“Yes.TheAthena. Weak-willed, rancorous, spiteful, and like all the old gods, more trouble than she was worth.” He huffed a half-laugh, his normally stoic expression cracking in a sneer of derision. “For someone who loved to tout her so-calledwisdomandwealth of knowledge, she certainly did love going about cursing women who she felt had slighted her in some minor way.”
“If they weren’t really ‘gods’ or ‘goddesses,’ which clearly you think they weren’t…” She paused to let Serrik let out another small laugh before continuing, “What were they?”
“Nothing more than creatures, same as you or I. Same as those who made me. Same as those who bore them, and those who bore them, and so on. I designed and created this place”—he gestured at the room around them again—“and were you and I not so well-met, could I not be considered a god to you? As you are to an insect?”
“Ouch.”
“My point is merely that power is relative, little butterfly. And to myself, certainly above me is the thing who made me,and so on and so forth. But your superiority over ants is no more righteous than Athena’s is over you. It is merelypowerthat gives you the ability to take the life of an ant and rearrange their world at will.” He had finished his second glass of scotchand poured himself another. “Hm. I have decided I do not like to drink alone.” He summoned an empty glass from thin air and set it down between them.
“You’re the boss.” Chuckling, she poured herself a glass and sipped it. She assumed he had a higher alcohol tolerance than she did. “But note to self, don’t get into philosophical debates with Serrik. Or drinking contests. You’ll lose both.”
“I believe the first would be quite enjoyable. The second, while it will no longer end your life, might make you quite miserable, I agree.” The faint smile he’d been wearing faded. “What has become of Athena, which is likely what you are about to question next, I do not know. I hope they have died and are now rotting in whatever afterlife brings them the most suffering possible.”
“Jesus, tell me how you really feel.” She laughed into her drink as she took her own sip. Just because she wasn’t trying to keep up didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy getting alittlefluffy.
“Another individual I cannot speak to the validity of, but I understand you were using their name as an invective.” He rested his head back against the chair, and she was struck by how the firelight cast sharp shadows along the angles of his features. God, he waspretty.
But she could suddenly see the mix of Greek carvedperfectionin his features, along with that almost elven inhumanity that she had always imagined when she thought of the fae. He was half and half.
“I deeply dislike all who would wield their power and pretend it gives them righteousness.”His expression had gone back to reflecting an icy nothingness. “To pretend to be gods…to demand worship—the sheer disgusting audacity of it all.”
The hate and vitriol in his words were painted on so thick, yet his expression was so flat, that the clash had her staring at him in confusion. In fact, his only physical reaction to his loathing wasthat his hand that had been holding the grapes, now eaten and gone, clenched, digging gold-painted nails into the air like a claw to prevent stabbing them into his own palm.
Right.
Okay.
Serrik had a thing.
Well, that explained the whole genocide thing. At least he hadn’t just casually reached that conclusion.
Gotcha.
Cool.
“Noted…right there after drinking contests…”
His hand relaxed. “Forgive me. It is a personal topic. This is why I do not like to tell my tale.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I talked you into this. So, Athena’s a catty bitch and your mom ran her mouth, is where I think we left off.”
Serrik laughed quietly, revealing those too-long fangs of his. She wondered what they were for. They were almost vampiric, but she didn’t think he drank blood—though what the fuck did she know. “You are quite skilled at summarizing things both accurately and offensively. I do not know how to feel about this.”
“Probably also something to get used to, if we’re stuck together for a while.”
“Hm.” His expression was unreadable for a moment, something both warm and yet…off about it. Conflicted, almost. It was gone as soon as it was there. “Regardless, your appraisal is accurate. My mother ‘ran her mouth,’ bragging to the world that she was a better craftswoman and spellcaster than even Athena herself—that she could weave better tapestries than the woman who claimed she had invented the art form.”
The story was starting to sound vaguely familiar, but Ava kept her mouth shut for the moment. She also didn’t want to pop Serrik’s bubble—it was his story, let him tell it.
“Athena took the form of an old woman and challenged my mother to a contest. When my mother said that no one, not even the gods, could best her in weaving, the old woman said she best be careful to whom she spoke thusly. My mother replied that she cared not if she spoke to Athena herself.” Serrik sighed and shook her head. “And lo, Athena revealed herself. And a competition was waged. My mother won. And summarily…lost.”
Shehadheard this story. “Athena wove a tapestry warning of all the times the humans had challenged the gods. Your mother wove a tapestry about all the times Zeus got busy with a human, and…your mom won.”
“They still teach the myth. How charming.” He downed the third glass of scotch and poured himself a fourth. She wondered if she was going to learn what a drunk fae was like. “What else did you learn?”
It kind of sounded entertaining, a drunk fae.
Dangerous, but entertaining. She wondered if he got handsy when he was drunk…
