Cursed [malexmale]

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

I woke up in Apollo's bed on Olympus, two days later.

My whole body ached deep to my bones, but other than that, I was completely healed... physically. Mentally, I was weary and my nerves were shot. My ego was deflated, like a popped balloon in an abandoned park, and my chest felt like someone had ripped my heart out and stomped on it, then ruthlessly shoved it back into the cavity and I wanted to be angry again.

I wanted that searing hot rage to destroy the pain and sorrow clinging to me, like an impenetrable spiderweb. I wanted to numb myself, so I couldn't feel like this. At the same time, I knew I deserved this pain. I knew I deserved to feel like shit, and it was more than just learning that Dexius had hated me all these years. It was his words that pelted me with a searing hot truth, and worse still was the pain that I had just damned a merman to a worse hell than Xandria because I was angry and hurt and once again acting like a selfish bastard.

I had to at least help him.

He was just doing what his people were meant to do. Protect their territory, protect their family, seek vengeance on those who've threatened and hurt him.

But it was so hard to get out of bed. The depression from Dexius's rejection and my own stupidity was like a physical weight on my shoulders, like claws sinking into me and dragging me back to bed, to lay and suffer in silence, but the drive to right at least one wrong in my life managed to get me on my feet. I couldn't hear or feel Apollo anywhere in the temple, meaning he was probably at the grand hall, being punished by Zeus for my stupidity.

Another wrong I wanted to right, but I wasn't sure how.

Then again, Apollo probably did and I would gladly take any punishment he lumped on me.

I could feel Menoetius and Arikos moving around the temple, and Hannibal's presence somewhere in the garden. I could smell food cooking in the kitchen, meaning Denarius was here as well. However, my goal was at the grand hall and I prayed I didn't run into Apollo on the way there.

I went to the wardrobe, pulling on a pair of slacks and a t-shirt, throwing a jacket on. I was able to teleport to the grand hall for some reason as well. Normally Apollo would restrict my powers preventing my teleportation, unless it was to somewhere in the temple. A small sliver of concern and possibly hope went through me, only to be crushed a moment later when I tried to summon a ball of fire in my palm, only for my palm to smoke and a strange pain strangling my throat.

And here I thought the Source was finally releasing me.

I sighed and looked up at the grand hall, debating on the main entrance, but decided against it. I wasn't in the mood to run into the people protecting Zeus's temple, so instead, I opted for a side entrance that opened up into a huge palace sized kitchen where several cooks were rushing around to prepare food, a couple of servants keeping the place clean, and no one looked twice at me as I came inside, pretending to do a sweep of the kitchen like one of the other servants, an inspector to make sure Zeus wouldn't be displeased with the cleanliness. Even Zeus had a limit to how much filth he could stand.

I passed through the kitchen into a corridor, white and pristine like the rest of the palace. The floor made of heavily designed white marble and the white walls that spread up into an arched ceiling that was designed with more swirling patterns. I wasn't entirely sure where I would find the Atlantean merman, but I decided to test the limits of the powers Apollo was allowing me to use, and sent out my powers and instantly felt the presence of the merman not far from where I was.

I passed down the corridor until I came to a pair of white doors that were big enough to let Godzilla through. I never understood why people needed such large doors.