My determination wavered, intrigue taking its place. ‘You did?’
The faintest trace of a smile crossed her face. ‘Yes. And if you run one more lap around the city walls, I will tell you about it over a cup of warm milk in the feasting hall. I’m not standing here in this awful weather because I like it, you know.’
I brightened. Atalanta held her tales close to her chest, but I had managed to coax a few of them from her, and I was always hungry for more. Though her delivery was less polished than the blind poet’s, I liked Atalanta’s stories best because they weretrue.
I ran the rest of the course without a word of complaint.
2
Eros
My story begins before there were any stories to be told, when there was nothing but earth and sky stretching on into infinity. The sea hadn’t been invented yet.
There were fewer than a dozen of us back then, the first elemental gods who emerged from the fathomless abyss of Chaos – which is, I suppose, another way to saynothingness. The grass of the newborn world tickled my feet as I took my first steps. I looked down. In my right hand was an elegant bow, and tied at my waist was a quiver of gold-fletched arrows. Their existence was inextricably linked to mine, as much a part of me as my fingers and toes. I thrummed my fingers along the bow’s string and felt the steady hum of the power contained within.
I stretched my arms, feeling my muscles ripple beneath my skin, and took my first breaths of air. Wide-feathered wings arched over my shoulders, brushing against the belly of the sky god Ouranos. I sank my toes into the loam, marvelling at it.
The world was drawn in simple lines, unembellished, empty, and waiting. No dryads existed yet to raise forests over the earth, and the soft wind carried no scent of flowers. There was little else around – a few rocks, a bit of grass.
‘What is this place?’ I said aloud.
‘I believe it is called earth,’ a voice around me said. ‘Welcome. I am Gaia.’
The broad ground beneath my feet quivered. I felt the attention of some vast entity focus upon me, something wider than the plains that rose to a distant line of mountains, but I was not afraid. Laughter drifted to my ears, sweet and playful.
‘Gaia,’ I echoed, rolling the shape of the name on my tongue.
I became aware of eyes watching me, crinkling with amusement. I saw the barest outlines of a form – a proud nose, a generous mouth, hair like the rivers that were beginning to trickle through the crags in the ground.
‘A nice place, though rather lonely,’ Gaia said. Her attention drifted. ‘Although not for you, it seems. Someone is coming.’
The vast awareness faded, and I nearly staggered with its absence. When I lifted my head, sure enough, I saw a figure approaching. Unlike earth-formed Gaia, this one looked like me. She had five-fingered hands and two legs that carried her swiftly over the ground. She was my perfect mirror in female form – golden hair, bronze skin, and green eyes, though hers glinted with the cunning of a serpent.
She was Eris, the goddess of discord, disagreement, and shattered things. My cosmic twin, though I liked her no more than your right hand likes your left.
‘There you are,’ Eris said when she approached. ‘I have been searching for you everywhere. We have much work to do, my dear brother. Let’s go.’
I looked out at the landscape that was just beginning to take shape. Jagged mountains along the horizon, and the first thin stripes of clouds in the sky. The world was empty, but it wouldn’t be for long. I thought of what Gaia had said.A nice place, though rather lonely.
Already I could feel the straining weight of it, a new future aching to be born.
‘I don’t think I will,’ I said to Eris, who gaped at me as though I had announced I would cram all of Ouranos’s blue sky into my mouth. Dissent was new, and she was rather put out that she hadn’t thought of it first.
‘We’re gods. We create and destroy,’ she urged. ‘This is what we must do.’
‘If we are gods,’ I replied, ‘we can do whatever we like.’
And to suit my actions to my words, I lay down on the warm rock and closed my eyes. After some time, I heard Eris depart with a frustrated huff.
I do not know how long I slept. Sleep is not a necessity for a god, but it is a great pleasure, and we do not skimp on those. I was awoken by fingers of wind moving over my cheeks, rustling my hair. I opened my eyes and found myself looking into an angular face with eyes as blue as the cloudless sky.
‘How long are you going to lie here?’ the newcomer asked.
I knew him to be Zephyrus, one of the brothers who ruled the four winds. ‘As long as I want to,’ I replied. In his clear eyes, I could see a reflection of myself: golden locks, bronzed skin, eyes green as the grass beneath me. I thought myself quite attractive.
He nodded, already losing interest; I would come to learn that Zephyrus was as flighty as the winds he commanded. His gaze drifted to the bow and quiver of arrows at my side. ‘What do those do?’ he asked.
I finally sat up, reaching out to weigh them in my hands. ‘Shall we find out together?’ I asked, a grin creeping over my face.
