Athene sketched a quick bow, just low enough to avoid making her disrespect obvious, but not so low Hera would miss its perfunctory nature. “I had best seek her out, then, shouldn’t I?”
While Hera’s words were not technically a dismissal, Athene took them as such and darted around another column. She had to hunt her mother, though, and when she found her, it seemed she was actually returning from the main entrance. Perhaps she had gone out for some air after what Father had just done to Prometheus.
Pensive, Athene beckoned to her mother, who nodded and drew her into a side room. The moment they entered, a pair of slaves who had been setting the couches scrambled out, as if they expected the Olympians to bite them. Or, well, Mother wasn’t an Olympian, but then Men feared the goddess Hekate far more than they did Athene.
“Bring wine!” Mother called out after the retreating slaves, then settled upon a divan set within the room’s atrium, reclining in the cool sunlight. Her expression was unreadable, save that a mountain now weighed upon her. She looked a woman ready to drown in her own thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” Athene offered, perching upon the divan’s foot beside her mother. She was afraid to even ask how her mother felt this day. Her relationship with Prometheus was complex, Athene knew.
Perhaps Mother would have answered, but she was saved from doing so by the slave returning with an amphora of wine and two bowls. He placed both upon a table before the divan, then retreated in a half bow, scuttling like a crab.
Mother snatched up the amphora and filled both bowls with an aromatic vintage that, when Athene leaned closer for a proper sniff, seemed imported from Illyris. The added spices had a pleasant bite, and its warmth filled her so much she closed her eyes.
“You are with child,” Mother said, jolting Athene back to the present. Was it the Sight that told her thus, or had she noticed even the faint bulge? Or some motherly instinct Athene could not understand?
“I am,” Athene admitted, setting her bowl down.
“Unwanted.”
Athene squirmed. “The father was unwanted. I will keep the child.” How did she know these things? Oh, sometimes Athene caught flickers of insight when her mind drifted, that was true. But Mother, she had ways of discovering the answers to questions she ought not have even known to ask. Seen from the vantage of dreams, Mother had once said of her gifts.
Her mother sipped her wine. When she set the bowl down, her visage had become so severe Athene recoiled a hair. “He was here.”
Yes, Hephaistos too had answered her father’s summons, and Athene had made certain to keep columns between them, and to flee the room the moment Father had left. She had no desire to see him, much less to give him any chance to discern her condition. “He did not see me.”
Mother clucked her tongue but nodded. “If you need help, Daughter, you have but to ask.”
“I know, and I will. When the time is right.”
A slight smile rose upon Mother’s face. “You sound a bit like your older sister.”
While Zeus had many daughters, including Hebe, his Olympian child with Hera, Athene had no doubt Mother meant her other daughter, Kirke. What the Heliad knew of vengeance, Athene didn’t really know, but Kirke had tried to help her, and she would not forget that.
“Come,” Mother said, rising. “I want to show you something.”
She led Athene deep into the Throne of Zeus, into back chambers beyond where Kratos and the rest of Styx’s offspring had dragged Prometheus. At first, Athene assumed Mother intended to show her the infamous Tartarian Gate, but she broke away instead, leading her deep inside the mountain, down steps cut into the raw stone.
Rather than proceed into the far depths where the Tartarian Gate lay, though, she paused before an orichalcum-banded door Athene remembered well, for Father had never once allowed her down here in her almost sixteen centuries of life. Mother laid a palm upon the door and murmured something under her breath, sounds that had the hair on Athene’s arms rising. Then she opened the door, revealing a circular cavern. Along the perimeter rested a half dozen quicksilver mirrors, each framed by its own arch, which themselves represented the only cut stone in the chamber.
“The Seeing Pools,” Athene breathed.
“Common folk name them thus,” her mother said, “but properly they are called the Oracle Mirrors. Long, long ago, Kronos constructed these from quicksilver, though even I cannot fathom how he accomplished it.” Her mother drifted around the cavern, casting furtive glances at each mirror in turn. “When we took Olympus, your father and I sought to understand Kronos’s secrets. There are so many things you do not fathom about the World, its past, and its future, my daughter.”
Athene moved toward one of the arches, but before she could look deeply, Mother caught her elbow.
“Your father has become obsessed with these devices. He hunts for something in the past or future, something he will not share with me. Whatever it is, it haunts him night and day. There is danger in too much knowledge, especially knowledge of the whims of Fate.”
A chill sweat built upon her back at her mother’s words. “Then why bring me here at all?”
“Because while knowledge has a price, it does not mean we should not strive for it. That principle had guided my life, Athene, and as my daughter, you too have the potential for the Sight. Perhaps these mirrors will help spark the gift in you.”
“Is that what sparked yours?”
Mother grimaced. “No. My method is not available to you.” She squeezed Athene’s elbow in reassurance. “Your father has begun to lose himself, child. I am not certain I can ever forgive what he has done to Prometheus.”
Athene nodded slowly. She thought she understood, though Mother left so much unvoiced. Maybe sharing this with her was a subtle way of spiting her father for
