Page 108 of Styx

Perses looked out at the seas,

the waves thrashing against rocks.

‘I do not know,’ he said finally.

‘But we must try. For their happiness.’

The Forge

The next day I asked Styx

to accompany me to Pallas’s forge.

‘What do we need to go there for?’

she complained as we walked out

of her chambers. ‘We have our own

work of making to do.’

I shook my head. ‘He is your consort.

Why don’t we just see what he makes?

Perhaps he creates things like we do.’

She scoffed at this but kept walking.

The beach was bathed in sunlight,

fresh after a morning storm.

From a distance, I saw Pallas

working with dazzling adamantine.

Next to him, tall and broad-shouldered,

was Perses. He raised his hand in greeting

as we approached.

Pallas glanced up from his work

of beating the adamantine into shape.

Around him iridescent objects

gleamed brightly in the sun.

‘What are these?’ Styx asked,

but her tone was of curiosity,

not of any kind of malice.

Pallas looked up at her.