Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. But when you think about it, what does that really mean?

Across the ancient world, from Egypt to the Mayan states, vengeance was a person, a being who walked the earth and brought justice and death. In the icy north, Vitharr Odinson hunts the wolf Fenrir to avenge his father; in the New World, the crowned skeleton who will one day be named Pascualito haunts the graveyards, drawing the guilty to him.

At the heart of the world, around the wine-dark sea where Paul of Tarsus will someday sail to Rome, the spirits of vengeance are multitudes. The Erinyes, the winged Furies, flock after oathbreakers and traitors, cutting their lives short and dragging them down to Tartarus. Blind Adrestia balances the fates of men in her hand, her unsheathed sword foretelling the fate of those who fail the test. Tireless Nemesis, winged with night, hunts down the prideful and the arrogant, whipping them to their doom.

All of this is on Alleb's mind, as she lies in her beloved's arms. But she also recalls what many have forgotten: that Nemesis and Adrestia were not merely the children of Ares, but of Aphrodite also, whom the Romans named Venus - and that Eros, the Cupid of the Emperors, was their brother.

Vengeance, Alleb thinks lazily, curling in against the one who holds her, is mine.