Page 168 of Styx

You have always known how to fight.

Just when I began to think

that we had been descending

for too long and that maybe

Eurus’s oaken spies were wrong,

we heard it. A loud crack.

And then the sound of Metis’s laughter.

Metis’s Secret

My heart raced with joy,

then excitement, then relief. But before

I could go to her, Pallas grasped my hand.

We quickly hid from view.

We were in the very heart of the mountain,

which opened up into a cavernous space.

It was a thing of wonder,

a strange mirror of my father’s banquet hall.

My heartbeat quickened looking at it.

So large that it made us all feel small.

So vast that it held space enough

for all the Gods we knew.

How the mountain stayed upright

when the inside was so hollow

was a strange metaphysical secret.

As we stood, hidden from view

above this gigantic fissure,

we saw her.

Metis, standing in the middle

of the mountain.

And there, by her side,

holding bolts of fire in his hand