I watched carefully as she detached from the group. Her black hair shone in the sun and I knew, even though I couldn’t see her eyes, that the gray would flash like lightning, like stormy gray seas. She made her way over to me, obviously disgruntled. But even her anger couldn’t take away from her natural grace, her unusual quickness of movement.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed at me through clenched teeth.
“Just seeing how my darling half-sister is doing in her own little world,” I replied lazily, knowing the veiled taunt annoyed her.
“Of course you are.” The sudden change in her expression startled me; Minerva was notoriously famous for her temper and the cool façade she put on did not match her at all. “Well, now that you’ve seen how I’m getting on, leave.”
“What if I don’t want to?” That stopped her in her tracks. She looked at me with a confused expression. Letting my smirk show on my face, I said, “Do you really think I would be here of my own accord? Dad sent me. He needs you.”
“Needs me?” she sneered. “I’m sure he needs me. That’s probably why he banished me in the first place!”
“Come on, Minerva-“
“I don’t go by Minerva anymore, Apollo,” she said abruptly. “I go by Imogene.” With that parting shot she turned to join the group of women again.
I stared after her in stunned disbelief. Obviously she had no idea what was going on in the real world, having locked herself up in her own fantasyland and named herself “maiden”, of all things. She hadn’t taken kindly to her banishment a couple decades ago, when she was accused of killing a god. Although she proclaimed her innocence vehemently, nobody believed her and eventually Zeus (my father) had to throw her out of Mount Olympus. She promptly disappeared from sight until one of her disciples inadvertently revealed her location, a land that Minerva had created for herself.
However, now Zeus was seriously reconsidering his decision. A group of humans called the Aegis was growing steadily stronger. The Aegis’ primary goal was to get rid of all the immortals and let humans rule for themselves. Their power had grown to the point where we could no longer hide our palace on Mount Olympus; it had been exposed for the entire world to see and jeer at us. Right now, our numbers were down and every god (or goddess) was crucial.
By now Minerva had turned around, her gray eyes scrutinizing me amongst the lush greenery of the land.
“You didn’t tell me it was that bad,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to ruin your day,” I said sarcastically, taking off my sunglasses so she could see the ugly scar along my eyebrow. “They just took over Mount Olympus.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to survive without me just this once,” she replied. Her eyes were tinged with sadness as she read my thoughts. “Bye, lil’ brother.”
“If you don’t join us there won’t be a next time!” I shouted at her retreating back. “Can’t you see that we need every possible person, god, monster, whatever, on our side? The Aegis are going to take over the world, damn it!”
“I care not what happens in your world anymore.” The gaze she leveled me with was cold and hard, with eyes glittering maliciously. “When all else fails, I will still be here. The barriers I have erected will hold no matter what.”
I suppressed a shudder. Gone was the laughing and carefree goddess; in her place a woman hardened by rejection and the loss of all she loved and was loved for stood.
After one last glance, filled with contempt and something else I could not quite fathom, she spun elegantly and strode back towards the group of her “friends”.
It was like I was possessed. Every cell in me wanted to follow her, pound her into a pulp… make her feel the pain I had to feel every day. It seemed like every time I came back from battle, I had lost another piece of my humanity, in addition to losing many of my friends and relatives. It didn’t help that we were already down one major god since Minerva (she shot me a dirty look), excuse me, “Imogene” had already killed Aphrodite.
I stomped after Imogene and grabbed her roughly by the arm. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” I hissed through my teeth. “Don’t you want to help?”
“Of course I want to help,” she tossed back, “but I will be treated like a traitor, like scum not worth walking on this earth.”
“You are scum not worth walking on this earth.”
She froze, and I could see her frantically retreating behind her mental barriers again. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Yeah, right. Now just-“
“Apollo! Please listen to me. I swear I didn’t kill her. You of all people, the almighty god of truth, should know that,” she said, reverting back to her mocking tone.
I looked at her, gazing into her clear gray eyes. I couldn’t see an ounce of guilt in them which disgusted me. All the evidence pointed to-
“Screw the evidence! I was framed. Why don’t you believe me?” Imogene’ eyes pleaded with me. “Why do you think I go by Imogene now? I need hope, hope that I could ever be invited back to Olympus.”
“That’s what I’m doing now!” I almost roared with frustration.
“But not like this,” she continued, ignoring me. “Not like I am the only one who could possibly save this war for you, because I can’t.”
“Minerva, the Aegis is committing these atrocities in your name. They claim that you came to them and gave them instructions on how to overthrow us.”
She was quiet for a minute, and then said, “So that’s why you came.”
My throat was suddenly tight and all I could do was nod. The sadness in her eyes was almost unbearable, and all of sudden the sun was going behind a cloud and the grass was becoming brown. I realized why she didn’t want to leave. If nobody could defend this piece of paradise, she would never be able to retain her separation from my world, and thus have to endure the hate of every single god who survives this war.
Tears were streaming down Minerva’s cheeks and I realized I had never seen her cry.
“He set me up,” she whispered unsteadily.
“Yeah I know-that’s why he sent me-“
“No. No! I mean that he set me up with Aphrodite’s murder. He was the only one who could have stolen my spear… “
“But… Zeus? What motive could he possibly have?”
“I don’t know… unless… he’s afraid of me… Maybe I’m a potential threat, or maybe… I’m the one who…” her voice trailed off.
“Minerva?”
“What if he thought that I might overthrow him like he did to Kronos? So instead of taking that chance, he framed me so everybody would hate me and not listen to me if I found out the truth about what he tried to do.”
“Which means he’s using the Aegis to try and get rid of the gods so he can rule alone.” My face was like stone, the features etched into marble until I was no longer in control of my own emotions. This awareness heightened my battle instincts until I was all but ready to run the traitor through, despite the fact that he was my own father. Because plotting to overthrow your own family, and not only overthrow but kill as well, didn’t go down well in my book. In fact, in my book that was a good cause to kill your father for.
Minerva shook her head as she processed my feelings. “I want to be the one who kills him.” Seeing that I was about to object, she continued hurriedly, “I want to be the one who unravels his plans whether I am believed or not. But first, we should meet with the Aegis.”
“We?”
“Of course I’m joining the war,” she said dismissively. “I am a warrior goddess, after all.”
I hoped my new stone mask hid my happiness at hearing those words. After all, I had missed ribbing her over who started the Trojan War and all that.
For the first time in a decade, I stepped out of the world I had created when I was banished from Mount Olympus by my father, Zeus. My half-brother Apollo watched me with a smirk on his face which he did nothing to hide, and his thoughts were filled with thoughts of revenge.
“Stop it,” I said sharply. “You will not be the one to kill him.”
That wiped the expression right off his face, the scar along his eyebrow distorting as he frowned at me. “So you’re going to do it?”
“Do it? You sound as if you’re about to slaughter a pig. This is our father we’re talking about here,” I declared, hoping he didn’t notice how my voice had wavered over the word “our”.
“So are you going to kill him or not?”
It amazed me how obtuse some of my siblings could be. It was like they had never heard of the word “subtle” in their amazingly long lives. “I’ll leave his fate to the Fates, Apollo. Right now, let’s focus on what we came here to do.”
“Right. Talk to the Aegis and figure out why they think it was you giving them orders.”
I hesitated and then turned back to him. “You do believe me, right?”
He looked at me over the tops of his sunglasses. “Of course. I’m the god of truth, right?”
We ended up back in Greece, the once clean air polluted irreversibly by human progression. As much as I admired some of their inventions, most of them did nothing but cause harm to the environment which we gods had worked so hard to keep from evil for their sake. The steep slope of Mount Olympus loomed ahead, and now I could see the magnificent palace perched on the top of the mountain. Gone were the clouds that hid us from unkindly eyes and our very walls were polluted by those who used the gods’ weaknesses against them for their own gain. Their own gain that would only bring them ruin.
Apollo led the way up. We discussed different ways of getting to our goal, and concluded that we should just let ourselves become caught and escape when the opportunity arose.
“Halt!” A group of men armed with swords and spears blocked our path. “Who are you and why are you coming up this way?”
I caught Apollo’s eye and nodded. Then we started running. The men chased after us, their armor slowing their ascent. More men eventually came up ahead of us as we expected, and we were trapped from all sides. Apollo and I were bound and separated to lessen the chance of us forming an escape plan, as I learned from the mind of the guard who was manhandling me on the way to my ancestral home. This was not exactly the homecoming I expected, but I supposed it would have to do.
I was shepherded through the giant, gilded double doors at the end of the entrance hall. There, sitting on his throne as if nothing was amiss, was the great and almighty Zeus himself.
“Daughter!” he boomed. “Welcome home at last.”
“Welcome home?” I asked. “It is some home when you find out that your father framed his own daughter just because he didn’t like sharing power.”
Zeus sighed. “Ah, my daughter, you were always so dramatic,” he said affectionately. “But do you really think that people will believe that I framed you?”
“No, but I’m sure they’ll wonder why all the other gods aren’t on their thrones,” I replied coldly.
“Come now, daughter, do you underestimate my powers so much that you believe that I can’t make the people see what they want to see?”
“Which is what, all the gods slaughtered?” came a familiar voice from behind me. Artemis, Apollo’s twin sister, stood there, an arrow poised to fly and armies flanking her back and sides. The other gods were also by her side, their expressions ranging from outrage to excitement (what can I say, Ares was always an idiot).
“Is it true that you framed Minerva?” Hephaestus asked.
“No, of course not,” my father said, stroking his beard.
“Well, I didn’t do it and you were the only other person who could had the opportunity to kill Aphrodite so I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that you framed me,” I said sarcastically.
“You can’t prove any of this,” Zeus started to say, but I interrupted.
“Actually, I can. You see, Aphrodite’s not really dead.” Shocked gasps came from my audience behind me, the loudest from Hephaestus.
“How could she not be dead? I KILLED HER!” Zeus roared.
I spun quickly to face him.”So you’re admitting that you framed me.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course. You’re going to die anyway, so what’s the point of pretending any longer? You see,” he continued as he leapt down from his throne and started to pace around the room, “One of my children will overthrow me one day. It is in part why the majority of the gods are my children: so I can keep an eye on them, determine if they’re a threat. After thousands of years, I had finally made my choice. You were the threat. You were the only one capable of finding a way to bring me off my throne so you had to go away. And you will go away. Guards, attack! Leave none alive!”
Warriors were spewing out of everywhere, out of every possible nook and cranny in the hall. But they weren’t turning on us. They had surrounded Zeus’ throne and were preventing him from moving anywhere.
“What on earth is going on?” he bellowed, screaming out his lungs but no one would listen. Finally, I stepped forward and held up my hand. Quiet fell instantly.
Words spurted from my mouth, but I couldn’t hear what I was saying… All of a sudden something was cutting into my neck and I couldn’t breathe…
I woke up in a tangle of sheets. I rolled over and look at my electronic alarm clock’s light-up screen. It said 2:01 am.
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