The Silver Oath

The air in the tent coiled in my lungs, thick with the predatory scent of Alphas too long denied a release. The musk of their aggression pressed on the canvas walls, a suffocating force with almost tangible weight.

A tremor ran through my mother’s fingers as she worked the perfumed oil into my neck. “You must sit still, Iphigenia. You are a princess. Remember that.”

The frantic flutter of her touch did nothing to soothe the deep ache in my bonding gland. It was an insistent throb, an imperative rooted in the blood itself. The ancient instinct that I’d been taught was a sacred duty now felt like nothing more than a leash.

“I remember, Mother,” I replied, but the words came out weak and fragile.

She squeezed my shoulder, perhaps trying to still the restless energy thrumming through me. It didn’t work. If anything, it had the opposite effect.

This was Clytemnestra, Queen of Mycenae, an Omega whose beauty had nearly shattered the Achaean states. But the woman before me now was not that queen. The sour spike of her distress cut through the jasmine oil. It was a scent of pure animal fear that made the Omega in me want to whine in dread.

But I couldn’t afford to pull away from my duty, and neither could my mother. “This is a great honor,” she said. “You must smell sweet for him. For your mating with Achilles.”

Achilles. The name landed in the tent like a thrown stone, heavy with expectation. He was the Wolf of Thessaly, the greatest killer of our age, and I was the prize bred to be the anchor for his legendary rage. The thought sent a fresh wave of nausea through me, a cold knot tightening in my gut.

I dug my fingernails into the silk of my dress, the small pain a desperate tether against the tide of submission. “Why is the camp so quiet? If this is a mating feast, where is the joy?”

“The Alphas are... focused.” My mother fumbled with the ribbon in my hair, pulling the knot so tight it sent a jolt of pain through my scalp. Her gaze darted to the tent flap, as if she expected it to be ripped open at any moment. “They wait for the wind.”

The silence outside pressed in on the tent, a predatory stillness like a held breath before a killing blow. It was the sound of the Curse Orpheus had laid upon us, made real and absolute here on the shores of Aulis.

A horn bellowed from the shore, a low vibration so guttural it shot through the packed earth and into my feet. The sound burrowed deep in my chest, a primal command that made the Omega in my blood scream prey.

My mother seized my arm, her grip shockingly tight, her nails digging into my skin. “It’s time.” She extinguished the lamp with a sharp puff of her breath, plunging the tent into darkness. “Stand tall, Iphigenia. Your King awaits.”

I rose, the fine silk of my dress suddenly feeling coarse and alien against my skin. My mother pushed the tent flap aside, and the night air hit me, thick with the promise of violence. Up above, in the sky, Artemis’s moon shone, its pale rays making my mother’s skin look almost ghastly.

There was no procession, no celebratory music. There was only a corridor of fire, a path carved between walls of men. Thousands stood shoulder to shoulder, their torches held high, their faces lit from below by hungry flames. A low murmur, the sound of a thousand beasts scenting blood, rippled through the ranks.

As I took the first step out of the tent, a low whisper slid from somewhere to my right. “Smell that... sweet as a summer peach...”

My stomach clenched, and I fought the urge to cover myself. I desperately wished my mother had at least stayed with me, but she was gone, left behind at the tent. I needed to walk alone on the way to my mate.

Every head turned in unison as I began to walk, a thousand pairs of eyes tracking my every move. They did not look at my face. Their gazes were fixed on the sway of my hips, the pulse in my throat, the soft curve of my belly beneath the silk. Another murmur, this one almost reverent, slid from the left. “A fine prize... blessed by the gods...”

Blessed? The word was a dissonant note in the symphony of their hunger. In the guttural, instinctual language of the Curse, they told me exactly what I was to them. A vessel. Meat.

Was this how Eurydice had felt when she’d turned into the first Omega? If so, the Bard’s Curse made far more sense than it ever had.

My own scent felt like a betrayal, a beacon drawing every predator in the dark. A final, cruel hiss reached my ears, sharp with envy. “Such a waste... When all of us here are waiting for a taste.”

The words sent a fresh spike of terror through me. I searched the sea of faces, desperate for the one that mattered, the only one who could shield me. I needed my intended’s scent. I needed the protection of Achilles’s claim.

Then, through the oppressive wall of bodies, I found him. He stood near the front, a pillar of burnished bronze and shadow. The torchlight slid across the impassive curve of his shield. His scent cut through the lesser musk of the camp, a clean shock of storm-charged air and hot iron.

Despite his power, he waited in line with the others, his body held in a rigid brace, his gaze locked on the altar ahead. The most dangerous Alpha in the world smelled of possession, but his posture was that of a man on duty, his instincts chained by an order I could not see.

My gaze tore away from Achilles, searching for the source of that order. I found it at the altar. My father. Agamemnon.

For as long as I could remember, he’d been an anchor in this strange world that often made no sense. No challenge was too difficult for him to face, no battle too difficult. He always braved every storm with an unreadable stoicism I couldn’t help but envy. Today, there was something about his posture that felt different. I couldn’t quite place it, but I could have sworn it was guilt.

Beside him stood the seer Calchas. His hands were empty of the traditional mating wreath of myrtle and rose. But it was the man standing at Agamemnon’s right hand that made my blood run cold.

Odysseus.

The King of Ithaca wore a simple tunic, his eyes sharp and intelligent in the torchlight. Instead of rut or aggression, he smelled of salt, old parchment, and ink. In his hand, he held a scroll, the twin to the letter that had summoned us here.

The realization hit me harder than any blow. Achilles hadn’t asked for me. My father hadn’t sent for me out of love. He had done this. The Beta. The strategist. The liar.

I froze on the sandy path, refusing to take another step. “No.”

“Come, child,” Agamemnon commanded. “Obey.”

My father was among the few people I’d met who hadn’t fallen under the sway of the Bard’s Curse. His voice didn’t have the vibrating growl of an Alpha. But King Agamemnon didn’t need the power of the Alpha Command. He held the weight of the throne, the absolute certainty of a man who expected the sun to rise simply because he willed it.

My body tried to move forward. Not because of my blood, but because I was his daughter, and I’d been trained to obey the King.

I bit my tongue until I tasted copper, using the pain to break the hold. “This isn’t a mating. You didn’t bring me here to be claimed.”

“The Goddess demands a trade,” my father said, clenching his jaw. “Artemis holds the winds. She demands the blood of a royal Omega to balance the scales.”

A trade. The cold dread in my gut solidified, a block of ice that shattered my last hope. I turned toward Achilles, a final, desperate attempt to reach for the one man who was supposed to be my shield. “You knew? You would let them butcher your mate?”

The great warrior looked down at the sand between us, his broad shoulders slumping with the weight of his dishonor. He said nothing.

Odysseus cleared his throat and met my gaze without flinching. “It is not his fault, Iphigenia. The army... their need is upon them. If we don’t sail, they will tear each other apart. We need the wind.”

His calm infuriated me more than the scent of all the lustful Alphas surrounding me. “You wrote the letter. You tricked my mother. You promised us a wedding.”

“I promised a unification,” Odysseus corrected, his voice smooth and dry. “And tonight, the army will be unified. It was the only way to get you here without a struggle. A necessary fiction.”

Without that fiction, my mother never would have agreed to bring me here. I thought about the way she’d shaken in the tent, her desperate attempt to comfort me. By then, the men surrounding us had trapped her just as surely as they had me.

Odysseus had spoken without malice. To him, I wasn’t a person. I was a tactic. A chess piece sacrificed to open the board. But my mother had spoken with grief. You are a princess, she had said. Stand tall.

For her, I would do this. But it would be on my own terms.

A strange calm settled over me. The fear was still there, but something else had taken root beside it. It was a defiant pride that burned white-hot. If they wanted a sacrifice, I wouldn’t be dragged to the altar like a frightened animal. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of my terror. I wouldn’t make my mother more miserable than she already was.

Two of my father’s guards stepped forward, their hands reaching for my arms. Heat rolled off their bodies, thick with an Alpha’s certainty. “Don’t touch me,” I snarled.

An Omega shouldn’t have had the power to command an Alpha. But both men froze, their hands hovering in the air. “If the goddess wants my blood, I will grant it to her,” I said.

I took one deliberate step, then another, walking the final distance to the altar alone. Each footfall was a choice, a silent declaration that I was more than the role they had assigned me. I climbed the cold stone steps, my head held high, and laid myself down on the slab.

Calchas passed my father a long, ornate knife. I paid them no heed. Instead, I stared up at the impassive face of the moon. Artemis, I hope my submission softens your heart.

My father’s arm lifted the knife, his movements steady, practiced as a butcher’s. The moonlight kissed the bronze edge, a final sliver of cruel beauty. I closed my eyes and braced for the sharp bite of pain.

A sudden darkness, absolute and profound, swallowed the world.

The suffocating heat of the Alphas vanished in an instant, ripped away to leave a bone-deep chill. The roar of the sea, the breath of the army, the frantic thud of my own heart… All of it melted into a silence that pressed heavy against my ears.

A figure manifested beside me, right next to the altar. The air around her shimmered with a power so immense it felt like the world was bending to her presence.

Her scent carried the sharp fragrance of the deep woods, of frost on pine needles and cold, running streams. It held none of the demanding aggression of an Alpha, none of the yielding sweetness of an Omega. It was a scent that did not seek to dominate or submit. It simply existed, ancient and untouchable. My mind, conditioned by a lifetime of the Curse, struggled to comprehend a being that existed so completely outside of its laws.

In the silver mirrors of her eyes, I saw my own terrified reflection and understood. The name was a whisper of impossible truth in my soul.

Artemis.

“He weeps.” The goddess’s voice cut through the profound silence, each word as sharp and savage as a wolf’s snarl. “Look at him. The King of Kings, crying because he has to break his own toy.”

I followed her gaze. My father stood perfectly still in the silver light, the knife held high. But now, there were tears streaming over his cheeks, into his beard. The sight stirred a confused, bitter anger inside me.

I turned away from him, back toward the goddess.

“You are Artemis,” I whispered, the name a prayer and an accusation. “They said you demanded this. That you held the winds.”

Artemis laughed, but the sound held no joy, only a vast, ancient contempt. “Calchas believes himself to be gifted, but he is only a foolish upstart. He doesn’t speak for me. None of them do.”

So it had all been a lie to begin with? But everyone had seemed so sure. My father, Odysseus… Even Achilles. Surely they wouldn’t do this for nothing.

Artemis looked down at me then, and her gaze pierced through years of submission. “Iphigenia. This is the first and harshest lesson you must learn. The wisdom of men is pure arrogance, and it is often the innocent who pay the price.”

The innocent. Like me. And my mother. Torn apart, because all these warriors thought they knew better.

“Do you accept this, Iphigenia?” Artemis asked. “Do you accept that you were born to bleed for their ambition?”

“I have no choice,” I offered shakily. “I am an Omega. I am bound by the Curse.”

Artemis smiled, and the simple twist of lips softened the stern lines of her face. “The Curse of the Bard is nothing compared to the power of a god. My hunt is eternal. It was Olympus who twisted Orpheus’s blood. We can easily twist it again.”

She laid her hand over my neck. The frantic thrum that ached in my bonding gland went quiet, silenced by a power far older than its own.

“That fire in your blood,” she said, the command resonating where her hand met my skin. “That instinct to yield. That softness they mistake for weakness. I can burn its song from your blood and teach you a new one in its place. The song of the hunt.”

For the first time since I’d walked out of the damned tent, I felt hope again. It terrified me more than the blade. “And what will I become?”

“A Hunter. A Wolf. An Alpha of the Moon. You will not command armies of men who march for glory. You will protect the weak they trample. You will hunt the predators who believe their nature gives them the right to take.”

Artemis’s eyes glinted with almost ferocious intensity. The tips of her nails sank into my skin just enough to sting. “But it will hurt, little one. To rewrite the blood is to burn alive.”

Burn. The word hung in the air, a promise of agony and release. My gaze lifted one last time to my father. He stood by the altar, a king bathed in moonlight, weeping, but still smelling of ambition. I remembered the day I had first presented as an Omega, the pride in his eyes as he fastened the ceremonial collar around my neck.

He’d called it an honor. I’d felt its weight every day since, a phantom chain that reminded me I was his property.

I would rather burn to ash than wear that chain for another heartbeat.

“Burn it,” I snarled, the sound a ragged, unfamiliar thing clawing its way out of my throat. “Burn it all away.”

A white-hot agony erupted from her touch. It bypassed my skin entirely, a fire that shot straight into the marrow of my bones. My back arched off the stone altar, every muscle locking as Artemis began to violently unmake me.

The cloying scent of my own Omega nature burned away, leaving the scent of hot iron in its place. The instinct to kneel fractured, shattered like glass, and was swept away by the searing, silver tide.

My senses exploded outward. The world snapped into a focus so sharp it was painful. I could smell Calchas’s fear-sweat ten yards away, and the sharp tinge of Odysseus’s regret. I could smell the salt on the sea breeze, the sap bleeding from a pine tree at the edge of the woods.

I gasped, a ragged, desperate intake of air. The world was no longer a tapestry of threats to be appeased. It was a map of scents to be hunted.

And my sight… It was as if Artemis’s touch had lifted a curtain off my eyes. Even from here at the altar, I could spot the sailors still waiting on the boats beyond the beaches. I could see the hungry face of every Alpha I’d passed by.

I could see my mother, still in front of our tent, her face buried in her hands as she wept.

Artemis removed her hand from my neck, the searing connection breaking with a finality that echoed in my bones. “It is done.”

“The song of the Omega is gone from your blood,” she said, her voice resonating with a power only the gods could ever possess. “Now, you need an instrument to play the new one.”

She raised her empty hands before her. The pure moonlight answered her silent call, flowing between her palms, weaving and hardening into a longbow. Its curve was the perfect crescent of a hunter’s moon.

“This is not a scepter of command, built for the subjugation of others,” Artemis said, holding out the bow to me. “This is the will of the hunt, given form. It will not fail you, so long as you do not fail its purpose.”

I reached out and took the weapon. The moment my fingers closed around the smooth grip, a current of profound certainty shot up my arm. Artemis’s gift felt less like an object and more like a missing piece of my own soul. Like I was home.

But our task wasn’t yet complete.

Artemis drew me back from the altar, away from what should have been my end. She didn’t leave the stone slab empty. In the spot where I had just been, a phantom of me now lay, woven from pure moonlight. It didn’t weep, just like I hadn’t. Instead, it looked up at my father, at the king who should have protected me but hadn’t.

The world came alive again. My father’s arm rose and fell. The bronze knife slammed down.

The phantom’s throat opened, liquid spattering across my father’s face and chest. It wasn’t blood. It was ichor, the remnant of an illusion created by a goddess. But no one seemed to notice. Artemis’s power made sure of it.

Agamemnon only stood over the dying glamour, watching the light fade from its eyes. His tears dried, like a river faced with Apollo’s own fire. If he’d cared at all, he certainly didn’t any longer.

As the others watched, my father raised his ichor-stained hands to the sky. “With this blood, the debt is paid.”

“A debt paid to the wrong god,” Artemis murmured from the shadows beside me. “My father has a cruel sense of theater.”

As if summoned by her words, a bolt of lightning silently illuminated the clouds far out at sea. A moment later, the promised wind swept down from the mountains, a powerful gust that tore through the cove.

Zeus. Of course. The wind was not hers to hold, but it was his to grant. He had waited for the blood to fall before he would give it. More Olympian games and trickery, perhaps with a purpose I’d never understand.

Out on the bay, the sails of the thousand ships cracked open, countless sailors beaming in triumph. A single, guttural roar erupted from the army. They broke ranks, a surge of bodies rushing for the boats. Their lust for battle had been sanctioned from on high.

I watched my father turn his back on the altar. He walked toward his ship with a steady stride, unburdened by the weight of the life he had just taken.

Standing in the shadows of the ancient wood, I watched the first of the black-sailed ships turn toward the open sea. My fingers tightened around the smooth curve of my bow. “They smell of viciousness and iron,” I murmured. “But they don’t smell me.”

A faint smile touched Artemis’s lips. “They will. One day, a man like your father will find himself alone in the dark. He will catch a scent he does not understand. And he will know the woods are no longer safe.”

I did not watch the last ship disappear. I turned my back on the sea and the men who sailed it. I left behind the ghost of the girl who had been bred to kneel to the blood on the altar.

I was no longer Iphigenia the Omega.

I was an Olympian Alpha, the first Wolf of Artemis. The hunt had just begun.