The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo, #5)

by Rick Riordan

But if a hero isn’t ready to lose everything for a greater cause, is that person really a hero?”

The similarities between Nero’s household and my family on Mount Olympus made me increasingly uneasy. The idea that we gods were just as manipulative, just as abusive as the worst Roman emperor…Surely that couldn’t be true. Oh, wait. Yes, it could. Ugh. I hated clarity.

My son Asclepius, god of medicine, used to chide me about helping those with disabilities. You can help them if they ask. But wait for them to ask. It’s their choice to make, not yours.

Lu started to snore. A tiny piece of cucumber was stuck to her chin, but I decided to leave it there. She might want it later.

So I did the heroic thing. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

Just when I thought I had them, my dreamscape stabilized. I found myself back in the caverns of Delphi, volcanic gasses layering the air, the dark shape of Python moving heavily in the shadows. “So, I have you again,” he gloated. “You shall perish—” “I don’t have time for you right now.” My voice surprised me almost as much as it did the reptile. “What?” “Gotta go.” I lashed the reins of my dream. “How dare you! You cannot—”

Then we both said together, “You’re not going to like it.” “Oh, joy.” I sighed. “Let’s hear yours first.”

Wait, actually. That dagger over there. Unsheathe it and put the blade between my teeth.” “How will that help?” “Probably won’t,” she admitted. “But it’ll look cool.” I did as she asked.

I slid the Arrow of Dodona into one of my quivers and drew a missile of the non-Shakespearean variety.

Was that lemon chicken I smelled, and was there enough for me? I was tempted to say, Wrong room, close the door, and beat it down the hall. But since the technicians had just been ordered to burn down the city, that wasn’t an option.

Fun fact from a former god who knows acoustics: If you fire a gun in an enclosed space, you have just deafened everyone in that room.

I was loath to harm hapless mortals (wow, I really wrote that sentence),

I laughed at him. It was just so perfect. The thought of dying here, surrounded by Chinese food and barbarians, seemed absolutely perfect.

“You know how it is. Gods don’t fight demigod battles. Present company excepted.” “I’m an exception!” I kissed the top of Nico’s head in delight. “Please don’t do that.”

The taste exploded in my mouth. Immediately, I realized what she was giving me and why: Mountain Dew, the glowing-lime-green elixir of perfect sobriety. I don’t know what effect it has on mortals, but ask any supernatural entity and they will tell you, Mountain Dew’s combination of sweetness, caffeine, and otherworldly je-ne-sais-quoi-peut-être-radioactif taste is enough to bring complete focus and seriousness to any god. My eyesight cleared.

Mountain Dew is the equivalent of the enslaved servant who would ride behind the emperor during his triumphal parades, whispering, Remember, you are mortal, and you will die to keep him from getting a big head.

I muttered a curse that would not have been appropriate for the ears of a youngster like Meg, except that Meg had taught me this particular curse.

Eye injuries—the absolute worst. I’m a medical god and they even make me squeamish.

“No one hits my boyfriend,” Will thundered. “And no one kills my dad!

Rachel pulled out a blue plastic hairbrush and threw it at the nearest barbarian, beaning him in the eye and making him howl. Sorry I underestimated you, Rachel, I thought distantly. You’re actually kind of a hairbrush ninja.

“I am Apollo,” I said, tugging the other direction. “God of the sun. And I—revoke—your—divinity!”

So…I was watching them watch me watch them.…Nope. Too meta.

APOLLO WILL FALL, BUT APOLLO MUST RISE AGAIN.

held on to my purpose. I remembered Meg McCaffrey’s last order: Come back to me, dummy. Her face remained clear in my mind. She had been abandoned so many times, used so cruelly. I would not be another cause of grief for her. I knew who I was. I was her dummy.

But the world of demigods wasn’t my place. I had been privileged to experience it, and I needed to remember it.

We could’ve even made the thrones six inches tall. Personally, I would have loved to see that. A demigod hero straggles into our presence after some horrible quest, takes a knee before an assembly of miniature gods, and Zeus squeaks in a Mickey Mouse voice, Welcome to Olympus!

Athena shrugged. “Wisdom. It comes in handy.” It should have been a commercial. The camera zooms in on Athena, who smiles at the screen as the promotional slogan appears below her: Wisdom. It comes in handy.

“Well, I think you did a marvelous job,” he offered. “I think, in your honor, any god who is currently being punished with a stint on Earth ought to be pardoned immediately—” “No,” Zeus snapped. Dionysus slumped back with a dejected sigh.

“He made a wonderful slave to my daughter,” Demeter continued. “True, it took him a while to adjust, but I can forgive that. If any of you need a slave in the future for your demigod children, I recommend Apollo without hesitation.”

“I am satisfied,” Zeus pronounced. The gods let out a collective sigh. As much as we pretended to be a council of twelve, in truth we were a tyranny. Zeus was less a benevolent father and more an iron-fisted leader with the biggest weapons and the ability to strip us of our immortality if we offended him.

I suppose I could have raged at him and called him bad names. We were alone. He probably expected it. Given his awkward self-consciousness at the moment, he might even have let me get away with it unpunished. But it would not have changed him. It would not have made anything different between us.

You cannot change a tyrant by trying to out-ugly him.

Ugly weeping would not have been appropriate for a major Olympian god, so that’s exactly what I did.