Cassandra

Cassandra was the daughter of Hecuba and Priam, King and Queen of Troy. Cassandra became a priestess of Apollo, and Apollo blessed her with the gift of prophecy. At first, Cassandra was happy. Apollo—the god whose temple she kept watch over—had noticed her. Unfortunately, as with many gifts from the gods, this gift came with a price. When Cassandra found out that he had only granted her the gift of prophecy because he wanted to have sex with her, she was appalled. She had thought she had been worthy of being blessed by a god in a way that would help her family and her city, but that was not so. When Cassandra refused to sleep with him—when she refused to break her vows—Apollo cursed her, so that no one would ever believe what she prophesied.

At first, this curse was mildly annoying. She never dreamt anything that was a life or death situation, or even anything that was important. And then she dreamed of a beautiful woman being taken to Egypt, and an eidolon of her in Troy with Paris. Terrified, she rushed to tell her parents, but they did not believe her. They looked at their daughter, a princess of Troy, and deemed her mad. After that, she went to Hector. Surely, her brother, the eldest of all her siblings, would believe her. But even he did not. Her family laughed at her, and Cassandra burned with rage.

A short time after that, Paris brought Helen to Troy, and war followed. Cassandra was furious at this, because people—Trojans, her people—were dying. When Cassandra tried to tell Paris that he had brought an eidolon to Troy, Paris grew angry at her. He sent her away, and when she would not go, the guards dragged her out. Cassandra avoided the eidolon of Helen, for she knew that nothing good could come from a copy of a person. The eidolon avoided her too. Cassandra did not know if this avoidance was because the eidolon knew who Cassandra was, and therefore knew that Cassandra had Seen the eidolon, or if it was because even the servants called her mad now.

Then, she Saw the death of Hector. She screamed herself awake that night, and wept, pleading with the gods to change his fate, but it made no difference. Hector’s future did not change. She tried to tell Hector to avoid Achilles, because Patroclus would have stolen Achilles’ armor, but Hector did not believe her. He held her as she mourned for him—and how odd it was, to weep with the ache of missing someone when she could hear their heartbeat against her ear. Cassandra made sure she was not up on the walls the day Achilles paraded his body around Troy. She had already dreamt her brother’s mangled body once; she did not need to see it again. When King Priam brought Hector’s body home, Cassandra’s cheeks were dry. As the city of Troy mourned for Hector, Tamer of Horses, Cassandra waited. She knew what came next—she had dreamt it the night before.

When the Trojans found the wooden horse the Greeks had made, Cassandra knew that the fall of Troy had come. Even though she knew her parents would not believe her, she begged them not to let the Trojans bring the horse past the gate. The crowd around them laughed. They brought the horse in, and Cassandra shook with rage. Her brother had died to protect this city, and they were throwing that away. She snatched a torch from a nearby guard’s hands and ran to the horse, determined to set it aflame. She would show them, she would show all of them that what she Saw was the truth. She would ensure that Troy remained safe and that Hector’s life meant something—that he had died for something. She was so close, so close to proving that she was not crazy, that this was the beginning of an invasion, but the guards managed to grab her before she could set the horse on fire. They took her away, screaming and thrashing, and locked her in her room. She gave herself a moment to cry and to be angry before she picked herself up and started banging on the door. Surely, there would be a servant around that would let her out. When no one immediately showed up to release her, she began looking around her room. She smiled when she saw a small statue of Dionysus, which had been made by Hephaestus and given to the Trojans by Zeus. She nestled the statue in an emptied chest. The first Greek that opened the chest would be driven mad. She closed the chest with a snap. She could not defend Troy with a sword, but she could do this small thing of her own volition, not because of her dreams. She left the chest in the middle of the room, so that whoever entered when the Greeks were sacking the city would be sure to notice it.

When she was let out, she headed straight for the Temple of Athena and prayed. She prayed that Troy survived the night, but this did not happen. Ajax the Lesser discovered her there, and although she clung to the statue of Athena—surely no one would rape a woman in the Temple of a goddess—he raped her anyway. After that, the Greeks rounded her up with the other prisoners, and Menelaus took her as a war bride—a slave. While on the ship bringing her to Sparta—back to Menelaus’ wife, and Menelaus clearly had no idea what he was walking into—Cassandra dreamt what would happen to her. Clytemnestra would kill Cassandra, and then Clytemnestra would kill Menelaus. Cassandra walked into the palace of Menelaus—of Clytemnestra, who was far more a ruler than Menelaus ever was—hoping she had been virtuous enough to gain entry to the Elysian Fields.