June 25, 9527 BC
Noon
Acheron came awake to the sound of ultimate grief. Someone was wailing as if their heart was splintered. Blinking open his eyes, he found the sun bright, streaming through his open windows.
His head pounding in agony, he pushed himself up in bed, but almost fell as his stomach lurched sharply. He hadn't awakened this sick since he'd left Estes's home. It felt as if he'd overdosed on something.
Artemis.
There in the blinding light, he remembered her "gift." More than that, he remembered her holding a knife over him as she debated whether or not she should kill him.
"You fucking bitch," he snarled.
An instant later, his doors were thrown open. The sound echoed so sharply in his head that it made him flinch and made his head pound even more. "Not so loud," he whispered.
The next thing he knew, Styxx had him by the throat. He shoved him back on the bed to straddle him. "Are you drunk?"
Acheron shook his head.
Styxx backhanded him. He pulled the arc of herbs from the table next to the bed and flung it into Acheron's face. "You worthless whore. You lie in here on your drugs and drink while my sister was murdered!" Styxx punched him again and again.
Acheron tried to block the hits, but his muscles and reactions were still sluggish from Artemis's drugs. It took a full minute for those words to permeate the fog in his mind. "What did you say?"
"Ryssa's dead, you bastard!"
No! The denial echoed in his head. It wasn't right. Styxx was being an ass.
Surely not even the gods who hated him would do this to him.
Shoving Styxx away, Acheron forced himself out of bed and staggered down the hallway to Ryssa's rooms. Oblivious to the fact he was naked, he walked in to find the king holding Ryssa in his arms. She looked like a doll. Her face was blue, and her body . . .
He choked on what he saw. She'd been ripped to pieces. Her face and body ravaged by something that looked like large claws. There was blood all over the bed and floor. Falling to his knees, Acheron couldn't breathe or even think past the agony of what he saw.
Ryssa was dead.
And it was then, there on the floor before him that he saw Apollodorus and the nurse. Both bloody. Both dead.
Acheron banged his head against the stone floor, trying his best to clear the fog in his mind. To feel something other than the shattering of his heart.
"I heard them . . ." he whispered as the reality of last night slammed into him with fists more powerful than any that had hit him before.
Damn you, Artemis! He had the powers of a god, but not the power to come and save the only two people who'd ever loved him. And why? Because that whore had drugged him!
He screamed out in anguish.
At that instant, in his mind, he saw the entire event unfold. Saw the ones who'd come into the room from the windows and slaughtered them. He heard Ryssa screaming out for his help.
Heard Apollodorus again begging for his uncle . . .
Suddenly, something slammed into his ribs. The force of the blow knocked him to his side. Looking up, he saw Styxx's furious face as he kicked him in the stomach. Then his twin was on the ground, slamming his head against the stone floor over and over again.
"Why wasn't it you, you worthless maggot!"
Acheron couldn't even think to protect himself. In that moment, he wanted to die too. There was no reason for him to live. Ryssa and Apollodorus were gone.
Even Artemis had tried to kill him.
Impotent rage roiled through him. Roaring from the force of it, he shoved Styxx away from him, but before he could regain his feet a bright light exploded through the room. Acheron lifted his arm to shield his eyes as Apollo manifested.
There was complete silence as the god looked slowly around the room taking in every detail. Even the king had stopped crying in expectation of the god's reaction.
Apollo didn't speak as he saw Ryssa lying dead in her father's arms and his son's lifeless body still in the arms of his savaged nurse.
"Who did this?" Apollo demanded through clenched teeth.
Styxx pointed to Acheron. "He let them die."
Before Acheron could think to deny those words, Apollo spun on him and hit him with his fist so hard that it lifted him from the ground and slammed him into the wall ten feet above the floor.
Acheron fell to the ground, his body aching. Apollo grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head. Acheron tried to push him away, but his muscles were still too weak.
The god backhanded him. Blood and pain exploded as his nose was broken and his lips split. The god set on him with such fury that Acheron couldn't even recover from one blow before two more were delivered to him.
"Artemis!" Acheron shouted, needing her to help calm her brother.
"Don't you dare say my sister's name, you filthy whore!" Apollo grabbed a dagger from his waist and snatched at Acheron's tongue. He sliced it off.
Acheron choked on the blood that poured through his mouth. Unimaginable pain throbbed to the point all he could think was to try and crawl away from Apollo.
But Apollo grabbed him by the throat in a grip so searing it burned the god's handprint into his skin.
"Akri! Ni!" Xiamara's cries filled the room as she appeared above him and dove for Apollo. She knocked the god back from him and put herself between them.
"Out of my way, demon," Apollo demanded.
Her response was to launch herself at the god. The two of them tangled in a flurry of light and feathers as they pounded each other.
Tears filled Acheron's eyes as he fought against the pain that was trying to drag him into unconsciousness. His only thought to kill Apollo, he crawled to where the god's knife had fallen. His own blood coated the blade. With a fury born of grief and all the years where he'd been abused, Acheron seized it and spun on the combatants.
Ryssa had meant nothing to Apollo. No more than he meant to Artemis. His sister had loathed the god and now the bastard acted as if her death meant something to him.
It wasn't right and by the gods who'd birthed him, he wasn't going to let the god get away with attacking his mother's demon. His fury set fire to the blade, causing it to glow as he raced toward them.