Broken God by Nazarea Andrews Read Free Book Online

been. That hurts , too.
    “I should go,” she
whispers.
    “Artie,” I say,
pleading.
    “No, Pollo. It’s
fine. It’s —.” She shakes her head, and the stag on her back shifts under skin,
swelling in her. It steadies her a little. Enough.
    “You worry me,
Apollo. But I can’t save you if you don’t want to be saved.”
    I smile at her.
Somewhere, music is swelling, and it almost drowns out her sorrow. Almost
drowns out my own. A golden thread is fraying, and I wonder if it’s time.
    Finally.
    “Artemis, you can’t
save me even if I want you to,”
I tell her, my voice a whisper.

 
    Leaving home is surprisingly easy. It’s something I had
considered and not done for so long that to finally be doing it—it was almost
anticlimactic. For a time
I’m alone, both sister and cousin held to Olympus by our father and Hades. But
they come to me, after a few decades, find me, mad and alone, and happy.
    I   wasn’t always alone. I found Del’s daughters, her granddaughters, and
lived near them for a time.
    When the last of them dies, I chase
the sun.
    Artemis and Hermes drifted by my side, held there by loyalty or
curiosity. I couldn’t tell which, and was tired of attempting to figure it out.
    I spent the first century lost in madness, the future spilling
from me like an unending torrent, and I hated it almost as much as I needed it.
    Del didn’t tell me this, and I had spent so many years free of
this particular power, that having it again was startling and painful.
    Artemis tried, for years, to draw me out of the maze of golden
threads. Sometimes, I was lucid enough to see her staring at me.
    I was lucid enough to see the hate in her eyes, and the way it
fought with the love.
    She was easier, though.
    Hermes tried to solve my madness by seducing me with an almost
endless parade of nubile village girls.
    We would fall in bed, him and I and the girl pressed between us
and he’d tug at me, at my power, until it hovered there, just beyond reach,
just waiting for the girl to take.
    She never did.
    Hermes didn’t realize that Del was not a random girl I fucked in
a temple, once.
    She was brilliant and bright and willing.
    She took her curse willingly. Eyes wide and watching.
    I knew.
    How worried they were, and how they conspired together, to keep
me lucid but unaware, to keep my power bound but still useful.
    I would sit in the sun-soaked glades of Artemis’ forests, and
listen to them plan and plot.
    I was a mad god, a broken god, but I was still, after all, a
god.

 

 
    Chapter 7 .
    I spend the next
two weeks wandering through coffee shops and hospital wards, and in the tiny apartment,
where Del waits for me. When I return, every night, she gives me a blank,
bright eyed stare, before she blinks once, and goes back to sleep, seemingly content to ignore
me completely.
    She was proving to
be remarkably stubborn in warming up to me.
    Artemis text me
once, when she returned to her forest in Canada, and I hadn’t heard from her
since. It felt isolating, even if it was the life I had chosen. Chose still.
    I had lived so long
in solitude that missing someone now was a strange and unpleasant experience.
    I spent my days in
coffee shops. I love coffee shops. Love that there are so many people, so many
stories, and threads that spin out and shine golden.
    There is something
addictive about it. About seeing so many futures playing out for me, all the
possibilities.
    I like stories. I
always have. It’s what drew me to Del, so many lifetimes ago, why I gave her my
gift and made her mine.
    Because she told me
a story—her story—and I couldn’t resist her.
    I can’t resist them
now. So I drink too much black coffee and listen to the mortals, all unaware of
what sits amongst them. My raven huffs in annoyance, and as the days spin by,
concern.
    Del greets me every
evening, when I stumble home smelling like bread and coffee and rain - splattered streets,
with a curious tilt to her head, and indifference.
    I wondered,