Chapter Six

"Yet mortal heart, in humble plight,

Is drawn to him in day or night,

For love"s sweet flame cannot be bound,

Where…"

"Where… something," I muttered aloud.

"Where what?"

My eyes sprang up from the parchment at the sound of that voice, for it could belong to no other. "Aikos!"

My friend stood before me in the mortal courtyard, no longer a mortal himself, for Aikos was a god, and he very much looked it.

It was expected that Apollo would glow—he was god of the sun, after all—but a glow emanated from all the gods, truly making them ethereal. For Aikos, his beauty was amplified by that radiance, his pale hair, blue eyes, flawless skin, and symmetrical features, almost more pretty than handsome. All while wearing the unabashedly sheer tunic from our ascension day.

Already having been trimmed in gold, the tunic seemed grander than before, for it now included rainbow sashes and precious adornments, like gold cuffs at his wrists, undying flowers weaved into his laurels, and even gold and silk-woven sandals.

Showoff. Only thing missing were his rainbow wings that I imagined he could summon with a thought.

"Here I worried you were too delighted in your godhood to check on your friend," I joked as he sat beside me. I set aside my reed pen and parchment, flipping the parchment over as I did so to hide its contents.

Aikos noticed but didn't press about it. "Never! Well, definitely delighted, but not too much to not miss you, dear friend. I thought it best to give you space these first few days as you adjusted. I hope you are not angry with me for absconding with you?"

"Hardly." I chuckled. "And it has been… I can't even describe most of it, but it has been truly wonderful."

Aikos knocked his shoulder against mine with a lascivious grin. "So… how many times has the former courtesan been plucked by the divine?"

"Courted by," I corrected. "And courting means no plucking yet."

"After days?" Aikos looked shocked, and possibly disgusted by our chastity. "I'm impressed by you both! And more than a little confused."

"We're going slow. I was disappointed at first, but I understand the wait. Apollo has been, well, for lack of better phrasing, burned too many times by the fires of love. And burned others."

"You met Zephyrus, I take it?"

"More like witnessed an encounter. Apollo healed him. Mostly."

"So that's what happened!" Aikos exclaimed. "I caught sight of Zephyrus earlier and wondered. Not that he needed the return of smooth skin to be sought after, but I believe his metamorphosis might mean a future love for him awaits as well."

"Are you the new god of prophecy?" I teased. "Or just a divine matchmaker?"

Aikos looked truly thoughtful at the prospect. "Divine matchmaker, you say? I may have to add that to my ever-growing list of domains."

"Starting with god of multiple orgasms?"

"Naturally." He winked.

He always could make me laugh, and there was a special comfort in laughing with him now. He might have ascended to reaches I dared not dream, but he was still the insufferable friend I loved as rival and kin.

"Speaking of…" Aikos's eyes drifted over my head to the far left of the courtyard. "I believe my skills are needed."

I turned, and somewhat hidden behind one of the pillars leading to an exit into the Olympian halls was a tall, broad, bronze-skinned man with short brown hair and a trim beard. His amber eyes burned almost as fiery as Apollo's, but it was his scars, the dent in his nose, and the brace on one leg that gave away his identity.

"Is that…?"

"It is."

"He's handsome."

"Isn't he? Took him too long to see it. Many with supposed flaws fail to see their beauty." Aikos drew my attention back to him by brushing some of the hair from my shoulder, revealing more of my uneven jawline that my longer locks helped hide.

I did not think he meant my perceived flaws though. He was unfairly insightful, like so much of him was unfair. He could perhaps add minister to mental and emotional health to his godly domains. Apollo still needed to see past his flaws and learn to forgive himself as much as others.

And blast Aikos for so concisely being the one to remind me of that.

"Your perfection is truly irritating. Do you know that?"

"Such insolence before a god?" He laughed, but the softer smile he afforded me was uncharacteristically sweet. "Do not forget, Dax, there are several things you best me at. Fare thee well. I am sure we will see each other again soon."

Several?I thought as Aikos left me to join Hephaestus, and I followed their retreat with my eyes. I wondered what he meant and said aloud, "I certainly wouldn't have the gall to openly fuck our goddess's husband."

"I don't really mind."

I whirled in my seat, yet again caught unawares after an unthinking declaration, and nearly tumbled off the bench.

Aphrodite sat beside me where Aikos had vacated.

When she joined me, I had no idea. I was so utterly frozen, so captivated and in awe of her, I couldn't move to properly fall to my knees and bow.

"M-my goddess!" I managed.

"My child," she said and cupped my cheek with an elegant hand.

She was without a doubt the goddess of beauty. Though I had long since left behind intimate thoughts of women, my loins stirred just from her proximity.

She had long blond hair, luxurious and flowing, with flowers weaved into it. A reddish pink like passion itself colored her eyes, her lips were plump and rosy, and an ample figure filled her gown and girdle with enviable curves.

"How beautiful you are," she said to me, while I was struck dumb by the beauty of her. "Clever too. As much a point of pride for me as my own flesh. Eros has faltered in pursuit of love too, you know. But like you, he will find it again, and a lasting one this time, I am sure of it." She drew her hand away, but where she had touched grew a warmth within me very different from Apollo's, like a mother's tender kiss.

"Th-thank you," I sputtered, for I did not doubt she meant what she said. To be compared to Eros in her favor of me was humbling to a degree that could not be measured.

Aphrodite leaned back on her hands upon the bench as if we were two friends merely chatting, just as Aikos and I had been. "Do you know why I had at times resented my union with Hephaestus? I'll save you the trouble of fearing you might offend your goddess by answering." She giggled when my eyes no doubt became the size of sundials. "It is because he thought himself ugly. Because for ages, he had been so self-deprecating, both jealous when I was with others, yet condemning of himself as unworthy of me. I was not accustomed to how to help him move past that internal loathing, and so we drifted and dallied elsewhere than with each other and were generally quite unhappy."

"Until Aikos," I said.

"Until Aikos. He gives my husband something I could not, and because of that, when we are together, it is a more beautiful union too." She sighed in contentment, gazing toward where Hephaestus and Aikos had gone. "Not an arrangement that could work for all beloveds. Apollo will not want to share you, and once you have him, I know you will not share either."

I wondered just how well she knew me. How many of my prayers she might have heard. How many she might have answered. Though only one mattered now, and I was in the midst of it coming to fruition in the very halls of heaven. "It was always my plan to give myself fully to only one love once I found him," I concurred.

Her loveliness as she turned her attention and alluring smile on me was magnificent. "And that is a beautiful union for you. Aikos may be one of my greatest achievements. A true masterpiece in the arts of carnality. But you are my masterpiece too, Dax. For you are destined for something Aikos is incapable of. Something he would never seek because it is not meant for him. You are on the right path."

As much as Aikos's words had bolstered me, to hear such reinforcement from our goddess emboldened me even more. "Thank you," I said again.

"My true pleasure." She winked—and I had to wonder, honestly wonder, if she was mother to Aikos in the flesh as much as she was to Eros, for they were very similar. "If you will excuse me." She stood and headed off in the same direction as Hephaestus and Aikos.

"You seek to follow them?" I found myself compelled to call after her.

Aphrodite responded with a devious grin thrown over her shoulder. "My husband is particularly virile after an encounter with Aikos, and one can never have too many beautiful unions."

I laughed. Definitely similar to Aikos.

As she too left me, the courtyard oddly empty today, as if my visitors had planned it as such to catch me alone, it was then that I spotted Apollo entering from the north. I wondered how long he had been watching before making himself known, for the timing was too apt to be coincidence.

I made sure my parchment was further tucked out of sight. I believed I had plenty of inspiration now to finish my poem.

"You have had visitors ahead of me," Apollo said when he reached me.

"I have. Welcome ones." I patted the once again vacant spot beside me. "Though you are the most welcome. Always. If it pleases you, my dear Apollo," I continued before he suggested what we might do today, "unless you object, I know how I would like us to spend our time together."

"Oh?" He sat, collected and calmer from the turmoil that had seized him yesterday.

More was needed though. I was on the right track. We were. But I knew why Apollo faltered to seek something deeper with me, and not only for a proper courtship.

He still feared himself unworthy of the love he so dearly sought, just as Hephaestus had feared himself unworthy of the goddess of love.

"I am grateful to know more about what truly happened between you and Hyacinth," I said, knowing the utterance of the name would darken his otherwise hopeful expression. "More than legend now, but truth. It is in understanding that we fully know someone, and in knowing them, that we can love.

"But also, I believe it would be good for you to speak those stories more, to speak honestly of your trials and heartbreaks, so you might learn to forgive the one person you still haven't. Well, I suppose you didn't forgive Zephyrus, but I do hope you can forgive yourself."

The sadness in Apollo's stare was thankfully quick to brighten again. "Wise Dax, it is a difficult thing you ask after all the wrongs I have done and the wounds I have suffered."

"Then tell me of those wrongs and wounds too deep to avoid scars, so you might continue to heal."

Moisture pooled in the corners of Apollo's eyes. He had spilled many tears in my presence, but that they were so close to the surface spoke of how much he still needed to shed. "When I was with Aikos, I told him my stories, but it was the barebones history of it all, not how each tragedy had made me feel. Not how they changed me and broke me." Apollo reached across the bench to take my hand. "I think you are right and that perhaps, finally, I should."

And then he did.