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Apollo turned to me with a curious expression. The god of prophecy did not know all, but surely, he could read the signs of what was in front of him. “Or perhaps I am out of practice. Allow me a moment to retrieve my arrow. We wouldn’t want my mistake to have unjustly skewered a nursing doe.”
Fire erupted from Apollo’s back, outlining the air with wing-shaped flames like rays from the sun. As if a mirage, they rippled in and out of existence as they took him airborne to chase after the arrow I had caused him to misfire.
He was breathtaking. But my objective was not to admire.
“Why go and do that?” Artemis stepped in front of me to block my view of her brother. Like Apollo, and I was certain any of the slighter framed gods, her diminutive figure did nothing to quell my mortal terror.
But Apollo was brilliance who wanted to bask me in his light—me. Whether worthy of that or not, I could not let fear be what stumbled me upon my path to earn it. “Perhaps there is a question you would ask me that you would rather not ask in front of him.”
The air cut as if with the swing of a sword, and while I tried to register the sound, everything else happened too fast for me to defend myself. I stood tall, and then, in a blink, I was against a tree trunk at the clearing’s edge, with Artemis’s bow on the ground, and one of her arrow points at my throat.
To be handedly overpowered by one so much smaller than oneself is truly humbling.
“So clever, aren’t you? Then you think you know my question already, do you?” she asked.
“I do.” I dared not move or even breathe or swallow too heavily, for the sharpness of the arrow could mean my death with barely a press. “What are my intentions with Apollo, and can I truly be the one who mends instead of breaks his so deeply wounded heart?”
A furrow of her brow was the only sign that she was surprised her derisive demand of me was something I could answer with the question she had yet to ask. “Mortals like you and even supposed friends among the gods have hurt my brother too many times.” Her voice shook with a mixture of love and rage that could only be expressed by one who had felt their kin’s pain as deeply as if they had experienced its causes themselves.
“I know.” I kept my own voice steady. “And I cannot promise I will not be another point of pain for him. I cannot. Because I cannot see the future like he can. But what I can promise you is that I desire nothing more than the chance to be part of what makes him shine so luminously. To be worthy of his love, not as a worshiper receiving a god’s blessing, but as a man loves another man.”
The pause as I awaited her response seemed endless. Then, before I realized she’d released me without leaving even a scratch to spill a drop of my blood, Artemis was several meters away, walking back to where we’d been.
I caught up to her, allowing the silence she’d chosen, for it was better than an arrow point or a cursed existence among the stars, just as Apollo returned.
His sunbeam wings were beautiful when they flared at his landing and then vanished again. “Well, sister? Are you satisfied yet?” he asked.
“Almost.” When the full force of the moon faces you, believe me, friend, it is as daunting as the sun. “You do not need to compete with me, Dax, but I would still see you shoot.” She handed me her bow and an arrow to fire.
I stood breathless at first. I was trained in many things, but archery had never been my forte. A wrestling match would have been preferable. Even a sword fight. “If it… pleases my lady. But I hope I am not too much of a disappointment.”
“Just hit the target.”
Artemis’s arrow in the center of the fifth target remained, as I squared my stance to attempt to at least not wildly miss the way Apollo had.
Whether as retribution for my act or simply to be near me again, Apollo moved in behind me. “Allow me to assist,” he said.
The gentle nudging of his feet between mine to alter my stance, his hands turning my hips just so, and then adjusting my elbows, were all a more delicate endeavor than how I’d boldly gripped him. No less intimate or purposeful, for it relaxed and elated me to have the god I adored touch me at all. My attentions on Apollo might have caused him to miss, but his emboldened me.
My arrow loosed and struck center—between the actual center and the outermost ring. Better than I’d ever done though!
“You show promise!” Apollo praised, squeezing my shoulder.
“More like uselessness,” Artemis grumbled. But when I handed back her bow, rather than fury or disapproval, her face showed a passive acceptance. “Maybe not entirely without merit.” She nodded, first at me, then at Apollo.
Foregoing any proper farewells, Artemis turned to the line of trees behind us and leapt up into their branches with the agility of an Aegean cat. A few soundless bounds later, she was gone.
Apollo patted and squeezed my shoulder again.
“Well done, Dax.”
“That was me having done well?” I’d hoped so, but if Apollo was cryptic, then Artemis was an unequaled enigma.
“Believe me,” Apollo chuckled, “if you had not done well, you’d know.”
I did not doubt that at all.
Chapter Five
