Long before the triplets knew about their legacy, there was a prophecy about their rise. The tale of how the saga of the Medusa girls began…
Originally published in the Sweet Venom paperback edition.
Legend of the Lost Door
excerpt from Little Known Myths of Ancient Greece
translated from the Greek by Stephanie West
In ancient times, when the Gorgon sisters counted three in number, the great guardians stood sentry at the door between the human realm, called Panogia, and the realm of monsters, called Abyssos. So sacred and important was their duty that, for their protection and the protection of both realms, few others knew the location of the door.
When the assassin-hailed-hero Perseus murdered the mortal Gorgon Medusa, the gods of Olympus, for the protection of humanity, sealed the door with the greatest of rituals. Only a select audience was granted attendance: the three god-kings, a trio of loyal priestesses, the two immortal Gorgons and their clandestine guest—an oracle dedicated to the cause.
In an act of supreme magic, the door was sealed, locking all of monster kind in the dark realm. Either by design or negligence, the ritual was not perfect, and cracks in the seal allowed limited numbers of creatures out into the daylight on a tightly controlled basis. None outside the Gorgons and their oracle knew the truth of the bloodline, that Medusa’s powers passed forward into generations to come.
None knew of the prophecy secretly entwined into the ritual.
Upon the sealing, the sands in the hourglass of eternity began to fall, counting down to the time of the Key Generation. The three would unite and the magic would fall way. Piece by piece, bit by bit the powers that held the seal in place would vanish as smoke in the wind until the time of decision.
Since the sealing ritual, many grains have flowed through the hourglass. Generations have come and gone. Details faded into lost memory. Eventually, enough time passed that the most important and dangerous detail of all was forgotten by the very last. The world grew up around the door, changing and building and shifting until not even the Gorgons themselves could recall. Since that time, the location of door has been a mystery.
And so it remains until the Key Generation arrives and seeks answers to questions long forgotten. Until then, the cracked seal struggles to keep monster and human apart. Until then, those who remember can but pray that the magic holds.
Download a printable PDF version of the legend.
Find out how the legend plays out in the Sweet Venom trilogy.
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