“Pardon, General?”
“Has another man spoken for her?” he enunciated impatiently.
“Not yet, but—”
“I’ll return for her when she’s ripened. Don’t try to hide her or pull her into your zealot’s fold, or I will see that the Almighty learns that you do not display his alpha and omega insignia on your front gate, and he will dismantle this ‘temple’ brick by brick.” Decimus wiped at the cut on his arm, smearing blood onto his finger, then drove his bloody fingertip between my lips. “I’ll return for you, kitten.”
As he stalked out of the gates, his company marching after him, I scrubbed at my lips and spit in the dirt. Matron Prosymna scurried to my side.
“Althea, you foolish, foolish girl.” She glared at my sisters. “You were supposed to watch her!”
“I tried,” Cleora replied.
“You failed,” the matron snapped.
Bronte’s soft weeping rang out from the shed. Cleora comforted our sister despite her own tears. Neither one looked at me.
I pushed to my feet and hobbled to the gates. The liege men retreated into the twilight with our mama slung over Decimus’s horse like nothing more than a sack of grain.
Ten months had passed when a pair of soldiers entered my sisters’ and my bedchamber in a chorus of heavy breaths and shuffling feet. Their brass uniforms, marked across the chest with the alpha and omega symbols of the First House, glinted in the waxing moonlight. Though the men were both too slender to be Decimus, I tensed.
Bronte and Cleora slept across the chamber on the bed they shared. Since we had no other family to speak of, the vestals had taken us in. Matron Prosymna was a harsh matriarch who allowed little time for anything other than chores. I hadn’t danced—my favorite communal activity—since our arrival. Lying nearest to the door on my own smaller cot, I pretended to sleep as the men set a woman down beside me on the thinly stuffed mattress. I couldn’t see much except her frail body, then the soldiers shifted back, and a moonbeam grazed her face.
Mama.
The men left in a parade of rushed footsteps. I waited for my mother to speak or move. Very carefully, so as not to startle her, I touched her hand.
“Mama?”
Her breaths deepened and lengthened, and her chest burst with tears. Since her capture, we had prayed morning and night to Gaea for her return. Most women taken by the Almighty were never seen again. A bag of two hundred silver pieces would arrive on their kin’s doorstep as though the worth of a soul could be weighed in silver. A mortal soul, that was. The Titans were legions of their own self-worship. Though monsters, they esteemed themselves above the stars.
Mother slid her hand into mine and squeezed. I rolled over to hug her, draping my arm across her waist, and gaped at her swollen belly.
“Mama?” I whispered again, scared now.
“The babe is strong,” she rasped. “I cannot hold it much longer. I’ll try to stay with you and your sisters. I’ll try, but . . .”
But her mortal womb wasn’t meant to birth a Titan.
On occasion, women impregnated by the Almighty staggered into the temple for aid. Couplings between a god and mortal always led to procreation. Childbirth came, and with it, tragedy.
Mother grasped her belly, her cheeks puffing as she spoke. “Listen closely, Althea, my shooting star. Gaea gave women many talents. We are strong—stronger than any monster. Weak Titans fear us and try to control that power, but a woman’s love is her wings. We can soar high, higher than the gods.”
Her belly bunched up, the skin and muscle hardening. She clenched her teeth to quiet the pain, but it found a pathway out of her in an agonizing groan.
Vestals rushed into the chamber with extra blankets and a pail of hot water. At their exclamations of alarm, Bronte and Cleora roused and blinked in astonishment. One of the vestals urged them to get up and began ushering all three of us out.
“Althea stays,” Mother said, clinging to my hand.
I exchanged wide-eyed glances with my older sisters, then they were pushed into the corridor.
Mother screamed, a feral release of agony. Matron Prosymna and the cook, Acraea, ran in, and I backed away so they could work.
“The babe is coming fast,” Acraea said.
“Then we will work faster,” replied the matron.
Bearing down, Mother screamed again. I had heard it told that Titan babies entered the world in the same way they lived—with the rage of thunder—but I had never been present for a delivery. In truth, I had never seen any of the monsters up close.
Mama cried out again. I pressed my shoulder blades against the wall, unable to remember the last time I was so still. The chamber smelled of musty sweat and something older, more primal. Mother pushed, but her body worked just as hard against her.
The seconds built to minutes.
Long, long minutes.
The vestals urged her to bear down again, despite the blood . . . and more blood. Mother gave her mightiest scream yet, legs trembling, face scrunched up in torment. Her next was drowned out by a high-pitched wail.
She sank back, her tears of pain dissolving into gentle sobs of relief. The matron cleaned up the babe and lifted it for all to see.
“A girl,” she announced.
The baby didn’t appear as though she had been sired by a monster. Titans could grow to twenty-five feet tall. The Almighty was the biggest at fifty. Yet Titans were still more human than Gaea’s first creations, the Cyclopes or Hecatoncheires—fiends with fifty heads and a hundred hands each. The babe was the same size as a mortal newborn, with all her fingers, toes, and eyes in the correct places. Her only oddity was her thick, curly black hair, which made it look as if she wore a wool hairpiece.
Perhaps she didn’t resemble a monster because she was only half of one.
My mama whimpered, and her sweaty face drained of color. The stench of fresh blood trickled into something darker, a sort of decay, flooding my nostrils. The infant let loose another cry. Matron Prosymna passed the babe to Acraea, then she and the other vestals worked on my mama. They spoke nary a word, their lips pinched white.
Mother extended her hand to me. I went to her slowly. Usually, I walked slightly forward on my toes as though I were always one leap away from taking flight, but now my feet dragged across the floor.
My mother gripped my hand with remarkable strength. “Althea, you’re not yet grown, but soon you’ll be a woman, and with that comes tremendous blessings and burdens.”
I could hardly hear her above the wailing infant, so I merely nodded.
“The guild will watch over you. Heed the matron and hearken to the goddess. Don’t forget your worth as a woman, Althea. You and your sisters need each other. Vow to me that you will protect them.”
“Me, Mama? Shouldn’t Cleora or Bronte—?”
“Your destiny is to guide and protect your sisters. Family doesn’t abandon family. Do you swear you will watch over them?”
“I swear.”
“Good, my shooting star.” She patted my hand and let go. “Remember your wings.”
Acraea laid the swaddled infant beside my mother and tucked a blanket around them. Mother rested her forehead against the rosy babe’s, as she often did with my sisters and me. She said she did so to memorize our smell, our touch, and the shapes of our souls.