by Melody Rose
“Doing what?” I questioned, unwilling to let him back out now.
“Meeting with you,” Apollo answered, inadvertently lowering his voice.
“Why?” I asked, drawing out the word longer than necessary.
“You’re not the only one fighting a war right now,” Apollo said ominously. “There are things going on up on Olympus that are… problematic.”
“Uh-huh,” I said skeptically. I leaned back, pushing my weight into my pelvis. “You’re not going to tell me more than that, are you?”
“I’ve already said too much,” Apollo said as he shook his head like he was trying to get water out of his ear. “But I couldn’t let this part go unsaid. Or ungiven.”
“What do you mean?” I wondered.
“The Oracle spoke to me,” Apollo continued. He took two steps towards me, crouching like some old crone. “She told me that you would need my help, or she would lose you forever.”
“Wait,” I said as I held up a hand, forcing him to pause. “The Oracle would lose me forever? I’ve never even met the Oracle.”
“She seems to think you have,” Apollo said with pinched eyebrows. “She spoke like she knew you. Like you shared a meal with her. Spent time in her house even.”
The realization slapped me in the face. I took a step back as if he had shoved me. “Hang on, are you telling me that…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence because my thoughts were going too fast.
“Ansel?” Apollo asked, unsure if I was going to finish or not.
“I thought she was just a descendent,” I said as my eyelids blinked rapidly, my eyes suddenly dry. “I didn’t think she was the actual Oracle.”
“So you do know her?” Apollo checked, his own confusion obvious now.
“If you’re talking about Cheyenne’s mom, then yeah, I know her,” I said, deciding it was better to lay everything out on the table. Wasn’t that the point of walking away from the base so we could talk freely?
“Cheyenne Paulos?” A sly smile sparked on the god’s face.
Jealous pierced my chest as hard as an arrow at that look on my father’s face. My body tensed. And clearly, Apollo noticed because the smile disappeared, now replaced by a look of curiosity and intrigue.
“You know her, too,” Apollo deciphered. He paused when I didn’t answer him, and I had the weird suspicion that he was reading my mind or something which was equally invasive. “Hades has told us all about the daughter of Hephaestus, who has been making new weapons for the gods in her father’s absence. He says she is really something, unlike any hero before now.”
I bit into my tongue, a physical barrier preventing me from saying any more. If my dad’s surprise was genuine, and he didn’t know about my feelings for Cheyenne, I didn’t want to give him more ammunition to work with or shoot back at me.
“Is she really as special as Hades says?” Apollo asked with a raised eyebrow. “Because the god of the underworld has been known to exaggerate.”
“You said you have something to give me?” I said, changing the subject.
Apollo clicked his tongue and sent a knowing glance my way. “You didn’t answer my question, son. Is she that special?”
I rolled my lips over my teeth and contemplated my answer. As much as I wanted to sing Cheyenne’s praises to anyone on any given day, I didn’t trust my father with my feelings. I knew that they could be used against me so easily. It was a weakness I didn’t know how to defend or protect quite yet.
“Because if she is, I’m more inclined to help you because it will help her,” Apollo teased, prying the answer out of me. “See, the Oracle mentioned Cheyenne as well. It’s no secret that she’s the most qualified to make the Ultimate Weapon. The one that is said to destroy even the gods themselves.”
Something changed in Apollo’s demeanor. He seemed to grow in size and confidence as he sauntered towards me. I knew he was trying to intimidate me, no longer a carbon copy of me, but a taller one with more muscles. I held my ground, but I knew what the gods, specifically my father, were capable of. I clenched my hands into fists in the hope of preventing them from sweating any more, but that only seemed to make the situation worse.
“While many others don’t even want that weapon to exist,” Apollo began, now towering over me, the shadow of his body casting directly onto my face, “it is the only thing that is going to end the war. The one here and in Olympus. She’s going to need all the help she can get.”
“I agree,” I said, speaking for the first time in minutes.
“Glad to see we’re on the same page,” Apollo said with a snicker. “While the Oracle wasn’t specific, I did figure out what I needed to give you.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
“Hold out your hand,” my father commanded.
I clenched my jaw but did as I was told. I stuck my hand out straight in front of me, fingers stiff. Apollo leaned down so that his lips were level with my fingertips. He closed his eyes and blew, his lips puckered as if he were about to kiss someone.
There was a small gust of wind, nothing more than a sneeze. A chill crawled up my spine, and my body shivered of its own accord. My father’s breath circled around my open palm like a mini-tornado before it came to a stop, revealing a small branch with two bright green leaves on it. They were an idyllic shape, like a rhombus with rounded edges. They were so crisp and fresh. It smelled like the inside of an Italian restaurant.
“Is this a laurel leaf?” I deciphered, my eyebrows pinching into a question.
“Clever boy,” Apollo complimented as he straightened back up. He no longer stood above me but had returned to being eye level with me. “Yes. I was blinded by my love for Daphne, thanks to Eros. When she turned into the laurel tree, I was able to see the nymph for what she truly was. As such, the laurel leaf is said to help you see the truth.”
I took the small plant by the skinny tan branch attached to the end. I held it up to my eye like Egan’s monocle. Nothing seemed different when I looked between the two leaves, and they were still too thick for me to look through them.
“I don’t get it,” I said honestly. “What am I supposed to see?”
“The truth,” Apollo answered unhelpfully. When I shot him an annoyed glare, the god merely shrugged. “I don’t know any more than that.”
“Why the hell did you have to give this to me in person and all the way out here?” I said as I gestured around at our isolated setting. “I mean, you could have just sent this in a letter.”
Apollo’s face dropped, a rare moment of sadness coming from the god. “Well, two reasons. One of them was that I wanted to see you. And I also wanted to make sure it got right to you. It’s important, according to the Oracle.”
“And the Oracle knows all,” I said with a sigh.
“She does,” Apollo said affirmatively. “She may not reveal all, but she does know all. Don’t forget that.” The god pointed a well-manicured finger in my face, and I jerked out of the way.
“What was the other thing?” I asked, the annoyance over this whole encounter coming back to me in full force. “You said there were two reasons.”
“The other one was the enemies at your base,” Apollo said. He rubbed his hands together and then intertwined his fingers. “You have unintentional traitors living among you.”
“Unintentional traitors?” I scoffed. “What is that even supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Apollo scoffed right back into my face. “Your friend Esme was one, wasn’t she?”
I blinked at the god, stunned by his words and his knowledge. If he knew about Esme, then how come he didn’t know about my relationship with Cheyenne? Just how much information were the gods being given up there on their mountaintop?
“That’s what I mean,” Apollo said with another finger point in my direction. Suddenly, he turned on his heel. “And again, I’ve said too much already. I hope all of that helps you, son. I really do.”
As much as I wanted to believe him, I had spent my w
hole life not trusting my father. I refused to rely on him for anything. Especially since the first day I had ever met him had been on my mother’s funeral when he told me I was a demigod and brought me to my first Academy of Olympus summer camp. When I thought I was going to have a father figure in my life, he disappeared again. I realized quickly after that that I was on my own, with only my friends and myself to rely on.
But here he was, standing in front of me and the young boy who first noticed this brilliant, radiant man at my mom’s funeral, claiming to be my dad. Hope bloomed in my chest then as it did now. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to ask him for help. To teach me about my powers and to guide me through this process. What son didn’t want that from his father?
This was all he was ever going to give me, though. I knew that I was luckier than most demigods in that I got to meet my godly parent twice now, two times more than some of them ever did in a lifetime. I should be grateful, but after all this time, I just couldn’t muster the positive feelings.
I chose not to say anything as he left. And, as I expected, he didn’t turn around and offer me a goodbye, a wave, absolutely nothing.
I looked down at the laurel leaves in my hand. I twirled them around, using the branch as a base. The green flashed before my eyes as the leaves twitched. I tucked the plant in my pocket and sent one last glance over my shoulder at where the god of justice disappeared.
Then, I left the past behind me and trudged forward, just hoping that I could find my way back to base.
15
“And then you kicked him in the balls?” the cyclops checked as he lounged in his custom-made chair. When Arges first came to the Academy, there wasn’t a lot of furniture, or buildings for that matter, that could accommodate his size. So he spent some time crafting metal chairs and tables to fit his seven-foot frame.
I whipped my head over my shoulder, temporarily stopping my hammering to shoot my mentor a glare. “Because he kissed me and held me down when I clearly was trying to push him away. I wasn’t going to let anyone assault me like that, just because the bastard teacher might have said so.”
“The bastard teacher being Oliver, son of Dionysus?” Arges translated as he used a small hunting knife to pick out the grim beneath his fingernails.
“Precisely,” I confirmed before I turned back to the work before me.
After the incident in the drama class, I immediately ran to the forge. It was the safest place I could think of to recover my senses and my emotions. I knew that I could hide in here for a while and smash out my feelings. I barely gave the cyclops a hello when I barged in and took up the nearest piece of metal I could find. I didn’t really focus on what I was making, but rather, I lost myself in the familiarity of the movements. The vibrations that ran up my arm as I pounded on the hot metal. The sizzle of the hammerhead on the metal, while sparks burst up and floated down to the concrete floor.
There was nothing more relaxing than forging. I got to craft something from nothing with my own two hands. It had been too long since I allowed myself to just craft without purpose. I followed my own whims, listening to the metal to see what I could craft it into. Eventually, my body relaxed into the motions to where I felt my breathing return to normal and my heart rate slow to an acceptable pace. Arges seemed to notice it too because, after I slipped into a state of peace, only then did he ask me what happened to get me so riled up.
Arges was one of the original three cyclops who helped the gods break away from the titans and defeat them. He and his two brothers made Zeus’s lightning bolt, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’s Helm of Invisibility. I did a study abroad trip last semester to his villa in Italy, where I learned to make armor, which hadn’t been my specialty. I got to craft a new Helm for the god of the Underworld, and while my time in Italy had been a huge learning opportunity, it was preemptively cut short.
Eris, disguised as Esme, had attacked the villa, burning it to the ground. We had to escape the destruction and eventually brought Arges back to the Academy where he agreed to be the new blacksmith instructor for a while, at least until he could find a new place to rebuild and live.
It was a serendipitous situation because the Academy had lost their previous blacksmithing teacher earlier in the semester. Ruby had been my first instructor here, and a true mentor in my life. A daughter of Poseidon, she worked with the horses mainly as a ferrier. She was sassy and full of direct life advice, which always struck home. Unfortunately, however, she had Parkinson’s and was struggling to complete her work. The two of us made a deal early on that I would complete the assignments the Military gave, and she would take credit. That worked until Eris murdered her.
While I tried to rescue my mentor from her unfair and untimely death, she wouldn’t let me. Ruby had ended up in the Elysian Fields with her long lost love Alexandra and was finally illness free. As hard as that had been for me, I relished in the fact that my mentor was happy. Even though there were days where I walked into the forge and expected to see her working away, I knew she was in a better place.
Arges had been a great teacher, too, even though his style varied from Ruby’s. From what I’d heard, most of the students liked him as well, once they got over the fact that he was a massive cyclops. While the size and one eye was intimidating as hell, Arges had a kind heart. I hoped that other students would see that side of him as well.
That was why the cyclops wasn’t going to let me walk out of here without spilling the whole story. As much as I hated him for it, I was also grateful to have someone to talk to about it.
So I told him the whole story, from making the bargain with the Fates to finding Oliver and agreeing to take his drama class. I also wove my disastrous attempts at making the tools in there, along with the horrible scene with Horace.
“I get the sense, though, from your tone that you’ve made up your mind, and you’re not going back to that class,” Arges said as he leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. Even bent over like that, he still was taller than me, looking like a statue in a museum.
“I don’t think I can,” I said as I looked at the ground and shook my head. “I refuse to be treated like that. And while I know I need the nymphs’ help, I’m not doing well with them. I was making progress, sure, but I still kept lighting shit on fire and… I don’t know. Something tells me that this isn’t right.”
“If it isn’t right, then,” Arges shrugged with both big shoulders. “It isn’t right.”
“Am I just making excuses for something I don’t want to do?” I asked, speaking out loud one of my fears about this decision.
“Cheyenne,” the cyclops said in a scolding tone. “You have to listen to yourself, and if something wasn’t right about that situation, then trust that. Trust yourself, just like you do when you are forging.”
Arges held out his hand and gestured towards the length of iron I just pulled out of the forge. As I examined the blade, I realized that I hadn’t been paying attention to what I was making. When I recognized the length and the inevitable rainbow-like curve to it, I sighed heavily, leaning my head back to growl up at the sky.
“What is it now?” the cyclops asked. “Did you manage to crack it before dipping it in the oil? It is too thin?”
“No,” I moaned as I held up the blade so he could recognize what I was making. “It’s a freakin scythe. Again.”
I rolled my eyes and went to set down the iron on a nearby anvil, intending to abandon the project and actually make something useful. For some reason, ever since I had been given the prophecy about the Ultimate Weapon, I’d been subconsciously making scythes.
The weapon, made famous by the Grim Reaper but originally wielded by Cronos, ticked off all the boxes when it came to what the Ultimate Weapon’s base would be. Now, I could and had made other weapons when I was concentrating, but for some reason, when I was shooting the shit, just making weapons for the sake of it, I always churned out a scythe of some sort. It was like I was cursed to make these subconsciously
for the rest of my life.
“Don’t tell me you’re abandoning that weapon,” Arges said as he stood to his feet and pointed to the soon-to-be scythe.
I glared at the cyclops, eye to eye. “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t for anything or anyone. I was just fooling around.”
“Still,” Arges insisted as he crossed to the blade. He slipped on one of the heavy gloves meant to protect blacksmiths from the white-hot heat of the metal. I didn’t have to use those thanks to my heat resistant powers, so I never kept a pair nearby. “I think you need to finish what you started.”
“Are you saying that about just this project or the other things I’ve decided to abandon as of late, like the drama class?” I asked, suspicion coming through in my single raised eyebrow.
“There is a difference,” Agres said as he raised a single finger with his ungloved hand. With the other, he guided the scythe blade back to my personal anvil, setting it down gingerly. “This project presents no harm to you or anyone else. The drama class is another story.”
I inhaled deeply, raising my shoulders up to my ears. I gathered my resolve and took up my hammer once more. I held the tang of the scythe and balanced it around the horn so I would accentuate the curve that made the scythe different from a sickle.
“So if I don’t go back to the drama class, then Oliver and the nymphs won’t help me with the Moriai’s tools,” I said, looking at the anvil and the weapon the whole time. I timed my words between my pounding so the cyclops could hear my dilemma.
“What were you having trouble with when it came to the weaving and woodcarving?” Arges pondered as he ran a hand over his bald head.
“Don’t tell me you’ve known how to do those all along?” I said, my tools swinging at my side as I stopped my forging.
“Unfortunately, no, I don’t,” the cyclops said as he stepped back to his large metal chair that could have been mistaken for a throne just considering the sheer size of it. “But tell me, what did you struggle with regarding those trades?”
