Chapter One
Apollo
Few things rattled a god, and even fewer made Apollo, god of the sun, nervous. But somehow, what he was about to do shook him to his very core.
“It’ll be fine, stop worrying.”
Apollo turned to his sister, Artemis. “Who said I was worried?” He mustered his most confident, toothiest smile.
The goddess of the hunt crossed her arms over her chest. “Have you forgotten that I’m your twin sister? That out of everyone in the entire world, I’ve known you the longest.” Artemis reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to put up that confident facade around me, you know.”
He blew out a breath, allowing his posture to slump. “It’s just…this is important, you know? Literally nothing has been more important than this, not in the thousands of years of my existence. And what happens today will affect the rest of my immortal life. The council has to agree to give Geri the goldenapple so she can live forever.” Just the very idea of his mate one day dying while he remained alive and youthful made his chest ache.
“You’ll have my vote,” Artemis assured him. “And a few others on the council, for sure. But…”
“The decision must be unanimous,” Apollo finished. Immortality was not a trivial matter after all. Usually, only demi-gods—the sons and daughters of gods and goddesses–could eat the apple to gain immortality. Just recently, they had approved of another mortal to partake of the apple, but that had been very specific and special circumstances. “What if–”
A soft chime rang throughout the hallway, interrupting Apollo. “It’s time for the council meeting,” Artemis said. “Let’s head inside.”
They were the first to arrive, and so Apollo and Artemis entered the divine hall, where the twelve–well, now it was eleven–most powerful gods and goddesses of Olympus met for their meetings, where they discussed important, world-changing matters. The Council of Olympians was one of the more powerful forces in the universe, after all.
Inside the hall, eleven white marble seats of equal size and height sat in a circle. Previously, Zeus’s throne-like seat had risen above the others’, but when it turned out he had obtained the territory of Olympus through deceit, they cast him off to Tartarus for his crimes. The rest of the council decided to change the seating, for now, so that they were all equal, but they kept the twelfth chair, as they had yet to decide who would take over Olympus.
Apollo and Artemis took their positions and waited for the others to arrive. A few chose to walk in from the hallway like they did–Hestia, Demeter, Ares, and Aphrodite. The rest–Poseidon, Hades, Athena, and Hera–simply materialized at their designated seats. This left two seats empty– Zeus’s and thatof Hephaestus, god of forges and fires. While the former was a newer development, the latter was more or less an accepted fact. Hephaestus had not attended a council meeting in thousands of years, but he always read through the meeting notes and sent his vote in. On most trivial matters, he voted with the group. Actually, in the last thousands of years, the council rarely split in their decisions.
Normally, that would have filled Apollo with hope, but he knew that the vote could go either way.
“Are we all here?” Poseidon spoke first. “Then the meeting of the Council of Olympians will come to order.”
With Zeus leaving the leadership spot, the god of the seas had “helpfully” stepped in to moderate and lead the meetings. Apollo was not quite sure if that was a good or bad thing, but no one else in the council took the initiative. Besides, with no one in charge, the council would be in disarray.
Poseidon continued. “All right, let’s begin. Is there any business any member wishes to bring up?”
Apollo’s heart thundered in his chest, but he managed to raise a hand in the air. “I do.”
Nine pairs of eyes trained on him, though only about half of them looked surprised. Artemis, Hades, and Demeter already knew what he was going to say, but he was taken aback at Hestia’s knowing smile.
“You?” Ares, the god of war, scoffed. “You haven’t even been here for the last couple of meetings.”
“Er, yeah, sorry about that,” Apollo said sheepishly. “I had, er, an emergency in my realm.”
“An emergency?” Athena asked. “Exactly what kind of emergency must the god of music and poetry attend to? Did a composer somewhere lose his sheet music?”
Apollo ignored the guffaws from Ares and Hera. “Something like that,” he said. “But I promise, I plan to be here for every single meeting from now on. Anyway, if I may–?”
“Go on,” Poseidon said. “What is it that you would like to discuss, Apollo?”
“I–” His throat suddenly went dry as a desert. Swallowing to moisten it, he spoke. “I wish to petition the council for permission to give the golden apple to a mortal.”
Silence stretched across the room, filling it until the atmosphere grew thick with tension, until Poseidon finally spoke.
“The golden apple of immortality isn’t some party favor we hand out to any mortal,” the god of the sea said, his tone humorless. “I’m sure you’re aware of that.”
“Only demi-gods and humans who can prove they are worthy of such a gift can partake of the golden apple,” Hera pointed out.
“You did it for Georgious, Demeter’s husband and Persephone’s father,” Apollo reminded them. He bit his tongue to prevent himself from adding,you know, the man who Zeus, your husband, blackmailed and then imprisoned for thousands of years so he could control Olympus?
“That’s a special case. We made reparations for a grave crime,” Athena said. “One that affected the very history of the universe and this council. Unless the same can be said of this mortal, I move to dismiss this petition.”
