Page 84 of Invoking Ruin

I hate this empty place.

There are no guards, and the bars are made of adamant, meant to contain even the most powerful gods. The cuffs around my wrists are overkill. Hephaestus made them extra rough, probably out of spite.

I might deserve that, after what I did to Lethe. Nyx and I both left scars on her.

Are you any different than Nyx?

I groan. They say I’m good at finding the cracks in people’s armor, but I have nothing on Eris. She knew exactly where to strike to open up all my insecurities.

I am different from my grandmother. Dionysus is still here, which is proof of that.

Right?

I’m not sure I believe my own logic. After all, the world is ending, and we’re all about to die.

Enough of this. I’m not staying here, on the eve of the end of the world, wallowing in my own self pity.

I’m getting out of this damn cell if it’s the last thing I do. The last thing anyone ever does.

I sit on the floor and stretch my shoulders, rolling them around in their sockets. I went to see a circus once, many years ago, during my vigil over Dionysus. He would have loved it: the spectacle, the illusion, the mortals shedding their propriety for something more primal, more real.

I should have taken him. The mortal name he’d been using then is lost to me—I’d been keeping my distance more in those early days—but he’d have loved it all the same.

He’d have loved so many things. I could have shown all of them to him, instead of being afraid of his scorn and worried about consequences.

My favorite circus performer had been the contortionist. I could have spent all night watching her bend this way and that, folding into positions no mortal should have been able to achieve.

She’d been cuffed like this, too. To increase the difficulty.

Surely, I can pull off most of her tricks.

A little bending won’t get me out of this cage, but it will be a first step.

Slowly, I push my shoulders backward. My body isn’t mortal, so it doesn’t strain the way theirs do, limited by muscle and bone. The motion still isn’t comfortable.

I’ve managed to work my arms out from under my ass and through most of one leg when Dionysus appears.

We both pause, staring at each other.

He’s still ruffled from the explosion, dried ichor with streaks of red on the side of his face, stiff drops on his purple shirt.

Gods shouldn’t look exhausted, but he does, with circles under his eyes. Would he have recovered in time? Lost his lingering mortality from the Decay?

Or he’d just be dead.

What had he been about to say before the sky broke open? Would he choose mercy, for me, or condemnation?

I hate that I don’t know.

“What are you doing?” he asks, golden eyebrow arching.

With a sigh, I force my leg through the tiny gap in the chains and let out a sigh when I get it out from under me. “Making myself less comfortable, what does it look like?”

The jangling of keys and the screech of metal bars has me glancing up again. The door is open, and Dionysus holds a keyring out in front of him.

I scowl. “Do you think Hephaestus makes the door screech like that on purpose?”

“Is the door really what you want to discuss, or do you want out of here?”

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