Page 6 of Prometheus' Priestess

“For whatpurpose?”

“The quiet courage it takes to be a woman who loves simply at home is just as important as the courage on the battlefield,” Amara replied quietly, for that was not a popular opinion amongst the Athenai who went about their daily rituals around them. Most longed to be more like their goddess, to counter their sweet temperament that had not always served them well. There was nowhere else for a woman to learn courage such as Athenataught.

“Ah. And so the stint with Aphrodite was to teach you the love you wished tocultivate?”

Amaranodded.

“And Artemis beforethat?”

“She taught me how to be at one withnature.”

Lysia smiled, understanding dawning in her mind at the young priestess’ moira,her destiny.She would run much more than just a household, a sisterhood, the Fates whispered. These skills were destined for somethinggreater.

Amara looked at Lysia, trepidation pacing behind her eyes at the woman’s silence.

“You won’t tell Her, will you?”

To be in service to multiple goddesses for your own gain was taboo and Amara had nowhere else to go, no family. She’d been the unfortunate offspring of her mother’s rape, abandoned in the fields of Artemis as a babe. Priestesshood, servitude, was all she had ever known.

“I have no need to. Athena summons you for a task. It would appear your skills are about to serve you as they were always intendedto.”

CHAPTER III

Prometheus rumbled a deep, exasperated sigh as he watched the bobbing head of a visitor come up the steep track that followed the olive groves and dips in the valley below him before reaching his cabin. His home was high enough up in the Parnitha mountains that he didn’t usually get guests, which was the point, but he already had an inclination about who was approaching him and knew that this would be no social visit.

Bracing himself on the dark red oak desk he’d carved, sanded, and polished this past summer, he rose and walked barefoot across wooden floorboards made of the same oak as he continued to watch his guest effortlessly make her way up the mountainside that was still basking in the late afternoon Grecian sun. It was just beginning to dip below the hills in the distance, creating a shadowed effect across the land that had turned it golden after the hottest summer Prometheus could remember. Demeter, Goddess of the Seasons, had enjoyed a delightful six months reunited with her daughter, Persephone, who now returned to the underworld with Hades. It had been a glorious, if brutal, summer.

Squinting against the light, convinced his eyes were playing tricks on him, he noticed that he had not one guest but two. The taller of the two he recognised immediately. It was hard to mistake Athena’s six-foot two-inch slender frame and confident gait. The petite, curvier woman, who walked behind her, he did not recognise. Both finally made it up to the top of the dusty track to await him in thecourtyard.

“You’ve begun new projects,” Athena stated in lieu of an introduction, nodding towards the blossoming vegetable patch to her left and the metalwork on her right that Prometheus still hadn’t put back in his workshop yet.

“Idle hands,” he replied in turn, holding up a pair of hands the size of baseball mitts in surrender. They were tanned and calloused from his projects, with a light dusting of dark brown hair on the back of them that grew deeper and darker as they made their way up strong forearms. Those hands gestured that Athena and her companion would be welcome to enter his home, though he didn’t really want them in his space, accompanied by a ground-out, between-clenched-teeth “please”.

Athena nodded and moved swiftly inside, the younger woman following behind with her head bowed. Her eyes − bright, inquisitive cat-green eyes − glanced at Prometheus briefly as she passed through the doorway, before quickly darting back down to the ground. He watched Athena taking stock of everything in the rooms, swivelling her head with each stride until she finally found herself in the kitchen, which had a door leading out the back to a patio and a stunning brickwork island.

“Idle hands indeed,” she murmured, for it had not looked like this the last time Athena had visited.

Square jaw dusted with dark stubble clenched, Prometheus chose to ignore the barb. Athena probably hadn’t meant it the way it sounded, seeing as she was patron of household craft. Instead, he set about putting together a platter of meats, olives, and cheeses with wine, as it was custom to provide guests with the goods of hospitality no matter if you were the Titan that had birthed the goddess from Zeus’ head and had no idea of who the other strange creature was with her.

The two women sat in companionable silence as Prometheus plated up and set the feast in front of them, for he was not a man of small talk.

“Who are you?” he gruffly asked, as he placed a ceramic plate in front of the young woman who still hadn’t shared her identity yet.

“Oh, I am Amara.” She smiled. It was a smile so pure, one that lit up the corners of her eyes until they shined, that Prometheus found his own eyes crinkling in turn as he smiled back.

“A pleasure, Amara. Please, eat.”

Prometheus remained standing on the other side of the brickwork island while Amara obliged her host and Athena helped herself too, as she neatly bit prosciutto-wrapped asparagus tips and methodically worked her way through two, following it with a sip of wine. Having fulfilled the custom of being a gracious guest, just as Prometheus had followed the custom of being a hospitable host, she played what Prometheus imagined was her opening gambit, to gauge how well he had fared in the years since he’d been banished from Olympian society.

“Were you aware that the Panathenaic festival passed through here not even two decades ago? They still run your torch relay, you know. Though humans call it the Olympic Gamesnow.”

Prometheus had begun shaking his head before she’d even finished. “You know I have no interest in games that are all about politics,” he replied quietly, the deep timbre of his voice holding a sense of certainty that couldn’t be shaken.

Athena closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I did not come here to quarrel, Prometheus.”

He regarded the goddess for a moment. They had been close once, when being part of the mortal world was allowed. Together they had aided some of the greatest philosophers and built civilizations that were still marvelled at today. They hadn’t always agreed, mind you. Prometheus knew Athena’s tactics for strategy, knew too her penchant for riling him up when he could usually keep a cool head. For if he was the fire, she was the air that whipped him into biting back and the water that doused his flame when he got going.

“Why did you come here, Athena?”

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