Hera was unbelievably strong. The goddess didn’t look like she was weakening at all, whereas Danae could feel herself being depleted each time she cast her life-threads out of her body. She didn’t have the energy to keep defending herself.
Clenching her jaw, she sent two torrents of threads into the air as Hera sparked another fireball into being. She whirled them over her head, faster and faster, until a tiny maelstrom formed beneath Hera’s chariot. The goddess was about to discharge her fire when she stumbled, then screamed as the miniature typhoon swallowed her.
Danae could feel her energy waning, she was dangerously close to losing too many life-threads. With one last push, she yanked her threads downward and let go.
The chariot tumbled from the sky, falling out of sight. She heard it collide with the mountain below. A few moments later the white winged horses reappeared, braying and flapping away from the swirling cloud of snow.
Danae slumped against the rock, her limbs heavy as iron.
Through the falling flakes, she spotted a glint of golden armor. Hera was on the back of the russet horse, flying away into the clouds.
Danae groaned and pulled herself back onto the ridge, wincing at the spasms shooting across her back. The rock face looked as though it had been hacked by an axe.
And Prometheus was gone.
She stared around frantically, then spotted the Titan crumpled in the snow where the sheer rock met the crag below. Hera’s attack must have broken his chains.
She scrambled forward. Even before she reached him, she could feel the life-threads leaving his body. When she drew closer, she saw shards of razor-sharp ice protruding from his chest. His furs were matted with blood.
“You’re dying?” He couldn’t be. He was a Titan. He was immortal.
Prometheus’s skull-like face was placid. “At last.”
Up close, his eyes were so pale they almost looked white.
“No.” Danae placed her hands on his chest. “If I can heal myself, so can you.”
“What is your name, daughter?”
“Danae.”
Prometheus curled what was left of his bony fingers around her hand. “You must cast aside your fear, Danae, or you will not be able to do what needs to be done.”
“I’m not afraid,” she lied.
Prometheus stretched back his scarred lips into what once might have been a smile.
“What did you mean about the gods?”
Prometheus drew a rattling breath. “The world you know is an illusion. Those you call gods have spent centuries weaving lies.” He spluttered as wheezing coughs racked his body.
She waited. Every moment that slipped by fed her desperation to understand.
“The religion you slave under is false. There have only ever been mortals and those mortals who were chosen to become Titans.”
Her head felt like it was going to explode. “But...the gods are real. They created mortals.Youmade the first man’s body out of clay.”
“Lies,” Prometheus rasped. “Man is not made from clay. Demeter does not command the seasons, just as Apollo does not drive the sun across the sky. Hades rules the Underworld, but there is no afterlife there.”
She felt as though he’d pushed her off the mountain and she was falling endlessly into darkness. She jerked her hands away from his. “What do you mean?”
“You are more powerful than you know...just like me and those who call themselves gods...you are a Titan.”
She stared at him, unable to ground herself as Prometheus’s revelations smashed through the structure of her reality.
“That’s impossible.”
“Seek out Metis on the island of Delos... She will help you.”
