I told them that I needed to visit the woodland shrine to Phoebus near the roots of Mt. Ida. Hecuba understood my request as a desire to do the will of Apollo, and so made all of the necessary arrangements. I did not disabuse her of this notion, especially since she was so intent on my ingratiating myself to the god that she allowed me the autonomy I requested: I could go without any supervision. Usually one of my elder siblings would accompany me or a courtier not needed in the city. My mother procured for me in one day's time garments and accouterments finer than any I previously owned. The new robes were all in fine silks with gold trim. One saphhire blue, one the color of the sea, one red, and two in fine Tyrian purple. In the dark blue robes, I felt that perhaps I was almost as lovely as Andromache. The veil I wore obscured my face so no one saw my tears, my vain tears that I cried because I was overcome by how suddenly I looked like a lady. I did not care that I should not have loved myself so much then. I threw the veil back when I had a moment alone with a mirror. I never knew my mouth as anything other than too wide for my face. Those lips in the mirror were as inviting as late summer berries warmed by the sun. My eyes were shimmering like the jewels I wore. My thick dark unruly hair was gleaming, and perfumed, and arrayed in a coronet of braids upon my head. I am lovely enough to meet him.

Perhaps this was the thought that Apollo half-heard, and it encouraged him to continue the pursuit of me that had only just begun.

My thoughts became filled with the wondering what sort of man my lost brother would be. Would he taunt me the way Helenus did? Would he be as surly as Deiphobus was? Could Alexandros be as valorous and pious and loving as Hector? It was doubtless that Hector was best among Hecuba and Priam's sons. We Trojans believed, despite his protests that his father deserved all praise that he was the greatest man alive: strong, and skilled, generous, passionate, and intelligent. It was obvious that the gods smiled on Hector, blessing his marriage, his shield and sword; it was assumed that they joyously received his offerings. He called me little Cassandra.

It was Hector, just a few months earlier, whom I remembered asking mother and father to bring our brother home. At the time, I did not fully understand all of what was said. It was the first mention I had ever heard of our having a lost brother. Hector was nine years older than me, and one day I saw him passing through the halls on the way to our parent's receiving room. I tiptoed after him, hoping to leap on him as I often did to get caught up in one of his bear-like embraces. He got to them before I had the time, so I hid behind a pillar in wait for him. I watched and listened. His voice was strained and gently pleading, "Father is it not time for us to bring him back?"

My father cut his hand through the air, a gesture in the negative for him. "You know the reason that he was cast out, you forget that he is already blessed by having managed to stay alive." Priam's tone lacked the usual conviction, as if he was not certain of the truth in the words he spoke.

Hector was not satisfied, "Dreams are vain and idle, father, if not accompanied by divine counsel." Oh how those words would never leave me again Hector, you never knew did you that I lived the horror of that truth for years if you had… He continued speaking, "You know as I do that you have a fine son, languishing on the mountainside, among sheep and wild things."

The king and queen both answered vaguely, but I thought on this conversation frequently in the days before I left to find Paris myself. I concluded that if Hector wanted to find our brother, he must be a good man.

My appointed entourage and I left on a fall morning. By evening we were halfway there. On the second day of our journey, early in the bright morning I was distracted by a fiercely shining point of light that held my eye for a time and then vanished. I saw it from the chariot at whiles throughout the day. I could not figure out what it was, and I found myself hesitant to speak about it, since no one else remarked on it, and I did not want Semrais to think me ill and begin pestering me to turn around. I would stare at the keen object, only to catch myself doing so, shake my head, and readjust the veil that covered my face, thinking that the golden beads of the hem were playing with Helios to cast such an illusion.

As we reached a vale, where we stopped to water the horses and rest our legs, I saw it again, closer this time, but no larger, somehow. My eyes were dazzled and I do not remember standing or following it. I only knew that when I looked away I heard a fair voice singing among the bleats of sheep. I moved toward it and when I got nearby, I moved a branch aside to see him. Alexandros: the man from my vision. He was lovelier now, than he had been. He sang among his flock, a song about life inside a palace which he could not by any rights remember. He began to dance, moving his feet nimbly and gracefully. Then the light came again, just in front of me. I stepped backward apace, and opened my mouth, but no sound came forth. It flew straight inside of my open mouth, and all I felt then was a torpor—a rigid awareness, and the burning light that came with the sun-god's knowledge. The vision of Paris and the splendiferous woman with him came again.

I passed out of my body's usual confines and felt larger somehow, though less substantial at the same time. I was radiant, and I wandered into a corridor of trees with pale golden boughs. At the end of a row of laurel trees I saw the light. It was in the center of a being no less brilliant. A man, who shone, and smiled, and was beautiful beyond any comprehension. "Cassandra," he spoke, and his words pierced not only my ear, but also my essence, "you are so fair, and answered my call though perhaps you did not know. And I answered yours, even when you thought I would not move." His golden hand touched my face and left a trail of warmth lingering on my flesh.

"My Lord," I bowed, but he reached out after a moment and lifted my chin up to look at him. Or so that he could look at me. He was so open, and luminous, and his eyes seemed to hold no secrets. He simply smiled at me.

"I accept your vow to serve me, and would like to see you become a priestess at my temple. You may speak to me on behalf of your people, and to your people on behalf of me."

I would like to say that I doubted myself at that moment, that I was humble enough to remind Phoebus Apollo of my unworthiness, but I was not. I simply nodded my assent, though perhaps he was not giving me a choice so much as announcing a decision. I was never sure in the years that followed. Apart from accepting my vow, touching my face and piercing my soul with his light and voice, he demanded nothing else.

When I came to, I discovered that I had been missing for some hours, and then near the edge of the forest I'd run off to, on their way back they found me. Apparently the God had taken me bodily to that laurel glade and had not just simply placed the images inside my head. I was weak when I woke, but very alert. I knew that it had been no dream, just as the vision of predator birds had been no mere flight of fancy. I answered no questions, for honestly, I had no complete answers, 'I was with Phoebus Apollo,' seemed like it would open me up to too many more questions, so I remained silent until my nurse told the others to leave me be.