PROLOGUE
My mother told me that men would speak about the Golden Age as a time of peace and happiness for all. Passed-down stories would boast of an era of general ease when the lives of men were blissful, full of abundance, and blessed with spontaneous growth, each man unconstrained in heart and soul. However, the women of our age would tell a very different story.
I thought of my mother’s words while the pounding grew louder at the front gates. The vestals hurried into the courtyard, their panic starkly evident in the torchlight.
“They’ve come for her,” said Matron Prosymna.
“What about the children?” asked a vestal.
The matron beckoned us to leave the kitchen, where my two older sisters and I had just finished setting the table for the evening meal.
“Follow me, girls. Quickly.” The matron shooed us across the courtyard to the toolshed as though an ox-horned river god were chasing us. “All of you inside. Cleora, keep your sisters out of sight.”
“Yes, High Matron,” my sister replied.
Cleora, Bronte, and I climbed into the narrow shed and crouched together, me in the middle. At eleven, I was three years younger than Cleora and two years younger than Bronte. The cupboard accommodated us with little room to spare.
The pounding at the gates grew more urgent.
“By order of the First House, open up!” a soldier boomed.
Matron Prosymna shut the shed door, narrowing my view to a slim gap, and strode to the gates. Her vestals formed a line behind her and stood as still as the stone statue of Gaea cradling the world in her full womb, which graced the center of the courtyard. The vestals’ white chitons flowed airily to their ankles. Each one’s hair was sheared close to her scalp and layered in feathery wisps. The matron’s laurel crown, an emblem of her lofty station, was nested in her short gray tresses.
“Veil yourselves,” she said.
Each vestal donned her velo. Constructed of stiffened linen painted gold, the modesty masks depicted various beasts and creatures. The velos had no hole for the mouth, just for the eyes; the beak on the matron’s peacock mask hid her lips as she spoke.
“We represent Gaea, the Protogenos of the earth, acting in her boundless name with loyalty, virtue, and re—” The banging at the gate interrupted the matron. “Restraint.”
My sisters and I tugged down our velos. Like all girls age six or older, we carried our modesty masks with us at all times. We had not taken them off since our mama came home last night from serving in the Aeon Palace and told us to flee our city to the Mother Temple.
The matron squared her shoulders. “Let them in.”
Two vestals slid back the iron bar from across the double doors. The gates burst open. Liege men filed in, their shiny breastplates gleaming over knee-length chitons in the torchlight. I moved my head to peer through the gap as nine men spread out to search the courtyard, kitchen, and stables.
I squirmed against my sisters to see better.
“Althea,” Cleora hissed. “For once in your life, be still!”
Sitting still was very difficult, but I tried to do as she said.
Matron Prosymna clasped her hands in front of her. “Divine day, General. How may we help you?”
The brutish general, identifiable by his scarlet cloak, slid his gaze from her to the other women. “Where is the handmaid Stavra?”
“She isn’t here,” the matron replied. “Only us vestals.”
“Stavra Lambros!” the general bellowed, his voice echoing off the temple walls. A pair of soldiers returned from the stables and reported to him. He reeled on the matron. “You say Stavra isn’t here? Then why is her horse in your stables?”
Matron Prosymna unclasped her hands and gripped them tighter. “Sometimes travelers board their horses—”
The general pushed her into the line of vestals behind her and drew his sword. “Speak the truth, woman. We come in the name of the Almighty, the God of Gods.”
The matron trembled, shaken by the reference to our ruler.
“One last chance,” the general threatened. “Where is Stavra?”
Matron Prosymna held his stare. The general raised his blade to her chest. Still, she did not speak. He reared his sword back to strike her.
“Decimus!”
Mother stood at the other end of the courtyard. A tall, broad-shouldered woman thwarting propriety by not wearing her velo, Stavra Lambros’s charming beauty drew attention everywhere she went. She had warned us Decimus might pursue our family. We had often encountered the general—a bearish, ill-tempered lout with ruddy cheeks that drooped into jowls—while waiting outside the palace gates for Mother to finish her servant duties.
“Seize her,” he said.
Two liege men rushed her. Mother pulled a dagger from the folds of her skirt. Decimus waved for his men to stay back.
“This is Gaea’s house,” Mother said. “My family has sought sanctuary with the Mother of All Gods.”
“The elder gods bow to the Titans,” Decimus countered. He stepped forward, then again, and again, pausing just outside of her striking range. “You’ve been summoned by the Almighty. Come with us or forfeit your life.”
Mother held her stance of attack, her eyes as bright as licking fire. Decimus snatched her wrist and wrenched her arm over her head. She cried out and released her weapon, and he yanked her against him and lifted his sword to the delicate tendon along her throat. She tilted her chin up and spit. His head reared back, saliva dripping from his lashes.
“Brazen bitch.”
He swung down, whacking her over the head with the hilt of his sword. Mother’s eyes rolled back as she sagged in his arms.
I gasped softly. Cleora covered my mouth with her hand, pressing my quivering lips. The cupboard stank of urine. Bronte must have wet herself. Matron Prosymna sank to her knees before the general. “Spare her,” she begged. “For her children’s sake.”
Decimus passed Mother’s limp body to a liege man. “Put her on my horse.”
His subordinate carried my mother out through the gates.
The other liege men harassed the vestals, plucking at their masks and skirts to make them squeal, and stripping three women of their velos. One soldier forcibly kissed a woman while Decimus watched indifferently.
A flame of fury hit me. The God of Gods gave and he took, both in unbridled abundance. As a Titan, and ruler of the First House, he had the whole of the world as his inheritance. But my mama was no one’s possession.
I wrenched from Cleora’s hold and pushed out of the shed. Bronte shrunk away from the open door while Cleora grabbed for me. I slipped from her grasp and picked up the dagger. The general caught sight of me as I charged him.
My blade grazed his right forearm. He sucked in a cavernous breath, drinking in the whole night sky. Matron Prosymna ran forward to grab me, but Decimus moved faster, and he struck me so hard, I flew into the statue of Gaea and tumbled to her feet.
I landed on my side, short-winded, my velo knocked off. I reached for it, but Decimus stomped down, crushing the stiff linen and pinning my hand to the ground. He pressed his foot harder, unrelenting despite my moan.
“You’re Stavra’s youngest daughter, Althea.”
“Let my mama go.”
“You plead for her while I crush your fingers?” He stepped off my hand and inspected me hungrily. “With your dark hair and golden skin, and those lovely wide eyes, your beauty will outmatch your mother’s.” He raised his voice to the matron. “Has Althea been tagged?”