Thetis of the Silver Feet rose from the depths of the hidden cove. Her son was already there, awaiting her arrival. With that odd, almost preternatural sense of calm that had been his to command even as a babe, he stood on the beach staring with quiet intensity at the distant, watery horizon. He had not yet noticed her, so she took the opportunity to study him carefully. Though he had barely lived sixteen summers he more closely resembled the man and warrior he would become than the child she’d held at her bosom what seemed but a moment ago. He was magnificent—her golden eaglet, her pride, her heart—her Achilles. And today her soul wept for what Zeus’s oracle had revealed to her. Thetis wished she could deny the truth of it or even simply run from the choices the great god had revealed. But she, too, was a deity, born of the water, daughter of Nereus, an ancient sea god, and she knew all too well that the prophecies of the gods could not be avoided—that to run from them left only chaos and heartbreak and ruined lives in the wake of consequences. Fate could not be avoided, so it must be endured. At least Achilles had been given a choice. The small splinter of hope that thought gave Thetis was short-lived. It worked itself free of her heart as she continued to gaze at the wondrous man