Ariadne

“You’ll have to take me with you.”

A shadow of a grimace passed over Theseus’ face. Then as quickly as it came - son of a God as he were - it was schooled into a heroes’ grin. Bright, as if he had been expecting my request all along.

As clever as I felt, back then I was young and unschooled in the way of men, legends or both. I did not notice the grimace.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I am the mistress of that maze and only one of two people who knows every route within it. When they find you gone, my father will know exactly how you came to be spared. You will have to take me with you.”

There was a beat. His eyes, sea-green and sharp as ocean glass didn’t leave mine once. Theseus did not like considering the unspoken wager in front of him.

Take me with you, or die.

Even worse, it was a wager brought to him by the lesser daughter of the King.

I was not of my sisters’ beauty, or artistry. None of my brothers’ appetite for court-matters or politics either.

To further salt the wound, my father thought me too soft on those he’d cast his scorn upon, from the architect Daedalus and his small son now kept in the bowels of our palace, to the very thing their craftsmanship had kept imprisoned and roiling in the Labyrinth.

The beast. The glory and shame of King Minos. Pasiphae’s wickedness borne anew. My brother. The Minotaur.

I knew him as Asterion, my nymph-mother’s secret pride. She had always been the most beautiful of Helios’ children, bright and burning with a dual thirst for adoration and the humiliation of others.

The magic she wielded was potent and acid-like. Already it had claimed the lives of numerous sweet serving girls my father had coerced into his bed. My mother’s lingering curse had left corpses in the sheets.

She had waited with baited breath to see if any of her children would also be gifted with her knife-sharp witchcraft.

Each of us, including my sisters Acacallis, Phaedra and Xenodice came wailing into the world without a whisper of it. Even my brothers - as coveted as gold to kings - Androgeus, Deucalion, Glaucus and Catreus were born painfully, stupidly mortal.

In the end, Minos’ humanity bore out, and Pasiphae was once again reminded that her godhood meant nothing in our Cretan halls.

But she had Asterion, which gave her something she’d never had been able to use so freely before. Teeth.

I held the weight of those teeth behind my words. And for the first time in my shining, creaking life, I felt powerful.

This man - no, boy - would have to take me with him. I held our future in my mind, where we’d both rush from the Labyrinth red-faced and dizzy, still laughing when we reach his boat. Happy still once we set foot on foreign soil, having gone from comfortable companions to something more during the voyage. United by our daring escape, we’d settle somewhere and grow old and drunk of our own company.

It was a fine future, indeed. But it was not meant for me.

Theseus’ smile slid further upwards. He was amused, but he wasn’t stupid enough to let pride kill him.

He held out his hand.

“Alright, Mistress of the Maze. I’ll take you with me.”

I took it. The skin there was sun-warmed and salt-hardened, knuckles white from years spent harbouring a spear. I’d never been this close to a man, aside from my siblings. The knowledge lodged itself conspiratorially in my chest.

Instead, I made my voice as lofty as possible.

“We’ll meet tomorrow at dawn. Leave your sword. And make sure to sort your belongings. Once you step into the maze, we won’t be returning to my father’s halls again.”

The god’s son bowed his head. There was nothing more to say, so we bid each other good night and I prepared to take the steep stone steps back to the palace for what would be the last time.

He would love me, I mused. He will thank me and love me all the more for saving his life. He will owe everything to me.

I was more like my Mother than I thought.