Page 67 of This Divine Revelry

If he wants to be seduced, then very well. But I hope he’s content with his desire never being satisfied.

He comes up behind me as we’re preparing to leave, his hands closing over the ring of gold encircling my waist.

I’d been adding small red suns to my cheeks. My mother always wore them for festivals or official gatherings. Perhaps all the women of my family have worn them for such events. I hope so. It is their strength I need to borrow, after all.

Their power. I can feel my own pulse, ticking in my neck, like it is not only blood rushing through my veins.

Dionysus brings his lips back to my ear.

‘Transcendent, as always,’ he says. I hear an echoing beat – his pulse, his magic. As though it has become my magic too – and, of course, in a way, it has. We tied our stories together. So it is his renown, and his legend, but it is also mine.

Would I grow stronger as well, if my tale spread?

Despite the metal between us, I feel his hands as though the belt has become hot liquid once more.

I arch into his touch and drop my voice low. ‘Let us hope Theseus thinks so.’

‘Every single person in Knossos will think so.’

He presses a kiss into the crook where my shoulder meets my neck. I want to turn and push him back on to the bed. I also want to slap him.

Before I can see which instinct will win, I step out of his touch and pull my dress up higher.

‘Come on, no point wasting the performance of your affection.’ I push the door open. ‘Shall we?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

AGUARD ESCORTS US DOWN to one of the dining halls. Dionysus takes my hand, his fingers entwining with mine.

His gaze darts about, taking in every inch of the art painted on the walls, the ceiling, hidden in crevices and cracks. The pictures are old, faded – painted long before my father sat upon the throne. Someone must have cared so much to create this. It is a relief to know that at some point the palace was a happy place.

The doors to the dining hall shine like jewels, olive green with spiralling borders winding into the centre – labyrinths everywhere. And when they open there is another: my family, seated and waiting.

Everyone but my father is here already.

Deucalion is tapping his fingers on the fine linen tablecloth. I’m unsure whether he’s irritated by the wait or that we are doing this at all – negotiating with Theseus and welcoming me back into the halls. He cares about little except the might of Crete and the throne he expects to inherit – but he has my father’s ear so I’m relieved he’s here. If we can’t rile my father up, perhaps he is our next best option.

Glaucus sits twirling a jewelled spoon in an empty bowl, my mother beside him. She looks up when I enter, her gaze softening. On her other side, Phaedra is steadfastly not looking at me. I roll my eyes – then catch myself. I’m a married fugitive, not a petulant princess. My sister doesn’t get to turn me back into one. But it requires my every effort not to send a petty barb her way. Perhaps to ask that if she is going to betray me again, she at least waits until after the legumes have been served.

Theseus sits opposite her, his legs stretched out languidly so his foot rests near hers. He gives us a single, disdainful glance as we take our seats before schooling his expression into something gentler.

‘Ariadne, I’m really so delighted you’re here. I didn’t –’

Whatever nonsense he’d been about to attempt to make convincing is halted by my father entering. His brow is an eternal glower, his arms tightly corded with bands of aged muscle. He’s never stopped training, never idled on the throne enjoying his sovereignty, never been satisfied with the power he holds. His presence is that hunger and ruthlessness incarnate, and even after a lifetime of it, I shrink into my seat in the face of him.

He does not acknowledge any of us as he enters, just takes his seat at the head of the table and barks to a servant to hurry up and bring us our meal.

He picks up his knife and holds it tight.

Then he pins his gaze on Theseus. ‘Care to revise your story? Evidently the daughter who betrayed me did not, in fact, perish as you had promised?’

Promised.

Dionysus’s hand falls to my knee, squeezing gently.

Is that why Theseus left me there? When my father declared my death no obstacle, did Theseus anticipate – correctly, apparently – that my father would be taken with the idea of my death? That it would be a better basis for their negotiations to return with a tragic tale than married to the woman my father would have thrown into a cage at the walls?

I place my hand atop Dionysus’s – wishing we could step aside. My stomach is tight, my throat dry.