Chapter 32: Shadows of Exile
Chapter 32: Shadows of Exile
The forest of exile was not kind.
Once, Apollo Solari had dined in marble halls and commanded the respect of nobles with a glance. Now he slept beneath crooked boughs, his body wrapped in furs that still stank of rot despite repeated washings, his fire reduced to smoldering embers. The trees whispered here—not with the voices of the Goddess, but with the bitter echoes of those who had been cast out before him. Their restless energy seeped into his bones.
Sarah crouched near the fire, her hair tangled and her once-bright eyes dulled by endless nights. She had aged in spirit more than body, her beauty turning sharp and shadowed, like glass that cut deeper for being broken.
For days, Apollo had been restless. His sleep was fractured, torn by screams that weren’t his own. Tonight, the dreams had been unbearable. He woke with a roar that shook the clearing, startling the birds from their perches. Sweat slicked his brow as he pressed his palms to his eyes, gasping for breath.
“They’re here,” he whispered.
Sarah looked up sharply. “What?”
“The SoulSong. The children. I felt them.” He turned toward her, eyes fever-bright. “They’re born.”
Sarah’s lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. “You’re certain?”
Apollo let out a laugh that was more a bark than a sound of mirth. “Certain? It was like fire shoved down my throat. Like song tearing through my skull. They’ve come into the world, and already the Goddess sings their names into the weave. I’ll never be free of it.”
Sarah turned back to the fire, her hands trembling slightly as she stoked it with a branch. Sparks leapt high before fading. “Then we are too late.”
“Too late?” Apollo spat. “No. Not yet. They’re only infants. Infants can be snuffed out before they grow teeth.”
The venom in his words made even Sarah flinch. She leaned back, staring at him across the fire. “And you would kill babes? What would that make you, Apollo?”
His gaze cut to her, sharp and unrepentant. “It would make me free.”
Sarah said nothing for a long time. The crackle of fire filled the silence. She wanted to argue, wanted to tell him that the Goddess’s hand was too strong, that Jessica’s line was protected by Ancients themselves. But she remembered the day Jessica had turned to her and named her betrayal aloud before all the Clans. The day the Goddess’s judgment had burned into her skin like invisible fire.
Sarah had been Apollo’s true mate, yes, but even their bond had curdled. It no longer sang. It rasped. It gnawed at her insides like a wound that would not heal. Their mating was broken, poisoned by their choices, and no amount of passion or anger had repaired it.
Sometimes she hated him. Sometimes she hated herself more.
She drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “Even if you wanted to… how would you reach them? Chimaera stands against you. Thorne himself would cut you down before you took three steps past their border.”
Apollo’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Borders mean little to shadows. And there are still those who remember me, Sarah. Men and women who would rather serve a fallen prince than bow to a SoulSinger and her precious brood.”
Sarah studied him. His face was gaunt, his once-golden hair tangled, yet the old fire remained in his eyes. A dangerous fire. One she’d stoked herself once, when it suited her. Now she wondered if it would consume her, too.
“And what then?” she asked softly. “Say you succeed. Say you kill her children. Will it bring back your honor? Will it mend what we’ve broken?”
Apollo’s smile faded. His jaw tightened. “Honor is ash. The Goddess cursed me the moment she favored Jessica. I will never mend. But I can still take something from her. From all of them.”
Sarah turned her gaze to the flames, unwilling to meet his eyes. Her heart thudded with fear—and something else. A darker yearning she hated to name. Because even broken, even disgraced, Apollo was still her mate. The bond still tethered them in agony and in craving. To deny him entirely was to deny herself.
And so she said nothing.
Above them, the forest groaned as the wind shifted. The scent of rain crept in. Sarah pulled her cloak tighter, staring into the fire until her vision blurred.
Apollo leaned back against the roots of an ancient tree, his hand clenched around the hilt of the knife he carried everywhere now. His voice dropped low, more to himself than to her.
“They’ll never let me back. Not alive. But if I take her light with me into the dark… then maybe, just maybe, the world will remember Apollo Solari after all.”
Sarah closed her eyes. The Goddess had given her one chance for mercy, and she had thrown it away. Now she sat in exile, bound to a man she could neither leave nor love without pain, and she knew what was coming.
Jessica will not be safe.
And for the first time, Sarah wondered if she wished the Goddess would end her before she was forced to watch what Apollo intended to unleash.