the handle of the wine jug. It’s my hand, of course it is, but my entire body has gone numb. The handle is nothing in my palm, not warm or cold or smooth or rough.
Yet despite the numbness, my hand shakes. I curse it in my head. Curse this show of weakness. From what Hestia whispered before shoving me into the large dining room, I’m to serve the god-king Zeus and his son Dionysus wine.
Luckily, neither of them pay me much attention. Zeus’ stare lands on me a handful of times, but only to eye my breasts or the curve of my hip, never my shaking hand or ashen face.
The other god, the god-king’s son Dionysus, is too far in his cups to notice anything at all. I’m not entirely sure if he knows I refill his cup instead of his wine being endless. A smile twitches at the corners of my mouth, but I force my face blank.
The two of them sit around a massive table of twenty seats. Zeus sits at the head in a chair with a grander design than the rest, guards lined up neatly on the far wall to his back. Dionysus slumps low in his seat, blinking blearily at the guards, then his father.
Still, the mahogany wood surface overflows with dishes. Grape leaves stuffed with meats and rice, savory stews, vegetable skewers, an entire goat roasted and placed on a silver platter, foldable flatbread larger than my head, balsamic-glazed figs, bowls of feta cheese topped with tomatoes, olives, and herbs, and more that I can’t identify.
More than either of them will eat, I’m sure. Dionysus doesn’t notice the food placed in front of him, too far gone, and Zeus only picks at his food with tiny, delicate bites.
If the other cleaning girls were right, I could try the dishes once the gods leave. My mouth waters. I stop myself from eyeing the figs.
“What are we to do about the servants leaving?” Zeus asks, poking at a stuffed grape leaf with disgust written across his face.
“The better question is why do the kitchen staff always serve you grape leaves when you hate them so,” Dionysus slurs, leaning back in his seat. His chair wobbles onto its back two legs, close to overbalancing.
I shove the chair back onto the floor, covering the move by ducking close to refill his cup. The sloshing wine hides the sound of the chair hitting the ground, thankfully.
“Oh! More wine!” he says, expression delighted. He throws back the cup, swallowing half within moments.
Zeus sneers at the ring of purple-red left behind on Dionysus’ upper lip. “We have to do something. If we lose more servants, gossip will spread.”
I duck close, refilling Zeus’ cup, then hurry to help Dionysus with piling food onto his already full plate. His hand wobbles, the silver tongs splattering rice across the table. With my free hand steadying his arm, the next scoop lands on the plate. Mostly.
“Spread where?” I mumble to myself from my spot close to his ear. The next second, I freeze, awkwardly bent next to his head with my hand still on his arm and my lungs in a vice grip of panic.
“Spread where?” he asks.
I force small breaths instead of the giant one threatening to burst from my tight chest, then stand, smile blandly, and pull my hand away.
Zeus sighs, attention turning back towards us from where he was gazing into his wine. “Do you forget everything I tell you, son?”
“Just the important bits,” Dionysus answers with a grin stretched around the rim of his cup. He slurps the last sip.
He repeated my question. Will he repeat more? I eye his flushed face, the glazed quality of his eyes. He might. If I whisper more questions into his ear, I can get the answers I need about the rebellion.
Sure, I’ll still ask Thanatos, but can I trust him? He won’t know as much as Zeus does, besides.
Or I can slip away to refill my partially empty jug, avoiding their notice. Avoiding punishment if I’m caught whispering into Dionysus’ ear.
Dionysus thrusts his hand up, his cup teetering in a flash of gold.
I need answers—about the rebellion, about the riots, and about my father.
How much can gods drink before they’re rendered useless? I’m about to find out. The drunker he gets, the easier this will be.
Zeus rolls his eyes. “It might spread to the towns throughout Prasinos. We don’t want anyone else getting ideas about joining that rebellion.”
I lean close to Dionysus, pouring into his cup in a thin stream. How should I pose my questions so they’ll sound like something he might say? But I don’t know him well enough to guess.
“So the servant left to join, then?” I whisper into his ear from between clenched teeth. My breath stirs the fine hairs curling at his temple.
He leans back. “So that servant left to join, then.”
I stand, forcing an empty smile despite the grin threatening to break through. There’s no need to worry after all. He’ll add his own flair without me doing anything.
“Yes. Girl, fill my cup,” Zeus says.
I hurry to do so, knees knocking together and my hand shaking around the jug handle once more. Filling his cup to the brim, I avoid his direct stare.
Zeus frowns from the corner of my eye. “This one favors you, it seems. Too bad.”
Dionysus snorts. “She’s not even my type. Or yours.” He eyes first my face, then my simple servant’s dress. “Nice eyes, though.”
My hand twitches, wanting to touch the skin beneath my eyes. The other servants haven’t mentioned how bright they are or how odd. Compared to the godly beauty in this sprawling palace, they’re almost dull, thankfully.
“True. She’s more Poseidon’s taste,” Zeus says, then ducks to take a bite of food.
I lean close to Dionysus, using Zeus’ distraction to whisper another question. “Where is Poseidon?”
Too direct. My heart thuds in my chest, the staccato rhythm lurching all the way into my throat. I lurch back, looming over Dionysus, and plaster a wane smile on my face.
Dionysus sits forward, leaning his elbows on each side of his plate. “Where’s my dear uncle these days?”
Despite his easygoing manner, there’s still something pointed about the question.
Zeus freezes, loaded pita bread stopping halfway to his mouth. Oil dribbles off one side, splattering onto the table.
Dionysus leans forward, far enough the ends of his shoulder length hair drag in his food. The cup wobbles in one of his hands, dangerously close to falling. “No, wait. Let me guess!”
Zeus’ eyebrows lower. His eyes, a startling sky blue, turn warm and hazy once again.
He purses his mouth to one side. “Mikos?”
I refill his cup once more, breaths coming easier now.
Zeus sighs. “No.”
“Sagia?”
“No.”
All towns on the east coastline of Prasinos and all close to the Thalassa Ocean, Poseidon’s biggest domain. There’s the Akri and Synoro seas, but they’re downright tiny compared to the Thalassa.
The memory of my home, the twin islands nestled between the two seas, shoots a pang of longing through my heart. The dank caves, our warm kitchen with the scent of herbs embedded in the cavern wall, the gulls Amble and Brosian, and even the darting lizards. Yet in my imaginings of home, my aunts aren’t there.
I don’t miss them.
Maybe this should be a revelation. Instead, it’s like an enormous piece in a puzzle box sliding home.
Dionysus slurps his wine, then slams the cup on the table. A grin transforms his face from drunk to excited. “Oh, I know! Aegea.”
Zeus scoffs. “He’s where he always is, you idiot—sailing the Thalassa Ocean.”
Dionysus slumps, mumbling into his wine. “I was close.”
I move to refill Zeus’ cup, trying to ignore his flushed face and how he stares directly at my chest. The moment it’s full to the brim, I sidle away, placing myself behind Dionysus’ chair. He, at least, doesn’t leer at my breasts, even if he reeks of heady wine.
So Poseidon’s in the Thalassa, after all. From the way they talk, he doesn’t spend much time in court. Why? Shouldn’t he be here, especially with riots taking place outside of Athansi’s walls? His powers over water are second only to Zeus’ over lightning and immortality.
What if Poseidon came to help Zeus stop the rebellion?
I lean down to Dionysus, covering the move by topping off his cup. “Just have Poseidon come help you beat down the rebellion.”
That little satyr girl’s face streaked with tears and ash surges into the forefront of my mind. Her family is part of the rebellion, or at least inspired by it. Are they safe now? I’ll ask Thanatos later. Surely he’ll know if they made it to Sartis, then beyond, safely.
Dionysus perks up, nearly whacking me in the nose with his shoulder. “Just have him come help you beat down the rebellion. He’ll likely take a lover and start some fresh gossip, smothering the other stuff about our servants.”
Zeus leans back in his chair. “I don’t need help.”
I fill the cup again. “Assistance, then.”
“Think of it as compensation. He owes you after all these years away from his place in court,” Dionysus says.
Zeus trails fingers over his neat beard in clumsy strokes. “Do you truly think he’ll start gossip?”
Dionysus snorts, sloshing wine everywhere, including over his mostly untouched plate of food. “Remember year 100? Everyone talked of his wife Amphitrite’s disappearance for decades after.”
“True enough.” He pounds a fist on the table. Forks rattle against trays, spoons against fine glass dishes. “It’s settled. I’ll send for him tonight.”
My heart leaps. The smile forever pasted on my face becomes a bit more real.
Footsteps echo in the large room. A servant man, steps sure but expression screwed up in hesitance, clears his throat once. “The queen has sent for you, god-king.”
Zeus throws his head back, groaning.
The servant bows, then leaves.
Dionysus giggles, waving his father off. “You best hurry.”
He nods, staggering upright on wobbling legs. Dionysus follows, swaying in place. He finally puts his cup down, uncaring when liquid splashes out of the rim from his rough movements.
Zeus eyes him, then me.
I freeze beneath his stare. The shaking in my hands stops.
“See my son to his rooms.”
Then he lumbers off, gone from the room with his guards by the time my hands shake yet again.
Slowly, I put the wine jug on the table. Dionysus sways into my side, smelling of ripened grapes and the rice from the dishes, but despite him leaning his weight against me, there’s no threat. No thinly hidden lust or contempt, just simple human warmth combined with his slow breaths.
I loop an arm around his back and shoulders, holding him, and use the other to grip him by one hand should he get ideas about bolting. Aunt Stheno is always a lazy drunk, but Aunt Euryale is the sort who gets a million ideas at once and must execute them immediately, no matter how shoddy the finished work ends up.
She gave me a cast-off project once, a knitted sweater more hole than fabric, the stitches uneven. I wore it for ages, at least until she noticed me wearing it and wrinkled her nose, telling me it was horrid.
Shaking off memories, I lead us away from the room.
With the sun long since gone past the distant sea horizon, a night sky with a heavy full moon takes its place. Stars glimmer from each window we pass. I’ve been meaning to ask Thanatos how each hallway has windows no matter how deep in the palace it is, but with more pressing questions on my mind, I doubt I’ll get to it soon.
Dionysus stumbles, rattling me from my thoughts. I shift him in my grip, slipping my hands from around his shoulders to across his waist. He leans more heavily into my side, and burps, then giggles, pointing out the turns I must take to reach his rooms.
“Last turn!” he announces a moment after we take a right.
This hallway is more of the same—white marble streaked with hazy gray, pedestal tables with overflowing flower vases filling the air with sweet fragrance, wall-mounted torches giving off warm light, and a statue of a god or goddess.
The single statue in this hall is of Dionysus himself, resplendent in a flowing tunic, posed stoically yet with an easy smirk on his chiseled face. I look from the statue to the man himself, standing straighter with each step we take deeper into his hall.
A shiver ripples down my spine. He can’t be sobering up already, can he? He drank nearly three-fourths of the huge jug just by himself.
He hiccups, then props himself to standing on his own with a hand against my hip. I wince, hesitating with my hand between us. Do I grab him before he runs off or trust him to go to his rooms?
But he grabs me by my hand, turning it over and staring at the bracelet coiled around my wrist.
No one has noticed it before now. The metal, a dull gray, is nothing to admire. The eyes, such an all-consuming black, fade to insignificance when I’m not looking at them.
He traces a finger over the snake’s head, head ducked to get a closer look. His finger is strangely steady. Oddly deliberate.
“My lord?” I croak, stifling the urge to rip my hand away.
“It’s lovely, if plain,” he says. The slurring words, the meandering sentences—gone.
My fingers twitch in his hold. “Thank you.”
He stares up through the fringes of his curled hair, his crooked smirk exact to the expression on the statue nearby. His eyes, a rich brown, sparkle with interest and a calculating sort of glee.
“You’re…” I begin.
“Sober,” he finishes.
I suck in a breath. My heart stutters, then starts again at a rapid pace. “You drank so much?”
My voice cracks and quivers. My hand, still in his, trembles.
He lets go. “As I should. I’m the god of wine, after all. It’s no easy feat to get me drunk.”
Gone are the excited proclamations, the guileless happiness. Instead, there’s a quiet contemplation.
And in the silence after his last word, I think only one thing.
I’m an idiot.