Page 98 of Invoking Ruin

I’m not letting anyone take her from my sight.

Not even herself. She gets into too much trouble on her own.

The door opens, sending daylight spilling into the dim sickroom. Just as quickly, the door closes again, and Apollo crosses to me, a careful frown pulling at his lips.

“She still hasn’t woken?” he asks.

“Your wife hasn’t kept you updated?” I ask back, not bothering to look at him.

He snorts. “Eris is not my wife. She abjectly refuses to wed me, though I make it a point to keep asking.”

“Why do you ask if she’ll just say no?”

“Because it’s amusing to get her all worked up.”

I shake my head. I don’t understand Apollo’s fascination with the Goddess of Discord. They could not be more opposite. At least Atê and I have complementary wildness.

“Are you here to check on her?” I ask. “You could have waited for Eris.”

“I came to speak to you, actually.”

Finally, he has my attention. Apollo cants his head to the side and motions back towards the door. I sigh and follow him, careful to keep Atê in view at all times.

Then I wait for Apollo to get to his point, which thankfully, he doesn’t draw out. “I thought it might bring you some relief to know that in light of Atê’s actions, we’ve commuted her sentence. She won’t be going to Tartarus.”

I press my lips together and nod. Actions. That’s one way of putting it. She saved every single one of us. But I also know if anyone called her heroic, she’d probably tell them to jump off the nearest cliff.

“You must have upset the others with that decision,” I say when I master myself.

“But I pleased Eris,” Apollo says with a shrug. “There was a great deal of arguing. The others don’t understand the worst thing they can do to Eris is agree with everything she says. She’d quit being queen in a day if they could manage it.” Apollo’s lips twitch, holding back a grin.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Apollo quite so happy before. He’s never been a maudlin god, but he did love to brood, constantly weighed down by the concerns of everyone around him, of the universe. Now he’s enjoying petty fights, just because they please his lover.

It’s a good look on him.

But I can’t quite see the same humor in it. Hephaestus, Hermes… too many of my family members want to harm Atê or see her harmed.

“What alternative sentence did you settle on?”

Apollo sobers, his shoulders straightening. “Did you know she’s been banished from Olympus for millennia? Zeus banished her for tricking him at Hera’s behest.”

“Many things she did for Hera got her in trouble.” Hera’s reach had been long. The shadow she cast over her husband’s many illegitimate children was longer still. It pleases me to think she must be fuming somewhere in the Void.

“We’ve decided the banishment will remain in effect. Once she’s well enough to leave, the gates of Olympus will remain barred to her. She will live out her existence on Gaia. Or in the Underworld, though I suggest she stay out for her own safety. I’m told Hades and Persephone are less than pleased with her covert operations down there.”

Only banishment, when she was already banished to begin with? That's far better than I expected. It must have taken a great deal of arguing to come to such a resolution. I’m almost sorry to have missed it.

But it can’t be that easy. “What’s the catch?”

Apollo chuckles. “When did you become so mistrusting, brother?”

“It’s been a long few centuries. What else is required of her?”

He squeezes my upper arm, and I’m not sure why. In comfort? To brace me for bad news? “She will need to be watched over at all times. The others are afraid that, if left to her own devices, Atê will cause more mayhem. We’ve learned she is too great a threat to ignore.”

I scoff. “To think, we Olympians were once the mightiest gods in the whole universe. They’re afraid of her? Truly?”

“They’re afraid of a great many things these days. The toll this has taken on all of us is immense, and it will be a long time before the effects of the Void fade.” He shook his head. “After the chasm in the sky… it will take even longer, I suspect.”

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