Page 54 of Prometheus' Priestess

“I did it to protect you.”

Another tear silently rolled down her cheek.

“Why not just tell me? Whynow?”

There was a pause while Prometheus considered his words carefully.

“I wanted to, the minute I knew I’d found you. There would have been nothing easier than having you remember your lineage so that Hera could deem it to be considered meddling in the human realm and have you sent back toOlympus.”

“But you didn’t,” she saidsoftly.

“I didn’t,” heagreed.

“You usedme.”

Prometheus went to refute her claims immediately, only to pause. Because she was right. One thing he could never accuse the priestess of was being anything less than acutely emotionally intelligent. Instead, he could only match truth withtruth.

“I fell in love with you.”

At her silence, he continued.

“By the time I found you, the fear of humanity had already seeped below your human skin. I became terrified that if you were recalled to Olympus, or worse cast out without us solving this fear epidemic that taints the humans while in your human form, that it would curse you into an eternity of carrying it.”And that she would blame him forit.

“Why tell me now though?” Amara still didn’t have the heart to look at him. She still didn’t want to look in those eyes of deepest brown and see regret in them, or knowledge of how her fate played out.

“The other night, in your sleep, you tried to send a message to the goddesses. You said their plan had no hope of succeeding. That there was no way to alchemise the fear in humans. You said it was impossible without a valve of somekind.”

Amara sat quietly in contemplation.

“Giving you the knowledge of the gods was my last resort. It was the only way I could think to save you, to give you access to your alchemy, and know you’d not think me amadman.”

“Zeusknows?”

“He knowsenough.”

The unspoken words sat between them and the enormity of what Prometheus had done stretched out like a chasm between them in the silence. She knew exactly what he wasn’t saying. He had tricked Zeus, forher.

“Then you have cursed usboth.”

“I would rather spend eternity in the underworld doing Hades’ bidding than watch you suffer here onEarth.”

Finally, Amara turned and looked at him with a look that stripped him of his armour, his intellect ... and the earth shattered. In the depths of her eyes, he saw the finale to his foresight premonition he had missed in his haste before.

“You are a blind fool,” she said quietly, as the knowledge of what was to become of them sunk into their bones. For she knew that even should she hope to share the knowledge, to teach the humans alchemy, there was no way Prometheus’ actions would go unnoticed. Zeus had likely allowed him to merely think he was on board with the plan to see if the Titan had learnt his lesson, which clearly he had not.

That Titan went to cup her face, to tell her desperately what to do next, to kiss her one last time, when the sweet smell of rain snuck up on them, thunder rumbled and lightning cracked the sky.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The Moirai gathered in the silk room at the top of the old, abandoned church right below the bells. No one ever suspected that the Fates resided in a church and that was just the way they liked it. It was better to be undisturbed while they did this work.

There was one teardrop window in the room. It was surrounded by black brick, and a pair of old, dark wood slats − so dark as to look black − were open, giving the sisters a clear view of the blue sky beyond. The air swept in and the sunshine highlighted the motes of dust that swirled in the air in a downward spiral to the dusty floorboards. Those floorboards creaked with age as each sister took her place. Clotho by the loom, Lachesis on the other side to help tease the threads out, and Atropos standing behind her, watching over her shoulder, ready to cut.

A hum of energy surrounded the sisters as they began. The loom squeaked as if stretching awake, the tapestry resting heavily on Lachesis’ knees. The air around them from the open window was fresh, sharp, but not as sharp as the breath both older sisters took as they watched Clotho reach for the white silk thread.

There had only been three times that thread had ever been chosen in the tapestry. Once, right in the beginning when the humans had been created and honed in the fire. The second time, far more recently, when they had known the actions Prometheus would take. Now, they found it picked up once again.

The sisters looked at each other. Stories in the tapestry had a way of being cyclic. It needn’t be spoken amongst them that this could be the beginning of the end they had been so desperately seeking for thetapestry.

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