She was actually going to die now. She was going to die, not because of Zeus or some agent of Kronos, but because she had refused to heed Prometheus and tried to change Fate. The realization settled in her throat like a lump.
Her captor dropped her, and Pandora stumbled, arms gyrating as she tried to steady herself and keep from pitching backward over the cliff. Falling onto the rocks thus meant certain death. “Please,” she begged. Dignity be damned. “Please don’t—”
A beat of the woman’s wings sent a gale rushing over Pandora. It hurled her backward, far out over the cliff. The rush of shrieking wind stole her screams. She flailed as she fell. And as the sea surged up to meet her, she just managed to twist around and fall feet-first instead of landing on her back.
The ocean still struck her like a Titan’s fist.
There was blindness and saltwater scorching her throat and sinuses and twisting and something that rushed past her and swept her up in a grip as strong as any Titan.
Then more darkness, gasping, retching up seawater. Moans and pain.
And finally, blinking, an almost full moon above her while she lay on her back upon the deck of a ship. The vessel heaved with each synchronized pull of numerous oars.
A man knelt beside her, naked, and peering into her eyes. Not a man. His own eyes were like pearls, opalescent and alien. Gills flapped on the flesh of his neck, and small fins twitched upon his forearms.
A merman.
Pandora sucked down a painful breath, trying to push away from the alien creature before her. Her throat felt scraped raw, as if she had swallowed fire rather than water.
“Sirsir, bring her,” a woman’s voice commanded.
The merman hefted her up as though she weighed no more than a child. Clammy, webbed fingers fell upon her shoulder and guided her forward, giving Pandora a chance to take in her surroundings.
She stood upon the main deck of a bireme, one circling around Ogygia. Was this one of Kronos’s ships? Most of the crew at the oars seemed Men, perhaps some Titans. Other warriors stood about the deck, peering into the night. Apart from them stood a cluster of other naked men and women. Mer, working with or for her new captors.
The creature, Sirsir, escorted her to a Titan female with eyes as blue as the sea and hair as black as Pandora’s own. Once there, the mer shoved Pandora forward a step. The Titan stared at her with such an indomitable aspect and Pandora found herself squirming under that gaze. Only after a moment, when the woman looked away, did she notice the male behind her.
That was … the boatman. Enki. Well damn … And if he had lived so long ago, any doubt he was a Titan was erased.
“Well,” the woman said at last, “who are you?”
Enki claimed to have known Prometheus a long time. ‘Off and on,’ he’d said. Perhaps his own private joke.
“I’m Pandora.”
The Titan woman looked at Enki, who glanced at Pandora and shrugged. So he didn’t know her yet. At least some people had some respect for causality.
“And what, Pandora, were you doing in the sea?” The lead Titan demanded.
The truth—that some agent of the Moirai had assaulted her for trying to change the timeline—would cast her as a madwoman, but perhaps a half-truth would serve. “Kronos’s forces attacked the island. I suspect in an attempt to capture Prometheus. I fell from the cliff while attempting to escape their assault.”
Another heavy look passed between Pandora’s captor and Enki. Then the Titan looked back at her. “I’m Tethys. It was my Telkhines who fished you from the sea rather than let you drown.”
Pandora glanced over at the mer, Sirsir, who still stood closer behind her than necessity warranted. “Thank you.”
The mer’s eyes nictitated, the gesture more unsettling for the opalescence of the orbs. How had Tethys gained command of these watery gods? Pandora pushed it from her mind. Tethys demanded her immediate attention, regardless of who or what served her. Tethys, progenitor of the Tethid genos, had abandoned the Elladósi world around the time of the Titanomachy.
But from the Ambrosial War she would arise as one of the greatest Titans in the World, helping to found the Ouranid League and thus earn her own bloodline. In fact, Europa’s own ancestor, Io, was a Tethid, who had thus introduced the genos into Phoenikia. Or would do so, thousands of years from now.
“Have you naught else to say, mortal?” Tethys demanded.
“I need to return to the mountain,” she said, watching for Tethys’s reaction.
A scoff answered her. “A mountain you just fell off fleeing a war band led by the most ruthless Titan in the Thalassa? Unless we secure Kronos, any attempt to return to Ogygia would mean your probable death.”
Yes, there was truth to that. But still, she could not leave. “My daughter is there. In danger.”
Tethys folded her arms. “All children are in danger until this war is done. Still, Kronos’s soldiers are more like to harm mothers than babes. Are you so ignorant of the ravages of the war you cannot imagine what they’d do to you should they catch you there?”
To say more meant gambling on just how Tethys felt about Prometheus. He had remained neutral in the war, true, but some—as apparently Kronos—might still think him a threat because of his connection to Atlas. And Tethys? Would she want to use Prometheus’s lover against him? But without Tethys’s aid, Pandora would have little chance of rejoining him or Pyrrha.
She allowed herself a step forward, an effort to demand Tethys’s attention.
