Page 138 of Blood of Olympus

Did I do the wrong thing? I barely had the courage to ask.

Aphrodite said you were dying. That Hephaestus chose to help — demanded to save you both. You do him a disservice by regretting his last decision.

I had no words with which to respond to her. She was right… and she was wrong. It was too tumultuous to narrow down into a single black or white ruling.

Rest, she murmured. Take your time. I will wait for you here.

And so, in the solitude and darkness of Athena’s temple, I sat — forced to reconcile the secondary losses of my loved ones. Two, without so much as a goodbye.

I sat — desperately trying to find a way to come to terms with the fact that I was the reason Arch had to grapple with his own grief now.

I sat — staring at the shapes on the wall, taking far too long to realise that they were painted scenes and not colourful blotches. One showed Perseus standing tall, with a shield raised before his face — Medusa opposite him half turned to stone.

Another portrayed Athena herself facing a vicious giant, her sword raised high and a war-cry on her tongue. A third depicted the goddess facing a mammoth spider. That one was left as a warning, however — beware your own hubris.

I pondered the paintings and the woman behind them for some time, wondering what parts of my own story might one day be rendered permanent in various shades of paint.

A slight cough broke the silence and pierced the din of my mind, startling me.

I whirled to see a lone figure leaning against one of the many marble pillars, watching me. The figure straightened and took one step into the torchlight. His haggard face was lined with years of bitter regret and drowning one’s sorrows in liquor.

“I figured you needed a minute… but that minute dragged into an hour, and then I felt inclined to bring you back to the land of the living, my queen,” he said with a half-hearted bow tacked onto the end.

I turned back to the painting, dismissing him as a threat. “Love and grief walk so painfully hand in hand that sometimes I get lost in the darkness of it.”

“If anyone can relate to that more than me, I’d like to meet them,” he grumbled, dropping gracelessly onto the seat beside me.

After minutes more in silence, each of us wrestling with our own thoughts of love and grief, he spoke again. “Why did you bring me here? Why not just leave me to my own devices?”

“Devices that weren’t succeeding in hastening your death by any measure?”

He grunted. “Devices that lessened the blow of waking up each day alive.”

“Fate — or something like it — led me to you.”

“Fate has no business with me,” he grunted. “Not anymore.”

I met his tired, grey eyes and saw my future within them. If I gave up on this war and the realms, I’d probably have worse vices than he did. If I lost Caelus — the other half of my soul — then I’d want to end it all as quickly as I could, too.

“I know who you are, Orland Pheus.”

“You know my name — congratulations, queenie.”

A slight smirk tugged at my lips. “I’m going to let that one slide, because I know much more than you think, Orpheus.”

He jerked backwards as if I'd struck him. “How⁠—”

“Yours was one of my bedtime stories.”

At this admission, his face fell back into that severe scowl. “How quaint.”

“I recognised you, even as deep in your cups as you were. And given that Fate — albeit fate in the form of a black dog⁠—”

“A what?”

“—led me to you, it seemed I should heed their prompting. You have power, Orpheus. You have the ability to make gods bend. You can make even Titans listen.”

“And, let me guess: you’d like to utilise that talent for your own gain?”