Page 1 of Invoking Ruin

Prologue

Dionysus is glorious in his splendor.

His golden hair glows red in the firelight as he drives into a maenad from behind. He tosses his head back with a moan and tips back a goblet of wine. Half of it goes down his throat and the rest spills down his chest, trailing to where he and the maenad are joined.

The air is thick with woodsmoke, incense, and sex. Beats of drums, ululations, frenetic moans all set the scene for frenzy, for pleasure, for violence.

Maenads dance to their own tune, waving pinecone-topped thyrsus poles. Some have coupled, even tripled off to touch and grind and moan together in the light of the fire. At the edges, satyrs wait to catch one of them. Satyrs are welcome, but mortal men would be torn to pieces, their intestines used as garlands in the next round of dancing.

Sex and violence are celebrated in equal measure when it comes to Dionysus’ frenzied rites. He welcomes it all. Wildness and freedom. Pleasure and pain. All ecstasies, his for the claiming.

And I hide at the edges, concealed behind the bulk of an olive tree. The thick tree is so ancient that, from its perspective, even this orgy must seem like a boring, everyday sight.

I can’t keep my eyes off his cock. The way it slides and thrusts, the hitch in his stomach every time his breath catches, the hair on his chest glistening from wine and the oil the maenads had anointed him with.

My fingers dig into the bark until splinters are buried under my nails.

I've known he was mine from the first time I saw him, new to my own existence and immortality. Even in my nascence, I'd known. I'd spotted his golden hair, his sublime wrath as he changed pirates and slavers to joyous, mischievous dolphins and was lost. I've watched him ever since.

I’d give anything to walk over there, shove the mortal maenad away from him, and claim him for my divine self. My cunt aches, clenches, makes its emptiness felt.

But I stand here like some frightened virgin maid, unable to leave this tree to which I’ve grown roots.

They’re all beneath him. These mortals and creatures he consorts with.

I’m no better.

The thought keeps me in my place. It’s true. I don’t belong at his side, and any position I might be able to have beneath him isn’t one I would seek.

But I crave him nonetheless.

“Sister.”

I go rigid. The voice, at once musical and airy, is familiar. I can’t place it, though, only feel it in a niggling, forgotten sense. Either way, it’s unwelcome.

Lethe watches me, my dear sister, the goddess of oblivion. She’s cast in moonlight. I’m not sure if her ethereal glow is the moon reflecting off of her, or passing straight through her skin.

“Go away!” I snap. The sooner she leaves, the sooner I can forget she exists again.

“What are you doing?” She steps closer, peering with me around the tree. Her nose crinkles. All of this is likely too much noise for Lethe. She prefers still waters, her blissful Oblivion. Sensation isn’t for her.

Neither is the sight of Dionysus naked and rutting in the center of the mayhem.

“I said, leave.” I try to turn back to my spying in peace, but she lingers behind me.

Her lips purse, but I don’t pay it much mind. Lethe will forget about how pathetic I look as soon as she turns away. Or I will. Either way, it’ll be forgotten.

“If you are so eager for his attention,” she says, “you should approach him.”

I scoff. As though it were so easy. He’s Dionysus, beloved of the gods. An Olympian with all the power in the world. Even if he spends festivals rutting with whomever and whatever pleases him, that doesn’t mean I am free to approach him.

Not with what I desire.

“As though you know anything about gaining anyone’s attention,” I snap. Lethe’s shoulders slump, and for a second, I consider feeling bad. It’s not Lethe’s fault her domain makes her cursed to be forgotten.

But I also don’t care very much.

“I’m only trying to help,” she murmurs.

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