Nouvelles Countdown Mythology & Romans

I was Apollo’s most devoted follower, the lover he handpicked from a sea of worshippers. With me, he’d always shed his divine arrogance. He was so tender, so attentive. I actually thought he loved me to the bone. Until seven days before our Consort Ceremony, when I used my gift of prophecy to peek into our future together. I expected to see a lifetime of blinding love. Instead, I saw him violently tangled in the sheets with my adopted sister, Cassandra. Wrapped around him, Cassandra giggled. "You're so good to me, my Lord. Thanks to you, I'll finally get my sister's Sight and take her place as High Priestess." And Apollo—my god, my lover—smiled down at her with pure adoration. "Whatever makes you happy, little bird. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have played pretend for this long, let alone allow her to become a god's consort." In that split second, my heart turned to ash. My faith shattered into a million pieces. With seven days left until the ceremony, I didn't confront them. Instead, I fell to my knees before the altar of Hades, Lord of the Underworld. "I offer you my gift of prophecy. I will be your most loyal follower in exchange for your sanctuary." "Please. Take me away from here. Take me somewhere Apollo can never find me."

I’m just a mortal, yet I’ve been deeply in love with Orion, the heir to Poseidon, for seven long years. When he was about to ascend the throne as the God of the Sea, I thought I could finally stand by his side—in the light, as his true consort. But then he delivered a crushing ultimatum: the condition for his ascension was to produce a pure-blooded divine heir with his late brother’s widow, Selene. Every time he came back from Selene's bed, he’d hold me tight and whisper, "Thalia, you’re my only true love. As soon as Selene gives birth to an heir for the throne, we’ll have our wedding. I’ll give you the title you deserve." And so, over the next six months, he spent a hundred nights in Selene’s bed. His visits grew more frequent, and the stench of Selene’s scent on his skin grew stronger. Finally, on the 100th lonely night I spent waiting for him, Selene got pregnant. The news spread across Atlantis like wildfire—along with the announcement of their upcoming royal wedding. My son tugged at my sleeve, asking innocently, "Mommy, I thought people said Father is marrying his beloved Queen? Why hasn't he come to pick us up yet?" "Because his beloved Queen isn't Mommy, sweetheart." I smiled, gently stroking his hair. "But it’s okay. I’m taking you back to our real home." What Orion didn't know was that my biological father had already found me. He is Zeus, the King of the Gods. And I am his long-lost daughter who was left in the mortal realm. As for Orion’s title of Queen? I couldn't care less anymore.

In my previous life, I married Apollo, the Sun God, as the Goddess of Wisdom. Only in death did I discover that I was nothing more than a blood supply he had been raising for my mortal stepsister. To keep his powerless stepsister alive on Mount Olympus, he pierced my chest himself, ripped out my divine essence, and forced it into her body, declaring without a shred of remorse, "You're the older sister. Taking care of her is your duty." With my divine essence stripped away, I was too weak to resist. He chained me beneath a blazing sun of his own making and left me to burn alive. Meanwhile, my stepsister walked over my bones in the wedding gown my mother had spent a hundred years weaving before she perished, and married him. The man I had loved for a thousand years saw me, from beginning to end, as nothing more than a vessel to keep someone else alive. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the eve of the wedding. I threw the divine marriage contract to my stepsister and let my blood drip onto an obsidian stone bound to the Abyss. A deep voice echoed through my mind. "As you wish, my bride." This time, the one I would marry was the Lord of the Underworld, the one all the gods feared. Together, we would destroy Apollo.

I was attending a banquet with my fiancée and her nymph friends. But she made an excuse about checking the woodland springs and left the table. Two turns of the hourglass passed. The seat next to me remained cold. I stood up, ready to track her scent. That was when I heard her nymph friends talking. They were using the secret tongue—a language only woodland creatures could understand—to ruthlessly humiliate me. "That idiot who crawled out of the Underworld still has no idea how many times Lyra has betrayed him." "I bet Darius is taking Lyra on the peaks of Mount Ida right now." "Lyra swore Orion is just a prudish block of wood who worships the rules. He probably doesn't even know how to touch a woman. His cock can't even compare to Darius's. They've been fucking each other for ages. " "It's just pathetic. An Underworld Prince, fighting Olympus's ban just for a lowly nymph. Hahaha, look at him! We’re insulting him right to his face, and he just sits there like a deaf-mute idiot." My body froze. My mind went totally blank. Right then, Lyra pushed open the sanctuary doors. Her soft skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat. She reeked of the heavy, unmistakable scent of a woman who had just been thoroughly fucked and satisfied. "Ha, how was it? Does it feel amazing to make a fool of an Underworld Prince at our own banquet? You're so bad!" "Of course. His beastly thrusts drive me crazy."

My best friend Chloe jumped off a cliff and killed herself after being assaulted. I was the only one who knew the monster who did it. Yet, I refused to tell anyone the truth. When her mother knelt at my feet and begged, I turned my back on her and walked away. The citizens cursed me, calling me a monster, and drove me out of the city-state. I accepted it all in silence. For the next ten years, I lived a miserable, lonely life in the woods, barely scraping by. Until I was weak and on the verge of death. Juliette, the best friend Chloe and I shared, returned to the city as the High Priestess of Athena. The very first thing she did was drag me to the Altar of Divine Punishment. "Olivia, you vicious bitch! You protected the monster who ruined her! We were blind to ever call you a sister!" "Chloe has been dead for ten years, and you let that bastard walk free for just as long!" "Today, I’m going to use Athena’s Mirror of Truth to see exactly who you’ve been protecting with your life!" But when the real culprit was finally revealed, Juliette broke down completely, dropping to her knees in pure disbelief.

I am the Moon Goddess Cynthia's spirit rabbit. My mistress is the most beautiful woman on Olympus. Yet for a mortal named Arthur, she lowered her divine rank and spent eight hundred years by his side in the mortal realm. The priests sneered at Arthur. "He only grows his divinity when the goddess cracks the whip. What a pathetic, henpecked fool." Arthur always smiled gently. "As long as I can stay by Cynthia's side, nothing else matters." Yet the moment he finally ascended to true godhood, he defied my mistress and brought a delicate mortal woman back from the Misty Forest. Her name was Helen. He shielded the woman behind him. "Cynthia, Helen and I have forged a soul-binding contract. No matter how you punish me, she must stay." I bared my fangs, certain Cynthia would put him in his place, the way she always had during his training. But this time, she didn't. She simply sat beneath the laurel tree Arthur had planted, stroked my ears, and spoke without emotion. "That's fine. It's too quiet here anyway. A bit of company wouldn't hurt." Arthur did not know that Cynthia had once made a wager with Zeus: if she failed to win a mortal's true love, she would have to return to the divine realm and submit to his arrangements. Cynthia had lost. The divine summons would arrive in forty-nine days. Years later, every trace of moonlight vanished from the mortal realm. The mighty new god Arthur then searched for the Moon Goddess for ten thousand years, driven mad with regret.

I was the one who broke Apollo's heart. He was the golden heir of the Sun, my childhood love, and I pushed him away so hard that I drove him all the way to the frozen wastes beyond the North Wind. He stayed there for eight years. Now he was back. He had a new nymph goddess by his side, and they were going to hold their sacred divine marriage right here in our polis. That same week, the temple oracle gave me my final prophecy: I had three months left to live. When my mother wheeled me outside to see him, Apollo's mouth curled into that cruel, mocking smile I remembered all too well. His dark eyes swept over me from head to toe, taking in the wheelchair, the thinness of my arms, and the ghost-like paleness of my face. "Well, well," he said, his voice low and sharp. "Eight years and you look like a shade. Can't even stand anymore?" I tugged my sleeve down, hiding the dark scars—the marks left by years of divine magic failing to save me. I kept my voice steady. "An accident at the altar. A minor divine backlash. It’s nothing." He let out a short, cold laugh. "Right. Anyway, our divine wedding is coming up. You should be Chloe's bridesmaid." I smiled back at him. I had gotten good at smiling through pain over the years. "I'm sorry, but I'm leaving soon. Somewhere far away." I gently patted my mother's hand. She didn't say a word, just gripped the handles of the chair and pushed me back toward the house. I didn't look back.