Heavy rains in Naples always come unexpectedly. At midnight, Mount Vesuvius is looming in the rain, and the lights of St. Elmo Castle in the distance are like will-o'-the-wisps swaying in the mist.
Seventeen-year-old Giovanni Russo looked out the window at the churning Tyrrhenian Sea, feeling even more gloomy than the weather. A week ago, he had just received the urn at the funeral of his archaeologist father, Marco. Now, he lives alone in this slightly shabby apartment in the old town of Naples. Even the smell of tomato sauce wafting from Grandma Salvatore's house downstairs no longer makes him happy.
"If dad hadn't insisted on going to that damn Troy ruins..." Giovanni stared at the almost blank calculus homework on the desk, the pencil he was holding tightly was about to break. As a student at Naples Second High School, he had always excelled in mathematics, but his grades had plummeted recently.
Marco was involved in a secret archaeological project in northwestern Türkiye before his disappearance. Giovanni remembered his father's excited expression during the last video call: "figlio mio, this time we found something amazing! It may rewrite the entire history of the Trojan War..."
Then, communications suddenly ceased. Three days later, he received news that his father had died unexpectedly at the archaeological site.
"Ding dong!"
The piercing ringing of the doorbell broke the midnight silence. Giovanni walked towards the door, his footsteps creaking on the old wooden floor.
Through the peephole, he saw a courier wearing a DHL uniform, looking down at the package in his hand. Delivery by express at this time? In a city like Naples, late-night strangers often mean trouble.
"Signor Giovanni Russo?" The courier spoke with a thick Sicilian accent.
"Si?"
"The express delivery of your father Marco Russo's relics requires my signature."
Giovanni opened the door chain cautiously and carefully checked the other person's ID. The courier, soaked to the skin, handed over an old box wrapped in parchment that gave off a strange smell of earth and patina.
"This package was transferred from Türkiye," the courier handed over the receipt, "your father specifically asked before his death that it must be delivered before midnight today."
Just as Giovanni was about to ask for details, the courier had disappeared into the shadows of the corridor, leaving only a series of distant footsteps.
Returning to his room, he carefully opened the package. Inside is a seemingly simple bronze box, with a scene from Greek mythology carved on the lid - under the walls of Troy, Prince Paris is handing a golden apple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
The box contained an exquisitely crafted bronze ring, with a side relief of a young woman's face, with a solemn and sad expression. The most eye-catching thing is her eyes. Even if they are only in relief, those eyes seem to contain some kind of magic, making people unable to look away.
There is another letter, the paper has turned yellow, with my father's scrawled handwriting on it:
"Dear Giovanni:
If you received this package, I might have been killed. Yes, not an accident, but killed. What we found in the ruins of Troy is more amazing than anyone could have imagined. This ring is more than just an artifact, it's a link to a forgotten truth.
Never believe those who claim to be from the Vatican, they have been corrupted. Remember, only on a full-moon night, when the shadow of Mount Vesuvius looms over the Bay of Naples, can you..."
The writing suddenly stopped here, and there were still traces of scorch on the edge of the paper.
Giovanni's hands were shaking slightly. What did his father want to tell him before he died? He picked up the ring and found a line of ancient Greek inscribed on the inner ring. Although he had taken Ancient Greek as an elective in school, the texts appeared to be older than the common ancient Greek.
Outside the window, the rain became less intense and the dark clouds began to disperse. Giovanni stood in front of the window, watching the moon gradually emerge. It was a perfect full moon night.
Perhaps it was an illusion, but the ring seemed to glow with a faint blue light under the moonlight. As if by mistake, he put the ring on the middle finger of his right hand.
In an instant, the temperature of the entire room dropped sharply.
The hands of the Roman wall clock on the wall, brought back by my father from Pompeii, began to rotate crazily. The air seemed to resound with the sound of ancient banging, or the whisper of a young girl. Giovanni felt a strong dizziness, his vision began to blur, and double images appeared in front of him.
When he came to his senses, he found himself sitting at the desk. Everything was as usual, except that the ring became extremely warm, and the faint whisper still lingered in his ears.
"Maybe I miss dad too much..." He shook his head and decided to take a shower to wake himself up.
In the bathroom, the steam from the hot water quickly filled the mirror. Giovanni wiped away the mist, but saw a scene in the mirror that shocked him——
Behind him, the figure of a young woman floated.
She wears an ancient Greek-style white Keaton robe, has long silver hair like moonlight and emerald green eyes. The most incredible thing is that her appearance is exactly the same as the relief on the ring, but more vivid and more... unreal than the relief. Her body is almost transparent, emitting a faint blue light.
"Ah! Santo cielo!" Giovanni shouted, turning around instinctively, but slipped on the water on the ground and fell heavily to the floor.
"Three thousand years..." the girl said in ancient Greek, her voice seemed to come from a distant time and space, "I finally found you, my master."
There was a certain magic in her voice, and Giovanni found that he could actually understand this ancient language.
"Who...who are you?" he asked stammering, but unconsciously used ancient Greek.
"I am Aretia, the guardian of the Trojan priest Apollo's temple." The girl slowly floated closer, "And you, Giovanni Russo, are my chosen master in this era."
Her eyes were full of sadness, "A new war is about to begin, and this time the battlefield is not in Troy, but here - Naples."
Giovanni sat blankly on the bathroom floor, looking at the elf who traveled through time and space from three thousand years ago, his mind went blank. He vaguely remembered that he had to hand in his calculus homework tomorrow.
But obviously, from now on, his life is no longer just about worrying about math exams.
Outside the window, the rain has stopped. The full moon hangs over Mount Vesuvius, and the white smoke curling up from the top of the mountain looks particularly eerie in the moonlight. In a corner of the old town of Naples, a figure wearing a black priest's robe was making a phone call:
"Master, the ring has found its heir..."