The Cost of Looking Beyond the Sky
Scene 1
Apollo POV
"What do you mean Artemis almost died?"
Rhea gestured for me to sit at the table where she and Hera were calmly playing chess.
Neither of them bothered trying to calm me down.
"Almost," Rhea said. "And your reaction is exactly our concern."
She moved a piece across the board without looking at me.
"You allow Hermes to explore without checking in on him once. Yet you have spent the last thousand years running all over the world in search of Artemis."
Her gaze finally lifted.
"So your concern is pointless if you only show it after the damage is done. You never crushed her dream of finding a Stellar Heart for you. You gave her obsession room to grow until it almost killed her."
I forced myself into the chair.
"Who threatened her life?"
"This time?" Rhea asked. "Hastur."
Cold ran down my spine.
"Next time, there is no telling. He was only interested in Tenebris. Artemis would have suffered if Ten had not acted quickly."
Her hand hovered over another chess piece.
"She even gained more than she deserved from that trip, but that is the kind of god Tenebris is. He takes what he deserves and what he earns. Artemis walked away with one of the deadliest beasts in this Golden Cycle and a free path past Peak Minor God."
Rhea's eyes sharpened.
"So you are worried about the wrong thing. You should be more worried about your stepfather's reaction to her disobeying his word."
The memory returned before I could stop it.
Cold water.
Deep pressure.
A silence that made prophecy feel childish.
I remembered studying Fate, searching through future threads for the Domains I had left for my half-sisters. I had been looking for the moment Juris became stranded in Time, trying to understand what was so important that he kept his scars open just to continue walking through the timeline.
Then stars blocked my eyes.
When I pulled myself out, something was standing behind me.
Rhea's voice dragged me back.
"As I told you before, there are things even Fate treats cautiously. Yet you and Artemis keep finding no reason to fear those horrors."
Her aura pressed down harder.
"You give away good cards while failing to keep up with the wildcard."
Tenebris.
"For better or worse, Ten held it together. Now Artemis owes him more than her life, if Leto's words about the treatment are true."
I tried to stand.
Rhea's glare forced me back down.
"Do not even bother. Leto signed off on your sister watching the damage she caused, so the least you can do is accept criticism."
The board clicked as Hera moved a piece.
Rhea continued anyway.
"Those supposedly minor Domains you found in Fate were more important than you valued them. Juris has already sent me a copy of the list to verify that I approved of the Goddess Faction being removed from the war."
That struck deeper than I expected.
The Domains I had treated as useful bargaining pieces had already become infrastructure in Juris's hands.
Hera finally lifted her gaze from the board.
"Mother, do not be too harsh. He still positioned his sisters so they would not be trapped beneath Fate. If Juris requested your approval, then let it stand."
A barrier wrapped around me, and the pressure finally eased enough for me to breathe.
"Apollo needs to grow," Hera said softly, "if we want to be certain he can stand by himself in the worst case."
Rhea did not answer.
She simply moved another chess piece.
Somehow, that felt worse.
Scene 2
Ten POV
"Come on!!! Quit hesitating!!!"
The roar tore from my throat before I even realized I was speaking.
Orange flames covered the missing arm at my shoulder, burning in the shape of what should have been there. Black flames fought against them endlessly, trying to consume, stabilize, or reject the replacement.
My remaining hand gripped a spear.
Gungnir screamed in my grasp.
Ahead of me stood a horde of twisted horrors.
Peak Titan-rank monsters.
Things wearing stars like flesh.
Things that should not have possessed shape.
Yet they were stepping back.
Afraid.
"You wanted my home?!" I roared. "Then come on!! I'll give you a very Earthly greeting!!"
I dragged the spear across the horizon.
Golden flame ignited along the spear tip before it cut the fabric of the void.
A sun came through.
Massive.
Violent.
Alive.
"Come on!! Your Astral Masters are watching in disappointment!!"
The sun slammed into the monsters like divine judgment.
I leapt after it.
The spear danced through the void as the sun carved across the horde. It smashed through a green star, then continued into a teal one behind it.
Then half the sun turned black.
The stellar body collapsed inward—
—and exploded.
Screams broke through the void as stars, planets, and gods were demolished together.
"You sorry dog bastards!!"
I laughed harder, cutting the void again.
Another sun launched in a different direction.
Stars reignited.
Planets shattered.
The spear moved like instinct rather than technique, tearing apart void and gods alike.
Then silence became my only company.
My remaining hand reached for my chest.
A deeper pain waited there.
Not flesh.
Soul.
Something burning behind my left eye.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backward through the void.
The battlefield disappeared beneath smoke.
A figure stood beside me.
Tall.
Relaxed.
Familiar in a way that made my bones want to reject him.
His left eye was open.
Inside it, a triangle had formed.
Within the triangle bloomed a golden rose, turning slowly, petal by petal, like a law that had learned how to flower.
His right eye was hidden behind drifting smoke.
But whenever the smoke thinned, I saw the outline beneath it.
A circle.
A snake devouring its own tail.
The path that never ended.
The path that consumed itself forever.
He placed something in his mouth, and the scent of smoke drifted between us.
Strangely comforting.
Strangely mortal.
"You're overdoing it again," he muttered.
His voice sounded like mine after drowning in a sea for a million years.
"Time to wake up, Young Lord."
I jolted upright.
My breathing was rough.
My body was soaked in sweat.
The pain behind my left eye still burned.
Morpheus sat beside my bed inside Father's palace, wearing one of his ridiculous sleeping robes while grinning like an idiot.
The agonizing sounds from the twin wolves inside my Grotto Heart had dulled to tolerable levels.
"Good evening," he said cheerfully.
A terrible joke.
Like always.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the bed.
"My left eye is acting up again."
Morpheus's grin faded slightly.
"How bad?"
I pressed two fingers against it.
The burning intensified.
When I lowered my hand, Morpheus stopped smiling completely.
"The triangle?" he asked.
I nodded.
The golden rose turned inside my pupil.
Slow.
Patient.
Unwanted.
"I can see too much," I muttered.
"Fate?"
"No."
"Records?"
"No."
The room became quieter.
"Souls."
Morpheus did not speak.
I stared at the ceiling.
"I can see the qualities that make them divine. The qualities that make them mortal. The pieces they inherited. The parts they stole. The fragments they pretend belong to them."
The eye burned harder.
"Even souls look layered now. Masks stacked over wounds. Thrones built over fear. Divinity wrapped around things that still scream like mortals."
Morpheus exhaled slowly.
"That sounds problematic."
"Very."
Worse than problematic.
Every time I looked too deeply, I felt something trying to look back.
Not Fate.
Not Chaos.
Something older.
Something patient.
Something that knew the right eye was still covered.
"Lord Pluto suspected this might happen," Morpheus said.
My gaze shifted toward him.
"He knew?"
"He suspected."
Of course he did.
That old monster probably started suspecting it the moment the triangle first formed in Chapter 18.
Morpheus stood and stretched.
"Try not to stare too deeply into anyone for now. Eyes tied to concepts develop bad habits."
"Such as?"
"They stop seeing people."
A dangerous answer.
One I understood immediately.
Because if I focused hard enough now, I did not just see a person.
I saw what could be taken.
What would remain after death.
What made them useful.
What made them break.
What made them mortal.
What made them divine.
A terrible thing for a Death God to see.
Morpheus walked toward the edge of the room.
"Also, Lord Pluto said if your right eye starts opening too, I should report it immediately."
Silence.
"…What right eye?"
Morpheus only smiled.
Then vanished into dreams before answering.
Scene 3
Apollo POV
"Bacchus."
I appeared inside Zeus's Olympus and took a seat without caring about anything around me.
Not the gods.
Not the music.
Not even my chaotic older cousin, born slightly before Tenebris and Juris emerged from Helios's temple.
I reached over and took the wine directly from Dionysus's hand.
His followers scattered like frightened flies.
"Illos," Dionysus whined. "Do you have to take my wine when there is more all over the place?"
He snapped his fingers and summoned another cup anyway.
He already knew why I took his.
Everyone else drank trash created with divinity.
Dionysus cultivated the real product and enhanced it with Chaos.
I downed the cup, letting the wine burn through the ache spread across my soul.
"Quit crying," I muttered. "The rest of you, start the music again."
The musicians nervously resumed.
Dionysus stared at me over his cup.
"You smell like crap. Fate is covering you."
His eyes radiated the clashing pressure of the Primal Five Elements.
"You smell like Gaia's shit too," I replied. "What's new besides running from Chaos?"
He laughed loud enough for the hall to relax slightly.
Then I felt his followers quietly being dismissed.
A barrier rose around us, shielding the conversation from Zeus.
"Meanwhile," Dionysus said, leaning back, "you have been swimming through someone else's stomping grounds."
I cracked one eye open.
He sniffed the air.
"Smells like one of your kind tried to eat you."
So my instincts had been right.
Something had reached for me when I pulled myself out of that search.
Something had tried to dig into my soul and cling there.
I stared into the cup.
"Then I will have to hunt an Astral God when I get stronger."
Dionysus grinned.
"You are truly the vessel of madness."
He refilled my cup.
This one was stronger.
Far stronger.
I drank it anyway.
"Here, here."
He laughed and raised his own cup.
At the rate we were going, the amount required to drown this night would shame anyone below us.
The music continued.
Zeus's Olympus kept pretending nothing had changed.
But the sky above us no longer felt closed.
And somewhere beyond Fate's reach, something had learned my scent.