Apollyon

CHAPTER 26

When I’d stepped into the Underworld, I really hadn’t known what to expect. The same could be said for Solaris. I’d really had no clue, and still I was blown away.

Solaris stood directly in front of Caleb and she looked a lot better than I’d thought she would. For some reason, I’d expected that she and the First would be serving it up in Tartarus, but her white gown was pristine and intact. Silvery-blonde hair, long and wispy, settled over thin shoulders. She was tall and willowy and her eyes were like mine—a bright amber color. Her delicate, porcelain features reminded me of a frail, exotic flower, which I hadn’t been expecting. Maybe I was rocking one hell of an ego or something, but I’d thought she’d look like me.

She was the complete opposite of me.

Solaris looked around the room, her pale brows rising as she took in where she was. Surprise and a little bit of fear flitted across her face, but when her eyes landed on me, a keen understanding seeped into those ashen eyes. A sense of familiarity washed over me, mirrored in her expression.

Striding forward, Solaris stopped a mere foot from me, her head tilted inquisitively. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “You are the Apollyon.”

There wasn’t much time for me to figure out how she knew what I was. “I’m one of them.”

Another flicker of surprise shot across her face, quickly followed by sorrow. “So there are two again?”

I nodded.

She glanced over her shoulder. “And neither of these are he. I can tell. One of them is dead. One of them is a pure-blood.”

I ignored Caleb’s offended look. “No. The First isn’t here.”

Solaris faced me, brows knitted. “You have Awakened. I can see the marks of the Apollyon.”

“You can?” I glanced down, surprised to find that my visible skin was all marked up. I hadn’t even felt them.

“How can you be Awakened and not be with the First? You are not dead.”

Yet. “It’s complicated. That’s why we’ve come to talk to you.”

“Oh.” The sorrow deepened and her lashes swept down. “He is like mine?”

Everyone in the room, even Persephone, was fixated on Solaris, but she seemed wholly unaware of them now. I took a breath and fought the sudden tightening in my throat. The grief rolling off Solaris was palpable.

“Yes.” My voice sounded hoarse. “He’s like yours.”

Twisting away, she wrapped her arms around herself. “Then there is nothing that I can do for you.”

I stared at her. “But we haven’t asked anything.”

“If he has lost himself to the aether, to the call of akasha, there is nothing to be done.” Her chin tipped down, causing her hair to slip forward, shielding her face. “And there is nothing to be done for you. I tried… but the power transferred.”

“Wait.” I stepped toward, pushing down on the frustration roaring inside me. “I haven’t transferred my power to him. He’s only the Apollyon. Not the God Killer.”

Solaris stiffened. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. I haven’t been near him since I Awakened. There is something about the aether and akasha with him, but he’s still just the Apollyon.” I paused, drawing in a long breath. “I need to know how to stop the transfer.”

She remained quiet.

“And I think—I know—that you know how to do it.”

Her head swung toward me. “There is no way. I blocked that knowledge so no other Apollyon could learn it.”

“Well… I saw something when I Awakened. You turned to him, tried to stop him. You knew how, but the Order found you first.”

Solaris laughed a dry, brittle laugh. “Is that what history tells you?”

I glanced at the goddess, figuring she’d know, but she looked as confused as I felt. “But I saw it—”

“Did you? The Awakening is what the previous Apollyons wish for you to see. At the moment of your death, when it does come, you will implant your memories. Some of them may be as you wished to see them, but not how they truly existed.”

Well… daimon butt. Did Seth know that? “What happened, then?”

Her lashes swept down again. “When I first met him, he wasn’t like he was in the end. He was a beautiful, kind man who just happened to be the Apollyon.” A small, sad smile pulled at her lips. “We really didn’t understand any of it. We were the first to exist in the same generation. He didn’t even understand why he came to find me. It was like he was drawn and I didn’t understand what was happening when I Awakened. The pain… I thought I was dying.”

I winced, unable to imagine going through that without Aiden and without any knowledge of what was happening.

“But when we met, it was like it was destined. For many months, we got… we got to know each other. I do not think even the gods knew what could happen.” A distant look crept into her eyes, not quite overshadowing a pain that still hadn’t healed. “He seemed to grow more powerful the longer we were around each other, able to harness akasha with little effort, and he would not grow tired. But he was more unstable. Never toward me, but I knew… I knew that it was because of me. There was a situation…”

My stomach sank as my gaze flickered to Aiden.

“A large group of daimons had attacked one of the Covenants and during the battle, he… pulled from me. The power he displayed was unimaginable. The Council grew concerned and then… then I met the oracle.”

Ah, the oracle strikes again.

“She told me what would happen. That he would pull all of my power from me and he would attack the Council. I didn’t believe her, because that would be insane.” Solaris laughed softly. “But she was insistent that I stop him. That if I could not find it in my heart to kill what I loved most, then I must take the power.”

My breath caught, and the walls seemed to do a Tilt-a-Whirl.

“I never thought he would act, but the Council moved against us. They wanted us separated, and neither of us, in our naïve selfishness, could bear such a thought. We left the safety of the Council and we went out on our own.” Solaris shook her head. “They followed, sending their most skilled Sentinels. When they didn’t succeed, the Order of Thanatos came.”

She swallowed thickly. “He threatened the Council then, and I knew what the oracle had said was all coming true. She had given me the means to stop him, but it was too late.”

I bit my lip. “What did he do?”

Her eyes met mine. “He would’ve never done it if the allure of the power—the draw of supreme power—hadn’t overtaken him. But it did. Before I could stop him, he drew from me. There was a moment, immediately after he took my power, when he was not yet able to channel it. Like an Achilles’ heel, so to speak, and the Order attacked. The rest… the rest is history.”

I didn’t know what to say. Sorrow rode the back of my throat. It was obvious that Solaris had loved her First, so much so that not once did she speak his actual name. I couldn’t bring myself to askjust to quench my own curiosity, because I knew speaking it would only bring her more pain.

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could say.

Solaris nodded. “What is your First doing?”

I told her everything—the destruction, the impending war, and the hope that somehow we could stop history from repeating itself. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. Solaris simply walked up to me.

“I blocked it from him and from the other Apollyons,” Solaris said again. “I’m not sure how you even saw it. Perhaps it was Fate?”

Gods, for once Fate wasn’t trying to force me to take one for the team. Nice change. “Perhaps.”

“It’s simpler than you think.” Solaris reached out, placing her cold hand over my right one. “You must follow the order of the marks as they appeared on you. The original.” Solaris squeezed my right hand, “Θάρρος.” Courage.

Then she cupped her hand around my left. “Ισχύς.” Strength.

Letting go of my hand, she placed hers below my ribcage, over my navel, “απόλυτη εξουσία.” Absolute Power. Then finally, she reached up and cupped the nape of my neck. “αήττητο.” Invincibility.

The air went out of my lungs and Solaris nodded. “You will need to press your flesh to his and call upon each mark by its true name.”

“Wait,” Aiden said. “Isn’t that how he would transfer her power to him?”

I already knew, so when Solaris stepped away and turned to Aiden, I could barely look at him. “Yes,” she said. “She will have to do it before he does.”

Aiden opened his mouth, but there were no words. We had learned how to transfer power and that was something, but it would also be damn near impossible.

“Is that all?” she asked. “I wish to leave.”

Persephone cleared her throat. “I believe so.”

For an instant, Solaris’ eyes met mine and I thought I’d be seeing her again. And sooner than I probably expect. I didn’t know where that thought came from—if it was rooted in any real possibility or just paranoia.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” she asked, voice low enough for only me to hear. “For the power of the God Killer will transfer to you. And though you may feel strong and you may think you can control it, it can warp you, too.”

Looking terribly sad, as if she knew this great secret, she sighed. “And for whatever purpose the gods seek to use you for, once they do, will you be left standing in the end? As the oracle warned me, there cannot be two of our kind in any generation.”

And then she was gone, but her parting words lingered deep, wrapping their way over my heart and soul. Her words weren’t a warning, but more of a statement of fact. I glanced down at my left hand and I felt as if my fate had been sealed long before I even knew what I was.

I let out a shaky breath.

“Well, that was depressing.” Caleb ran a hand through his hair. “If I wasn’t dead already, I’d feel a tad bit suicidal.”

“No doubt,” Persephone murmured. “But dead people—no offense—tend to be on the depressing side of things.”

Caleb shrugged. “No offense taken.”

Each time that I’d seen Caleb, he hadn’t seemed depressed. As if he read my mind that moment, he smiled and I remembered what he’d said when I’d been in limbo. “You told me there was still hope for him.”

Caleb swaggered over to me, seeming so alive it was painful to see. Wrapping his arms around me, he held me tight. “There’s always hope. Maybe not the kind of hope you’re thinking about, but there is hope.”

I didn’t understand at first, so I snuggled closer, knowing our time was quickly coming to an end. As I inhaled the fresh scent of Caleb, I realized I needed to know something that would probably slice me into tiny ribbons.

Pulling away, I turned to Persephone. “Where is her First?”

A whole minute passed before she answered. “He is in Tartarus.”

I pressed my fingers to my mouth before the lump came all the way up. It wasn’t so much the fate of the First, but what it signified. If I succeeded and was able to kill Seth, his fate would be the same. And so would mine.

I was like Velero on Caleb for the next fifteen minutes or so, while Aiden busied himself studying the weapons and Persephone filed her nails or whatever. While we sat on the floor of the war room, our knees pressing together, Caleb told me about some of the stuff he was doing down here to pass time and I told him how much Olivia had wanted to see him. We didn’t talk about what would happen next. I was pretty sure that Caleb was aware of all the crazy stuff going on and neither of us wanted to tarnish these precious minutes.

“Did you tell her what I asked you to?” he asked.

I nodded. “She cried, but I think they were happy tears.”

Caleb’s smile was broad. “I miss her, but can you do me another favor?”

“Anything.” And I meant it.

“Don’t tell Olivia that you saw me.”

I frowned. “Why? She would—”

“I want her to move on.” Caleb grasped my hands and stood, pulling me to my feet. “I need her to move on, and I think hearing about me is stopping her. I want her to live and I don’t want to be shadowing every step she takes.”

Gods, I hated the idea of lying to Olivia, but I understood what Caleb was saying. Olivia would never move on, knowing that, in a way, Caleb was conscious and as alive as he could be in the Underworld. It was like he was there, not reachable, but still there. Knowing that, how could she really move on?

So I agreed. I promised to tell everyone that it had been only Persephone who had found us. Even if Apollo knew the truth, it wouldn’t matter as long as Olivia didn’t. In a way, this was his gift to her.

“Thank you,” Caleb said, and hugged me once more. Part of me wanted to stay in Caleb’s arms, because he’d always had this grounding effect on me. Caleb was my rational side. He was more than that; other than my mother, he was the first person I’d ever truly loved.

Caleb would always be my best friend.

“It’s time,” Persephone said quietly, and when I pulled away and looked at her, there was sympathy in her gaze. A god who could empathize was an abnormality.

Aiden returned to my side, swinging the backpack onto his shoulders before handing me back the weapons that the guards had stripped off me, as well as my yucky cloak. Persephone drifted toward the center of the war room and waved her hand. A black void appeared, completely opaque. “This gate will take you back to the one you came through.”

“Thank you,” I said to Persephone.

She nodded gracefully.

As I said goodbye and looked over my shoulder one last time, my chest squeezed as I met Caleb’s blue, blue eyes. I knew then that death could stop a lot of things, but it could never cut the bond of friendship.

Caleb smiled, and I returned it with a watery one of my own, and then I turned back to the void waiting for us. Threading my fingers through Aiden’s, we stepped back through the gate, armed with the knowledge we needed, but bearing the burden of needing to accomplish the impossible.