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“Where do gods go when they die?” Persephone asked.
“They come to me, powerless,” he said. “And I give them a role in the Underworld.”
“What kind of role?”
“It depends on what challenged them in their life as a god. Tyche, though, she always wanted to be a mother. So I will gift her with the Children’s Garden.”
“Will we be able to speak with her? About the way she died?”
“Not immediately,” he answered. “But within the week.”
Though Hades worried by then, it might be too late.
CHAPTER XXXI
DIONYSUS
Dionysus and Ariadne found a narrow path down the side of the cliff, but their progress was slow because Ariadne was afraid of heights, though she still refused to admit it.
“I’ll carry you,” Dionysus said.
“No. What if you fall?”
“I’m not going to fall. I’m a fucking god,” he said, annoyed.
“As if that’s somehow impressive,” she snapped.
“I fuckinghealedyou!”
“And yet we’re still stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean because you can’t compete with Poseidon’s power.”
He ground his teeth, wishing her words didn’t sting. He knew his abilities did not compare to the God of the Sea, and he had thought often over the last two days that none of this would have happened had he had more power—had he been better.
Her words seemed to bother her just as much as theyhad him, because her shoulders fell and she let her hands drop from the wall, shuffling toward him. He watched her approach, feeling heat creep into his body the closer she came.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He wanted to say something sarcastic, to draw her anger to the surface again, because that was more comfortable, but instead, he touched her cheek, brushing his fingers across her skin. She didn’t pull away.
“I think you’re hungry,” he said.
She nodded and then let her head fall against his chest. She didn’t fight him as he swept her into his arms. He carried her until he found an opening in the rocky wall—a shallow cave where they could rest for the night.
He left to gather wood for a fire. When he returned, they sat beside one another on a large log he’d dragged from the back of the cave and ate figs. Dionysus did not hate the fruit, but they reminded him of sex, and given that he sat in close proximity to the woman he’d desperately desired over the last month, eating them was torture. Their pulp was sweet like honey, their juice a fine syrup.
He glanced at Ariadne, who was sucking her fingers clean, and thought about how she probably tasted just like this, but then she spoke, and his thoughts came crashing down under the weight of his past.
“How long did you live with madness?” she asked.
Dionysus looked down at his half-eaten fig.
“A long time,” he said, which was not a very good answer, but in truth, he did not know. “Long enough to wander the world…long enough to do horrible things.”
Hera had known what she was doing when she had inflicted such a punishment. He’d been completelyaware of the horror he caused but unable to stop it. He had wandered from country to country, body high and mind euphoric, dancing and drinking, dragging along followers who were just as crazed. Anyone who stood in his way or questioned his divinity faced his bitter wrath. He’d sentenced men to be torn to pieces by their daughters, punished them by killing their sons. He had driven people mad to the point of death.
“It was awful,” she said.
Her words twisted in his gut, and suddenly, he had no appetite. He sat the fruit aside.
