Hubris (Book One of the Siren Tragedies)

Prologue

Two Billion Years Ago....

Humanity would come to be Mnemosyne's favorite experiment.

Of course, she had existed long before experiments or even humanity itself. She had no idea that she had been the first scientist or that her curiosity would leave an imprint on the new creatures. She had no idea that she would shape them to grow into the beings they currently are. She simply enjoyed watching them. Occasionally, she would interfere with her subjects, assisting them along the way—altering the samples, as human scientists would say.

Still, that never mattered to her. Her fascination with the growth of the creatures never stopped. She would take in all of the nuances: the way they grouped together, the way they created tools without her assistance, the way they selected new leaders. She was completely enthralled as she watched them react to the environment around them. She was devastated when tragedy befell them, either individually or collectively to their growing tribes.

And as she fell in love with humanity, another fell in love with her—her passion and brilliance were something missing from all of the beings that Zherneboh and his brother created. He often tried to woo her, but she would have none of it. He had an agenda when it came to humans, and she refused to have any part of it. Like all good scientists, she did not want to be biased to the point of destruction.

Perhaps this is why she chose Alexandros long ago. Perhaps she could see the neutrality with which he would later regard the humans as they evolved. He could take or leave the experiment, but he was particularly intrigued by her.

Unfortunately, Alexandros's neutrality started and ended with the humans. She was not so lucky. She was his possession—something he demanded to control. The one that she had regarded as the safest tried to destroy the brilliance and passion with which the first brother had fallen in love.

Her husband's violent temper and unbridled cruelty hurt her for many millions of years, but soon he found that no physical retribution for what he conceived as slights against him could hurt her as much as taking his rage out on their daughters. At first she would fight and scream, finding an anger that she never knew existed within her—threatening him, using any and every spell to keep him from them. But she could never watch out for every child at once, and he would inevitably send one back to her—bruised, broken, and beaten, informing her later that the child's injuries were caused by nothing other than her insolence.

The days that her husband was preoccupied were spent with her children—watching them grow up, chasing them around the cliffs, and observing the earliest human ancestors as they navigated the canopies of the forests. Zherneboh watched her, some days by her side, some days from afar, but always just as spellbound as her daughters as she tried to get the creatures to come down from their branches.

But the golden moments of happiness were short lived, as her husband would return to terrorize her and the children soon after...

And so Zherneboh watched on, powerless to stop the torment that darkened what should have been her blissful existence. He tried to comfort her many times, but as the time passed, it became more difficult.  One night, before the dawn of human existence, Mnemosyne sat in front of him and cried without pause, frightened while pregnant with what would be her final daughter. Alexandros could not be bothered to love her or their other daughters, and his hostility grew with each child. She didn't know how this one would survive it.

"She will because she won't be destroyed by anything," he assured her, watching eyes the color of unpolished emeralds shine with frightened tears in the moonlight that draped itself over them. "She's made of fire. It may cool, but it will always come back."

The words provided little comfort for her. Fire could be extinguished, she had argued.

He watched her stifling the tears as best she could. He looked down at the ground for a moment and then waved his hands over a dry patch of leaves in front of them. It lit ablaze, bright and hot, threatening to rage past them into the clearing in which they stood.

She waved her own hand. A rainstorm, just for a moment, opened above them, dousing the flames. She turned to him again. She said nothing. She didn't have to. She had shown him all she needed to. You can extinguish a fire.

He smiled at her and looked back at the leaves. The game they always played—trying to prove him wrong—was her favorite pastime, no matter her current state. He raised his hands, and a strong breeze began to blow through the clearing. At first there was nothing aside from the fluttering of the leaves that had not been doused.

Then, she smelled it. The thick, pungent smell of burning leaves. Inside of the pile, a small glow caught her eyes. She moved closer to peer through the small openings in the pile. A flame, tiny and bright, was fighting for life, slowly gaining momentum until it began to burn brighter and stronger. Soon it was claiming the middle of the pile, and, after that, it was consuming the outer leaves around it. It even managed to singe some of the wet leaves on top.

"You can douse as much of the outside as you wish," he told her. "But deep in the part that the outer shell hides, the spark is still there. The heat is still burning underneath. And once it begins again, you have the same fire that you tried to extinguish."

He waved his hand again, and the flames disappeared. "But this time, those wet leaves you left will create a shell to protect it. The very thing you thought destroyed it will be what hides its burning until it's too late. You can never truly extinguish fire."

Mnemosyne watched the pile, especially the blackened leaves that still burned at the edges, and then unconsciously placed her hands over the growing belly beneath her tunic.

He walked over to her and held his hands over hers, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head. She looked into his eyes and down to his hands.

"Could it hurt her?"

"I'd never risk that."

"What will it do?"

"It will reignite her should he try to douse her flame."

"But what else? What else would it do to her?"

He was silent. In truth, he had no idea what the spell that whispered through his mind would do to the child more than protect her from the wrath of her father. He never quite knew what these spells did. He had simply learned to trust them.

She took a breath, wrapping her arms tightly around herself for a moment. He saw her arm move slowly over where her child was still growing.

She nodded to him.

He placed his hands over hers and whispered words that sailed through his mind with images of colors and fire and water, of the earth and grass and seas moving under the outreached hand of a young girl.

If she felt any pain herself, he never saw it on her face. She simply pressed her lips tightly together and closed her eyes.

Then the moment passed. The spell was over.

She opened her eyes and looked at him again.

"She'll be okay?"

"I'm certain."

"She's stronger now?"

"Yes," he said softly. "She's fire."