"The room was quiet, but her thoughts were not. Athena lay on the silken sheets, her breath still unsteady — not from passion, but from unease.

‘Who was that man…?’
She stared at the curtains, drawn tight, as if to keep something out.

He hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t needed to.
The way he looked at her — not with lust, nor admiration — but with something else.
Something ancient. Something wrong.

There was weight in his gaze. A silence beneath it. Like a shadow that recognized her.

‘Did I know him…? No…’
Her heart betrayed her. It raced when she remembered his face — like prey sensing a predator it had forgotten.

She turned on her side, gripping the pillow tighter.

‘He felt… familiar. But not from this life.’
Athena, goddess of wisdom, war, love and light, felt something she rarely allowed herself to feel.

Not fear…
But the memory of something that once made her afraid.

And now…
it was watching her again."