Page 206 of Styx

The morning he left to join the conflict,

I had cried so much

my heart never healed.

As I watched him accompany

his father to the house of Kronos,

I feared his capture and injury.

His emerald hair and temperament,

which he inherited from me,

often felt like the only

commonality between us.

Pallas almost missed the birth of Nike,

my child of victory, born on a night

of powerful raging thunder.

Three of my sisters helped me

give birth that night, and I could

feel their hands trembling

as the din rolled across

the skies, blinding lightning

at the windows. The birth

was long and difficult.

It was why I named her Nike.

And it was why I asked Pallas

to give her the gift of victory.

‘She will be everything,’

he had decreed, his prophecy

voice shaking with emotion.

‘From the good cheer

to the hope we need.’

My sweet rosy-cheeked child

opened her eyes at his words,