Chapter 1 Return After Giving Birth for God

A sharp, chemical-laced breath of exhaust fumes. The blare of a car horn, unnervingly close. A cacophony of footsteps and fragmented conversations she couldn't yet decipher. Elara's consciousness slammed back into her body not with a gentle awakening, but with the violent suddenness of a crash.

She staggered, her equilibrium lost not to dizziness, but to the sheer sensory overload of the world. One moment, there had been the silent, opulent agony of the Celestial Spire. The next, this-a grimy, vibrant, deafeningly human street. Her hands, which had moments ago clutched at silken sheets in a gilded prison, now flew out to steady herself against nothing but air.

She looked down. A dress of deepest crimson, sinfully tight, clung to a form that was both familiar and utterly alien. The curves it showcased-the generous swell of her breasts, the impossible narrowness of her waist, the pronounced curve of her hips-were a map of a territory she had not chosen to explore. This body was a masterpiece, a sculpture she inhabited but did not own. The stares of the people around her were like physical touches. Men turned, their eyes wide, some stumbling, others earning sharp elbows from the women beside them. Yet, none approached. An aura radiated from her, a paradoxical blend of devastating allure and an untouchable, glacial purity that invited worship, not proposition.

"A bit much, don't you think? I can smell the silicone from here."

The voice, sharp and laced with venom, cut through the ambient noise. A woman with severe eyebrows and a tight ponytail was looking her up and down, her comment deliberately pitched for Elara's ears.

Elara turned, her new, long hair whispering against her bare shoulders. The expected flash of anger didn't come. Instead, a profound, soul-deep confusion clouded her stunning features. This body, this face... was it truly considered beautiful?

"Do you..." Elara's voice was a husky melody, unfamiliar to her own ears. "Do you truly think I am beautiful?"

The woman blinked, thrown off balance. This was not the reaction she had anticipated. She had prepared for a catfight, for hissed insults, not this genuine, almost childlike inquiry.

"Well, I..." the woman stammered.

"Do you have a mirror?" Elara asked, her tone soft yet compelling. "Might I borrow it?"

As if moving in a trance, the woman rummaged in her purse and produced a small, silver compact. Women, for all their jealousies, are often the first to be ensnared by true beauty, and something in Elara's desperate sincerity disarmed her completely.

Elara's hands trembled as she took it. She clicked it open.

The face that stared back from the polished glass was a stranger's. High, sharp cheekbones framed large, almond-shaped eyes the color of twilight, holding galaxies of sorrow. Full, naturally rosy lips parted in a silent gasp. Skin like poured moonlight, flawless and unblemished. It was a face that could launch ships and inspire sonnets. A face that held no trace of the plain, forgetgettable girl she had once been.

*He kept his word,* she thought, a bitter tide rising in her throat. *Rabanut actually kept his word.*

Memories, long suppressed by survival instinct, flooded her.

She had been Elara, but a different Elara. A girl whose face blended into crowds, whose life was a study in mediocrity. No notable beauty, no higher education, no promising career. Her path had been decided by an old debt: her father had once pulled the patriarch of the prestigious, ancient Sterling family from a burning car. The reward for his heroism was his daughter's hand in marriage to the Sterling heir, Cassian.

For two years, she lived in a gilded cage. Cassian's disdain was a cold, constant presence. Her in-laws' contempt was a language she became fluent in. She endured it all for her family-for her weary father and her younger brother, Leo, whose school fees were paid by the Sterling's "generosity." She was their sacrificial lamb, and she bore it silently. Until Isolde returned.

Isolde, Cassian's first love, fresh from Paris, a vision of sophisticated cruelty. They flaunted their affair, a public humiliation Elara was forced to swallow. Only old Patriarch Sterling's iron-clad sense of honor kept her from being cast out. She was a symbol of his debt, a reminder he refused to erase.

But Isolde grew impatient. A mistress could never be satisfied while the wife still breathed.

The last memory of her previous life was the cold, shocking embrace of the ocean. Hands shoving her from a yacht, the saltwater filling her lungs, the dark, star-dusted sky above shrinking into a pinprick of light before vanishing. She didn't need to guess the architect of her murder. As long as she lived, Isolde would never be more than a mistress. So, Elara had to die.

But she didn't.

She awoke in Aetheria, a realm of winged beings who were less the benevolent angels of storybooks and more like arrogant, long-lived aristocrats. She was made a servant to their supreme ruler, the god-king Rabanut. For over a decade in that realm, she was remade. Her mind was sharpened, her body refined into this impossible vessel of perfection. She was his favorite ornament, his most prized attendant.

Then came the twist of fate that sealed her destiny. She caught his eye not as a servant, but as a vessel. Despite his centuries and his legion of celestial lovers, none had ever borne him a child. His lineage was a barren river. Until her. A lowly human, of all things, proved to be the fertile soil his divine seed required.

She was not a lover; she was a broodmare. The nights she spent in his chambers were clinical transactions, her pleasure irrelevant, her consent assumed. When she finally gave birth-to twins, a boy and a girl with eyes that already held the storm-light of their father-Rabanut wasted no time. As soon as she was strong enough to stand, he cast her out. A supreme god could not have a mortal woman, a mere servant, known as the mother of his heirs. She was a smudge on his divine legacy, an inconvenience to be erased.

A single, hot tear traced a path down her flawless cheek, then another. She looked up at the smog-stained sky of the city that had birthed and killed her, weeping for the children ripped from her arms, for the life stolen from her, for the terrifying beauty of this new prison.

"Hey... are you alright?" The woman, Sophia, her earlier malice gone, now looked concerned. She gently guided Elara into the relative quiet of a shop doorway. "What's wrong? Were you... kidnapped? Did you escape? Do you need me to take you to the police?"

Elara shook her head, the motion sending more tears flying. "What day is it?" she whispered, the question a desperate anchor to reality.

Sophia's eyes narrowed with fresh suspicion. "It's December 24th. Christmas Eve."

The air left Elara's lungs. *2023.* She had been thrown into the sea in the autumn of 2022. Ten years in Aetheria... and only one year had passed on Earth. The temporal dissonance was a physical blow.

Seeing her destabilize further, Sophia pressed a business card into her hand. "My name is Sophia Winchester. I'm a publicist. Look, if you need anything... if you feel unwell, call me, okay?"

Elara's fingers closed around the card just as Sophia's phone rang. The woman glanced down for a second to silence it, and when she looked up, the space where the devastatingly beautiful woman had stood was empty. Only the faint, lingering scent of ozone and something like starlight remained.

A block away, in a deserted alley, Elara leaned against cold brick, catching her breath. A simple short-range translocation, a minor trick she'd picked up from a sympathetic Aetherian guard. It had drained her, but it was necessary. From the spatial ring on her finger-a final, dismissive gift from Rabanut, payment for services rendered-she pulled a single, uncut emerald. It glowed with an inner fire, a tiny piece of a stolen heaven. She found a reputable, if discreet, jeweler and sold it for a sum that felt both obscene and meaningless: one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. A fortune to the girl she had been; a pittance to the god who had discarded her.

With a bag of cash and a heart full of a hope she knew was fragile, she took a bus back to her hometown. She dreamed of her father's weary smile, her mother's tearful embrace, her brother Leo's excited shout. She would use this money. She would buy them a new house, secure their future. It was the one pure thing she could salvage from the wreckage.

The white mourning banners hanging from the porch of her childhood home stopped that dream dead.

Her heart stuttered, then began to hammer against her ribs like a trapped bird. No. *No.*

She ran, her heels clicking a frantic, horrible rhythm on the path. She burst through the front door, and there it was-the altar. The incense. The photograph of her father, smiling gently, forever frozen in time.

"Wha... what is this?" Her voice was a broken thing, a ragged scream. Her legs dissolved beneath her, and she collapsed on the cold, hard floor. "What's going on? What happened?"

A woman she didn't recognize-Mrs. Gable-and a young man rushed over, their faces masks of confusion and pity. They helped her up, their hands gentle but foreign on her skin.

"Miss, are you alright?" Mrs. Gable asked, her voice soft with concern.

Elara looked up, her magnificent face ravaged by grief, tears streaming in unchecked rivers. She clutched the woman's arm, her grip desperate. "What happened to my dad? Where is he? Why is his picture there? He can't be dead! He can't be!"

She was screaming the words, refusing to believe the evidence of her own eyes. She had seen him just before the yacht party. He had been tired, but healthy. This was a mistake. A cruel, horrible mistake.

Mrs. Gable and the young man exchanged a bewildered glance. Who was this stunning, hysterical woman? A scammer? But they had nothing. The house was mortgaged to the hilt, the family broken.

"Ma'am," the young man said, his voice gentle, unconsciously softened by her devastating beauty and palpable despair. "I think... I think you have the wrong house."

Elara's gaze snapped to him, her eyes wide with a frantic, dawning horror. She grabbed his arm, her nails digging in. "It's me!" she cried, her voice cracking under the weight of a truth too terrible to bear. "Look at me! It's your sister, it's Elara!"