Page 3 of Until the End of Ever
Silver grimaced, finally getting it. “I see.”
Apollo nodded to himself. “You’re not completely hopeless, then. Good. I truly do hate wasting my time. Nineteen minutes. I’m enjoying this little chat, but tick-tock.”
“Someone tried to control me with a dark ritual,” I summarized, cutting to the main point. “Can you tell us who? Or why? Or how to stop them?”
“That’s not how it works, kitten.” The god grinned, showing off teeth that seemed too white and sharp. “Knowledge is the prize one acquires through the journey. If you want a cheat sheet, I can make Gaia speak her prophecy through one of you. But that’s not without danger to the speaker, and you shouldn’t expect a straight answer from her.”
Ugh. That would have been too easy.
“As for thewhy, surely you’re not that dim?” Apollo asked me. “You’re very pretty, so I’d understand if you were, but my general impression was that you have a few working brain cells.”
My jaw dropped. No one had ever called me dumb before.
“It’s because of what you are. Surely, you’ve suspected? If not before, certainly after the way you dealt with Python.”
I bit my lower lip.
I still didn’t understand what had occurred when rage and violence and the echo of long forgotten wars seemed to awake inside me.
“They want to control Kleos because she’s a goddess,” Lucian stated baldly, as though the words made sense.
They didn’t.
I was Kleos. Just Kleos. I was born to a rich family with average magical skills, and an old family respected in Highvale, but without too much power.
Certainly not a freakinggoddess. Seeing Apollo made that clear. I was a speck of dust compared to him.
“Sort of,” Apollo replied. “Not yet. But at seven years old, the age when, in the old days, a child started their training, discovered their purpose, she was obliterated down to the last molecule, and then remade bit by bit. Forged by hands which aren’t capable of forging anything mortal.”
Silence met his words.
Obliterated.
I remembered the fire. I remembered burning from the inside out.
Then I was just fine, but that didn’t change what had happened.
“I died,” I finally acknowledged.
I never really understood it before, though the old man had said something similar at the time.
Curiosity has already killed you once.
Apollo saw no need to repeat himself, or even nod. “When you were put back together, you became a possibility. A question mark. There have been many watchful eyes on you since that day. Some of us even took bets as to what you would become. Something new? Something old?” He smiled again. “Twelve minutes.”
Fuck, I had far too many questions.
Prioritize, Kleos.
“What do you mean, what she’d become?” Silver asked before I could find my words. “I thought you said she’d be a goddess.”
Now it was apparent that Apollo enjoyed her directness, I was grateful for her presence. I would have wasted a lot of time thinking whereas she blurted out whatever popped into her head. And it seemed important to know.
“Well, that’s always the question, isn’t it?” He shifted, one knee up. “When a god dies, their energy continues existing in the cosmos.”
“Gods die?” Ronan piped up for the first time.
“Yes,” Lucian hissed, glaring at his friend. “I’ll explain later. Please, continue,” he asked Apollo.
