Page 93 of This Divine Revelry

Enough to open the labyrinth.

I clap a hand to the wound, feel the blood hot and thick beneath. I manage to climb to my feet but I’m so dizzy I have to reach out – and it’s my sister’s shoulder I find.

My father snorts. ‘He thinks after everything that bitch did I’d still allow the labyrinth to be opened with blood from my line? It is mine and mine alone that will do it.’

He would have let me die for nothing.

Of course he would have.

And what then of Dionysus and his attempt to rescue Icarus and Daedalus from within it?

‘You.’ My mother turns on him – radiant ferocity in her eyes.

‘How could you?’ Phaedra cries, and her … her eyes are burning too. She reaches an arm about me to steady me – and I see those walls again, so faint this time, a sort of haze. But they are moving – no, crumbling. Brick by brick.

I look past them to my father and for the first time in my life he looks small. My throat pulses as the wound bleeds, but let it. It is proof I survived. Again. Theseus might have stabbed through my flesh but it was my father championing him. It was he ordering his archers on the docks. And it was he who decided I was of so little value that Theseus thought he could leave me on that island. I feel my fury spark, the flames burning.

My mother steps forward – and Father glares her down with the sort of hostility that would halt whole armies in their tracks. But Mother does not cower – she does not even blink. ‘I will not lose another child to you.’

‘Be quiet, woman. You forget who –’

‘No, you forget who. You rule by my blood. By my power. Maybe my sister isn’t the only one with talent – perhaps it’s time to see if I too can turn men to pigs.’

Father’s jaw twitches, his vehemence a silent creeping thing that has his every muscle tensing.

‘Ariadne may visit whenever she wishes,’ Mother says. ‘We’re going to host more banquets. And we’re going to start with one for each and every man offering his hand to Phaedra and then she is going to choose whom to wed. If she wants to wed at all.’

‘That is not your decision.’

‘I am queen.’

‘That is nothing to a king.’

‘Is that so? I think you’ll find the people of Crete believe differently.’

‘They believe,’ he sneers, ‘that you fucked a bull. That you’re a dirty, depraved whore. Try me and you will find that is not the worst rumour I can spread.’

My mother flinches – her resolve, for the first time, wavering.

My father spread that rumour – gods, of course he did – covered his own failure by shattering the only thing she had – all they would have us believe any woman in this world has: her reputation. Theseus and Minos – they are nothing. Two men in a world filled with dozens just like them. Men consumed with how the world will see them and how their stories will be told. But us? Our reputations are not ours – they are things imposed upon us.

What do they matter to the here and now and the people within our grasp?

My mother looks at us, her eyes still bright, her power radiant.

‘It is my emblem on the palace walls. My family’s sun that crests each morning.’ The guards inch a little closer to her. Taking up a position on either side. ‘You can lie to the people, if you wish. But do not take their pretending to believe it as proof of your own genius. And don’t think they wouldn’t care just as equally for the truth. You believe brutality is a strength and affection is a weakness – but shall we see which they follow: the ruler who terrorizes them or the one who cares?’

One of the guards’ hands falls to his sword, as though he would take up arms in an instant – and my father catches it.

I think of the revelry in the town and the dancing that swept through these very halls last night, and cannot help but wonder if their loyalty is, in part, to a queen who might make the world a little bit more enjoyable.

‘Very well,’ he agrees, and storms from the room before she can demand anything else.

‘Thank you,’ my mother says to the men behind her. ‘Would you stand guard at the doors?’

The moment they are gone, my mother, sister and I crush into an embrace, you were great and you saved me and thank you thank you thank you issuing from all around.

‘You’ll come back. You’ll visit,’ my mother insists.