Oath of Moon and Stars

About this story

Handmaiden Io fell in love with Ares, King of the Gods, incurring the wrath of the Mother Goddess Theia and the divine council. Theia hunted Io down and drove her to the edge of a cliff, where she fell to her presumed death. Seven years later, Ares has become an even more formidable King of the Gods. He has always believed Io to be dead, with only the broken star-moon necklace—repaired by his own hands—reminding him of all he lost. During a visit to the mortal realm, he has a chance encounter on the streets of Athens with a pair of street-performing twins—a boy playing a bay leaf and a girl tapping seashells, performing the very Star-Moon Song Io once played only for him. The necklace, the melody, the pair of pale gold eyes so identical to his own—every clue points toward a possibility he cannot bear to face. All the while, Io lingers in the mortal realm, half-blind and frail, unaware of the reunion so close at hand. A love story spanning the divine and the mortal. A pair of lovers separated for seven years. Two children who have never known their father. An eternal vow sealed by a star-moon necklace. When fate pushes them toward each other once more, the laws of the gods, a mother's opposition, and the suffering of the mortal world will all stand as insurmountable walls between them.