Page 45 of This Divine Revelry

‘I don’t love you,’ I insist.

‘No,’ he agrees. ‘But you could. You will – I know girls like you, Ariadne. They love broken things.’ I scoff and it seems only to spur him on. ‘You’re not my saviour. You’re not my redemption.’

‘Come tomorrow, my destiny will be entwined with yours. And I will not let you bury me with you. I love me, Dionysus. So I’ll save you too if I must.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW long we have until Theseus reaches my parents and barters for Phaedra’s hand in marriage. So, rushing into this in a way that feels characteristic of us both, we roll the days of the wedding ceremony into one – starting my morning with the cleansing baths of the proaulia and preparing for the gamos by noon.

Opora helps tie my chiton. It’s dark purple, woven through with threads of silver silk so that the whole thing glistens as I move. Once the colour felt so unapologetically and inarguably Cretan – as valuable as the gilded plinths and plush carpets of the palace. Now all I can see is Dionysus: the bunches of grapes and plum wine, the metallic glint in his eyes under the bruising sky.

‘Silen asked me to dance with them tonight,’ Opora says as she finishes tying the final knot above my shoulder.

‘What?’ Calybe shrieks. ‘You didn’t tell me that!’

‘I’m telling you all now,’ Opora says, flushing a bright red.

‘What exactly did they say?’ Myrto asks. ‘And how?’

‘Tone is important,’ I agree.

‘Ariadne, we’re supposed to be getting you ready for your wedding.’

I refuse to allow this attempt to deflect.

‘My wedding is devoid of one thing: any semblance of genuine affection. I thank you for providing it.’

Myrto looks at me sharply. ‘Dionysus likes you a great deal.’

‘Yes, but he has the emotional intelligence of a fermenting grape. Even imagining genuine affection caused panic; I can’t bear to think about what the reality might do to him.’

‘I think you suit each other,’ Opora determines. ‘You smile more when you’re with him.’

‘I should think I glower more too. Now will you please stop dodging our questions? What did Silen say?’

She sighs, but an excited smile twitches at the corner of her lips. ‘That weddings make you realize what matters. And then they asked me if I’d dance with them tonight. Said they thought that mattered too. That some things are worth the risk and perhaps I’m one of them.’

It feels absurd to pay this much attention to my appearance when I’m marrying someone like Dionysus, who will likely be donning accessories made from pine cones and sticks.

But Dionysus invited the gods and even while I know nothing I could possibly do could rival the beauty of the goddesses, it still feels like the sort of thing I ought to run a brush through my hair for.

Though Myrto did that for me before shearing it to my shoulders, dedicating the trimmed locks to Artemis.

It feels odd – too light, brushing my skin in a way it never has before. Back home, hair is cut for ritual and ceremony. Weddings, yes. But funerals too. Mother always felt that if we trimmed it, we might be tempting fate. Like the scissors through our hair might very well be those of the Fates cutting the life thread.

I’m toying with the newly shorn edges as I slip into Dionysus’s tent. I can hear distant music and festivities. We won’t be married until sunset. But the others have decided that’s not long enough to celebrate – as though they do not party often enough – and have begun without us.

Still, we must give the Olympians time to show up – and waiting till sunset is as long as we can allow.

‘Oh,’ I say, as I catch sight of Dionysus running about inside. The tent is in disarray, fabric everywhere, accessories tossed into corners, snacks lying abandoned, like preparing for the wedding has been something akin to a cyclone. In the corner, Sterope is delightedly rolling on her back, knocking about a ball of catnip and adding a large amount of shed fur to the chaos.

But none of that is what makes me stop. It’s Dionysus – draped in wine-dark cloth that accentuates every finely honed muscle, as stacked with gold cuffs and necklaces as I am with silver – and hair, those long coiling locks of burnished copper shorn to the jaw.

I’m clutching Phaedra’s aulos – had been intending on saying … something. Suggesting someone play it, maybe? Some homage to Crete? But right now I can’t remember anything of import and I place the reed on a side table.

‘What?’ Dionysus’s brows furrow and a hand goes to one of those curls, tucking it behind an ear. ‘Oh? This? I told you, gender is a bit of fun dress-up to me, and we are putting on a performance. So I thought I’d pick and choose. Women cut their hair in honour of Artemis, right, so why shouldn’t I?’

I blink. ‘I liked it long,’ I say stupidly.