A strangled cry startled him awake.
He rolled over and back onto his ass, summoning his thyrsus, only to come face-to-face with a sheep.
“Where did you come from?” he snapped.
The sheep bleated loudly, and Dionysus cringed at the sound.
His head hurt and the sun was making it worse. He squinted against it and then took in his surroundings. The cyclops’s island was vast and wooded, rising into high mountainous slopes.
If the cyclops was among them, he wouldn’t even be able to tell.
“Baa!” The sheep’s sudden cry made him jump.
“Gods, will you stop doing that?”
He glared at the sheep, but it continued to scream at him.
“What do you want?” he snapped, rising to his feet.
The sheep backed away and started to turn, bleating as it did.
“I’m not following you,” Dionysus said.
The sheep seemed to glare at him, which left him feeling uneasy. It reminded him of Ariadne’s frustration.
Fuck. What if she was turned into a sheep?
What if this sheepwas Ariadne?
You’re a fucking idiot, he scolded himself.
But he found himself taking a step toward the sheep, which offered another wavering cry and started toward the dense green forest ahead.
Dionysus followed, feeling ridiculous but also hoping the animal might lead him to others and eventually the cyclops.
The terrain was thick and varied, the ground covered in vines that tangled around his feet. After tripping once, he was over it and used his magic to untangle a clear path as he followed the sheep. It was not long before they came to a quiet river, which the sheep seemed to follow up and into the more mountainous part of the island.
At some point, the sheep stopped and turned to look at him. “Baa!” it yelled.
Gods, he hated that sound, but the creature was looking up at a towering cave where several sheep had been herded.
His heart raced. This had to be where the cyclops lived.
Dionysus scrambled across the river and scaled the steep incline to the cave where the cyclops’s flock was gathered. The ground was littered with bones, and his stomach churned as he fought the urge to call out to Ariadne, not knowing what lingered in the cave. Most of it seemed to be well lit, given that part of its roof had fallen away, allowing sunlight inside. The entrance sloped down, and at the base, there was a lake, green in color.
The sheep gathered near it, their bleating cries echoing inside the cave, making him cringe, though he hoped it was enough to drown out his footsteps as he crept through the shadowy parts of the cave, scanning the mossy rocks for any sign of Ariadne.
Suddenly, he spotted a hand sticking out from the darkness.
“Ari!”
Her name slipped from his mouth, a cry he could not contain. He raced to her, and his hand had barely touched hers when she was yanked away.
Dionysus’s eyes widened, and he looked up into a pair of red-tinged eyes.
“What the fuck?” he said and summoned his thyrsus. The weapon seemed to trigger the creature in the shadows, because its eyes flashed and then it bellowed, lurching toward him and out of the shadows.
Dionysus was face-to-face with the ophiotaurus. Its shoulders were hunched, neck curved, hoofs pawing at the ground.
He took a step back and it lurched forward, farther into the light. He noticed the rest of its body, which went from that of a bull to a serpent tail, curled protectively around Ariadne, who was not conscious.
“Ari,” Dionysus said again and started toward her, but the ophiotaurus roared, and he froze. “Easy,” Dionysus said, holding up his hands. “I came to rescue her.”
The ophiotaurus stared, still rigid.
“Were you protecting her?”
The creature huffed a few times, and Dionysus took the opportunity to inch toward her. The ophiotaurus kept its spotted and striped tail around her.
He didn’t take his eyes off the creature until he had knelt beside Ariadne. He wanted to take her into his arms, to make sure she was okay, but he knew if he moved too fast, the ophiotaurus would react.
Instead, he stroked her face and muttered her name, and her eyes fluttered open.
For a moment, she looked confused, but when she recognized him, relief flashed in her eyes, and she smiled, though it vanished quickly, and the ophiotaurus emitted a low, hollow sound as a shadow passed over him.
Something was wrong.
He stilled and turned in time to see the cyclops’s hand barreling toward him.
“Stranger,” said the cyclops. His voice was loud and made Dionysus’s ears ring. The cyclops’s fingers closed around him tightly, stealing his breath as he lifted him to his narrowed eye. “Have you come to steal my sheep?”
“No,” said Dionysus, struggling in his grasp. His hands were trapped too close to his body to summon his thyrsus. Even if he could, he’d have no room to use it. “I have not come to steal your sheep.”
“Then you have come to kill me,” the cyclops said, voice rising in rage.
“Are those your only visitors?” Dionysus asked. “Those who wish to steal your sheep and those who wish to kill you?”
“Visitor?” the cyclops asked. “I do not know that word. I know thief. I know murderer.”
“Then allow me to teach you a new one,” said Dionysus.
“I also know trick, stranger,” said the cyclops. “Is this one?”
“No,” said Dionysus. “But if it would please you, I will make an offering of good faith.”
“What sort of offering, stranger?”
“My very best wine,” he said.
“I do not know wine,” said the cyclops.
“Then you shall know today,” said Dionysus. “Let me down and I shall share my drink with you.”
“No tricks?” said the cyclops, wary but curious.
“None,” Dionysus promised.
The cyclops glared at him for a few moments, long enough to make Dionysus think he might choose to crush him instead, but then he set him on his feet.
Dionysus took the opportunity to glance in the direction of Ariadne and the ophiotaurus, but he could not see them, thoroughly hidden in the darkness of the cave.
He took a few careful steps toward the pool in the cave.
“Do you drink this water?”
“Drink, wash, bathe,” said the cyclops.
Dionysus tried not to look disgusted as he summoned his magic and turned the still water into a deep, red wine.
He turned toward the cyclops. “Drink, friend.”
The cyclops looked at him warily but eventually dipped his cupped hand into the wine and brought it to his lips. He paused a moment, as if testing the flavor on his tongue, and then he seemed to purr, pleased. “It is good,” he said, and then he shoved his face into the wine and drained the whole lake.
The cyclops sat amid his sheep as Dionysus waited for the wine to take root, trying his best not to glance too often at the darkness where Ariadne and the ophiotaurus still hid.
“What is your name, stranger?”
“Oh, I am no one,” said Dionysus, unwilling to offer up his name, though he was a god.
“No one?” the cyclops said. “I am Polyphemus.”
“A pleasure,” Dionysus said.
“How did you come to my island?” the cyclops asked.
“I was stranded here,” said Dionysus. “I am afraid I do not know where I am.”
“This is Thrinacia,” Polyphemus said. “You will have to know if you are ever to visit again.”
Dionysus smiled. At least he had some idea of where they were now.
“Would you like more wine?” Dionysus asked.
“But there is not water for you to turn into wine,” said Polyphemus.
“I do not need water to make wine,” said Dionysus, and suddenly, the lake was full again, and Polyphemus downed another batch.
This time, when it was gone, Dionysus refilled it without question.
“That is quite a trick,” said Polyphemus, blinking slow and swaying.
“I suppose it was a trick,” said Dionysus.
“I think…I think I have been poisoned,” said the cyclops, slurring, and then he swooned and crashed to the ground, unconscious.
As soon as he was down, Dionysus scrambled to his feet, and Ariadne darted from the shadows, throwing her arms around him.
“Dionysus,” she whispered, and his name had never sounded so good.
He kissed her, holding her face between his hands. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, holding his gaze. “You came for me.”
“Of course,” he said.
The ophiotaurus huffed, drawing their attention. Ariadne pulled Dionysus closer to the creature.
“This is Bully,” she said. “He’s a friend.”
“Bully?” Dionysus asked. A friend?
“That’s his name,” she said.
“You named the ophiotaurus?”
“Well, I had to call him something,” she said. “He kept me safe.”
He smiled at her and shook his head a little. “Fuck, Ari. I didn’t know what to think. I—”
“It’s all right, Dionysus,” she said, her eyes searching his, and then he kissed her again.
He was too relieved to think twice about it, too grateful she was okay to feel awkward or uncertain.
“How sweet,” said a voice, and then the ophiotaurus roared.
They whirled to find Theseus standing a few paces from them with two men, who had restrained the ophiotaurus. Bully was pushed onto his back so his soft belly was exposed.
Before Ariadne could scream, Theseus plunged his knife into the creature’s stomach to the hilt and then dragged it down.
“No!” Ariadne shrieked, jerking in his arms as Dionysus held her, unwilling to let her go.
The ophiotaurus’s bellow turned into a low and keen cry before it was silent.
With the creature slain, Theseus turned to them, blood spattered across his front, while the two men who accompanied him fished inside the ophiotaurus for its intestines.
“Fuck you!” Ariadne spat, tears tracking down her face.
Dionysus held her against him, his arms crossed over her chest.
“Now this I never expected,” Theseus said. “Bonding with a monster other than Dionysus.”
“You’re the monster!” she seethed.
Theseus placed a hand over his heart. “Oh, how you wound me, Ariadne, and after I have taken such care of your sister.”
“Don’t let him provoke you, Ari.”
“Is it Ari now?” Theseus asked, his eyes shifting to Dionysus. “Did you call her that before or after you fucked?”
Dionysus glared. He did not know if the demigod was only assuming, but his fixation on Ariadne was evident. This was more than jealousy. It was obsession.
Theseus’s men finished with the ophiotaurus, and they each approached and flanked him with handfuls of intestines.
“It is too bad, Ari, that you cannot see my potential even as I hold it in my hands.”
“You aren’t holding anything,” she said.
Dionysus chuckled, but Theseus glared, and his lip curled into a snarl, then he held up his bloodied knife.
“Oh, look. You were wrong.”
Theseus appeared in front of them and drove his knife toward Ariadne. Dionysus blocked the blow with his arm, though the blade lodged in his flesh. At the same time, he summoned his thyrsus and shoved it into the demigod’s stomach. Theseus’s eyes widened. Dionysus wrenched free from Theseus, who stumbled back, holding his hand to his stomach where he bled.
“If you hurt her, I will kill you,” said Dionysus.
“Get in line,” Theseus replied, and when he smiled, his teeth were bloody.
It seemed that Theseus was slow to heal. What a grave weakness. He was clearly very much aware of that fact too, because he decided against attacking again, and instead, he and his two men vanished, taking the ophiotaurus’s intestines with him.
When they were alone, Dionysus released Ariadne, who raced to the creature, lowering to her knees. A horrible cry tore from her throat as she extended a shaking hand to pet the creature, and the only thing Dionysus knew to do was hold her too.
“I hate him,” Ariadne said on a shuddering breath.
“I know.”
He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but the sudden flare of Hermes’s magic straightened his spine. He knew it because it had haunted his dreams a time or two—and as it surrounded them, they were pulled from the cave and deposited on the hard and pristine floor of Hades’s office at Nevernight.
“I never thought I would see the day you knelt at my feet,” said Hades.
Dionysus ignored Hades’s comment while he stood and helped Ariadne up. She wiped at her face with her hands, trying to recover from the horror they’d experienced in the cave.
When he did look at the god, Hades’s expression was a strange mix of confused frustration.
“Perhaps you should try kneeling too,” Dionysus said. “You’ll have to get used to the pose. Theseus has slain the ophiotaurus.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
HADES
Hades sat on the couch staring into the fire, and while he should be thinking about what he would do now that the ophiotaurus had been slain, he could only think about Persephone. It wasn’t even the way they’d parted that weighed heavily on his mind; it was their future, which would likely not exist once Zeus discovered everything he’d been hiding. How long until his brother discovered not only that the ophiotaurus had been killed but that Hades was also responsible for its resurrection because he’d killed one of Zeus’s closest friends and servants, Briareus?
How long until Zeus not only forbade his marriage but wed Persephone to someone else?
He recognized his concerns were selfish, and if it were Persephone, she would worry over humanity, but humanity rebuilt itself even in the aftermath of the most destructive battles.
There would be nothing to rebuild if he lost her.
There was a knock at his door.
He looked up to see Ilias enter his office.
“I thought you might want to see today’s headline,” he said, handing Hades a copy of the New Athens News. A bold, black banner ran across the top of the page, a screaming insult:
Meet Theseus, the Demigod Leader of Triad
It seemed Helen had made good on her threat against Persephone. Hades scanned the article, his jaw slowly tightening the more he read her biased words. The issue was that mortals would not see her favoritism; they would see a man who was half human, someone who could understand and fight for them.
They would see their reality reflected in Theseus’s words.
“Why not let the gods speak for themselves? I knew it wouldn’t take long for one—or many—to execute their wrath upon the world.”
Perhaps that was what made this so damning—the fact that he wasn’t wrong.
If anything was going to turn mortals away from the gods, it would be their own actions, and right now the greatest threat was Demeter’s storm.
“His timing is commendable,” Hades said, tossing the paper into the fire.
“I imagine he is feeling pretty powerful right about now,” said Ilias.
Hades imagined he did, so what could they do to remind him of his insignificance? After a moment, he rose to his feet and turned toward the satyr. Usually, he would give him some kind of direction or order, but given the circumstances, he had no idea how to proceed.
He truly felt like he had no control.
Hades manifested in Hecate’s meadow. He was there for only a moment when he felt the goddess’s magic blast toward him. While it took him by surprise, he managed to teleport before the blow struck, except that she was one step ahead, and as soon as he appeared, her power hit him square in the chest.
The force sent him flying backward. He felt the ground give way at his feet as he dug his heels in to stop himself from crashing into the mountainous walls of the Underworld.
Even as he came to a halt, he sensed Hecate’s approach. The problem was, he could not see her, but her magic crackled in the air, raising the hair on his arms.
“I’m not sure what I did,” Hades growled. “But you could try talking to me before going to battle.”
“Perhaps you should have considered doing the same before you put Persephone through such torture,” she said. Her voice came from all around, as if there were hundreds of Hecates surrounding him.
“I know,” he said, frustrated. “I am an idiot.”
“You are more than that,” she replied, appearing before him, arms crossed.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said, sounding uncertain.
Hades glared. “You know, I was feeling horrible about it even before I came to you. Now I somehow feel worse.”
“As you should. What were you thinking?” she demanded.
“What do you mean what was I thinking? I was training her! And don’t critique my methods. You’re the one who stabbed her just so you could teach her to heal.”
“I prepared her,” said the goddess. “Was it kind? No. But you may have undone all the progress we have made!”
“What progress?” he seethed. “She nearly tore herself apart.”
“She is afraid she will destroy the world with her magic, and you brought that to life for her.”
Hades averted his eyes, frustrated with himself. “I don’t know what else to do, Hecate. We are headed for darker times, and she is not learning fast enough.”
“You cannot force this, Hades, just because you are afraid.”
He ground his teeth.
“The best thing you can be for her is a safe space. You are where she heals from trauma, not where it seethes.”
“Do you really think that’s still true?”
“Yes,” Hecate said. “So go apologize to your queen.”