Page 109 of The Gods Forbid

Apollo was in the middle, across from the gods of the sea. There was balance there. The skies and Underworld juxtaposed, the sun and the seas oriented the same.

As I took a seat, no one, not even our lovely king, made a move to speak. Silence wasn’t anyone’s style, which made me think that they were being intentionally polite.

“Alright,” I said, leaning back in my chair casually, resting my arms on the curved sides, meant to represent the bend of a bow. “Who threatened you all?”

That was clearly what happened, or someone would have made a comment about my idiocy already. I looked around the table, waiting for someone to give it up, but no one met my eyes, finding the glass in front of them or their hands incredibly interesting.

I slid my gaze to the one god I knew had no problem speaking their mind, no matter how much of a grumpy asshole it painted them to be. “Dominic, care to share?”

The Roman god of the Underworld shook his head, moving his arm over the back of his throne and around his wife’s shoulders. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bullshit. I moved my eyes over the entire table, meeting the top of heads more than I met eyes. I had half a mind to say that forced bashfulness wasn’t a good look on anyone with that much power. “We all may be different, but we all share an absolute inability to keep our mouths shut. You are all being far too normal about this. Who threatened you?”

Every eye in the room swung towards Adrian.

He held his hands up in surrender. “I simply passed along the message. I certainly did not come up with it.”

Persy.

Jupiter almighty, that little muse was fucking stubborn. She would never stop defending me, but I couldn’t find a bone in my body that had a problem with that.

“While I appreciate her well-intentioned warning, I do believe the purpose of all of this is to return to normalcy. And I know damn well you all keeping silent and acting nonchalant is not normal. Not to derail your plans, Jupiter,” I said, with a nod at Adrian. He caught his impressed expression at the last moment. It was the closest I’d come in years to truly honoring his position. “But I think we’d all do well to just address this now.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows, rolling his lips together to hide a smile. “Go ahead.”

I leaned back in my chair, getting a better view of the gods sitting to my left and right, Mia Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, and Jason Dionysus, the god of wine. The privileges of having a seat in the exact middle. My gaze landed for a moment on Luce, sitting next to Lukas, but I couldn’t pay too much attention to them right now. That was a much longer conversation.

“Everyone get your jokes and comments out now,” I said, motioning everyone along with my hand. “Then I’ll explain myself.”

“I mean what the fuck is your problem?!”

“Did Adrian try to kill you yet?”

“Were you really drunk all the time or was it an act?”

“How’s Persy?”

Every question was lobbed at me so fast I couldn’t tell who said what, though I was pretty sure it was Jason Dionysus who’d asked me about being drunk. He was right. It was an act to get people to think they could be more loose-lipped around me without consequence.

I actually stayed pretty far away from over-consumption of alcohol, especially after seeing what it did to my father.

Only two of those questions I would bother answering. I wasn’t liable for what I did if I answered that last one. “For one,” I said, looking at Gus Mercury, the youngest of us and the messenger of the gods, who I was pretty sure had asked me about Adrian. “Yes, Adrian did try to kill me, though I don’t have the scar to prove it.”

I looked over to Adrian, expecting to find him smirking, but he looked rather surprised. I guess he didn’t expect me to heal.

“And secondly,” I said, turning to address the whole table. “I took on my parent’s poor grasp for power. Why I did it is my own, but I can assure you all it won’t happen again. I’m rather content as Apollo.” I waited a few quick beats while everyone stared at me in silence before I finally broke. “Come on, no one has something to say?”

It was Luce who saved me, shrugging their shoulder nonchalantly as they ran their hand over their bow. “Well, I think that’s as good an apology as any. So long as any residual doesn’t affect the rest of us, I think we can find it in our hearts to forgive you.”

I breathed out, feeling all too relieved. When that happened, I tended to self sabotage. “I had someone on my side in each of your courts. Some rather high up.”

Luce didn’t so much as flinch. “You would have been an idiot if you hadn’t.”

Mia Ceres decided to jump in, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “We’ve known for quite some time. Hard not to when a random guard or advisor all of the sudden can’t remember chunks of time.”

Right. The antidote Daphne had made for the tattoos caused memory loss. I needed to formally apologize. Finding out someone you trusted had loyalties elsewhere was a betrayal. “I apologize.”

“Oh, Fates help me, did he just say sorry?” Jason Dionysus gasped from next to me. That was the exact reaction that I could handle. I could only take the earnest apologies for so long.