CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
HADES SNAPS HIS FINGERS AND the shadows at our own feet pull us suddenly down. We are spat into a new, distant patch of asphodel.
‘This is as far as I can take you,’ Hades grumbles.
‘Don’t let any other gods see you or there will be questions about my soft heart that I don’t care to answer.
But you should know that leaving is not easy.
The gates themselves will force some sort of test and if you fail to pass it please don’t expect me to send you on to paradise.
You will face judgement just like everyone else. ’
Then he sinks back into the flowers, as though it is them he travels through rather than the shadows.
In the distance, I see the waiting souls at the banks of the river.
But Dionysus’s gaze doesn’t leave his own feet and all those secrets – the bargains and deals he’d failed to mention – spill out between us.
‘I can’t lose you again,’ he says, like it’s the only thing he can admit right now.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d joined the council? That you’d made an agreement with them?’
His breath shudders. ‘Because the Olympians weren’t the only ones who doubted I’d get this far.
I didn’t want to get your hopes up, didn’t want to get my own hopes up.
I didn’t think I’d even make it to the Underworld, let alone find you within it, escape without notice – certainly not get Hades to allow us to go. ’
‘Who told you the way?’ I ask – because it’s the only tangible question I have.
Dionysus glances around and then, lowering his voice, he says: ‘Hera.’
‘He–’ I exclaim before he claps his hand over my mouth and, irked, I push him away. Though his point was made so, lower, I hiss: ‘Why would she help? This is clearly a trap.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he says firmly. ‘I told you – I understand why she goes after the women and the bastards. She’s the goddess of marriage and her husband weakens her hold on her godhood with every affair.
But this? A god going to the Underworld to rescue his mortal wife?
To make her immortal too? That’s the sort of thing that could solidify her divinity for as long as they tell the tale.
So it appears, Ariadne, that you’ve achieved the impossible. You’ve brought Hera to my side.’
I stare because … because that’s his greatest fear simply erased. Hera will no longer come for him … because of us.
‘I’ve planned this, Ariadne. Thought each step of it out.
And somehow, impossibly, it’s worked. The gate is troubling but from every rumour I’ve heard, its intention is to confuse you and sow seeds of doubt – and here you are with powers of clarity, to pinpoint the right path and work to the centre.
We should be past the worst of it now but … ’
‘But?’
‘But immortality isn’t just something you can receive. You’re not a child being slowly imbued with it. It has to be taken. And I don’t know if that’s something you’d do.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I’m not sure you’re capable of grasping it.
’ He draws us so suddenly to a halt in the dry sands of the Acheron that the dust kicks up around our feet, staining the hem of my chiton.
‘You risked everything to save those Athenians. Gave up your hand to save your sister. Ruined your reputation to secure her freedom. Passed your chance at an eternity of paradise over to a child. And, of course, threw your life aside to save my own.’
‘I –’
‘No, I’m not done, Ariadne! Because even now I’m crawling into the Underworld to rescue you and you still tried to take the blame when we were caught.
Do you know what it’s like to love someone who so continuously sees themselves as a sacrifice?
Your happiness isn’t less important than anyone else’s.
Your life isn’t less important. And your pain isn’t a worthy trade for anything.
So here I am, dangling immortality and worried you’d give it all up for the first person who asked. ’
My heart pounds and I don’t really know what we are fighting about – are we even fighting? It’s all tense and he’s clearly upset, but it’s a desperate sort of pain and it half feels like he’s begging too.
Like he wants me to prove him wrong.
Can I?
‘I wouldn’t give it up,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing I want more than an eternity by your side.’
‘That’s not enough. Ariadne, I …’ He makes as though to look away but then turns his attention back to me quite intently. ‘Traumatic events can trigger psychotic breaks, did you know that?’
‘Are you –’
He nods. ‘I’ve noticed a few things. Voices. The occasional hallucination. I don’t think I’m spiralling quite like I was, but Silen went to fetch one of those potions your cousin Medea offered. Maybe I’ll be fine or maybe it will get bad again.’
‘Well, that’s even more reason for me to live!’
‘This is precisely my point. Your reason cannot be me. Want to help me, yes. Want to be by my side, absolutely. We deserve a life together. I deserve it. And you deserve it. Do you believe that part? All these heroes are vying for immortality and it’s being offered to you.
Do you think you’re worthy? Because you need to wrest it to keep it.
It is the power of a god. You need to believe yourself as entitled to it as we do. ’
‘I …’
I want it – but I want it because I want to be with him. I want him but I also want his happiness. For him not to be alone. Dionysus is still centred in all that and I don’t know how to unpick what I desire and what I desire for him.
Do I deserve it? After everything I’ve done and the mistakes I have made and …
I close my eyes, imagining a labyrinth of my own.
My father perched upon his throne. Theseus at the helm of a ship.
Perseus brandishing a shield. I deserve it more than those people, certainly.
But I see Charis too, running from her home just as I did because she also wanted to save the Athenians.
I see Myrto stringing flowers up over my bed just so I’d feel welcomed; and Opora crossing in that boat with Icarus’s palm in her hand; and Zosime helping me even though she hated me.
I don’t deserve eternity more than any of them.
But … but perhaps it is not a matter of comparison or a matter of what should be, but of the actuality of the world we live in.
One where gods chase children across the ocean for their parents’ mistakes.
Where they fight one another for legacy and glory, and maybe, in that world, who deserves a thing does not matter, but rather who takes it and what they do with it.
But there’s a responsibility there too.
‘I love you,’ I say, taking his hand and closing the distance between us.
‘I want to be with you and I want to never leave your side. But I love so much else too, Dionysus. I want to live. I want to dance – joyously and recklessly – and I want to spill wine down my finest dresses and braid flowers with my friends. I want to experience everything I was denied in the palace of my childhood and everything I feared I’d never taste when I was abandoned on that island.
I want to make the world a better place.
I want to fill it with fun and laughter.
I’m not too fussed about the sunsets, actually – but, Fates, I want every single sunrise.
I want so much. And I think they teach us our wants are wrong and shameful because they’re powerful.
They fear that hunger. But I want to never stop wanting. ’
He pushes a fallen lock of my hair behind an ear, caressing my face.
‘Your eyes are burning,’ he says. ‘That passion, that desire … cling to it.’
I cling to it now – reaching for him and pulling him closer. I hesitate for a second before our lips touch, lingering in the sweet anticipation, in the way his breath hitches, in the static that flickers between us. I want and I want and I want.
Our lips touch with all the crackling power soon to run through my veins. He holds me close, his rings sliding down the ridges of my spine as he finds the small of my back, pressing me against him. He is the way out, the exit, the promise at the centre. He is the world beyond.
And he has come to take me to it.
But it’s not enough.
‘How much clay did Hephaestus have?’ I ask, drawing away. Ahead, a soul breaks free of the masses and starts towards us – like she knows.
‘What?’ Dionysus asks, a scowl forming between his brows.
‘Enough for another body?’
His eyes widen. ‘No, whatever you’re proposing – no.’
‘I’m not sacrificing myself,’ I say. ‘But I’m not sacrificing the thing I hold most dear either. That’s what they do. I have no interest in only freeing myself from the labyrinth.’
‘Ariadne,’ he growls. ‘You cannot save everyone. Just once, save yourself.’
‘I am saving myself,’ I say. ‘And then, when I’m immortal, I can use that immortality just as you do to help others.
Don’t misunderstand me – I am absolutely getting out of here.
I am first out that door – but I’m leaving it open behind me.
And I’m reaching down to haul others out.
Power might not trickle down but perhaps kindness might.
Or freedom. Or choice. If I am to become immortal, Dionysus, I’ll do it on my terms – not Hades’, not Zeus’s and not yours either.
’ I squeeze his hands tight. ‘And I need to start as I mean to go on – I might not be able to save everyone, but I can start with one and hope that trickles outwards.’
Dionysus is half despairing and half riveted – like he might resent everything I am saying yet also love me for it.
‘I agreed to the impossible to free one soul, you –’
‘Well, I didn’t. The entitlement of a god, right?
This is mine. I didn’t make any deals – you did.
And if Zeus has decreed you must retrieve a soul from the Underworld for a place on the council, then I’ll take up that quest too.
You want me immortal, Dionysus, you want me to snatch eternity from the gods themselves, then this is what it looks like.
I will not become them. I will be better. ’
He swallows. ‘Your eyes are glowing again.’
That passion, that desire. This is it. I watch as he realizes it, as that silence settles.
‘I need you to want this for yourself,’ he says, anguished. ‘Or it won’t take. It won’t work.’
‘I do want it. I meant every word I said. But I also know who I am, Dionysus. And this deal you’ve made is not enough for me. I’m demanding immortality – and I’m demanding so much more.’
He steps forward and leans his forehead against mine.
‘Alright. We can try. I should have known you wouldn’t make your own resurrection easy, you obstinate, deplorable woman and love of my wretched existence.
’ He draws an amethyst from a pouch at his hip.
A sixth. ‘I made it before I … Well. Perhaps together, on the other side, we’ll find the seventh. We’ll complete it.’
I curl it tight in my hand – which feels more corporeal. Like just this resolution has made me real.
‘I love you,’ I say again.
‘I love you too. Now pick your damn soul and let’s get out of here before Hades realizes what we’re doing.’
‘Her,’ I say – just as she reaches us. A woman whose decayed soul was kind, who wanted to help others – who danced at the end of the world and clung on to hope even when they tried to wrench it from her.
‘Ariadne,’ she says, blinking softly like Theseus did as the Lethe washed his memories away. Like my name is already a fleeting thing.
‘We found a way out,’ I say. ‘Back to life. It will be dangerous, but if you want to come with us then –’
‘What?’ she asks – a jump in her voice. Incredulous. Excited. Hopeful. ‘Yes! Of course I want to come with you!’
‘Excellent,’ Dionysus grumbles, holding his hand out to her. ‘I’m Dionysus –’
‘Dionysus!’ she exclaims, clapping her hands over her mouth and darting her gaze between us. ‘Ariadne! That’s what I came over to tell you! Oh, I knew I knew that name! Someone down there mentioned you both. A new soul, I think. Perseus?’
Dionysus swears. ‘I forgot dolphins could die too. That was quick.’
‘I hope it was a shark,’ I add.
‘I’m hoping for a sea monster. Keto deserves vengeance.’
Dionysus grabs my hand. ‘Let’s go before he gets any ideas.’
I hold my other hand out and the woman takes it.
This way, the voice in my head whispers – finally.
I take us in the right direction – too far, perhaps, for the unhealed souls at the river’s edge to reach. But the promise of an escape seems to have renewed the spirit beside me and with Dionysus’s hand in mine I feel so alive I might set my own stone heart beating again.
We meet a curve of the river and race along it. When I see a boat tethered to the banks, it makes clear why I couldn’t access this exit before – I needed this. Needed Dionysus.
We throw ourselves over its side and I take up the oars, seeing those gates arching over the water ahead, the same wrought iron as Hades’ crown.
They twist into swirling darkness, pitch and hollow and void.
But my power sparks, those instincts surging on – and I could swear at the centre I see a rising sun.
Dionysus turns to the woman. ‘Whatever happens in there, follow Ariadne and don’t let go. She can get us out.’
They clasp my shoulders, gripping me tight. I face the darkness.
An exit, a labyrinth beyond. A path out.
I race towards it and I do not look back.