“Like your dreams?”
“Oneiromancy can grant toward prescience, yes, but it is distinct in its own right.”
Though not quite sure whether she understood, Athene nodded anyway. She had no energy for an extended lecture upon the intricacies of the Sight. What mattered was Mother seemed to confirm that both what she had seen in the Oracle Mirrors below Olympus last year and this vision from a few days ago represented a real future. Athene was an Oracle.
Hmm. How did her strength at prescience measure up against Apollon? Legend said he was trained by famed—or now infamous—Themis herself in the use of his gift. Probably Athene, novice that she was, had naught on the skills of Helios’s blessed son.
When she fell silent, Mother glanced over at her. “Has word reached you about Merope?”
“The Pleiad?”
“She was wed to Sisyphus of Korinth last year.” Oh, that much Athene knew. She had made it her business to learn of the Kreiad genos. Sisyphus was the son of Hephaistos’s sister Bia, with her husband, the demigod Aiolos. “I imagine Zeus waited until she delivered a babe,” her mother said, voice quiet. “Shortly thereafter, Ares smashed her head upon the acropolis steps. Some rumors claim he broke her spine before that.”
And perhaps did worse before that, Athene imagined, though Mother did not give voice to such things.
For a few moments, silence reigned between them, and Athene traced her finger along the crenelations of the Long Wall. Out here, she could make out farmers’ fields where they grew wheat, and there, olive trees. Sometimes, Kronion seemed peaceful.
“I know why you’re telling me this,” she finally said, pausing to lean against the wall and stare at her mother. “You say Father’s retribution against her is already horrible. And I would not have wanted that, because the Pleiades are not my enemies. The Kreiads, however, are my foes. Hephaistos and his whole cursed line.”
“Including Merope’s newborn child?”
Athene waved that away. “I will make Pandion the first mortal King of Kronion.”
“You want your son to hold authority independent of your own here?”
“Yes.” Other poleis had mortal kings to attend to the prosaic needs of a city, it was time Kronion had this as well. Besides, she had seen it, in her vision. His line would produce kings and heroes for generations to come. This Theseus would walk among the polis to the utter adoration of his people. “And I want to expand Kronion’s power through Pandion.”
Her father might balk on learning a Titan had begun seizing territory or trade routes from another Titan, but mortals were freed from any such restriction.
“Help me achieve it,” Athene said.
“As you wish.”
Athene nodded, and from the look on her mother’s face, the older woman knew well enough what was coming. “I want Kronion to dominate Korinth. I want Hephaistos to watch as his own spawn seizes his polis and strips his genos of all meaning.”
Mother clucked her tongue, then sighed. “These schemes will not avail you, Athene.”
“I’ve foreseen a glorious future for my line!”
The woman reached for Athene, caressing her cheek. “Be that as it may, conquering other poleis, breaking an entire genos, none of this will assuage your wrath. It will stoke it.”
“Then let it be stoked,” Athene growled. “Let it become a conflagration that consumes him, and only in the end will he understand the price of his hubris in thinking he can take whatever he wants. Let all Titans learn the price!”
Though she expected to see grim resolve upon her mother’s face, instead the woman closed her eyes for so long the silence grew uncomfortable. “There is much of your father in you,” she said, when at last her golden gaze settled upon Athene once more. “But I understand your rage. I would not leave my child to face such alone, even if I think you are making a mistake.” A sad smile creased her face. “So be it. We will strive against Korinth and its line. We will strike at them, again and again, until you alone say when it is enough. Then we will see, Athene, if the world has become what you will it.”
Athene could not help but squirm, just a little, at the intimation that, despite having lived sixteen centuries, she was about to be subjected to a very long lesson.
19
Pandora
201 Golden Age
Reclining beneath the shade of an olive tree, Pandora stroked the scraggly hair of the babe nestled to her breast. In her days as a hetaira—so long ago they seemed now—she had mixed tonics that prevented conception. On Ogygia, she could have found the herbs needed to make such things but no longer had any desire to do so.
Now, she had found something here, with Prometheus, in the year she’d lived on this island. Something a lifetime on Atlantis had denied her.
Beneath her tree, she listened to the waves lap at the shore, feeling almost too content. Such anxieties plagued her, from time to time, as if she did not deserve peace. Always, she tried to push them down. This was real.
She was really here, holding her daughter, luxuriating while her lover built them a larger cottage farther up the mountain. Still not quite the summit where he’d build his Aviary, but that would come in time, she knew.
In the late afternoon, after the babe had woken, fed, and slept once more, Prometheus made his way down the slope. A sheen of sweat glistened upon his bare chest, and he’d tied back his auburn hair.
She offered him a smile in greeting, nodding her head at the amphora of wine beside her. She might have passed it to him but wouldn’t risk waking their child for aught on Earth.
Prometheus poured some wine in a bowl, sipped at it, then pushed it aside. “Have you settled upon a name for her?”
“Hmm. I think, Pyrrha.” She
