After passing through the main gate, she made her way back to the acropolis. At its heart lay the somewhat neglected Temple of Gaia, and beyond that, upon the mountain, the palace of Tethys, reached by a long expanse of marble stairs.
Atop the stairs, she found Hera, along with the twins, Styx and Perse, sitting upon the lip of the main fountain. The moment Hera spotted her, she leaned in to whisper in Perse’s ear. The three sisters all stared at Pyrrha as though she carried the plague.
“I bet she kept the balls as a trophy,” Perse whispered, none too quietly.
“Maybe she ate them hoping to grow her own,” Styx said, snickering.
Hera said naught that Pyrrha could hear, but her smirk was so vile it made her skin crawl. She had beheld the awful malevolence of staring into the eyes of shades damned to wander the world in eternal torment. But sometimes, Pyrrha imagined people like Hera could teach even the damned a new meaning to the word cruelty.
Why was her life always like this? What in the actual Underworld had she done to deserve this fetid pile of shit?
Unable to bear their stares, Pyrrha fled from the front gardens. Hardly watching where she was going, she plowed directly into another Titan in the atrium. Their brother, Poseidon, who caught her and managed to keep the two of them from tumbling into a heap. Poseidon was a bit younger than Hera but still older than the twins, with a knowing smile and an irritatingly handsome face. He peered around her shoulder, spotted his sisters, and seemed to know what had happened in an instant.
The Titan guided her through the atrium and into the courtyard, toward benches set beside the fishpond. “Out all night?” he asked. Without waiting for her answer, he clapped his hands to summon a servant who brought a tray of olives and eggs to break her fast.
Her stomach growled. Until now, Pyrrha hadn’t even realized she was hungry. After helping herself to several olives, she managed to meet his gaze. “Thank you,” she said, wary of him. He had hardly paid her much mind—even less than his sisters had. One never knew what to make of even a moment of kindness from these royals.
Poseidon nodded, then turned to stare down at the fish so deeply she imagined him naming each of them. “There’s a truth you figure out when you get to a certain age. Some people sooner than others. The young are not always pure. People always think, oh children start out innocent. And that’s true up to a point, and then life starts to twist them up and they just want be something else. So they hurt those they can and tease and torment.” He shrugged. “Sometimes they know they’re being brutes, sometimes they don’t figure that out until later. When they think about how others hurt them.” He huffed. “Maybe I’m no good with words.”
“N-no.” Oh, wait. That sounded like she was agreeing that he wasn’t. “I mean, I get it. And thank you.” She grabbed a boiled egg and left him to stare at his fish.
Maybe he was right. Maybe the girls would grow out of their virulent cruelty. But Hera was almost two years older than Poseidon and hadn’t even started the process, so Pyrrha wouldn’t hold her breath.
Either way, she still needed a way to find her answers. She would not give up without those. Not even if she had to become the freak Hera accused her of being.
8
Pandora
1570 Silver Age
Pandora took Taygete’s Bridge over the inner canal, toward the acropolis island. The bridge rose up in a high enough arc that smaller boats could sail beneath it and was, in Pandora’s estimation, a pinnacle of engineering on Atlantis. Not least for the aesthetic touches—herds of mingling deer worked into relief along the sides.
The bridge led to a gate in the earthen wall that encompassed the acropolis island. Though guarded, none of the guards paid much mind to the stream of traffic passing over the bridge and onto the island, and Pandora paid them no mind in turn. The lower banks of the island held barracks for soldiers in the Pleiades’ employ, as well as houses for aristoi graced to live upon the island, like Dardanus. Beyond, marble stairs led up a steep slope to a second wall, this one of silvery tin, and here a pair of Titan men watched entry with far more care.
She didn’t know their names, but they’d seen her many times and waved in invitation. She felt their gazes linger upon her, perhaps drawn by the clink of her silver anklets or the glint of her jewelry. She had donned her finest for this evening.
The acropolis proper lay beyond the tin wall, complete with temples for worship and homes for the most vaunted of aristoi, outside the Pleiades themselves. Their home was the royal palace, a citadel encased in a third and final wall. A wall of rosy-gold orichalcum, the most precious metal in the world, found only in Atlantis. In value, it was second only to Ambrosia, and Atlas had built his palace from the stuff.
Wrought with the Art long ago, the orichalcum wall was said to be indestructible.
Slave doormen escorted her around the fish pool courtyard, through the colonnade, and into the palace proper, which already overflowed with the scents of salt pork, figs, and other delicacies. The drinking would not begin until after the guests had gorged themselves and could thus imbibe copious amounts of wine. Pandora spotted trays of apricots and walnuts, of olives and sweet breads, and of oysters and clams probably traded for with the mer down by the Cove of Poseidon.
She helped herself to an apricot and strolled among the myriad lounges abutting the main courtyard—a garden filled with more colorful flora than she could ever hope to imitate in her humble home. Most of the lounges were thrown open, with guests reclining
