The Korinniad Read online

  Daphne cradled her stomach with a smile. “Walking is good for her.”

  “You sure it’s not going to fall out?”

  “Not for another moon, hopefully.”

  Korinna jostled the reins and the oxen started off again, though immediately looked back at her with a sneer when they felt the additional weight.

  Daphne exhaled with relief as she readjusted into the seat. “Now why did you shush me about your day of birth? It’s exciting!”

  Korinna drew herself up and glared at the road ahead and Zafolas proper. “No, it’s terrifying.”

  “Why?” Daphne’s doe-like eyes were even wider than usual.

  “Daphne.” She looked about conspiratorially from side to side and then up to the skies. “I’m Of Age today.”

  “So?” Korinna stared at her friend and waited. Daphne was beautiful, with a mass of black hair and dark pools for eyes, and she was kind to every creature she came upon, but sometimes her festival pyre took a few extra tries to ignite. Then her face changed, sympathy running all over it, and she reached out, pulling her friend into a tight embrace. “Oh, Kori, are you sad because you’re not married? You never even say that you want a husband. I’m so sorry, I didn’t even realize!”

  “No!” Korinna shouted against Daphne’s chest, “That’s not it. Not exactly.”

  “Well, what then?” Daphne released her, staring back deeply into her eyes.

  Korinna pulled her gaze away, immediately uncomfortable when faced with so much sincerity. “It’s complicated,” she mumbled. Their path was cut ruggedly down a hill, and Daphne gripped the side of the cart for stability, but Korinna laxly held the reins as she slouched in the seat. “So, Alanis was pretty worried today about the upcoming harvest.”

  “Everyone seems pretty worried about it. Terrin’s family’s vineyard is nowhere near what it normally is this time of year, but once we complete the sacri—oh!”

  Korinna turned with a knowing half-smile to see the color drain from Daphne’s face. Her eyes immediately glossed over and her limbs went stiff. “You really want to hug me again, don’t you?”

  She nodded slowly, her body practically vibrating.

  “Well, too bad.” Korinna turned back to the road and focused hard on the path ahead.

  Daphne’s sniffles were almost drowned out by the sound of dirt crunching under the cart’s wheels, but only almost. Korinna tried to ignore it—her friend had been crying a lot lately about the strangest things like how nicely shaped a certain rock was or that time she saw a dead lizard and knew the rest of the lizard’s family would be worried about him when he didn’t come home—and was relieved when finally she spoke. “Kori, I hate to say it, but I never thought of how perfect a candidate you are.”

  “I know, right?”

  They had finally reached the edge of town, the ocean air replaced with a thicker, human smell under a layer of oregano and cheese. The road narrowed as they followed the straightest path deeper into the heart of Zafolas. They passed the simpler huts with weary villagers hurrying about their chores, then the higher walls of multi-storied shops, worn carts filled with goods for sale out front.

  “Surely it will be somebody else.” Daphne had finally lowered her voice but hadn’t entirely reigned herself in yet. She visibly cringed at her own words.

  Korinna shrugged. “After what happened at Cronia, I think General Archelaus is going to point the high priest in my direction.”

  “A whole pitcher, right on his head.” Daphne covered her mouth as she recounted the act during the midsummer festival, but Korinna couldn’t help but smile wistfully at the memory of Zafolas’s head guard covered in wine. She’d just wanted to pick up a couple extra drachma by serving at the feast, not condemn herself to death, but at the time it seemed like the right reaction to a drunken hand pinching her ass. “You think he’s not over that?”

  “I don’t think he’s over being retired out here to do nothing but babysit some shepherds, and that was years ago, so no, I believe he’s holding onto the wine-on-his-head grudge too.”

  “Oh, Kori, what are we going to do?”

  “It is a rather tough predicament.” Korinna could see the temple rising up over the market ahead of them, brilliant and white as the last of the sun’s rays shone against its walls. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and the answer seems pretty clear.”

  “Get married?” Daphne’s eyes suddenly lit up like the flames ever burning in the braziers to the gods.

  “No!” Korinna stuck out her tongue, gagging at the thought. “I just have to stop being a virgin.”

  Daphne did not speak for a full minute but stared unblinking at her friend. Then she shook her head, letting out a low laugh. “I’m sorry, I thought I just went into labor for a second there. What did you say?”

  Korinna was expecting this from her friend but was nonetheless annoyed. “When the crops are bad, and the priests want to appease the gods, they sacrifice an unbetrothed but marriageable virgin during Thesmophoria, right? Well, all I have to do is not fit into that category, and since I’m clearly not getting any younger—”

  “Why can’t we just get you married?”

  “That is not an option.” Korinna shuddered at the thought of lifting a veil to see Klaudios on the other side. “And anyway, it wouldn’t happen quick enough. Trust me, I’ve thought about it. I even thought about leaving, but the passenger boat won’t be in until after the harvest. This is the best plan I have.” Daphne huffed but was silent, and Korinna peered over at her carefully, examining the contemplative look on her face. She nudged her with her elbow. “Come on, you know I come up with the best plans.”

  Down an alley they heard the smashing of ceramic and raucous male laughter followed by the sting of a feminine scream. Daphne groaned, “You’ll end up working at the brothel when people find out. And they’d have to find out!”

  “There’s nothing wrong with working at the brothel,” Korinna spat out with a certain sharpness she typically did not reserve for friends.

  Daphne groaned again, this time more lightly, “I know, I know, it’s just…how?”

  Korinna shrugged, glancing back up at the temple. “There are ways around these things, and I’m hoping Simone knows one of them.”

  CHAPTER III

  If one wants to find the temple in any village, one ought to look for the fanciest building. Zafolas’s temple was no exception, but the tiny island didn’t have a single god to whom it was wholly devoted. Instead, the temple was a catch all for worshipers of any of the Olympians or otherwise. Only animals for slaughter were allowed on the grounds, so Korinna had halted the oxen at the foot of the hill and gestured to a few young acolytes to unload the urns as well as her friend. The two sneaked past a few wailing wives and pious fathers, around massive pillars and between statues until they slipped through a door hidden behind a tapestry to the place where Simone would most likely be: a small room surrounded by the busts of Olympians and the strong smell of something burnt and intoxicating.

  “You want to what?” Simone sat statically on the floor save for her eyes which popped open when Korinna relayed her plan.

  Daphne gestured to the priestess-in-training as if the last word on the subject had been said. “You see?”

  Wrapped in a crimson cloak with pale blue eyes squarely set on Korinna, she did look like something of an authority on the subject.

  But Korinna was stalwart. “I want to stop being a virgin in order to save myself from sacrifice. What’s so crazy about that?”

  “It’s indecent!” Daphne was saying, her arms and belly flailing. “Not to mention one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever heard—even for you! Right, Simone?”

  “Makes perfect sense.”

  “See, Kori, you—what?”

  “I understand.” Simone nodded once in Korinna’s direction. “Kori has no dowry, no familial standing, and no greater worth to the community as a whole.” Simone was intelligent, pious, humble, and a whole host of other won
derful traits, but chiefly among them, she was blunt, even if it sort of hurt.

  Of course, Daphne didn’t disagree, she couldn’t, her voice wavering and hands falling to her sides. “You don’t see any other options?” Simone had always been the smartest among them in both Korinna and Daphne’s opinions despite and by virtue of her chosen profession respectively.

  “It was not so long ago that priestesses were chosen for sacrifice, but the temple has abandoned that practice. So,”—Simone’s lips twitched but only a bit—“I suppose if Korinna were up to it…”

  She huffed, “I would make a terrible priestess.”

  “Then, no, I don’t see any other options.”

  Korinna crossed her arms triumphantly. “So the only way to ensure that I’m not the sacrificial virgin is to not be any kind of virgin at all.”

  Daphne pointed at the busts around them. “Athena would be aghast, and Hera would be so disappointed an—”

  “She’d be down with it.” Korinna gestured to the most perfectly sculpted of the Olympian faces around them.

  “Come.” In one swift motion, Simone’s willowy figure stood from the ground and grabbed Korinna by the wrist. She was small, but shockingly strong, and she pulled her to the ground before the altar in the room. “You must pray.” Korinna shook her head, moving to stand, but Simone pushed her down again.

  Daphne hurried over to Korinna and with much huffing and puffing, knelt at her side. “Come on.” She lifted her friend’s hands and faced her palms upward in the traditional way. “Now this is a plan.”

  Korinna growled, “How is this supposed to help?”

  Simone had lit a smudge of incense and was circling the two on the ground, speaking in hushed tones, words too fast for either to make out.

  “Quiet.” Daphne nudged her, her eyes already closed. “This is the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

  Korinna grimaced as Simone sat across from them and closed her own eyes after shooting one warning look at her friend. Simone was supposed to be the smartest among them, but even she could see no way out of this without the gods, and Korinna felt her stomach flip. Holding her hands how they’d been arranged, she glanced up at the ceiling. It arched in its center over the little room, dark and cold. She squinted, hoping to see what any of them saw when they looked skyward, but it was only ceiling to her.

  The gods had never answered Korinna before, not when her mother had gotten sick, though to be fair she was very little then, but they’d continued to ignore her when she was sold off to Alanis at the pottery barn. Finally, after years of nights spent praying for one of her mother’s sisters to come and buy her back, Korinna had realized her pleas were falling on deaf, or at least uninterested, ears, so she felt particularly silly kneeling there, asking the ceiling for help.

  Glancing back down, she saw Simone was taking this seriously enough, her lips moving with eyelids closed, and Korinna instead focused on the bust behind her. A woman carved from white stone, her face and hair perfect, stared back with pupil-less eyes, and for a moment Korinna felt guilt pass through her, but she quickly shook it off—it was just a hunk of stone after all—but then, with another glance at Simone, she decided she might as well give it a go.

  If anyone’s listening, she began in her mind with a sigh, I don’t exactly want to die just yet, especially not by being eaten by some monster in a pit. So if one of you up there is listening and wants to help, I’d really appreciate it.

  Aphrodite had never been shy. In fact, if someone were keeping track, she would have been the second most-likely god to appear in front of a mortal in her true form. (Most likely would have been Helios though no one ever really looked directly at him.) But as the girls had their eyes closed, and she’d taken the opportunity to run away from a particularly annoying argument, Aphrodite decided to revel in the quiet that existed in that out-of-time space only the gods could access.

  The one who was called Korinna was preparing to open her eyes, Aphrodite could tell, as it was a very particular thing mortals did before they genuinely looked about, almost seeing before they saw. Their posture changed and their faces readied themselves as if they weren’t entirely sure everything would be the same as it was just before their eyes had been closed. Stuck like that with her brow no longer knit, her lips no longer pursed and twisted, and with something like hope playing at the corners of her face, she was indeed almost pretty—indeed, every mortal was in their own way—even if this one was a little too skinny.

  Aphrodite extended a hand and brushed the tips of long fingers across the mortal’s cheek. This one often chose to be cutting with her words, but she was clever, and even more importantly, she was capable of kindness. The goddess cocked her head; Korinna would be a challenging case under normal circumstances, but the added difficulty of her own reluctance—no, downright refusal would make things nigh impossible. That was, unless…Aphrodite touched a finger to her lips in deep thought then smiled as an idea burst into her mind. Not only was this one absolutely perfect, she would be piercing two hearts with one arrow.

  “I cannot believe you just disappeared like that!”

  The mortals couldn’t hear Apollo, but Aphrodite wasn’t quite so lucky, and she raised a hand to her temple at the sound of his nasally inflection. She turned to see the god in all his bronzed glory, lounging on the altar the mortals had knelt before. It wasn’t to him they prayed, and she curled a lip. “I go where I am called.”

  “Terribly rude,” Athena’s stoic voice filled the room from behind them, “We’ve not come to an agreement yet.”

  Aphrodite managed a smirk—it wouldn’t be an agreement, in the end, it would be a competition, as it always was—but her smile faltered when she saw the bust of herself behind the altar. She floated toward it and cradled the face. It was too round, the hair didn’t have any of the life of her own, and the nose was just plain wrong.

  “Careful, honey, or you’ll drown in it.” Hera appeared just next to the bust, and Aphrodite started. “Running away, as usual.” The dark-haired queen of the gods stared daggers at her.

  “I would think you would recognize a mortal in need when you hear one.” Aphrodite gestured to the kneeling girls, trapped frozen in their mortal time.

  “We all heard her,” Athena was quick to snap, leveling her spear at the girl swathed in red. “She is one of the most devout mortals on Gaia.”

  “Yes, well, you can flit back on home, I’ve got this under control.” Aphrodite returned to Korinna and pat her head. “I already know who her adelphi psychi is.”

  “Ugh.” Apollo threw his head back with a groan. “You think you know everything.”

  “That’s certainly rich coming from the god of music, the sun, medicine, prophecy—”

  “Don’t forget the plague!” He winked.

  She sighed, “This is sort of, you know, what I do.” She offered the others a knowing smile, but it came off significantly haughtier, as usual.

  “But that one didn’t pray to you, specifically, did she?” Hera pushed off the wall and sauntered to the girls, her emerald dress trailing behind her like a fan of feathers. “So who says we can’t help?”

  It wasn’t often the gods argued about who got to help a mortal—that’s not what the gods did—but only moments earlier Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, and Hera had all recognized the potential that had been placed on the very mortal whose life thread had passed through the Moirai’s cat, and the argument they were having about who got control over the newly blessed Theodotus and his potential fate wasn’t over just because Aphrodite had popped off to “help” a mortal: the subject simply shifted.

  Now Aphrodite was indeed beautiful, and she was self-absorbed and disloyal to boot, but none of these things precluded her from being clever. And it wasn’t that she was necessarily cleverer than the others, but cleverness counts for a whole lot more when it’s not expected, and she knew that (possible making her cleverest after all), so when she saw her opportunity, she took it.

  “I can’
t possibly see how somegod who can’t keep her man, somegod who’s been with more people than even me, and somegod who’s, well, a virgin herself, could possibly know more than I do when it comes to love.” She swept her eyes over the three and watched darkness roll across their faces. “But if you’re all so confident, I say we make it interesting.”

  Athena squinted at her first, curling a thin lip. She knew strategy when she saw it, but she also knew how often Aphrodite got caught cheating. “Go on.”

  “You think you can help her? Find her a man.”

  Hera cocked a hip and raised a brow. She was intrigued. Good—where the queen went, others followed. “All of us?”

  Aphrodite nodded. “One suitor each, and whoever’s man our dear mortal picks will decide the fate of our beloved Theodotus.”

  Apollo sat up and ran a hand through his golden locks. “That boy is as good as mine.”

  Hera scoffed, “Don’t be so sure, sonny.”

  “Wait,” Athena’s voice cut through the temple, “The three of us will present suitors, and you will be doing what?”

  Aphrodite sighed, “Providing her with a guide, of course. It’s going to take a bit more than the sheep herder down the road to win her over, so she’ll need someone to get her from place to place and make sure she spends equal time with them all.”

  “Well, if we’re opening the possibilities beyond this dinky little island, then I’ve got the perfect someone.” Hera’s dark lips curled into a smile.

  Apollo balked, “Me too!”

  But Athena eyed the goddess of love. “And you’re getting what out of this exactly?”

  “I can have anyone I want at any time,” she claimed, “but this kind of entertainment doesn’t come around every day. Now, what do you say?”

  Korinna opened her eyes. There was a flicker before her of something gossamer, vaguely human-shaped, but it was gone before she could focus on it. In its place, she felt the warm but gentle pressure of fingers on her face—more than just a breeze—and she quickly touched her own cheek, whipping her head toward Simone.