Page 93 of The Gods Forbid

The temple she called home was huge, with a roof over three stories high and long, sturdy columns that held up an ornately decorated roof. There were no doors, not officially, with warm wind constantly flowing in and out of the temple.

Humans had long made the lengthy trek trying to find this secluded, hidden part of the world. Not unlike the power that kept Prometheus hidden from the rest of the world, Delphi was a mystical place that only a few humans desperate to hear a prophecy had made it to.

Clearly, Persy had never been—I would have known otherwise—because she was staring up at the tall ceilings and gold decorations with stars of wonder in her eyes. She looked gorgeous here, in the soft sunlight, her hair practically glowing.

Do not show her the house. Don’t do that.

I batted away that thought when I heard a whistle echo through the hallways.

Fucking hell, she was impatient. And of course, we had to go to her. She wouldn’t emerge from her sunlit little corner of the temple unless physically removed, and I had no intention of getting on her bad side.

She’d cursed me enough.

“This way, love,” I said to Persy, carefully bringing her out of her observant daze. She blinked at me, clearing her vision. For a moment, my hand buzzed with the need to move. To take her hand and help lead the way.

I kept my hand next to my side.

Persy followed me through the winding back halls of the temple, keeping me company with her light conversation. Maybe I even responded a few times. Maybe I enjoyed it.

It did keep me distracted enough to shove away the memories of pain and nausea as we pushed through the doors to the Oracle’s rooms.

It seemed like an easy feat, but those doors wouldn’t budge an inch unless it was me pushing them.

She was protected beyond measure. Not even Fate could touch her long, immortal life.

The Fates didn’t command Apollos. Sure, they may have some influence in our lifelines and, in some instances, had chosen a spouse for an ancestor or two.

But Fate didn’t rule us.

We were children of prophecy. There was only one voice I would listen to regarding anything in my life.

Pythia. The high priestess and Oracle of Delphi.

She was the only being in existence who could ever tell an Apollo what to do. It was a blessing of the highest honor if she called an Apollo to her feet even once.

I’d been called three times.

It was that shit that drove my parents insane, believing that I was destined to take over as king of the gods because of that blessing. If they were right, I’d have been told so. Not even the most creative of minds could have spun the prophecies Pythia gave me into a free pass to overthrow the king of the gods.

The first one had been about my skill as a painter. When I was ten, I’d dropped to my knees in front of her and tried not to flinch away as her withered hand descended on my forehead and invaded my thoughts. She’d shown me a gallery that seemed to go on forever in an expansive hallway.

On one side of the wooden walls hung destroyed paintings, either mutilated by fire or moths or slashed through with knives. I vaguely recognized a few of them to be hack jobs by my father or his mother—the two most recent Apollos.

On the other was bright, masterful, engaging paintings that made me feel like I was looking at a reflection of my own soul. Looking back on the memory, I could tell you where each of those paintings ended up. Most scattered around museums and buildings in the Mediterranean.

A few in houses, treasured more than the home itself.

The next was when I was twenty-one. By then, I’d lost my sister and been inches away from caving under the weight of my parents’ greed. When Pythia looked me in the eye and dove into my thoughts, I was somewhere in a dark space, my wrists tied with rope and my arms pulled wide.

As I kneeled, trying to fight the weight of two opposing forces pulling at me, making me feel like my chest was splintering open, I could barely make out the image of a bright, fiery sun on one side and a black hole on the other—the complete absence of light.

I tried to push that one away, until two nights ago when I’d dreamed of it. It had ended with the rope to the black hole shaving away until the threads remaining snapped and I flew into the sun.

And the last had been when I was twenty-three. My parents had all but fainted when I’d been summoned for the second time in as many years.

I was angry, and had zero faith in the world. I could only imagine that Pythia had something heinous in store for me.

I was right.