The Gates of Tartarus | I ✓

BONUS: APOLLO'S POV

Considering how popular Apollo's POV in TCOA was, I thought that this could be a tradition for all of the books in this trilogy.

Anyway, I was debating on how to write this chapter because, basically, I reedited this book and had to choose one version. I ultimately decided on my edited one because it's better, though it might be a little confusing. Also the writing style is so different you might think you're reading a whole different book but that's okay.

Anyway, let's not keep you waiting. Enjoy!

Edit: THIS... was not edited at all. Because I wrote it this year and I'm not rewriting something this recent. Also, it now fits the original chapter's dialogue, so disregard everything up there.

If Artemis could see him now, she would've been laughing.

At least, Apollo would've preferred that she was laughing, though he knew that she would've been upset at his literal fall into Tartarus, just as he would've been if it had been her. Though, as he glanced at Eden, who was gazing forward with somewhat-glassy eyes—a sure sign she was thinking about something—he felt a small smile threatening to creep onto his lips. He wasn't sure if he regretted falling in with her.

After all, he had spoken with Amara, and she had confirmed what he had suspected the first time he laid eyes on her. Artemis had tried to dissuade him from going, but he had insisted.

At least this way, he wouldn't have to suffer Aphrodite's knowing looks.

Upon discovering her enhanced healing, Apollo had felt a horrible twist in his gut—there was only one person she could've possibly gotten the gift from, and it was him. Sure, if he had just blessed her, that wasn't a problem, but he was fairly sure he hadn't. It hadn't occurred to him then. But getting back to the point... if he hadn't blessed her, there was only one other way she could've gotten the gift.

He was somehow her ancestor.

True, Apollo didn't recall accidentally having a child in the last few centuries or so, but there had been times when he, Hermes, and Ares had accidentally gotten wasted during a party and woke up recalling no memories from the last few days—immortal alcohol was strong, especially when Apollo couldn't really hold his liquor that well and it was brewed by Dionysus. Even drunk, however, he was still clever enough to sneak past the guards—that he was quite sure of—and he wouldn't have put it past himself to have went for a short vacation down in the mortal realm.

If that were true, if Eden was somehow his descendant... Apollo wasn't sure who'd he kill—himself or Hermes, who was the one who dragged him to those parties.

Sure, the other gods had no problems with familial marriages; immortal DNA just didn't work the same way as humans' did. Besides, the whole taboo against marrying family in the mortal realm was due to the genetic problems it caused, but gods didn't have that problem. (He had done a whole essay on DNA back when he was in university, as it hadn't been a well-researched topic and Apollo had found it fascinating and disappointing there wasn't much on it.) But he had always found that... squeamish.

If he didn't know he was dating a family member, then there really wasn't much he could do about it, but if he ever figured it out, he often couldn't bring himself to continue the relationship. And, considering how much his father went around... well, Apollo broke a lot of hearts when he found that he really couldn't date his half-siblings or nieces or nephews. It was just too weird. That was why he often just tried to avoid digging into family trees, though sometimes he still found out by accident.

If Eden was descended from him, though, a direct descendant... that was worse than him dating a mortal half-sibling of his, in his opinion. Sure, Zeus was Heracles' father and great-grandfather (thinking about that still made Apollo shudder some days), but most of the gods had qualms about that. The general agreed philosophy on Olympus when it came to lovers was this: if you know how related you are the first time you meet, you're too closely related to get together.