Arete had known that Nikos would be in the gardens. Not that he was ever hard for her to find. She knew him better than even he knows, which was why she did not feel the need to announce her presence as she sauntered up to him.

Not needing to ask for permission before placing herself on his lap, her delicate fingers traced his arm, threading carefully between her own as she felt him leave a peppering of kisses on her cheek. Arete didn’t know if it was the opium or the strange behavior that had Nikos so amused, but she didn’t care as she took his warm, calloused hand to her belly and muttered the two words that Retta never thought that she would say to him.

“I’m pregnant.”
--

Nikos would never know, but this had been a lie.

It had always been a lie.

After all, there was a reason why Arete had never allowed him to see her life in Doralis. He had never met her parents -- nor would he ever as they didn’t exist. None of it was real. Everything that she had told Nikos was a farce -- a disguise to hide the truth of the matter. Not even the beautiful visage that he had fallen head over heels for three years ago.

Nikos would never know the truth, but Arete was not a mortal.

She was a god.

Apollo, to be exact. The sun god had always had a soft spot for the pretty men within the Greecian realm and Nikos had just been lucky enough to catch his eye once. From that first glimpse, Apollo had sworn that the Condos heir would be his. Niky did not realize it, but he had tried twice before Arete with his favorite male mortal forms. Unfortunately, he had been firmly disinterested. So Apollo became a woman in order to have what he so desperately wanted. He had thought at first that what he wanted was a quick fuck, but he had gotten attached. Now what Apollo wanted was to keep Nikos by his side forever.

If pretending that Arete could bear him a child was the cost of that, so be it.

Apollo would do anything to keep Nikos close.

---

The wedding would only be a few days later.

Arete figured that this farce might push Nikos to fulfill the promises that he had made to her so long ago, but she could have never guessed that it would push him forward so quickly. After the pair had celebrated in the same way they celebrated all the good things in life, Nikos had disappeared from the Archontiko, thinking that his Retta would simply sleep through the night as he rushed to arrange the details of what would be their beautiful shotgun wedding.

However, Arete did not sleep.

Sleep was not necessary for those who had to keep secrets like her. So, instead of dreaming of the happily ever after that was now unfolding before her; Retta simply drifted away. The god sleeping in Nikos’s sheets went home to watch his lover from afar. Apollo wished that she could have been with him as he spoke to the priest within the temple Nikos wished to be married in, but he wasn’t sure what his mortal half would think of the coins that switched palms for the promise that everything would be kept quiet. Was his Nikos not proud of Arete? His wide smile faltered slightly at the mere thought of it and even though he tried so desperately to not cast his eyes in the direction of the laurel tree and hyacinth flower kept on the far side of his domain… they went there just the same.

Apollo was a god who did not fear much, but as he watched Nikos purchase a copious amount of flowers and new shining jewels to adore the woman he had left asleep in his bed, he suddenly found himself very afraid of what the future was going to hold for the two of them. The God of Light knew that he had been cursed in attempts to find true love and that any attempts to hold someone close to him would only ever in tragedy. His spark was too bright. It melted everything who stared at it for too long. Would this happen to Nikos too? Apollo knew that at his core he was a selfish being. He tried to do good. Desperately. Yet at the end of the day, he still hurt so many people and there was nothing that he could do to stop it. He could protect no one.

Not even himself.

Hours later, when Arete’s eyes drifted open as Apollo returned to her, the first thing that she felt was the strong embrace of Nikos around her. All thoughts and fears of them burning like Ikaris faded away as she finally felt the warmth that she naturally brought to so many others, but craved so deeply for herself. This was why she lied. This exact moment was why she had spun this tale of a pregnancy that would never be -- only so that she might have her Niky cling to her a little longer in the hopes that he might bring her the warmth that Apollo would need to never accidentally bring harm to another person again. Even as her love began to stir, Retta nuzzled closer to him, not willing to let him move away as she begged a silent plea that he would never hear or understand.

Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this again.

--

For something that Arete had been longing for since the moment, she first saw Nikos; the day that she found herself bearing the Condos moniker passed too quickly. She had supposed that would happen as she had already lived many days and would continue on for many more -- far more than her Niky would ever get to see. Yet she still felt cheated when the white robes had been discarded on Niko’s bedroom -- no, their bedroom -- floor. The small party had long since ended and the priest’s words were just a memory slowly beginning to drift as it blended with every other day that Arete had lived. That scared her even as she never felt safer, tangled up in the sheets with Nikos, secure in the fact that he was her forevermore… Would one day this all be a memory like all the other days that had come before Nikos had ever been born?

Nikos would later ask her why she had kissed him that night with more fervor than she had ever done before.

Arete would never be able to explain to him.

--

As the cold months faded away into the warm months of spring, Arete grew into the role of Condos lady just as quickly as her belly grew. The physicians that Nikos had hired to be at her beck and call had estimated that she was now six months along, but Arete knew that it wouldn’t matter. There was no baby growing within her. There would never be. After all, she might be playing the part of a woman, but beneath the perfect skin that her Niky knew so well, she was still a God. On Olympus, his power might have been endless, but still, there were limits and this was one of them. A God could not bear children, no matter how hard they tried.

Even though this was always lurking in the back of her mind, Arete still allowed herself to pretend that it was really happening. The joy she felt was real as she gushed to Eleni how beautiful her life was now and she had even grown to forgive Ophelia for the terrible things that she had assumed about Arete. It turned out that the marriage had managed to make her ‘respectable’ again -- even if the world outside of the Archontiko did not agree. Arete did not have an easy time at court as she was an outsider. An outsider who only found her way in because she had been the prettiest face that Nikos had knocked up. The young woman had allowed herself to hiss petty words in private when the festivities were done, but found calm in knowing that their rejection of her would mean nothing in the end. They did not know who she truly was and how much she truly knew about them. That was the only thing that gave her comfort as she found that her new name only brought her such misery… that and the mysterious stomach bug that swept through the courts certainly helped.

Oh, how she wished she could tell Nikos how the unsightly images of the noblewomen puking had been her doing, but she never could. Not because she needed to keep the lies, but Retta could feel her Niky drifting from her. In the early days of their marriage, he could not bear to be parted from her, but now? Retta felt like she only saw him at night when their bodies became one. However, not even this brought her comfort. He was angry, angry about… something. Not even Apollo knew what it could be that had his lover in such a rage. Every night he tried to find the solution, tried to discover if he had faulted Nikos in some way, but there was nothing. All he could do was try to not stoke the flames further.

That was why Arete was nothing short of elated when Nikos asked her one crisp morning if she would enjoy a short trip to the beaches that day. One last quick hurrah before the baby was meant to join them here in the mortal realm. Arete was so relieved that Niky seemed to be so joyful about the occasion that she didn’t even feel a twinge of regret of needing to lie like she did every time the baby was mentioned. She was far too relieved to have Niky seek to spend time with her again.

Arere knew that horseriding was not something that a pregnant Lady of Condos should do, but she didn’t care. Not when she was clutching Niky’s back as they rode up the cliffsides. Her face was buried in the back of his tunic, trying to shield her eyes from the way the wind whipped her hair about her rosy cheeks. Even though this moment was nothing short of perfect, she couldn’t help that small part of her that was Apollo from creeping in, trying to warn her that things were not alright. As the couple reached the top of the cliff, just in time to see the sun setting on the horizon, Arete couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. As Nikos helped her dismount, that part of her that had the gift of prophecy was begging her to run. Run oh so far away from here. She forced herself to swallow such feelings down though as Niky beckoned her to sit on the edge with him, dangling their legs over the rock face as if they were two kids in Doralis again.

Arete reached for his hand, but he pulled away.

Unsure about what this meant, the young woman tried to question him as the pit of dread grew in her stomach. The calling of birds ahead did not help, merely drowning out her words as a flock of seven flew overheard, heading somewhere that was safer than here where Arete sat with Nikos as he muttered one statement that sent an arrow through her heart with every syllable.

“I know the baby isn’t real.”

The shock of her secrets being unraveled stunned Arete speechless. A litany of words tumbled from her mouth, attempting to both explain the lies and dissuade him from believing the truth. However, they fell on deaf ears. There was nothing that she could say that could quell the fire that enraptured his heart. It didn’t matter that he had spun countless lies to hide his affairs from the woman he swore that he loved the most -- this one lie that Arete had told out of sheer desperation that Nikos would never understand had gone too far. Her lie had been unforgivable and she had to pay the price. Her lie would absolve Nikos of the blood that would be on his hands when he returned to the Archontiko Condos that evening, intent to wash away the stain that had been Arete from every factor of his life. He did not know that he would never accomplish this. Apollo would never let him forget.

Not after Nikos reached for her shoulders and pushed.

Apollo would never be able to forget the feeling of having the world fall from underneath his feet and how long it took for her to hit the bottom. Not being truly mortal, he could feel the pain that came when that jagged rock hit Arete’s neck -- a phantom pain that would linger for years after Apollo woke up within his temple, still screaming just as loudly as Arete had been. Not that it mattered now. Arete was no more.

Apollo had watched from afar, in a new skin, as Nikos threw away the girl he had once claimed was the love of her life as if she was trash. Hiring men to dump her body into the ocean so that she might disappear -- after her belly was sliced open, of course. Why? Did he think that this would absolve him of the guilt? Apollo had made sure that would never happen. He swore it to himself as he begged his uncle to return the mortal form to him so she might have a proper burial so that Apollo might put to rest the loss that he had suffer and the love that he missed so much. Even after Apollo ensured that the girl he had once been had been treated with the care that Nikos had promised to her, the ache did not go away.

It would never go away.

--

The years would pass by Nikos painfully slow.

Apollo made sure that the man had no rest from the misery that he was worthy of as the Condos man tried to move on with his life. Every day Nikos would feel a pain in his belly. Sometimes Apollo was merciful, giving him phantom kicks of the baby that would never be. Other times he was ruthless -- giving Nikos the joy of knowing what it felt like to have his own innards split open without a knife ever sliding across the surface of his skin. That wasn’t enough for Apollo though. The new wife that Nikos had chosen to replace Arete was always sickly. It was always something that she could never recover fully from. Truly the couple should count themselves lucky that Apollo had the grace to allow them children, but only so that they might be better than the man that sired them. By the time the last brown strand of dark hair on Nikos’s hair had gone grey, Apollo had contemplated taking another mortal form to see if the children that might have been his own if he had been given enough time to work something out was anything like the horrible man who they called father.

But it hurt too much.

Just as it hurt too much to allow Nikos to suffer in his final days. Apollo had always thought that this would be when he was most brutal, but there was still a small sliver of Arete within him that still loved him fiercely, despite the horrible things that he had done. That was the only thing that kept him from striking him down in the most painful of ways when it was time for Thanatos to claim him. Apollo had watched from Olympus when Nikos took his final breath, unable to hold back the horrible gut-wrenching sobs when he saw that the steady heartbeat that had once been Retta’s lullaby cease to exist.

Apollo had thought that he would be strong enough to stay out of his uncle’s domain once Nikos became a subject in the kingdom of the dead, but the desire to see him again was too great. It didn’t matter that he was old and battered. He was still her Niky and Apollo wanted nothing more than to see him again.

He had arrived in Hades’s domain in his normal form. He was a cascade of blinding light that made many souls scurry away. Apollo did not let Nikos scurry away though. Not when he let the light fade awa, leaving Arete in his place. Just like that, the curtain fell and laid bare to all the secrets that Arete had hid from him as she rushed forward to embrace him. The moment that they touched, the toll of the years and the curses faded away from Nikos, leaving him as that bright young man that had Apollo had first fallen in love with once again.

With her head buried in his chest, Arete muttered to him the words that she had not dared to allow herself in to say in the forty years since they had last held each other this close. “I love you Nikos.”

The gods only knew how long they stood there like that in the sea of the damned. It could have only been decades before Arete finally pulled away, but only to thread her fingers through his one more time as she took Nikos’s hand so that she might lead him out of his darkness. The other gods might not understand, but Apollo no longer cared as he brought his love to Olympus where finally they might have the happily ever after they deserved.

No more lies. No more disguises.

Finally, they were free.