Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
I want out with a desperation I don’t know how to grapple with. Wanting that makes me a bad person. There’s no two ways about it. “For us to get out, that means the barrier will fall.”
“The barrier was always going to fall, sweetheart. Circe made sure of that.”
He’s right, I think. And yet I can’t stop the guilt that threatens to swallow me whole. “How many people have to die for her vengeance? For my father’s ambition? If the barrier stayed up—”
“It won’t.”
I press on, pretending I didn’t hear him. “If the barrier stayed up,” I repeat, “then Circe and her army would have to give up.”
“Ariadne.” He waits for me to look at him before he continues. “You’re not that naive, so stop pretending. Even if the barrier didn’t come down, the Thirteen would keep on fucking with the people less powerful than them. You’ve been to the lower city, to the countryside. You’re a smart woman; you understand that this is not some utopian city where everyone is treated fairly. And neither was Aeaea. The world is fucked up, but it’s consistent. Powerful people do awful things to maintain their power. The barrier was destined to fall the moment Circe left and took a piece of it with her. There’s no stopping it. This shit is bigger than us. It always has been.”
I can’t tell if I want to shove his words away or hold them close to my heart in reassurance. Doing one feels just as naive as he labeled me. Doing the other feels self-serving in the extreme. If we’re just two cogs in the machine and nothing we do has any long-term consequences, then we can do anything at all. We could bring down the damn barrier and tell ourselves that it was fate.
“That’s a cop-out, Asterion.”
“Is it?” He reaches out and brushes my hair back from my face. “Look around, sweetheart. Every single person in this fucked-up world is only looking out for themselves. It’s time you do the same.”
19
The Minotaur
I can’t stop myself from following Ariadne and Dionysus back to his building. I stand in the shadows across the street for far too long, as if my presence there will do a single goddamn thing. For once, no Olympians show up to irritate me. I’m left to my own thoughts, and it’s a strange place to be.
She’s finally starting to understand that I’m not here to hurt her. I loved watching her dark eyes go all soft as she finally made peace with that reality, but there’s still a jagged piece of glass in my chest. It was easy enough to anticipate her needs and take care of them tonight, but I’m not soft. I’m pretty fucking sure that she was just being a brat in the changing room yesterday, but it’s hard to get those words out of my head. Soft. It might not get her off as hard as being bad does, but Ariadne deserves softness.
She deserves to be with someone whose hands aren’t stained with blood and death.
Which is too damn bad, because what she has is me. I just don’t want her getting the wrong idea. I don’t know how to be a boyfriend. I don’t know how to be in a fucking relationship. With Ariadne, just existing in her presence is as natural as breathing. I want to believe that won’t change, but if I really think that, then I am as naive as I labeled her.
My entire fucking life has been geared toward claiming Ariadne. It was a goalpost that kept moving through the years, Minos always pushing it out just a little farther. Part of me honestly believed it would never happen. It still hasn’t happened. But now that Ariadne is starting to understand what the fuck we are to each other, there’s a very real possibility she will leave the city with me when the barrier comes down. That she’ll choose to go without me having to twist her arm.
And then what?
I had vague ideas of traveling with her, but now that reality is bearing down on me, I don’t know what the fuck that even looks like. I have money, but not an endless amount. I only have one skill set, and somehow I think Ariadne will have a problem with me taking hits to fund our lifestyle.
Oh well. I’ll figure it out once we get out of this fucked-up city.
***
Ariadne
I’m still reeling an hour after we returned to Dionysus’s penthouse. It feels like I just took a step to one side and now my entire perspective of the world has changed. Maybe that was reality this entire time and I just couldn’t see it.
A knock on my door startles me, but only for a moment. “Yes?”
“Come have a drink with me. All that pacing and stressing isn’t good for the body.”