This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(16)

I take my chariot from the stables; my pretty, enchanted doves cooing with pleasure. They won’t like our destination, but I won’t waste my time talking now.

As I approach the plains I visited last night, I see dark shapes swooping through the heavy clouds ahead of me. It’s Eris and her ghastly sisters, the Keres, in monstrous formation. I glance down and see the vicious tips of spears angled up toward the heavens. A flow of warriors, streaming through the valley. The battle has begun.

I hesitate, then guide the doves to the hilltop above. As they glide down to the rocky surface, the Keres shriek and the men below holler back, their war-cries curdling with the sisters’ voices in an awful cacophony. My doves panic, scrambling in midair, and bring the chariot down with a jolt.

I climb down and stroke their feathered necks while they gaze at me reproachfully, tucking their beaks firmly into their chests. I stand, surveying the throng of mortals from the edge of the peak. All I want is to see Phaon. I’ll scoop him up and spirit him away, back to the destiny I chose for him. Despite his words, he’ll be grateful to me later, when he’s back in his lover’s arms where he belongs.

Beneath my feet, the armies surge toward each other, unstoppable currents seething and boiling, and there is Ares, charging on a black stallion, his spear lifted to the skies. His shout rings across the valley, that same dreadful sound that feels like ice creeping through my veins. I waver. Hephaestus warned me, and now I think I might have been too reckless in my confidence. The God of War is wild and dangerous, and he’s in his element here. I don’t know him. I can’t predict what he’ll do when he sees me.

Men fall in the stampede, sinking underneath the jabbing spears and swinging swords; some try to scramble up the slopes to safety, clinging on to jutting branches and screaming for help, but the battle rages on. The Keres stalk through the carnage, baleful black-cloaked silhouettes, crouching over the bodies where they fall. Their role here is to gather the souls of the dead and carry them to the Underworld. They’re swift and stealthy, unceasingly busy in their grisly harvest.

From the foot of the hill, Eris raises her head and catches sight of me. Even from here, I can feel her eyes boring into mine.

I toss my head, stiffening my spine. Eris can glare all she likes; she can’t frighten me away from the battlefield. Her steely contempt spurs me on, and I stride down the rocky slope to face her.

Exasperated, she lifts her wings and flutters to meet me before I can get to the bottom, hovering just above the melee. “Get out of here, Love Goddess,” she hisses.

“Don’t give me orders, Eris.” She has no right to tell me where I can and can’t go.

“You won’t want to spill your precious golden blood on my battlefield,” she taunts. “Don’t ruin that pretty dress.”

“I’m sure you’d like nothing better,” I say. Mockery drips from every syllable she utters, but it’s true that those bronze blades can pierce my skin. They can’t kill me, but they can hurt me. She thinks I’m afraid; that I’ll retreat from the prospect of a scratch.

I don’t waste another moment on her. I walk straight into the battle.

Clouds of dust billow up from the earth, and the air is thick with heat and sweat, the sour stench of fear and the ringing of metal. But I can see the shimmer of the rose-tinted glow surrounding Phaon, the precious mark that means he’s mine, and I push my way toward him. I don’t care that my dress is muddied and splattered with filth, that it’s torn beyond repair just as Eris warned. Men catch a fleeting glimpse of me, an unarmed woman shoving through them, and they must think they are dreaming, that their minds have been frayed by the horrors around them. In the confusion their bodies crush against me in a thick press of flesh and bronze.

I can’t tell which side is which; I can see only the frantic clash of swords and fighters, but I lift my hand and force them apart in front of me, carving a path that none of them can cross. The crush eases; a space opens up, and I see him clearly.

“Phaon!” I call.

He whips around, fear and surprise flashing across his face, and an enemy fighter rears up behind him, brandishing a sword. I step across the empty ground between us, swatting the attacker away with a sweep of my arm, and the man tumbles backward. Almost immediately, he’s trampled into the mud.

I turn back to Phaon, smiling in reassurance. Now he’s had his taste of war, he’ll take my hand willingly, I know it. I reach for him, my fingers wrapping around his wrist. He tries to pull away, but he can’t free himself from my grip.

“Phaon,” I say, “it’s time to go.”

“No,” he protests, but the choice isn’t his. Not anymore.

“You’ll thank me for this,” I tell him.

I’m about to whisk him up in my arms when an arrow flies past, right in front of my eyes. It’s too fast for me to stop it, to pull him away before it lodges itself in his tender, vulnerable throat.

The world slows, and the noise of the battle recedes to a muffled blur as he staggers and falls.

His fingers slip through mine.

I blink.

He can’t be. But he lies broken at my feet, his eyes dull and the blood pooling beneath him. Phaon, whose eyes twinkled with warmth when he thought he found me stranded, who shared his meal with me and then his dreams. Dreams I made a reality, one that’s now torn from his grasp forever.