This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(49)
Any of these would be fitting, but I want to see him humiliated. I want to pluck away his self-satisfaction and leave him exposed. I want him to lose what it is he holds so very dear, in front of all the women he loathes.
I can’t punish Zeus. I can’t rescue Hephaestus. I can’t keep Ares from war and bloodshed.
But I have plenty of power, and here is a chance to use it for something truly worthwhile.
I lift the remnants of the charm I placed upon her. It’s easy to clear her vision when the love she felt for him was never real. Now there’s nothing standing in her way.
She stiffens. Her eyes flit across the women in confusion.
Leave him, I urge her. Run away and claim the life I gave you for your own.
I hear her heart flutter like a hummingbird’s wings as a vision of freedom opens up before her.
I vanish from the crowd, disappearing from sight before her eyes can alight on me. There are gasps of bewilderment, girls turning to one another, staring at the space where I stood. I watch, unseen, as even Pygmalion falters and trails off, unsure of himself, not knowing whether to take this as vindication or warning.
It doesn’t matter. He’ll know soon enough. It’s not as ostentatious as petrifying him into a statue or flinging him off the hilltop. But the certainty spreads through Galatea’s veins, the determination and the courage to go, and I see a beautiful vision ahead. Pygmalion in his studio, bitter and broken and desperately alone. The memories he’s left with will be a torture, not a balm. He’ll carve more statues, hacking away at insensible stone, trying all his life to recapture the happiness he knew, but he’ll never hold it in his hands again. He’ll lie by himself every night, thinking of the love he so briefly had. He’ll remember when his solitude was brightened by her presence, and he’ll strain to hear the sound of her footsteps in the hallway, but it will only ever be a phantom.
It’s so simple, but I know the cruelest thing I can do is desert him.
There can be no worse punishment than knowing that kind of love and having it snatched away forever.
14
“Sorry again about Pygmalion,” Eros says. His fine features are tinged with regret, his chin resting on his hands, his wings rippling behind him. “I had no idea how unpleasant he was.”
“Neither did I,” I say. “It isn’t your fault.”
“What about Galatea?” he asks. “What does she do now?”
After my intervention, she sought refuge in my temple. That’s where she’s been since. “Take her away,” I tell him. “Carry her off from Cyprus, somewhere far from him. She dreams of forests and freedom; let’s give her that. She can live a new life—one of her own making.”
Eros smiles at Auge and Iris as they pass by my grove hand in hand, Iris’ wings a mirror of his. They’re beautiful and soft, every feather shimmering and delicate. “Are you all right?” he asks me.
“Of course. Why?”
“Missing your handsome war-god?” His eyes brim with mischief.
“How do you—oh, never mind. Of course you know.”
He stretches his arms above his head, leaning back against the trunk of the oak tree that shades us from the sun. “I could hear your racing heart all the way from Mount Haemus to Cyprus.” He preens himself, so delightful and charming that I can’t be annoyed.
There’s no way that Eros could miss the eruption of a new passion in the world, not one that blazed as brightly as ours must have done from the summit of that Thracian peak. His powers are too aligned to mine and he would have felt the hum in the air, the awakening of love, just as I can sense it anywhere too. And I’m sure he can detect my longing now, how I’m craving Ares’ touch again. Weeks have passed, weeks in which Zeus has kept watch over Sicily and I’ve remained in Cyprus. Despite Ares’ promise that he’d return with haste, his war rages on and he’s still there.
I’m not waiting for him. I’m visiting my sanctuary and tending to my worshippers. I’m spreading love and joy across my island while Ares has been running amok in the masses of warriors he inspires. I listen to hopeful prayers. Across the world, his battle-cry echoes and blood spills across the plains. In Cyprus, the air is fragrant with flowers and spices left at my altars. The air around him is thick with spears and flying arrows.
I see babies born to grateful mothers, eyes wide in the gentle light of morning.
Ares’ warriors rampage through what remains of their opponents: ravenous wolves loosed upon sheep.
So Eros isn’t wrong, of course he isn’t. I wish Ares were here, or maybe I wish I could forget him. I hate where he’s gone and why, and the thought that he’ll always choose violence over love. But that isn’t the only thing on my mind.
“If my spirits are dampened, it’s not merely because of Ares,” I confide. “It’s the thought of Hephaestus, all alone. Hurt and trapped.”
Eros waves away my concerns. “Hephaestus is strong,” he says. “Capable, resourceful, very brawny. I think he’ll be fine.” He sees my face and softens. “Besides, you know Zeus. He’s not going to bother standing guard much longer, is he? He’ll be off chasing nymphs through a forest somewhere soon, and he’ll forget all about it.”
“That’s what I said to Charis.”