The following morning, Metis shook Danae awake. She looked around the stone hut, her heart swelling at the sight of Atalanta and Telamon asleep on the floor.
‘Come,’ said Metis.
Danae rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then followed the woman out into the saffron dawn.
‘That was a brave thing you did,’ Metis said as she picked her way down the hillside.
Danae swallowed. ‘I know you want them gone, but I can’t do it alone, I –’
‘I know.’ Metis sighed. ‘They can stay.’
Danae stared at her, then beamed. ‘Thank you.’
The other woman grunted. ‘There is a reason there were always twelve Titans. Some burdens are not meant to be carried alone. Now, have you mastered your challenge?’
It took Danae a moment to remember the stick.
‘Almost.’
‘You will show me.’
A robust wind tore at their limbs as they climbed down the rocky hillside towards the lake. When they reached the vegetation, Metis foraged for a stick. Danae’s eyes travelled to the clutches of reeds, her stomach lurching at the sight of the lifeless, cracked stalks she had drained two days prior.
Metis found what she was looking for and placed it across Danae’s palm. Then she took a step back and clasped her hands behind her back.
‘Go on.’
Danae closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, then concentrated on the stick. Gently, she extended a string of life-threads into the wood and asked it to float into the sky. As she had done before, she entreated not with words, but by sending her longing in the form of a question down the channel of life-threads. Slowly, the stick rose into the air.
As the wood climbed higher, her pulse quickened until a burst of excitement broke through her calm and sent the stick shooting into the air, before it tumbled back to the ground.
Metis raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you know why I asked you to speak to Gaia?’
‘Because of her charming wit.’ Danae cast around for the stick.
‘If you do not learn how to listen to the Mother, you will not be able to reach Gaiasight.’
Danae spied the stick and grabbed it.
‘What’s that?’
Metis watched the wind shiver across the lake. ‘It is a state of pure communion with Gaia when the tapestry of life can be seen with the naked eye and your will is twinned with Hers.’
Danae thought of the bliss she had experienced whendraining the life-threads of other creatures, the glowing threads of energy she had seen surging through the living world, the pure unadulterated power.
‘I think I have already felt it, when consuming life-threads.’
Metis was silent for a moment. ‘Remember the story I told you of Gaia and Ouranos. The Hesperides apples are a poisoned gift. It is the burden of a Titan, to carry the desire and power to consume life yet not act upon it. It is true that at the moment of draining the ichor of another living being the tapestry is visible, but this is not Gaiasight.’
‘If they feel similar then how do I know when I am in Gaiasight and when it’s the desire to consume?’
‘When you are in Gaiasight, you will know peace, not ecstasy. We walk in twilight, on the cusp of night and day, and sometimes it is hard to tell which way lies darkness and which path leads to the light.’
Danae chewed her lip.
Metis watched her for a moment, then continued, ‘On the beach, when I apprehended Telamon and Atalanta, I was in Gaiasight.’
Danae raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that why you could command such power without exhausting yourself?’
