Now Prometheus grimaced, if only for an instant, then stroked Pyrrha’s brow with one thumb. For a long time, he held his peace, staring at the waves. He’d told her once that most Oracles required a medium to harness prescience. For him—for pyromancers—that was flame, though others could see things in the tides. Cleromancers read cast pebbles, tiles, or bones. It seemed, in her estimation, what one really needed was a sufficiently complex system through which the Oracle could fall into a trance and access some hidden part of themselves.
As Prometheus was no hydromancer, he could not be reading the waves. Rather, he must flounder in the shifting currents of his own thoughts. Pandora could empathize with such a situation.
After a time, she reached over to trace her fingers along the back of his hand, and he looked up at her. “Some think the Moirai, the Fates, mere metaphor for the forces that govern our lives. But they are the arbiters or emissaries of Ananke itself. They weave all our lives as threads within a greater tapestry. Suppose you could change the past, pluck a strand, and alter the picture. Could you do so with any certainty of not unraveling the whole of the tapestry in the process?”
She sniffed. This was what it always came back to, a war in her mind. If she prevented Prometheus from siding with Zeus and thus stopped Zeus from winning the Titanomachy, the sixteen centuries since then would not have happened. She could never predict the course of events that might have followed. Maybe their world would enjoy a continuing Golden Age, would not fall under the thumb of a despot. Europa might have lived a happy life in Tyros. Pandora might have grown up in Agenor’s court, remained Europa’s ward, perhaps even wed when the time came.
Of course, she never would have met this man whom she loved so much it hurt.
The weight of that knowledge—that all the good in her life ensued as a result from all the bad—clenched around her very soul, threatening to crack it wide.
Like any such conclusions, her line of reasoning only led to more questions. “If we cannot or dare not change the past and thus the future, why would you even ever build a Box that would allow for time travel?”
Prometheus sighed, his shoulder slumping. Oh, he had mulled this over long as well, hadn’t he? “I can only imagine I will build this in the future because you gave it to me now.”
His answer slapped her like a blow to the face. It left her gaping in voiceless abhorrence, unable to tear her gaze from his face. At least, not until he pointedly looked down at Pyrrha.
“We have a daughter,” he said simply.
And there, like a clarion, it rang through her mind. She had given him the Box to study. He used it to invent it. Because he knew this moment, because he loved her, because he loved their daughter. Pandora gasped at the sudden pain in her chest as her lungs seized up, unable to draw breath after the weight that had fallen upon her like some cyclopean monument.
This had all always happened.
His hand grasped her shoulder to steady her, but it wasn’t enough, and her vision dimmed at the fringes.
Her swooning had lasted but a moment, though its source stalked the corners of her mind in constricting circles, round and round, with ever deepening implications. What if Prometheus sided with Zeus because that was what had led to Pandora being here now, allowing their love? Allowing Pyrrha’s very existence?
If so, then he had never intended the Box to change the past or future, but rather to create the blessed moments of his own history. He had fulfilled his own past. Had seen her in Atlantis and known the time had arrived for him to begin the creation of this loop.
Pyrrha held against one shoulder, Prometheus had helped her back to their cottage and eased her down by the fire pit.
“You deal with it better than I imagine most would,” he said, once he’d settled the babe down for a nap. Because he could read the whirring of her mind writ plain upon her features. Because he had gone through the same deductions in his own mind already.
“I cannot use the Box to stop Zeus from damning you.” The words eviscerated her. They felt ripped straight from her guts.
The moment she had opened the Box, everything had changed forever. Or naught at all had changed in the least.
“I don’t think you can change events that brought you to this moment. And I think if you tried, the Moirai would not take kindly to having their tapestry mangled.”
“I am powerless.” Or she was powerless here, in the past. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t help the Prometheus from her time. Couldn’t keep her vow to him. And once she did, he’d know it was safe to reveal what he knew of this shared past together.
The Prometheus of now watched her face, eyes darting back and forth. His nod confirmed he’d not only read her intent upon her visage, but that he agreed.
The only question was, could she take that step? Could she walk away from the life she had now, with him and Pyrrha, and move into the uncertain future with no guarantee she’d ever find a way to reach him?
“I’m still working to refine the design,” he said, as if in answer to her question. As if to offer her a respite from making the impossible choice. “We want you to have as much control over when and where it sends you as possible.”
Pandora gnawed on her lip. Though his work bought her time to linger here, she could not do so indefinitely. She made a promise, and regardless, she owed him everything. This life she so cherished was a lie unless she earned it. Unless she
