Page 56 of This Divine Revelry

He arches a brow. ‘My wife? What are you doing out here?’

Right, we’re supposed to be happily married.

I shuffle back. ‘Come in, then.’

‘Why, thank you, what a beautiful home you’ve built.’

He doesn’t sound at all sarcastic, and that’s almost more worrying.

‘This works well anyway; Hermes can take the cabin.’

‘Great.’ I throw myself back on to the pile of sheets and draw one up over my head, hoping that might be the end of our conversation.

‘Hmm, I can still see the outline of you. You might want to try Hades’ helm of darkness if you wish to truly disappear.’

‘Only when you speak to me,’ I mutter.

‘Marital turmoil already, I really thought –’

I sit bolt upright to face him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Joining you in a poorly rigged tent on the deck of a moving ship. I was hoping you might explain beyond that.’

‘Stop it. You don’t get to draw me in then push me back the moment you decide I’m too close. It’s not fair.’

‘I’m trying to protect you.’

‘Do that, then. If you want to force me away because you foolishly believe it will keep me safe, then commit. Stop coming crawling after me the moment you decide you miss me enough to justify it.’

He scowls, affronted. ‘I don’t miss you. The only thing I care about is seeing this farce through and if you’re not going to pretend to love me, I have a right to know why.’

‘I love you; you are every bit the light of my life as those seven stars shining in the Heavens; I only know one truth of my soul and it is that it calls your name. Better?’

‘Infinitely.’

I lie back down and curl away from him.

‘Ariadne,’ he says, softly now.

‘Theseus kept me in the cabin of his ship,’ I say, just as quietly. Like if I’m not looking at him and not speaking loudly, I don’t have to acknowledge I’m saying it at all. ‘A prisoner he didn’t even have to bind, because he did it with lies and promises instead.’

Told me to stay there because the others might hurt me. Isolated and on my own, with only him to turn to.

He made himself my entire world, then stole it from me.

I am beginning to understand that this is so much more than him reneging on his promises and abandoning me on Naxos. He wanted to take my supposed purity, but instead thieved some good, kind, trusting part of myself instead. His cruelty was many-layered and I just want it to stop hurting.

Dionysus is, for once, quiet.

Then he lies down beside me.

‘It’s nice out here. The wind, the waves … I’d much rather be here than down there, personally.’

I curl my fingers into the blanket. Impossible to believe, really, that I woke to this man’s panic. To him crouched before me, whispering gentle words, hoping I might be lucid enough to understand them.

‘I don’t want a lover, Dionysus. One day, maybe, when I avenge myself on Theseus and heal whatever it was he broke. Right now I think if love found me I’d only hurt it in turn. So all I want from you is the same friendship you seem to have no problem giving anyone else on this boat. And if you can’t do that, then …’ I pause, swallowing around the words that will not come. But then I look at him, toying with a loose thread like he’s not quite sure why he’s here either. Not really – and that infuriating uncertainty forces them out. ‘Then I really wish you’d have told me before I married you.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE