She dived for the window, but one of the guards grabbed her leg, dragging her back into the room. She twisted onto her back and, summoning her life-threads once more, slammed her hands into the floor. The tiles shattered, shards flying up into the faces of the guards. The man let go, and she lunged again for the window, scrabbled onto the ledge, then grabbed hold of the rope.
Her palms burned as she heaved herself upwards, muscles screaming with the effort. Teeth clenched, she poured every drop of strength into reaching the roof. The grapple hookglinted in the moonlight above her; she was almost there. Then the rope jolted. Danae clung on as the cord swayed violently, tugged by a guard leaning out of the window below.
Then the hook gave way.
The rope slipped from her fingers, and she plummeted past the second-floor window, screaming into the darkness as the ground came rushing up to claim her.
But instead of bone-shattering stone, she landed with a thwack across Hylas’ back. The horse dipped violently, whinnying as he beat his snowy wings towards the moon. Winded, she clung on to the saddle, her legs dangling in the air. When she’d regained her breath, she heaved herself to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around Hylas’ neck.
‘Take us to Cape Taenarum,’ she whispered.
Below, the palace blazed, braziers igniting from room to room as guards raced through the corridors, raising the alarm.
Danae cried out as an arrow grazed her leg. Glancing back, she saw several guards leaning from the upper windows, bows aimed at the sky.
‘Higher, Hylas, higher!’ she urged, as another flurry of arrows shot past them.
The winged horse surged up towards the moon, until finally they were out of range, no more than a shadow on the sphere’s pearly face.
Dawn seared the clouds, their underbellies glowing like hot coals. Hours after they left Athens, Danae and Hylas soared over the waters of the Saronic Gulf, alighting in a forest in the Argolid region of the Peloponnese. They were only halfway to Taenarum, but both she and her steed sorely needed rest.
Tiredness had become as familiar to Danae as breathing.She barely registered the ache in her thighs and back as she slid from Hylas’ saddle. She staggered towards the stream of silver she’d spotted snaking through the canopy as they flew over the forest. She fell to her knees, and both she and the winged horse lowered their heads to the river, the cold water numbing her mouth. Once her thirst was quenched, she delved into Hylas’ saddle bag and hooked a small sack of barley grain on a tree nub for him to eat.
While Hylas chomped, Danae melted into the forest. She kept him in her sights, but ventured far enough that her companion would not witness what she must do.
Placing her hands on the trunk of a large oak, she reached for the tree’s life-threads. She was met with the usual resistance – the tree was strong and healthy – but eventually it bent to her will, just as they always did. A gasp slipped from her lips as the oak’s life-threads rushed into her, banishing the pain of her bruised ribs and healing the arrow wound on her leg. Energy surged through her veins as all around her, brown wilted leaves fell like tarnished snow, and the first budding green acorns shrivelled and tumbled to the forest floor, never to become trees.
Danae turned from the dead oak, her body lighter, her heart heavier. She only did what she must to survive, yet the corpses of the trees and animals she left in her wake fed the knot of shame ever-writhing in her stomach. She was like a plague, bringing death wherever she went.
She returned to kneel at the bank of the little river, taking two waterskins, one from each of the saddle bags. Her wavering reflection scattered as she pierced the surface of the water, refilling the vessels. Warped and dirty as it was, her face had not changed since she left Naxos three years ago.
There are no gods.Her hands trembled as the voice repeated Prometheus’ words, spoken just before his death atop theCaucasus Mountains.There were only ever mortals, and those mortals chosen to become Titans…You are a Titan.
A familiar argument unfurled in her mind. She, the gods and the Titans could not be the same, as Prometheus had claimed. Yes, the Twelve had lied when they painted the Titans as monstrous giants – Prometheus had looked human, just like her. And even if the gods were in fact Titans, like the foe they had defeated in battle for the dominion of the earth, she could not be. Prometheus and the Olympians had lived for centuries, they were immortal.
No, whispered the voice.Not immortal.
The gods and the Titans might be ageless, but Prometheus’ death had proved that they could be killed.
She shook her head. Even so, she was not like them.
Her youthful reflection stared back, mocking her. Both Phineus, the father of her loyal friend Manto whose sacrifice had saved her from the harpies, and the priestess of the oracle at Delphi had become wizened with their constant use of the prophetic omphalos stone. But not her. She raised a wet hand to her face and traced the skin around her eyes, her mouth, her cheeks. Smooth. Unchanged. No matter what she did or where she went, she was stilled in time.
She wondered what her sister would look like now. Alea would be in her twenty-second year. If she had lived would she have grown to further resemble their mother? Or would their father’s likeness have been drawn out with each turn of the sun? Then Danae’s thoughts crept to Arius, her little nephew, stolen from her sister’s bed on his first birthday. Alea had been convinced he was Zeus’ son, her heart irreparably shattered when Arius was taken by a shade, and his all-powerful father did nothing to prevent it. Danae had no idea what had become of him, if he was dead or alive.
The voice interrupted her thoughts, repeating more ofPrometheus’ final words.Apollo does not drive the sun across the sky. Hades rules the Underworld, but there is no afterlife there.
‘Enough!’ She stood abruptly and stormed back to the saddle bags, roughly stowing away the swollen waterskins.
The voice was wrong, Prometheus was wrong. Alea must be in the Underworld. And she was going to prove it.
Hylas lifted his muzzle from his feed, nickered softly and trotted towards her. He lay his head over her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his neck, breathing in the scent of his mane. Behind him, the sun gleamed through the trees, rippling golden light across the river.
She didn’t realize she was weeping until Hylas drew back his head and licked the salt from her cheeks.
‘I’m not crying. You just smell awful.’
Hylas snorted, and Danae smiled. He was the most intelligent beast she’d ever known. He seemed to genuinely understand human speech, as well as having an ingrained knowledge of the land. She hadn’t shared more than a passing sentence with another person since her encounter with Prometheus, let alone touched one without violence. Without her realizing it, the horse had become her closest friend. She liked to believe he too felt their bond, and that was why he hadn’t abandoned her and flown back to Olympus. But whatever his reason for remaining at her side, she was grateful. She didn’t know what she would have done without him.
