CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
‘Urgh. They haven’t been the same since I lent them to that demigod,’ he says, like that might explain anything.
Silen offers a hand to help him to his feet. ‘Always a pleasure to see you, Lord Hermes.’
Hermes! Though of course I should have known that. The winged sandals ought to have been immediately telling – and here I am having once claimed to be a priestess. Hermes – god of a great many things, among them spiriting souls to the Underworld and acting as the messenger for the gods.
It’s unclear which purpose he’s here for.
Hermes brushes off his robes. ‘Do continue. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
Dionysus regards him without his usual joviality. ‘Are you alone?’
Hermes’s gaze softens. ‘Sorry. They did want a full report, though, asked me to pass on any salacious details. You know what they’re like – always a new hero to cheer on or mortal to chase …’
Dionysus’s jaw clenches, but it’s the only sign of his anger.
They aren’t just the gods – they’re his family.
His own father refused to come to his wedding and, alright, I’m probably not one to speak about such things – if my own were here, he’d be readying another arrow – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
Mine does – that my father would see my death as little more than an obstacle before him.
That my mother who only ever wanted my joy can’t be here to see it.
That Charis wasn’t the one who cut my hair this morning and that Phaedra isn’t here smarting over the fact I get to marry an actual god … It all hurts.
‘There’s a bit of a battle for the sky at the moment.
They’re distracted. Father has the overview of it, of course.
But the stars are unspoken for. Zeus keeps placing his lovers up there and Hera keeps sending the monsters up after them – once they’re done with Heracles, obviously.
I’m sure they’d all have been here if they could. ’
It’s a hollow lie, and Dionysus laughs in the face of it. ‘No matter, we wouldn’t want to temper our celebration anyway.’
I take Dionysus’s hand, drawing him back to me. He turns, and I cradle his face, angling it towards mine. There is a split second of doubt there, before he realizes what I’m doing and nods, almost imperceptibly.
I kiss him quickly – like it means nothing. But that’s as much a lie as everything else. It means forget everybody but me and I am here and we do not need anyone else. It is the mortals we need to convince, after all. Not the gods.
And if I’d heard a tale like this – a girl so abandoned, rescued and given the world – I might have spared a prayer or offering for him too.
‘Please, my love,’ I say. ‘I cannot wait another second to marry you.’
I see the hurt still, but I have my own, aching within.
And, beyond it, I have the flames of the thing that pain has created.
I am alone here – because of him. Marrying Dionysus – because of him.
Can still feel the way he slipped inside me, first with his false promises and then with his skin, the way he made my body feel not quite my own but a thing that fell for the lies he told, and how I cannot trust anything, not completely any more – because of him.
And, oh gods, I will see him undone.
Dionysus must see, if not the flames, then the smoke. He must see the way it consumes me because he brushes my hair back, his fingers ghosting across the diadem he crafted.
He smirks – and I see his rage too. At the gods who decided he was not worthy of their time. At the mortals who would doubt him. At a world that has always been poised to take everything from him.
Make them burn with it. Make them choke before we can.
His hand slides to the small of my back, drawing me in. ‘I can’t carry the love I hold for you quietly. It’s too loud, too monumental. I would shout it from mountainsides. I would carry it across the ocean. I would hang it from the Heavens. My love for you, Ariadne, demands to be witnessed.’
His lips crash into mine, and my fingers tense back into his chiton, pulling him close. The flames within lick at my skin like they would break through. Like they want to taste him too …
It’s sweet, the revenge carried on his lips.
It crackles – at least … at least I think it’s the revenge.
The collaboration. The hurt pushing us on.
Because when his fingers thread through my hair, gasping me closer, I feel a tug in my core, like it is still not close enough.
And when his teeth graze my lower lip, I want him to bite down, like it might stop us from being parted.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, breathes it against my lips as he reaches up – and suddenly strands of my hair fall against my face, the diadem holding them back lifted.
I startle, looking at it caught within his hands; the amethysts glow, brighter and brighter until my eyes shut against them.
When I risk looking, the world is framed by my squinting lashes, and those lights spiral up into the sky, just like I twirled down the aisle to this marriage.
They settle in the stars.
A new constellation, mine and his.
Our love, demanding witness.