CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
MY LAUGHTER BURSTS OUT SO loudly it startles even me.
Theseus is bound to a rock – a man I can only assume is Pirithous beside him.
They are lashed on with layers of thick woven cords, stretching from their ankles to their necks and – in the case of Pirithous – even stretched across his eyes and mouth so he may not see or speak.
There is no torture beyond their confinement.
No vicious justice. They did not even make it to Tartarus and that somehow makes it all the funnier.
They tried to kidnap the queen of hell and she still decided they were so inconsequential she didn’t even need to concoct a brutal, threatening punishment.
Just a place to hold and forget about them.
‘You,’ Theseus snarls.
‘Me,’ I agree. He thrashes against the cords but it’s clear that’s not going to help much. It’s all so … pathetic.
‘You’re dead,’ he says as he takes me in – probably catching the glow of the fires behind me through my skin.
‘Yes. Though it took a while longer than your best efforts intended.’
He swallows, pressing his lips tight. ‘I’m sorry. You must know that – you told me of Minos and the cruelty encased in that palace but I didn’t understand how it could work its way into your mind like that. Turn you into the monster. I was misguided. I –’
‘And before that? When you left me on that island? I’m sure you didn’t anticipate I’d survive it.’
He lowers his eyes. ‘I didn’t think. Don’t mistake my foolishness for cruelty. I never –’
‘Gods, do you truly think me so naive?’ I demand.
His eyes flash. ‘History says yes.’
Regret stills his features a moment later.
I smirk. ‘You’re bound to a rock and you still can’t grovel long enough to request I free you?’
It’s all so … so nothing.
I can feel the hurt fading – maybe not completely, maybe not ever completely. But maybe it will hurt a little less with each passing moment – and passing moments are all I have left.
‘So now what?’ he asks. ‘We must be able to come to some sort of arrangement. Free me and I’ll make offerings at your grave. I’ll allow a temple to your husband in Athens. I’ll –’
I lean against a larger rock, facing him. I have so much time, after all.
‘History also declares your word isn’t worth that much.’
He falls silent, waiting.
‘I could fetch water from the Phlegethon. Drip it over you.’ I shrug, mulling the option over.
Fear lights in his eyes – as though for the first time realizing this could become so much worse for him.
That he is at my mercy.
It should feel wonderful. I want a rush – the same spike of power I felt twisting the labyrinths to my whims, an illusion of control where I sorely need some.
But I just feel … dead.
And I don’t think it’s my current state, either.
‘I could force it down your throat,’ I muse. ‘Watch it burn you from the inside out.’
But it’s my own stomach churning. I don’t want this.
Fuck. Medea was right. Revenge isn’t what’s fuelling me, not any more. And it’s already too fleeting to cling to. Even when I have nothing I still can’t grasp it enough to make it the only thing within my reach.
My fury is the only thing keeping me warm, she’d said. But you – you have other suns blazing within.
But I don’t, not any more – or I suppose I do, I have so many suns firing in my core that I might mistake it for the Phlegethon, but they’ll fade.
I’ll fade.
And all I will have left is my grief – not my rage, just misery.
Torturing Theseus won’t change the fact that he lied, that he touched me with falsehoods on his tongue and that he left me there, on the rocks, that I thought I would die a dozen times over, fighting for survival that never felt worth it, that he hurt me so profoundly I couldn’t even let something good happen to me.
I pushed it away because I couldn’t trust it any more.
Perhaps because at some point his lies became my truth, and even as I denied it, a part of me really did believe I’d invited the ruin into myself.
That it was my fault for trusting him. For sleeping with him.
For not being smart enough to see through his lies, for not being virtuous enough not to want it, for not being honourable enough to wait until marriage vows in earnest instead of seeking out a dozen technicalities.
And if I am not smart or virtuous or honourable then I didn’t deserve to be treated well.
That I still don’t.
That it doesn’t matter whether I knew what I was consenting to because I should have known better, should have anticipated the consequences …
‘Ariadne,’ Theseus says almost tenderly.
‘You don’t have to do this again. You defied your father to free us.
You fought to keep me from your sister. I’m sure you did something to end up here too.
But it doesn’t have to always be on you – those things are not your responsibility.
You’re dead. Let yourself rest. Don’t consume yourself with all this.
Free me. Let me return to the world of myth and heroes and monsters, and allow yourself to step away from it all at last.’
I look at him, bound there.
Dark shadows spill beneath his eyes. His broad swell of muscles has surrendered to the tightness of the ropes. And in those once-captivating eyes I see unwavering certainty. He’s not trying to manipulate me this time. He really, truly believes this.
That myth is made for men like him, and it awaits his return to it.
That girls like me are only there to bolster tales, and step aside when the time comes.
I cross to the rivers.
‘No!’ he calls. ‘Ariadne, please no.’
I find the largest shell I can – deep and cupped.
I remove the cloak draped across my shoulders and wrap it around my hand like it might protect me from the waters.
And I dip the shell into the nearest river, letting that milk-white water fill it.
‘Ariadne!’ he screams. Can he see me? Does he think I’m fulfilling my threat? The waters of the Phlegethon to burn him with?
I cross back to him carefully, not allowing a single drop of the waters of the Lethe to spill.
When I stand before him, I hold the shell up high.
‘No, no, please,’ he begs.
‘I think you’re right,’ I say. ‘Myth and stories have a way of coming back to claim men like you. I’m sure you’ll be free one day – maybe some other hero will rescue you and you’ll become nothing more than a way to bolster their story instead of your own.
Whatever happens –’ I bring the shell to his lips, even as he tries to strain away – ‘I want you to be a better person when you return.’
He butts it with his chin but I force it back. If there is revenge to be found, this is it.
The water spills across his lips. He coughs and splutters but some of those drops certainly make it down his throat. And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway; maybe one touch is all that is needed.
‘You have monsters to face,’ I say, pushing his hair back from his face so that I might look more clearly into his eyes. ‘You will be better for it.’
I bring my hand to his forehead, focus, and the walls of the labyrinth rise before us. He is no longer tied to the rock but standing before me, facing the winding path.
Free of his bonds, he shoves me hard against the stone.
He pins me there, frantically wiping at his mouth like he would draw the Lethe back out of it. Already a scowl is forming, his rage confused, like he can’t quite grasp why he despises me so. Like I – and everything else – am already slipping from his memories.
He presses his forearm into my neck. ‘What is this place? I … I’ve been here before.’
Not quite. This isn’t the labyrinth he once faced nor the brief glimpse I once pulled him into. It is solid and unwavering – the twisting, winding route a conjuring of his own mind.
‘It is many things,’ I say, wasting my dwindling breath on these final words. ‘For you, I hope it will be a lesson.’
I pull myself out, envisioning that spiralling thread I once handed to him tied about my core, yanking me free.
I step back to the plane of the Underworld, Theseus still bound to the rock, his eyes rolled back in his head, seeing not me but the winding path. The inevitable exit. The monsters along the way.
I pull my hand back, drop the shell and walk away.
‘Ariadne.’
I look up into a labyrinth of my own – the only destination I’ve ever wanted: radiant, arresting and staring right at me.
‘Dionysus.’