"What did you do?" I snarl when the lights fade away.

Apollo sensibly steps back, his smile mischievous. "Do not get so hostile woman, healing is my forte. I did not harm your beloved."

It was really as if the one with a smile like the summer sun had grown two black horns, and with gritted teeth I turn my back to him feeling the smooth forehead of the god who was still asleep and realise he was speaking the truth for the once scorching skin was cooling, the fever finally breaking.

"Why is he not waking up if you cured him." I hide well my gratitude, wary of god wore two skins of dawn and dusk, one warm and kind, the other devious with impending darkness.

And it seems he had been waiting for a few words of appreciation as he frowns clearly displeased, yet silver eyes were shimmering with amusement. "His condition isn't simple in the least and with the current strain he is undertaking-"

He does not finish his sentence and my scalp tingles when silver eyes take in my stiff form though I did not fully grasp the meaning behind his words it told of an upcoming calamity. "Don't fret, he will wake up eventually. And it isn't my fault that he is not instantly back on his feet since I don't really specialise on...curses."

It was as though a thunderbolt had struck from the sky, turning my blood cold, my heart frantic.

"Curse?" The word frequently ran through my mind, never tiring and forever haunting, but it was rarely voiced by my tongue.

He shakes his head. "I can't tell you, because I never tried to risk my head trying to find out." His response came quickly, blind to my panic, to the lips that were turning pale from fear.

"So you don't know."

He fiddles with the carmine belt that added the only colour to his spotless white. "Yes."

A painful throb birthed in my head and for a while my eyes did not lower to the god of the Underworld. He had only once ever spoken of his ailment, and I knew from that instant that the reason to it was a safely guarded secret known only by few who could be counted in one hand. But a curse, it was far beyond what I had imagined.

"Can you cure him?"

"Completely?" I nod, but he shakes his head again. "I am afraid that I cannot. Besides, your beloved isn't a sunny boy."

I swallow back the words of anger from meeting his contempt fully aware that an arguement was useless.

He suddenly laughs. "You don't like it, don't you? You are just holding back because you realised it wasn't me who cast the curse."

I evade the fingers of honey that reached for my chin and move away in cold refusal. "Why did you help him when you dislike him?"

He was taken aback for a moment before his usual nonchalance replace it. "I am infamous for my medication Elizabeth. If the other gods misunderstand my unwillingness for my incapability to treat him my reputation would be stained."

His eyes were the same as that of a boy bragging of his good score and his smile unflattering, but I sensed it was only the synopsis to a bigger truth, a much larger secret, and his swaying moods made it difficult to determine whether the rest placed me at a disadvantage.

"I see."

The curt reply causes his dark brows to crease as he bents to my height, his hands crossing over his chest when searching my face for a more colourful reaction and when he doesn't he frowns.

"I should get going before he wakes up, it wouldn't do me good if I idle around after bullying the Underworld's kardiá."

Car...what?

My clulessness to the reference gives him only satisfaction and he turns to leave, promising as he does. "I will come meet you again."

"Wait!" I call with the helplessness of an abounded child unable to catch upto her benefactor with her tiny feet.

The emotions leave him unguarded as he swiftly whirls around, his eyes scanning the room before narrowing at the brown object magnifying in his vision. The sword hilt lands on his nose displacing the tender bones with a sound that leaves me feeling nauseous.

He opens his silver eyes, straightening up with his fingers gently rubbing down his slender nose while the sword silently slides down to the carpeted floor from my hands. And like a plague I avoided looking at the man who seemed to be wondering when exactly I had retrieved the weapon.

"Thank you...for helping him." I mumble awkwardly but unrepentant and triumph was my smile.

And faster than a reflex he laughs, his lashes dropping and head thrown back. "Is this how you thank people?" The god asks barely managing to stand upright and when the unrestrained amusement subsidies petal like lips form an alluring pout evoking ones sympathy.

It really was that scary.

"You make me want to tease you more." The innocence was suddenly put away, the other side to the silver coin emerging with a fiendish smile.

A heavy thud was suddenly heard and our head whips to the source to find a familiar bag on the floor, its clumsily strapped buckles revealing the green contents inside and beside it stood a man with blue eyes, his vision perceiving all that was before him and the initial numbness due to shock fades to reveal a terrifying menace.

And only then do I realise that even though it had been playful teasing Apollo's body was leaning forward and mine away and with such antagonistic posture aside from the fallen sword and my eyes that were tainted red it was difficult for one to think beyond what was depicted.

But much before I could make a sound Will charged without questioning his conclusions.

Thankfully a mercury blade repelled the merciless sword that was close to his neck in one move. "Brother, why so hasty?" Apollo sneered fending off and quickly countering. And within seconds they had exchanged over five moves, the exact pattern too rapid for my mortal eyes to comprehend more than flashes of two silhouettes.

"Stop it! Its a misunderstanding." It was unknown whether the two ever heard my screams because they never stopped, none of the two willing to be the first to lower their blades.

And when the movements slowed it was dead lock, Will was with his back to Apollo whoes blade lay vertical to his brother's. "Not in good shape are we?"

Will cast a cold glance back at him and only said. "Get lost!" The tables suddenly overturned, Apollo' sword fell to the ground and unlike what I hoped for Will sheathed his deadly blade and closed in with brutal punches.

No one wanted to surrender whether it was clashing swords or close combat, and the battle suddenly turned more chaotic.

It was then that I walked towards the two who had purposefully kept me a few meters away and did not foolishly try to pull one back, but instead did something riskier.

Almost at tranquillity I waited by the sideline and when the perfect opportunity was due I leapt forward a second before the sparring opponents retraced like stretched springs from where they were forced back by the other, and I became a human wall.

My short hair twirled in the wind as fists flew inches away from my flesh and I held back the scream cramping my throat when the surrounding fell silent. The two looked at me for a while, each eventually backing away several feet in shock.

I held up a hand unwilling to listen to any advices and was rather calm and bland when I said."This is a huge misunderstanding, so stop trying to hurt each other."

"Why were you crying?" Will asks, his reproach for my former action a torrential rain in ocean eyes.

And speechless I met his chilling gaze and then I remembered his hesitancy, his fear to leave me alone, the frustration as he left and the urgency in his eyes when he arrived and now the rage that I did not know how to quell.

"William." I took a step towards him, my arms outstretched and then felt the strength of warm hands drawing me into a crushing embrace. "Yeah forget it, kill him already." I mumble under my breath, soothing the tense lines of his shoulder baldes.

"Elizabeth!" The god of the sun seemed to complain and then never again spoke disappearing with a smile too hard to decrypt.

"I am sorry." Will whispered, his fingers reaching for my hair, but did not ruffle it into tangles like usual, only held it in a bundle of messy strands for a long time. "I am late."

I pat his back. "Its alright, he didn't cause too much trouble and helped treat Hades."

Will looked to his Lord on the bed not believing his ears and watching his confusion I laughed withdrawing from his grasps. "He said something about ruined reputation."

"Sure. How is he?"

"Better." I reply and Will' mood lightens, but soon again falls to gloom and this time I was the one to pour the bucket of cold water. "Why is he like this William?"

And his silence tightens the knot in my heart. "You know don't you?"

"I...I don't want to tell you." Will pauses, and then speaks with a certain softness as if it were a plea. "I don't think he would want you to know."

And even though I had guessed it a while back my hair stood on its end. "Why?"

"You will not like it." The reply was quick like it was thought through a hudered times before.

"But you have to tell me." I press stepping forward when his eyes don't meet mine. "Will you have to tell me."

And finally when ocean eyes return my gaze their waters were turbulent. "Did you know, that a God's soul isn't concentrated in their body alone?"

I weakly nod unsure whether I wanted to hear the rest.

It was the second time I have been asked this question by two different people that I held dear, and the first time it had planted a seed of fear deep in my heart and now it began to bloom.

"Hades is no longer as powerful as he was before he fell ill." Will's fingers ran amongst his blonde locks with the temptation to pull them apart and watching the slight panic expanding on my face regains his composure.

"Don't worry it's hard for others to notice, but while maintaining a powerful form here and extending his presence to the Underworld is taking its toll."

"Why take the risk?" And once again the man before me was hesitant, unwilling to explain any further. "I have overheard the guards here say that Hades has never brought along escorts and rarely ever comes to Olympus and never gives the meetings any importance so then even if he had taken a weak form no one would have thought too much of it." I point out to the loopholes, and he seemed taken aback when finding there was no way out.

"Then why?" I ask.

Will sighs, it was long and heavy and it hurt one to watch. "As I told you before, Olympus is not all fountains and fairies, almost everyone have their own motives and schemes. It's not a place for the soft-hearted."

My pupils shrank in fear as he looked at me, it was as if the top of my head had been drilled open. "For your condition to get better you had to be taken to Olympus and being human there will be innumerable foes wanting to target you to get to Hades. He couldn't just leave you unprotected."

"During your meeting with Thanatos when he asked you to sit beside him, it was a warning."

I had pushed on wanting to know the entire truth and now when I finally succeeded, it tore me to pieces.

We stood unmoving and silent for a long while and later looked to the bed each with their own thoughts. "But this outcome really was not as planned." Will says, his gaze trailing from the bed to my face.

"A fool." I simply say.

"Elie." His hand fell back to his side midway and it was almost like he was afraid I would break though my smile was still in place. "There's someone at the door, I will go sent them away."

I nod noticing the sudden alertness, but the retreating back of the blue eyed man felt as if he was running away, forgetting his sword that was still on the floor, but regardless an azure barrier was cast in place.

And it shone down on the face that was no longer as pale, but amber eyes were still hidden away. Nearing the high bed impulsively with two fingers I pinch his cheeks and retrieve them with unsatisfied anger.

Why did you do it?

And the thoughts I wanted to bury in tar resurfaced more demanding than ever before.

Not a soul could enter the Underworld without its Rulers sanction and for me to do so freely the first time when I had no clue of such a land had me speculating countless times and had thought it was only out of a whim. But more than once have I doubted if it really wasn't so.

And later when I came to know that my lineage was no secret to the god, I became sure that it really wasn't the case, that from the beginning to the present every second of his kindness was all but meant for me.

Was it from guilt? Did he think of it as a way to correct past mistakes, a way to repent and pay back to the woman he thought he owed.

Was Grace Eleftheria to thank for the time he was willing to waste, for each small and gentle gesture, for every simple act of warmth?

I no longer could tell who exactly was a fool.

And I wished to blame him for using me to ease his guilt, but frustrating as it was, to me all he does seemed pure and right and so in the end I turned my grudge to the woman who was long since been dust and bones for the reasons that I didn't know myself.

I suddenly smile my eyes closed, while a strange feeling shredded away my insides like termites on moist wood. But abruptly breaking me away from my daze a warm fingertip pressed against the tear carrying my sorrow, ending its journey as the god of the Underworld awakens, his crimson lips tenderly parted as if to ask, why.

And my anger like the morning fog clear to the brilliance of amber eyes and within them were a mirage of emotions, but unfortunately not one could be singled out.

Is it her that you see in me?

It was as if cotton balls were stuffed down my throat, making me force out each word that were soft yet cracked.

"Take me back...to my home I don't want to stay here any longer."

Jealousy that's what this was, where pain and sadness lay hand in hand and in it I was lost.

: Heart