Chapter 2 #3
I wondered if she hailed from Athenos — the mortal kingdom comprised of people who most favour Athena’s ideologies. Those primarily devoted to serving the goddess of wisdom and warfare. But that was a question for another time.
“None here will harm you,” I swore.
Athena inclined her head in agreement. “You would be helping not only a queen, but also three entire realms,” she said.
Aletheia’s gaze snapped back to mine.
“And that queen would owe you a favour,” I added with a wink.
Aletheia grinned then dipped her head.
“Thank you.”
I straightened, this time addressing Caelus. “And thank you.”
His returning smile was as bright as the lightning coursing through his veins. The bond hummed warmly between us. Steady. Resolute.
“Let’s start with you, Ares.” My grateful grin slid into one of malice. “Caelus, if you’d be so kind.” With a flourish, I gave him the floor and returned to my throne, dropping into it with feline grace, eyes predatorily focused on the primal of war’s sneer.
A whisper ghosted against my left ear, familiar enough to draw a flinch.
“Ten silver drachma says Ares goes up in flames in the next two minutes.”
Vel eyed me with concern from her corner of the chamber.
Charon is not here. Charon is gone, I was forced to remind myself. Repeating it like a mantra until my nerves settled enough to listen.
Caelus eyed me too, his brows dropping into a severe frown.
I guess this is it. This is how I go: lost to slow delirium.
I figured I’d reached my limit — the maximum level of sorrow I was capable of withstanding before my mind shattered.
I figured it’d been splintering long before I sentenced Charon’s soul.
Long before I’d been forced to say a permanent goodbye — fracturing with every inescapable death that haunted me.
And now, cleaved wholly, because there was no way that my soul could end up in the same place as his, no matter who was to be my judge.
The seven foot tall son of Zeus held my gaze for a moment longer, his brows puckered in concern that I had the privilege of experiencing first hand through our link.
“Make it gold drachma,” my mind whispered again as Ares sank into his fury, his face mottled and bitter. Caelus’ chosen line of questioning — questioning I’d missed thanks to wandering thoughts — was obviously not to his tastes.
Caelus cut a striking image in his new black leather armour.
His white hair was freshly cut, shorter than his usual preference, and his face sported the stubbled beginnings of a beard.
But it was his eyes that bothered me most. His unusual irises still swirled lazily like rivers of molten silver, but they were now encircled by rings of black — remnants of the power I’d willingly surrendered to retether his soul to his body — after Hera, his own mother, murdered him.
Only time would tell what the change meant — if it even meant anything at all.
We’d just have to wait and see what lasting damage I’d unwittingly and selfishly reaped on Caelus’ body.
On his soul.
His thunderous voice jolted me out of my delirium. “Did you, or did you not, sleep with the goddess Hera while the Ascension Rite was taking place?” Caelus pressed. Disgust wove through his tone, severing his stoicism from the thought of what he was demanding to know.
“What business is that of yours, boy?” Ares spat.
“Ares,” he sighed. “I am truly loath to know whose cock my mother has sat upon,” Caelus replied, somehow managing to convey both revulsion and disinterest. “But it is in Olympus’ best interests to unravel who her allies are, who she trusts, and therefore, who Kronos will attempt to sway.”
“Kronos lays no claim over me,” he sneered. “As for Hera…” He smirked, leaning back in his gilded throne, folding his arms casually behind his head. “Yeah. I fucked her.”
Aros scoffed and rolled his eyes. He leaned against a large pillar with arms crossed, and collarbone-length, flame-coloured hair pulled back from his face. It flickered to life at the ends, betraying the extent of his emotions — as did the scowl plastered across his usually jovial face.
Ares always brought out the worst in him. He had that effect on most of us, actually.
Athena leaned forward on her own throne, quietly humming to herself, her face a portrait of scrutiny. “And did you also conspire to sabotage our new queen during the trials?” she asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it nonetheless.
“You call that a queen?” Ares scoffed.
My teeth clicked together audibly.
“She is no queen of mine,” he seethed, flicking his blazing gaze to mine. His irises were alight, whirling with unrestrained hatred. “You’ve been holed up in your palace, down in the slums all week, while we’ve been trying to fix what you broke,” he spat.
Unfolding languidly, I stalked across the space until I stood directly in front of him. Leaning in, I placed one hand on either arm of his seat, until both crowns resting upon my brow were directly in his line of sight. Impossible to ignore.
“Do you dare refute the will of the crown?” I asked, my voice low — murderously soft.
Ares swallowed, his eyes furiously churning. “I do not refute that the crown chose you fairly,” he replied with a gruff.
Surprisingly satisfied, I straightened.
“But that was a week ago,” he continued. “Before you turned into a whining, moping bitch, leaving everyone else to clean up your messes. Just like your father.”
With that addendum, Ares had lit the match, igniting five separate explosive reactions.
The first: static energy thrummed in the air as a violet-coloured lightning bolt skewered him through his left shoulder.
The second: Aros flew across the room with a wordless roar, fist extended.
The third: my now barn-sized dragon bellowed. Flames spewed from her maw, setting half the room alight and destroying all progress made to the Parthenon’s repairs with a single breath.
The fourth: Aletheia darted behind Caelus’ long legs, sheer terror etched across her doll-like face.
And the fifth: I slugged Ares in the side of his smug face with a solid right hook, hard enough to dislodge several teeth, beating Aros — quite literally — to the punch.
If only because I was closer.
Ares leaped to his feet with a bellow, his whole body awash with bright orange fire — a living, breathing inferno. He spat three gold-coated molars at my feet before snarling, “You’ll pay for that, you stupid bitch!”
“Called it!” my imagined version of Charon announced gleefully. It sounded so real, so visceral, that I hesitated, questioning the state of my psyche once again.
But before Ares could do so much as breathe in my direction, he was forcibly doused by a pair of bronze handcuffs snapping into place on each of his wrists with a definitive click.
Hephaestus — the procurer of said cuffs — dragged the furious god of war to his feet with one swift tug.
Ares tried to fight off the gargantuan god of craftsmanship, but it was akin to a candle battling against a waterfall.
The cuffs sapped him of all strength and power, so much so that I would have worried about the extent of their influence had they been on anyone other than that bitter bastard.
“Take him to the prison beneath Mount Olympus until he cools off,” I said through gritted teeth.
Hephaestus nodded and began stalking towards the doors, dragging a thrashing and cursing Ares behind him.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as something — or someone — tapped my shoulder.
Look, it seemed to say. Listen, it urged.
I’d have been a fool to ignore it, so I turned slowly, scanning the space for whatever it wanted me to see.
My gaze snagged on Apollo, though I couldn’t articulate exactly why.
He sat directly across from me, clad in a pristine white chiton clasped neatly at the shoulders with two matching gilded brooches of intersecting swords.
His bare, muscular legs were crossed, his sandaled feet completely still, while the fingers of his left hand tapped the arm of his throne.
My eyes narrowed — his were unfocused as he stared straight ahead, looking but not really seeing.
What’s wrong with him? Velira noted my change in demeanor and her concern rattled through my mind.
I’m not sure. It’s like he’s here physically but his mind is someplace else.
I’d have questioned whether he even breathed except that I caught the slight, rhythmic tremor in his parted lips, as though he were reciting silent words.
Caelus, sensing my confusion, jerked his head first to me, then, following the line of my sight, to our friend. He approached slowly, waving a scarred hand across Apollo’s field of vision, but not even movement could capture his attention.
“Apollo?” he asked, placing a scarred hand on the god’s arm.
The gentle touch triggered something. Apollo’s head snapped up, his golden gaze immediately latching onto my emerald green like a lifeline in a hurricane.
Then, his words increased in volume.
A shiver slid down my spine as every set of eyes in the room locked onto him. Even Hephaestus and Ares stopped to gawk.
I’d never known Apollo to speak — none of us had. At least, not from his physical body.
The god of sun was deaf, and usually preferred to converse via signing. But Apollo’s hands made no graceful shapes and his speech was perfectly enunciated. His tone, rasping and low, demonstrated centuries of disuse — but it wasn’t his tenor that froze the breath in my lungs.
It was the words themselves.
Because I knew them.
“Beneath the eyes of the sleeping Titan,
Where Selene does not dare tread,
The heir of death shall rise,
And life shall soon be bled.
Kings and kingdoms shall fall,
After the eagle takes its last breath,
Many hands will reach for the crown,
But its bearer must be death.
For a dark and ancient power wakes,
At the breaking of the storm,
Untold chaos in the realms shall reign,
Unless the power of death is borne.”
And just when his words should have stopped — every stanza spoken, every line already passed — he continued on in that same grating tone:
“The end is nigh when skies crack, blood rains,
And oceans weep in fire,
None can halt time but the power of two,
Halves made whole by desire.”
Apollo blinked as he came back to himself, his brows all scrunched together.
His long, umber fingertips shot to his throat, rubbing the skin as though it pained him.
His eyes darted wildly around the room, taking in every horror-filled face, before landing on me and my undoubtedly pallid complexion.
His hands twisted elegantly through the air, spelling out his confusion in two single words:
What happened?
Surprisingly, Artemis was the first to pull herself together.
She sprang to her feet and rushed over to her brother, the silver beads in her dark braids glinting as she moved.
Her midnight eyes were wide as she knelt before him, taking one graceful hand into her own.
The other spelled out an explanation that caused Apollo’s face to fall.
You spoke another prophecy.
Tacked onto the end was the single gesture that meant brother.
The pair crashed together a second later, arms wrapping tightly around their counterpart in a way that made me question how Artemis could have chosen to act against her brother at all — let alone on something as important as his first prophecy.
Maybe regret tainted her actions; maybe it was something else I couldn’t quite grasp. But there was a chance for Artemis to make amends here — if only because she cared so deeply for her twin, as he so obviously did for her in return.
What did I say? Apollo finally dared ask.
You don’t remember? I asked.
He shook his head slowly, already fearing the worst.
You spoke of the end being near… of disaster befalling the realms… and of only one way to “halt time.”
At first, he said nothing — he just let the silence linger. Then, wincing, he shaped his fingers in the air to spell out the words:
Well, fuck.
“Well, fuck,” indeed.
Caelus grabbed my hand, our bond buzzing with tumultuous fear and grim determination.
“Only one end shall meet us, and it is Kronos’ — not yours. Not ours.”
His vehemence was inspiring, but I knew better than most that you can only fuck with fate so far before it inevitably decides to fuck with you right back.
I lost Charon because I chose to drag Caelus back. And while I didn’t regret my actions — while I’d do it again in every lifetime — I also knew that Fate snatched my ferryman in recompense.
My imagined version of Charon was quiet, as if he, too, knew I could only handle so much devastation in one day.
The gods were silent as well, each wondering how exactly Apollo’s extension of the prophecy would play out. Was it literal? Symbolic? None of us would know until we knew.
A gentle tug on my sleeve pulled my attention down to the troubled gaze of a seven year old girl, already burdened with more than any child should have to bear. Aletheia said nothing — she just pointed to the marble gateway at the rear of the room and the flash of red hair disappearing through it.
“No!” I yelled, sprinting towards the portal, flicking a dagger made of inky shadows as I ran.
My shout jolted others into motion and I could see a handful of figures launching to their feet or bolting past my periphery. None of us made it in time.
My blade disappeared after the bastard god of war, but the prick closed the portal behind him before I could throw myself through.
None of us had noticed him tiptoeing away; all were too fixated on Apollo and his warning.
And now Kronos and Hera would learn of it too.
“Fuck!”
War was coming faster than we anticipated. I only hoped we’d be ready when it inevitably arrived on our doorstep.