Gorgon Born, page 15
“But you fight so well. You didn’t hesitate once when fighting and killing those guards.”
He exhales, sharp. “I can kill in the moment, kill when it helps the innocent, but each death weighs on me.” He leans closer, his mouth a hair’s breadth from my forehead. “I have nightmares the same as anyone else. Their screams of pain, the splatters of blood, the scent of rot—none of it ever truly goes away.”
“I’m the same,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “If my snakes didn’t wake me, Dionysus’ other attendants would’ve heard my whimpers from the nightmares by now.”
Dionysus’ snores cut off with a choking snort.
Thanatos leans closer, kissing my forehead. “Sleep well.”
I shiver at the drag of his lips on my skin.
Dionysus’ snores don’t start again. The silence stretches, making me dart to the edge of the alcove. I shove the tapestry to one side, sidling out. By the time I look back, the tapestry covers our spot, but somehow I know Thanatos has gone.
Chapter 19
The cream-colored tunic billows loose around my chest, cinched in at the waist by a thin belt of plain silver. The pants, comfortable yet tailored in flowing lines of fine linen, cover each bit of my legs.
Still, Zeus leers at me where I stand behind Dionysus, lined up with the other servants while the court flutters around the throne room. I offer him a sweet smile, then bow my head as if shy, looking up through my lashes moments later.
Dionysus himself is more than content to stay close, either lounging on a chaise nearby or staggering over to Aphrodite to whisper in her ear with a crooked smirk.
He swings towards Aphrodite yet again, waving his cup about. The other attendants glance at each other, unsure if it’s a request for wine or more of his flailing. Sighing, I step from the cloister and head toward him, hefting my wine jug higher to avoid knocking it into anyone.
In their colorful finery and flowing silks, the gods are like butterflies flitting about the room. More so since they never quite stay still, gliding from one person to the next, fabric flapping like wings behind them.
None of them stop to stare, offering me an odd sort of invisibility while I walk through the shifting crowd.
I stop beside Dionysus, filling his cup the moment he drapes himself against Aphrodite’s side. To her credit, her expression turns disgusted at his pungent stench of liquor, but she doesn’t push him away.
My bracelet shimmers dull beneath the false sky and sun stretching above the room. The fathomless black eyes forever sucking in light transform to a normal onyx when Aphrodite’s gaze lands on me for a second. She sighs, looking away.
Nyx must have done something to my bracelet to make it so ordinary. Dionysus might have noticed its loveliness for a moment, but though he stares with barely contained curiosity often, he hasn’t turned his attention toward my bracelet again.
Do I know the extent of Nyx’s abilities?
Does a fly know the extent of a spider’s skill when trapped in her web?
I meander through the crowd, taking my time returning to the other attendants, all while pretending to find the sky above fascinating.
Stopping beside a column on the outskirts of the crowd, I glimpse cobalt silk heading in my direction from the corner of my eye. I duck behind the column, back pressed against the cool stone. Two sets of footsteps tap against the marble floor, halting on the opposite side of the column.
Ozone and salt fill my senses.
“Her eyes are rather intriguing,” Zeus says.
The carved notches of the column dig into my spine, but I don’t dare move.
A snort. “More than intriguing, brother.”
Poseidon.
“What are you saying?” Zeus asks, quiet rather than the carrying boom he prefers.
“She might have godly parentage somewhere in her ancestry.”
Sweat beads on the back of my neck, trickling beneath my collar to slither down my spine. Atia stirs once, rustling within my hair, then settles again.
Zeus hums. “It’s possible. I don’t keep track of our spawn enough. You know how Hera gets.”
“I do.”
A pause. More sweat coats my palms, making them slick against the stone to my back. Chatter from the court buzzes in the background, covering the noise of my slow, careful breaths. They can’t be talking about me. Surely there’s someone else with unusual eyes in this massive palace.
“What did Dionysus say her name was again?” Zeus asks.
“Chloe,” Poseidon answers in a low rumble.
A gasp lodges in my throat. I swallow it down, forcing myself to stay quiet.
Within minutes, they move on, footsteps further and further away until I lose the noise to distance.
They were talking about me. Some part of me is happy, almost glad I secured their attention, that I’m moving forward with the plan.
The rest of me trembles with fear. All the what ifs, all the ways this could go wrong, play in vivid color against my lids when my eyes close.
I picture my mother’s face, blindfolded with snakes coiling around her head. Her shoulders forever hunched, waiting for another attack.
With her demigod murderer gone, lost to something so simple as a fire, there’s only Zeus and Poseidon left to blame.
I withdraw from the shadowed safety of the column, eyes wide and smile guileless like I’ve only been there a second, and walk toward Dionysus. So focused on playing a part, on getting to him, I don’t notice the goddess until I collide with her shoulder.
And she’s certainly a goddess. Auburn hair, silvery-gray eyes, and the tall stature meant for a queen. She stares down her angular nose at me, expression both curious and aloof.
“I apologize. Excuse me,” I mumble, lowering my gaze. With quick steps, I dart around her with my jug held close to my chest.
Dionysus, back to lounging on his chaise, stares from heavy-lidded eyes while I walk closer. He tsks once. “Be careful, dear. Athena doesn’t like to be touched.”
Athena?
The goddess I bumped into was Athena?
The goddess of wisdom and warcraft.
The goddess who cursed my mother, exiling her to the islands with stone-turning sight and snake hair after Poseidon dared assault my mother beneath her statue.
I grit my teeth, barely forcing a smile at Dionysus’ raised brows. “I’ll be more careful from now on, my lord.”
Still, I don’t fall back into the line of attendants, lingering at his side until he stands and moves toward Aphrodite yet again. I can’t hear what he whispers to her, but from her sharp smile, I guess it’s remarks about the surrounding court members.
While he’s distracted, I walk about the room, offering refills to anyone who places their cup in my line of sight. The guards stare straight ahead, their eyes blank as clean parchment when I walk past.
Poseidon follows at a distance, steps measured, his expression filled with hunger.
It’s a strange sort of dance, me filling cups, forever darting forward, and him closing the distance between us more with each lap of the room.
Then he’s finally close enough to become a line of feverish warmth at my back. Not close enough to touch, but close enough for the heat of him to turn the air humid. His seawater scent seeps into my nose.
Throat tight, I glance over my shoulder, eyes widening in false surprise when I glimpse him behind me. “Would you like some wine, my lord?”
A smile curls the edges of his mouth.
A hand, wide and tan, lands on his shoulder. Squeezes once, muscles shifting in the arm beyond. “Brother, I see you found her.”
Zeus steps forward. Their gazes clash, turquoise sea against summer sky. After a torturous minute, Poseidon smiles. Something about it sits wrong, the edges too sharp and his teeth too prominent. Instead of backing away, Zeus leans closer. “We can share, can’t we?”
Poseidon’s eyes flicker from turquoise to deepest cobalt. “You know I dislike sharing.”
Zeus shrugs a broad shoulder. “You’ll learn given time.”
Frozen in place, I don’t dare move or breathe lest they notice. Sharing? They mean to share me? A hysterical laugh bubbles in my throat, dashed away by the knots forming in my stomach. They won’t share me like an object to be owned. They won’t own me. With Thanatos’ help and Nyx’s blessing, they’ll be dead before the season is over. A smile flickers on the edges of my mouth, but I tamp it down, forcing my brows to furrow, hoping the crease formed between them will make me appear clueless.
“Share what?” I ask.
“Nothing to worry yourself over, my dear,” Zeus says.
Poseidon opens his mouth to speak, but Zeus’ hand squeezes down hard on his shoulder. His mouth snaps shut, the corner of one eye twitching.
I glance between them, then allow my face to clear. “More wine?”
Zeus holds up his full cup. “We’re all set.”
He strides away, loosening his grip on Poseidon with a last warning squeeze, and slumps into his throne overlooking the court. From there, he’ll still see us, but likely won’t hear a word we say over the incessant chitchat from the court.
Poseidon rips his focus away from his brother, turning to me with another smarmy smile.
Even with my stomach knotted in rage, my hand carrying the jug raises of its own volition. The jug, a solid ceramic painted with trailing green vines budding burgundy flowers, acts as the last, useless barrier between me and the god.
He leans in, breath fanning against my forehead, rustling the fine hairs on my hairline. Sweat builds at the back of my neck. I swallow once, gaze pointed to the marble floor.
Atia slithers into a new sleeping position beneath my thick hair, a comfort and reminder. He can try all he likes, but I have a secret weapon: venom. With Stam and Atia’s venom coursing through his veins, he’ll be useless for days.
But I don’t raise my eyes. Let him think me timid. Let him think me cowed beneath his hunger.
He chuckles, a rasping noise so deep it rumbles in my chest, and stalks closer. I retreat with each of his steps. In no time at all, I’m backed against a column, him at my front in a line of heat and the stone freezing against my back. I lift the jug higher, but he only bends to press his face closer to the crown of my head.
He inhales, slow and deep. Then rumbles something like a laugh, yet not. “You smell delicious.”
I kindly don’t point out I smell of sweat and wine, fear and anger. With how my throat locks, how my chest rises and falls with swift, gasping breaths, I couldn’t if I wanted to.
He presses closer still, jug digging into his sternum and nose pressed to my hair.
Vomit builds in my throat, more with each of his rumbling inhales. With his broad shoulders and thick, long hair, there’s no glimpsing the room beyond. At some point, he raised his arms, caging me in on each side with his hands resting against the column. He becomes my entire line of sight; my entire world.
“Chloe!” a voice calls, slurring on the first syllable.
Poseidon groans, turning to look over his shoulder.
The smell reaches me before the person. Wine, thick and pungent. Dionysus.
He doesn’t back away, not until Dionysus is upon us, ducking beneath one of Poseidon’s raised arms and draping himself along my side. He’s as warm as the other god, but something about it is comforting whereas Poseidon’s heat is anything but.
“There you are! My cup has been empty for ages.” Dionysus raises his cup. Wine sloshes out of the full container, splashing across the front of Poseidon’s tunic. He blinks once, then frowns. “I could’ve sworn it was empty. Oh, well!”
He drapes himself more completely against my side, face tucked into the crook of my neck, and strokes my hair. “Who’s my favorite attendant? You are!” Then, in a comically loud whisper, “Don’t tell the others, though.”
Poseidon backs off, lip curled at the wine marring his once-pristine tunic. His arms retreat, hands curled into fists at his side instead of by my head. “Stupid boy,” he says.
Dionysus giggles. “I’m a man, silly. Chloe can attest to that.”
In the silence, one where my cheeks burn and Poseidon’s face takes on a distinctly murderous expression, Dionysus hums a tuneless song. “She’s helped me dress enough times to see the proof of that. She’s quite good at picking outfits, you know.”
Poseidon’s shoulders ease from murderous intent to casual indifference. “I see.”
Dionysus squints. “Do you?”
With a sigh, Poseidon strides away, stopping only when he’s beside Zeus’ throne. The guards lingering nearby shuffle in place, then settle again.
For the first time in an hour, I can breathe, though I don’t dare gasp for air like my tight lungs insist. “Aren’t you glad I saved you? He looked as if he was going to ravish you on the spot,” Dionysus whispers, no hint of his earlier slurring.
“Don’t you ever get sick of acting like a drunk?” I ask. “I was handling it.”
“Really? Seems to me you were hiding behind a piece of ceramic.” He taps the jug to prove his point.
I grumble a wordless response.
He throws his head back in laughter. The court doesn’t turn to look, used to his obnoxious giggles and laughs, though Aphrodite peeks over her shoulder with a fond smile. The man talking to her puffs out his chest, and she turns back to him with a long-suffering expression.
Dionysus leans close. “Apollo likes to go on about his precious golden lyre. It’s a bit concerning if you ask me.”
The god indeed has a golden lyre attached to one hip, hanging securely off his equally golden belt. As the god of music, the sun, and healing, I expected someone less…obnoxious.
“No one asked you,” I say.
He ignores me. “Better than having Ares harass her, though. He’s been absent from court gatherings lately.”
Ares, the god of war? “I don’t care.”
“That’s where you ask why, dear.” He shrugs. “But who knows? He probably took a new lover, knowing him. Still, it’s unlike him to miss any events, even with someone warming his bed.”
“Still don’t care.”
He shoots me a dopey look with venom lingering in his piercing eyes. “You should. Any disruption to this court could spell trouble for you. I can’t protect you from everything.”
I swallow, throat tight. “You don’t need to protect me at all.”
Stop talking, I will myself. And I do, but a moment too late, for Dionysus’ eyes narrow. “Are you sure?” He taps a finger against the jug again. “You won’t have bits of ceramic to shield you forever, dear girl.”
“I can handle myself.”
“You can handle yourself what?”
I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. “My lord.”
He nods. “Do well to remember yourself. Few are so forgiving as I.”
Aphrodite calls for him. Within a blink, he’s drifting across the room, veering dangerously into others’ paths along the way.
I stare after him, dread welling in my chest. He’s right. To survive the court, I must be careful, including with him. I won’t dare voice my true thoughts again, biting my tongue where normally I would have sassed without a thought.
Life in court stretches bleak before me. No more snappy retorts to Dionysus. Nothing more than playing parts: clueless young woman, subservient servant, timid seductress.
Yet wearing masks, wearing traits not my own, means revenge against Poseidon. Means stabbing Zeus in the heart. Means changing Prasinos into a place my mother might be proud of, if she still lived.
Chapter 20
Hours stretch into days, then days into weeks. My nights sleeping while my snakes frolic pass in a haze of tossing and turning, worries invading every dream.
Serving Dionysus settles into a rhythm. For all of his unpredictable behavior, he sticks to a rigid routine dictated by the court. Summons from Zeus, meals with Aphrodite and her husband Hephaestus, an array of feasts and parties and events centered on wherever Zeus’ whims fall each day.
Sometimes, staring at Dionysus’ lounging on a chaise in his rooms, I wonder if he ever bores of the monotony, the false conversations, the people-pleasing necessary to survive, or wearing a mask. He’s not a drunk. For all the wine he drinks, for all of his stench and staggering, his eyes remain sharp.
No one else notices.
And sometimes, I’ll glance only to find him staring back, gaze shrewd.
I’m quick to duck back to my work during those moments.
One day, with the scent of decaying leaves filtering in through the windows along with a damp smell promising rain, he has us line up in front of his chaise. One by one, he assesses us from head to toe, telling us to tuck in a fold or cinch our leather belts tighter or looser. Two attendants to my right share a look. “Another court gathering,” one mumbles.
The other rolls her eyes while an improperly tied sandal distracts Dionysus.
His assessing passes over me. I’m careful to dress perfectly, knowing anyone noticing me for too long could spell disaster. Stam, confined to her night hours, grows restless. She’s ready to sink her fangs into someone even now, with wane daylight weaving through the room and Atia holding her back by tightening around her body. With any luck, her time will arrive soon. Poseidon’s bound to grow bolder in his advances sometime soon. The hunger in his expression grows with each gathering.
I shift my wrist, glad for my bracelet hiding a flexible dagger.
We trek to the throne room in a neat line behind our master, like young birds following a waddling parent. He waves us off once we’re through the doors, settling himself beside Aphrodite while we settle into a cloister behind him with our jugs of wine at the ready.
“Where’s Hera?” he asks Aphrodite.
I glance around to find her throne empty. Strange. She’s always here before us, ready to survey the crowd with thinly veiled contempt.
Aphrodite sighs. “I don’t know, but I bet the woman on Zeus’ arm has something to do with it.”
Zeus, as if sensing their talk, strides our way. A woman clings to his arm, her hips swaying with each step. She leans close enough for their shoulders to touch. Despite Zeus’ significant height, her willowy form reaches his chin. Her auburn hair shines in a long braid swinging over one shoulder, thick like a giant snake. Her skin, dark and smooth, flushes beautifully beneath Dionysus’ attention.
He exhales, sharp. “I can kill in the moment, kill when it helps the innocent, but each death weighs on me.” He leans closer, his mouth a hair’s breadth from my forehead. “I have nightmares the same as anyone else. Their screams of pain, the splatters of blood, the scent of rot—none of it ever truly goes away.”
“I’m the same,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “If my snakes didn’t wake me, Dionysus’ other attendants would’ve heard my whimpers from the nightmares by now.”
Dionysus’ snores cut off with a choking snort.
Thanatos leans closer, kissing my forehead. “Sleep well.”
I shiver at the drag of his lips on my skin.
Dionysus’ snores don’t start again. The silence stretches, making me dart to the edge of the alcove. I shove the tapestry to one side, sidling out. By the time I look back, the tapestry covers our spot, but somehow I know Thanatos has gone.
Chapter 19
The cream-colored tunic billows loose around my chest, cinched in at the waist by a thin belt of plain silver. The pants, comfortable yet tailored in flowing lines of fine linen, cover each bit of my legs.
Still, Zeus leers at me where I stand behind Dionysus, lined up with the other servants while the court flutters around the throne room. I offer him a sweet smile, then bow my head as if shy, looking up through my lashes moments later.
Dionysus himself is more than content to stay close, either lounging on a chaise nearby or staggering over to Aphrodite to whisper in her ear with a crooked smirk.
He swings towards Aphrodite yet again, waving his cup about. The other attendants glance at each other, unsure if it’s a request for wine or more of his flailing. Sighing, I step from the cloister and head toward him, hefting my wine jug higher to avoid knocking it into anyone.
In their colorful finery and flowing silks, the gods are like butterflies flitting about the room. More so since they never quite stay still, gliding from one person to the next, fabric flapping like wings behind them.
None of them stop to stare, offering me an odd sort of invisibility while I walk through the shifting crowd.
I stop beside Dionysus, filling his cup the moment he drapes himself against Aphrodite’s side. To her credit, her expression turns disgusted at his pungent stench of liquor, but she doesn’t push him away.
My bracelet shimmers dull beneath the false sky and sun stretching above the room. The fathomless black eyes forever sucking in light transform to a normal onyx when Aphrodite’s gaze lands on me for a second. She sighs, looking away.
Nyx must have done something to my bracelet to make it so ordinary. Dionysus might have noticed its loveliness for a moment, but though he stares with barely contained curiosity often, he hasn’t turned his attention toward my bracelet again.
Do I know the extent of Nyx’s abilities?
Does a fly know the extent of a spider’s skill when trapped in her web?
I meander through the crowd, taking my time returning to the other attendants, all while pretending to find the sky above fascinating.
Stopping beside a column on the outskirts of the crowd, I glimpse cobalt silk heading in my direction from the corner of my eye. I duck behind the column, back pressed against the cool stone. Two sets of footsteps tap against the marble floor, halting on the opposite side of the column.
Ozone and salt fill my senses.
“Her eyes are rather intriguing,” Zeus says.
The carved notches of the column dig into my spine, but I don’t dare move.
A snort. “More than intriguing, brother.”
Poseidon.
“What are you saying?” Zeus asks, quiet rather than the carrying boom he prefers.
“She might have godly parentage somewhere in her ancestry.”
Sweat beads on the back of my neck, trickling beneath my collar to slither down my spine. Atia stirs once, rustling within my hair, then settles again.
Zeus hums. “It’s possible. I don’t keep track of our spawn enough. You know how Hera gets.”
“I do.”
A pause. More sweat coats my palms, making them slick against the stone to my back. Chatter from the court buzzes in the background, covering the noise of my slow, careful breaths. They can’t be talking about me. Surely there’s someone else with unusual eyes in this massive palace.
“What did Dionysus say her name was again?” Zeus asks.
“Chloe,” Poseidon answers in a low rumble.
A gasp lodges in my throat. I swallow it down, forcing myself to stay quiet.
Within minutes, they move on, footsteps further and further away until I lose the noise to distance.
They were talking about me. Some part of me is happy, almost glad I secured their attention, that I’m moving forward with the plan.
The rest of me trembles with fear. All the what ifs, all the ways this could go wrong, play in vivid color against my lids when my eyes close.
I picture my mother’s face, blindfolded with snakes coiling around her head. Her shoulders forever hunched, waiting for another attack.
With her demigod murderer gone, lost to something so simple as a fire, there’s only Zeus and Poseidon left to blame.
I withdraw from the shadowed safety of the column, eyes wide and smile guileless like I’ve only been there a second, and walk toward Dionysus. So focused on playing a part, on getting to him, I don’t notice the goddess until I collide with her shoulder.
And she’s certainly a goddess. Auburn hair, silvery-gray eyes, and the tall stature meant for a queen. She stares down her angular nose at me, expression both curious and aloof.
“I apologize. Excuse me,” I mumble, lowering my gaze. With quick steps, I dart around her with my jug held close to my chest.
Dionysus, back to lounging on his chaise, stares from heavy-lidded eyes while I walk closer. He tsks once. “Be careful, dear. Athena doesn’t like to be touched.”
Athena?
The goddess I bumped into was Athena?
The goddess of wisdom and warcraft.
The goddess who cursed my mother, exiling her to the islands with stone-turning sight and snake hair after Poseidon dared assault my mother beneath her statue.
I grit my teeth, barely forcing a smile at Dionysus’ raised brows. “I’ll be more careful from now on, my lord.”
Still, I don’t fall back into the line of attendants, lingering at his side until he stands and moves toward Aphrodite yet again. I can’t hear what he whispers to her, but from her sharp smile, I guess it’s remarks about the surrounding court members.
While he’s distracted, I walk about the room, offering refills to anyone who places their cup in my line of sight. The guards stare straight ahead, their eyes blank as clean parchment when I walk past.
Poseidon follows at a distance, steps measured, his expression filled with hunger.
It’s a strange sort of dance, me filling cups, forever darting forward, and him closing the distance between us more with each lap of the room.
Then he’s finally close enough to become a line of feverish warmth at my back. Not close enough to touch, but close enough for the heat of him to turn the air humid. His seawater scent seeps into my nose.
Throat tight, I glance over my shoulder, eyes widening in false surprise when I glimpse him behind me. “Would you like some wine, my lord?”
A smile curls the edges of his mouth.
A hand, wide and tan, lands on his shoulder. Squeezes once, muscles shifting in the arm beyond. “Brother, I see you found her.”
Zeus steps forward. Their gazes clash, turquoise sea against summer sky. After a torturous minute, Poseidon smiles. Something about it sits wrong, the edges too sharp and his teeth too prominent. Instead of backing away, Zeus leans closer. “We can share, can’t we?”
Poseidon’s eyes flicker from turquoise to deepest cobalt. “You know I dislike sharing.”
Zeus shrugs a broad shoulder. “You’ll learn given time.”
Frozen in place, I don’t dare move or breathe lest they notice. Sharing? They mean to share me? A hysterical laugh bubbles in my throat, dashed away by the knots forming in my stomach. They won’t share me like an object to be owned. They won’t own me. With Thanatos’ help and Nyx’s blessing, they’ll be dead before the season is over. A smile flickers on the edges of my mouth, but I tamp it down, forcing my brows to furrow, hoping the crease formed between them will make me appear clueless.
“Share what?” I ask.
“Nothing to worry yourself over, my dear,” Zeus says.
Poseidon opens his mouth to speak, but Zeus’ hand squeezes down hard on his shoulder. His mouth snaps shut, the corner of one eye twitching.
I glance between them, then allow my face to clear. “More wine?”
Zeus holds up his full cup. “We’re all set.”
He strides away, loosening his grip on Poseidon with a last warning squeeze, and slumps into his throne overlooking the court. From there, he’ll still see us, but likely won’t hear a word we say over the incessant chitchat from the court.
Poseidon rips his focus away from his brother, turning to me with another smarmy smile.
Even with my stomach knotted in rage, my hand carrying the jug raises of its own volition. The jug, a solid ceramic painted with trailing green vines budding burgundy flowers, acts as the last, useless barrier between me and the god.
He leans in, breath fanning against my forehead, rustling the fine hairs on my hairline. Sweat builds at the back of my neck. I swallow once, gaze pointed to the marble floor.
Atia slithers into a new sleeping position beneath my thick hair, a comfort and reminder. He can try all he likes, but I have a secret weapon: venom. With Stam and Atia’s venom coursing through his veins, he’ll be useless for days.
But I don’t raise my eyes. Let him think me timid. Let him think me cowed beneath his hunger.
He chuckles, a rasping noise so deep it rumbles in my chest, and stalks closer. I retreat with each of his steps. In no time at all, I’m backed against a column, him at my front in a line of heat and the stone freezing against my back. I lift the jug higher, but he only bends to press his face closer to the crown of my head.
He inhales, slow and deep. Then rumbles something like a laugh, yet not. “You smell delicious.”
I kindly don’t point out I smell of sweat and wine, fear and anger. With how my throat locks, how my chest rises and falls with swift, gasping breaths, I couldn’t if I wanted to.
He presses closer still, jug digging into his sternum and nose pressed to my hair.
Vomit builds in my throat, more with each of his rumbling inhales. With his broad shoulders and thick, long hair, there’s no glimpsing the room beyond. At some point, he raised his arms, caging me in on each side with his hands resting against the column. He becomes my entire line of sight; my entire world.
“Chloe!” a voice calls, slurring on the first syllable.
Poseidon groans, turning to look over his shoulder.
The smell reaches me before the person. Wine, thick and pungent. Dionysus.
He doesn’t back away, not until Dionysus is upon us, ducking beneath one of Poseidon’s raised arms and draping himself along my side. He’s as warm as the other god, but something about it is comforting whereas Poseidon’s heat is anything but.
“There you are! My cup has been empty for ages.” Dionysus raises his cup. Wine sloshes out of the full container, splashing across the front of Poseidon’s tunic. He blinks once, then frowns. “I could’ve sworn it was empty. Oh, well!”
He drapes himself more completely against my side, face tucked into the crook of my neck, and strokes my hair. “Who’s my favorite attendant? You are!” Then, in a comically loud whisper, “Don’t tell the others, though.”
Poseidon backs off, lip curled at the wine marring his once-pristine tunic. His arms retreat, hands curled into fists at his side instead of by my head. “Stupid boy,” he says.
Dionysus giggles. “I’m a man, silly. Chloe can attest to that.”
In the silence, one where my cheeks burn and Poseidon’s face takes on a distinctly murderous expression, Dionysus hums a tuneless song. “She’s helped me dress enough times to see the proof of that. She’s quite good at picking outfits, you know.”
Poseidon’s shoulders ease from murderous intent to casual indifference. “I see.”
Dionysus squints. “Do you?”
With a sigh, Poseidon strides away, stopping only when he’s beside Zeus’ throne. The guards lingering nearby shuffle in place, then settle again.
For the first time in an hour, I can breathe, though I don’t dare gasp for air like my tight lungs insist. “Aren’t you glad I saved you? He looked as if he was going to ravish you on the spot,” Dionysus whispers, no hint of his earlier slurring.
“Don’t you ever get sick of acting like a drunk?” I ask. “I was handling it.”
“Really? Seems to me you were hiding behind a piece of ceramic.” He taps the jug to prove his point.
I grumble a wordless response.
He throws his head back in laughter. The court doesn’t turn to look, used to his obnoxious giggles and laughs, though Aphrodite peeks over her shoulder with a fond smile. The man talking to her puffs out his chest, and she turns back to him with a long-suffering expression.
Dionysus leans close. “Apollo likes to go on about his precious golden lyre. It’s a bit concerning if you ask me.”
The god indeed has a golden lyre attached to one hip, hanging securely off his equally golden belt. As the god of music, the sun, and healing, I expected someone less…obnoxious.
“No one asked you,” I say.
He ignores me. “Better than having Ares harass her, though. He’s been absent from court gatherings lately.”
Ares, the god of war? “I don’t care.”
“That’s where you ask why, dear.” He shrugs. “But who knows? He probably took a new lover, knowing him. Still, it’s unlike him to miss any events, even with someone warming his bed.”
“Still don’t care.”
He shoots me a dopey look with venom lingering in his piercing eyes. “You should. Any disruption to this court could spell trouble for you. I can’t protect you from everything.”
I swallow, throat tight. “You don’t need to protect me at all.”
Stop talking, I will myself. And I do, but a moment too late, for Dionysus’ eyes narrow. “Are you sure?” He taps a finger against the jug again. “You won’t have bits of ceramic to shield you forever, dear girl.”
“I can handle myself.”
“You can handle yourself what?”
I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. “My lord.”
He nods. “Do well to remember yourself. Few are so forgiving as I.”
Aphrodite calls for him. Within a blink, he’s drifting across the room, veering dangerously into others’ paths along the way.
I stare after him, dread welling in my chest. He’s right. To survive the court, I must be careful, including with him. I won’t dare voice my true thoughts again, biting my tongue where normally I would have sassed without a thought.
Life in court stretches bleak before me. No more snappy retorts to Dionysus. Nothing more than playing parts: clueless young woman, subservient servant, timid seductress.
Yet wearing masks, wearing traits not my own, means revenge against Poseidon. Means stabbing Zeus in the heart. Means changing Prasinos into a place my mother might be proud of, if she still lived.
Chapter 20
Hours stretch into days, then days into weeks. My nights sleeping while my snakes frolic pass in a haze of tossing and turning, worries invading every dream.
Serving Dionysus settles into a rhythm. For all of his unpredictable behavior, he sticks to a rigid routine dictated by the court. Summons from Zeus, meals with Aphrodite and her husband Hephaestus, an array of feasts and parties and events centered on wherever Zeus’ whims fall each day.
Sometimes, staring at Dionysus’ lounging on a chaise in his rooms, I wonder if he ever bores of the monotony, the false conversations, the people-pleasing necessary to survive, or wearing a mask. He’s not a drunk. For all the wine he drinks, for all of his stench and staggering, his eyes remain sharp.
No one else notices.
And sometimes, I’ll glance only to find him staring back, gaze shrewd.
I’m quick to duck back to my work during those moments.
One day, with the scent of decaying leaves filtering in through the windows along with a damp smell promising rain, he has us line up in front of his chaise. One by one, he assesses us from head to toe, telling us to tuck in a fold or cinch our leather belts tighter or looser. Two attendants to my right share a look. “Another court gathering,” one mumbles.
The other rolls her eyes while an improperly tied sandal distracts Dionysus.
His assessing passes over me. I’m careful to dress perfectly, knowing anyone noticing me for too long could spell disaster. Stam, confined to her night hours, grows restless. She’s ready to sink her fangs into someone even now, with wane daylight weaving through the room and Atia holding her back by tightening around her body. With any luck, her time will arrive soon. Poseidon’s bound to grow bolder in his advances sometime soon. The hunger in his expression grows with each gathering.
I shift my wrist, glad for my bracelet hiding a flexible dagger.
We trek to the throne room in a neat line behind our master, like young birds following a waddling parent. He waves us off once we’re through the doors, settling himself beside Aphrodite while we settle into a cloister behind him with our jugs of wine at the ready.
“Where’s Hera?” he asks Aphrodite.
I glance around to find her throne empty. Strange. She’s always here before us, ready to survey the crowd with thinly veiled contempt.
Aphrodite sighs. “I don’t know, but I bet the woman on Zeus’ arm has something to do with it.”
Zeus, as if sensing their talk, strides our way. A woman clings to his arm, her hips swaying with each step. She leans close enough for their shoulders to touch. Despite Zeus’ significant height, her willowy form reaches his chin. Her auburn hair shines in a long braid swinging over one shoulder, thick like a giant snake. Her skin, dark and smooth, flushes beautifully beneath Dionysus’ attention.
