Page 35 of This Divine Revelry

But then the boat shudders, and I look at Dionysus and he is so very pale. ‘We might need the sails for –’

He collapses before he can finish.

Under sail, the journey takes twice as long and we are all exhausted by the time we dejectedly trek to the tents. Silen remains on the boat with Dionysus, waving our curiosity away. ‘He’s just exhausted,’ they say. ‘Tried putting the fires out himself before he made that pact with Poseidon. I suppose we can deal with that in the morning – he promised the sea god the best of our wine stores.’

But that’s not what concerns me come daybreak.

Don’t gods trigger natural disasters when entire towns refute their divinity? Don’t they swallow islands whole? Can’t they at the very least put out a damn fire? I know Dionysus’s powers need belief so maybe it’s only a matter of the way the revellers turned on him, but how can one single town be enough to dilute the power of a god? And then, of course, there is his own confession: is he a god or isn’t he? That is the question.

Is he just lying to everyone here and to everyone he meets and to me? Didn’t I sense that when I first met him? The Theseus to it all?

I need answers before the contempt swallows me.

So I go to his tent, having no idea how to knock or announce myself so trying a simple, hesitant calling of his name. ‘Dionysus?’

There’s a beat of silence, and then a droll, ‘Whatever your name is?’ which I imagine means come on in, so I do.

I expect to find him exhausted – on his bed or one of those klines, recovering from yesterday. Instead he is sprawled on the floor, beads and string littered about him as he threads amethysts on to a long leather cord. The necklace might be more reasonable if there weren’t also dried figs strung alongside the jewels.

I sigh. ‘You’re using figs now?’

‘Well, you didn’t like the pine cones, Arianne.’

I flinch at the false name – this one too close to my own – but he’s so focused on forcing a needle through the fig’s tip he doesn’t notice.

Steeling myself, I say: ‘I assume you know what it is I want to talk to you about.’

‘I gather it’s not to thank me for stalling the townspeople long enough for you to make it back to the boat?’

I swallow, suddenly terrified the answer might not be what I want it to be.

‘Are you actually a god? Or are you lying to all these people?’

He looks up from the figs. I watch as the realization hits. ‘You’re thinking about joining.’ There’s none of the unabashed glee of his previous assertions that I might never leave. He is serious, as I have never seen him – except for last night. He says it in exactly that same way – like I am another blazing, consuming fire.

‘I’m considering it,’ I admit. ‘I don’t know that I agree with everything. But sailing from town to town to make people a little bit happier? To leave them freer? I could believe in that. But …’

He stands, draping his latest garland about his neck, and crosses to the table. ‘But you couldn’t believe in me.’

Yes.

Desperately, I try: ‘I’m not the reverential sort.’

He snorts. ‘Aren’t you a priestess, new girl?’

Oh. Right. But he’s pouring a drink and waving me away. ‘It’s alright, I understand. Growing up the way I did, I never really understood why anyone worshipped the gods either. I don’t particularly want reverence, but apparently I need it. Which is why I created the thiasus, why I walk this land instead of sitting on Olympus – because I am them and they are me. You don’t need to believe in me. Believing in our message, in what we do? That sustains me just as well. It’s all the legend of the great god Dionysus being fuelled.’

Oh. Oh. ‘So it is just that? A legend?’

‘I’m a god, Archippe. Just relatively new and with a few … peculiarities. My father is Zeus but my mother was mortal. Semele, Princess of Thebes.’

I slide into the seat opposite, though I don’t accept the offered cup. ‘So you’re a demigod.’

Like my mother. Like my witch aunt – is that what he is? Someone like Circe with powers derived from the gods?

‘No. Or yes. Maybe? Some sort of hybrid between god and demigod, I suppose. Mortal mother and immortal father. Immortal already married father whose wife wasn’t all that happy with the infidelity. But Zeus strung Hera from the sky and made her swear on the Styx not to rise against him, which left her only one option to protect herself: to avenge herself on the women he cheats with instead.’

‘What do you mean protect herself?’ I demand, because it’s a little too close to home: gods punishing mortal women when their own egos are threatened.