Chapter 13 - Psyche

The waiting was excruciating. I wished my parents had let me sail along with my father to Delphi. I could've consulted Apollo's Oracle myself. Why should I have to stay home when it was my future hanging in the balance?" Besides, sailing the Gulf of Corinth and visiting Delphi would've been a much-needed diversion.

Anything was better than waiting.

My mind ran endlessly over different scenarios that might play out when Father returned. I knew there was a good chance he'd come home with bad news. He might learn I was destined never to have a husband as I'd feared.

Or the Oracle might just tell my father to start planning my funeral. Aphrodite was known to have torn men to shreds for lesser crimes than personal insults.

At this point, I wasn't sure which would be worse.

To settle my swirling mind, I read everything I could about the Oracle. About the girls who became the oracle, trading their lives for a chance to know the divine.

As I read, I could almost picture her. She would be a noble girl. Not a princess, of course, but still pretty high up. After spending all of her
young life in service to Apollo, she'd be selected to become Apollo's highest priestess, the Pythia, when the Pythia before her died. She wouldn't have had to wait very long. Serving Apollo at such a high level took its toll on all of them. No one selected as Pythia lived for very long after her service started.

And yet these girls did it anyway. Going willingly into service for the god. Delivering Apollo's predictions to the Greeks who came to have their fortunes told. Once named Pythia, the girl wasn't allowed to have any more connection to her family, her friends or her former life. Whatever her name had been, she would be known only as Pythia until her death.

How completely opposite was that girl from me? She had no contact with family but met with the world. I had only contact with family while keeping the world at bay. She was loved by a god and I was now hated by a goddess.

I guessed we had one thing in common though: I was eerily afraid neither one of us would live much longer.

Chapter end