Apollo shot a heartbeat before she did. His arrow went into the flanks of the hind. Hers went straight to its heart.

Relieved it was over and she’d won, Bathymaas started to smirk, until the hind began to change form. Her breath caught in her throat.

No!

Dropping her bow, she teleported to Aricles. Naked, he lay on the grass with Apollo’s arrow embedded in his thigh.

And hers in his heart.

“Ari,” she sobbed, sinking to her knees. She pulled him into her arms. “How?”

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His breathing came in short, ragged breaths. “I was … with Galen…”

Bathymaas screamed out for her aunt to come help her.

Ma’at appeared instantly then froze. “What is this?”

“Apollo … he transformed Ari into a hind and I shot him.”

Her eyes filled with tears, Ma’at knelt by her side. “Child, you know I can’t heal your arrow wounds. No one can.”

Utter despair claimed her as she stared into the pain-filled eyes of her husband. “Ari … I didn’t know it was you.”

“Shh,” he breathed, reaching up to cup her cheek. “Don’t cry, Bathia. You are my heart and I will always be with you. If it takes me ten thousand lifetimes, I will find my way back to you, I promise.” As he went to smile, he expelled a single breath and his hand fell from her face.

The light faded from his eyes and as it did so her amulet that he wore around his neck broke into two halves.

Screaming in utter anguish, she cradled him to her chest and rocked his body as grief tore her apart. Someone, she assumed Ma’at, placed a comforting hand to her shoulder.

“Rezar! Stop it!”

She looked up at Ma’at’s cry to realize that it was Artemis by her side, and her aunt was trying to keep her father from killing Apollo and Leto.

Tears glittered in the Greek goddess’s green eyes. “I didn’t know, Bathymaas. I’m so sorry. He was grazing outside my temple. I just assumed he was one of mine. I had no idea my mother had done this to him and to you. I swear it.” The agony in her voice attested to the truth of her words.

But it changed nothing.

Aricles was dead.

By her own hand, and by Apollo’s and Leto’s treachery. And as she sat there with his body in her arms, a frightening cold filled her. It chilled every part of her being and stilled her beating heart.

She’d been conceived as a goddess of justice. But this wasn’t just.

It wasn’t right.

And her husband’s wrongful death would not go unavenged.

Kissing his cold lips, Bathymaas laid him on the ground and covered his body with her cloak.