Of all the gods born from mother Kaos, Phlegethon loved Styx the most – enough to trade the comfort of his cyclical eternity in Hades for the world above. Thin, red, and furious he pursued her across Greece until all seasons melted into one: an unending summer that left mouths dry and forests yellowed with scorched pine needles. Styx was vast and beautiful, a Titan worshipped by Zeus who swore by her name with unmatched reverence. The goddess of promises kept, who brought Nike into the fold and won them the War. Zeus listened to her always, though she ignored him when he dealt advice.
‘It might not work,’ Phlegethon had told her. ‘We are such different creatures.’
Zeus agreed. He stood against them. Styx knew he had no right – he loved a new face every day, while Phlegethon loved her, alone. He changed his course for her, and so she followed him to Thebes. They mingled with the Theban streams and played in the city. She loved the bread and fruit of the city – fig juice was her favourite. The houses always looked slightly pink when the sun struck the limestone. She bought beautiful notebooks to sketch the agora and the people arguing there.
It was still too hot though, even for a god.
‘The city is so small,’ she said one day. They’d laid on the ground outside the city walls, watching Helios drive his chariot down the horizon. ‘They all know each other, but I wish to know none of them.’
She hated the city wall, its blankness and its guardians, the way the limestone left her palm pale with dust when she touched it.
He laughed when she told him. Down below, he said, he was that wall, encompassing all of Hades, never able to explore it as he wanted. He’d heard of places – Tartarus, the Asphodel fields, the three Judges – he knew where they were, what their purpose was and who occupied them, but he had never seen them for himself. Here, he could glide along the city, learn every pathway, every crypt, every courtyard.
‘You don’t understand,’ she cast her words like a stone. ‘You come from somewhere dark and predictable.’
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