Page 73 of Styx

on my face, ‘You should name her.’

I touched my baby sister’s head.

My heart ached to know her already.

‘Metis. Call her Metis,’ I whispered.

Phoebe nodded, and before I could

wish her well, spirited the child out the door,

walking quickly from Oceanus’s palace.

I heard a soft whimper and I turned.

There, my majestic mother

was already on her feet as she was

after every single birth.

But this time, her eyes were filled

with a thousand unshed glistening tears.

I felt a hand take mine and squeeze,

and turned to look at Asteria’s face.

All I saw there was kindness and sorrow.

And for the first time I gave myself

permission to let someone hold me as I wept.

A Reckoning

I had thought I understood how little

to expect from my mother and father.

I thought I had learned by now

what it meant

to live in the shadows.

But the way my mother had turned

away from Metis. The way she

had chosen not to see her

taught me something new.

There was an even darker quality

to this world of Titans.