Chapter 2 Accepting Reality

Chapter 2: Accepting Reality

I lost count of how many times the maids scrubbed my skin raw before they were finally satisfied. By my estimation, I’d already been forced to soak in scalding, herb-scented water twice. Before that, they had vigorously rubbed my entire body down with a gritty mixture of olive oil and Mediterranean sea salt, and even earlier, my face had been relentlessly massaged and slathered in thick honey and oil.

I spent my entire morning enduring this relentless battery of ancient spa treatments. I was about to be presented as the bride of Ares, and everyone in the palace was operating in a state of frantic preparation.

I had checked over and over again. Searched every corner, every shadow. There were no hidden cameras. There were no fresh surgical scars anywhere on this body. Even though a stubborn, rational voice in my head screamed that it was scientifically impossible, I had no choice but to accept the horrifying truth: I had genuinely woken up in the body of a Spartan princess named Portia.

I was bone-tired. I’d spent my first night as a royal running frantically through the stone corridors of the palace, screaming like an absolute madwoman in a desperate bid to find a way back to my own body. I’d only just regained a shred of my sanity after realizing that, for the time being, there was absolutely nothing I could do. Everyone around me just assumed I’d lost my memory, completely disoriented from narrowly escaping death. They didn’t care that their precious princess was babbling in modern English—a language completely alien to their ears. They just chalked it up to the Princess of Sparta being temporarily unhinged.

I didn't know how or why this had happened. Maybe I was under some ancient, mythical spell. Or, taking a more scientific approach, maybe I was just trapped in an intense lucid dream—the kind that felt terrifyingly real. It was like I was living in Inception, except Leonardo DiCaprio was nowhere in sight to save me.

But even if this was just a dream, I couldn't afford to take any chances. Because there was a solid fifty-fifty chance that I had actually time-traveled into the distant past. I needed to act fast and formulate a strategy to survive in this heavily patriarchal, sword-and-sandals world.

If I really was stuck in ancient Greece, at least I knew the lore. As a feature film actress, I had once been cast as Psyche, the mortal princess who fell in love with Eros, the God of Love and the son of Aphrodite.

The movie had been a complete box-office flop, but the intense research I’d done for the role meant I actually knew a lot about Greek mythology. And I knew one universal, undeniable truth about the Olympian gods:

They were, without exception, selfish, arrogant, and deeply immoral beings.

Poor Portia. The beautiful Princess of Sparta had suffered the ultimate misfortune of being offered up as a literal sacrifice to the most brutal, unhinged Olympian of them all: Ares.

Ares, the God of War, the Lord of Battle. Just the mere mention of his name was enough to make the toughest Greeks shake in their leather sandals. The guy was legendary for his insatiable bloodlust and obsession with carnage. He had a notoriously volatile temper and would challenge absolutely anyone to a fight to the death. And as if being a bloodthirsty warmonger wasn't bad enough, he was basically ancient history's biggest player, constantly cheating with Aphrodite and fathering a small army of illegitimate children.

I honestly couldn't recall a single myth where Ares actually took a lawful, mortal wife. It seemed I was completely off-script, stepping into an unwritten chapter where the tragic princess of Sparta was forced into a nightmare marriage with the cruelest god in the pantheon.

I had spent the morning interrogating the servants and Portia’s parents, trying to pry as many details about her life from them as possible. I also possessed these faint, ghostly memories flickering in the back of my mind—genuine fragments of Portia's past. I needed to fully understand this sheltered eighteen-year-old girl, because like it or not, I was Portia now.

And Portia was the definition of the perfect princess. She wasn't just celebrated as the most beautiful woman in Greece; she was gentle, remarkably mature, and fiercely intelligent for her age. It was that sharp intellect that had earned her the prestigious honor of serving at the Temple of Athena.

But then, a horrifying incident had struck while she was making a sacred offering at the goddess's altar. A venomous snake had bitten her, sending her into a deep, death-like coma. The king had mobilized every physician and exhausted every known antidote in Sparta, but Portia had remained unresponsive, the delicate tips of her fingers slowly turning a morbid, icy blue.

That was when a satyr—a literal half-human, half-goat mythical creature—strode into the palace and approached the desperate king, offering a miraculous cure.

“He claimed to be a messenger of Ares, sent with a cure to save you,” the King of Sparta told me, his regal face sagging with a profound, heavy sadness.

I listened intently, absorbing every single detail of the twisted events that had dragged Portia into this doomed arrangement.

“Never before had a Spartan encountered a satyr walking so brazenly in the realm of mortals. At that moment, I was utterly convinced he had been sent by divine intervention. The creature made a pact with me.” Despite his massive, battle-hardened frame, the King of Sparta seemed completely powerless to hold back the tears pooling in his eyes.

"So, the deal was that if I recovered, I'd be married off to Ares?" I filled in the blanks, my tone sharp, since the king was clearly too choked up to finish the story.

I had learned that although the King of Sparta had three daughters, Portia was the absolute light of his life. He had loved her so fiercely that he’d been prepared to shield her from political marriages entirely, perfectly content to let her devote her life to serving the Goddess of Wisdom.

Faced with this grim reality, the King was now drowning in regret over all the proposals from handsome Greek princes he had so stubbornly rejected. Now, his favorite daughter was betrothed to the Olympian with the most toxic reputation in existence. Portia was going to be dragged away to a divine realm, and her father knew he might never look upon her face again.

“Pray to the wise Athena, my sweet daughter. Beg her to shield you from Ares’ cruelty. You have been the most faithful servant of her temple; I am certain the Goddess of Strategic Warfare will not forsake you in your hour of need,” the Queen of Sparta pleaded, her voice breaking on a choked sob.

Honestly, I was already getting exhausted by Portia’s parents and their constant, suffocating gloom. I shifted my gaze, scanning the massive, echoing throne room. Scattered around were faces that felt strangely familiar, pulled straight from Portia’s residual memories: her older sisters, along with a flock of half-siblings born to the king's concubines. I searched their expressions, but there wasn't an ounce of genuine sorrow on a single face. It seemed Portia hadn't exactly been close to her siblings. Still, the King and Queen had insisted on summoning the entire extended royal family for a grand, morbid farewell banquet.

So, I made my public debut, radiating an almost intimidating level of beauty in Portia’s flawless body. I wore a gown of the finest, most diaphanous ivory silk that clung perfectly to every sensual curve, my delicate feet laced into intricate sandals crafted from soft buffalo leather. Heavy, ornate gold jewelry crusted with raw diamonds and blood-red rubies weighed down my neck and wrists. And to top it all off, a rich, heady scent of exotic musk wafted from my skin with every movement. Whoever had dubbed her "Greece’s most beautiful princess" certainly hadn't been exaggerating.

I had chewed on the thought several times throughout the day: honestly, living out the rest of my days as the perfect Princess Portia wouldn't have made me happy, anyway. Sure, she was royalty. She received the absolute best service, luxury, and protection as the favorite child of the Spartan King.

But the reality of her day-to-day existence? Growing old as a celibate maiden worshipping Athena, suffocating under the thumb of an overbearing, overprotective father, and existing merely as a pretty little trophy for Sparta’s ego? Being paraded around with the empty title of "the most beautiful" wasn't exactly my idea of a fulfilling life.

Weirdly enough, accepting this twisted fate as a bride of Olympus actually sounded a hell of a lot more appealing. At least up there among the gods, I’d have a real chance of figuring out exactly how my soul had been hijacked and dragged into the ancient past—and more importantly, how to get back.

I let out a long, heavy sigh, a pang of grief hitting me as I thought about the glamorous, fiercely independent life of Jill Adelaide I’d been forced to leave behind. But until I uncovered the secret to returning to my own time, I had only one real option. I was an Oscar-nominated actress, after all. So, I would do what I did best: I would put on the performance of a lifetime and play the role of Portia to absolute perfection.