Acheron

December 13, 9529 BC

"What are you doing?"

Acheron opened his eyes to find Artemis standing on his balcony a few feet away from him. Even though it was freezing cold, he was sitting on the railing, leaning back against a column while he listened to the turbulent sea below. "I was getting some fresh air. What are you doing?"

She pushed her lower lip out into a becoming pout. "I was bored."

That amused him. "How can a god be bored?"

She shrugged. "There's not that much for me to do really. My brother is off with your sister. Zeus is holding council and I'm never invited to those. Hades is with Persephone. My koris are bathing and cavorting with each other and ignoring me. So I'm bored. I thought you might have some idea of something we could do together."

Acheron let out a long, tired breath. He knew where this was headed and yet he was still compelled to ask the rhetorical question. "May I at least go inside where it's warm before I remove my clothes?"

She frowned. "Is that what humans do when they're bored?"

"It's what they do with me."

"And you enjoy that?"

"Not really," he answered honestly.

"Oh." She paused a second before she continued. "Well then, what do you do for fun?"

"I go to plays."

Crossing her arms, she approached him. "That's those made up stories where they have people pretending to be other people, right?"

He nodded.

By her face he could tell that she had no understanding of why he might find that entertaining. "And you like that better than being naked?"

He'd never really thought of it quite that way before, but… "Yes. It makes me forget who I am for a while."

She looked even more puzzled. "You like to forget yourself?"

"Yes."

"But isn't that confusing for you?"

Not half as confusing as this conversation. "No."

Artemis tapped her fingers against her upper arm. "I guess if I weren't a god I wouldn't like remembering who I am either. I can see why people would feel that way. So, is there a play we can go to now?"

"There's one every afternoon in town."

"Then we should go," she said firmly.

He snorted, wishing everything was as easy as she seemed to think it was. "I can't leave."

"Why not?"

He glanced to his closed bedroom doors that had been slammed and locked since the last time he'd been thrown in here and left to rot. Oh wait, that would have been yesterday. "My previous guards were beheaded for allowing me to leave. The new set is much more cautious. If I try to speak to them, they draw their swords and push me back into my room, then lock the doors."

She shrugged. "They're no problem for me. I can take you into town."

Acheron swung his legs down from the railing as hope swelled inside him. He hated being trapped like a rabid animal. He always had. All he'd been doing for the last two days was dreaming of escaping this place if only for a brief time. But the only two ways to leave his room were through the doors behind Artemis or jumping from the stone balcony that dropped a hundred feet to the rocks below. "Really?"

She nodded. "If you'd like to go, yes."

It felt as if something in his chest was lifted at her words. He could actually kiss her for this. "I'll get my cloak."

Artemis followed her new friend into his room and watched as he pulled a cloak from beneath his straw mattress. "Why do you keep your cloak under your bed?"

He shook it out as he answered. "I have to hide my cloak or else the maids will burn it."

"Why?"

He gave her a blank look. "I told you I'm not supposed to leave here."

She didn't understand that. Why would they keep him locked inside this small room? "Did you do something wrong to be imprisoned?"

"My only crime was being born to parents who have no use for me. My father doesn't want anyone to know his eldest son is deformed so here I'm to stay until I die of old age."

A foreign pain fluttered in her stomach as she felt sad for him. There were times when she felt imprisoned, too, though no one had ever made her feel freakish by any means.

She looked down at his muscular legs. "Is that why your feet are bare?"

He nodded as he wrapped the cloak around his body and raised the cowl over his head. "I'm ready."

"What about your shoes?"

He looked baffled by her question. "I haven't any. I told you, I'm forbidden to leave."

Now that she thought about it, she realized he hadn't been wearing any shoes in her temple either. "Won't your feet be cold?"

"I'm used to it."

She curled her toes in her shoes as she considered walking over winter stones barefoot. It would be a miserable feeling that not even a human should bear. Shaking her head, she manifested a pair of warm leather shoes on his feet. "There now, much better."

Acheron looked down in amazement at the dark brown shoes lined in fur. They felt so strange against his skin. But they were incredibly warm and soft. "Thank you."

She smiled at him as if the shoes pleased her as much as they did him. "You're welcome."

The next thing he knew, they were in the center of town. Acheron gaped at the sight of them standing by a well. No one in the busy crowd seemed to notice the fact that they'd just appeared out of nowhere. He immediately drew his cowl lower over his face to make sure he was shielded from those around them.

"What are you doing?" Artemis asked.

"I don't want anyone to see me."

"Oh, that's a good idea." An instant later, she wore a richly woven cloak that was pulled up around her face in a way identical to his. "How do I look?"

Before he could prevent it, a smile curved his lips at her i

"Why does saying that make you uncomfortable?"

Acheron clenched his teeth at the simple truth that had haunted him the whole of his life. "People destroy beauty when they find it."

She cocked her head. "How so?"

"By nature, people are petty and jealous. They envy what they lack and because they don't know how to acquire something, they try to destroy anyone who has it. Beauty is one of those things they hate most in others."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I've been attacked enough to know it for a fact. Whatever people can't possess, they try to ruin."

Artemis was stu

Acheron was strangely astute at times. She could almost believe his claim of divinity, but she knew better. He was just a little more perceptive than most humans.

"Where do we go?" she asked, changing the subject.

"The common gate is over here." He led her toward a small door where a group of unwashed and filthy humans gathered.

Curling her lip in repugnance, she pulled him to a stop. "Should we be going through the common gate with common people?"

"It costs to go through the others."

How could that possibly be a problem? "Don't you have any money?"

He frowned at her. "No."

Sighing, she manifested a small purse and held it out to him. "Here. Get us decent seats. I'm a goddess. I don't sit with common people."

He hesitated before he obeyed her. Hesitated. No one did that. Yet he seemed oblivious to the fact that she was divinity. On one level it insulted her that he could be so cavalier and on another it intrigued her. She liked the feeling of being nothing more than a woman with a man.

Especially one so incredibly handsome.

But he did need to respect her godhood. She was, after all, the daughter of Zeus. She could kill him if she chose to.

Then why didn't you? His dare echoed in her head and she again saw him so proud and defiant in her temple. He was definitely an odd human.