Scene 1
Watching Morpheus leave with the boy Neptune, I restarted my journey from the desolated island.
The island itself barely deserved the name. Just a broken patch of land left out in the Sea. Black stone jutted through pale sand in crooked ridges while salt wind dragged over the shore hard enough to sting exposed skin. The waves kept slamming against the rocks below in a rhythm too heavy to be calming, leaving the whole place smelling like wet stone, brine, and old divine residue. The kind of place people only noticed when something worth noticing happened on it.
The moment I felt something flying toward me, I raised a shield of flames.
A silver arrow struck first.
The impact rang through the fire with a sharp metallic scream before two more followed immediately after, each trying to punch through my defense. They failed and fell uselessly into the sand below, only for a spear made out of silver light to thrust toward my back at nearly the same time. Shifting my shield behind me, I blocked it as well, my flames hissing where moonlight pressed too close.
"Artemis."
Locking eyes with the moon goddess, I kicked her back hard enough to send her sliding across the sand. She recovered quickly, of course. Her feet barely dug in before she launched her spear again as she rushed me.
She looked exactly like the sort of goddess mortals would build lies around. Divine beauty sharpened into something colder. Brown hair with green highlights catching the light whenever she moved, almost like a forest dragged under moonlight and forced into shape. Her face was too perfect in the way only gods could manage, but there was nothing warm in it. Just irritation. Pride. Silver light wrapped around her body and weapons alike, making every movement look cleaner than it should've been.
I sidestepped the flying spear while summoning my own spear of black flames. Heat bent the air around my hand as the weapon formed, the black fire moving wrong compared to ordinary flames. Too dense. Too quiet. Parrying her follow-up strike, I forced her weapon off-line before driving her back a second time.
A grin pulled at my face as her frown deepened.
She had come here expecting an easy fight.
She was not getting one.
Our Minor God-ranked strength balanced us out almost perfectly. Her moonlight was sharper. My mix of Sun, Darkness, and Death was worse to touch. So every clash came down to pressure, timing, and whose pride cracked first.
"That's enough, Artemis."
Bringing my spear level with my chest, I turned my eyes toward the blond-haired god who had stepped between us.
Apollo.
Scene 2
"Cousin."
Apollo announced himself while I sensed Sea Laws clinging to his body like a shield. Off to the side, Artemis stood tense and ready to attack again the second this conversation stopped being useful.
That was the first thing that stood out about him.
Not his face.
Not his voice.
The Sea.
It clung to him the way armor clung to a warrior too used to being hunted. A thin layer. Subtle. But still there. Enough to tell me he wasn't walking around as cleanly attached to the Sky as he should've been.
Then I looked at him properly.
Blond hair fell around his face in a way that should've made him look softer than he did. It didn't. Apollo still carried that same divine beauty all of them seemed cursed with, but something in him felt colder now. Narrower. More deliberate. Like he had cut parts of himself away and only kept what was useful. The eyes were the real problem. Wheels of Fate turned inside his irises, moving slow enough to look calm until I focused too long and realized they never actually stopped.
"Hello, cousin. You look calm and collected for a god who's lost his Birth Domain."
I caught the brief flash of acceptance that crossed his face before his gaze moved past me, drifting toward the western land of Hyperion.
So that was it.
He had already let it go.
"Letting go was the only option that would secure my future," he said. "Going to war with my father over a Domain our great-grandfather still controls from the Sky would've been pointless."
The sea wind moved between us while he spoke, carrying the smell of salt and cooling divine energy across the island. Behind him, Artemis's moonlight kept tightening and loosening around her weapon like she still wanted permission to solve this the stupid way.
As Apollo spoke, I saw the wheels of Fate turning in his eyes.
"I see," I said. "Then you've moved forward. So is this your attempt at taking the lead?"
At my command, my spear dissolved into black sparks, the fragments fading into the wind while Artemis continued staring at me like she was deciding whether she could kill me before Apollo interfered again.
"No," Apollo said calmly. "For now, hiding from Zeus is both of our highest priorities."
I nodded once.
He was right.
If Zeus found either of us, it would end with us being dragged into his court among his gods.
And worse than that—
we would be given a choice.
Hand over our divine grotto hearts.
Hand over command of our Domains.
All before we had even stepped into the Major God ranks.
That was the kind of theft worse than war.
At least war let you keep your pride while losing.
Scene 3
"So why are you looking for me?"
As I questioned him, Apollo raised one hand, stopping Artemis from launching another arrow from the bow of condensed light in her grasp.
The moonlight around her sharpened at once, silver radiance gathering into the shape of the arrow until even the sand around her feet started reflecting it back in pale flashes. Her frustration was almost funny at this point.
"Give him the Sun back," Artemis snapped.
"No. Give him your moon then, idiot."
For a breath she just stared at me, stunned that I had actually said it.
Then her face flushed red, and she fired anyway.
Apollo caught the arrow without even looking, fingers closing around moonlight hard enough to crush its momentum before turning his head just enough to give her a look that told her to drop the subject.
Barely, she did.
The island felt quieter after that in the worst possible way. Salt wind pushing over broken stone. Waves striking below us. Moonlight from Artemis. Sea pressure from Apollo. The air itself caught between leaving and getting worse.
"Fate," Apollo said, shifting his attention back to me. "She's very interested in you. Interested enough that she's ignoring me. So a pact of non-aggression between us makes sense. It's the Golden Cycle. There are enough opportunities to go around."
He extended his hand.
No matter how I turned it over in my head, everything he had said lined up with Juris's estimates. That was the more irritating part. I would've preferred him to sound wrong.
"We'll remain neutral toward each other," I said. "As long as you keep your siblings under control, then I agree."
The moment I accepted his handshake, I saw a strange light burning in his eyes.
Not warmth.
Not trust.
Recognition.
The sort only people born too close to poisoned thrones ever really understood in each other.
Then Artemis moved. She grabbed him and pulled him toward the Ocean, moonlight and Sea Laws blurring together around them as the two of them vanished into the water far faster than they had arrived.
And just like that—
they were gone.
Only the sea remained.
The island fell quiet again, but this time the silence felt thinner. Wrong in a different direction. Like something larger had listened to the entire exchange and finally decided it had waited long enough.