𝑃𝐻𝑂𝐸𝐵𝑈𝑆. (𝑂𝑓 𝐺𝑜𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑀𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠)

prologue

The gods liked to play games.

It was a consequence, a penalty that came along with immortality: boredom. There was a deep rooted longing to build, to flourish, and to destroy. Wars for control amongst each other were common, and even more so was the interference in inferior life.

Adoria was no exception.

From the moment the girl was born, she had been a mere pawn in the game of fate tailored specifically for the gods. It began with Aphrodite, who took interest in the girl at a very young age, not only promising her beauty and grace but also love. At the time Aphrodite had plans to fulfill such a promise in the form of a human man. They took a sharp turn at the intrusion of another god who had taken to Adoria, for reasons less superficial than the others'.

As the god of prophecies, there were not many things that could get past Apollo without his knowledge. It was both a blessing and a curse to know fate before it lived. It was a blessing to know that Adoria was destined to fall in love with him. It was a curse to know that one day she wouldn't. It was a blessing to know that they would be happy together. It was a curse to know that that happiness was not everlasting. It was a blessing to know exactly who to trust and who to be suspicious of. It was a curse to realize that he had no influence in the course of the future, no matter his efforts.

Their love, however strong, collapsed into a catastrophe of darkness.

Apollo loved Adoria in a way that all hope for and most never achieve, not bothering to remember that all love stories, no matter their main characters, have their endings.

Unbeknownst to Apollo, that night was not it. Fate had other plans even the god of prophecies did not know; someone had messed with the path they had written into existence for the two lovers, and so they would have to fix that.