This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(105)

“I could,” Zeus snaps.

I take a sip of wine. I do prefer it to fermented mare’s milk, but my company last night was infinitely better than this.

“I’d like to hear more about the Amazons,” Halirrhothios pipes up. “Helios was telling us all about them. They sound very interesting.”

“You wouldn’t last a day on the steppe,” I warn him. “They’d spear you as soon as they saw you.”

His chest puffs up and he looks to his father, indignant. “A son of Poseidon?” he scoffs. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“You should go to Scythia, actually,” I say. “I’d love to see the outcome.”

“That’s my son, Aphrodite.” Poseidon glowers at me.

“Don’t encourage him with ideas above his station,” I say with scorn.

Halirrhothios sulks, petulant, but at least has the good sense not to challenge me further.

There’s something familiar, though, in his resentful glare. Something about the mingling of greens and blues in his eyes that makes me think of someone…a nymph rising up from the sea, begging me for Poseidon’s favor.

I did promise I’d make Poseidon remember her. Perhaps that’s why he’s so enamored with this unremarkable son she’s given him.

Dionysus keeps the wine flowing, and I keep drinking. Halirrhothios can’t keep up with immortal revelers—he’s soon slumped and snoring—but the rest of us continue as the skies outside turn gray and misty.

“I must go,” Helios remarks, eyeing the approaching dawn.

I’m about to return to my own quarters, but before I can rise someone slides into the seat beside me.

“Hello, Aphrodite,” she says.

“Charis.”

The frostiness I had felt between us has thawed. She looks a little tired, and very serious. But that flat, cold stare has gone, and I can see my friend again.

The hall is beginning to thin out, gods drifting back to their beds and bidding good nights, all the illicit trysts that have been forming over the course of the night culminating now.

Hephaestus has already left—whether he’s taken his chariot back to Lemnos or opted for his old forge here, I don’t know.

“So you found Ares,” she says.

“Honestly, I didn’t go to Scythia in search of him,” I say. “I was telling the truth.”

“But you found him,” she says. “And still, you came back.”

I search her face, wondering what she’s really asking. “I belong here,” I say at last. “That’s what I chose, and I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Haven’t you?”

I look at her steadily. “Would you care if I had?”

She sighs. “I would.”

Unexpectedly, tears brim in my eyes.

“What is it?” she asks, and I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.

“Oh, Aphrodite,” she says, and puts her arm around me.

Her hair is soft against my cheek. She’s petal-scented, warm and kind, and it makes me unravel far faster than her continuing animosity would have done.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“I know you didn’t mean for it to turn out the way it did,” she says.

“I wouldn’t have married him if I’d had any other choice,” I say. “For his sake as well as yours.”

“It might be for the best that you did,” she says.

“How?”

“Hephaestus might have always hoped, otherwise, that you’d love him in the end,” she says. “At least now he knows for sure.”

“Is that better?”

“Definitely. It’s far better to know for sure than to let hope linger forever.”

I wince. “You know I could help you,” I say. “You could forget him, if you want. Just say the word.”

“No.” She smiles slightly. Determined as ever.

“He might be able to see now that you would be so much better for him than me,” I suggest.

“He might. But, however it turns out, I wouldn’t want you to make my feelings disappear,” she says, “or replace them with something false and temporary. You wouldn’t want that for yourself, would you?”

I take a long breath. “No,” I say. “You always were so wise, Charis.”

She squeezes my hand. “So, tell me, did you see Ares in Scythia?”

“I did,” I say. “But that was all it was. He didn’t even know I was there.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“Because nothing has changed. I wouldn’t run away with him when he wanted me to and I still wouldn’t.” I shake my head. “It was always complicated between us. And even in exile, he’s still a war-god. It was never going to work.”

“I know what he is,” she says quietly. “But, Aphrodite, there will always be war. And without Ares—well, look at the alternative.”

“Eris,” I sigh heavily.

“You know that suffering exists everywhere. Discord, pain and grief—they aren’t unique to war and conflict. Ares is far from the only one of us—gods or otherwise—who causes harm. Whether we mean to or not.”

I let her words sink in. “I have thought about that,” I say at last. “After all, I know what suffering love can cause.”