Page 141 of This Divine Revelry

‘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.