‘I have been interested in you for a very long time,’ she says and I can’t help but flinch under the intensity of her stare. What’s the point in making herself seem young? No one could ever believe her with those eyes.
‘I can’t see why,’ I say, sipping from the chalice.
She throws her glass on the floor and it shatters. She takes a sudden step towards me and the fragments crunch beneath her.
‘This deception of yours … when I know precisely what you are …’ She trails off with the sort of fury that makes me think of a toddler stamping their foot. Something abouther is so impossibly old and so impossibly young at the same time.
I take another sip of my wine as I wait for her to calm down, and her fury breaks like it has been snapped neatly in half. Suddenly she’s laughing. It’s not the cackle of before but a cry of delight. ‘Oh, you understand how to play this game.’
‘I don’t want to play any games,’ I say. I’m gripping my wine like it’s the only thing holding me together. I enjoy unnerving Hades but I have nothing on this woman and the way she has me on a precipice.
‘Youdelightin this game, girl.’
‘I could do without the high stakes.’
‘Couldn’t we all?’ She grins and her teeth are stained the red of her wine. I put my own glass down. ‘I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Your mother never let me on the island. She thought I might corrupt you. Encourage some of your loftier ambitions – and she’s right, I would have. Power like yours ripples through the very fabric of the magic coating the world.’
‘I’m nothing special.’
‘That’s your mother’s voice.’
I swallow. ‘I’m the goddess of flowers.’
‘That’s your father’s decree. Come now, girl, you know you’re so much more than that.’
I flounder for words, find none.
Something about her is almost feral as she says, ‘The only other child of two great gods has a seat on the council of twelve, has followers flocking to him, has everything you have everwanted.’ Ares. One of my potential suitors, god of battle and child of Zeus and Hera. Born in the middle of a war like I was, but male. He’s who I could have been, I suppose, if the Fates had been kinder. ‘Zeus must have been terrified if he expected you to settle into the role he assigned you.’
‘I love flowers,’ I say. And it’s true. I might yearn for more but I’d never abandon them, even for the world I asked for. They’re my first love, often my only comfort. Of course the rush of power I felt as I swept souls across a ravine with a flick of my hand was enjoyable, rending the ground was fun too, but flowers … they’re something else.
‘I’m sure you do,’ she says. ‘But your power was never meant to be contained to them. It’s been a long time since I had a kindred soul.’
I would cringe if I didn’t want to offend her.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say.
‘Say what you mean, girl,’ she hisses.
‘I don’t have power outside of creating flowers.’
‘Nonsense. It’s more than flowers I’ve felt these last few weeks.’
I shrug. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. Everything is flowers when you get down to the root, even shaping the Underworld. And I’ve been working with healing souls here but that’s all. Any god can do that.’
She scoffs. ‘I thought you more than this. We will talk once you’ve come to terms with what you are. Open your eyes, girl.’
I stare at her. I’ve only just met her and I’ve already managed to let her down?
‘I’ve forged my own path in this world. You might consider that you are doing the same. It’s incredible, your obliviousness.Youth!’ she spits. ‘You all think the world snapped into being in Zeus’s vision. Like the Earth didn’t spin before he sat upon the throne. I’m leaving.’
‘Wait – is this all you dragged me here to say?’
‘I came to offer advice,’ she says. ‘Enjoy it.’
