Page 180 of A Touch of Chaos

“Why?”

“When I first heard about you, the rumor was you could turn men to stone with a single glance,” he paused. Now that he had seen her, he understood where that rumor had come from. The thought made him uncomfortable.

“So you wanted me for this power you think I have?”

“Initially,” he said. “But then everyone found out about you, and suddenly, you were in danger. I couldn’t just…let you fall into the wrong hands.”

“Because of my power, you mean.”

Dionysus studied her. “I know you are resentful,” he said. “But without the rumor of your power, I wouldn’t have known about you, and I wouldn’t be here now trying to save you.”

She said nothing.

“Anyway, I had hoped to have you join my maenads.”

“Maenads?”

“They’re…mostly my friends,” he said. “They’re women who have fled from bad situations and need protection or a chance to start again.”

“That almost sounds too good to be true,” she said.

“They are,” he said, and then he shook his head. “I’m not sure where I’d be without them.”

Especially Naia and Lilaia, who had been with him the longest. They had shown him what it meant to be cared for. They had fed him and clothed him, but they had also listened and encouraged him. When he thought he was going to be taken under by madness, they were there to pull him out again. They had seen each other at their worst, which had only encouraged their best.

“I’m not sure how I got here,” said Medusa.

“You mean on this island?”

“Here, at this point in my life,” she explained. “I wanted to be a priestess.”

“For which god?”

“Athena,” she said. “I was studying at her temple in New Athens until I was taken.”

“Taken?”

“I was walking home at night after leaving the temple when I was shoved into a car and bound. They took me to a hotel.” She paused, her chest rising and falling fast.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Dionysus said.

It took her a moment to speak again.

“I thought…for some reason, I thought because I was a priestess, someone might find me. I prayed to Athena. I begged her. She never came.”

“I’m sorry,” Dionysus said.

She shrugged. “It was a hard lesson to learn, that nothing comes from devotion.”

He hoped in time, she would learn otherwise, but he didn’t say that aloud because he knew those words were useless here.

“Sleep,” he said instead. “I will keep watch over you.”

Dionysus woke when he inhaled sand.

Choking, he sat up and began to cough. His eyes watered, and his chest and throat burned. When he was mostly recovered, he looked across the dying fire at Medusa.

“You are lucky I can’t sleep,” she said.

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