“I’ll have my vengeance,” she rasped.
If her mother had any thoughts on that, they remained concealed, and the woman just patted her cheek, offering no further comment on the matter. Rather, she pulled Athene back to her feet. “Depending on how close to the surface your gift was, it is possible things will come to you again. Once woken, the Sight is less inclined to slumber.”
After they exited the chamber, Mother resealed the door, once again muttering strange words under her breath with her palm upon the surface. Athene watched, dazed by what she’d seen, tingling with anticipation of when it would all come to pass.
When and how became the missing pieces of her puzzle, and she knew only the what and the why.
“He took from me …” Athene said, her voice sticking in her throat.
Her words drew her mother up short, who turned, placing a hand upon her shoulder. “We are our choices. For someone to steal those is for them to pilfer pieces of our very souls.”
The truth of that struck Athene, and she backed away, suddenly short of breath. Gasping, in fact, unable to keep wind down. With a shriek, with instinctive fury, she flooded Pneuma into Potency and Steadfastness then slammed her fist into the wall, sending spiderwebs of cracks through the stone. Again. Again, roaring, her fists painting the tunnel in dust and blood. Until the screams became wracking sobs, and her mother drew her inward, holding her tight.
“He took all of me!”
“I know.”
And for a long time, Mother just held her in the dark, a fervid beacon against Athene’s side.
When she had caught her breath—and cleaned her face, for she’d not let the others see her thus—she began her ascent back to the palace.
“I’m going to raise this child,” she said as they made their way back up the stairs.
“I had foreseen that,” her mother admitted, casting a brief glance Athene’s way. “A woman should have her mother’s aid in such times.” A pause. “If she wishes it.”
By Hyperion’s radiant light, yes. “Come with me to Kronion, Mother.”
It was dark, and her mother was facing away, but Athene could have sworn a beaming smile graced the woman’s face.
First Athene would bear her child, then she would see about realizing the future.
17
Pandora
200 Golden Age
The wave of refugees had swept Pandora up and into the city of Helion. She’d long heard tales of the place, though never seen it before. In the stories, a great Colossus had straddled the narrow inlet into the ringed bay. Here, no such monument existed. Of course not—it had not been built yet.
Her mind lurched in wild gyrations, the very World seeming upended by the circumstances in which she found herself. Had she heard some bard speak such a tale, she’d have called him a madman or a drunk. Or both. It was not so much she felt she wandered in a dream, but that a shroud that had blanketed her senses had fallen away. She at last saw the truth of life.
Cyclopean limestone walls encircled the polis, but despite their height and thickness, people pushed away from them, terrified of the Titan Khione who closed in upon the city. Even knowing how this ended—or how history recorded it ending—Pandora could not really blame them. A thin layer of snow now caked the rooftops and she felt the cold wafting off those outer walls.
Unless she missed her guess, an actual blizzard must rage outside, engulfing Helios’s war bands in frozen rage. Of course, no one would allow her upon the walls to check, but she imagined what the fields must look like, encased in white. She was witnessing history unfold around her, and the thrill of that filtered the terror of her situation.
With nowhere to go, she sat in a tent pavilion the refugees had set up between the main tenements of the outer city and the cyclopean wall. Thousands of men, women, and children sat huddled here, wrapped in blankets and gazing upon their loved ones in desperate need of reassurance. Pandora could have given them that, could have told them the city didn’t fall. But such words would have condemned her as a madwoman and probably seen her driven from this camp.
And what if she was wrong? Yes, she’d seen a play about these events thousands of years after the fact. Did Kalliope even know the full truth of these days when she wrought her play? Did she record history or modify it for dramatic reasons? If Pandora had actually somehow entered the past, was the past guaranteed to play out just as it had before, or could her mere presence change the outcome of the siege? These and a hundred more questions spiraled around her mind. Especially: could she return to her own time?
Still, it was not with total surprise she spotted the herald come amid the refugees, even before he banged his staff for attention. “The invader Khione is dead.” Another clack of staff upon flagstone. “Khione is dead, slain by Helios’s own daughter, Artemis.” And once more he brought the staff down. “Return to your homes.”
Pandora almost laughed. She might have to wait a while before her home became available. Atlantis wasn’t even Atlantis yet. At the moment, it was probably still called Hesperides Island. Her mirth rapidly subsided, though, replaced by a tightness in her chest. Everything she’d ever known didn’t even exist.
She didn’t exist.
Half dazed, having not a clue what to do, she wandered the city even as most of the other occupants of the tent pavilion began to filter out of the city. They could return to their farms and villages, though, if Pandora had her history correct, the Ambrosial War had only just begun and would rage on for some years to come. Maybe nowhere was truly safe, and that thought ought to terrify her.
Or … or could she simply adjust a few panels on the box and have
