Page 118 of This Divine Revelry

There is a moment of silence, broken by Zeus’s bark of laughter. ‘You’ll regret that when you sober up, I imagine. In kindness, I will keep my offer open. But I wouldn’t take too long. I do so hate to be refused and it would be a true pity if Hera slaughtered you before I could swell the ranks of Olympus with the bastards she so merrily attempts to snuff out. Though if it came to it, I’m sure I could cope with her winning just this once.’

Footsteps crunch towards me and I duck further behind that rock.

The king of the gods stalks past, his every footfall thunderous.

He is long gone when Dionysus calls out: ‘New girl, it’s awfully rude to tell me to go on without you then follow me anyway. Now, will you please stop skulking?’

I emerge, scowl readied. ‘I was not skulking, I just … happened to run into you and didn’t want to interrupt. But perhaps I should have.’

‘Excuse me?’

The mountain ledge widens into a small plateau but the edge is sharp and sudden. There is enough light from the party behind us and the stars above to make out Dionysus, a golden beacon against the night, but it is not bright enough to see where the sudden rocks meet the endless sea and where the ocean touches the Heavens. It is all just darkness – beyond him, there is nothing.

‘Why did you refuse him?’ I demand.

Dionysus scoffs. ‘I should think that obvious.’

‘Is it?’ I push, nearing him now. ‘That would have solved everything. The heroes couldn’t reach you. You’d have power. You’d finally accomplish everything we’ve been working towards – that you and the thiasus have been fighting years for.’

He arches a brow. ‘Is that all?’

‘Is that all?’ I repeat, disbelieving. ‘You turned down a place on the council of the Olympian gods. The change you could have enacted in the world! And you’d have been safe within it. You would have had such power!’

His jaw tightens. ‘I would have had nothing.’

‘A home, a –’

‘I have a home.’

‘For how long?’ I cry – and, gods, I can feel it all churning within me. Anger, yes – but frustration and fear and something I don’t even know to name, only that it is white-hot within me and, gods, it burns so brightly it hurts. It’s all such damn agony. ‘How long until someone gets lucky? How long until they kill you, Dionysus? How long until Hera shifts her sights from Heracles back to you or a new hero comes along and succeeds where the rest have failed? How long do I have?’

Dionysus winces. He doesn’t answer at first, just reaches for my hand but I snatch it back and that hurt flashes in his eyes. Good. I shouldn’t be the only one feeling all this. ‘I don’t know how long,’ he says darkly. ‘But I would take an hour here over an eternity on Olympus.’

‘That’s stupid. That’s so unbelievably stupid – no one was forcing you to choose. You could have had forever and still had –’

‘I don’t care for forever, Ariadne. Not if it’s without you.’

‘You could have had me too!’

‘Maybe,’ he snaps, clearly irked that I’m not seeing whatever it is he sees, and I wish I could. I wish this would make some semblance of sense because I do not understand in the slightest. ‘Maybe I could have gone to Olympus and visited you all as regularly as I liked. Or maybe I’d have gone and while I was away someone would have taken you again – and maybe they wouldn’t have hesitated in killing you this time. Maybe I’d go and Perseus would decide the easiest way to destroy my worship would be to raze my temples and my followers both. Maybe I’d go and I’d lose everything. So no, darling, I don’t think I’ll take that risk.’

This time he does manage to catch my hand, and he entwines our fingers together. ‘If I am to take any risk at all, it will be with you by my side. Together.’

‘We can’t be together,’ I protest. ‘Not for … not for as long as you deserve.’

‘Well,’ he says simply, ‘we’re going to have to figure that out. Because I love you, and I refuse to do any part of this without you.’

His gaze does not waver once. It is solid and assured and it’s the only fixed thing as everything else falls apart around me. The wind and the rock and the ocean and the skies themselves and every single star. It fades like it was never real to begin with, each facet of our world and every myth that brought it forth nothing to the origin of him and I, like we are where it all starts – and where it all ends.

‘You love me,’ I repeat.

‘I do,’ he says, green eyes sparkling and … oh. Maybe it was never some godly radiance I was seeing there. Maybe it was some other warmth, flickering to life as he looks at me.

‘Loving me is a foolish reason to turn down a place on Olympus.’ My throat is tight, and my other words falter. If I truly cared for him, wouldn’t I lie now? Wouldn’t I tell him it’s not reciprocated and he should take the sanctuary he’s been offered, that he should run to it?

But our entwined hands fall against our hips, and his other trails down my face, just like it has so many times, and I can’t envision a world without that touch. Without the man leaning closer, the fan of dark lashes lowering, his gaze dropping to my lips and that one lingering breath he takes like he must cling to air while he has it.

‘I’m a fool in every other regard. Not this. You might be the only time I am perfectly serious.’