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Chapter Thirty-Four

The Newlyweds

Hebe:

I wiggle my excitement over learning something new— namely that I possess Primordial power. Which means there is so much more I must learn.

That is, unless I remain a mouse forever. How do I transform back?

Panicked, I begin to run in circles on my husband’s palms.

“Peace, Hebe.” Chuckling, Prometheus sets me on the ground. “Do you think I’d let you turn into a rodent if I couldn’t teach you to revert to your lovelier form?”

I dance around his ankles, waiting for him to spit it out already.

Prometheus takes a step away from me. “It’s far easier to revert to your default form than it is to take any other. Just imagine yourself as you in the same position and you’ll be back.”

Ceasing my nervous circling, I close my eyes and imagine the woman I used to be curled in on herself in panic.

I feel dizzy, like I’ve stood up too quickly. When I open my eyes, I see my human hands again— and a lot more of myself than I was expecting.

“Oy!” I cry, curling more tightly into myself. “Where are my clothes?!”

Prometheus nods toward a heap of rags on the ground where I first transformed. “There.”

“Why are they not on me ? You all shifted with your garments!”

He shrugs like there is absolutely nothing wrong with me being disrobed. “That is an additional skill. I’ll teach you once you’ve mastered a few more transformations.”

“ Prometheus. ”

Chuckling, he takes a long linen cloth from a discarded basket I don’t recognize and wraps it around my shoulders. “There. Better?”

I glare at Prometheus as I clasp the two ends of the cloth together while he continues to hover over me. “You could have warned me. We’re out in the open!” I glance around, half-terrified to find a bird that is actually a Primordial— whether friend or foe—hovering nearby. I don’t see any, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any Primordial insects —

“Would it make you feel better to practice somewhere more private?”

“I’d rather you just teach me how to shift with my garments.”

“So eager to learn. You really are flesh of my flesh now.” Prometheus swirls his arm. Some of his good humor is replaced by exhaustion as a rift opens right next to me.

Startling, I jump to my feet and stumble to the side away from the rift.

“I told you I’d take you to my temple.” Prometheus tosses the basket of goods through the rift and then reaches for me.

I shake my head. “We have to stay here. I haven’t stolen the Fire yet, and if there is any chance—”

Prometheus pulls me into his arms. “There isn’t.”

With my hands trapped under my cloth, I’m unable to prevent Prometheus from carrying me through the rift and away from the Fire.

Prometheus:

I’m rarely nervous. Terrified for my life? Obviously. Devastated at the thought of losing my wife? Apparently. But flustered at the thought of showing my one temple to the only person’s opinion who matters besides my own? That’s new. And it’s not even a good new.

Especially since I’ve only just discovered how beautiful she is. And not just because her skin now glows with my power. Everything else is unchanged. Her nose is still too round for her face, yet also perfect. She smells like smoke, but I don’t care.

I almost lost her before I realized how precious she was to me. Now she’s about to see everything else I found special before she burst into my life, and I’m not sure I’m ready.

The rift closes behind us, and Hebe ceases to struggle against me. I sense her doing the same as I am— scanning the room. Only, she is likely doing so from simple curiosity. I, on the other hand, wish I had a chance to come ahead and put things to sorts.

This particular room isn’t too cluttered, I suppose. It’s my map room. Every map I’ve ever come across— as well as several I’ve sketched myself— draped on the walls that square us in. All the rooms in my temple are square-shaped, each one containing a different collection of treasures.

The room next to us is my armory, filled with every type of weapon I’ve ever seen a mortal wielding. I suspect that collection will fascinate the most.

I set Hebe down, unable to resist tracing the fiery vein drawing my magic down her nose.

She studies me warily. “You really think that there’s no hope of my stealing the Fire from Zeus’ temple?”

“I didn’t think there was a chance before , but now . . . ?” I trace the swirling magic across her jawline to the edge of her lips that I desperately want to kiss again now that my fear of losing her has faded. “Definitely not.”

Hebe doesn’t need to know that there are no protections against the strain of Primordial powers we now share. She could prance back into the temple if she so wished, but I do not desire her to go anywhere near Zeus ever again after what he did. If I don’t look upon him for an eon, it will still be too soon, considering what his actions almost deprived me of.

We can both of us shelter from Zeus’ foolish war and his wretched wrath in my temple. It’s the only option left to survive without submitting to the wielder of widowing flames.

My wife shivers as she starts to process all that has just come to pass.

I pull her into my embrace. “I’m sorry for your people, but you and I will be safe here.” The protections on my temple are against every Primordial except me— and now her— after all. And mortals long ago abandoned this incomplete ziggurat I’ve refashioned into my temple.

Mayhap I don’t have the army of acolytes I deserve after all I’ve done for the mortals under Atum’s orders, but it’s just as well. I am clever enough to find us sustenance even without sacrificial offerings or ambrosia. This way, no one will ever hurt Hebe and me again. I don’t need anyone other than her, anyway.

“But my cousin and his family . . .” Hebe looks away from me.

“I will fetch them for you.”

Hebe faces me again, her eyes wide. “You will?”

I run my fingers through her hair. Several patches of curls were burned away, but they are already growing back. “I brought you back from the brink of death. Do you really think there is anything I wouldn’t do for you?”

Her jaw drops in surprise, and I believe mine is equally slack. The last thing either of us expected was such a confession from my lips. For once in my life, though, there is no falseness in my intent. It is as though my heart decided at this moment to reveal that Hebe is not the only one to be completely changed by this marriage.

Closing her mouth, Hebe steps closer to me. “Even taking me back to Zeus’ temple? Just in case there is another way in that we might discover—”

“Anything but that.”

Hebe’s expression hardens, and she looks away again. This time, I have no words— not even surprise outbursts.

So, my wife breaks the silence instead, turning back to me with determination, hope, and something I’ve yet to identify. “Then you’ll at least continue to teach me of my new powers, so my mind is too busy to think— to grieve?”

“Of course!”

“And you’ll teach me how to transform with my clothes?”

I pat her cheek. “ Eventually . First, let’s see how you do with the easier prompts.”