APOLLO

  I cannot see. She cried while it wasn’t a secret. My fake form was long gone after the sheep wool vanished. And she was still facing the bright stones. I kept calling her, trying to keep her up, but there was no use. Every time I tried to do anything to help her, I felt the pain of the blade.

  ‘’Oh, too bad’’Hermes’ echoed right behind me.’’She looks like a fine bride.’’ His sandals flew him right next to her, and his fingers cupped her cheek. Her face was painted in a toxic purple shade, with the veins of her body turning darker and darker. But why was Hermes here?

  ‘’I can guide her.’’He spoke as he was about to offer her a silver coin.

  She would be gone. Sent to the underworld and be judged, only to be sent to the Asphodels. And I could simply stand there and do nothing.

  ‘’No, you won’t’’ I rasped and pushed Hermes away from her. He tried to disagree with me, but my hands were already on her body, ready to heal her. Not yet, she wouldn’t die just yet, I am not allowing her.

  And everything turned bright with Hermes standing in the blink of an eye. My body trembled while my neck was held by the thread of Themis’ blade. The walls were covered in all the stars of the night sky, while the lion goddess faced me blindly in front of me.

  ‘’God of healing and light, patron of music, you have-’’

  ‘’Turn the other way around on this one,’’ I commanded her, and the goddess snarled with rage, her tail making one of her scales rise by the weight.

  ‘’Her fate is waved by the fates.’’ She explained to me.

  ‘’I saw her fate, it’s not there yet.’’

  A smile curved on the corner of her golden lips. ‘’Are you torturing her more, Phoebus? Is this the way of her ending then? A pig to the slaughter.’’

  Why was she so cruel to me? Why could I still feel the ichor falling from my throat?

  ‘’Aphrodite,’’ I whispered. ‘’Can still visit mortals. Ares’ wrath raids around kingdoms. Artemis could visit our mother years now’’I stared at her deeply at the empty gaze she was now holding tight.

  ‘’Why don’t you turn blind like you did to the others?’’

  The goddess bared her teeth with her sword now moving behind her back and her body formed into a great bright lion, pushing me with her tail away while the scales were right on top of the oracle’s body. The flood was now made of a strong marble with drawings of men and women in sorrow painted around the great hall of Themis’ court. The columns were broken with half of their parts scattered to the starless night, and the others were on the cold floor. It’s been years since the last time I was there, and the broken pieces were the same, As if Themis did this on purpose. To remind me of the truth.

  ‘’You forget your place Phoebus'’The woman roared with her form returning the great creature of a tall woman painted with a dry purple shade. Her dark hair was braided behind her back, while her tail and hands were a force of the great lion itself.

  ‘’I am the sister of your grandfather. I have been banished by my own father.‘’

  The black lines of the paintings escape from the floor and begin to wrap around my limbs. Each second of the ink staying on my skin felt like the Typhon's blood over and over again.

  ‘’I have seen the mortals and their crimes. So easy to place the justice and punishment.’’Themis returned to the Oracle and the left scale grew higher with her condition getting worse.

  ‘’But you and the gods’’She spat. ‘’How many people do you make suffer?’’

  Images of a young prince with lips dressed in purple flashed in my mind, right before that beautiful image was formed into a tomb of purple flowers.

  There was a woman as beautiful as nature itself who was running away before facing her last prayers to the gods, and she turned into a daphne. She was running away from me.

  There was a palace which was once painted in gold while a woman with reddish hair was smiling gently at me. The city was long burning in ashes as the woman now was facing me with fear.

  Screams, prayers, and all the blame to me. And that woman’s fate was all crafted because of me. How much more of it? Who else would suffer like this?

  I was watching the slaves building another one of my temples on the other side of a village, while across the other part of there was a golden temple of my ‘Fathers’. I wondered how the people would treat the situation. What conflicts, which temple, and god will they worship more? In my thoughts and questions, Hera appeared in one of her clouds while she was following me inside the trees.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  ‘’What do you want?’’I asked dryly. The last thing I wanted was for her to pick me up like a child.

  ‘’You must punish your people,’’ She announced with pride. But I could only think how ridiculous she sounded. Now, she has become a messenger for my ‘’Father?’ How low the war made her even in victory. After her plans that won my ‘Father’ at the battlefield, he seemed to be now punishing her.

  ‘’What if I do not?’’I asked and played out my lyre, letting the music echo around the ears of the slaves and their owners. What if the sound could reach their hearts, their desires? My desires? To burn the temple of Zeus down and only mine could shine in the valley, small people to worship just me-

  ‘’Apollo, I am warning you,’’

  ‘’Or what?’’I let out a laugh and moved closer to her cloud as she kept looking at me with a warning gaze.’’Will you send Python to hunt me again?’’

  Those words made her lips get pressed into a thin line. ‘’This is for your good.’’

  I rolled my eyes at those words.’’ Don’t you have any more work to do than threatening me? Punishing Eris? Spy on your husband? Getting a bo-’’

  And then a scream echoed from my deer ears, and I turned to the other side of the forest. Was that my sister?

  Who could have hurt her? Who could have managed to attack her and make her scream? Those thoughts were running around my mind while I was flying right over the place where the scream first got let out. I found my sister lying down with her leg trapped as she was keeping the screams and ichor emerging from her back.

  ‘’Artemis, what happened-’’I let my feet down and tried to reach her with my hand. But as I was about to, her hand found my wrist, gripping it even tighter. Looking now down at her, I found my sister forming to Hermes as he was smiling victoriously.

  ‘’What? How dare-’’

  ‘’I tried to warn you.’’ Hera’s voice echoed right above me, where I could see Artemis, Aphrodite, and Ares chained up in golden threads as if every god was present for our humiliation. And at the top of the sun, there was Themis, showing her scales.

  They mocked us, they trapped us, they made us lesser and placed us as pillars for Eris’s trap. When she showed the last judgement and I was ready to drink the blood of Typhon, I called bright threads of light, right at her courtroom, burning the pillars that were once holding the place.

  ‘’I will kill you’’I screamed and turned back to my ‘father’. He simply watched while they were punishing me and my sister.

  ‘’And, I will fulfill your prophecy, I swear to the river Styx’’

  ‘Father’s’ pride emerged from the skies, with thunder rumbling across the world. His light was brighter than mine, greater than mine. And when it hit me, I wished that I could not breathe after that.

  ‘’How many punishments will you Olympians escape because of your titles?’’Asked Themis, restraining her anger.

  ‘’I am..’’My lips parted as the woman was coughing her last breaths. So my eyes fell right above the goddess of justice.

  ‘’I am begging you, Tithimi, patron of divine law,’’ I spoke out, shaking. ‘’Please, do something’’My knees were sinking to the floor as the goddess drew her sword.

  ‘’You once swore that you will kill me and the king’’She said.’’With anger coming from your chest.’’

  Ares and Artemis were trying to treat me from the scars for decades, while I could see a silver hare hiding behind bushes just to look at us. As if he were trying to pity us, mock us, mock me. Was this his way to apologize? But my scars don't fade, my humiliation was not forgotten, and my punishment could never end.

  ‘’Why are you begging now?’’Themis asked, and my eyes could only look at the oracle, whose body was about to give up.

  ‘’Oh,’’Themis' lips parted, and her blade was now aiming at the scales of the oracle. The metal of the scales broke, and so did the woman. Her flesh broke like a jar, each piece falling to the floor like it was nothing. When I was at Olympus, Dionysus would have given us sweet wine made from his mortals. Often, the jars and cups were breaking but he could find a way to fix them back with the red liquor still inside. Everything was fixed.

  But this time, the glorious mortal gift did not get fixed.

  ‘’No,’’ I screamed with the paintings breaking from my limbs, letting me free, and I ran right at the broken parts of that woman. My fingers take every piece of clay, collecting them to put them back together. My chest was rushing in pain. My body was heated and cold at the same time. My breath quickened while the pieces were not getting any better, if so, worse.

  ‘’No, no, no’’My voice broke as I was holding a part of her hand. How cold and harsh they were, like thorns. I wanted to feel her touch once more. I wanted her cold gaze to look at me again, cause I knew even then that single glare could hide a symphony of emotions.

  ‘’No, come back.’’I could have been furious, I could have destroyed the entire place. I could have killed Themis at that moment. And yet, the only thing I could do was cry.

  ‘’No, no’’ The tears fell to the clay, forcing it to melt on my fingers. Why couldn't I save her? Each second it passed, she was turning less and less, and all I could do was cry.

  ‘’Her fate to justice is inevitable.’’Themis walked closer to me, but I didn't even try to look at her. My eyes were stuck on the mud. She shouldn’t be a pile of mud. She should have been something greater, someone to be admired in the way a goddess should be. But she was no goddess, was she? No, she was a mortal, and all mortals die. She would be dead no matter what power I had to stop it. And I have never felt so helpless. My actions were pointless. The goddess’s heavy breath escaped her torturous mouth, and the courtroom began to slowly vanish. The mud vanished too, while in front of me, there was the oracle’s body still alive and breathing heavily, her soul on the brink of death.

  ‘’You have three moons’’Themis announced.’’Your job will be done when the third moon falls, and her fate will be sealed. Two hundred years for a bridge between you and Eris to break, and everything will return to its natural state.’’She explained and was about to walk away. When the last sun begins to rise, if I ever see you break another rule, the justice will break.’’

  And when Themis was gone, I felt a light of hope brightening my entire body and I returned to the frail woman.