‘Do we?’ A beat fell between them. ‘I think the fates would disagree.’
Metis continued to stare at her, then Heracles murmured, and they both looked at him. Metis sank down and once more laid her hands upon him.
‘You can rest here until he is out of danger, or he dies. We’ll know by sunrise. Either way, you will leave in the morning.’
The familiar crush of disappointment wrapped around Danae’s heart. She felt as though she were once more standing before Prometheus, having travelled to the end of the world and risked everything, only to discover that she was on her own.
‘That’s it?’ When Metis did not reply, she continued, ‘Prometheus told me with his dying breath that you would help me. What a waste.’
Metis stiffened. She looked up at Danae. ‘Prometheus is …?’
‘Slain by Hera. She tried to kill me too, but I escaped. I told you, that’s how I came by Pegasus.’
Metis withdrew her hands, sat back on her heels and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they shone likethe sea. ‘The horse will need seeing to.’ She wiped her cheeks, then pointed to a clay vase by the door. ‘There’s water in that hydria. You can use one of the bowls.’ Then she turned back to Heracles.
Danae pressed her tongue against her teeth, a barrage of questions bubbling inside her. But she voiced none of them. She snatched up a large bowl with a faded owl painted on its belly, tilted the hydria with trembling hands and drowned the bird in its own little ocean.
22. Echoes
She was lying on a slab of marble. High above, polished obsidian walls stretched up to a ceiling shrouded in darkness. The air was close, the reek of decay permeating through the windless space. There were no windows. Nothing in this place had ever been warmed by the light of day.
The cold bit into her skin, but she could not move. She tried to scream, but it was like she was trapped inside a carcass laid out on a butcher’s block. Even her eyes were fixed, forced to stare up at that never-ending ceiling.
Mist began to curl across the edges of her vision. Its cloudy breath prickled her flesh, raising the hairs on her arms. It drifted over her face, and for a moment she thought she had gone blind, then she saw shapes moving within it, looming over her through the fog.
‘Were you made or were you born?’ The words lingered, as though caught in the mist like flies in a spider’s web.
Pressure began to build inside her, a cry that could not be released.
The figures leant closer. Two pairs of tusks pierced the fog.
‘We have been made before and we shall be made again.’
Danae’s ears thrummed with hissing as a tangle of snakes swam from the mist. Then the faces of the two gorgons pressed in, their rancid breath hot on her freezing cheeks. She could do nothing asthey reached for her, their lips stretching back to reveal sharpened teeth. But just as their fingers were about to touch her skin, they vanished.
Her heart was thumping so fast, she was sure it would burst.
Then she felt something that stilled her pulse entirely.
Fingers creeping through her hair, tracing pathways across her scalp.
No, it could not be. She’d watched Typhon, the dragon, char him to the bone.
‘Hello, little Titan.’
Danae woke, gasping. Pain spiked down her left arm, and she clutched it so tightly, her nails dug into her skin. The ache lingered, shooting down to her fingertips as she pushed herself up. She must have fallen asleep on the limb.
Pale moonlight spilled in through the doorway of Metis’ hut, shadows pooling behind the stacks of pottery and burned-out fireplace. Metis herself was still hunched over Heracles, her hands laid upon his torso. She rocked gently as she worked, muttering under her breath.
Even as Danae watched her, she imagined the cold, thin light came not from the moon, but from the star crystals in the false sky of the Underworld. She became acutely aware of the stone wall of the dwelling, chill against her back. The cloying dampness of the earth and rocks swelled in her nostrils. Then her pulse quickened, her lungs expanding and contracting as though she were sprinting for her life. Reality bled away, and she became sure she was underground again, buried under all that soil and stone. Terror swallowed her whole. She had to get out, or she would suffocate.
Staggering to her feet, she lurched out of the hut. But even the dark expanse of sky and the biting chill of the wind could not free her from her cage of fear. She fell to her hands and knees, desperately sucking in air.
Pegasus, woken by her, trotted over from where he’d been sleeping and gently nudged her with his muzzle. His presence tethered her to reality, drawing her back to the island breath by breath. When her head had stopped spinning enough for her to move, she reached for him, dragging herself up to wrap her arms around his neck. Pegasus waited patiently asshe sobbed into his coat, resting his head over her shoulder while her heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
‘You all right, girl?’
Danae lifted her face from Pegasus’ neck. Metis was standing in the stone doorway. She looked haggard.
