She never did.
Hermes didn’t realize that Del was not a random girl I fucked in a temple, once.
She was brilliant and bright and willing.
She took her curse willingly. Eyes wide and watching.
I knew.
How worried they were, and how they conspired together, to keep me lucid but unaware, to keep my power bound but still useful.
I would sit in the sun-soaked glades of Artemis’ forests, and listen to them plan and plot.
I was a mad god, a broken god, but I was still, after all, a god.
Chapter 7.
I spend the next two weeks wandering through coffee shops and hospital wards, and in the tiny apartment, where Del waits for me. When I return, every night, she gives me a blank, bright eyed stare, before she blinks once, and goes back to sleep, seemingly content to ignore me completely.
She was proving to be remarkably stubborn in warming up to me.
Artemis text me once, when she returned to her forest in Canada, and I hadn’t heard from her since. It felt isolating, even if it was the life I had chosen. Chose still.
I had lived so long in solitude that missing someone now was a strange and unpleasant experience.
I spent my days in coffee shops. I love coffee shops. Love that there are so many people, so many stories, and threads that spin out and shine golden.
There is something addictive about it. About seeing so many futures playing out for me, all the possibilities.
I like stories. I always have. It’s what drew me to Del, so many lifetimes ago, why I gave her my gift and made her mine.
Because she told me a story—her story—and I couldn’t resist her.
I can’t resist them now. So I drink too much black coffee and listen to the mortals, all unaware of what sits amongst them. My raven huffs in annoyance, and as the days spin by, concern.
Del greets me every evening, when I stumble home smelling like bread and coffee and rain-splattered streets, with a curious tilt to her head, and indifference.
I wondered, when I could be bothered to wonder, why she is important.
Why Del told me about her, a thousand years ago, one of the last things she told me.
I wonder what it means, for us. Me, and Artemis, and all the others who I refuse to see, who will feel the echoes of the changes, whatever they are.
I wonder how it will feel, when the world ends.
That is, after all, what Del promised.
The gods and our world would end, and this feral kitten is the first sign of it.
I move to hospitals, after a few weeks in coffee shops. I don’t sit, here. I drift through, silently.
I can kill with a touch, cripple with disease and leave my victims writhing as they drown in their own blood.
Or I can heal.
And as I wander through the hospital, drifting into rooms and touching the patients, I leave a wake of health and life in my wake.
I could get in trouble for the flagrant use of my power, here. We don’t like to let the humans know what we are, or even that we exist. That was Uncle’s choice, something he insisted on when we left Olympus. And even though I had left long before that, my sister made sure I received the family edict.
Of course, now the gods are dying from lack of worship, so we might rethink that whole stance, soon. If we have any sense of self-preservation.
Zeus has always been good at ignoring the obvious in favor of being right and the family still listens to him, for reasons I won’t ever fully understand.
I slip out of the pediatric ward, a loose, happy feeling in my chest. Whistle softly as I stroll through the hallways.
It’s hard to not touch everyone. To reel in the power swimming through my veins and ride the threads of vision until I find the one that will be and choose who I will heal.
I kind of want to stay. Want to see the expressions on their faces, the smiles and awe when the children wake up free from pain.
I want to see how my power makes the world better.
But that’s not for me. So I step out of the pediatric ward and head down the hall to the staircase that will take me to the roof or the parking garage.
I haven’t decided where I want to find my solitude today.
I should feel him, before I see him.
It scares me, that I don’t. That I am so lost, I can’t feel the familiar surge of power.
He’s leaning against the wall by the elevators, wearing a pair of tight skinny jeans and a faded band t-shirt that clings to his thin frame. A leather jacket goes over that, loose and wind beaten, well-worn but obviously cared for.
His hair is a sandy brown that glints golden and looks wind tossed. He wears white Nike’s and his smile is as familiar as the sunrise.
It’s been over three hundred years since I last saw Hermes, but I could recognize him anywhere, and seeing him here is not as surprising as it probably should be.
Still, seeing three Olympians in the space of a month, when I have gone years without any—that worries me.
So does the fact that all of this is happening as I find Del and bring her home.
“Don’t look so pissed, cousin,” Hermes says, grinning at me as I come up next to him. He’s moving at normal speed, pacing along with me as I climb the stairs to the roof.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, instead of addressing his comment.
“Artemis is worried.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s always worried. But you don’t usually listen when she calls.”
He’s quiet until we’re on the roof, and I tilt my head back, searching for the sun.
I spent too long in the hospital. The sun is already setting, sinking with disturbing swiftness toward the horizon. I feel a pang and stretch my power for her.
“Prophecy is coming true, cousin.”
Fucking prophecy. I hiss out a breath and turn to look at Hermes.
“We are gods. We make our own destiny,” I snap. He tilts his head and stares at me, and then he laughs.
“Apollo, don’t fucking lie to yourself. That was always Zeus, and you never wanted to be like him. Don’t be like him in this.”
I bare my teeth, a silent snarl at him and Hermes grins. “You can’t run from this, cousin. It’s happening, and we need to know what Del said.”
Tiger kitten, furious girl, fallen gods. Death. Death. Death. Broken god and shattered power and death.
She saw us die.
She saw Olympus fall.
I gave Del my gift and she took it, knowing the price, because she loved me. And I destroyed her.
“I won’t talk about it,” I say, simply. It has been ages. Empires have risen and fallen and still I can see her, coiled in my arms, shaking and sobbing as she spoke, and the prophecy filled that fucking temple.
I demanded it and it destroyed her and I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept that and speak of it with the lightness that is needed to address such a monumental thing.
I stare into the sky and feel my cousin shift behind me.
“Come on, Apollo. Take me to your home. We don’t have to speak of it, today.”
Chapter 8.
I keep going back. I know I shouldn’t. But I can’t help it. Every day, when Hermes wanders away to play messenger for my uncle and flirt with my sister, I wander back to the little coffee shop and watch the girl with Del’s eyes and a wide, laughing smile. And she knows. She smirks when I enter, sometimes hidden behind a veil of red-gold hair, sometimes leaning against the counter, that pert ass of hers presented like a fucking invitation. Sometimes, she’s strumming her guitar.
Once, I came in and she was crying.
I want to go to her, but the girl behind the counter gives me a fierce glare, and I take my coffee to the corner table, watching Iris as I play with the cards.
I don’t like my girl crying.
She’s not my girl.
I forget that, if I’m not careful.
&nb
sp; I hate being careful.
I hate not taking what I want.
I hate that Del’s voice is a constant whisper in the back of my mind,
Telling me all the ways I will die, all the ways I will kill my family.
I am the god of prophecy, and I know the truth when I hear it spoken.
It’s what I’ve been running from for so many centuries.
“So you were here for my breakdown.”
It’s three days after I walked in on Iris sobbing, and the first time I’ve been back to the coffee shop.
I wasn’t ready for just how much I wanted her and how much it would shake me, to not take what I wanted. So I stayed away, hiding in the concert halls and practice rooms at the local universities, drinking down the music that they produced.
I blink at her, and she smiles. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“Tears aren’t a weakness,” I say, softly. Staring into my coffee instead of her eyes.
“They aren’t.” she agrees, readily. “But they can make the people around me uncomfortable. And I prefer to avoid that if I can.”
I do look at her then. There’s a quiet intensity to her that startles me.
“You, however, don’t seem like you rattle easy. You seem to like being uncomfortable.”
I shrug. “I’ve always been a little different. The ones who don’t mind stick around.”
She makes a low hum in her throat, and her head tilts, just a little. “And me? If I didn’t mind. Would you let me stick around?”
Yes
“I am not good for you, Iris,” I say softly. Unwilling.
She hesitates and then, “I’m not asking for marriage, here. I’m asking for a name and a cup of coffee. And maybe we’ll like each other. Maybe we’ll want to see what happens after that. Maybe I’ll think you’re a dick and ask Lily to kick you out.”
I laugh at that and Iris grins at me, her eyes sparkling with humor and the invitation I haven’t seen in a mortal’s gaze since Del.
“One cup of coffee,” I say, and she brightens, bouncing in her seat.
“Lil!” she almost screams, and the girl behind the counter grumbles to herself, but sets about making coffee.
Iris studies me. “So…”
I stare at her.
For a long time, I tried using other names. Apollo wasn’t exactly common, and as strange as I was, it was a red flag. When mortals ask, I tell them I am Aaron. It’s as good a name as any other. But for Iris.
“Apollo,” I murmur. I watch her while I do, and I see her gaze flick down, over the tattoos on my wrist and the claws of my raven, just visible under the sleeve of my t-shirt.
“Sun god, huh?” She asks, “Your parents have a thing for the gods?
I shrug, noncommittal, and Lily drops two coffees between us with a huff.
“Why are you here, Apollo?” she asks, bluntly, watching me. “What are you doing in my coffee shop?”
I look at her, and shrug. “I like coffee,” I say.
I like you is what I don’t say.
“Mmmhm. Well, our coffee is shitty and our pastries are worse, especially since Lil and I took over. So why don’t you try again, with the truth this time.”
I hesitate. Because she can tell I’m lying.
“Would you believe I don’t know, exactly?”
She nods, biting her lip.
“Take me to dinner,” she says, and I shouldn’t. I can hear Del, laughing and whispering, I can feel my sister’s panic and my family dying and all I can see from her is the golden thread of unshakable future and it leads to me.
Irrevocably.
No matter how I want to change the future, no matter how much I have run to avoid the future that Del spoke, so many years ago.
“Always gonna lead here,” I murmur, and her eyes soften, and she nods. Leans in, and when she kisses me, softly, she tastes like coffee and sugar and chapstick.
And it feels like fate.
When I wander into my apartment, Del and Hermes are waiting. He’s tense and she actually leaves her spot curled in the sun to coil around my ankles, until I reach down and scoop her up. She mews softly, rubs once against my head, and then crawls up my shoulder, not caring of her claws digging too deep into my shoulder. My raven shifts, grumpy under my skin.
“What happened?”
“Your father is coming to town,” Hermes says, and the world drops away.
Everything drops away, and there is only Del’s voice, echoing and echoing and echoing.
From very far away, I hear Hermes. “I am so sorry. They’re all coming, cousin.”
“This isn’t for you,” she whispers, and her teeth chatter. Prophecy always leaves Del like that. “You shouldn’t have made me tell you,” she scolds, as I bundle her in a blanket and carry her to the oversize bed where she burrows down, giving a moan at the warmth. I summon a sunbeam, and it further heats the room.
Her words are still echoing in me.
Break and break and break. Tiger kitten and dying gods and break. Olympus falls and a girl with Sight and your family dying. The sun will fall in love. Break, break, break. It breaks. It all breaks.
She’s drowsy now, almost asleep as I hold her close and hum a wordless comfort in her ear. Brush her hair back and press a kiss to her hair as her words play over and over in my head and I try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do with this.
Olympus is going to die.
And I will be the one to kill it.
Chapter 9.
It’s a minor god. Barely qualifies. A sea deity that lives and thrives, as much as any of us do, in Puget Sound.
She was one of Poseidon’s daughters, and a cousin, but one I didn’t care for. She wasn’t of Olympus, but she was an Olympian.
She was the first.
Break and break and break.
The words echo like a promise and a chant, a heartbeat that marks time as I follow Hermes to the shore.
Poseidon is there and I laugh, a hoarse noise that pulls Hermes’s gaze.
I am doing this. I am dooming us all, because a girl with the wild eyes and laughing lips is irresistible.
She wanted coffee, and I knew better. I knew I should say no.
I should never have gone back.
You’ll try to run from this. But you can’t. Not this, Father.
She was always right. I hated it then, and I hate it now.
Poseidon glares at me, but addresses Hermes, “I told you not to bring him.”
“And I told you that this concerns him.”
“He left Olympus,” Poseidon snarls. “He left his family.”
“We all left Olympus, Uncle. You can hardly fault Apollo for that alone.”
“I can fault him for this.”
He can’t. No one but Hermes and Artemis knows the details of the prophecy Del spoke all those years ago. The one that promised I would bring my family to its knees and kill Olympus.
Apparently my uncle doesn’t care. He can be pissed without knowing.
Of course, his daughter is lying twisted and wave soaked, a few feet away, smelling faintly already of rot and fish.
Her hair has been hacked off, sloppy. Some trailed long and twisted around her neck, some so short I can see the white of her scalp. Her throat is a raw gaping wound and I wonder why. Blood smears there and down her naked torso, like whatever slit her throat and drained away her life blood revealed in it.
“You know that Uncle Zeus will want him here. He has a vision that we don’t. He’s already called Artemis down from Canada. Do you think he wouldn’t have sent her after Apollo? The entire family is gathering. Apollo is part of that.”
“I’m not,” I murmur, soft and almost hidden. Almost, he can ignore it. Almost, Poseidon doesn’t hear my protest.
Almost.
“That’s typical, isn’t it, nephew? You haven’t wanted anything to do with your family for centuries.”
Not true, necessarily. More, I didn’t want to kill my family, for centuries.
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“Enough, brother.”
I inhale sharply, and my eyes close as I go very still. Hermes slides a quick look at me, assessing my mental state, or maybe bracing himself to catch me if I tried to bolt.
I might be crazy, but I’m not insane. I won’t run while Hermes is standing at my side.
I lost my taste for pointless exercise in futility a long time ago.
Still. Staying still. That takes more strength than I realized I had.
Turning to face him takes even more.
My uncle is at his side, and his silver eyes flick over me before settling on Hermes and giving a brisk nod. Something passes between them, silently, and I wonder for the first time what has happened in Olympus while I’ve been gone.
But that’s not what draws my gaze.
No.
That is the man between Hades and Poseidon. He’s wearing jeans and a plain t-shirt, and his hair is brushed back and away from his face, shot through with silver. There are new lines on his face, which I didn’t expect.
And the beard that is short and barely more than heavy stubble—that too is short through with gray.
He looks, impossibly, old.
When did that happen? Last time I saw him…
A hall in Olympus, and the family was shouting. Father was shouting. I ran, with my twin and my cousin.
“It’s been a long time, Apollo.”
“Yes,” I whisper. Clear my throat and try again. “Yes, Father, it has.”
My family is predictable.
We are soon ensconced in a palatial mansion far from the city. Father takes the largest room on the highest floor, and Hades takes a one near the basement. Poseidon bitches and moans, and threatens to remain in his sea, until Zeus shrugs and says, “Do whatever the fuck you want, brother.”
After that, he quickly picks a bedroom and locks himself away.
Which leaves the rest of us to find a place in the house that doesn’t annoy the others and still fits our own personalities.
Not the easiest of tasks. And not one I’m in any hurry to attempt. I slink past Athena and Hera snarling at each other, while Ares leans against the wall, watching with a familiar gleam in his dark eyes.
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