This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(108)

Now he speaks it to me across a battlefield, a world away from when we saw each other last.

“Aphrodite?” he says again. I’m locked in place, as though standing still might help me disappear, but then I drag my eyes to his.

He’s unchanged. The handsome warrior that he’s always been; the same stern line of his jaw, the same black eyes fixed on me from under the forbidding plume of his helmet. And yet he looks at me as though I’m a stranger. I know every inch of him while knowing nothing at all.

“Why are you here?” He must be as shocked as I am—more so, given that he had no idea I was anywhere close—but he stays level and cool. Neither hostile, nor welcoming.

“I didn’t mean to come,” I say.

His brow creases slightly. “You can’t have gotten here by accident.”

“I didn’t realize it was your land when I first came here.”

“And when you did realize?”

I fold my arms across my chest. “By then, I had work to do here as well.”

He narrows his eyes. “What could you possibly have to do? You have no worshippers here, no influence. Why would you come?”

He’s even more rigid and uncompromising than I remember. A familiar frustration wells up inside me, and I become defiant. “It’s none of your business.”

His eyes flicker up and down the battlefield, where the Amazons and newly allied Scythian men tend to their wounded. “It looked as though you were ready to plunge into battle.”

“I wasn’t going to let these women get hurt,” I say. “I’ve grown fond of them.”

He exhales sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “What is this? Do you live in Scythia now?”

“Why would you care?” I bite back. “This is a big place.”

“I don’t,” he says shortly. “But won’t your husband mind your absence?”

“No.” I don’t elaborate. We’re both glaring now, and I’m determined not to be the one who breaks first.

“I didn’t think,” he mutters at last, “that you approved enough of war to get involved in one.”

The Amazons are making efficient progress, hauling the bodies away and restoring what they can of their ruined camp. I see men hurrying back to their own, returning with tents and possessions, offering them to the women. Kydoime kneels at the side of the girl I saw falling from her horse, tying cloth around her injured arm to hold it securely in place.

“I don’t,” I say, lifting my chin. “But I’ve seen the Amazons attack others—I’ve seen them attack these very men who help them now. They didn’t kill them. They didn’t revel in their violence. This was different—the men who invaded just now wanted death and destruction. I couldn’t watch it happen.”

“You wouldn’t have had to,” he says. “I’ve never seen an army that would be a match for them.”

“Even so,” I say, “I wasn’t going to take the chance.”

“Well,” he says. He reaches up to scratch his jaw. “You’re right about them. You’ve seen for yourself that they aren’t afraid to fight; they never shrink from battle. But it’s a necessity, not a goal. It keeps them alive. It keeps them together. They’re not burning cities or plundering without reason. They’re surviving.”

I nod. The ground feels steady beneath my feet now. I look him up and down, ignoring how my body stirs, how my skin remembers the heat of his touch. What is it that’s different about him? Why has he let his combative tone drop? “Is that enough for you?” I ask.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s what you want”—I clear my throat—“for your daughter?”

He’s been so controlled, but now he can’t hide his surprise. “You’ve seen me here before.”

“I have.” I sound cool, no crack in my composure.

He glances skyward and sighs. “Then, yes, it is,” he says. “She’s happy.”

My arms are still clasped across my body. I twist my bracelet between my thumb and forefinger, glancing down. “I didn’t see her mother.”

He shrugs.

My unspoken question hangs in the air between us. I don’t pursue it. “Amazon tents are a far cry from an Olympian palace,” I say. “You have an entirely different life.”

“Don’t you?”

I shake my head. “I didn’t want a different life. That was you.”

“You didn’t want to be a wife,” he says. “But you became one.”

“Ares,” I say, “it was never a real marriage. I told you it wouldn’t be. And, whatever it was, it’s over now.”

“How?”

“I left Lemnos,” I say.

“Lemnos?”

“It’s where Hephaestus lives. Alone.”

Something flares in his eyes. “Well, then,” he says, “you got what you wanted.”

It’s not an accusation, just a statement of fact. And he’s right. This is what I wanted. To keep what I had—to be what I am, without giving up my freedom.

“I suppose so,” I say. “And, just so you know, you’re only exiled by your own choice. Zeus wants you back. He wouldn’t try to punish you, if you decided to return.”