Broken God Read online

  “Sister,” I murmur and she kisses my hair. Whispers the question directly into my ear, soft enough that none of our family hears it. Are you sane?

  I swallow my laughter and my madness and nod against her shoulder. Straighten and look at the family.

  Zeus and Hera sit near each other, her a few feet away and behind.

  She’s been pissed about that since before I was born.

  Father is wearing the visage of a middle-aged man these days. Dark hair threaded through with silver, a bushy beard, and the pallor of a wealthy man who spends his days indoors.

  Directly across from him sits Hades. My uncle looks as he has ever looked. Tall, with broad shoulders and long black hair that is swept back in messy waves. It’s the only thing messy about him. He’s dressed in a long black tunic and cloak, barefoot. A silver chain hangs around his throat. Everything else in Olympus can change, but Hades never will. He nods at me as Artemis steers me into my seat, and takes her place at my side. I feel better with her there, more settled.

  Sane, almost.

  I giggle, quiet and under my breath, and she tenses, minutely, and passes me my lyre.

  I take it without really making the decision to, and let my fingers play over it as I drift on the current of song and knowledge.

  Poseidon arrives with the crash of waves and the scent of salt and sea. I smile into my lap, hiding it behind my hair.

  Father and Uncle Poseidon are fighting before he even reaches his seat. Athena is trying to mediate, but she’s just pissing off Poseidon and then Hera gets involved and I lean over, resting my head on Artemis’ shoulder.

  “Typical family dinner, huh, sis?”

  She shakes her shoulder a little, dislodging me and gives me a look of faint disapproval. I shrug and press another kiss to her shoulder before I straighten. Flick my hair out of my eyes.

  The family ignores us. They’ve taken to doing that since I went quietly crazy a few centuries ago.

  Sometimes, when I’m feeling a little bit saner than I am now, I feel bad. Artie deserves more than taking care of me. She almost stabbed me last time I told her that, though, so I’ve kept it to myself since then.

  My sister has a fucking temper.

  “Know what this is about, cousin?”

  I glance at Hermes as he settles himself at our feet. He leans his head against Artemis’s knee and grins up at me.

  The others in the family like to dance around the fact that I am an oracle again. It’s been the elephant in the room on Olympus since Del died.

  Hermes doesn’t give a fuck.

  He never has.

  I close my eyes and Artemis grips my arm, her touch worried. “Apollo, don’t,” she almost hisses.

  Too late. I lean into the vision, into the twist of the future and images that shatter and scatter even as they brush against me. Distantly, I can feel my sister’s hands, holding me up and the way Hermes is leaping away from me, chattering loud and bright and drawing the family’s eyes.

  I am the dirty secret that we are all keeping.

  The Mad God.

  The words spill like a bitter, bitter pill, sharp and stabbing, glittering shards of the future spun in a thousand ways and slicing through me until I’m gasping.

  If Artemis wasn’t holding me still, I would be twitching and shaking.

  Then, it slams into me.

  The truth of this.

  Of why we are here, and grief follows, so quickly it yanks me out of the stream of the future and I keen, a low pitched pained noise that silences the family.

  “Apollo,” Artemis gasps and I curl inward.

  Away from her.

  Away from them all.

  Tears fall, and the sun in her place shudders. My power is slamming through me, through Olympus and creation like a fucking storm, and I need to get a damn grip before I tear it all down.

  Zeus shouts something, and that—

  His voice like a roll of thunder—

  Jerks me hard.

  I snap upright. My power still raging. At my side, Artie makes a low gasp and Hermes whistles.

  I straighten slowly and smile, a lethal thing as I stare at Father. At my uncles and the family that is fighting.

  Fuck.

  We’ve been fighting for eons now.

  Maybe if we had fucking stopped, this wouldn’t be happening.

  Too late.

  Too damn late for every single goddamned what if.

  “You’re leaving,” I whisper into the silence. “You’re all leaving Olympus.”

  The words fall into the still silence. It is rare that I can shock the gods, but it seems this has.

  I smile at him. At my father who is staring at me with furious eyes. I am sane enough, now, to see the rest.

  He’s tired.

  Gods, he is tired. We all are.

  I smile at him, then. Goodbye, Father.

  A hundred years and more have passed since I sat across from Del and she whispered the future. A hundred years and more that I have lingered in insanity and waited.

  I knew it was coming.

  But it still hurts, when I break my bond to Olympus and plunge to the mortal world.

  Chapter 3

  I stand on a street, in a city of ocean and air and mist.

  Father used to call places like this the in-between.

  It’s one of those strange places where my father and his brothers could stand as equals. I always found it odd that it was left alone. That they didn’t come here. But I learned not to question my good fortune, and I settled here, and I was happy.

  Artemis said they’d come, eventually.

  And there was the prophecy circling in my head.

  I blink, and I’m standing outside a tiny temple a thousand years ago.

  I can feel the wind and hear the girls singing my paeans.

  I blink, and I’m back in Seattle, and my uncle is watching me.

  For several long heartbeats, I consider bolting.

  Wouldn’t be the first time I did. I dodged Hermes for almost twenty years before he got bored and quit chasing me.

  Hermes isn’t quite the level of power I’m facing now, so I huff out a sigh and cross the street to stand in front of my uncle.

  Like a fucking child.

  Gods, this sucks.

  “Uncle,” I say, inclining my head.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve seen you, nephew.”

  I shrug, not bothering to deny it.

  What, after all, is there to deny? I fled. I broke my own laws, went insane and fled Olympus.

  Doesn’t matter that the other gods followed less than a century later, and scattered around the globe, finding power and their own faithful where they could. Doesn’t matter because I left before Father and his brothers could do it first.

  I left and I took Artemis with me.

  “Why are you here?” I ask, picking at my nail. The polish on my thumb is chipping, and I scratch at it absently. Watch him from the corner of my eye.

  My uncle is, strangely, unchanged. He looks the same as he did the last time I saw him, in the Hall of Olympus, while my family screamed and fought.

  His eyes, maybe, are a little bit more tired than they were, then.

  Poseidon has always favored the guise of a middle-aged fisherman, with the weathered, craggy skin of a man who spends his time on the wind-tossed waves, with long, black hair streaked with gray that tangles in his face, and sharp eyes the color of the waves where the water gets deep and dark—the dangerous part of the ocean where Poseidon and his daughters have always lived.

  Vaguely, I wonder what happened to Atlantis and my cousins. If they are still alive below the waves.

  “This is a port city. My ocean feeds it. I’m more welcome here than you,” he says easily, his smile tight.

  Poseidon is a territorial bastard. Probably because Father fucked him over when he took the crown of Olympus.

  I thumb over my cards, and tilt my head back.

  Music swells and the cl
ouds shift, and I stand for a shining heartbeat in a sunbeam, my hair alight with it, and the music of the city thrumming through my veins, and I laugh at the sheer ecstasy of it. Poseidon huffs a little, and I grin as I blink at him. When the power thrums through me this strong, I can almost convince myself I’m not insane. That the burden of prophecy hasn’t driven me completely batshit over the years.

  I grin at him. “I’m perfectly at ease with my power here, Uncle.”

  “You’re still a fucking showoff, you know that?”

  I smirk, because duh. I’m a fucking god, for fuck’s sake.

  “Your father would like to see you.”

  “Would he?” I ask, lazily. I pull the cards from my pocket, and shuffle them, spinning one over my fingers as Poseidon shifts on the busy sidewalk. “How is Zeus? Still kicking it? Not many pray to the god of thunder these days.”

  Poseidon’s lips tighten. I’ve pissed him off.

  Not terribly surprising. I’ve always been good at pissing off the relatives. Got even better at it when I went crazy.

  “We need you,” Poseidon says instead of addressing my question.

  A familiar voice, one that has echoed in my head for longer than my madness echoes now. I cackle as it does, and it almost drowns her out.

  You will be their ruin and salvation, and it will be your end.

  I shiver and shake and the cards feel loose and precarious in my hands.

  I feel like I am one stiff wind away from blowing to pieces, and I won’t do that. Not here. Not in front of my stern-eyed uncle and his constant hope that I will falter.

  I smile at him, and it’s a mad hatter grin, before I turn on my heel.

  Poseidon shouts my name, and it sounds like the roar of the wind and the crash of the waves, beating futile against the shore, as I leave him behind.

  I wasn’t lying. I love Seattle because it feels like mine. So, teetering on the edge of madness, with the burn of prophecy on my tongue, I take to the streets, and wander.

  Artemis says that it’s because she is the goddess of the hunt, and I am the god of the sun, and both are prone to wander, that we like to move around so much. I shrug and let her spin her theories. My sister is very good at filling up the empty spaces with emptier words. I’ve learned over the years to let the her and to ignore the words she spins like silver moonbeams.

  She isn’t Hermes, with his fucking gilded tongue, who could talk his way into or out of anything. But she is a goddess, and sister or no, they’ve always been tricky bitches.

  Still. It’s been almost a year since my sister came to visit me, and I miss her.

  It’ll be good to see her.

  Later.

  For now, I tuck my cards back into my pocket and lean my head back, letting the scent of fish and coffee and the icy wind off the ocean wash over me.

  I smile, a little drunk on the scents of everything, and turn toward the heart of the city.

  The thing I love about Seattle is that it takes itself too damn seriously.

  The coffee. The startups. The hipster poets who glare from behind their wide-framed glasses. Even the fisherman on the wharves.

  Everyone here takes themselves so fucking serious it’s almost funny. I grin into my scarf, and tug my beanie down over my ears, and walk, letting all of the beauty of this crazy, fucking city wash over me as I walk.

  And if music and poetry seems to flourish in my wake—well, I can’t do anything about that. Except hide my smirk and whistle a little as I let the city I call home worship at my feet.

  It’s late that evening, when I finally stumble home. I spent most of the afternoon slipping from one coffee shop to the next, listening to the thoughts of the humans there. Listening to the poetry and the thrum of power it shook loose in my chest.

  And to the voice whispering all of the futures for me, until I squeezed my eyes closed against the icepick intrusion and shoved a padded headset over my ears, and turned up the little iPod I never went anywhere without.

  It’s a far cry from my lyre, but it does the job, when I need it to.

  It sends me spiraling into the oblivion that I need.

  Music keeps the voices from being overwhelming and I drink it down like it’s worship.

  I am the god of the sun, which I am most remembered for. And the god of prophecy. My girls at Delphi earned quite a reputation. What people often forget is I am the god of plague and poem and song, of healing.

  I could lose myself there. In the hospitals. But.

  My power has been dicey since I went off the deep end of sanity a few centuries ago. I prefer to not trigger a pandemic, so I avoid the hospitals, and only toy with the dying that Artie brings me when I hunt at her side.

  It’s enough, to sate the hungry thrum for more that side of my power evokes.

  But not enough to do real damage.

  I almost expect my sister to be in my little apartment when I shove the door open, but it’s quiet and empty. Artemis is taking her time then. Or maybe I didn’t spiral as completely out of control as I first thought, when I was lost in prophecy and raving.

  I frown into the darkness, but I’m too tired, and my thoughts are spinning too quickly for me think about Artie and why she isn’t here.

  So I ignore her absence, strip out of my clothes and fall into bed.

  I’m asleep before I hit the pillow.

  I wake to the scent of death and windblown mountains and icy heat against my back. I roll in bed and look at my sister, sitting cross-legged next to me, her back against my headboard.

  Artemis has changed. Last time I saw her, she had long black hair and a loose flowing top that reminded me of the seventies and the hippies who drew me with achingly beautiful song.

  Now though.

  I grin up at her. “You look good, sis.”

  She smiles at me, her eyes shining in the moonlight that seems stronger with her at my side. “You look like shit.”

  I laugh and lean against her leather clad leg.

  She’s dressed in black leather, her hair shining silver, cut brutally short and spiky. Silver hoops dangle from her ears, and a beaten collar wraps around her throat.

  I sigh as her fingers thread through my hair, and murmur into her leg. “I’ve missed you, Artie.”

  She hums a soft acknowledgement, and I don’t need her to respond. Don’t need to hear her tell me that she’s missed me too. I know.

  I let her fingers play through my hair as the tension that’s been keeping me wound tight unspools. Until I fall asleep like that.

  The first thing I can remember is a quicksilver smile and sharp teeth.

  For a god who has lived for millennia, it is easy to forget things. It’s expected, even. But I’ve never forgotten that.

  I’ve never forgotten that before I knew the heat of the sun or the rhythm of the lyre or the whisper of poetry, I knew the flash of white teeth and silver eyes and my sister’s heartbeat, a steady pulse echoing behind mine.

  Olympus was full of gods and goddesses. Some with little power. Some who were strong enough, almost, to challenge even Father and his brothers. But there were none quite like me and Artemis.

  We were twins, and we needed each other. I was the Sun God; she was the Goddess of Moon.

  We had other aspects, of course. The hunt and childbirth and chastity. Music and healing and prophecy. But the true strength of our powers came from the sun and the moon, and in that, we would always mirror each other. Always need each other.

  Always clash, and fall apart and come back together.

  We weren’t so different from my father and his brothers, except that we did love each other, which I can’t say with any certainty that they ever did.

  I remember Mother, too.

  I remember our drifting island and that we were happy there. Even then, Artemis was temperamental, her moods waxing and waning with the moon, and I was, in Mother’s words, as bright as light.

  I learned to hunt there, with my sister.

  I learned to heal, af
ter she shot a stag and I found it first, bellowing for breath and dying. I tugged the arrow from its side and whispered softly to it until power spilled like sunlight from me and the stag snorted and bolted away from me.

  Artemis found me, there, on my knees, with blood on my hands and she knew I had stolen her prize. She was furious, had raged for days until Mother quietly calmed her and explained that I was her opposite.

  She would kill.

  I would heal.

  That was our eternal dance.

  When Mother finally grew tired of Hera’s weak attempts to kill her, she sent us to Father and left.

  We never saw her after that.

  Sometimes I hated her for that. For leaving us to Hera’s fury and Olympus’ machinations.

  But even then, we were more powerful than Leto and we were happy with each other.

  So when we found ourselves in Olympus, being watched by the other gods.

  It was easy and effortless to lean into my sister’s power, and for her to lean into mine.

  Together, we were as strong as Father and his brothers, and none dared touch us.

  And we were never not together.

  Chapter 4.

  When I wake up, Artemis has deserted my bed. She’s changed into one of my t-shirts, an old band shirt I picked up at a concert a decade or so ago. It hangs off one of her shoulders, and I see the massive stag head tattooed on her back. She got that done a few years ago, when I got my raven. It’s a massive, gorgeous piece that makes me smile every time I see it.

  I watch her now, and it feels like the stag watches me back.

  “Don’t annoy him,” she says, without looking away from where she’s dicing onions. I can smell the fatty bacon she’s frying and my stomach rumbles. I didn’t eat yesterday, more content to wander around the city without pausing for anything more than coffee.

  She nudges a loaf of bread at me. “Make toast.”

  I do, and avoid staring at her back tattoo. My arm brushes hers, and she shivers a little—my raven greeting her.

  Most people get a tattoo and it’s just that. A tattoo.

  But Artie and I aren’t most people. We’re gods, and the raven on my shoulder, the stag on her back. They’re symbols and living pieces of our power.