CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Selene
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Selene
It is a terrible thing to dress oneself for strangers while the mind begins to unravel, as if I’d lose mine any moment.
The mirror held no kindness whatsoever, only a fractured reflection of myself and a woman draped in a gown of deep crimson, her throat burdened with jewels that glimmered like small, merciless eyes.
My hands shook when I fastened the necklace, they betrayed me when I reached for the anklet I wanted to take off.
That cursed trinket clung more to my skin as though it was fused with my flesh.
I tugged until the skin burned red, until my breath rasped short and shallow.
Still it did not move, as if the metal knew something I didn’t.
I laughed in disbelief. I was losing my mind, wasn't I?
My lungs tightened, air refusing to stay. For a heartbeat, I thought I might claw the dress off my body and run barefoot into the day.
But the knock on the door startled me. Dragged me back from wherever I was heading.
“Mrs. Vitale?” It was Elena.
I swallowed. “I’ll be there in a minute.” I hoped she heard my voice because even to my own ears it sounded distant.
I heard footsteps retreating and took a deep breath. I needed to go downstairs. If not, someone would come again.
Gathering myself, though I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing, I opened the door and headed to the stairs. I could already hear the soft violin music and chattering. I wondered how many people were there.
Just as I reached the stairs, my throat clogged.
The hall was no longer a hall but a theatre where I was the main event.
Murmurs clung to the air, laughter too brittle to be honest. Men with eyes like predators.
Women adorned in silks that whispered of concealed arsenals.
None of them was familiar, and yet… two faces sliced through the fog of unknowing.
Isadora. The woman who claimed to be my mother’s sister.
She stood in deep emerald satin, posture erect, smile unfaltering as though she owned not only the room but my very breath.
And beside her, her daughter looked radiant, a polished and younger version of her mother, standing with a wine glass.
Too perfect, so much so that it made me swallow hard.
My blood recoiled as if it recognised her before my mind did.
Every step down the staircase felt heavier than the last. Their eyes clawed over me, weighing and measuring. Whispering to themselves. My arms folded over my chest. Suddenly feeling too exposed and uncomfortable.
Why was I even here? Why did he tell me this was happening? That there would be so many people?
I hated the thought that followed. Where was he? Zagreus. My reluctant anchor, my shadow and torment. My eyes hunted the crowd, desperate for the sharp outline of his presence. I despised myself for needing it.
The clink of glass startled me. And I looked to my left to see a man in his mid-twenties approaching me.
He lifted his glass and winked. “Well,” he said, lips curving into a snake’s smile. “If it isn’t the dead.”
My body stiffened as the room rippled with stifled laughter. I couldn’t decipher anything. This place was too crowded. My mind caught the single word. Dead.
He stood taller than most, shoulders broad but not brutish, his frame honed, and his hair was dark, swept back with the casual arrogance of someone who knew he needn’t try.
A faint scar cut through his brow, lending him a charm that was as cruel as it was deliberate.
And those eyes were filled with mischief and cunning, yet swept in something that smelled of rot, of secrets and burials of truths.
I forced my voice out. “What do you mean?”
He tilted his head, feigning innocence, his smile deepening. “Mean? I don’t know. What did I mean, Selene?”
“I’m not Selene. My name is Celestine.”
He chuckled at that. “Is it now?”
I swallowed. “Who…” my voice cracked, but I forced it to steady. “Who is Selene?”
“Don’t you know?” he leaned closer, his breath warm against the rim of his glass. “Or did he never tell you?”
A silence fell between us, and the crowd leaned in, though pretended not to. My palms dampened, my pulse thundered against my ribs. My throat ached with the intensity of all those watching eyes.
I wanted to run. I wanted Zagreus to appear and rip this man apart. But all I had was the sound of his laughter echoing inside me.
Who was he? Who was this stranger who spoke my name, or not my name, but something close, something foreign to my tongue yet familiar in its rhythm, as if he were plucking threads from a tapestry I did not remember weaving?
“Who are you?” The words left me dry, sandpaper against the roof of my mouth, betraying my trembling hands even though I tried to steady them against the railing.
The man smiled. Not kindly, but it was a smile that did not stretch to the eyes, a predator’s curve carved onto his lips, the kind of smile that made the air curdle in my lungs.
His hair was dark, a lustre of coal under the candlelight, combed back too neatly to be trusted.
His suit was severe, every line tailored to perfection, but it was his gaze, sharp, cutting, laced with mockery, that seemed to make me uncomfortable without touch.
“Who am I?” He tilted his glass, the amber liquid within it catching the light like trapped fire. “Maybe a friend.” His voice was velvet, but woven through with barbs, as if each syllable was meant to pierce.
“I don’t know you.” My voice cracked. “And you… you called me…” My throat locked. “Selene.”
His smile widened. “Did I?” He feigned thoughtfulness, sipping lazily from his glass, his eyes never leaving my face. “Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. Or perhaps not. Names are peculiar things, don’t you think, tesoro? They can be both prisons and keys.”
The words crawled into my ears, lodging there like parasites. Prison. Key. Selene.
Who was Selene? Why did it feel as though the sound of it stirred something in me, something faint and buried, a whisper pressing against locked doors?
“You’re mistaken,” I forced out, clutching at the folds of my crimson dress, as though its fabric might ground me. “That is not my name.”
“Ah,” he said smoothly, stepping closer until the space between us shrank, the scent of his cologne wrapping itself around me. “Then what is your name? Celestine?” He said it with a kind of cruel emphasis, as though he were testing its shape on his tongue. “Do you even know?”
My stomach plunged. His words were not mere taunts; they were needles, pulling at seams I did not even know existed within me.
“Why are you saying these things?” I whispered. My voice shook, desperate and defensive.
His grin widened, wicked, triumphant. “Because truth has a way of finding you, tesoro. You can bury it, you can smother it, but it does not die. It waits. And when it resurfaces, oh, it devours.”
My knees weakened. I staggered back a step, every nerve screaming, every breath tangled in panic. “Stay away from me.”
He chuckled, low and insidious, as if my fear delighted him.
“Oh, but why would I? You’re the most fascinating ghost I’ve ever seen.
A woman is dead, yet breathing. A bride, yet not a wife.
A name, yet not a self.” His head tilted, his eyes glinting.
“Tell me, do you bleed the same? Or did he strip even that from you?”
I froze, unable to breathe, the words splintering into me until I thought my bones would crack beneath them.
A shadow fell across me, taller, darker, heavier than any I had known. The stranger’s smirk faltered for the barest fraction of a second, his eyes cutting past me.
“Step away from her.”
Zagreus’s voice. Low, lethal, the kind of tone that promised ruin.
His presence consumed the room before my eyes even lifted to him.
He moved through the crowd like a storm made flesh, every line of his frame coiled with restraint and fury.
He did not look at me, but at the man before me, as though his entire being narrowed into one singular, merciless focus.
Strong arms wrapped around me before I could even react, pulling me flush against him.
His cologne, dark and grounding, drowned out the stench of fear that had clung to me.
The world shrank into the circle of his grip, and shame burned through me for how much I leaned into it—for how much I had longed for him to appear, to anchor me, to remind me I was not alone in this nightmare.
“Stay away from her.” His words came again, sharpened steel now. His chin lifted slightly, his scar catching the light, his eyes burning with unspoken violence.
The stranger only smirked, unfazed, swirling his drink in lazy defiance. “Ah, Zagreus. Always so possessive.” His eyes darted to me, wicked amusement dancing there. “But tell me… does she even know what she is to you? Or who she was?”
Zagreus’s jaw flexed, a silent warning, a promise of blood. His grip on me tightened.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The walls closed in, the voices of the guests drowned into muffled static, and all I could hear was the echo of that name—Selene, Selene, Selene—hammering at the inside of my skull.
And I hated myself most of all for the tremor of relief that coursed through me at his touch, at his protection, even though I did not understand what I needed protection from.