New to the story or need a refresher? Begin with the prologue:
“Which one is he?” Apollo hoisted up a Calico by its neck. No, the eyes weren’t quite right. There was a specific look that humans had when they turned into animals. This furtive awareness.
“Maybe this one?” He floated upward to inspect a black-and-white cat nestled in the branches of an alder tree.
No. Too unbothered.
“Are you going to help me?”
“Nah,” Artemis said. “Just leave him be. That mortal is lucky enough that he’s not in the Underworld right now. You’ve helped him enough already.”
“His name is Jaden,” Apollo said, stepping over one of the springs that channeled throughout Artemis’s room, flowing with crystal blue water. “And what was the point of helping me save him if you just imprison him as a feline?”
“The world could use one less man.” Artemis returned to picking the last iris she needed from the soft meadows that used to be where her sterile hardwood floors once were.
“But he’s different,” Apollo said. “There’s something unique about him that I can’t explain. You know, I tried reading his soul while piecing him back together after the accident, but something prevented me from seeing who he is.”
“Maybe you’ve lost your touch. It’s not like we have a steady supply of ambrosia to tap into our full powers these days.”
“It wasn’t that,” Apollo said. “Something is protecting him.”
“Then let it and let him be. We left Mt. Olympus to stop interfering with mortals. Besides, they only complicate things.”
“You’re starting to sound like Athena.”
“Well, she has a point.” Artemis’s voice softened. “Look, can’t we simply enjoy our time here without them?”
Jaden watched the two of them maneuver about the forest room. He tried to listen to the language they spoke. The sounds were familiar to his ears, which rotated and flitted in positions he never thought possible, but he had difficulty placing the meaning behind the words. Or their importance. How could he fret over human noises while large birds were flying above the thick copse of trees filling the room—owls and falcons and long-necked cormorants whose business was with the sea, not in a city.
He slunk low across the mossy floor, every muscle tuned, every instinct humming, as he kept the forest’s creatures in his line of sight. He had always watched the world this way. Framing. Waiting. First with his camera lens, now as a cat. In the dark recesses of his mind, he knew exactly what he would do once one of the critters flitted by him.
“You know that you always do this, right?” Artemis said. “And it always ends in heartache.”
“Heartache? That’s dramatic.”
“Yes, brother of mine. It is drama. Drama and heartache. That’s what humans are. They’re weak, and they die, and they’ll disappoint you with all the ways they’re not like us. I thought you had learned all that already. Need I remind you of how long it took you to get over Hyacinth? You were morose for at least a century.”
“It was a decade,” Apollo corrected. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about him. Can you just tell me which one is Jaden?”
Artemis fashioned the irises she had collected into a wreath, the petals arranging themselves around her head and reaching out to their neighbor. As they gathered and braided into her hair, she served her brother a playful smile. “Why should I?”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Apollo abandoned his investigation of a particularly shock-orange tabby.
“I’m looking out for you if that’s what you mean,” Artemis said. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
The twins have always shared their blind spots as much as their strengths. What one of them senses, the other feels. What one cannot see, neither can fully name. They don’t deliberate yet somehow arrive at conclusions together. I guess from some sort of instinct rather than reason.
Which I think makes sense given how they were born.
You remember what Hera put the twins’ mother through, right? Kicked Leto off Olympus and barred every scrap of land from giving her shelter while she was in labor with the twins. All because Hera found out Zeus had gotten Leto pregnant. Leto wandered until she reached Delos, a floating island that belonged nowhere and therefore slipped through the cracks. And when she finally gave birth, Artemis came first. Practically leapt into the world. And instead of resting like a newborn ought, she turned right around and helped deliver her brother.
They haven’t been ordinary duplicates since.
“I’ll play you for him in a hunt.” Apollo whistled, and his bow materialized and fell into his hands. “I’ll even let you name the stakes.”
Apollo knew that deep within the ichor that flowed in Artemis’s veins, it was instinctual for her to howl with the wolves, run with the deer. She was the goddess of the hunt. How could she resist pursuing the wild?
With a thrill, she reached for her bow. Unlike Apollo, who kept his stashed out of sight, Artemis always had hers with her. She wore her bow the way most others wore clothes. “First to strike the Ceryneian Thrush wins. You win, I’ll tell you which one is Jaden. But if I win, you give up pursuing mortals. Forever.”
“What? I’m not at all like you, content to live alone in a castle full of cats.”
“Those are my terms,” Artemis said, unbothered.
The forest held its breath.
“Alright,” Apollo said. He knew full well that Artemis wouldn’t relent, and it would take an eternity to sift through her brood of felines.
In one fluid motion, she knocked an arrow, the silver limbs more of an extension of herself. She scanned her domain for the flashes of the small bird’s golden bill and its bronze-colored talons. The only way to capture it was before it took flight, as the bird darted about in such a way that it could outfly even her arrows.
An arrow pierced through one of the rows of cypress trees. Apollo watched his sister shoot too early. Birds squawked and crowed as they fluttered into the air. The commotion of the birds resettling released a lingering, pine-like scent.
Suddenly a flash of gold whizzed by the twins. The thrush flew so fast that it resembled trails of light zipping around the room, difficult to decipher where it made its next hiding place.
“Too quick.” Any other animal would have been dead on impact. Apollo would never tell her, but she was the better archer. However, he was the superior musician. He knocked his arrow and closed his eyes while the bow’s tension flowed into his body.
He opened his ears to the sounds of the environment. He heard the deep, guttural calls from the gulp of cormorants and picked past their porcine grunts. He ignored the falcon’s shrieks, its “kak-kak-kak.” But right behind him, a little to his left, he mapped the call he sought, beginning with a long whistle. The high-pitched and fast trills that followed reminded him of some sort of woodwind instrument.
Jaden, somewhere in the depths of his catness, felt the tightening of a weave. A bird perched a mere whisker’s length in front of him, its round head faced away. His heart thrummed when the bird hopped down into the leaf litter. Every nerve aligned toward one inevitable act. The delicious snack’s tail cocked in such a way that invited—insisted—that Jaden pounce. As the bird foraged, it sang.
Jaden unleashed forward.
Apollo turned. He waited for the harmonic series to reset. His death dealer shot forth as soon as the base note floated to his ears. It saddened him to take the life of such a gifted creature. He nearly shed a tear as the beautiful musical scales produced by the Ceryneian Thrush were cut short. A dull thump as the arrow found its target. But sacrifices were a necessary part of life.
When he opened his eyes, he saw not a bird but a cat. No ordinary Felis catus either, but one with a certain kind of secret intelligence quickly fading from its eyes.
P.S. I’ll be putting together a small group of advance readers for the full book soon. People who want to read it early and leave an honest review when it’s released.
If that sounds like you, just shoot me a message and I’ll add you to the list!