He stared at me for long second. “Are you sure you’re ready to open that can of worms? It’s much harder to hide when your power is strong enough to raze entire worlds.”
I nodded once, resolute. I was tired of feeling weak compared to the likes of Cas and him, prey to bloody humans turnedberserkers. And I never wanted to flee from Zeus and leave Kleos to fight ever again.
I wasn’t meant to be a liability.
If my friends, my family were bloody gods, I needed to stand proud next to them.
“I’m done hiding.”
He assessed me in silence for a moment.
“Godly spells aren’t reversible,” Apollo finally said. “We can add to them, blight them, bless them, but never undo them. I had to be careful in my wording in order to ensure your power wouldn’t remain sealed if we wanted to unleash it.”
“Well?” I pressed. “How can we do that.?”
“Your power’s sealed until I am no longer its guardian,” he stated. “That leaves several options. No immortal needs a guardian after majority, so it’ll naturally revert to you once you’re of age.”
“I’m over eighteen,” I pointed out.
Cas chuckled. “You keep considering yourself mortal, don’t you? The age of maturity for an immortal is twenty-five. It’s when our minds have finished developing.”
I scrunched up my nose. I’d heard that somewhere. “Well, I don’t feel like waiting a year. I want to be able to stop people from skewering menow.”
“Quite. That still leaves us with a couple of paths.”
“For one, we could kill you,” Cas stated to Apollo casually. “You can’t very well be her guardian if you’re dead.”
His pupils filled with fire. “You could certainly try.”
Staring at the two men, I was fairly certain they were both dying for a confrontation I had no time for. “We’renotkilling each other. What else?”
Cas seemed woefully disappointed.
“Well, you were in need of guardianship because you were a squalling brat, unable to defend yourself. My spell still considersyou under my care because you persist in pretending to be a mortal. A little stronger, a little faster, but nothing more.” Apollo smirked. “Artemis has never needed my protection. If you let yourself become who you are, you’ll return to your former glory.”
I glowered. “So here we are again. You trying to make me disappear.”
The man sighed, throwing his head back. “Again, I’ll say what I’ve told you before. You are no vessel. You were born Artemis. You’ll die Artemis. It doesn’t matter what you call yourself.”
“If that was the case, I’d have her power, by your own admission,” I challenged.
Apollo brought his finger to his temples, sighing deeply. “You’re opposed to it, challenging it, rejecting it,” he listed. “And not letting yourself feel it. Your deep, stubborn denial doesn’t change your nature, it just leaves you unable to profit from it.”
My jaw ticked. I hated that he made far too much sense.
“Artemis is a man-hating virgin who cares about hunting and not much else,” I summed up. “That’s not me. I’m not a bloody virgin, I’ve never hunted anything and?—”
“She didn’t hate men.”
I turned my glare to Cas. “What?”
“Ares might not have known her well, but I have a few memories. She—you—got along just fine with Dionysus, for one, and also Apollo, though you bickered all the time. Sure, you’ve turned a few guys into various animals for spying on you, but you’ve done that and worse to women, too.”
That was somehow even worse.
“All gods constantly remind mortals of their place,” Apollo said.
“But wasn’t she a virgin goddess?”
