Adrinna shivered with a mixture of fear and excitement.  Hera's tender fingers had braided her golden locks into an elaborate and elegant crown accentuated with delicate apple blossoms.  It was an honor to have Hera pay such exacting attention to her, yet she was wary of how the goddess planned to use her, for the Olympians were widely known for their manipulations of mortals.

Now, as Adrinna stood at the firm base of Mount Tokai, she was having second thoughts about her involvement in this adventure.  "Seduce him," Hera had purred into her ear.  "His quest will succeed unless you make the sacrifice.  His crimes will go unpunished; we don't want that, do we?"

"Seduce..." Adrinna couldn't comprehend the request the goddess was making of her.  "But, I'm a virgin, a Priestess of Artemis.  I do not seduce men, not for any reason."

Hera's smooth, cool fingers cupped Adrinna's youthful face, "But you're mine now, you do my bidding."  Hera's eyes bore into Adrinna as she continued, "Has Artemis ever shown herself to you?  Has she shown you her true face as I have?  Or her love for you, Adrinna?  Did she protect you from the monsters stalking you at the pool?"  Hera planted an intimate kiss on the girl's lips.  "Adrinna, Artemis does not love you.  She has betrayed the promises made when you came to this place.  She does not deserve your loyalty.  Renounce her, for I do love you, and I make a promise that Tigasis will pay for his crime against you.  You can trust me, child."

The light cloak that covered Adrinna's shoulders did little to protect her from the cold wind that raced down the mountainside. She turned in place, trying to figure out what her next move should be, where she should go, how she would find Tigasis in the vast wilderness.  But Hera had, remarkably, left her exactly where she needed to be.

"Adrinna?  Is that you?"  Tigasis recognized her immediately despite the sophisticated change in her appearance.  His mind had wandered often to the resplendent view of all of Artemis' scantily clad clan.  He had been certain she was a hallucination until his horse drew nearer and he could smell the blossoms in the breeze.  "How did you get here?"

"Oh, Tigasis," Adrinna's hand first went to her mouth to staunch the fear from her voice, then to her chest to beg her heart to slow.  "I don't know how I got here.  Maybe it is an answer to my prayers?  I don't want you to fight the hydra.  I don't want you to die."  The lies mixed with truth easily.

Tigasis dropped from his mount quickly and closed the remaining distance to Adrinna.  He wrapped a muscled arm around her slender frame, "You're shivering.  Come," he pulled her closer to him, "I'll make you a fire.  We were about ready to make camp for the night."

"We?"  Adrinna looked around for his company.

Tigasis gave a short laugh, "Myself and the horse."  It didn't pass Tigasis' notice that here, right next to him, was a virgin worthy of payment to Hera.

They sat side-by-side in front of the fire, eating slowly as they talked.  Adrinna sent shy glances in his direction with a hidden smile.  Seduce him, Hera had said, and through his body language, Adrinna was certain that her wiles were charming him.  An apple blossom fell free from her hair and brushed past her cheek to land upon her arm.  Tigasis reached out to move it away; the shock of his touch sent a tingle of excitement through her body.  She took a deep breath, looking up into his brown eyes.

Tigasis pulled a larger blossom from her hair.  "Adrinna, why are you here?"  He brushed the smooth petals across her cheek, causing her to make eye contact.

"I was worried about you... I... I think I lov..."

"How did you get here," Tigasis interrupted her.

"Tigasis?"  Adrinna's eyes grew with outrage, masking the guilt that had been building up for the past hour.

"Wishes don't transport mortals across the land without some effort on the part of the person.  You have no horse and you are not dressed for travel.  How did you get here?" he asked again, more firmly this time.

"Tigasis," Adrinna moved to her knees, placing her hands on his broad shoulders, "I need to be with you.  Every cotyla of my being is screaming out to unite with you, to be one."  She straddled his legs with her own, their abdomens close.  Her lips, a mere daktylos from his, whispered her temptation, "Without you, I will certainly shrivel up and die."

"Then you shall shrivel," Tigasis answered, easily removing her from his lap and tossing her to the side.

Tears rose to Adrinna's eyes, "But why will you not have me?"

"Because I am out to prove my innocence and you work against me.  There's more wood to keep the fire going through the night.  I suggest you don't let it die and that you pray really hard for mercy and a warm bed."

Tigasis mounted the white mare and rode into the darkness, leaving Adrinna to sob on her own at the foot of the mountain.

The path up the mountain was joined by a second, narrow foot path.  Here, Tigasis encountered a small party of hunters equipped with swords and long bows.  "Hunting has become scarce since the hydra woke," one of the men explained.  They aimed to kill the beast, for honor and for glory.  Tigasis relayed his quest and they laughed.

"A hydra cannot be killed by one man."

"But I am a son of Herkales," Tigasis objected, "and if my father can kill a hydra by himself, so can I."

"Then you won't mind us tagging along to watch?" another of the men asked with jest.

"I do not mind."

"That is an interesting pendant you wear around your neck," one man commented later in the day, when the jokes had finally subsided.

"It was given to me for luck by a virgin priestess of Artemis," Tigasis bragged.

The man shifted his load to the other shoulder while taking a closer look.  "That's unlikely."

Tigasis puffed out his chest, beginning to explain his quest again.  But the man stopped him.  "If it were a stag, I'd believe you."  Several of the other men coughed, pretending to conceal their laughter.  "The owl is Athena's symbol.  You claim to be the son of a hero, but know nothing of the Olympians?"

Tigasis removed the pendant, breaking the leather thong that held it around his neck.  He should have killed the virgin for her eyes, the anger whelmed up within as he contemplated the bargain he had made with Hera for his horse.  A hand clasped around his wrist, stopping Tigasis before he could toss away the false gift.

"Are you certain that is a good idea?" the hunter asked.  Tigasis looked down, surprised by the strength of the meager man's grip.  But the steel eyes that returned his gaze did not belong to a village hunter, much less a man.  "With an enemy like Hera, you need friends," Athena suggested.  She took the pendant from his clenched fist, "What other trouble have you gotten yourself into?"

Tigasis paused, looking to the horse that begrudgingly followed him along the narrow path.  "I borrowed a horse from Hera."

"The price," Athena asked with a patronizing tone.

"The eyes of a virgin," he admitted.

She chuckled and shook her head, "That was a dangerous deal to make."

"What will it cost me to deal with you?"  His anger towards Adrinna's false gift had not yet subsided and the tone he took with the goddess was a dangerous one.

Athena checked the pendant momentarily, "This is payment enough, for the moment," and she tucked away the piece of silver into the folds of her cloak.  "I rather prefer heroics to trinkets though."  She produced several gifts from her cloak next; Tigasis looked on with amazement.

"Give these to Hera when she asks for payment.  And careful with this one," Athena handed Tigasis a glowing sword, still hot from Hephaestus' forge.  "Sunders and cauterizes at the same time.  I'll need it back when you're done slaying the beast."  With a smirk that seemed out of place on the goddess' face, Athena was gone in the next instant.

Tigasis looked around, not surprised to find that the remaining village hunters had, likewise, disappeared.