This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(111)

I remember. I remember when I was the only one he didn’t shut out.

“When I thought we were over,” he goes on, “when I thought you were still married to my brother, I couldn’t let you hear how I longed for you. Even when I saw you again, even when you told me your marriage was over, you said you hadn’t come to find me. You were there, in my home, but not for me. I buried my feelings deep, so that you’d never know.”

My heart twists at the thought. I understand why he kept his love locked away inside, why he disappeared so far beyond my reach. But it stings to know that when I thought he was gone forever, all the while he was thinking of me too.

“But your daughter,” I say. “After she was born—”

“She made it easier,” he agrees. “She gave me a reason to stay away.”

I hesitate, not knowing how to frame the question that trembles on my lips.

A hammering on the door interrupts me, frantic and urgent. Ares leaps to his feet, grabbing his spear from the floor. I’m sitting bolt upright, clutching the furs to my chest, bewildered when the door swings open and Charis is there.

“Sorry,” she says, and I’m struck by how flustered she looks—her hair tumbling from its clasp, her breath coming fast. “I had to tell you, before Zeus gets here.”

“Zeus?” I ask.

Her eyes dart to Ares, then back to me. “Poseidon’s son, the mortal, he’s stolen the Sea Chariot. The stable-nymph told me to come and warn you.”

“Warn me of what? Why would I need to know?”

“Because when Zeus and Poseidon ran to the stables, they saw that Ares’ chariot was there. They know he’s on Olympus.”

“You came here by chariot?” I stare at him. “And left it in the stables?”

Ares tosses his spear on the bed and picks up his tunic. “Don’t worry, Charis,” he says, pulling it over his head. “Thank you for the warning, but I didn’t care if they saw it.” He glances at me with a half-smile. “I don’t need to keep this secret.”

“Oh,” Charis says. “I thought—”

She remembers the days when we concealed our affair from the eyes of the gods, and loyally she’s come to tell us we’ve been discovered. I too assumed Ares had come here by stealth, that he’d vanish back to Scythia without Zeus ever knowing his errant son had been so close. I’m as surprised as she is to find out he’s returned so openly, so brazenly.

Unless this means he intends to stay. That he’s come home to Olympus, like I told him he could.

“So why has his son stolen Poseidon’s chariot?” Ares asks. “Haven’t the mortals learned from the example of Phaethon?”

A mortal son of Helios, who steered the Chariot of the Sun off course and it burst into flames.

I shake my head. “Halirrhothios is arrogant,” I say. “He’d never learn. You should have heard him talk of the Amazons.”

“The Amazons?” Ares asks. He’s frowning. “What was his interest in the Amazons?”

“He said he wanted to go to Scythia,” I say. “He wanted to see them.” Suddenly I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Charis, do you think he’d be reckless enough to take the Sea Chariot there?”

She winces. “I’m sure he would.”

“He’ll get himself killed,” I say. I goaded him at the feast, but I never imagined he’d actually attempt to go.

“When did he take the chariot?” Ares asks.

Charis gives a baffled shrug. “No one knows exactly. He must have sneaked out in the night. The stable-nymph said the Sea Chariot wasn’t there this morning, but she didn’t know that Poseidon wasn’t the one to take it until he went there just now.”

Ares sighs, taking up his helmet and spear again. He’s fastened his breastplate back on, and it gleams in the afternoon light that spills through the shutters. “I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll retrieve Poseidon’s son.”

“You will?” I ask.

“I know Scythia better than anyone else,” he says.

“But you don’t care about Poseidon,” I say.

“No,” he agrees. “But you don’t want the boy to die.”

My heart flutters. “You’ll intervene?” I ask.

“I’ll bring him here,” Ares promises. “When I find him.”

He leans down to kiss me, the plume of his helmet nodding over my head, before he leaves. Charis stands back, holding the door, staring in his wake.

She looks back toward me. “What happened?” Her voice is high with incredulity.

“We’ll have to talk about it later,” I say. “I’d better go tell Poseidon where we think his son has gone.”



* * *



—

I dress quickly and run with Charis toward the high palace gates. We jerk immediately backward as a deafening clatter of hooves rings out and a vast stallion gallops past us, a finger’s width away from my face.

Charis grabs hold of my elbow and yanks me away so that it doesn’t knock me under its hooves, her hair streaming back from the wind in the creature’s wake.

“Poseidon,” she gasps.

Certainly, no ordinary horse could hurtle down the steep mountain slopes the way this one is doing. The god moves with preternatural speed in horse form, disturbing to watch.