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Prologue
DAX
“Aikos… I think I might faint.”
“If you do, I’ll catch you,” he said, but even as he did, he gave the small of my back a tiny push.
Toward Apollo, god of the sun.
Radiant could not begin to describe him, as I had not so long ago described my newly deified friend, Aikos. All the gods around me, up here in some masterful salon on Mount Olympus, were equally radiant, but Apollo was the beauty of the dawn itself.
He was as youthful as me in visage, though slighter of height and build. To be larger than a god seemed a strange anomaly, but he was everything I could have conjured in my mind of perfection personified.
He could have been carved from gold rather than Galatea’s ivory. His tanned skin was almost as golden as his hair, and his eyes glowed just as luminously. His fair face and the subtle smile that touched his lips stole my breath away and made me teeter as I tried to walk forward.
Most of the gods wore white or singular colors that evoked their domains. Since Apollo’s domain was the sky, it made sense that his tunic was the ever-changing colors of a sunset. The sunbursts that adorned his ensemble were made of true glimmering gold, with one such bracer attached by way of a gold chain to a ring on the finger reserved for wedding bands.
That was the hand that reached for me now. Apollo was one of the few gods who had never wed, and that ring, tethered as it was to the sun, seemed a sad testament to a destiny alone, wed instead to his duties.
What a wonder to be worthy of changing that fate.
But was I?
Apollo’s hand remained outstretched, and mine trembled when I finally placed it in his. He kissed my fingertips like a courter.
“What new Olympian flower is this?” he asked.
Words failed me, except a soft, foolishly uttered, “My god… you are beautiful.”
I was orphaned at eight, taken in initially by a temple to Hera. I could have chosen any path from there: become a farmer, had a family, stayed to serve that temple, but what little memories I had of my parents were of a deep and enviable love between them. War had taken them from me, not even one I could name. With them gone, what mattered most to me was finding a love like theirs, one strong enough to transcend all else.
What better way to achieve that than through the goddess of love herself?
When I turned twelve, I asked to be given to the temple of Aphrodite. There, I met Aikos, the fellow acolyte destined to become my friend.
I hated him bitterly. He was already so beautiful at that age and better than everyone at everything he attempted. Those first years, our lessons were focused on education of the mind, performance in music, poetry, and dance, and molding our bodies to be fit but supple and as elegant as the statues of the gods in our salon.
Over the years, some acolytes were deemed unworthy to become courtesans, but I had my sights on that ascension from day one and would let nothing deter me. My hatred of Aikos and his seeming perfection, his ease with everything, fueled me further toward my goal of ascending at the top of our year and serving one of the highest-ranking priests in body and mind and soul. But all too quickly hatred turned to rivalry and, despite all my resistances, a friendship greater than kin.
In another life, Aikos might have been the man I would have loved with all my being, but even once we were older and began our training with physical pleasures, I knew better than to fall for him, for he was ever out of reach from me and meant for something greater. I never could have imagined that what he was meant for was godhood, blessed by Aphrodite herself, and fated to ascend far beyond a mere courtesan after teaching the major male pantheon gods about a form a love each needed but had forgotten.
“No, Dax. Like this.” Years ago, when learning to seduce with a look, with a mere glance that would show our future masters that we were theirs and ready for them, I first realized the futility in trying to catch up to Aikos. It needed to be such a powerful expression that Eros himself would set our masters’ loins aflame and they would pounce upon us to take us like we were made for.
An exaggeration, surely, pure poetry, but when Aikos demonstrated how I was failing, I saw that poetry made real.
A flutter of long lashes. A shuddery breath that left his lips parted. A flush summoned to his cheeks as if he had willed the blood to rush there. A look in his eyes, both innocence and depravity, that was want personified. Then his eyes flicked from mine to my mouth and back again, and when his tongue flitted out to lick at his lips, I felt myself throb.
Aikos finished with a wink and a maddening grin, knowing he’d beaten me yet again. He always beat me. I was a consummate acolyte, meant for my greatness too, but Aikos was better. When he vanished upon the moment of his ascension, we all guessed what had happened. Only the gods could be responsible for such sorcery, and we praised Aphrodite for her wisdom in Aikos being her chosen and whichever of the gods might have claimed him.
It left me dumbstruck when I was called to the pedestal next. Would I too be whisked away? I did not think so, and indeed, I was not, but first and greatest among the high priests chose me as his courtesan when he would have chosen Aikos if the option remained.
I love my friend but in that moment some of my old bitterness returned, not because I wished Aikos ill or thought him unworthy of being blessed, but because, surely, I was a disappointment compared to what my new master might have had.
From the moment I went to him, that colored our time together. He was beautiful, skilled, a great courtesan himself before becoming a priest. He was everything I thought I wanted, kind, passionate, and the temple of Acrocorinth that he resided over was incredible to live in those few days I spent there. Yet Aikos was right when he told me later that I hadn’t been happy.
The moment I realized I could not find love with my new master broke my heart. It was Aikos, my dear friend, who pieced it back together again by saving me from a listless future. Our reunion was one of all Aphrodite’s tenets, passion foremost among them, and prepared me for what it would be like to bed a god.
But to love a god and be loved in return, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for that.
