Broken God (12 page)

“Yes,
”
Artemis says, sadly.

It’s three days later, and I am almost sane. I’m sitting near
Del on the shore, while Artemis swims and her hound bounds around, barking
madly. The world is bright and golden, the sun a shining halo and I can only
see the shimmering golden threads that bind me and Artemis.

Here, where there are no people, I am almost sane, almost able
to cling to the façade of being normal. There are no futures tangling and
twisting and tripping me up.

I wonder if that, as much as Del, is what has kept me here, this
endless summer.

“Apollo?”

Her voice is soft and frightened, and I lean back, rocks digging
into my back and draw her with me. The water is rising, the tide changing and
here, on the shore of the sea, with my sister’s curses filling the air and
Del’s scent filling my head, and her tiny hands twisted in my tunic, I am
happy.

I am so fucking happy.

“I want to help you
,” she
whispers against my skin and I close my eyes.

Too slow.

I see it. The jumping threads, the shifting futures, the way
they wrap around her and bind her, gold and glowing and perfect, and
mine
.

And broken.

“Del,” I whisper.

She leans into me, and kisses my throat, and my power lurches
under my skin, almost aching to break free, to reach for this bright,
beautiful, brave girl.

“Let me help you,” she murmurs.

The sun is shining, my sister is laughing, and a girl I will
always love is curled in my arms, the sea in my hair.

A day so perfect a thousand years could not replicate it.

That’s the day I destroyed a girl.

Chapter 13
.

There are a few
things that will never change, despite everything else that has.

When I call, my
sister will come.

Always.

It is the
unshakable truth that my entire world is built on, from my first memories to
this day. So when I piece it together, I don’t think.

I slide my phone
out, even in the hospital room while Iris murmurs at her brother and Heath eyes
me like I might break her.

Stupid
boy. I already
have.

I text her and
slide the phone away. I don’t need to watch to know she’ll answer any more than
I need the answer to know she’ll be at my apartment when we return.

This is Artemis,
who has made a life of taking care of me and worrying about me.

I listen to Heath
and Lily talk around Iris, listen to her increasingly fragmented babble, and
when Heath sends Lily a confused look, I intervene. Catch her hand and let a
thin trickle of power seep from me to her. “We had a very long day, and she
didn’t sleep well. I think I should probably take her home and let her get some
rest. Do you mind?”

Heath does. I can
tell, the way he’s bristling but Iris slumps into me and yawns, impressively,
backing up every lie I’m spinning.

“I’ll be back
tomorrow,
okay
?
You just. You rest. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She’s still looking
over her shoulder when I pull her from the room.

Her eyes are wide
and serious when we duck into a stairwell. "What happened to him?"
she asks. Staring at me like I might give her answers.
Like she
has the right to demand answers from me.

Smart girl.

I tuck her hair
back, behind her ears and ignore the low growl of warning it earns me. "If
I promise to tell you when we reach my apartment. Will you trust me a little
bit longer, sweetheart?"

Her eyes narrow.
"Last time we got to your apartment, you and I didn't do much in the way
of talking."

I grin at that.
Because. Fair point.

"My sister is
meeting us there. And I need to feed Del."

She makes a
disgruntled noise in the back of her throat and I slip her sunglasses on her
face, and grab her hand. She's not shaking apart, and I don't know if that's
because I'm holding her hand or because seeing her brother has helped settle
her, but either way, I'm not looking a
gift horse
in the mouth. I
tug her lightly down the stairs, and duck into a cab, holding her close, her
head pressed to my chest as I hum and she twists against me and the city and
all its hundreds of thousands of souls, and millions of
possibilities
stream by like
water over a rock, battering away the sharp edges until the thing left behind
is smooth and shapeless and lovely and so utterly broken.

I kiss her hair and
I swear to myself, then and there, that I won't let my
gift
destroy another girl.

Iris is panting and
shaking by the time we reach my apartment, and I let her go, let her reel into
it, babbling softly under her breath and letting her hands run over Del,
scooping the kitten off the bed and cuddling her close, her face pressed to
black fur,
her
shaking
hands
growing slower and
stiller as she forces herself to
breathe
, slow and steady.

She's calming
herself, something I've never seen an Oracle do.

They're wild and flighty
and they have no fucking clue how to stand against the wild storm of Sight, the
sheer
possibilities
of it all.

But Iris. She curls
around Del, in my sun chair, and lets her eyes close, her breathing slowing
slowly as she pets Del and let's all of the tension and tangled threads fall
away.

It's fascinating
and shocking and it reminds me of a painful truth.

"I don't know
anything about you," I whisper, and my voice is sad. There is no denying
that my voice is very sad.

"I'm a flighty
failed musician
-
turned
-
coffee
-
shop
-
proprietor with an
unhealthy relationship with my siblings and the bad habit of fucking strangers.
That last one might bite me in the ass, if I'm not careful.

"It might bite
you in the ass if you
are
careful," I murmur, smiling at her.

A grin flashes in
her eyes and curls up her lips. "I might be confused as fuck about what
the hell is going on, but don't think for one second I wish this particular one-night
stand didn't bite me in the ass." I jerk a little, startled. Gods knew I
wasn't expecting that little confession.

She grins at me and
wiggles deeper into her chair.

“Wanna tell me what
the hell is happening, Apollo?”

I look at her and
smile. “Yeah, sweetheart. I’ll tell you.”

It doesn’t take
long. In truth there, there isn’t much to tell. Iris is a smart girl and most
of it she’s pieced together, much as I have on how the actual
fuck
she became my Oracle.

“So you fuck a
girl, and she gets pretty visions of the future
,”
Iris says, when I finally finish and she’s
staring at me, her gaze a mix of horror and amusement.

“Not every girl,” I
say, shifting nervously. “There must be intent. I give power in exchange for
something. And she takes it, willingly. That’s always been the way.”

Iris frowns, and I
huff a sigh.

“Do you know that
the first girl, her name was actually Delphi. So many think the Oracle was
named for where she resided. But she resided there because that cave was where
she always wanted to live. It’s where I fell in love with her.”

Iris sucks in a
breath, and I glance at her, a smile turning up my lips.

“Later, when a city
grew up around the temple, we called it Delphi, after my girl, and every Oracle
was called Delphi for her.” I rub a large hand over my kitten’s head and she
bats at me, annoyed. “Del is named after her.”

“You loved her?”

I shrug. Nod. “Yes.
I loved all of my girls. In their own way. I think, I had to, to give them so
much of myself.”

She stares at me,
her eyes large and dark and searching.

“And me?” she
whispers. “Do you love me?”

Iris defies every
norm. Breaks every rule that has bound my Oracle for a millennia.

“I want to love
you,” I say, soft and honest. “But I don’t know you, Iris.”

She laughs, a
little at that, and rolls her head back. “How long did you know Del before you
made her an Oracle?”

I tilt my head.
“Almost a year. I spent a summer with her, and then a winter. Spring my sister
came and spent it hunting in the woods Delphi lived near. It was an endless
year, and I loved it. She lived in this tiny cave, so far from the wonders of
Olympus. It was everything I wanted, after spending centuries in my father’s
court.”

Her eyes are wide,
and I think she’s just now putting it together. If I am a god, then my family
is also made of gods.

She makes a low
noise, a broken sort of whimper and I smile. Open my mouth to reassure her.

And Artemis slams
through the door.

She is still
wearing her ceremonial garb. Her hounds are seething at her sides, and her eyes
are cold and deadly as she storms through the door of my apartment and into the
tiny kitchen with all the force of a midnight storm. Just as cruel and cold and
devastating.

"Artie,"
I say, my voice dry and vaguely annoyed.

She ignores me,
stalking closer to Iris, who sits still and wide
-
eyed as a goddess examines her for faults.

I'm kind of
absurdly proud of my girl for not squirming under that gaze. I've seen fucking
Hades squirm under it. My sister is a sweetheart, for sure, but she's also the
goddess of the hunt, and she's a fucking force to be reckoned with.

"What the fuck
are you doing with my brother?" she snarls, her voice low and deliberate.
Like the quiet pad of a predator stalking its prey.

"I think I'm
having coffee, if he
ever
remembers that's what he was supposed to be doing in the kitchen," Iris
says, giving me a dirty look.

I jolt into action
and watch from the corner of my eye as Artemis stares down at my new Oracle.

"What favor
did you extract for this power?" she snaps, furious. She's almost shaking
with it and for a heartbeat, I wonder if Iris will be the exception to this
rule
,
too.

My handmaidens are
toys to be played with and broken. My priests are the same. I've never lifted a
hand to stop Artemis from venting her anger against my chosen.

But my Oracle has
always been untouchable. Maybe it's because she knew Del, the first one, and
she has a sentimental streak (that she vehemently denies) or maybe it's because
she doesn't want to test me. Doesn't want to pit her considerable strength
against my own.

Maybe it's a simple
as she knows that my Oracle is special to me, and won't raise a hand against
her because she doesn't want to hurt me.

Whatever the
reason, my Oracle has never been touched. Has never been harmed. Not by
Artemis. But now, watching the way my sister bristles and snarls, and stares at
the unblinking Oracle in her
sun chair
, my kitten in her lap, I wonder if now she
will.

Artie has spent
most of the past few thousand years, worried about me and tending to me in my
madness. An insanity brought on because I am an idiot and refused to listen
when Del said, so many years ago, that some prophecies are not meant for even
me.

I take a step
toward them, toward where Artie is still and staring and Iris is humming soft
and swaying, and Hermes, in my doorway, shakes his head.

Wait.

Wait.

I hate waiting.

But I do.

And finally, after
what feels like an eternity, Artemis relaxes her arms dropping to her sides and
a tired smile twisting up her lips.

"I like
you," she decides, and Iris huffs.

"So does your
brother. I'm not looking to collect any more gods, if they're this temperamental
and troublesome."

Artemis laughs,
then, and her hounds whine, a long plaintive note before they flop on the
ground in my living room.

Del, from her neat
perch on Iris's knee, eyes them with disdainful disgust.

"Apollo, I
like this one. Let's keep her."

I grin and bring
the black coffee to Iris who reaches for it with grabby hands. I smile and
brush a kiss over her forehead as I hand it to her and lean back. "I like
her
,
too."

The prettiest blush
steals over Iris's cheeks and Artemis laughs at that, low and delighted.

My sister. She can
go from
I will slaughter you and your
unborn children
to a giggling girl at a sleepover in about thirty fucking
seconds.

It's annoying and
adorable and I want to stab her when she does this shit.

Instead I scoop
Iris up and sit, settling her in my lap while Hermes wanders into the living
room, dropping next to Artemis.

“Sweetheart, my
twin, Artemis, goddess of the moon. And my cousin, Hermes.” I grin at him.
“What are you god of, again, cousin?”

Iris drives an
elbow into my gut and I huff a little. “Don’t tease him, you dick,” she says,
and Hermes laughs.

“Oh, I like this
one,” he grins and I scowl.

“Find your own
Oracle, cousin.”

Iris perks up in my
lap. “Does he have one?”

Hermes pouts and I
laugh at him as Artie giggles. And for a while, as we sip coffee and feed Iris
tidbits about our family, it’s quiet.

It’s good.

I can pretend that
the end of Olympus isn’t looming over us.

It’s dangerous, but
I don’t resist, for now.

Sanity is a tenuous
thing, and eventually, Iris sways against me, her words slurring and dipping,
her body taking on that liquid sensual quality that marked all of my girls when
they were deep in the grip of Sight. I let my sister and cousin talk around us
while Iris snuggles into my lap and whispers nonsense into my throat, until she
finally drops off and I stop rubbing her back.

Then they both give
me their full attention and all of the happy laughter fades away. Artemis is
frowning and I know she's going to lecture me.

I'm not sure
I’m
ready for it.

"Playing with
fire, don't you think?" Hermes says, softly. "The family will have a
fucking fit when they hear you've got a new Oracle."