Chapter 31 The Titans
He is late.
The Mother’s song has long faded on the wind, the silence filled with the rustling of leaves and the whispers of golden fruit. I worry the folds of my cloak, glancing around the grassy plateau shadowed by a high ridge of stone at the crest of Mount Olympus. No one has ever been late before.
Themis, my fellow Titan, steps back from the trunk of the Hesperides tree into the circle of twelve standing below its branches. Her chest heaves. She should have returned her life-threads to the tapestry by now. She is breathing stolen time.
‘What do we do?’ her voice wavers across the mountain top.
‘We wait,’ says Prometheus.
‘Perhaps some of us should search the mountain?’ I offer. ‘In case he has been injured.’
‘No, Metis,’ says Atlas. ‘The Mother is never wrong. He will come.’
I am pulled taut, a bow string waiting to be released. Dread is slowly creeping through my veins, winding its way towards my heart. What if he never comes?
A breath later, he appears.
The clouds bleed behind him, stained crimson by the sun.
He seems younger than in the vision shown to me by the omphalos stone.
For a terrible moment, I worry I have made a mistake and misread Gaia’s life-thread image.
It was my first time reading the future in the eye of the world.
Yet as I watch him, I decide it is undeniably the same face, the same bones.
My pulse calms. The mountain has not been kind to this one.
He has a wild look about him, his hands and tunic stained with dried blood.
I wonder if he fell foul of a boar’s tusks on his journey.
It is no matter; his wounds will be healed soon enough.
He staggers to a halt and stares at us with eyes of sea and sky.
‘I am Kronos. The Mother called to me in my sleep and showed me the face of creation.’
Themis watches him, her gaze full of stars. I wonder if she is afraid. If I will be afraid, when my time comes.
Prometheus looks at me, seeking clarity that this is the one we have been waiting for. I nod. He turns to the newcomer and asks, ‘Are you ready, Kronos, to give your life to the Mother? To live and serve her as long as she commands?’
‘I am,’ he rasps.
His eyes meet mine and something stirs within my ichor. He is different, this Kronos. All who come to the sacred mountain carry the weight of the lives they’ve left behind, but there is something else he harbours. Something darker. I find I cannot look away.
‘Then come, taste the fruit of life. Eat, and you shall know the power and blessing of the Hesperides light,’ says Prometheus.
The man called Kronos walks forward. Phoebe begins to sing, and the rest of us twine our voices with hers, until all twelve of us raise our hymn to the heavens.
Gaia, mother of all,
we shall sing,
the strong foundation, the oldest one.
She feeds everything in the world.
Atlas unclasps Themis’ woollen cloak as she lifts her arms towards the tree. Her hands tremble as she presses them against the bark. By her feet, the omphalos stone gleams from its nest of roots, its shining black eye ever watching.
Whoever walks upon her sacred ground
or moves through the sea
or flies in the air, it is she
who nourishes them from her treasure-store.
Tears stream down Themis’ face as, behind her, Atlas fastens the cloak around Kronos’ shoulders.
Queen of Earth, through you
beautiful children,
beautiful harvests,
come.
Atlas leads Kronos around the knotted trunk of the Hesperides tree, so he and Themis are like night and day on either side of it. Then Atlas retreats to take his place in the circle, and we clasp each other’s hands, forming a ring about the tree.
It is you who gives life to mortals
and who take it away.
Blessed is the one you honour with a willing heart.
He who has this has everything.
Themis cries, the last sound she will ever make, and glowing life-threads stream between her fingers into the bark, igniting its cracks with golden light. Life pours from her, and the apples brighten until each shines like a miniature sun. It burns my eyes to look at them, but I do not turn away.
Themis slumps to the ground, her cold cheeks gleaming with tears. I press down the ache in my chest and lift my gaze to our new brother, Kronos.
He does not wait to be offered an apple but reaches like a child trying to catch the moon and snatches a golden orb from its branch. As he sinks his teeth into the fruit, I watch his limbs shake and his cerulean eyes blaze gold.
Glistening juice drips down his chin, flecks of flesh caught between his teeth.
He smiles and murmurs, ‘He who has this has everything.’
My skin tightens as I wade into the chill water.
My clothes are draped over the branch of one of the silver-barked trees that cluster the bank.
Above, the spring sprays from the rocks, feeding the marbled lagoon.
I tread slowly, careful not to slip on the broad stones, until I am waist-deep.
My back is already damp with sweat from the descent through the forest. We are only permitted to leave the Hesperides plateau once a moon cycle to bathe, and I intend to relish every moment.
I run my fingers through the knots in my long, dark hair before submerging myself.
The cold stings, but I remain below, the sound of the water another heartbeat in my ears.
When I emerge, I feel his eyes like the sun drying the beads on my back.
His lips part as I turn, his gaze ripening with lust. I make no effort to cover myself. It has been many years since I have been consumed by eyes that hungry. He watches me like a wolf, yet I do not feel like prey.
He begins to remove his clothes.
Now it is my turn to watch.
His limbs are lean and strong, the skin beneath his tunic ghostly pale.
He has a collection of old scars and a couple of new ones.
My cheeks flush as my gaze descends below the ridges of his abdomen.
He smiles and lowers himself into the water, keeping his distance.
I think of the unspoken rule that none of Gaia’s chosen twelve may enjoy each other’s flesh.
‘You followed me.’ My honesty catches me off guard.
His smile widens. ‘I will leave if you wish it.’
I glance about the rocks. We are alone.
‘You may stay, Kronos.’
He frowns. ‘Do not call me that.’
‘It is your name.’
‘I would like you to call me Zeus.’
My mouth quirks. ‘Shining one? Is that what you think of yourself?’
He slides below the water like an eel and swims towards me. I step back and slip on a moss-swathed stone. The lagoon swallows me, and I splash, fighting my way back to the surface.
He is waiting for me, closer but still out of reach.
‘I did not mean to scare you.’
I blink the spring water from my eyes. ‘Surprised, not scared.’
A beat falls between us.
‘Where do you go at night?’ I ask.
His eyebrow arches. ‘You have been watching me.’
My heart flutters. I do not deny it.
‘I feel at peace walking below the stars. Sometimes, I am still troubled by memories of who I was before.’
I understand and offer him a smile.
He looks down, his lashes beaded. ‘I sense the others do not like me.’
I laugh at his strangeness. ‘We are Titans, the chosen twelve. We are equally loved in the eyes of the Mother, so we equally love one another.’
‘Equally,’ he repeats, tasting the word as though savouring it. Mocking it.
I feel again that stirring deep within my core. I thought at first it might be fear, now I believe it to be something else.
Suddenly, his eyes swell with sadness. ‘Do you ever feel like you’re slipping away?’
‘I do not understand.’
He trails his fingers across the surface of the lagoon. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper, drawing towards him.
‘I came here with a purpose. I intended to consume the power of the Hesperides apple, then return to my village and cure someone very dear to me. My little sister, Hestia.’
My pulse quickens. I have never heard a Titan speak this way.
‘But I did not go,’ he continues. I cannot tell if his eyes are glistening with fresh water or salt. ‘I remained here and let her die.’
‘It is not your fault. If your sister has passed, it was her time.’ I take his hands in mine. ‘When we are called to serve the Mother, we must forsake our mortal lives. It is the greatest honour anyone can receive, but that does not mean it is easy.’
His fingers twist in mine like roots through the earth.
‘Do you ever wonder what we could achieve if we left this mountain?’
I draw a sharp breath, but my hands stay twined with his. ‘No. It is forbidden.’
I can feel the heat of him, the lagoon swirling between us.
‘What if the Mother changed her mind?’
The hairs prickle on the back of my neck.
‘You don’t listen to it, do you? The worm that feeds on the apple.’ Even now I can hear the voice in my head whispering its lies.
He closes the space between us, air and water pressed away as our skin touches.
‘Never.’
Five seasons after Zeus joined us, I wake suddenly amongst the roots of the Hesperides tree. The sky is still inked with night. I am cold, Zeus’ warmth no longer beside me. I think he has gone for another of his midnight climbs along the ridge, then I hear voices.
I roll over and see him standing between the tree and a man I have never seen before.
‘You are early,’ says Zeus.
The stranger’s face is cast in shadow, his broad shoulders tense. ‘Forgive me, the journey was swifter than expected.’
I push myself to standing. ‘Zeus?’
He turns to look at me. Perhaps it is the darkness, but for a moment he seems afraid. Then his expression smooths. He smiles, and it warms every part of me.
‘Wake the others. We must prepare for the ceremony. Another Titan has been chosen.’
‘So soon?’ I rub dust from my eyes.
As we speak, the other Titans stir from the roots of the tree.
‘Who is this?’ asks Prometheus, eyeing the stranger.