Ever since we kissed, I've avoided Circe, and she's avoided me. Or perhaps she's waiting to be summoned to my chambers or the Tower of Time.

Guilt gnaws at my stomach. For keeping her at a distance. For kissing her at all. For rejecting her once it was done. For denying myself yet again, as I'm starting to come into my own.

The gods have never taken to fidelity, but I have. Despite Mother rolling her eyes at how "plain" I was, even as a young woman. Even if Cadmus hasn't returned the favor, even if it's a ridiculous standard to place on myself when others never follow through.

I feel silly pacing in my chambers—how quickly my mind tells me they are mine—like a lovesick girl. Mother used to comment about how I was the strangest of all her children. Timid, mostly uninterested in the game of love and being loved. To me, it all seemed so exhausting, these tragedies and heartbreaks twisted into beautiful poetry. Both so monumental, and for most of the gods, fleeting. It wasn't that I didn't want a partner. Kissing, sex, yes, I enjoy it, but I need to truly care before I give someone my affection.

Despite all that, despite my nightly ruminations on whether I should give into temptation and stop pining and holding myself to lofty standards, my romance life has been only a minor part of my attention. Between the petitioners and working to help those suffering from the red scourge, especially with predictions of a flood on the harbor-side, I've had little time for personal matters and pleasant conversations.

When I'm not in the city, I don't see much of the stratigos; her hoplites are the ones that guard the throne room and feast area. I have been busy, also, dividing my time between the throne and the city. Recently, realizing that as punishment, those who take revenue for sex are forced to pay twice as many taxes as other citizens, if they've been granted citizenship at all, I did away with the mandate. And in the fields beyond the wall, as the warm season still lasts, I've instructed the hoplites to dig more ditches for irrigation, especially for the growth of more legumes.

Now, as I stand from my area at the table, abandoning part of my cooked pig, I gaze at the other guests but soon regret it. Halfway down, ignoring me, is Circe. Though she usually eats alone in her room, she sits with a plate of honeyed lamb and figs. Mildly, she picks at it, not touching the wine by her elbow.

I pause, lump in my throat, and turn my back to her before she notices me. But surely she must notice the queen at the head of the table, the royal laurel in my hair. And, too, a guest, a pretty girl of twelve, planted a wreath of yellow roses on my head, calling me the Golden Queen.

Atop the dais where the gods feast is one particular Olympian, a statuesque, curvy woman with a bed of flowering cornsilk curls on light copper shoulders.

When I approach her among the din of laughter and discussion, her eyes flash in recognition, and I'm grateful; she hasn't forgotten me yet.

I offer a deep bow. One cannot forget reverence to the Olympians, even if she's your own mother.

She perks up, finally setting the chosen mask upon her countenance. "Ah. You look much better."

"Thank you."

"Yes." the word trails off into a soft hiss as she struggles for the next word

"Harmonia," I say helpfully.

"I forgot if I had a pet name for you." Yes, that's what that was. She cocks her head side to side. "I haven't seen Cadmus. Shame. He could dance quite well."

Primly, I reply, "I'm afraid my marriage is shaky as of late."

Her eyes flicker between something behind us and me. "Yes, your marriage." I follow her gaze; Circe at the table, speaking to no one, only daintily focusing on her figs. But even as she doesn't meet my eyes, I sense she's listening or watching somehow. We immortals, after all, have keen hearing. "Let me think. There are many ways to create a romance for the epics. You could burn down the city and die tragically in his arms as he cradles you to his chest and weeps."

I would sooner try counseling. "Thank you, Mother. I will take it under advisement. How is Hephaestus?" I can't help the sour note in my voice.

She waves and tsks. "Oh, darling, bitterness is awful for the complexion. I'm sure he doesn't even remember what he did to you." Her expression softens. "But things are going surprisingly well. He is more considerate than I gave him credit for."

Yes, considerate. Bless the Olympians. I decide to be direct. "If I choose not to forgive my husband, why must I forgive the Olympians?"

Her answer comes with surprising immediacy. "Because the Olympians have kept this world in prosperity for eternity. What is one meek god-king, born mortal, to us?" She smirks. "Besides, if you need a war started in your name, don't hesitate to tell your father or me." Mother may not always remember my name, but she'd be cursed before she lets anyone dishonor her daughter.

"Thank you, Mother, but no need to worry about me. If I need a war, I will start my own."

She pats my shoulder and takes a drink of her wine. "That's my girl. I look forward to it."

As I turn, my attention drifts, but when it falls on Circe, our eyes lock.

***

As water drips behind me, I glance at one of the murals on the inside of the Tower of Time. Zeus and Leda. It disgusts me.

These traces of history, the blood and tears painted into romance. And too deeply, my acedia scourges my heart, my apathy, that cooling down after melancholy. But I shove it away. I cannot afford to grow numb again.

There are no modern heroics for us. The guile heroines and faithful heroes. What do we have in our history?

The Titans? Child-eaters and killers.

The gods? Petty rapists and pillagers.

The demigods? Yes, let's not forget Theseus, who left the woman who saved him from the Minotaur on the shores of Naxos, left her to weep after she sacrificed her family and home for him. The same Theseus who, when he saw a ten-year-old Helen of Troy dancing in a ceremony, he stole her from her home and impregnated her, kept her locked in a small room until her brothers saved her.

I might be able to subvert Cadmus, but I cannot dare breathe a word against the Olympians. Deference to stronger powers prolongs everyone's lives. Better the struggles we know well than a bleak and unknown future where we incur the gods' wrath.

And yet, our fate isn't so unknown; like before, the world may starve or everyone may die as water sinks the world.

With a sigh, the pink fingers of evening streaking the outside world, I stroll outside into the gardens. Kora silently comes behind me; though I wanted to be alone, I asked her to come as times grow more tense. Two hoplites follow some distance behind us.

I feel eyes on me. Unwelcome ones that raise the hairs on my nape.

"My queen," Kora whispers. I open my mouth to respond, but before I can, the lily bushes violently rustle, and a man lunges out. A small, thin sword glints in his hand, and he spit flies out of his mouth as he yells. I smell his sweat close to me as he only just misses me with his weapon, and a blazing light surrounds us when my hands make contact with his chest.

He collides into me, bowling me over before the hoplites can stop him, though I hear the creak of their armor and the patter of their footsteps.

Before I realize what I've done, the man slumps against me, his face a ghastly charred skull flaking into my mouth and eyes. He's dead. Burned, cooked alive, as if struck by Zeus himself. Tears fill my eyes, and I gag and retch, bile in my throat from the stench, as I shove him away and sit up. Near us, the bushes have been scorched. Did I do that?

"K-Kora," I call, sputtering the flesh out of my mouth while looking to see what happened to her. She's kneeling on the stones, arms furled around her stomach,

Her hair is darker, no longer the same color. When I peer closer, I gasp. Her skin ripples and glints like slimy fish-flesh.

And Kora, I remember it looking wrong before, but now it's as if something in her is disrupted, trembling to the core.

Soon, the water of her skin stops churning, and a completely different woman is spilled before me. Pale-eyed and pale-skinned with brown locks cascading past her shoulders. When our eyes meet, uncertainty flickers in her eyes.

"Who are you?" I ask, death still on my tongue. One of the hoplites, a woman with ashen blonde hair, points her spear at my maid. Or who I thought was my maid. The other races away, presumably to find Stratigos Telesilla. When his stare crosses me, I sense a tinge of fear.

When the stratigos arrives, I'm standing, and two hoplites follow her.

Someone else comes, Circe. Damn it all. It seems our attempts to avoid one another are soon coming to an end.

When the witch's eyes fall on my maid, her expression straightens.

"Kalypso," Circe says, laced with frost, and I recoil.

***