Page 9 of This Divine Revelry

My dress is plum, that grape wreath back on my head, and I think of those fruits with their fragile skins, of teeth sinking in and tearing apart, of juice bleeding from cracked lips, and I look at the Athenians before me and might be sick.

I toy with my sister’s aulos, slipped into my pocket. She might never have played it again – but she kept it on display in her room, front and centre. Maybe she noticed it was gone. Maybe that’s why she’s been pinning me with narrowed eyes all day.

But I need something to signal the merchants with later, if I’m to get the Athenians on to their ship.

Father rises from his throne and surveys the scene below. ‘Nineteen years ago my son was slaughtered,’ he shouts, voice ragged. ‘His crime? Success. Achievement. Victory. The very things that make us Cretan. Well, if the Athenians wished to condemn us for our strength, we would show them what true might means. If it is the children of our land they would take from us, let us show them what real power can do.’

The crowd cheers – I cheer. Loud, excited. I’m smiling – I’ve been smiling this whole time.

But my gaze falls, as it has repeatedly, to the group of tributes.

To the boy at their centre.

His lip curls and he catches my eye, which only etches that sneer further, his disgust evident. His hatred burns.

He does not know I am the priestess who visited, after all. And if I wish to remain alive then he never can.

I swallow hard and face the arch set over the steps to the labyrinth’s entrance. My father walks through, the Athenians following. One of them stumbles and a guard wrenches him to his feet, pressing his blade so sharply against his back a prick of red appears.

‘There, that ought to give the beast your scent.’

My stomach roils. But I press forward as though too excited to stop, even as others do. They form a ring around the door but I stumble to the topmost step and peer down.

My father raises his hand high. In the dark, I catch a flash of silver.

‘You wished to spill my family’s blood, did you not?’ Father says, chuckling even as he slashes a blade down his palm. Blood sprays across the tiles, quickly smothered as he presses his hand to the door.

A second, and then the gears turn.

Daedalus’s words come back to me: The door is as hungry for blood as the labyrinth itself. But let us assume, in this exercise, that you are both capable of feeding it.

Our family’s blood …

The cruelty is smothering – that Asterion himself could open his own prison if only he were on its other side. And now I risk not only being caught in the act but afterwards. If anyone finds out the Athenians escaped, it leaves a very narrow pool of suspects.

One I imagine I would be right at the top of.

I try to reassure myself that, perhaps, I might get away with it. If someone discovers the Athenians have fled, I am already at risk. Someone might remember that priestess. Daedalus might recall our conversation. My mother might think of every small rebellion she has inspired in me and wonder what it could have ignited.

But I am not risking anything more than I already have – which is, of course, everything. Worst case … worst case I die. No, worst case I’m tortured and then I die. Worst case my siblings are brutalized too, as our father tries to discover which of us betrayed him …

I could leave it and let the Athenians die and some cowardly part of me does truly consider it. This is not my problem to fix. But something about that door with its bloodlust pushes me on – by crafting it like this, Father truly has, inadvertently, placed the weight of doing something about it on to me.

So, as the party rages on in the central courtyard, I creep down to the empty throne room.

That arch looms, then swallows me as I hurl myself down into the darkness.

Two torches flicker either side of the door, slowly burning out.

I take out a knife – and think of that boy telling me I should have brought them a weapon. Maybe I should. If they’re dead, it’s my fault.

So before I can doubt myself a second longer, I slash my palm and I cannot help the shriek that flies from my mouth. Gods, that hurts so much more than I thought it would. Why did I cut my palm? Why not somewhere more inconspicuous? If they notice the Athenians are gone, I will quite literally be caught red-handed.

I smash my bleeding flesh on to the door – gasping at the sensation, a clamping suction. Like I’m being drained.

Then, all at once it releases me, and already I feel the itch of a scab forming as though the door has clotted the wound too. The gears grind and the door opens and I expect the Athenians to spill out but instead … there is nothing. Only the dark path beyond. I hesitate. What if they’re dead? What if my brother is about to come charging out to taste my blood too?

I could close the door again. I could say that I tried but it wasn’t enough and –