Page 64 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Sunlight scattered across the tidepools like spilled gold.

Aglaia moved through them slowly, her bare feet sinking into the sand. Turquoise water lapped at her calves, the hem of her chiton clinging damply to her legs.

She bent, her fingers closing around a spiral shell nestled among the rock and coral. A treasure left by the tide. A reminder that beauty lingered even in the quietest corners.

Behind her, the jagged cliffs of Mount Olympus rose, sharp and indifferent. But in the hidden cove, the wind was gentler. The waves spoke in a softer tongue, whispering to the shore. A pocket of intimacy carved from the rugged coastline.

Then the water stirred. Not far from the tide’s edge, a figure rose from the surf.

Hephaestus.

He strode from the sea, the tide breaking around him like shattered glass. Water sluiced over the corded muscles of his bare chest, down the ridged lines of his abdomen. Soaked linen clung low to his hips, molded to the hard lines of his body.

Aglaia’s pulse faltered as his gaze found her across the water.

The world quieted.

She stepped from the tidepool, the waves slipping away. Her feet met dry sand, the grains pressing warmly against her skin.

He didn’t call her name. He didn’t need to. He came to her with the same long strides she had come to know, unhurried and unstoppable. A breath later, he stood before her.

His hand plunged into her hair, drawing her close.

There was no ceremony in his touch, no practiced gentleness or pretense.

Only that tempered roughness she had come to crave.

His body, sun-warmed and sea-soaked, pressed hard to hers, solid and searing through the linen.

He smelled of salt and forge-smoke, of fire and iron. Of home.

His face buried into the curve of her neck, and the scrape of his beard made her blood sing.

“You are warm,” she whispered, her fingers trailing down the iron-hewn muscles of his arm.

“My forge is warm.” His deep voice sent sparks tumbling through her veins.

Her lips parted, longing threading through her, but what slipped free was a soft question, earnest, shy in its curiosity. “What are the forges like?”

He grew still, as if the question had taken him by surprise. Then his mouth curved against her throat. A teasing nip followed, and her breath caught.

“Hot,” he murmured—dark, velvet and promising.

His broad hand slid to the small of her back, fingers splaying wide as he brought her hips flush with his. Her heartbeat stuttered, but her brow furrowed at his answer.

He drew back just enough to see her face—then laughed, deep and resonant. The sound struck a flame inside her soul, igniting joy that warmed her from the inside.

Hephaestus smiled down at her, the same warmth lingering in his eyes. His thumb traced a slow circle against her nape. “They are infernos,” he explained, more gently now. “Built in the depths of the earth, where fire flows deep—”

He stopped abruptly.

At once, his body turned to stone. The hand in her hair went still, the warmth of his touch withdrawn. The easy intimacy between them fled, replaced by a taut, bracing tension that left her chilled.

Then he spoke again, quiet, clipped. No longer for her.

“What is it?”

Aglaia blinked, confusion rushing in. Until she saw the figure behind him.

Outlined in the haze of sunset stood a figure cloaked in radiance. Hair like spun gold spilled over one bare shoulder, a gauzy chiton draping her curves. A diadem of pearl, luminous as captured stars, crowned her.

Aphrodite.

Hephaestus released Aglaia slowly, his fingers slipping from her skin. He turned, leaving her facing his back. A wall of strength, now turned away .

“Why have you come?” he asked evenly. Neither cold nor welcoming.

Aphrodite’s teal eyes shimmered like fire-opals drawn from the sea, gleaming with warm light. A light that burned too intimately, making Aglaia squirm.

She smiled at him, soft and slow—a smile designed by the Fates to entice. “You refused Hera’s call to aid the Greeks,” she said in a honeyed melody.

“Troy will find no help from me, Aphrodite.” His reply fell bluntly between them. Iron-bound, final.

Surprise lit her flawless face, then melted into something softer. Pleading, veiled in grace. The tilt of her head, shift of her stance was seduction made effortless, woven into the fabric of her being.

“But surely,” she said softly, “you see the Trojans are more righteous than the Greeks. Agamemnon is a butcher.” Her voice was a lover’s sigh, coaxing and familiar. “Please, Hephaestus.”

His name on her lips was a blade. It sliced through Aglaia with cruel precision, carving deep. Her heart twisted, a slow ache blooming there, spreading wide.

Once bright and soft, the air between them now turned thick. It was cloyed with memory, old and heavy, lingering like smoke from an ancient flame. In the silence and the ache blooming within Aglaia, realization rose. Not new, but sharper than it had ever been before.

There had been whole ages before her. Eons. Thousands of nights where Hephaestus had lain beside another, flesh to flesh, as he did with her now. And here Aphrodite stood, the living echo of every one of them. Radiant and powerful, desire incarnate.

A chasm suddenly yawned between them, full of shared history and silent understandings. A fluency born of shared memory, a history in which she had no part. She stood at the edge, alone. Stranded. Unmoored.

The warmth of the sun vanished from her skin, a chill creeping along her spine like the first touch of winter.

When Aglaia found her voice, it was small. Breakable.

“I must go.”

Hephaestus turned sharply toward her. His gaze pierced the space between them, searching her face.

But she was already moving, her feet carrying her away in soft, swift steps across the sand. A show of composure, but a thread that frayed with every heartbeat .

Aphrodite didn’t glance her way, her eyes fixed on Hephaestus.

But Aglaia felt his gaze. It pressed between her shoulder blades, deepening the harsh ache in her chest.

By the time she reached the forest’s edge, her composure gave way. Tears spilled soundlessly, turning the trees into a watery blur. The pain inside sharpened, grew claws, and tore deep.

She stumbled once. Then again.

And then she ran.

Into the woods, breath breaking around the sob rising as she tried to outrun the hurt clawing at her heart.