Even the wise can be fools in love.
Athena
Gods and Monsters Book 1
by Eva Pohler
Genre: YA Fantasy Romance
Even the wise can be fools in
love . . .
She grows up in the belly of her oppressive
father, where she watches her mother build her armor and hatches
plans for escape. Once freed, she becomes her father's favorite--a
loyal subject, warrior, and advocate who stands by her father even
when her favorite is sentenced for treason and chained to a
rock, where his liver is eaten daily by Zeus's eagle. Then, her hopes
for a reunion with Prometheus are crushed when he disappears, and
years of searching prove futile. With a hardened heart, Athena
becomes a powerful leader of the Olympians.
But when
Prometheus returns from the shadows, her loyalties are challenged,
her heart stirs with unquenchable passion, and her immortal life is
forever changed.
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Chapter One: Escape
Warm blood cradled her, though it would be many days before
she would have the words to comprehend it.
I am inside my mother’s womb.
It was cozy, warm, and soft. She stretched her arms, turned,
and closed her eyes, but before she had fallen back to sleep with her knees
pressed against her cheeks, a deep voice rang out in a threatening roar.
Her mother’s voice, calm and quiet, followed. “I will not
destroy the babe.”
“Metis, you must, if you love me.”
That was her mother’s name—Metis.
“I will not.”
A pressure disturbed her cradle, followed by sudden jerks of
movement and her mother’s wail. She clenched her tiny fists and uncoiled
herself, ready to spring into action. She flattened her feet against her
mother’s backbone.
Her mother’s screams unnerved her. For many hours, she
listened to the distressing sounds and felt her mother flailing against her
prison.
“Let me out of here!” Metis cried repeatedly.
Once her mother’s cries had subsided and all had gone still,
she put her hand against her mother’s belly. It was warm and firm. “Mother? Are
you well?”
Her mother flinched with surprise.
“Mother? Metis?”
Warm hands pressed the belly from the other side. “I am
here, child. All is well.”
The sound of something scratching woke her from her slumber.
She stretched her tiny fists. “Mother? What are you doing?”
“Tearing splinters from your father’s ribs.”
Her eyes opened wide, warm fluid coating them. “Why? How?”
“Your father, Zeus, is the king of the Olympians. He
swallowed me because of a prophecy that I would give him a son who would one
day unseat him.”
“I am not a son. I am a daughter, I believe.”
“Yes, I believe it, too. My only concern now is setting you
free. I shall weave armor for you from these splinters and find a way to get
you out.”
“I like it here.”
“For now,” her mother said. “But you are growing, and soon
there will be little room. You will become restless and bored, and you will
long for something more than this. I must prepare for that day.”
“Mother?”
“Yes?”
“I like my name. Thank you for it.”
“You are welcome, my precious child. And now, I want to
exercise your mind with a riddle.”
Athena smiled, ready for the challenge.
Her mother began, “Imagine that your father gifts me with a
beautiful pear tree. If the main trunk has twenty-four branches, and each
branch has twelve boughs, and each bough has six twigs, and each twig bears one
piece of fruit, how many plums can the tree produce in one growing season?”
Athena put her finger in her mouth. After a moment, she
removed the finger and said, “The tree can bear 1,728 pieces of fruit.”
Metis pressed her hands against her belly. “How wise of you
to put it that way, since a pear tree would produce zero plums.”
“I thought you may have misspoken,” Athena explained.
“It was a trick. If you had said that the tree would produce
1,728 plums, you would have been wrong, because pear trees cannot produce
plums, but because you said, ‘pieces of fruit,’ you bested me, the goddess of
counsel!”
Despite the many riddles her mother told her to pass the
time, Athena soon outgrew her cradle and felt suffocated by it.
“Let me out of here,” she said one day.
“You must find your own way out. I will help as much as I
can.”
Athena searched for an opening and found one. Her mother
bore down as Athena squeezed through, first her head and then the rest of her.
When she was free at last, she found herself in another cradle not much bigger
than the one she had left, made smaller by the presence of her mother.
Metis embraced her. “Well done, my precious child. When you
are stronger, you must do that again.”
“Will you follow me?” Athena asked, still wrapped in her
mother’s arms. She pressed her ear against her mother’s bosom and was comforted
by the sound of her beating heart.
“It is not my destiny. It is yours.”
Athena’s stomach formed a knot, and tears pooled in her
eyes. She would never leave her mother.
Eva Pohler earned her Ph.D. in English in the mid-nineties, specializing in twentieth-century British and American narrative strategies. She has taught writing and literature for over twenty years at a university in San Antonio, her hometown, where she lives with her husband, two of her three adult children, and three rescue dogs.
An award-winning and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels in multiple genres, Eva writes paranormal mysteries, thrillers, and young adult fantasy based on Greek mythology. Her books have been described as "addictive" and "sure to thrill"--Kirkus Reviews.
Whichever genre you read, you will find an adventure in Eva Pohler's stories. They blur the line between reality and fantasy, truth and delusion, and draw from Eva's personal philosophy that a reader must be lured and abducted into complete captivity in order to enjoy the reading experience.
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