Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
CASSANDRA
If Perseus had just walked in, he probably could’ve killed her. The thought made me feel…quite strange.
I studied her form from the shadows. The thin bits of moonlight that filtered down through the temple’s windows into the cave-like living quarters deep behind the temple made me confident that whether she was an artisan or not, she was, most definitely, a monster.
One big wing with feathers so black they gleamed blue in the moonlight was relaxed over her upper body and draped over her outstretched leg. It was mostly human…but strong.
So strong.
I looked away from those thighs, then felt my gaze drawn back. Would they be firm, or soft? Was it that I was unaccustomed to seeing a woman in a nest of twigs, and she looked massive beside it, or was she really almost as big as the minotaur in the maze I’d side-stepped having to enter?
Her face was turned toward me and peaceful in sleep. Around it, serpents also slumbered in coils of green. The nest she slept in had seen better days. One wall of it was collapsing, and a few sticks lay about on the ground.
And yet…into the cave wall, she’d carved graceful bookcases.
They curved with the natural features of the stone, displaying a vast array of texts I couldn’t see from this distance even with my veil down.
Over them and between, she’d hewn breathtaking patterns of stars and moons, of flora and fauna.
A stone flower bloomed immortal, arcing down from one shelf to another, where a deer lurked in its shadow.
Higher, birds soared, vanishing into the ceiling.
On the other side of the cave, a fireplace glowed softly.
No smoke filled the room. Over the mantle, done in the same precious detail as her selves, a bundle of flowers sat in a vase.
A single chair hung, as if suspended in the night, an upright nest of sticks and twigs that looked comfortable enough to sleep in.
The floors were stone, the ceiling clad in darkness. She needed to sweep. It was simultaneously both luxurious and bleak.
My eyes found their way back to where her leg was thrown over the wall of the nest. That thick thigh, the strength in her calf, the delicately arched foot.
Then up and over the wing that protected her center mass to where her lashes lay against her cheeks.
She was gorgeous, of course. Why was it always Kill the monster?
Why was it never See if you’d fit beneath the monster’s wing?
Would those feathers be as soft as they looked? Would they hold back the bite of cold in the night air?
For all I knew, any hunger she felt would be of the violent kind, not the sensual.
I didn’t know what a killer looked like asleep in the moonlight, but I expected they’d look the same as the rest of us.
Anyway, you could never trust your eyes, once the gods got involved.
And the gods had been here. There was no question.
But Perseus hadn’t been.
I looked from that peaceful face to the banks of books and the beautiful stonework, then back again, my heart drumming too fast in my chest.
On soft feet, I let myself out, back down the short corridor to the open temple.
Here I found evidence of her artistry and rage.
Here the statues cowered. Here they ran.
They’d been done with such skill that, if I hadn’t also seen the alternative exit to the temple which led to the hillside, if I hadn’t walked around her works in progress and seen the rough-hewn shapes and incomplete statutes surrounded by flecks of stone, I might wonder if she truly did turn men to stone.
That’s okay. Plenty wondered if I truly was cursed.
Even I wondered that, sometimes.
I stood in the center of the temple, surrounded by quiet and the eerie sight of men trying to flee.
They stayed frozen, their faces captured in the various stages of death.
Some of them were cracked. Here and there a cloven shield or fallen helm lay.
They, I suspected, were real. Around them, the temple stood, uncaring.
I wasn’t as noisy as two hundred warriors. But nor was I as strong. Would she have awakened, if I’d gone deeper into her cave?
I blew out a breath. I was going to need to warn her.
I suppose we’d see if it was only men who disregarded my advice.