“It refreshes.”
She leaned back in her chair. What did one say to that? Or was it merely another man’s vanity, always eager to try to win her affections? As if they weren’t for sale. As if they weren’t priceless and unattainable. “I’m Pandora.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Well, that was news. Her reputation—or infamy among female citizenry—had spread throughout the polis, for certain, but to learn it had reached one who so rarely visited … Come far and wide, one and all, to see the Phoenikian hetaira. Come wonder at her gifts and the precious treasure between her thighs. Pandora found herself fighting not to grind her teeth. That he should have heard of her was not a fault in him, but still …
“You seem torn,” he said, then motioned for a serving girl to bring another bowl of wine. “You are forever at war with yourself, are you not? There is the part of you that chafes at the sheer inequity of life and the workings of Ananke, and the part of you that strives ever to bury the other. To convince the World and, most of all, yourself that you cannot be broken. That hope must forever endure.”
Pandora gaped at him, felt scraped raw at having someone read her so thoroughly, naked despite her clothes. At having hidden parts of herself exposed to light. She couldn’t think of what to say and was saved from having to when the servant brought the bowl of wine and offered it to her. Snatching it up, she chugged the better part of the bowl in one swig, then let it clatter upon the table.
“Ananke.” She swallowed. “So you lay the blame for all wrongs in the World upon Fate?”
Prometheus steepled his fingers. “Every moment of time is predicated upon that which has come before. Even your own thoughts are born from your history and nature. That nature results from your parents. Endless causal chains stretching into infinity.”
“So everything is determined.” She’d read such arguments before, not least in Polyhymnia.
“Reasons. Causality. But even if that’s true, that does not abrogate one from responsibility for one’s choices. Of course they have reasons, all choices have reasons. But unless the reason is madness, a person still made his—or her—choice.”
She knew how this went. “But if you cannot change your choices?”
“You cannot change the choices in your past, can you? Does that mean you did not make them? So why should future choice be so very different?”
Pandora felt the smile creeping upon her face. How rare to converse with one who could keep up, even challenge her. How precious to debate when she didn’t have to explain both sides to the other person. “It all seems rather convenient. You get to maintain Ananke governs everything in the World, and yet can still hold people responsible for their actions, though they could not have taken other ones.”
His brow drew up in barely perceptible tension. “If you think Fate convenient, you have not yet felt the true weight of its grasp upon your neck.”
Spoken like a man—a Titan, rather—who had felt it. Had been crushed by it. Still, Pandora found that hard to credit. The Titans ruled the whole of this world as godlike immortals. Through Ambrosia, who even knew how long they lived. The Titanomachy was nigh sixteen centuries ago, and Prometheus seemed to have lived long before that. Some tales claimed he’d fought alongside Kronos to help end the Time of Nyx. “Before you go bemoaning Fate, perhaps you ought to try living as a woman for a while. A mortal woman.”
“A person can offer empathy even to those whose lives they cannot truly understand.”
“Do you?” she demanded.
“Understand? Or offer empathy?”
Pandora sipped the last of the wine, swishing it around her mouth, uncertain how to answer. Would either his understanding or empathy make the least difference? Maybe it would. Somehow, though, she felt disinclined to talk over it further. It was like poking at a scab before it was ready to peel off. She chose her next words with care.
“Will Zeus really come here? Will he act against the Pleiades?”
He shut his eyes just longer than a blink. “You do not hide your loathing well.”
Rather than let herself wince, Pandora fell stock still. Did he know something about her past? Or did he merely read her disdain for the Olympian King from her features? Either way, he’d turned this around, made it about her, and thus, trod into waters she wasn’t willing to sail.
“Perhaps I should leave.”
“Wait,” he said, laying his hand upon hers, sending a thrill of warmth running up her arm. “There’s a drama at the Atlantis Amphitheater starting soon. I was about to go. Let me buy you a ticket.”
“Why?” Not that she would refuse. She so rarely indulged, much as she enjoyed the theater. She always had to try to save as many drachmae as she could. But a chance to see it without paying … and wasn’t it Kalliope’s Fall of Khione?
“Because I enjoyed our conversation, and pleasant company should be savored.”
She felt heat rising to her cheeks once more and pulled her hand free. How could she refuse, indeed?
The Amphitheater lay in the Leukippe District, beneath the mountains. Carved stone seats could sit thousands upon thousands of spectators for these festival dramas, though good seats, like the ones Prometheus bought by the stage, were quite expensive. Oh, the acoustics meant spectators could hear from anywhere in the theater. The architects had carved it so perfectly those sitting in the highest rows could—if the crowd was silent—pick up the clatter of a drachma falling center stage.
But from up there, the view was just not the same.
Prometheus chatted with her amiably while they awaited the start of the show, speaking of events around the Thalassa, even into far Phoenikia. He traveled all over and shared knowledge from his journeys freely. More, he spoke to her as though she were his
