The Ariadne Connection

SHE STRODE DOWN THE rocky path, her donkey trotting along in the cool morning as they rounded the headland and broke into a spill of sunlight. Below, a cove glimmered clear vibrant blue—mirror for the cloudless sky and white cliffs cutting pure lines against it. The air shimmered, humming electric with the fresh day.

Ariadne Demodakis stopped, filling her lungs with the air’s astringent tang, tingling with the brand-new, ages-old promise of dawn. Life surged in her, pulsing with the world’s heartbeat.

A shadowy twinge. She knew even as she savored this rare morning that it was only a brief reprieve from all those urgent voices clamoring for attention: the RP-Hansen’s victims, the healing experiments her scientists were running back at the lab, the communications conglomerates’ announcement that they were raising the already-dangerous transmission power on the remaining microwave towers, the latest plan to capture more shipping lanes by her father the Tyrannos—her jailkeeper. And this beloved island, her birthplace become her prison.

She took a deep breath and pushed those strident voices back inside a sphere of silence, summoning the cool serenity of a marble statue to smooth her face. Within that quiet, she had learned to find her freedom.

Today, this fragile glory of the dawn, wasn’t meant for shadows and clamor. The world even stricken was such a power of beauty it sounded her depths like a bell and she could only ring with it, send her voice pealing out to the earth and sea and sky in reverent praise.

“Chairete!” Rejoice.

Lifting her face to the sky, she turned slowly with outstretched arms, stepping to an ancient dance of thanks-giving.