To readingbooksforlife- Thank you! ^_^
To 8Ball3- I AM ONE OF SIX. I HAVE THREE BROTHERS, TWO SISTERS AND A HEADACHE THE SIZE OF ANTARTICA. I like that headcanon about Santa being a wizard from the Harry Potter world :3 Reyna's power is really clever, hats off to Rick! XD Apollo gets so much character development in this one, I'm so proud of him. I can't wait to read ToN, but it's the last one! :'(
Apollo added 'destroying fasces to cut free an angry god' to his list of bad ideas. Reyna and Meg moved cautiously, approaching Harpocrates as though he was a wild animal cornered. They stood either side of him, raising their blades. Together, they silently counted to three.
It was almost as if the fasces had been waiting to explode. Despite Reyna's earlier protests that Imperial gold blades might take forever to hack through Imperial gold chains, their swords cut through the cords and cables as if they were nothing but illusions.
Their blades hit the fasces and shattered them- sending bundles of rods blasting into splinters, shafts breaking and golden crescents toppling to the floor. The girls jumped back, surprised by their own success.
Harpocrates looked at Apollo and gave a thin, cruel smile. Without a sound, the fetters on his hands and feet cracked and fell away, like spring ice. The remaining cables and chains shrivelled and blackened, curling against the walls. The god stretched out his free hand, a gesture Apollo understood as Sssh, I'm about to kill you. The two golden axe blades flew into his grip. His fingers turned white hot, the metal dribbling through his fingers and pooling on the floor.
Well, Apollo's thoughts squeaked, this is going great.
The god plucked the glass jar from his lap, raising it on his fingertips like a crystal ball. Apollo had a scary, heart-stopping moment- was he going to give the jar the golden axe treatment?
No.
Harpocrates, instead, assaulted his mind with new images.
He saw a eurynomos lope in to Harpocrates's prison, the glass jar tucked under one arm. The ghoul's mouth slavered, eyes glowing purple. Harpocrates thrashed in his chains. It seemed he had not been in this box very long. He wanted to crush the monster with silence, but the ghoul remained unaffected. Its body was being driven by another mind, far away in the tyrant's tomb.
I brought you a friend, Tarquin's voice snarked, try not to break her.
He tossed the jar to his prisoner, who caught it out of surprise. Tarquin's ghoul limped away, chuckling evilly, chaining the doors behind it.
Alone in the dark, Harpocrates's first thought was to smash the jar. Anything from Tarquin had to be a trap, or poison, or something worse. But his curiosity won out. A friend? He had never had one of those before. He wasn't sure he understood the concept.
He could sense a living force inside the jar: weak, sad, fading, but alive and possibly more ancient than he was. He opened the lid. The faintest voice began to speak to him, cutting straight through his silence as if it didn't exist.
After so many millennia, Harpocrates- the silent god who was never supposed to exist- had almost forgotten sound. He wept with joy. The god and the Sibyl began to converse. They both knew they were prisoners, pawns in a large game the emperors were playing with their new ally, Tarquin. Like Harpocrates, Sibyl had refused to cooperate with her captors. She would tell them nothing of the future. Why would she? She was beyond pain and suffering. She had nothing left to lose and longed only to die.
The silent god shared the feeling. He was tired of spending millennia slowly wasting away, waiting until he was obscure enough, forgotten by all humankind, so he could cease to exist altogether. His life had always been bitter- a never-ending parade of disappointments, bullying and ridicule. Now he wanted sleep. The eternal sleep of extinct gods.
They shared stories. They bonded over their hatred of Apollo. They realised Tarquin wanted this to happen. He had thrown them together, hoping they would become friends, so he could use them as leverage against the other. But they could not help their feelings.
Wait, Apollo interrupted, are you two… together? He shouldn't have asked, he hadn't meant to send such an incredulous thought. A silent god falling in love with a voice in a glass jar? It astounded him.
Harpocrates's rage pressed down on him, making his knees buckle. He almost blacked out, but the god did not let it happen. He wanted his old bully to be conscious, able to suffer. He flooded him with bitterness and hate. Apollo's joints began to unknit, his vocal chords dissolving. Harpocrates may have been ready to die, but that didn't mean he wouldn't kill him first. That would bring him the greatest satisfaction.
Fine, Apollo thought, I deserve it. Just spare my friends, please.
The pressure eased. He glanced up through a haze of pain.
In front of him, Meg and Reyna stood shoulder to shoulder, facing down the god. They sent him their own flurry of images. Reyna showed him singing the tale of his and Meg's travels and tragedies, showed him suffering and slowing under the poison in his veins and then looking abundantly goofy and awkward and clueless as he offered to be her boyfriend- despite the fact that she had a girlfriend- and giving her the best, most cleansing laugh she had had in gods knew how long.
Meg pictured the way he had saved her in the myrmekes' lair at Camp Half-Blood, singing about his romantic failures with such honesty, it rendered giant ants catatonic with depression. She envisioned his kindness to Livia the elephant, to Crest and especially to her, when he had given her a hug in their room at the café and told her that he would never give up trying.
Together, they shared more disasters- watching from the unicorn training pen as he taught archery and was shot at by the crazy lady flooding the make-shift ships. Tripping over as he moved through the audience at the senate meeting. Slipping and falling over on his own spent arrow. Marvelling at Tyson, the Cyclops far too eager to remove his shirt in public to show off his tattoo of Rainbow the fish pony and then Louisa's incredulousness at her baby brother's inked body.
In all their memories, he looked so human… but in the best possible ways. Without words, his friends had asked Harpocrates if he was still the person he hated so much.
The god scowled, considering the two young women.
Then a small voice spoke, actually spoke, from inside the sealed glass jar.
"Enough."
As faint and as muffled as her voice was, Apollo should not have been able to hear it. Only the utter silence of the shipping container made her audible, though how she cut through Harpocrates's dampening field, he had no idea. It was definitely the Sibyl. He recognised her defiant tone, the same way she sounded centuries before, when she vowed never to love him until every grain of sand ran out: Come back to me at the end of that time. Then, if you still want me, I'm yours.
Now, here they were. At the wrong end of forever, neither in the right form to choose the other.
Harpocrates regarded the jar, his expression saddening and plaintive. He seemed to ask, Are you sure?
"This is what I have foreseen." The Sibyl whispered. "At last, we will rest." A new image appeared in Apollo's mind- verses from the Sibylline Books, purple letters against white skin, so bright it made him squint. Add the last breath of the god who speaks not, once his soul is cut free, together with the shattered glass.
Harpocrates must have seen the words too, judging from the way he winced. Apollo waited for him to process their meaning, to get angry again, to decide that if anyone's soul should be cut free, it should be his, Apollo's.
As a god, Apollo had hardly thought about the passage of time. A few centuries here and there never mattered to him. Now, he considered just how long ago the Sibyl had written those lines, scribbled in the original Sibylline Books back when Rome was just a puny kingdom. Had she known then what those words meant? Had she known she would end up as just a voice in a jar, stuck in a dark metal box with her boyfriend who smelled like roses and looked like a withered ten-year-old with a bowling-pin crown?
The god lifted the jar up, peering into it, perhaps having a private telepathic conversation with his beloved Sibyl. Reyna and Meg shifted, doing their best to block Apollo from the god's line of sight. It was a little awkward, peeking around their legs, but he was so drained and light-headed, he doubted he could stand.
Not a single part of him believed Harpocrates would simply surrender, hand over what little remained of his life to the ex-god who had hurt him so. Even less so would Harpocrates let them take the Sibyl's jar and shatter it for their ritual. They had found love. Why would they want to die?
Finally, Harpocrates nodded. His face tightening with concentration, he pulled his index finger from his mouth, lifted the jar to his lips and gave it a gentle kiss. Then he twisted off the lid.
"Goodbye, Apollo." The Sibyl's voice was clearer now, decided. "I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. Not for your sake at all. But because I will not go into oblivion carrying hate when I can carry love." Apollo was stunned, wordless for a new reason. Her tone asked for no reply, no apology. She didn't need or want anything from him. It was almost as if he was the one being erased.
Harpocrates met his eye. Resentment still smouldered behind his face, but Apollo could tell he was trying to let go. The effort seemed even harder than keeping his hand from his mouth.
Without meaning to, Apollo asked, Why are you doing this? How can you just agree to die?
It was in his interest that he did so, but it made no sense. He had found another soul to live for. Apollo didn't know if he could handle anyone else sacrificing themselves for his quests.
He understood now, better than he ever had, why dying was sometimes necessary. As a mortal, he had made that choice just a few minutes ago in order to save his friends. But a god agreeing to cease his existence, especially when he was free and in love? No. He didn't understand that.
Harpocrates gave him a dry smirk. Apollo's confusion, his sense of near panic, must have given the silent god what he needed to finally stop being angry at him. Of the two of them, he was the wiser god. He understood something Apollo did not. He certainly wasn't going to give him any answers.
The god sent him one final image: him, Apollo, at an altar, making a sacrifice to the heavens. It came through as an order- make this worth it. Do not fail.
Then, Harpocrates exhaled deeply. They watched, shocked, as he began to crumble, his face cracking, his crown collapsing like a sandcastle turret. His last breath a silver glimmer of fading life force, swirled into the glass jar to be with the Sibyl. He had just enough time to twist the lid closed before his arms and chest turned to chunks of dust.
And that was it. Harpocrates was gone.
Reyna lunged forward, catching the jar before it could hit the floor.
"That was close." She said, which was how they realised the silence had been broken.
Everything seemed too loud- breathing, the sizzle of severed electrical wires, the creaking of the container's walls in the wind.
Meg still had the skin tone of a legume. She stared at the jar in Reyna's hand, as if worried it might explode.
"Are they…?"
"I think-" Apollo choked on his words. He dabbed at his face, finding his cheeks were wet. "I think they're gone. Permanently. Harpocrates's last breath is all that remains in the jar now." Reyna peered through the glass.
"But the Sibyl…?" She turned to face him and almost dropped the jar. "My gods, Apollo. You look terrible."
"A horror show, yes. I remember."
"No, I mean it's worse now. The infection. When did that happen?" Reyna grimaced. He couldn't tell if it was from concern or disgust. He didn't get to decipher it, Meg grabbing his shoulder painfully and squinting at his face.
"Oh, yuck. We gotta get you healed quick."
"Help me up please." He requested. It took both of them to do so. He could feel no pain from his stomach wound, but that did not mean anything good. It could simply be his nervous system shutting down.
In the process of standing, he put a hand on the floor to brace himself, amid the shattered fasces rods, and gave himself a splinter, in his palm. He sighed- how typical.
He wobbled on spongy legs, leaning on Reyna, then on Meg, trying to remember how to stand. He didn't want to look at the glass jar, but he couldn't help it. There was no sign of Harpocrates's silvery life force inside. He had to have faith that his last breath was still there.
As for the Sibyl, he could not sense her presence. Her final grain of sand had slipped away. She had chosen to exit the universe with Harpocrates- one last shared experience between two unlikely lovers.
"How could they…?" Reyna shivered. "Can a god do that? Just… choose to stop existing?" Apollo didn't answer. He didn't know. When Harpocrates had given him that last dry smile, had he been hinting that someday he would understand? Someday, would even the Olympians be forgotten relics, yearning for non-existence?
He used his nails to pull the splinter from his palm. Blood pooled- regular, red human blood. It ran down the groove of his lifeline, which was not a great omen. "W-we need to get back." Reyna said. "We have to help the others, I have to find Lou." She scowled, shaking her head. Their telepathic communication was gone, but Apollo could still envision her throttling her girlfriend.
He startled when she frowned at him suddenly, terrified that she could see his thoughts. Instead of smacking him, she asked, "Can you move?"
"Ssh." Meg interrupted, putting a finger to her lips. Apollo's first thought was that she was doing the most inappropriate Harpocrates impersonation ever. Then he realised she was quite serious. His newly sensitive ears picked up on what she was hearing- the faint, distant cries of angry birds.
The ravens were returning.
