Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
But because of the powers of the Moirai, the damage it suffered was minimal...and consequential.
Upon unknotting the ties that held the scroll locked and unread for countless years, Eross unrolled the charred sheet of parchment and saw words written in their ancient language. He could see all at once that it had first foretold of a future that was sweet as ambrosia, but because the fires of destiny had razed letters here and there, what could have been was no more, and what shall be was now his cross to bear.
A life of eternal bliss
Is what has been promised
To a mortal girl and one who is divine,
If their souls had been entwined
On the time that has been prophesied.
But because what was foretold was cast into the embers
In a pool of blood she slumbers.
From the line of the Queen of Assyria comes the first curse,
and of the many troubles coming from the nymphs, one would be the worst.
The god would strive to come to her aid,
But because of the mistake he has made,
She alone must suffer
Until their last foe comes in the dead of winter.
If she survives, the girl who was once named Beauty,
Shall finally be reborn as Psyche.
And the god shall be made whole
For his beloved has become the goddess of soul.
****
Guilt was a torment like no other, and of the many things that the prophecy foretold, what devastated Eros the most was how fate had made someone else pay for his wrongdoings. He alone should've been castigated with the consequences of his misdeeds, but instead an eighteen-year-old mortal was sentenced to suffer in his place.
At first, the god thought it best to keep his distance, and so for many a day and night, he merely watched her from afar, studying her as he would a new creature born to earth. All he wished was to figure out how best to help her without revealing himself, and he swore to do so no matter what else he discovered.
There was a good chance that the girl was as flawed as the rest of her race, but he had already prepared himself to overlook this. He was, after all, in no position to judge, with his own imperfection the reason they were in this mess the first place.
With these, the god thought he had everything planned, but he soon realized he was very much mistaken. For there was one thing he never imagined he would need to prepare for, and that was the possibility of the girl effortlessly capturing his heart.
As the girl possessed immense beauty, he had expected her to be vain and perhaps even cruel, but instead she appeared almost indifferent and at times even displeased with the loveliness she had been bestowed with.
As she was only eighteen, he had also assumed the girl would occasionally display signs of immaturity. But on this, too, she proved to be the opposite. The greater the adversity she faced, the stronger and braver she became, and the only time he saw her display weakness was on the night she had found out that the world had also sought to punish her parents.
It was the first time the god had seen her cry, but that she had done so in secret, her tears hidden by the darkness of the night—-
It was at that moment the god realized he wished to protect her with all of his might, and from there Eros had swiftly made arrangements. In no time at all, he had her family moved across the country, and the girl enrolled in the school he and his brothers had built a long time ago on a whim.
If Eros had his way, she would never have known that he even existed, but on her first night alone the girl had found him in the labyrinth, his divinity exposed by his bestial form.
If Eros had his way, the relationship between the girl and his human guise would be merely that of a student and her professor, but the morning after that, their paths had once again crossed, and the god had been unable to keep himself from responding to her as a man would to a girl he craved, heart, body, and soul.
All this time, the god had convinced himself that he would only be able to think of her as the girl. All this time, he had thought that there was still a chance to change their destinies, and he would be able to keep her safe. But the moment he heard her heart pound at the sight of him, the moment he felt her tremble as he made her cum in their shared dreams—-
The girl...ceased to be just the girl, and the god could no longer resist thinking of her as his Halyna.
****
Countless years Eros might have lived, but in matters of the heart he was no different from young mortal men who would be led astray by their own best intentions. When he tried to love her as Eros, it had seemed to him she would rather be with his human guise. But when he attempted to woo her as the professor, he would come to know that Halyna had already fallen for her god.