This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(15)

Zeus with wine and a grievance isn’t the drinking companion I want right now. “Come on.” I cast around for a subject he’ll prefer—something he can boast about ideally. “Tell me about—tell me about your mortal woman, the one Hephaestus made for you.”

He brightens. “Pandora? Hermes delivered her to Epimetheus as a wife.”

“Prometheus’ brother?”

“That’s right.” Now his eyes gleam with pleasure.

Maybe it’s my sour mood, but I don’t like the sound of this much more than the previous conversation. The Titan Epimetheus should have known better than to welcome a gift from the Olympian gods after what Zeus did to his brother. “How kind of you,” I say.

He smiles. It seems that the shift in topic has had the desired effect. “I’m glad you’re back where you belong,” he remarks, expansive with drink. “Back on Olympus with us.”

Ares’ final words echo in my mind. This is no place for you. Well, he’s right. I want nothing to do with his vile wars, or with a god so completely unpleasant as him—savage and utterly unreasonable, handsome though he may be. Here in this hall, with its graceful marble pillars, warm firelight and gentle chatter, I do feel at home. I raise my goblet to Zeus and smile back.





5


Sunrise comes, and I’m still sore with indignation. Too restless to stay in bed, I get up and dress without summoning my handmaids.

Olympus is quiet when I step outside. The paths are deserted, and all I hear are the tinkling of the fountains and the occasional distant cry of an eagle.

It’s only the forge that shows any signs of life. When I near it, a rumble of activity builds—the growl of the furnaces and the rhythmic blows of a hammer.

Without stopping to think, I veer toward it. The heat spills out when I pull the door, a welcome contrast to the icy bite of the morning air.

I jump as an automaton rolls past me, and Hephaestus looks up from the anvil where he’s working. His smile is as warm as the forge itself.

“What are you doing here?” he asks—the same question that Eris barked at me, but his voice is infused with curiosity and a sincere eagerness to help. The tension I’ve been carrying immediately starts to dissipate.

“I want Ares to grant me a favor,” I begin, as he sets down his hammer. “He’s your brother—can you help?”

Hephaestus furrows his brow. “Ares?” he asks. “He’s intractable. He’d never agree to do anything for anyone.”

“I thought as much. But I hoped you might know some way to persuade him.”

He shakes his head. “What do you want from him?”

“A guarantee of safety for a man in war.”

His eyes are full of sympathy. “You’d do better to pluck him from the battlefield yourself than ask Ares.”

“He wouldn’t even listen,” I say. The memory of Ares turning his back on me, as if I were an irritating child, burns in my mind.

“Listening isn’t really his forte.”

I suppose he never has to. Ares is nothing like Hephaestus. He’s strong, but with none of his brother’s meaty heft. Ares gives the impression of a coiled snake, tensed for an attack at any moment, swift and unpredictable, whereas Hephaestus is solid and stable. Ares is armored in bronze and scorn alike, so why should he bother hearing what we have to say? “I wasn’t asking him to do it for nothing,” I say. “Can you tell me anything I could offer him, anything that he wants?”

“There’s nothing he wants,” Hephaestus says. “He’s not interested in any of us.”

“Even you?”

He laughs. “Especially me.”

“Why not?”

He picks up his hammer again. “Ares only values violence,” he says. “He chose to fight against Zeus and Hera. I never did.” He smiles, rueful. “We both disappoint them, in different ways. But I have no common ground with the War God. All I can tell you is that it isn’t worth trying to appeal to his better nature. He doesn’t have one. And if you can’t persuade him, no one can.”

“Oh?” I flash him a smile. This is much more to my liking than the rest of the conversation. “Why’s that?”

He clears his throat. “Well.” He stumbles slightly over the words. “Of all the gods—I mean, I can’t think of many who would refuse you.”

“A shame, then, that he’s the one whose help I wanted,” I say drily.

“It is,” Hephaestus agrees. “Sorry that I can’t offer any better advice.”

I look around the forge. It bristles with productivity. The honest labor that Hephaestus puts in, the effort he expends on his craft and his artistry, couldn’t be less like Ares and his war-camp: a hollow place, haunted by fear and aggression and the promise of ruin.

“Don’t be sorry,” I say. “You have given me good advice.” I touch his arm. It’s hard with muscle, strong from decades of bending metal to his will and heaving slabs of rock. “To go and get Phaon myself.”

His smile fades, his expression serious. “If you’re going back there,” he says, “be careful.”



* * *



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Gods need worship, and mortals need stories. I could let Phaon follow Ares into war, but I chose him for my own purposes: so that the tale of the old man made young and beautiful by Aphrodite would be told at my sanctuaries, passed down at firesides and sung at feasts. So that it would fan the flames of hope and longing and fuel more prayers and more adoration. I can’t just choose another to take his place. A god’s favor must be a rare gift, or else it loses its value.