It wasn’t that the queen and I were sleeping together, it was that she trusted her kingdom enough to know me. To leave me alone.

I could sleep peacefully once more. I used to wake up, in a nervous sweat, looking around afraid someone might be lurking in the shadows.

There was never anyone there. Just the scent of lilacs and jasmine and wisteria heavy on the night breeze coming through a palace window too thin for anyone to sneak through.

Not only did I sleep peacefully through the entire night, but I began dreaming again. Dreams were beyond my mind’s reach ever since the war started, before the war reached Wisteria.

I felt very safe in the place, and very content.

That is, until Ares returned. She was very different than what I thought of her when I first saw her.

She was fierce. An invisible mist that floated about her. It held a smell strong and heady like a pungent incense, but an unidentifiable smell, that was not fragrance, but a warning. It warned of her intentions, all hedonistic and sadistic. If ever known, they were what would sicken the soul and frighten the greatest warriors. She was a wandering gallows, a loose loop that pulled at your neck and strangled you slowly to death. And yet, that was not quite it; the mist could only say so much, as if it too were in danger from her wrath.

She turned to me and smiled. The gleam in her eyes and the crookedness of her smile reminded me of a fox who has come upon a rabbit in a trap, only worse. Foxes are kinder to their prey. They do not eat the rabbit alive, dining on its flesh and staring in awe as the rabbit screams. This fox wanted to punish this rabbit that way, keeping it alive as it was eaten, probably leaving it to bleed to death in the trap when all the flesh had been stripped.

I cringed at her as she stared at me, I thought I would cry.

"I see you have taken a concubine, sister," she said, smiling a wide crooked smile, grinning like a cruel fox.

I must stress, at this point, that though this woman was evil, she was not necessarily abhorrent. On the contrary, she was beautiful. She as a soft willowy woman, with gently swaying hips. She wore a golden brassiere on her chest. She wore some sort of odd garment, falling down between her legs and hanging low on her hips in front and in back nothing more than that of any article of underwear. Her headpiece and side-locks were tied in a bun at the back of her head, the ends of the headpiece dangling down on her long dark red ankle-length hair.

"You still keep him with you?" she asked the Queen.

"Is that wrong? He gave you your life back, and I am giving him what he deserved for such an act. Should he not have done so?"

"He is an elf. No one would be considered wise if they keep an elf about. Especially a free elf. If you wish to have him alive, he should be kept in chains."

"I don’t think that would be right treatment for him."

"You don’t know what elves are these days. Your living in the past," Ares said.

"No, I am merely living outside of meaningless prejudice."

Ares, standing at the base of Urius’s throne, stepped closer and leaned forward, staring into her sister’s unmoving eyes.

After half a minute she chuckled to herself.

"So that’s why," Ares said. "You’ve taken him as a lover, I can see it in your eyes, and in the sweat on your brow, and his. Is this more of his ‘reward?’"

"Of course not." Urius said. "I gave him a home to stay in, a place where he could live. That’s all. A life for a life. He gave you yours, I gave him his."

"If he isn’t bound to you by any contract or deed, may I take him?" Ares asked.

It was now that I caught on. Urius had no idea of the aura Ares gave off. Her guards were oblivious too. I wondered if Sammhain knew.

"No, he is not forced into my bed, but he is not for sharing either.," Urius said.

Ares receded form her sisters face. She stepped back, and pulled herself away, still standing at the base of the throne.

She turned her head towards me, running a tan hand through her dark mass of hair.

"I can’t take him," she said to her sister, staring at me. "But we both belong to the Royal family, we can both take advantage of this palace. Would you permit me to have a private discussion with you in the bathhouse?"

The queen nodded.