POV: Aphrodite
Strength is the least impressive trait.
I've been learning that slowly, in the accumulation of moments where the strongest response available to me was also the wrong one. The times I held the Direwolf back not because it couldn't act but because acting would have cost more than restraint. The ruins. The guardian constructs. The King's howl in the valley. Every time, the thing that moved us forward was the choosing not to, the deliberate withholding of force in favor of something quieter and more precise.
The King announces the trial from his throne with the same declarative quality he uses for everything, fact stated rather than instruction given, as if the difference between a choice and a sentence has been abstracted out of his vocabulary by centuries of his decisions being the only ones that matter in this court.
"The chamber," he says. "The Direwolf heir enters alone. The trial begins at crossing."
The twins move before anyone else does.
