Romancing Theseus

Gods, kings, monsters, and one road neither of them can walk alone.

He killed three monsters on the road to Athens, and the only woman he wanted to keep had already been sold to his father's enemy.

Ariadne of Phrygia has one journey left before she vanishes into a marriage she never agreed to. King Midas sold her hand to a prince she has never met, on an island she cannot reach without a ship that leaves her too sick to stand. Bandits murder her escort on a cliff road in Greece. A stranger with a bow saves her life, and she begs him to go before her father's men find them together.

Theseus walks out of a fishing village to claim a father he has never met. He carries a marked rock and a pair of sandals to prove he is the heir of Athens, and he wants a name he earns himself. He does not want a wife. He does not believe the oracle who promised his mother one great love for her son and a death in the family as its price.

Then Ariadne walks into the labyrinth alone, trailing red string to map a monster's lair, and Theseus follows her into the dark.

A poisoner at the king's table. A prince with the head of a bull. An Amazon queen with an old claim on him. A cursed king who turns his own daughter to gold. Every one of them stands between these two and a throne neither of them planned to share.

Narrated by Victoria Pinder in an AI digital voice.