Ariadne by Audra Garcia
Seven boys and seven girls, plucked from Attica to appease my half-brother. My father threw a feast in their honor, dressing the long myrrh-wood tables in fresh fish and sweet wine. From his golden throne, he raised a cup. “Eat,” he said, “and drink. You have my permission to lay with a slave. It is your last night in this world.”
Next to him sat my smiling, yellow-eyed mother. She glowed with a vile pride; this was her doing. The nymph-daughter of Helios the Sun had birthed the dread man-eater, the spawn from her unholy union with the snow-white bull. She laughed, giddy and lush, at the sobbing youths. “They are too thin, Minos. My son will be hungry by next week.”
Suffering amused her. She’d cursed my father for his infidelity, making his seed into insects that clawed and stung, and the grin she cast at the wailing girls behind her peacock fan was no different than her snicker at the Athenian adolescents. This would be the third feeding since the Minotaur’s birth, totalling forty-two.
Forty-two boys and girls, torn apart in the Labyrinth for her perverted amusement.
A window in my room allowed in a breeze from the sea. I looked out into the night, but saw nothing; the Moon did not make an appearance that evening. Still, I stared and stared, hoping to make out his silhouette against the oil-colored waves. He was no longer with the other youths, small and shivering like newborn kits, my father urging them to fatten themselves. My sister, Phaedra, and I had distracted the guards long enough for him to slip away. A risk, yes, but a worthy one. He was the son of a king and an Olympian besides.
I knew this the moment I saw him. Perhaps it was some sort of ancient knowledge in my blood, to recognize another mortal whose veins were gilded with ichor. But I knew it by his air, his manner of walking; that he appeared to glide over the Earth rather than steady his feet upon it. I knew it the instant his eyes found mine. I found myself seized by the deep blue—their intensity, their resolve—and told my sister that he must be the earth-shaker’s progeny.
My attention stirred at the shuffle of twigs. I leaned over, and my heart fluttered. It was him—Theseus—crawling up the palace wall. “I’m here,” I said, and extended a hand to claim one of his; that it was coated with dirt and marble crumbles did not matter.
He was handsome—but I would have loved him still if he were plain—and so brave. He’d taken the place of another Athenian boy, intent on destroying the threat once and for all. King Aegeus had pleaded for him to reconsider, tugging on his arm. But when there’d been no dissuading him, Aegeus made his son swear to return with white sails if he was triumphant.
Theseus sat beside me, accepting the food and water I’d managed to sneak away from the dining hall. As he ate and drank, I asked, “Is Poseidon well?”
As though an Olympian would be anything else, but I was curious. It was strange, even then, that a son might be conceived from two fathers.
Theseus wiped his mouth, cleared his throat. “He is.” A pause. His eyes were fixed on the cup in his hands. “No different than always.”
“You’ve spoken to him before?”
He nodded. “I’ve known Poseidon since I was a boy.” Then his face tightened a bit with embarrassment, and his eyes shifted away, which I thought charming; I thought every hair on his head was far beyond precious. “He comes to shore and asks if I’m well.”
I’d heard many tales of Zeus’s elder brother, most concerning his brutality. He had sent the horrifying Cetus to dine on the country of Ethiopia because a queen insisted her daughter was lovelier than a Nereid. To imagine the Lord of the Ocean breaching the tide to coddle a small child was near impossible.
My voice was small. “I’m surprised he let you come here.”
Theseus’ lips twitched. “What could he do? Smash the ship?”
If Poseidon objected, I thought, the ocean itself would have congealed. There would be no bartering; a mortal father’s wish does not compare to an immortal father’s.
I moved across the room to my vanity, and pulled what I hoped would be a decisive ally from the drawer. A knot of gold thread.
I returned to Theseus’ side and placed it in his hand. “Daedalus gave me this,” I said.
He looked from the thread to me, astonished. “The Labyrinth’s architect?”
“Yes.” I’d gone to the craftsman’s isolated and lavish workshop, and told him of my wish to leave this place with the Athenian prince. His fingers had lingered over a candle, wringing and flexing, remaining just long enough not to burn. Mine had been clasped in pleading.
“There must be something,” I’d said. “Some device, some trick, something that could see him safely returned to me. Please.”
This had worked on him since I was a little girl. May I please have some bracelets? May I please have a dancing circle? But I am only deluding myself. It was not out of love for me that he complied, but fear of my mother; she kept him and his young boy trapped in that place. That same fear made him immune to my pleading until I knelt at his feet, one hand clasping the sparse hair of his chin. Supplication.
I had never assumed the stance. I’d never needed to, princess that I was. But I’d seen it many times before in my father’s hall; old men begging for their son’s pardon, or a punishment for their daughter’s ravishment.
“Please, Daedalus,” I whispered. “This will be the last thing I ever ask of you.”
For a time he did not move. And then with a heavy sigh, he bequeathed to me a golden clew—a ball of yellow thread. No, much more than that. It glimmered in the dim light, as though it were the life’s thread of my beloved, small and significant in my delicate hands.
“Tell the boy to go forward,” he said, “and always down. Never left or right.”
I’d kissed his fingers. “Thank you.”
Indeed, it was the last gift he ever bestowed on me.
Theseus palmed at the clew, then raised his eyes. His voice was soft, but it did not quiver. “You betray your mother and father by helping me.”
I wanted to tell him that my parents were fit for each other, each disgusting and terrible; that Phaedra and I would lose nothing if we went all our lives without them.
Instead, I took his hand in mine. “I would be betraying myself if I didn’t,” I said. “I can live with their rebuke. But I cannot live beyond tomorrow if it is not with you.”
Theseus lifted my hand, and touched my wrist to his lips. My breath hitched, and I felt the curve of his smile against my skin. He moved downwards, dabbing the inside of my forearm with tender kisses, and I did nothing else but marvel at him in breathless silence.
Then he raised his eyes to mine, and touched my super-heated cheek.
“Ariadne,” he whispered, “it is alright.”
I knew what he meant. Here and now, we were for each other. That much was enough; my desire for him, though demure with inexperience, was sharp and sure. He guided me to the bed, where we held each other so tightly that nothing fit between us.
After, we laid back, our breaths slow and drowsy. I glanced to my side, thinking he’d fallen asleep. Not so. His eyes were open. He smiled and tucked a stray lock behind my ear. I reached up to touch his hand, to keep it on my skin, admiring how he seemed to glow despite being wrapped in darkness.
He whispered, “Ariadne,” and I knew his meaning. Destiny was upon us.
I guided him back to the window, kissed his face once again. “Go forwards and down,” I said. “Never left or right.”
He nodded, and his fingers held my chin. “Come to the docks at dawn,” he said. “When we leave, you must remind me to hoist the white sails.”
With that, he descended down the wall; and my hands, empty of his, wrung themselves. Soon, I thought, he will end my half-brother’s life. Then, I reminded myself: soon, Aegeus will say the words over us in Attica in the company of whom we’ve saved.
But first, the Labyrinth. Let it come, I thought, the end of the man-eater.
By the Gods, I had never craved death so much before.
A gust passed over me that tasted of sea-salt and something else with it: dark, pungent honey mixed with temple incense. I opened my eyes, and there he stood, taller than any creature I had ever seen, taller than even my nymph mother. His skin glowed impossibly bright in the grey kiss of dawn; it drank the light and the life of the room. The sunflowers my sister and I’d picked shriveled and blackened.
I never gave a thought to Poseidon standing on the shore or in the brush below the window, his ears straining for every sound. That was foolish. Not the fear, thinking that he needed to be close to hear us.
A hand gripped my neck, silencing the beginnings of a scream. I thrashed, but it made no difference. His long fingers were cold and solid as ice. And his eyes. They were not like Theseus’ at all. They were dark as brine on rock and rabid with ire.
A stern hiss. “He will join me as a God.”
He loosened his grip, and I clutched at my throat. My windpipe felt stiff yet broken; I coughed and sputtered, fighting for every breath. I did not care for elegance. I did not care for anything other than air.
Until I overheard a metallic ring. My eyes darted to where he stood, three-pronged spear in hand. His skin glistened as if still damp, and his robe flickered per an invisible wind; the beginnings of sunlight made the fabric shimmer like fish scales.
And there were those dark, swirling eyes.
“Do not follow him to Athens,” he said.
One moment he was there, the next he was not, and I sat staring at the corner of the room where he had been. To preserve my sanity, I told myself it was a dream. I dismissed the ache in my throat and said aloud, “It was only a dream.” I patted my face, slapped my limbs. “A dream,” I said. “If it was not, I would be dead.”
I repeated this over and over until I was convinced. My head needed to be clear; Theseus told me to be ready at first light. I needed to prepare myself and my sister. I needed to remind him to raise the white sails.
In truth, I am not sure why Poseidon didn’t kill me then. Perhaps because he was a king and an Olympian besides. I would have been a fool not to heed him. But I was a girl who loved to dance and think foolish, happy thoughts, and there was something in my heart that yearned for Theseus as the moth does the flame.
Seven boys and nine girls set sail for Athens that morning. “White sails,” I reminded Theseus. “They must be white so your father knows you live.”
His eyes fluttered, then widened. “Oh, yes.”
He nodded with a slight smile, and I thought to myself that perhaps I should have specified that he needed the white sails for his mortal father.
The spared youths laid back, smiling at the feel of the Sun’s gaze on their faces. But I did not smile. I did not relax. I clung to Theseus and Phaedra the entire time the ship rocked back and forth on the waves, waiting for a sea-monster to snatch me from the deck.
I found my courage to say the words aloud on the second day. “I think—” Theseus turned and I paused, swallowed. “I think your father will be angry if we marry.”
He blinked. This time, he required no specification. “So what? What could he do? Send a monster to destroy Athens? I doubt Athena would allow that.”
My mind was in flux; that Poseidon, Sovereign of the Sea, could be angry and he would not care. This, I thought, is his love for me. I wanted to take him in my arms and powder his face with kisses. I wanted to hear him say it again, over and over, every day for the rest of our lives. I rested my cheek on his shoulder. His skin was cool, even though the Sun shone uninhibited. Perhaps on account of the brine in his veins.
He did not resemble Poseidon in the blue of his eyes, but in circumstance; he belonged on the ocean. When his face was to the open sea, when the wind kissed his dark hair, when the spray glistened his cheeks, when his skin glowed in the dawn, that was when he was most beautiful. But Poseidon’s beauty was cold-shock; his presence choked the life of all around him.
“Theseus,” I said, “do you want to be a God?”
He mulled over the question for some time, then answered, “I don’t know. But Poseidon says that if Orion became a constellation, it can be so for me.” Orion. Poseidon’s son and Artemis’ darling, until Apollo had tricked the huntress into killing him.
I tilted my head, aiming for a glimpse of his face. “But do you want to be a God?”
Theseus reclined back on his hands, his eyes on the water. Quiet existed between us. Above, the Sun charted his steady increases.
Then Theseus spoke, “I think I should want to be,” he said. “But I am fine to be as I am. Is that wrong?”
I laid down beside him, and he turned his face to me.
“No,” I said. “This means I won’t lose you so soon.”
He smiled and it was done. That an Olympian might kill me slipped from my cares.
On the third day, one of the boys announced we were low on water. Theseus pointed to a speck of land in the distance. “Naxos,” he said. “We can rest here and continue tomorrow.”
Naxos. The first time I stepped foot on land that was not Crete, not my father’s. It did not feel any different beneath my feet, and yet I felt like the eagle, soaring high above the trees. I could go anywhere, do anything, with Theseus by my side. This time tomorrow we would be husband and wife, and the entire world would be before us.
Phaedra took my hand. Her eyes were bright. “Sister,” she grinned, “we’ve done it.”
I kissed her cheek. She was right; we were free at last.
Phaedra stayed with the girls. I traveled with Theseus into the woodland with the other youths. “We should stay close to the ship,” one of them said, “and away from eyes.” A sensible idea. With them were two forsaken princesses, and Theseus’ sword still stank of monster viscera, still had tufts of bull-hair attached. So it was decided. We would gather what we could from the forest. The boys would hunt deer; I took it upon myself to find fresh water.
I remember the grove of winding laurels that concealed the mouth of the river. I settled on the moss bank with the lone pot I’d stolen to see us through. It would be enough. One more day; all that was needed to see us nestled in Athens. I lost myself in the image of Theseus and I, and the merriment we would enjoy.
Perhaps that is why I did not hear him approach until it was too late. Or else I did not hear him because he is a God, first and foremost; he does not make a sound unless he intends for it to be heard. And just as the hunted mouse perks its ears, I raised my head. “Theseus?”
“You are not fit to speak his name.”
No. I whirled around, and there Poseidon stood. His robes glimmered like blue opal; his skin glowed luminous as if wet; and beneath his feet resided a pool of darkness uglier than shadow. His lip curled, and his pearl teeth glinted like those of a white-bellied shark’s. But that was nothing compared to his eyes and the fury they held.
No. I scurried back on the moss until my back collided with bark.
He moved forward and more green died. The land—the laurels, the grass, the bushes of berries and wildflowers—blackened where he moved across the Earth. How had such a vicious creature begot Theseus? I did not understand it.
I fell on my knees, sobs tearing through my throat. “I beg you! I will be a good wife to Theseus. I’ll be faithful, and I’ll be useful.” I clasped my hands, and implored him through my bawling. “All I wish for is to see him return to Aegeus in Athens, as you do.”
But there would be no absolution. If anything, this infuriated him all the more.
“Aegeus,” he sneered, “will be dead soon.”
I saw it all unfold before me, the morning of the fourth day. Theseus, in his distress, hoisting the black sails; Aegeus, in his needless despair, throwing himself into the sea; and Poseidon, in his vainglory, watching the Athenian king’s head bash against the waves.
The grass beneath me went black as soot, and the sea-king raised a hand, a gold-plated arrow of Artemis gleaming in his grip. “I warned you.”
I could not have run if I’d wanted to.
My only thought is a name. Theseus.