Ritual At Delphi

Pythia’s presence loomed as she lounged on a large marble throne under a gazebo of finely polished marble, pale smoke twisting around her. As Asteria reached the awning, Pythia gestured for Asteria to kneel by the base of the stairs.

“Kneel.” Asteria refused, standing brazenly as she stared at the prophet. Pythia tilted her head, observing Asteria. She leaned back on her throne.

“In the beginning,” she began, voice sharp. “The Fates had a plan. First the primordial gods shaped reality. Then came the cruel titans—your kind—demanding perfection from everything. As destined, they fell to their own offspring, repeating the cycle. Olympus ascended, and everything should have followed Fate’s design. Instead, the titans returned, aided by a traitor. This time, they triumphed, Olympus fell, and when it did, Fate itself was torn apart—and so forth.” Pythia waved a hand carelessly. Asteria gritted her teeth. Pythia knew Asteria had questions about the past she was skimming over. Pythia’s eyes locked onto Asteria. “Do you know what the world is like right now?”

Asteria shook her head, remembering a future she’d seen once, perhaps in a dream. That future, with the glistening buildings made out of glass reaching into the sky, the strange clothing, huge villages bustling with life—she couldn’t imagine those things existed in this time. The world itself echoed with the same kind of wrongness that surrounded a displaced soul: the failures of Fate thrown off course.

Pythia frowned, lip curling. “During the thousands of years you were resting, humans have survived in isolated cities, only hanging on due to the protection of the fourteen primary progeny, the Olympians. The gods are weakened, missing most of their power… You were a nighttime oracle, correct?”

Asteria tilted her head and nodded. Delos had been home to a prophet under her guidance for a short while, long ago—before the Oracle at Delphi came to be, under her nephew’s care. Pythia continued.

“What do you know of Threads?”

“They are the manifestations of Fate for all things,” Asteria blinked. “I have never been able to see them. My divinations were through dreams.” She shrugged. “I do not know much else about them. I believe,” she paused again, thinking. “The Threads of immortals dictate what powers they have, their mageia—things like that. Per—the One Who is Preeminent in Wisdom, he once described the universe as a ‘tapestry’ of these threads.”

Pythia nodded, but didn’t look satisfied.

“Unlike you, we mortals only have one measly, short Thread: a single string determining our entire lives. Immortals, on the other hand, have Cords, made of many Threads wound together. When Kronos took over, he was able to place a curse directly on the fate of Gods, unraveling their Cords and preventing them from using their powers. Sometimes those divine Threads end up tangled with mortal ones. When that happens, they become the ‘Blessed’—they gain a bit of godly power.”

“But then—”

Pythia continued talking over her.

“When a mortal is killed before their time with their thread still entwined with a god’s, it destroys a piece of the god’s power, permanently weakening them. This makes those mortals targets. The lucky are able to flee or are born into a sanctuary city. The rest fall to monsters or are executed by the titans. I came from Athens, a military sanctuary trying to rebel against the rule of the Cardinal Titans. Athena is foolish to lead the city this way… she’s been trying for years to find an alternative to the corrective plan the Fates have set, but it's futile.”

“I do not understand your twisted speech,” Asteria complained as the prophet went off-topic. “I wish to know what happened in the past few millennia. What happened to me? How did the titans return after being sealed—”

“I don’t care if you’re confused,” Pythia cut Asteria off, rolling her eyes. “The Threads themselves are ultimately a metaphor, a way for the normal mind to comprehend the mageia and stardust with which Khaos designed the universe… all you need to know is it has led us here, to this moment.” Pythia pushed herself to her feet, long braid swishing as she paced toward Asteria. She tilted Asteria’s chin up to examine her. Asteria glared at the manhandling.

“The Apollonian priestesses have been maintained for centuries, waiting for this,” Pythia murmured. “Our sacred duty was to wait for you, a tradition upheld two thousand years past its fated death… we oracles become bound to this fate from the moment we are chosen. Though I was told you would come one day and my Blessing allows me to see your desires—the questions you wish to ask- I was never told the reason I have had to live this way: the prophecy I am meant to give you.” Her eyes flashed gold, and the smoke around them thickened, a green tint becoming visible as it curled tight around them, snakelike. It formed into the coils of a giant python coiled around the gazebo, its large head twisting down to stare at Asteria. “I wonder what makes you so special?”

Suddenly, Pythia’s eyes widened. She stepped back, dropping Asteria’s chin to reach out and lift something faint, glimmering in the air around Asteria, like a slight distortion she could barely see.

“What have you done?” Pythia uttered in horror. The misty snake slithered down, twisting around Asteria’s legs, tripping her. As she stumbled forward, it twined up her body, shrinking as it went until it was coiled around her neck. Asteria reached up to pull it down, but her hand passed through its misty body. As the mist passed over Asteria’s eyes, she caught the faintest glimmer of the twisted Threads of Fate surrounding her. She blinked. Forget an unwound cord; the Threads around her were mangled, looping down from the sky, twisting and frayed; broken and disintegrating. Pythia delicately cradled a mangled Thread of Fate, no longer golden but decaying, blackened, and tangled in a thick mass around Asteria. “I cannot read your future,” Pythia declared solemnly.

“What?” Asteria hissed. “But you are an oracle, surely you must—”

“I am but a mouthpiece,” Pythia snapped. “Generally, I can read the Threads, see the futures the Fates allow me to see, and share their prophecies. As Pythia, I was told things about you that are otherwise secret, and was informed you would come.” She shook her head, bitterness twisting her expression. “I had always assumed my role would be to read your future and provide a prophecy to guide you—but I was never told this: that your future would be unreadable! These Threads twist and tangle like a web spun by a mad spider—more convoluted than I’ve ever seen before! And the Moirai?” Her eyes blazed. “They’re playing games, dragging the rest of us down to punish you on a mere whim. For what reason need it be I to guide you, or any other prophet, if your future cannot be read! They revel in your confusion and don’t care at all for the rest of us! You’ve defied them, gone against their plans; I can sense their anger so strongly… but also their fear echoing through all of these threads which surround us.”

She was still grasping the deadened manifestation of fate, face twisted in anger, hands tight around the Thread until her golden-edged nails dug into her palm. Asteria grasped at Pythia’s wrist, pulling the prophet roughly toward her. “Then tell me my past,” she hissed desperately. “I know so little. You must—”

Pythia pried herself free, her wrist reddened from Asteria’s tight grip. “‘I must?’ What do you know of what mortals need do? My whole life was dedicated to a whim of Fate! Even if the Moirai wanted me to tell you the past—which you should already know!—that is not the destiny I agreed to follow. I have been reduced to nothing more than a history book! I have not even foreseen a single prophecy in nearly twenty years!” She laughed darkly, eyes to the ceiling. “How absurd.” Her cold, sandy gaze returned to Asteria. “It is but a small defiance, all I am capable of… but I will not tell you what you want to know.” The golden vines crawling out from beneath her bandages seemed to reach out, twisting and tightening their way across Pythia’s dark skin. Small lines of blood dripped from the edges as they dug into her flesh. She allowed the Thread to drop from her hands, revealing singed skin across her palms.

Asteria’s eyes flashed. “You promised answers!”

“No,” Pythia corrected, high and mighty, tossing her head up as she attempted to restrain herself. “I said you had questions—but I never promised to answer them.” She laughed hastily, drawing her chin up in defiance. Behind Pythia, Kastallia looked back toward Asteria with wide, panicked eyes as she bowed frantically in apology, knowing this had gone worse than expected. “I can see what you want to know, what’s more important to you than anything—your desires; that is the Blessing I was granted at birth. A Thread of Aphrodite’s is entwined with mine. However, I refuse to share what I know of your past—and you cannot force me to!”

Asteria clenched her fists, cold fury rising. Normally, she liked humans well enough for the short-lived, powerless things they were—but they also did not often openly defy her like this while knowing her status.

“Hey,” Asteria glared, eyes sharp. “You forget your place, mortal,” Asteria warned, and Pythia snapped back.

“And you forget yours! You are no Titan, not now, not in that mortal body and with your powers tied away! You are no better than the rest of us humans—us mortals.” She hissed with contempt. “You are capable now of suffering as we are. You must look to your predetermined path, as we do!”

Pythia gasped in pain as the golden laurel branches climbed with renewed vengeance, creeping across her chin and collarbone, sharp leaves digging in and leaving trails of blood. Pain filled her sand-and-gold eyes, and Pythia looked up with brows knit in deep frustration. Asteria wondered if the Fates were going to kill the oracle then and there. Pythia gritted her teeth and reached out to pluck a Thread from the air, the only one still golden and untangled. Asteria could feel a pull as Pythia tugged at it. “I shall tell you only what the Moirai force me to.” Pythia grit out, her sandy eyes gleaming with a feverish intensity. “Your Fate leads to Athens. The City of the Weaver protects an Anchor Thread, which is essential to hold the universal tapestry together. The Moirai want you to collect the Anchors from the gods who guard them.” Her gaze was lifted from the threads, brows softening as the burning glow of the laurels faded, the pain from them obviously going away as she acquiesced to the Fates. She looked away, gaze weary. “Anyone could have told you this… so why did I have to give everything up to do this? Generations of our lives, wasted.” She whispered under her breath, likely not intending Asteria to hear.

“Why should I do as you say?” Asteria growled..

Pythia’s gaze bore into Asteria’s, the laurels in her irises glowing. “You shall go where the Moirai demand.”

“And if I do not?”

Pythia laughed. “Hahaha! You truly don’t understand, do you? You have no choice.”

Asteria scoffed, but Pythia didn’t seem to care, and suddenly she reached out to trail a finger across Asteria’s throat. Asteria jerked away as she suddenly felt phantom hands wrapping around her neck, wet, clammy fingers like they’d been dipped in a frigid river, squeezing tightly, a warning threat. The sensation faded away, leaving a burning sensation as a meandering white band appeared across her neck. Asteria’s hand drifted up, feeling its presence beyond the limits of tangibility.

“What is this?”

“A marker of your deal with Styx. Fate or not, you chose this—you made your vow, and now you must follow it. Until fulfillment or death.”

“I never would have sworn an oath to Styx,” Asteria glared steadily at Pythia. A vow to Styx promised a different kind of death, a more permanent one, than the centuries of discorporation usually accompanying a mortal wound.

“Oh, but you did!” Pythia countered. “You may not remember, and I certainly will not tell you of it. However,” Pythia shook her head, smirking. “Styx’s hands cannot reach those who have not sworn to her. Is that not proof enough?”

“Athens, then,” Asteria’s voice dropped. “I will play the Moirai’s game for now, but do not mistake this for bowing to their whims—nor do I bow to yours, Pythia. I will find the answers you hide from me.”

Pythia’s gaze darkened. “Do as you wish. I know my role in their game. I can never forget it. I am no more than a mortal—I am not capable of trading the world to defy Fate.” The priestess’s eyes, veiled under her dark lashes and shimmering gold eyeshadow, fixated on Asteria, were full of contempt. “Even my petty defiance regarding your history matters little to them in the end. I have directed you to Athens as they required. Ultimately, I am here, where they wanted me to be, and here I shall stay until my death.”

“What of it? Just because mortals must bow to the Moirai does not mean Fate controls me.”

“How privileged you are to claim freedom from Fate! But I’ll admit,” Pythia tilted her head in acknowledgement, scrutinizing Asteria. “If anyone can defy the Moirai, it would be you… but that is not always for the best. The Threads you are to bear may have been unraveled, but they once wove the fate of our entire universe… You may fancy yourself a savior, but do you truly think you're capable of creating something better?”