Pyrrha shivered, rubbing her arms, suddenly realizing she wore naught save the tattered remnants of the peplos the spirits had torn from her. “Thank you.” She grimaced and shifted, even knowing any attempt at modesty was utterly pointless under the circumstances. “Um, I’m Pyrrha.”
“Artemis.”
Huh. Wasn’t that the name of one of Helios’s brood? Hadn’t she won some famous battle in the Ambrosial War? “What were you doing here?”
Artemis quirked a brow as if to return the question. Then she sniffed. “My brother is training with Themis and I escorted him here. I went into the woods to hunt and felt something … perverse. You’re lucky I came along, though. Those dryads almost had you as one of them.”
Without doubt, and, at the time, Pyrrha had welcomed it, as if they had saturated her mind with their essence. Saying that aloud, though, would make her sound a madwoman. Instead, she clutched Artemis’s hand in thanks.
The Titan, as it turned out, had a small cottage a few hours’ walk from Delphi. Artemis led Pyrrha along a route through the wilderness, one that allowed them to reach the house without encountering anyone to witness her state of undress. Inside, the Titan offered her a tunic more suited to a man than a woman. But then, Artemis herself dressed thus, and Pyrrha was in no condition to refuse any clothes.
Nor a warm bed in which she immediately fell into a fitful sleep. Inchoate images plagued her, though, having her jolting awake over and over, as she saw, once more, the platinum-haired man, Zeus. She saw him squirming atop her, felt her own passion rise. She saw the two of them, descending into the depths of a mountain, looking upon a strange archway cut around a tunnel. She saw Thebes aflame, as Gigantes rampaged through the streets.
What tricks her mind played upon her, coiled up and confused by the drakon blood. What madness it prompted.
For the better part of two days, she dozed, waking long enough to indulge in a venison stew Artemis had prepared before drifting off once more. Never had her dreams felt so real, so vivid, so intoxicatingly damning. It was as if another world had opened within her, and though it flowed, in the manner of dreams, from scene to scene without her able to parse the transitions, still it compelled her to remain.
Sometimes, it felt she was caught up in some bard’s tale and could not pull herself away until she had heard the end of the story.
When she woke next, the moon was up, and Artemis was outside the house, kneeling before the corpse of a rabbit with a slit throat. The Titan had prostrated herself but now leaned backward, arms raised to the moon in supplication.
Daring not to intrude, Pyrrha knelt and watched until Artemis at last turned to her.
“Why the sacrifice?” Pyrrha asked.
Artemis settled back on her haunches and indicated the moon hovering above. “A full moon. The time of Thoth.”
“What?”
“The Primordial of the Moon, worshipped by my grandmother, and taught to me. I offer sacrifices in the hopes Thoth remains pleased. Perhaps he will guide my steps, perhaps guard my fortune. Mostly, we just hope the Elder Gods do not stir and trouble us.” She shrugged. “Or so Grandmother says.”
“Grandmother?”
“Phoebe.” Another of the Ouranid League. Artemis’s bloodline was pristine, and yet she bothered with a mere Nymph like Pyrrha. The woman shifted. “She knows such things, of old.”
Pyrrha nodded, not knowing what to say. How did someone like her make an answer when a war hero spoke of one of the rulers of the Thalassa as ‘Grandmother’?
“I don’t even know how to begin to thank you,” Pyrrha ventured.
Artemis shrugged. “I dare hope someone would have done the same for me.” But her voice held far more left unspoken. “If you like, I can teach you woodcraft. A paltry defense against the Otherworldly, but it might help a little.”
“You’re inviting me to stay here.”
Another shrug. “I don’t linger overlong in any one place, but while I remain here, you are welcome to it.” She paused. “I’ll have my bed back, though. You can sleep on the bearskin by the hearth.”
Fair enough.
Twelve years had passed since the end of the Ambrosial War, and Artemis confirmed she had indeed fought a battle outside Helion, against a Titan who could control mist and snow. She had no idea how that was possible, but Pyrrha suspected Khione must have been some kind of sorceress with a bound lampad. No other explanation seemed forthcoming for such power.
“I don’t know,” Artemis replied when Pyrrha voiced her theory. “With enough Ambrosia, we can harness our Pneuma, but not like that. Something was different about her, for certain. Or maybe not everything has explanations. Maybe there is more unknown than known in this world.”
The pair of them walked the woods, searching for deer, though Pyrrha found the hunt far less intriguing than the company. She had revealed her ability to see the dead to Artemis, and her host had only nodded without apparent concern.
That sort of acceptance … well Pyrrha had only ever experienced it with Enodia.
“Can you tell me more about the Elder God we encountered beyond Delphi?” she asked, as Artemis ducked under a low-hanging branch.
“Not really. I am no expert in such things. Once, I …” Artemis glanced back at her. “Grandmother told me of a lodge of sorcerers in Phoenikia she had once been a member of. I had thought to seek them out, but something happened with my grandfather, and I found I could not leave Lydia fast enough. I did not bother to ask Grandmother where, exactly, this Circle was, much less pursue it. No, I
