Faith.
The word tugged at an old wound. She’d had faith in the gods once. Faith that everything would be all right, and her family could weather any storm. That faith had died the day she dragged Alea’s corpse from the sea.
It would have been a simpler task if Metis had asked herto learn another tongue than entreat her to put her trust in something she did not understand and could not see. But, ever constant, the prophecy weighed heavy on her soul. She had to try.
Danae rubbed the sweat from her brow. ‘If asking means I will use fewer life-threads, I won’t have to replenish them as often …’
Metis nodded.
‘In battle I could fight for longer.’ She looked up at the woman. ‘This is useful, thank you.’
Metis fixed her with one of her tilted stares. ‘If you live for too long in anger, it becomes the colour of the world.’
‘Some deeds should never be forgiven.’
Metis scratched the back of her neck. ‘I should check on Heracles. Keep practising and let me know when you’ve done as I asked.’
Danae watched Metis trudge back up towards the hill. Then, steadying her breath, she felt once more for her life-threads and teased a twine of strands into the stick. But, unlike before, she did not hurl her will down the cord now connecting her to the wood. She stood still and closed her eyes, living in the sensation of the stick resting against her skin while her life force flowed into its length.
‘Will you float?’ she whispered, glad no one was there to witness her conversing with a stick.
She opened her eyes. The stick remained immobile in her hands.
‘Will you float?’ she asked again, a note of irritation straining her voice.
Before you could command the elements, now you cannot move a twig, said the voice.
‘Be quiet,’ she hissed.
She let out a sharp sigh, then drew in two steadying breaths. ‘Please.’
The stick shivered. Then it lifted from her palms, slowly rising into the air. Danae did not dare breathe as she watched it ascend. Then a gust of wind knocked it from the sky. She swore as her life-threads snapped back into her body and the stick rolled away across the ground. She retrieved it from beneath a bush of spruce, swearing as the spines raked her hands.
The wind blustered, the sun blazed, and many hours later Danae still had not succeeded in levitating the stick from her palms and bringing it back with control. She glared at it, strands of hair stuck to her gleaming face. As time passed, it seemed to take on a life of its own, and now the swirl of its bark looked positively smug.
Her mouth was parched and her stomach twisted with hunger. She’d not yet eaten and the sun had already passed its peak in the cloudless sky. Clutching the stick like a knife, she set her sights on the hill and climbed towards the hut.
When she arrived, she was greeted by Pegasus chomping on a patch of grass outside the dwelling. But even the sight of her companion could not lift her gloomy spirits. She entered the stone hut in a cloud of defeat and sank to the floor, throwing the stick in front of her.
Metis was kneeling beside Heracles, dabbing his brow with a cloth woven from shredded palm fronds. She’d lit a fire, the flames filling the stone room with smoky warmth.
‘Control is not something one learns in a day. It will take time.’
‘I don’t have time. I’ve wasted so much of it already.’ Danae’s chest tightened as she thought of the Underworld and her search for Alea. The chasm of despair began to open in her mind and, as though recoiling from a flame, she pushedthe memories away. ‘It would help if I understood where my powers came from. I’ve never known anyone else like me. Prometheus and I barely had a chance to exchange a few words. I’ve lived for so long trying to figure this all out on my own and I don’t know if I can go on without knowing more. Why was I made a Titan? Who even are the Titans? And the Mother?’
Metis rose to her feet and handed Danae the flame-roasted carcass of a lizard on a skewer. ‘Cooked ’em up earlier when you were practising. Saved this one for you.’
Despite her aching stomach, Danae did not eat.
‘Please, tell me.’
Metis pressed her lips together, then sighed. ‘It all happened so long ago, I … well, I suppose I was going to have to tell you sooner or later. I’d better start at the beginning.’ She frowned. ‘No, before that. I’ll start with Chaos.’
25. The Earth and the Sky
Metis lowered herself down to sit cross-legged by the hearth, then began to speak.
‘Before time, before the heavens, before life itself, there was the void of Chaos. The chasm stretched on forever with no start or end, no purpose but to exist. This was not enough for Chaos, who longed for meaning, and to understand the nature of all their disparate parts. So, in the darkness they fashioned a seed. A single, golden kernel shining in the formless mass. Then roots sprang forth, and a shoot forged its way through the kernel’s glowing skin, branching into the void. This was the moment life began.
