On the night of your consecration, before the statue of the Huntress, you knelt.

Your lips recited the vow that would bind you:

“I shall serve none but Artemis, the Virgin of the Silver Bow. My eyes shall see no man, my heart shall be pure as moonlight. My life belongs to the forest and the goddess alone.”

The laurel crown was placed upon your head by a nymph, and you felt the cool kiss of immortality’s edge — not eternal life, but eternal duty.

You belonged to the moon now.

---

One afternoon, you were busy praying inside the temple when you heard a news of a sudden arrival of a god.

As the sole priestess of Artemis, it's your duty to welcome the guests. In every pillar you passed across the hallway, you noticed how the Nymphs can't stop gossiping with excitement but others were scared.

It will be our first to see him up close. I heard once you meet his eyes you will not stop admiring him

Together with all the nymphs, you lined properly at the entrance to meet the said god. The atmosphere suddenly change as your eyes saw his chariot lingered above the horizon, his light spilling through the canopy in shimmering threads. He was dressed in white and gold, the bow on his shoulder gleaming with daylight. His hair caught fire in the sun, and his eyes — gods, his eyes — they burned with gold that no mortal should look upon.

It was Apollo. The Sun himself.

He smiled, not in arrogance, but in quiet wonder.

“I did not know Artemis kept such beauty within her sanctuary,” he said softly.

Your breath stilled when you realized it was you who he pertained to...