Niuva, Western Greece

Troy fell when my sixth forefather was a youth and, consequently, I had only ever known Trojans as slaves. Defeated, despondent people who I noticed merely as obedient drudges creeping about the palace. I paid them little attention; they were slaves after all, and I was the well-known sister of princess Primrose – the only legitimate child to the King of Niuva, Pandrasus – moreover, they were but just the sorry remnants of a people who had caused my fellow Greeks much trouble and sorrow.

It was not so much that I despised them, for I did not, it was just that they were a people who caused their own misfortune; in taking Helen to their great city, they had brought the brutally long war upon themselves. Their actions negated the need for pity, sorrow, or hatred; to feel much of anything towards them would be a waste.

So, I paid them no regard. I spoke to them only to speak a request. I occasionally nodded absently at one or another as they performed me a particular service. That was my entire limit of involvement with and understanding of the Trojans. They were constantly about me, but invisible to my eyes.

In fact, my eyes were constantly lingering on only one person in particular: Primrose.

I lived within the palace solely because when Primrose had been claimed by Pandrasus as his heir I was taken as well, at my little sister's crying insistence. My mother, merely a breeding tool in his eyes, was inconsequential.

I am not of royal blood. My father was a Greek merchant; dark haired and of olive skin.

Primrose was my opposite, and some spoke of her oddity: a Dorian Greek with blonde hair and startling blue eyes? But no one doubted her beauty and her kindness, nor did they doubt her royal quality. One day she would rule Niuva beside a husband and I had no doubt in my mind that I would be there, too, standing at her side to offer her my aid and comfort.

Granted, Niuva was not a particularly notable city, but it was important and rich enough, and was one of the very few survivors of the Catastrophe that had rocked our world for the preceding six or seven generations. Other cities may have succumbed to conflagration and earth tremors, or to the swords and hate of the tribes who took advantage of the turmoil in the Aegean world to invade, but Niuva continued as if charmed, serene and safe on its tranquil bay on the northwestern coast of mainland Greece.

There was only little contact with the outside world, and I existed virtually unaware of even that small degree of contact. I did not belong in a palace. I was used to the life of a child who ran amok in the back of a whore house, watching my mother ghost by day after day. There was Prim's father, who adored her, and there were the joys and pleasures of her father's court from which she rarely strayed, which meant I did not either. Why should I have? Her father's palace contained everything I could have wanted. Everything was Prim's for the asking, and such was her kindness, the luxury was extended to me: rare fabrics from the far east, the most tempting of morsels from the kitchens, jewels as she wanted for her neck and arms, the admiration and attendance of all who beheld my sister.

The last began to amuse Primrose more and more, particularly once she passed her fourteenth birthday and became a woman. I would try to dissuade it, but she had eyes on her cousin, Rory, and no matter how hard I tried she would not be put-out. I could not order her to stop. Nor would I – being rough with Primrose was like beating a butterfly only for the fun of it. She was her father's heir, and whomever wedded and bedded her had not only her undoubted physical charms to enthrall him, but the throne as well. That meant deceitful and power-hungry men on the prowl. I had to protect her from it. Yet, she made that very difficult.

She taunted her male admirers, naturally – though quite unconsciously.

When her father held court in his megaron, every man who had a desire for the throne (and that was most of them) allowed his eyes to stray to my sister. At my place, just behind and to the side of their thrones, I had to clench my fists and bite into my cheek to restrain myself. Prim would smile, in general greeting, and straighten her shoulders, unintentionally allowing them a full view of her breasts.

We followed an old Minoan fashion here in Niuva (one of the king's foremothers much removed had come from Crete, I believe, bringing the fashion with her), and all noble unmarried girls displayed their breasts above their tight-waisted flounced skirts and between the flaring stiffened lapels of their heavily embroidered jackets. Though I thought myself acceptably modest and virtuous, many thought me overtly so, for bare bodies made me uncomfortable. Most everyone would see a naked figure in passing or full view every day. I suppose I was odd that way. I preferred my fully closed jackets and my long skirts; the somewhat 'drab' fashions of a Dorian woman, unmarried or not.

Primrose never was one who saw the more menacing sides of things. Nakedness to her was just that: bareness. She did not know that every man that laid eyes on her immediately thought of the bedroom, and those things men and women do together.

Yet, all the while, as they lusted for her and she tantalized them by chance, what sorry creatures those men were. She was flaunted by the courts fashion sense, but it was done only by trivial ignorance. She had already secretly chosen her husband – having only confided in me – and in the coming winter of her fifteenth year she fully intended to drive Rory to such distraction that he would not hesitate to take her virginity the instant she offered it to him.

She whispered to me late at night her cleverly thought out plan: afterward, the two of them could use her swelling belly to persuade her father that Rory was a good enough catch for her (it was irksome that he was but a second son, for I knew her father would despise that… but she was sure, painfully, ignorantly, sure, that if she was caught with child, then her father would be so delighted he would deny her nothing).

Aside my obvious reluctance to allow Primrose to do something like that, I approved of Rory. Her cousins were close to the king, though the king's brother, Prim's uncle, was dead, it was the eldest cousin, Gale, who had taken his place as the city's main general, protecting it day in and day out.

Gale and I had become fast friends once I had joined the household. We were similar in a demure, serious way. He looked after the city and his family with the same care that I looked after Primrose with. More than once, I had even caught Gale making offers to take me off of the king's hands. Each time I would flush with indignation and make sure to ignore him the next time our paths crossed. If I did not, the king might think I would receive him; not that Gale was unpleasant (he was rather handsome, actually) but it had more to do with the fact that marrying him meant leaving palace life and leaving Primrose – the only person I ever truly cared about. The person who, with her tears and pleas, pulled me away from the life of whore houses and drinking and laying on my back to make a living. What he offered might have been more stable… after all, it was a real place of status, but I knew that the freedom Prim had given me was always going to be vastly better than the one Gale could offer me as his wife…

I was sure that I would never allow any man to take me away from her – not even Gale.

Little had I known, that come Primrose's fifteenth birthday, the beast I would later recognize as destiny reached out and overwhelmed me, and the Catastrophe finally, calamitously, lay waste to my entire life.