The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)(76)

They sent him their own flurry of images. Reyna pictured me singing “The Fall of Jason Grace” to the legion, officiating at Jason’s funeral pyre with tears in my eyes, then looking goofy and awkward and clueless as I offered to be her boyfriend, giving her the best, most cleansing laugh she’d had in years. (Thanks, Reyna.)

Meg pictured the way I’d saved her in the myrmekes’ lair at Camp Half-Blood, singing about my romantic failures with such honesty it rendered giant ants catatonic with depression. She envisioned my kindness to Livia the elephant, to Crest, and especially to her, when I’d given her a hug in our room at the café and told her I would never give up trying.

In all their memories, I looked so human…but in the best possible ways. Without words, my friends asked Harpocrates if I was still the person he hated so much.

The god scowled, considering the two young women.

Then a small voice spoke—actually spoke—from inside the sealed glass jar. “Enough.”

As faint and muffled as her voice was, I should not have been able to hear it. Only the utter silence of the shipping container made her audible, though how she cut through Harpocrates’s dampening field, I had no idea. It was definitely the Sibyl. I recognized her defiant tone, the same way she’d sounded centuries before, when she vowed never to love me until every grain of sand ran out: Come back to me at the end of that time. Then, if you still want me, I’m yours.

Now, here we were, at the wrong end of forever, neither of us in the right form to choose the other.

Harpocrates regarded the jar, his expression turning sad and plaintive. He seemed to ask, Are you sure?

“This is what I have foreseen,” whispered the Sibyl. “At last, we will rest.”

A new image appeared in my mind—verses from the Sibylline Books, purple letters against white skin, so bright it made me squint. The words smoked as if fresh from a harpy tattoo-artist’s needle: Add the last breath of the god who speaks not, once his soul is cut free, together with the shattered glass.

Harpocrates must have seen the words, too, judging from the way he winced. I waited for him to process their meaning, to get angry again, to decide that if anyone’s soul should be cut free, it should be mine.

When I was a god, I rarely thought about the passage of time. A few centuries here or there, what did it matter? Now I considered just how long ago the Sibyl had written those lines. They had been scribbled into the original Sibylline Books back when Rome was still a puny kingdom. Had the Sibyl known even then what they meant? Had she realized she would end up as nothing but a voice in a jar, stuck in this dark metal box with her boyfriend who smelled like roses and looked like a withered ten-year-old in a toga and a bowling-pin crown? If so, how could she not want to kill me even more than Harpocrates did?

The god peered into the container, maybe having a private telepathic conversation with his beloved Sibyl.

Reyna and Meg shifted, doing their best to block me from the god’s line of sight. Perhaps they thought if he couldn’t see me, he might forget I was there. I felt awkward peeking around their legs, but I was so drained and light-headed I doubted I could stand.

No matter what images Harpocrates had shown me, or how weary he was of life, I couldn’t imagine he would just roll over and surrender. Oh, you need to kill me for your prophecy thingie? Okay, sure! Stab me right here!

I definitely couldn’t imagine him letting us take the Sibyl’s jar and shattering it for our summoning ritual. They had found love. Why would they want to die?

Finally, Harpocrates nodded, as if they’d come to an agreement. His face tightening with concentration, he pulled his index finger from his mouth, lifted the jar to his lips, and gave it a gentle kiss. Normally, I would not have been moved by a man caressing a jar, but the gesture was so sad and heartfelt, a lump formed in my throat.

He twisted off the lid.

“Good-bye, Apollo,” said the Sibyl’s voice, clearer now. “I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. Not for your sake at all. But because I will not go into oblivion carrying hate when I can carry love.”

Even if I could’ve spoken, I wouldn’t have known what to say. I was in shock. Her tone asked for no reply, no apology. She didn’t need or want anything from me. It was almost as if I were the one being erased.

Harpocrates met my gaze. Resentment still smoldered in his eyes, but I could tell he was trying to let it go. The effort seemed even harder for him than keeping his hand from his mouth.

Without meaning to, I asked, Why are you doing this? How can you just agree to die?

It was in my interest that he did so, sure. But it made no sense. He had found another soul to live for. Besides, too many other people had already sacrificed themselves for my quests.

I understood now, better than I ever had, why dying was sometimes necessary. As a mortal, I had made that choice just a few minutes ago in order to save my friends. But a god agreeing to cease his existence, especially when he was free and in love? No. I couldn’t comprehend that.

Harpocrates gave me a dry smirk. My confusion, my sense of near panic must have given him what he needed to finally stop being angry at me. Of the two of us, he was the wiser god. He understood something I did not. He certainly wasn’t going to give me any answers.

The soundless god sent me one last image: me at an altar, making a sacrifice to the heavens. I interpreted that as an order: Make this worth it. Don’t fail.