‘I won’t be long.’
She unpinned her cloak and stowed it away in Hylas’ saddle bag, then checked her knife was securely tucked into the belt of her tunic. Lastly, she untied a coil of rope attached to a grapple hook and wound it around her arm. Moving as stealthily as possible across the sloping roof tiles, she crept towards the edge.
The streets of Athens spread out beneath her, a sea of winking brazier lights. The city was as loud as a storm-tossed coast.Kapeleiarumbled with merriment as their customers conversed over cups of wine and plates of victuals, and other late-night establishments beckoned patrons with the tantalizing glow of candles and the promise of blissful forgetting.
Danae padded along the edge of the roof, carefully measuring her steps. When she reached the correct spot, she hooked the grapple onto the lip of the palace roof. Once satisfied it would hold, she wrapped the rope around her thigh and slowly lowered herself past the stone pillars until she was parallel with a window on the second floor.
The shutters were closed, and arms of bronze filagree barred her way. This was the tricky part. She heaved her weight back and forth, until the swinging motion brought her within touching distance of the shutters. She collided with the wood and almost lost hold of the rope. They were bolted.
Of course they were. This was the king’s bedroom.
She cursed her own stupidity. After all her planning, she’d failed to account for a lock. But she was not thwarted yet.
During the past year, she hadn’t just spent her time running and chasing answers. She’d also been practising the skill of harnessing her powers. Wherever she and Hylas went, she had drained the life force from trees, bushes, livestock, every shimmering thread she consumed poured into better understanding her abilities and how to wield them with force.
As she swung back towards the window, she stretched out her arm and drew a tangle of life-threads into her hand. She’d left several trees withered and lifeless in the Athenian forest in preparation for tonight, but she hadn’t planned on using her powers so soon. Gods know how many threads she would need to fight her way out.
Her hand collided with the shutters. Wood splintered and bronze twisted as the windows were blasted open. She landed sprawled on a tiled floor. The room was vast, dominated by a huge bed on the far side, guarded by painted pillars and silk curtains.
Without pausing for breath, she leapt to her feet and sent another surge of life-threads into her arms while pacing across the room, giving her the strength to drag a heavy ornate table along the wall to block the double doors.
She had barely finished moving the piece of furniture when something cold and sharp pressed against her skin. Slowly, she turned.
King Theseus held a sword to her cheek. Silver light poured in from the window, throwing the creases of his face into shadow. His nostrils flared, and the corners of his mouth curved with disdain. He stood naked, one foot in front of the other, his weight perfectly balanced. This was a man who knew how to wield a weapon, so confident of his own power he hadn’t even called out for the guards. But then Theseus was no ordinary king. In his youth he’d been Greece’s greatest hero, until Heracles, the mortal son of Zeus, had claimed the title with his courageous labours. However, there were whispers that Theseus had travelled to lands even the mighty Heracles had not braved, and if legend was to be believed, had almost succeeded in kidnapping the goddess Persephone from Hades’ palace in the Underworld. Danae had good reason to hope this was true. The omphalos shard’s visions, the last piece of an obsidian stone that granted images of the future, had led her to Athens. Finally, she might be about to discover the answer she’d spent a year searching for.
Danae flinched at a crash behind her. The doors bulged against the weight of the table as they were battered from the other side.
‘My king! Are you hurt?’
Before Theseus could reply, Danae whipped a further clutch of life-threads into her hand and hurled him across the room. He crashed past the painted bed and smacked against the wall. Quick as she was, he still managed to cut her before his sword clattered away across the patterned floor. Blood dribbling down the front of her tunic, she leapt across the room and straddled him, her knife against his throat. Theseus looked dazed, his chest heaving.
‘Where is the entrance to the Underworld?’ Even as she spoke, she felt her energy wane. She’d mainly been reviving her powers with the life-threads of shrubbery and small animals. Even draining them from a couple of large trees didn’t come close to how she’d felt after absorbing the life of the harpy. She longed to feel that powerful again, ached for it, more than anything else in the world.
The table screeched against the floor as the guards doubled their efforts. She had moments.
Theseus stared at her, his mouth slack. She couldn’t believe this man had ever been called a hero. He was nothing like Heracles.
She pressed her knife against his jugular. The pressure of the blade biting into his skin brought clarity back to his stupefied face.
‘C-Cape Taenarum.’
She had her answer, but she didn’t let go.
‘What’s down there? Did you see the dead?’
‘I … didn’t get past the River Styx.’ The boundary of the Underworld, whose waters were said to be haunted by unburied souls. Danae’s heart sank. Theseus had never made it into Hades’ kingdom after all.
Beneath her blade, the king’s blood pulsed through his vein. It would be so easy just to flick her wrist. He wouldbleed out in a matter of moments. All those life-threads waiting to flee his body and be absorbed by hers. The memory of ecstasy shivered through her.
Do it, said the voice.He deserves it. Remember what he did to his son.
Danae recalled the sight of Hippolytus’ lifeless body, battered and mutilated by Theseus’ hounds. Retribution for the young man having an affair with his stepmother, Queen Phaedra. Danae bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted metal.
Another crash reverberated through the room.
She glanced at the window, then back at the quivering king. She kicked him hard between the legs. ‘That’s for Ariadne.’ Another of Theseus’ victims, Danae had met the Maenad woman on her home island of Naxos. Many years earlier, Theseus had taken Ariadne from her home on Crete, lain with her under the false promise of marriage, then abandoned her on the island.
Theseus groaned like a wounded bull as Danae leapt from the bed. She was halfway across the room when the doors flew open, sending the table crashing onto its side, and blue-cloaked Athenian guards poured in. Three or four she could have taken, but there were eight, all of them armed.
