In the sacred pool of Paphos, warm mist coiled and billowed across the surface.
The goddess Aphrodite stood lightly at the pool's edge, draped in sheer linen, a delicate coronet upon her head, a golden girdle clasped around a waist one could barely encircle with both hands.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, and the air around her seemed to carry an intoxicating sweetness.
Evidently she had pushed the divine power of her love and beauty to its absolute limit.
Beneath her feet, roses burst through the cobblestone path and the stone steps, blooming freely.
Petal after petal, each looking as though stained by divine blood, drifted down into the mist-covered water, sending faint ripples and halos spreading across the surface.
"Shhhh!"
As Aphrodite raised her hand gently, the sacred liquid receded from the pool, revealing the figure at its center who had undergone the full baptism of the goddess of love's divine nature.
The young man with silver hair falling to his shoulders was flawless in form, his skin like a polished gem.
His frame and musculature conformed perfectly to the proportions of the golden ratio, with nothing in excess and nothing lacking.
His very existence seemed designed to show the world what the word "beautiful" meant.
Simply stopping to look at him from a short distance away, three graceful figures felt something close to enchantment steal over them, their mouths going dry, their throats moving with an involuntary swallow.
Ahead of them, a swaying Aphrodite let out an irritated little hum.
"You three shameless creatures, what are you standing there gawking for? Get back to it!"
The three Charites snapped out of their daze and immediately realized they had lost composure, feeling warmth rushing to their cheeks, and hurried forward to take their mistress's place.
They arranged themselves in a triangular formation around the rim of the circular sacred pool and began chanting the words of consecration together, each offering up the rose garlands in their hands in turn.
"The king whom we exalt,
May all revere your name as holy.
May your grace be made manifest.
May your will be done upon the earth as it is in the heavens above.
Our daily bread, grant us this day (goddess of the hearth).
Our wine of gladness, feast us this day (god of wine).
Lead the people of the world not into temptation.
Deliver them from evil (the divine office of shelter and protection).
May Splendor (Aglaea), Mirth (Euphrosyne), and Festivity (Thalia) walk with you.
May divine wisdom, divine majesty, and divine love be with you.
Kingdom, power, and glory all belong to you.
From before the ages, to this day, and for ever and ever without end!"
The offered rose garlands settled around the neck of the one being baptized.
Something intangible and impossible to name, yet present everywhere and at all times, began to condense and take form upon that figure as roses bloomed simultaneously beneath and around his feet, spreading outward.
As the entire sacred pool became a sea of flowers, the gem-skinned god standing amid the blossoms slowly opened his eyes, sensing the rose growing from the eighth empty space in the golden wheel, and let a smile of quiet satisfaction cross his face.
Done. The Eighth (Incantation)
Avatar, the Rose.
This symbol of love and creature of beauty, nourished by the blood of Aphrodite herself, could bestow upon its bearer a powerful and overwhelming charm, causing all living things to love and be drawn toward them.
Of course, at the repeated insistence of a certain self-proclaimed devotee of pure and uncorrupted feeling, this love was not the kind that stirred carnal desire between men and women, but rather the kind that allowed one to effortlessly earn the closeness of humans, beasts, and even gods through words and conduct, causing every living being nearby to instinctively develop trust and deference toward him.
At this level, it was no longer simple personal magnetism.
It was closer to a form of magic, or a curse.
Historically, only a handful of emperors, generals, and religious founders had ever possessed this kind of viral, unquestioning hold over others.
And Lorne, it seemed, could assume different roles and receive the same enhancement across all of them.
For instance, when walking through different city-states in the guise of a poet, everyone would be willing to pour out their hearts to him or sit patiently and listen to his playing.
When appearing on a battlefield as a commander, even without the tactical genius of a great general, simply drawing on the power of the Rose would be enough.
Even in a battle with no hope of survival, every soldier would lift their sword without fear and throw themselves at the enemy with total, blazing conviction.
When appearing before followers in the role of a religious head, those same followers would find guilt and unease quietly accumulating inside them over every hidden motive or wavering faith, until the torment became unendurable and they broke down weeping before him, confessing their transgressions of their own accord.
The one drawback was that this power worked most notably on lower-order beings.
Gods and monsters of considerable strength would not be directly affected and could only be won over through the gradual influence of extended time spent together.
Even so, the gains Lorne had extracted from Aphrodite left him deeply satisfied.
For the Titan gods who were born divine, individual power was everything, and this so-called charm was perhaps little more than an afterthought in their eyes.
But for a god of mortal origins like Lorne, it was a supremely useful tool for spreading doctrine and gathering devotion.
* * *
Before the sacred pool.
With the baptism complete and everything settled, the perpetually anxious Aphrodite finally exhaled a long breath of relief.
"Good. I have done what I promised. If there is nothing else, I should be on my way."
Zeus himself had come down and used his thunderbolt to kill the god of medicine Asclepios, which was proof enough of just how deeply he feared the elixir of immortality.
And her beloved Adonis had consumed that very forbidden product and then, with the help of the physician's closest companion, managed to pull his soul free from the underworld and achieve a true return from death.
Between all of that, an uneasy Aphrodite wanted nothing more than to take her little sweetheart and get off the island of Cypros as quickly as possible, to lie low somewhere else for a while.
After all, Asclepios just died at Zeus's hands and didn't even leave a soul.
Try the island of Sikelia, Sicily.
The scenery is beautiful, and there is no one around to cause trouble. It makes for quite a pleasant retreat."
Lorne stepped out of the sacred pool and produced a sea chart, offering the suggestion in earnest.
Some time ago, the ocean hunt undertaken together by Athena, Artemis, Apollo, and Hestia had passed through Sicily.
Lorne recalled that the island's ecology was still largely untouched, with no developed human civilization, inhabited mostly by giants.
It was well suited to a secluded, quiet life and would make an excellent refuge for Aphrodite and Adonis.
Aphrodite gave a nod and took the sea chart with gratitude, then glanced at the three Charites nearby and spoke with quiet earnestness.
"Then I am trusting you to look after them from here on."
"You have my word. As long as I am here, I will not allow anyone to so much as think about laying a hand on them."
Lorne replied with complete sincerity and made his promise without hesitation.
The three Charites, hearing those earnest words from not far away, felt something warm take root in their hearts, and the unease at the idea of changing masters was gradually washed away.
What they did not notice, however, was the brief and carefully guarded exchange of glances that passed between Aphrodite and Lorne.
To speak plainly, the three Charites had already become far too deeply entangled in the chain of deals and transactions that had unfolded, and they knew far too much.
Whether it was the affair between Aphrodite and Adonis, the creation of the elixir of immortality and the death of the god of medicine, or Lorne's unauthorized intrusion into the underworld at the goddess of love's request, any one of these, if it came out, would be enough to put the real culprit Aphrodite in very serious trouble.
So the goddess of love was not simply expressing concern for the well-being of her three attendants.
She was equally worried about whether those three might one day sell her out.
To this, Lorne had given his personal guarantee in plain terms.
He would not allow anyone to act against the three Charites.
Because the three Charites were not only the reward he had worked hard to obtain.
They were also the living evidence of his collusion with Aphrodite.
If something were to happen to those three, neither he nor Aphrodite would be able to walk away clean.
The upside to all of this was that from this point on, he and the goddess of love were, in a certain sense, partners in crime.
At a critical moment, that connection might yet prove useful.
After a brief exchange that put the last of her lingering worries to rest, the unsettled Aphrodite wasted no more time.
She took the freshly awakened Adonis by the hand, stepped onto the swan-drawn chariot, and set course for Sicily.
Watching the chariot's gleaming trail fade and disappear into the horizon, Lorne muttered to himself.
With the goddess of love and her sweetheart vanishing into Sicily like that, there was no telling how long they would stay hidden.
Though now that he thought about it, might they not end up producing the ancestors of the Romans ahead of schedule?
(End of Chapter)