‘You took its ichor.’
‘Yes.’ Danae was unsure why she suddenly felt like a scolded child.
‘That is not the way of the Mother.’ Every word was laden with reproach.
Danae frowned, anger rallying to her defence. ‘You kill them too – I saw the lizards in your hut.’
‘I eat their flesh but I do not take their life-threads.’ Her voice was low and dangerous.
‘Why?’
‘Because we are guardians not masters. Nature does not exist to serve us. Stealing a creature’s life to feed your power is a crime against the Mother. However small that creature may be.’ Metis bent down and grabbed the cut leaves, stuffing them into the seaweed bag. ‘You have much to learn.’
‘Then teach me.’
Metis stared at her, and Danae was unsettled to see something akin to fear flicker across the woman’s gaze.
After a beat of hesitation she said, ‘Did something tell you to take the lizard’s ichor?’
Danae’s lips parted in surprise. She felt as though Metis had suddenly laid her bare. The voice was such a secret part of her she’d never considered that anyone else might be aware of its existence. The shame she harboured over the lives she’d drained to feed her power rose like bile in her throat.
‘Yes,’ she breathed.
The line between Metis’ brows deepened. ‘Trees grow leaves that are shaken to earth by the wind, or wither and fall with the changing seasons. Imagine if one tree in the forest did not wilt as it should, but grew more leaves, and more and more, until it covered all the other trees and starved them of light. Soon the forest would contain only one tree and it would not be a forest at all. This is what the Olympians have done by hoarding their life-threads. They deny others life. Be careful, listening to that voice will do you no good.’ Then she turned and began stalking back towards the hill.
‘What is the voice?’ Danae called after her. ‘Where does it come from?’
Metis stopped, her shoulders hunched as though carrying a yoke. Then she glanced back. ‘Bring the lizard.’
When they returned to the stone hut, Heracles was still asleep. After tossing the leaves into one of the clay bowls stacked against the wall, Metis took the lizard from Danae, then passed her the bowl.
‘Grind these into a paste.’ Metis proffered a large black stone that fitted perfectly in the palm of her hand, before pinning the lizard to a crack in the hut wall beside its kin.
Danae thought of the omphalos shard, lost in the depths of the Underworld. Her stomach hollowed, and she turned her attention to the leaves. The bowl, like the vessel that had become Pegasus’ makeshift water trough, was decorated with pictures of owls, black against the red of the clay. The birds were beautifully detailed, each feather painstakingly defined. Such fine pottery belonged in the houses of nobility, not stacked in a rudimentary hut on an abandoned island.
‘Where did you get all this?’ Danae gestured to the bowls.
‘My daughter used to visit. She always brought a gift.’
‘Fond of owls, is she?’
Metis’ eyes grew heavy. ‘She was. She doesn’t come any more.’
‘Oh … I’m sorry.’ Danae wondered how many years Metis had spent alone on this spit of rock. Perhaps her daughter had long ago taken her last steps upon the earth. Danae thought of her own family back on Naxos, her mind curling as she imagined her little nephews, Minos and Egan, passing through the seasons of life until they too returned to the soil. And she, through it all, would remain the same. Ageless. Trapped in an infinite cycle of endings.
Metis checked Heracles’ pulse and lifted his eyelids, then stood.
‘I must commune with the Mother. Make that paste and watch him.’ She glanced back at Heracles and added, ‘I’ll be at the peak if you need me.’
‘But …’ Frustration flared through Danae’s chest as Metis left the dwelling. She was tempted to set down the bowl and follow the woman, but she settled for slumping down beside Heracles and channelling her irritation into mashing the thick green leaves beneath the stone.
Metis was a clam she must prise open without shattering its shell. Patience had never come naturally to Danae, something her mother had often reminded her of, but she would have to learn. Like it or not, she needed Metis’ help and she could not take it by force.
The plant was almost completely pulverized when Heracles murmured. Hastily, Danae set down the bowl and stone and crouched over him.
Heracles’ eyes twitched beneath his lids, his cracked lips shaping the faint echo of words. She leapt up and searched for the waterskin, pouring a little water into her hand and tracing the moisture over his mouth.
‘Heracles?’ she said softly.
