Aidos guided them around the gardens, blessedly far from the crunch of people, then paused beneath a cypress tree, kicking off her sandals as she slumped down into the loam.
Realizing she didn’t intend to immediately announce them, Apollon scoffed. “I must make our presence known. Some of us came here for a reason.”
“Is it because Helios tugged upon your puppet strings?” Aidos asked with such feigned innocence Artemis couldn’t stop herself from snickering.
Apollon didn’t answer that, just spun on his heel and stormed off toward the hall.
Aidos snorted. “As if aught happens in this polis Grandmother doesn’t know about.” From beneath her peplos she withdrew a ceramic vial. After she popped the cap, a whiff of honeyed wine reached Artemis. Aidos winked and allowed her a glimpse of the amber liquid.
Ambrosia.
Already, Artemis’s mouth watered. Her pulse quickened. “With the war, I thought …”
“It’s much harder to get,” Aidos admitted. “But I heard you were coming and saved some.”
Oh. Grandfather Koios was an Oracle, so it stood to reason he might have known they would arrive some time ago. Maybe even before Helios ever sent them.
By Gaia, Artemis needed that. Her skin flushed at the thought of even a few sips fortifying her Pneuma. And of … other effects of the draught. “I don’t suppose you have any men in mind?”
That drew another snort from Aidos. “Isn’t Helios still claiming you’re a virgin Titan?”
Now Artemis rolled her eyes. What the fuck was it with men and that sort of thing, anyway? Father thought it made it more likely she could find a good marriage that way. And Artemis, past sixty years old, had definitely spent all those decades in complete celibacy.
“Anyway, yes, I know a few discreet slaves who can get the job done.” Aidos took a swig, downing half the vial all at once.
Artemis opened her mouth, reaching for it with trembling fingers. Gaia, don’t let her drink it all!
Sated—in every possible way—her flesh tingling from the increased flow of Pneuma, Artemis stood in Phoebe’s court. Grandmother and Grandfather both sat upon their thrones in the rear of the hall, while Artemis and Apollon stood with their backs to the pool in the hall’s midst.
Apollon, of course, insisted on standing a step ahead of her as he addressed Phoebe and Koios. “Surely you can see the mutual advantage of an accord,” he pled. Whined, perhaps, given that Koios seemed to have about as much interest in working with their father as a leopard had in allying with a tiger. A land could support only one apex predator, after all.
“At present,” Koios said, “Atlas still allows us supplies of Ambrosia out of Atlantis. Any move toward solidarity with his enemies risks our own supplies.”
Apollon scoffed. “He charges you exorbitant prices and you thank him for it? How far, exactly, will you bend over for him, Grandfather?”
Wow. Artemis pointedly turned her gaze upon their grandmother, gnawing her lip and afraid to even witness Koios’s reaction to that.
For a moment, Koios said naught at all. Then he rose. “This audience is concluded. Enjoy the fruits of a land not beleaguered by war with Atlas, boy.”
Doubt and emotions Artemis couldn’t discern warred across Phoebe’s face as her husband departed.
Artemis shook her head. Apollon was far too used to everyone kowtowing to his words. The golden child of Helios thought the sun rose and set through his arse, and he had no idea how to talk to anyone not awestruck by his bluster.
When he had slunk off like the petulant brat he was, Artemis took a tentative step toward her grandmother. “Mother sends her love.”
Phoebe started, then met her gaze, nodding. “How is Leto?”
Bored in Helios’s court. Neglected. Relegated to the status of an ornament for the crime of having been born female. “She endures.”
The look on her grandmother’s face told her the woman caught the whole of her meaning. “Walk with me, child.”
Phoebe, always fond of the moon, took Artemis out into the night and they wandered from the city into the plain, where the full moon shone bright and the stars twinkled like beacons in the firmament. When Artemis was a girl, Phoebe had brought her here and claimed the Primordials had given rise to all the cosmos in a time before time.
In the story, Dyaus, the Sky God, and Gaia, the Earth Goddess, had mated and birthed so much of all she cherished. Pan, the Wood God, and Hyperion and Thoth and more besides had sprung from their loins. Not Nyx, though, who ruled the Night and the stars. She was older than any of the others, and it was possible even Dyaus and Gaia were of her. Either way, though, Thoth the Moon God relieved the darkness of night, and for that, Phoebe had taught Artemis to remain ever grateful.
When she was older, Artemis dared to wonder how anyone, Titan queen or not, could know what happened before time began. Such questions had only ever drawn a scowl from Phoebe. No answers. Perhaps it was better not to ask certain things.
Now, Grandmother laced her arm with Artemis’s and guided her on a seemingly aimless stroll. For a long time, Artemis said naught. How could she stand to break the peace of such a night? To spoil a perfect moment she might carry in memory for ages to come?
But she had not come to Phoebe just to take midnight walks with her grandmother or steal small sips of Ambrosia with her cousin. “An alliance with Helios might allow you to extend your influence over all Lydia, maybe even into Phrygia. Imagine yourself queen of this whole peninsula, Grandmother.”
Phoebe sniffed lightly. “Koios regrets ever having consented to Leto’s marriage to vain Helios. His precious daughter deserved more.” Her voice seemed
