraising me. Part of me expects her to pull back my lips and check my teeth, the way Father would with a new cow. What does she see me as? A prisoner? A strange trophy?
I do not like that all of them knowhim: they are on the demon’s side. No doubt they laugh and sport with him, whereas I am left in the dark, wedded to a creature who will not tell me his true name, nor what sort of life he has outside these walls.Nor even show me his face.
One of the smaller nymphs paddles over then. She is little, just a child.
“She is very fair, is she not?” she pipes.
“Indeed.” The dryad next to me flashes a cool smile. “Very fair—for a mortal.”
“You’re jealous, Khelone,” another butts in. “Youwould covet her space in his bed, wouldn’t you?”
“Hush, Klaia,” the one called Eido says. It’s clear she’s the one in charge.
I wonder what they would say if I told them we shared no bed at all? But the trading of insults and innuendo continues, until finally one of the nymphs pushes another into the water. Most of the others seem to have forgotten me by now, delighted by this new drama. But the small girl has padded over as her older companions snipe and curse each other in the water.
“Are youreallya mortal?” she says, and I nod. Her eyes widen.
“Does it hurt?”
The question should make me laugh perhaps, but instead itgives me a strange pang.
“Sometimes,” I say.But not in the way you think, little one.
“I like mortals,” the child says. “They’re shiny.” And she puts her hand on my hair, patting it gently, like a dog.
I decide I might as well capitalize on this show of loyalty.
“What do you know, little one,” I say, “about the lord they call my husband?”
She stops petting me; her eyes widen again, growing cautious.
“He has a name among mortals, does he not? Do you know what it is?”
“Phoebe!” one of the older dryads calls sharply now from the water, and the little one starts and puts her hands behind her back.
“Don’t get the child in trouble.” The one they call Klaia walks toward me. She drops down on the damp bank beside me and pushes a cup of wine into my hands. “You look far too serious, you know.”
She hesitates a moment.
“We call him Lord Aetos.”
Aetos:we know that bird throughout the Hellenic lands. A great, majestic hunter, with a wingspan as long as I am tall.
“It is just a nickname. I believe you mortals have a different name for him.” Her gaze is direct. “He prefers you not to know it, because if you know it, you will see him differently. You will believe what the stories say, instead of learning him as he is.”
I scowl.
“And what does it matter, whether I believe the stories or not?”
The nymph looks at me. There is something serious for a moment behind those color-shifting, mischievous eyes.
“I suppose, because he wishes you to love him.”
It’s a good thing I haven’t been drinking the wine, because ifI had been, I’d have spat it out on the ground. Surely she has it wrong. And besides—
