The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet Page A

as his hoofbeats receded and stopped. She heard the roar of the crowd. Their stamping shuddered all the way to her bones.
Don’t do this
, she thought dimly.
Get up, Princess.
    She rose and stood very tall. As she did, the crowd quieted. Her mother’s voice rang out into the new silence.
    “Let us offer thanks to the Great God for the spectacle we have just witnessed!” Another cheer. Ariadne stared up at the queen, who was standing on the steps that led to the entrance pillars. The light of the braziers ringed around the courtyard behind her played over her hair and outstretched arms. The strands of golden rings that hung from her ears winked and shimmered.
    “Let us offer thanks to my children, who are themselves so blessed!”
    Bull-Asterion was standing below Pasiphae. The glow seemed to touch him, too, and to smudge the brown coat, the furred legs, the hoofs and lowered head. All of these things melted and warped until a smaller, brighter form knelt upon the dancing ground.
    “All praise to Poseidon’s son!” someone cried.
    “And all praise to the Princess of Knossos!” cried someone else. One last, scattered cheer went up.
    “Now come here to me, children,” the queen called.
    Ariadne walked slowly to stand beside Asterion. She heard people dispersing around her, murmuring and laughing; she saw them streaming between the pillars, back into the courtyard. (She couldn’t see Chara among them.)
    Her mother smiled down at them. Her eyes were so dark that Ariadne could only imagine their green. “You have never played together,” the queen said in a low voice that did not match her smile. “So I can only assume that what just happened here was no game. Ariadne,”—the word was as hard as a slap—“I do not know what you did to provoke Asterion. I do not truly need to know. But whatever it was, you will not do it again.”
    “Why do you accuse only me?” Ariadne swallowed to clear the tears from her throat. “How can you be sure he didn’t change for his own reasons?”
    Pasiphae shook her head. The earrings swung against the long line of her neck. “He promised Poseidon and his priestesses that he would change only in the service of the true gods. He would not break this promise without good cause.”
    “No, Mother.” Asterion’s words came out thickly; perhaps his tongue and teeth were still reshaping themselves. “It
was
just a game. I’m sorry. I won’t belittle my father’s gift again.”
    Pasiphae looked from him to Ariadne and back. “I am unhappy with you both,” she said at last. “Leave me.”
    They walked together into the courtyard. Ariadne glanced over her shoulder; Pasiphae was still standing facing the dancing ground.
    “So I proved it,” Asterion said. He sounded like a normal boy now. “I’m not afraid of you.”
    Ariadne stopped walking and so did he. She touched a finger to one of his horns and drew it down through his hair and along the line of his jaw. She felt him shiver. She gouged a swift, thin line into his cheek and smiled as he sucked in his breath. “You should be,” she said.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    A storm blew in from the west, the day Ariadne turned sixteen. That morning, Chara and Asterion sat with their backs against two grain jars—the largest of all the storage jars, which trembled every time the thunder cracked. They laughed when this happened but didn’t speak.
    “Rats,” said a voice from the dimness. “Hiding in the cellar.”
    “Mother!” Asterion scrabbled to sit up straight. He was tired today, Chara knew; there had been another rite the night before because the fishing in the waters below the summer palace had been sparse so far this season, which meant that Lord Poseidon had to be appeased. (When the rite was done, she’d given him an amber bead she’d found at the foot of the cliff stairs, almost entirely buried in sand. “It’s cooler than water,” he’d said as he held it to his wrist, where his newest burn was.)
    Pasiphae frowned.