The Tyrant's Tomb

dark ponytail swept over her shoulder like a horsewhip, and her obsidian
eyes were every bit as piercing as those of the eagles that circled above us.
I managed to wrest my eyes from her. My face burned with humiliation. I
could still hear the other gods laughing after Venus made her proclamation to
me, her dire warnings if I should ever dare—
PING! Lavinia’s manubalista chose that moment to crank itself another
half notch, mercifully diverting everyone’s attention to her.
“Uh, s-so,” she stammered, “we were on duty when I saw this hearse go
flying over the guardrail—”
Reyna raised her hand for silence.
“Centurion Levesque.” Reyna’s tone was guarded and weary, as if we
weren’t the first battered procession to tote a coffin into camp. “Your report,
please.”
Hazel glanced at the other pallbearers. Together, they gently lowered the
casket.
“Praetors,” Hazel said, “we rescued these travelers at the borders of
camp. This is Meg.”
“Hi,” said Meg. “Is there a bathroom? I need to pee.”
Hazel looked flustered. “Er, in a sec, Meg. And this…” She hesitated, as
if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “This is Apollo.”
The crowd murmured uneasily. I caught snatches of their conversations:
“Did she say—?”
“Not actually—”
“Dude, obviously not—”
“Named after—?”
“In his dreams—”
“Settle down,” Frank Zhang ordered, pulling his purple mantle tighter
around his jammie top. He studied me, perhaps looking for any sign that I
was in fact Apollo, the god he’d always admired. He blinked as if the
concept had short-circuited his brain.
“Hazel, can you…explain that?” he pleaded. “And, erm, the coffin?”
Hazel locked her golden eyes on me, giving me a silent command: Tell
them.
I didn’t know how to start.
I was not a great orator like Julius or Cicero. I wasn’t a weaver of tall
tales like Hermes. (Boy, that guy can tell some whoppers.) How could I