The stiffness in Prometheus’s steps, the tension in his shoulders, told her he could not bear to speak of such things as yet. Not with the agonizing news he must now deliver. So she followed him in silence, unable to stop herself from casting pensive glances his way, though she suppressed the urge to ask him if he was all right. Because, of course, he was not.
In the end, she slipped her hand into his and squeezed his calloused fingers, drawing from him a look of such profound gratitude Pandora felt herself flush. Maybe, sometimes, all one really had to do was be there through a tragedy. Certainly, it would have helped had someone been there for her, all those years ago.
It would have meant the World.
They came to a walled estate atop a hill. Though it had a gate, it was unguarded, and Prometheus simply eased it open and slipped inside, beckoning Pandora to follow. They entered the house beyond, one decorated with colorful frescoes and tapestries depicting pegasi and mermaids and a multi-headed chimera. The estate was certainly modest compared to the splendor of homes in acropolis island on Atlantis, but it made Pandora’s house seem a palace, and she found herself turning about, admiring the artwork. She paused in front of one depicting a griffin soaring over snowy mountains, its eagle head and plumage brilliant. The painter had clearly seen eagles up close—or perhaps even borne witness to the legendary griffins said to live out beyond wild Phlegra.
“Kalypso?” Prometheus called out but received no answer.
After a moment of looking around, they pressed through the kitchens and out a back door, Prometheus leading the way into a garden resplendent with herbs and spices and layers of rich and fruity scents, not all of which she could identify.
Their steps into that garden were the foreshocks of a tremor that would shatter a daughter’s world.
Two women knelt in the dirt, tending the herbs. Titan women, Pandora realized as both stood and looked at her. One had the golden eyes of a Heliad, while the other—Kalypso presumably—had Atlantid features.
The Heliad tilted her head to the side as she took them in, then her mouth turned up in a sneer and she abruptly shoved past them, back toward the house. Her shoulder caught Pandora as she did so and actually sent her tumbling down into the dirt herself. The Titan’s strength made Pandora feel a child, and she stood slowly, brushing off her peplos—suddenly aware it was still stained with blood and golden ichor.
“Kirke!” Kalypso shouted after the other woman.
“Let her go for now,” Prometheus said.
Concern blanketed Kalypso’s face. “What happened, Uncle?”
The elder Titan took her hand in his own. Pandora braced for the quake.
At her request, they had left the ravaged, weeping Kalypso alone in her garden. Pandora imagined her drowning in an ocean of pain and tears, tearing her khiton, ripping plants out by their roots. Wailing. All the things she herself would have done.
The image—half memory of her own early years—left a hollow in her chest as she and Prometheus made their way up the mountain. There was a path, not terribly well-worn and steep, littered with jagged rocks and narrow ledges that threatened to pitch her down into a gulley below. It took most of her concentration, at least at times, and the peplos she wore, while suited for formal symposiums at the royal palace, did not lend itself to mountain climbing.
They paused on a small plateau and Pandora eased herself onto a rock outcropping to rest. A great spire rose up from the peak, as if embracing the sun itself. Prometheus’s Aviary.
After catching her breath, she looked at the Titan. “Why did the other Nymph react thus before we gave the news of the Pleiades?”
Prometheus folded his arms, seeming not the least winded. The breeze blew his auburn hair about his face. Though stubble had begun to grow in, he was beardless. Yet another way this Titan seemed to eschew the traditions that so bound all others. “Kirke has the Sight.”
“She’s an Oracle?” And had known the dire news they brought before they spoke? Blaming Pandora for the message, however painful, just made her one more Titan bitch.
“Yes, but the Sight is more than that. Mostly, we call Oracles those who can use the Sight for prescience. But there are other aspects to it. Whether prescience or some other intuition, perhaps she saw something in you that disquieted her.”
“In me?” As if Pandora might have some grand future. She was, at best, merely a herald of tragedy.
Prometheus’s brow creased, ever so slightly. “I’ll prepare us something to eat.”
She opened her mouth to object that she wasn’t hungry, then realized she was, in fact, famished, having not eaten since the symposium almost a full day ago. The events that had swept her up had hardly allowed her to stop and breathe, much less realize her needs. Her stomach growled, as if the mental acknowledgment was the only permission she needed.
“There are guest rooms in the Aviary, and you may claim any that suits you.”
Another question she’d had only the barest chance to ponder on the ship. “Just how long are you inviting me to dwell with you for?”
He cocked his head to the side. “However long you should so desire, Pandora. I will not abandon you or turn you out, if that’s your fear.”
“Why? Why risk even the chance of antagonizing Olympus on behalf of a mere mortal?” And a glorified prostitute at that.
He knelt beside her and took her hand. “You are not mere, Pandora. And as I told you, I enjoy your company.”
“Most men pay me for my company and conversation.”
He dropped her hand, looking, for a bare instant, stung. Shit! Why had she said such a petty thing? Sometimes she could not control her godsdamned tongue.
“S-sorry, I …”
“You’re fatigued and hungry and have been through an ordeal. Little wonder you should
