CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO #2
Dionysus, I think, as I push one into the flame. It’s Ariadne.
I’m on Perseus’s boat.
I think he may be headed for Naxos.
A little help, please?
He said it was a flare in the dark. True, I’m on a moving boat but … maybe. Maybe.
I cannot tie my hands back up – and I know I’m in for some punishment or other when they return for me. But for now I enjoy the feeling of the freedom and, with a relatively full stomach and free hands, I revel in so little pain.
Hope burns in my chest, and, clinging to its warmth, I curl up and sleep.
I jolt awake with the urge to run.
Right, along, then up up up.
I don’t know where we are, or what’s happening, only that escape must suddenly be a possibility. And I refuse not to at least try.
I rush to the door, press my ear against it but can hear nothing so I risk the handle.
It turns – not normally a cell, then, but …
a storeroom. I face stacks of crates and carefully aligned amphorae.
I’ve seen snatches of this before as I’ve been dragged from my room to the one Perseus interrogates me in but I hadn’t been cognizant enough to take it in.
Now I see the ladder at its edge. I race, hauling myself through the sleeping quarters – all empty – and ahead shouting filters through.
I may be running into danger but at least I’m running. At least I’m trying to survive this.
The shouts turn to screams, metal clashing, hurried pounding steps.
I peek through the hatch to the deck, spotting a dozen hammocks, delightfully empty, and hearing the shouting coming from above. Perhaps whatever chaos is unfolding will enable my escape?
I burst on to the deck, having to practically hurl myself up.
Dionysus.
He’s alive, he’s here. He stands at the head of the ship, a circle of men forming around him, their swords drawn. Perseus, notably, is absent.
Likely fled at the first notice of the god’s approach – unwilling to face him with his powers intact.
Dionysus holds his arms out, fingers splayed like he’s about to weave the air, and it’s enough to have the men stepping into formation but not to risk running him through.
‘You know, when I was kidnapped I turned the entire crew into dolphins. What exactly do you imagine I’ll do to the men who took my wife?’
My skin prickles because he’s so … It’s not anger quite so much as fury.
Righteous fury. The sort that rains from the Heavens.
He’s a god – and in this moment it is undeniable.
He is so flippant, so baffling that sometimes I forget the sheer power that is his to wield – and now he would wield it for retribution.
My retribution.
His gaze catches mine – surprised, alarmed – but quickly he nods to the back of the boat and I make my way there, half expecting to find the thiasus hiding to smuggle me away while he performs the ultimate distraction.
One of the sailors catches the movement, turning and shouting – and another runs towards me.
‘No!’ Dionysus snarls, pointing a hand – and I feel the magic arc in our direction, the intent, the will of the gods.
But nothing happens.
And the men notice nothing happen.
They turn back to him and take a further step forward, tentative – but nowhere near as reluctant as moments before.
‘Fuck,’ Dionysus says, shaking his hand like the magic might be stuck within.
I duck out of the path of the man coming for me, try to reach for anything to use as a weapon but there’s nothing.
I pull a torch out of a bracket and wave it menacingly but he knocks it from my arm, grabs my wrist and throws me against the mast. I hit it hard, turn before the next blow can come but there’s Dionysus, sword in hand, which he brings down in a wicked arc towards the man who’d attacked me.
Metal sings. I scramble back. The man disarms Dionysus in one fell swoop but it’s almost like Dionysus expected it because he drops the sword himself, curls his hands, and before the man knows what is happening his fist is flying into his face.
Dionysus whirls. ‘New girl, I thought I made it quite clear you belonged with the thiasus.’
‘You think I chose to be here?’ I scoff – and before I can berate him further, he grabs me by the waist and hauls us up to the very edge of the ship.
‘You need to stop punching people for me,’ I protest.
‘It worked so well for me last time.’
And then, even though it’s incredibly stupid, I kiss him like we have the time for it.
He’s here. That power within me led me right to him – saw him as my escape and hurried me along.
I breathe him in, every part – and whatever hope flared when I summoned him blazes.
His kiss contains its every flickering flame.
He pulls away to reach a hand out in warning to the men closing in on us again.
It buys us a second.
My eyes dart across him like the fact of his presence might register if I just look at him long enough.
The sea breeze tosses each copper curl back, tugs on the edge of his chiton so he is windswept to the point of dishevelment.
His arm still encircles me, but I place my hand on his chest, half expecting it to go straight through.
‘You’re here,’ I say stupidly.
He regards me levelly, for once serious. ‘I have all but wrenched the oceans apart in search of you.’
His lips close back on mine, one hand holding my waist not only firm but …
vice-like. Oh. I grasp his shoulders, realizing what is about to happen just as his eyes shoot open and he looks down at his feet.
Hermes’s sandals. He stamps them like the force might stretch those wings out and fly us to safety.
The men close in around us, their blades seconds away from slashing our throats.
‘Sorry about this,’ Dionysus says – and my stomach plummets.
‘No, don’t you dare –’ I do not even know what I am refuting, only that he has that look in his eye like he is about to do something incredibly reckless, a gamble only he could pull off.
He brings his other arm around me too, pulling my whole body close. Then he jumps, taking me with him.
Together, we plunge into the ocean below.