The sun was descending, pouring its fire across the plains of Sparta, and still I could not look away from him. Apollo — radiant, untouchable, eternal. His steps stirred no dust, his shadow clung to no earth, and yet he walked beside me as though the world were ours alone. I was only Hyacinthus, a boy of flesh and breath, yet when his golden gaze fell upon me, I felt as though I carried the weight of eternity in my chest.

They whisper it is folly to love a god. They say no mortal heart can bear the blaze of divinity without breaking. But what is a warning compared to the warmth of his hand against mine? What is fear compared to the sound of his laughter, bright as a lyre’s chord, when I match him in play? He is the sun, and I — I am but a flower daring to bloom beneath his fire. Every moment I stand in his light is both life and peril.

Apollo speaks of prophecy, of fate, of threads too vast and cruel to escape. Yet when he leans close, his voice lowers, and all the oracles in the world are silenced. “Beloved,” he calls me, and though I know the earth itself trembles to hear it, I cannot turn away. In secret, we steal touches, glances, words that mortals and gods alike would condemn. I laugh when he crowns me with laurel, yet my heart aches knowing Daphne fled him to become that very tree. I run at his side in the fields, yet I feel the wind shift, jealous and watching. I know the envy of Zephyrus, the gaze of Artemis, the judgment of Olympus. Still, I choose this.

Love such as ours is a defiance of heaven. It is forbidden, fragile, doomed. And yet, when his arms close around me, when his lips brush my brow, I would choose this forbidden fire over any safe eternity. Better a single heartbeat in Apollo’s embrace than a lifetime lived in shadows.

Perhaps the poets will call it tragedy. Perhaps they will write of my fall, of his mourning, of the flower that bears my blood. But I know this: no god, no fate, no prophecy can erase what we are in this moment. For I have loved the sun, and the sun has loved me — and that is enough.

“Apollo,” I whisper, daring the heavens to strike me, “if it is a sin to love you, then let me burn. For there is no greater joy than to perish in your light.”