This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(52)

“The Underworld?”

Zeus stares at me. “Why not?”

“I’m just surprised,” I say swiftly. “No god goes there but Hermes.”

“Thanatos will show him the way,” Zeus says.

My heart quickens at the news that Ares was on Olympus. He must have returned, expecting to find me, not an errand from Zeus.

And now he’s gone again.

Under the beating drums and drifting song, the gods are pulled into dancing with the Maenads. With Zeus now distracted by the nymphs, wandering with a couple into the shadows, I lean back against a mossy rock and let Dionysus refill my drinking-horn. The girl who fell into me on my arrival catches my eye across the fire, her smile full of promise.

It’s seductive—the reckless abandon that’s building in this grove. I can’t go to Ares; he’s far beyond my reach right now. But here, my senses tingle and I feel alive…and the wine is heady and delicious, almost as hypnotic as its god.

It feels like so long since Ares was in my bed, and impatience crackles under my skin like a flame.

Dionysus slides closer and whispers into my ear, “Come, walk with me.”

I glance at the Maenad, then back at Dionysus’ pretty face. I imagine how I could unwrap his secrets, discover him under the moonlight the way he wants me to, and what’s to stop me?

The tree branches sway above our heads as the wind ripples through the leaves. He stands up, the leopard at his feet lifting her head and yawning, stretching luxuriously.

I think I know now what it is that I want from him.

He slips out of the grove, the leopard padding after him, and I follow.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“To the top of the mountain,” he says. “You can see the whole island from there.”

The leopard slinks around him, almost making him stumble, but he’s nimble even after so much wine. Above us, the stars glitter and, below, the sounds of the revelry diminish with the distance.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

“I do,” I say. “It reminds me of Cyprus.”

“I’d like to go there. I’ve heard of your festivals.”

“They’re much like this,” I say. “All the better if you came and brought your wine. I could say the same about the feasts on Olympus. I think you’d win over every god there.”

I say it lightly, but his face is serious. “If not for Hera,” he mutters.

I pause. As we walk, I feel more sober, though my blood is still heated and my steps unsteady. There’s nothing like the mention of Hera’s name to kill a moment of joy. “She wouldn’t welcome you, no,” I agree.

He swings around, taking my hand and pulling me on. “I’ll go there anyway,” he says. “She won’t be able to stop me. I have Zeus’ favor.”

“Oh,” I say. His palm is warm, his fingers intertwining with mine. The touch of his skin almost makes me forget what I decided. “That might not help. Zeus and Hera—”

“I know,” he says. “Perpetually at war with one another.”

“And you don’t want to be in the middle,” I say with feeling.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t underestimate her. She killed my mother for spite. I know she’s ruthless.”

My heart twists with sympathy. He’s young, too young to take on a goddess like Hera, who has had centuries to cultivate her cruelty. His openness is a sign of that—or else it’s that he’s at ease with me, enough to confide in me so quickly.

But what he’s saying—that he has Zeus’ ear—is exactly what I wanted to hear. I need his trust. I can’t let myself get distracted by his stories or by the fact that we’re alone, cloaked by darkness, with him looking so beautiful in the moonlight.

“That’s another thing I’m going to remedy,” he adds, the seriousness lifting away, replaced with a smile as quickly as clouds shifting away from the sun.

“Remedy how?”

He readjusts his ivy crown. “I’ll go to the Underworld,” he says. “And bring her back.”

I like his grandiosity, his confidence. “I know that Zeus has sent Ares there,” I say. “But no Olympian god goes to the Underworld except Hermes. I don’t know how you’d succeed alone.”

“I’m not an Olympian god,” he reminds me. “Not yet.”

“What do you mean not yet?”

He stops abruptly, and I look around. We’re at the summit, nothing around us but the star-scattered skies.

“Aphrodite,” he says, “I have plans.”

“To take on Hera and Hades?”

“Maybe.”

I laugh. He sounds so sure of himself. “Well, you’ve already done the impossible.”

“How so?”

“Your mother was mortal,” I say. “But you’re a god. Zeus fathers children across the human world all the time. They might be kings or heroes, perhaps, but never gods.”

“Didn’t he tell you what he did?” Dionysus asks.

“What?”

“When he took me from my mother’s womb to save me from Hera’s wrath,” he says, “I wasn’t ready to be born. I would have died in his hands, but he sewed me into his thigh so that I could live, and so I was born twice—once from her in the moment that she died, and the second time from Zeus.”