The walk back to the throne room occurred in a silence so dense that Percy could have cut it with Riptide. Aphrodite's words reverberated in his mind like funeral bells, exposing truths that he wasn't prepared to face. Beside him, Artemis maintained an indecipherable expression, her silver eyes fixed on the horizon, her posture rigid like an animal prepared to flee or attack.
"You've been unusually quiet," Percy finally said, unable to bear the tension any longer. "Considering you just witnessed three goddesses trying to bribe me in increasingly creative ways."
Artemis glanced at him sidelong, a flash of something—amusement? unease?—briefly crossing her face.
"What do you expect me to say, Percy Jackson?" Her voice was soft, almost intimate. "That I pity you? That I admire your resistance? Or perhaps you prefer that I comment on Aphrodite's... observations?"
Percy felt his face burning, mentally thanking the Olympian twilight's dimness that concealed his blush.
"I'd prefer some useful advice, to be honest," he murmured. "I'm about to mortally offend at least two all-powerful goddesses."
A fleeting smile, barely perceptible, curved Artemis's lips.
"You've survived Tartarus, Percy Jackson. You'll survive this."
"Tartarus was physically horrible," replied Percy. "This is psychologically torturous. At least there I knew who the monsters were."
They stopped before the enormous doors of the throne room, which gleamed with an unnatural golden brilliance. A murmur of voices filtered from within, the anticipated buzz of immortals thirsty for drama.
"One last question," said Percy, turning to face Artemis directly. "If you were in my place, what would you do?"
The goddess studied him for a long moment, her silver eyes unfathomable like the surface of a nocturnal lake.
"I would follow my instinct," she finally responded. "Not what logic dictates, nor fear, not even duty. Mortals have something that we gods lost eons ago, Percy: the capacity to surprise."
With these cryptic words, Artemis pushed the doors, which opened with a reverberating groan.
All of Olympus was waiting.
The throne room had been transformed into a circus spectacle. The improvised stands overflowed with minor deities, nymphs, satyrs, and other immortal beings who murmured excitedly. An artificial golden light bathed the central scene, where three pedestals awaited, each decorated with the symbols of the competing goddesses.
Percy advanced down the central aisle like a condemned man toward the guillotine, conscious of every pair of eyes fixed on him. The Olympian gods occupied their respective thrones, their expressions oscillating between morbid anticipation and genuine concern.
Zeus, on his central throne, seemed to have aged millennia in a few hours. Small electrical discharges occasionally jumped from his temples, and a vein visibly pulsed on his forehead. Beside him, Poseidon observed Percy with a mixture of paternal pride and fatalistic resignation, like a father watching his son voluntarily march toward an impossible battle.
Apollo, casually reclined on his solar throne, maintained an enigmatic smile, his eyes jumping between Percy and his twin sister with an expression suggesting he was watching a particularly interesting chess match. Hermes, nervously perched on the edge of his seat, furiously typed on what appeared to be a celestial betting device.
But most disturbing was Dionysus, who had conjured an enormous bucket of purple popcorn and was devouring it with the enthusiasm of a spectator at a film premiere.
"Welcome back, Perseus Jackson," thundered Zeus, his voice reverberating through the chamber. "You have completed your interviews with the candidates."
It wasn't a question, but Percy nodded anyway.
"Yes, Lord Zeus."
"Excellent," continued the king of the gods, although his expression suggested he found the situation anything but excellent. "The contestants will now take their positions for the final judgment."
As if summoned by his words, the three goddesses appeared simultaneously in the center of the hall. Aphrodite in a cloud of perfume and rose petals, Athena in a flash of golden light, and Hera in a beam of energy that made the ground tremble slightly.
The three radiated power and beauty in forms so distinct that Percy wondered how anyone could compare them objectively. It was like trying to decide if the ocean was more beautiful than the stars, or if a storm surpassed a sunrise in beauty.
Artemis, meanwhile, advanced silently toward her silver throne, which shone with moonlight even under the artificial illumination of the hall. Upon taking her seat, her eyes momentarily crossed with Percy's, transmitting a message he couldn't decipher but which made his heart inexplicably accelerate.
Zeus struck his bolt against the floor, provoking a burst of thunder that instantly silenced the murmur of the crowd.
"Perseus Jackson," he announced with gravity. "The moment of your decision has arrived. The apple, please."
With fingers that felt strangely numb, Percy took the golden apple from his pocket. Under the lights of Olympus, the object seemed to vibrate with its own energy, the words engraved on its surface—"For the fairest"—pulsing like a living heart.
Hera was the first to step forward, her posture radiating unquestionable authority.
"Son of Poseidon," her voice resonated with the force of a thousand matrimonial oaths. "I have offered you power and stability. A place among the greatest rulers of history. The opportunity to forge a new order, superior even to the current one." Her gaze momentarily drifted toward Zeus, who visibly tensed. "What more could you desire?"
Before Percy could respond, Athena advanced, her gray eyes shining with almost painful intensity.
"Power without wisdom is a sword in the hands of a child," she declared, her voice as sharp as honed crystal. "I have offered you the supreme gift: liberation from the mental limitations imposed on mortals. Unlimited knowledge. Total comprehension." Her gaze turned penetrating. "The beauty of the mind surpasses any physical or political beauty."
Aphrodite laughed musically, a sound so enchanting that several spectators involuntarily sighed.
"Darlings," she intervened, her voice like honey poured over velvet. "Power fades. Knowledge is forgotten." She directed a look at Percy that made his knees threaten to give way. "But love... love transcends time, space, even divine oaths. I have offered you freedom, Percy Jackson. Freedom to pursue what your heart truly desires, no matter how... forbidden it may seem."
Her eyes deliberately drifted toward Artemis, whose expression remained inscrutable.
The silence that followed was so absolute that Percy could hear the beat of his own heart pounding in his ears. He looked at the apple in his hand, aware that he held the mythological equivalent of a nuclear grenade.
"You must choose now, demigod," ordered Zeus, his patience clearly running out. "Olympus cannot remain in this limbo any longer."
Percy breathed deeply, trying to order his thoughts. Each offer was tempting in its own way, but all came with invisible strings, hidden manipulations that he detected but didn't completely understand.
"Well?" pressed Hera, her voice acquiring a dangerous edge. "Whom will you choose, Perseus Jackson? Who is, in your mortal judgment, the fairest?"
Percy looked at each goddess alternately. Hera, majestic and terrible in her perfection. Athena, imposing in her intellectual beauty. Aphrodite, literally dazzling in her embodiment of desire itself.
All beautiful. All powerful. All potentially lethal to him if he chose incorrectly.
And then, almost against his will, his gaze drifted toward Artemis. The goddess of the hunt observed the scene with apparent disinterest, but something in the tension of her shoulders, in the way her fingers slightly gripped the armrests of her throne, captured Percy's attention.
Unlike the other goddesses, Artemis wasn't trying to impress anyone. She hadn't adopted a form designed to seduce or intimidate. She simply... was. Wild and free, like the moon itself, following its own path across the firmament without worrying about others' opinions or expectations.
In that moment, like lightning cutting through fog, clarity struck Percy. Artemis's words resonated in his mind: "Observe what they do, not what they say."
What the three goddesses were doing was competing according to rules established by others. They were trying to conform to an ancient pattern, even while affirming their individuality. They were following a script written eons ago.
But Artemis... Artemis danced to her own rhythm.
"Well?" Hera's voice cut through his thoughts. "Answer at once, demigod!"
Percy raised his gaze, suddenly sure of what he must do. It was risky, possibly suicidal, but instinctively he knew it was the only honest answer he could give.
"I have made my decision," he announced, his voice surprisingly firm.
An expectant silence fell over the hall.
Percy stepped forward, holding the golden apple before him.
"I choose Artemis."
The silence that followed was so deep, so absolute, that Percy could have sworn time itself stopped. Then, like a wave breaking against cliffs, chaos exploded in the hall.
"WHAT?!" the simultaneous cry of the three competing goddesses shook the foundations of Olympus.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" roared Hera, her form beginning to glow dangerously.
"UNACCEPTABLE!" exclaimed Athena, while an aura of gray energy pulsed around her.
"INCONCEIVABLE!" shrieked Aphrodite, rose petals transforming into thorns at her feet.
Zeus had risen from his throne, his expression oscillating between incredulity and horror. Poseidon seemed to have choked on something, while Apollo... Apollo was laughing. Laughing so hard that golden tears ran down his cheeks.
Dionysus spat out a handful of popcorn, babbling incoherently.
"SILENCE!" thundered Zeus, and this time his bolt struck the floor with such force that small cracks formed in the marble. "Perseus Jackson, explain yourself immediately!"
Percy swallowed, but maintained his stance. Now that he had made his decision, a strange calm invaded him.
"The rules say that I must deliver the apple to the goddess I consider fairest," he said, surprised by the serenity of his own voice. "And for me, true beauty is not in the power you promise, Hera, nor in the wisdom you offer, Athena, not even in the passion you represent, Aphrodite."
He took a step toward Artemis's throne, whose eyes had widened imperceptibly.
"Beauty is in freedom," he continued. "In being true to your own nature, regardless of what the world expects of you. In walking your own path under the stars." He raised the apple, which now shone with almost blinding intensity. "And no one embodies that freedom like Artemis."
He stopped before the throne of the goddess of the hunt, extending the apple to her.
"I don't choose you for what you might offer me," he said, his eyes fixed on hers. "I choose you for what you are."
The silence that followed his words was so absolute that it could have been a physical entity in the hall. Percy remained with his arm extended, the apple offered, while all of Olympus held its breath.
Slowly, with a movement so fluid that it seemed almost liquid, Artemis rose from her throne. Her face was a perfect mask, but her eyes... her eyes shone with something that made Percy's heart stop for an instant.
It wasn't surprise. It wasn't confusion.
It was satisfaction. The satisfaction of a predator watching its prey walk directly into the perfectly placed trap.
Her fingers closed around the apple, deliberately brushing Percy's in the process. A shiver ran down his spine at the contact.
"Interesting choice, Percy Jackson," murmured Artemis, her voice barely audible but somehow resonating in every corner of his being. "Unexpected for everyone... except, perhaps, for me."
Before Percy could process the meaning of these words, chaos broke out again.
"THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!" bellowed Hera, her divine form threatening to fully manifest. "The competition was between us three! Artemis wasn't even a contestant!"
"A flagrant violation of the established parameters!" added Athena, her gray eyes glowing dangerously. "The demigod has corrupted the process with his ignorance!"
Aphrodite, however, had stopped shouting. She observed Percy and Artemis with an expression of growing comprehension, which slowly transformed into something between admiration and horror.
"Oh..." she murmured, an incredulous smile forming on her perfect lips. "Oh, this is... exquisite. Absolutely exquisite."
Zeus struck his bolt against the floor repeatedly, trying to reestablish order. Poseidon had risen too, subtly positioning himself closer to Percy, as if anticipating the need for a quick evacuation.
"ORDER!" demanded Zeus. "ORDER IN THE COUNCIL!"
Gradually, the tumult subsided, though the tension remained so dense that Percy found it difficult to breathe.
Zeus looked at Percy with a mixture of incredulity and something that could have been, surprisingly, a flash of reluctant respect.
"Perseus Jackson," he said, his voice strangely controlled. "You have made an unprecedented choice."
"Technically incorrect," intervened Hera, her voice vibrating with barely contained fury. "Artemis was not eligible."
"Technically," interrupted Hermes, quickly consulting a golden scroll, "the original rules of the judgment don't specify that the choice must be limited to the declared contenders. They only establish that the apple must be delivered to 'the fairest.'"
"An irrelevant technicality," replied Athena coldly. "The intention was clear."
"The intention, perhaps," intervened Artemis, speaking for the first time since receiving the apple, which she now casually held as if it were an unimportant trinket. "But rules are rules. And the gods, above all, must respect them. Isn't that right, father?"
Zeus seemed to be experiencing the migraine of the millennium. His eyes moved from Artemis to the three furious goddesses, to Percy, and back to Artemis, as if searching for a solution that didn't exist.
"This requires... deliberation," he said finally. "The Council must discuss the implications of this... unusual decision."
"There's nothing to discuss!" exclaimed Hera. "Let's simply force him to choose among the proper candidates!"
"Or transform him into something appropriately miserable," suggested Athena, her casual tone chillingly contrasting with her words. "A medusa, perhaps. Or a hermit crab."
Percy swallowed, suddenly very aware of his mortality.
"If I may," Apollo's voice cut through the tension, his tone surprisingly serious given that minutes before he had been laughing hysterically. "I think we should consider the broader implications of this situation."
All eyes turned to the sun god, who had risen from his throne and now walked casually toward the center of the hall.
"The story of the original judgment," he continued, his voice acquiring the melodious tone he used for reciting poetry, "ended in war and destruction. Paris's choice, dictated by bribery, unleashed a conflict that lasted a decade." He paused, looking directly at Percy. "But here we have something new: a choice based not on what the goddess might offer, but on what the goddess is. A choice, one could argue, of unprecedented purity."
Percy blinked, surprised to find a defender in Apollo of all deities.
"Interesting perspective, son," conceded Zeus, thoughtfully stroking his beard. "Though it doesn't resolve our immediate dilemma."
"NO!" Aphrodite's voice cut through the air like a perfumed whip, surprising everyone with its vehemence. "There will be no recesses, no private deliberations." Her eyes, now the exact color of fire, fixed on Artemis. "Not until we understand exactly what has happened here."
Zeus, clearly irritated by the interruption, glared at the goddess of love.
"Aphrodite, the Council will determine how to proceed..."
"Don't you see it, Zeus?" interrupted Aphrodite, her beauty dangerously intensifying with her anger. "This is not coincidence. This is not a simple mortal whim."
Artemis remained perfectly still, the golden apple gleaming in her hand. Her face was an impenetrable mask, but Percy noticed how her fingers tensed imperceptibly around the golden fruit.
Hera narrowed her eyes, her calculating gaze alternating between Artemis and Percy.
"Explain yourself, Aphrodite," she demanded.
The goddess of love emitted a laugh without joy, a sound that made the hairs on Percy's neck stand on end.
"Isn't it obvious? Think. Who arranged the invitations for Hermes' party? Who 'forgot' to invite Eris? Who suggested that Percy be the judge? Who offered herself as a 'neutral observer'?" With each question, her voice became more accusatory. "Who has been hosting him in her temple, feeding him who knows what potions and spells?"
A murmur of comprehension began to spread through the hall. Zeus visibly tensed, while Poseidon leaned forward in his throne, his expression darkening like a sea before a storm.
"The huntress has been the hunter!" exclaimed Aphrodite, dramatically pointing at Artemis. "All of this has been an elaborate trap!"
Percy looked at Artemis, expecting an immediate denial. But the goddess remained silent, her silver eyes as imperturbable as the surface of a calm lake.
"Artemis?" Zeus's voice rumbled, charged with suspicion. "Do you have anything to say about these accusations?"
Slowly, with the deliberate grace of a predator that no longer needs to hide, Artemis stepped forward. An almost imperceptible smile curved the corners of her lips.
"Accusations, father?" Her voice was soft as velvet. "Or recognition of a cleanly won victory?"
The silence that followed was so deep that Percy could have sworn he heard the collective heartbeat of every immortal heart in the room.
"Are you... confessing?" asked Athena, her tone oscillating between incredulity and reluctant professional admiration.
"I am declaring," corrected Artemis, spinning the apple between her fingers with casual elegance. "For eons we have played according to rules established by others. Rules that always favored certain types of power, certain types of beauty." Her eyes rested on each of the three rejected goddesses. "I decided to change the rules."
Zeus rose from his throne, his divine form threatening to manifest in his fury.
"This is treachery to the Council! An intolerable manipulation!"
"Treachery?" Artemis arched a perfect eyebrow. "Or superior strategy? Aphrodite manipulates hearts, Athena manipulates minds, Hera manipulates destinies. I simply manipulated... the situation."
Percy watched the exchange with growing horror and fascination. Each of Artemis's words confirmed what his instinct had begun to suspect: he had been a pawn in a game much larger and older than he had imagined.
"You..." he managed to articulate, his voice barely audible. "All of this was..."
Artemis turned to him, and for the first time, Percy saw in her eyes something that had never been there before: a flash of genuine vulnerability, quickly masked by her usual calculated coldness.
"A plan, yes," she confirmed. "But it doesn't mean that your choice was false, Percy Jackson."
Hera advanced, her fury manifesting in a golden aura that crackled in the air around her.
"The apple was for us three!" she snapped. "A contest between primordial deities, not a game for a minor goddess to satisfy her... whims!"
"Whims?" Artemis's voice acquired a dangerous edge. "Is that what you believe, Hera? That this is a simple whim?"
In a fluid movement, she turned and approached Percy, stopping so close that he could feel the silver aura emanating from her, fresh as the first frost of winter.
"Tell me, Percy Jackson," she said, her voice barely a whisper that, nevertheless, resonated throughout the hall. "Why did you really choose me?"
Percy looked at her, suddenly aware that his answer would not only determine his own fate, but could alter the balance of power in Olympus forever. Behind Artemis, he could see the other gods literally holding their breath, the air charged with divine tension.
"Because..." he began, unsure of how to articulate something that he barely understood himself. "Because you are real." The words emerged spontaneously, unfiltered. "Because while the other gods try to fit into molds created by others, you... simply are. Wild and untamable, like the moon itself."
A spark of something—surprise? emotion?—shone in Artemis's silver eyes, so fleeting that Percy could have imagined it.
"And if I told you," she continued, her voice strangely tense, "that all of this began as a game? That I manipulated events, people, even you, simply because I could?"
Percy held her gaze.
"I would tell you that motives change. That even the most skilled hunters can be surprised by their own prey."
From his throne, Apollo let out a delighted laugh.
"Oh, this is better than any tragedy I've inspired," he commented, ignoring the killer look his sister shot him. "The eternal huntress, caught in her own trap!"
"SILENCE!" thundered Zeus, striking his bolt against the floor with such force that electrical sparks jumped in all directions. "This has gone too far. Artemis, you will surrender the apple immediately and..."
A blinding flash interrupted his words. In the exact center of the hall, materializing in a cloud of pure chaos, appeared a figure that made even the gods hold their breath.
Eris, the goddess of discord, had decided to make an appearance.
Her beauty was as disturbing as it was fascinating: black hair that seemed to absorb light, eyes that constantly changed color, and a smile that promised confusion and conflict in equal measure.
"Well, well," she said, her voice a whisper that somehow surpassed all others in the hall. "It seems my little apple has caused even more chaos than I expected."
Zeus visibly paled.
"Eris," he greeted stiffly. "You were not summoned to this Council."
The goddess of discord made a disdainful gesture.
"And yet, here I am. Isn't it wonderful how my gifts work?" Her gaze settled on the apple that Artemis still held. "My gift has found its way exactly to where it should go, though not in the way anyone would have foreseen."
Percy felt a shiver run down his back. There was something in the way Eris looked at him, as if she could see each of his thoughts, every weakness, every fear.
"What do you want?" demanded Artemis, her posture subtly protective in front of Percy.
Eris's smile widened.
"What do I want? Oh, dear Artemis. The question isn't what I want." She stepped forward, and the air around her seemed to ripple with chaotic possibilities. "It's what you really want. The apple? Victory over the other goddesses? Or perhaps..." her eyes drifted toward Percy, "something else?"
An absolute silence fell over the hall as all eyes turned to Artemis. The goddess of the hunt remained perfectly still, the golden apple gleaming between her fingers, her face an impenetrable mask.
But Percy, watching her carefully, noticed something that no one else seemed to see: an almost imperceptible tremor in her hands, a flash of vulnerability in her silver eyes that contradicted her posture of absolute control.
And in that moment, with crystal clarity, Percy finally understood the complete truth behind Artemis's elaborate game. A truth that would forever change his understanding of the gods, of fate, and of himself.
The huntress had been hunted, just as Apollo had suggested. Not by him, not by the other gods, but by something that the eternal virgin goddess had sworn to eternally reject: her own feelings.
The game hadn't ended. In fact, it had barely begun.
And the golden apple, pulsing like a living heart between Artemis's fingers, awaited the next move in this divine match that now included a new and powerful player: chaos itself.