Page 42 of Odette's Vow

“Show it to me.” I put every ounce of command I could muster into my voice, trying desperately not to acknowledge that it reminded me of scolding a toddler, of telling off Lykas when he had displeased me.

“What makes you think you can handle its power?” Odysseus murmured at me, his gaze swimming in and out of focus.

“Perhaps, it only drives men mad.”

I made the remark flippantly, but when Odysseus pointed in the direction of the trunk, I saw that the cloak I thought he had let crumple to the floor was actually strategically swaddled around the small statue of Athena, as if the Palladium were a treasured child. Something tingled at the back of my neck at the thought.

Walking over, I bent to scoop it up.

“Don’t touch it,” I heard Odysseus growl in the background.

But it was too late. Suddenly, the eyes that had been pale orbs snapped open to reveal liquid silver, and I was falling into a pool of thought …

The room was cold,even though I could hear a fire crackling. Three high-back chairs faced the warm glow, where I assumed the fire was.

“You come to see us again, Athena.”

I tried to speak, to tell them I was not Athena but Odette, when the goddess herself, far taller than I, walked straight through me.

“You knew I was coming, Lachesis.”

“You speak to one of us, you speak to all,” three voices bellowed in unison. It was harmony and symphony, screams and agony, death and life all rolled into one voice. It made me want to cover my ears to stop them bleeding, yet I was desperate to hear it again.

“My apologies, Moirai, but I do not wish to play games today.”

“Your hero is in a spot of bother, isn’t he?”

“My brother, Ares, seeks to kill Diomedes for striking him with his spear in the latest skirmish on the Troy borders, but you already knew this.”

“Seeks to kill. Not yet killed,” one of them reminded her.

“Yes, Atropos, but Moirai, to have it done through my image, with one of my other heroes, was an insult.”

“We do not control how it happens, only that it happens. It is not like you, Goddess of Wisdom, to lay such a burden at our feet. Take your quarrel to Ares.”

“Taking my quarrel to Ares would result in tempers flaring and brute force exerted. It would gain no actual ground.”

“Yes,” they all cackled. “That is the problem with men, no? This is why we told you to find the girl.”

Athena turned, and suddenly she was looking directly at me. “You found me, mortal.”

“L-Lady A-Athena,” I stuttered.

She looked behind me, though when I turned, there was nothing there but stone.

“You found me through the Palladium,” she muttered, more to herself than to me. “I see I drove Odysseus quite mad.”

Her owl-like stare focused back on me, and I realised she was waiting for an answer.

“Oh, yes, my lady.”

She sighed. “The Moirai are right – that is the problem with men. War demands rationality, but at the cost of humanity. And men are always so brash with their decisions, are they not?”

“I—I …”

“I did not take you for a blithering idiot.”

I took a deep breath and steadied myself. “No, I suppose you are right, Lady Athena. Apologies, I am not used to being in the presence of a goddess.”

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