This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(53)

I stare at him, wondering if my mind is still addled by the wine or if he’s really saying this. “Are you sure?” I ask.

“Of course. Wasn’t Athena born from his head? Hera didn’t think of that. When she sought to kill me, she made me immortal by mistake.” He grins, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “I already defeated her once,” he goes on. “Before I was even born.”

His delight is infectious. Almost irresistible.

“Dionysus.”

He looks at me, eager, and I know he thinks this is our moment. Maybe it would be. Maybe if he hadn’t brought me up here, where I can hear the rush of the sea around the island, where I remember that the rest of the world exists.

Reluctantly, I free my hand from his. “Will you keep Zeus drinking here?” I ask. “Keep him busy until morning?”

“Really? That’s it?” He’s still smiling, but disappointment quenches some of the sparkle in his eyes.

“It is,” I tell him. “There’s somewhere I want to go, and I don’t want Zeus to know about it.”

Hope flares again in his eyes. “Will you tell me?”

“Not now,” I answer. “But soon, I hope.”

He scratches the leopard behind her ears and she gazes up at him, enraptured. He thinks about it for a moment, his face serious. “I’ll keep your secret,” he says at last. “You can trust me.”

“Thank you,” I say. I do trust him. More than that, I recognize myself in him. His ease, his optimism, his rapturous enjoyment. If I conjured a god into existence, I’m not sure I’d come up with one more alluring than this reveling God of Wine.

Or one that’s better suited to me.

Before I’m too tempted to stay, I transform, soaring away as a dove. Eros will bring my chariot back to Cyprus, but, regardless, I expect this isn’t my last visit to Naxos. I have an open invitation, after all, and the god of this island is a little too interesting for me not to take him up on it.





15


As I fly across villages and towns, I feel the absence of the Blacksmith God. The figurines of Hephaestus that before stood in every forge have toppled from shelves and shattered into fragments. His temples stand empty, no worshippers flocking to leave offerings to an exiled god.

As Sicily comes into view, the volcano is impossible to miss. It seethes with smoke, a vast plume erupting from its crater, sparks incandescent against the lightening sky.

I land at its base, cloaked in my dove form. I hop back and forth on the bare earth, looking up at its steep slopes, listening to the rumble emanating from within.

If Hephaestus really is behind these walls of rock, I’m not sure how to reach him.

I risk the wrath of Zeus every second I stay here; there’s strife ahead, whatever I do, and Eris hungers for it. If Zeus punishes me, it’s a rift on Olympus—a crack into which she can prize her fingers and claw us apart, especially if Ares takes my side. If I give up on Hephaestus, the resentment that will simmer inside me will call to her like the songs of the Sirens, a grudge that she’ll drag free until I can no longer resist her. She’ll use her power remorselessly if she spies the chance to upend our peace.

But I’m not afraid. I shimmer back into my true form. I won’t hide.

Nothing grows near the summit. The verdant greens and yellows below die away to an expanse of charred, jagged rock. In the boiling heart of the mountain, molten rock churns and bubbles, baleful jets of smoke surging black and choking into the air.

“I’m here,” I whisper.

The volcano seethes.

I know that by now, on the island of Naxos, the gods will be lost in wine-drenched slumber. I’m sure that in Corinth the house of the king will be empty, its oak doors swinging open, the contents within overturned and strewn about. Ares won’t linger on his mission for Zeus.

This is my moment to help my friend; my opportunity to do it undisturbed, with no interference from anyone else.

I peer down at the sloping sides and see a gash in the forest that clusters around the lower slopes, chunks of rock strewn about just below. I make my way back down and steal closer to the site of the disturbance.

The rocky face of the volcano has been breached; a rough, uneven hole carved out of the side. It’s hidden by the trees, whose boughs nod close to it, their foliage screening out anyone looking from the sky.

Either a god has dug their way inside—although I’m sure that no one else has come here with the goal of rescue—or else this cave has been forced open from within.

I slip into the mountain. The roof is low over my head. In the darkness I can hear the scatter of pebbles, and I imagine the entire volcano collapsing in on me. From somewhere deep inside, it rumbles and growls, and I picture rivers of boiling rock, torrents of it shuddering and thundering, crashing through the walls at my side and sweeping me away in a fiery tide.

“Hephaestus?” I call.

My own voice bounces off the tunnel, ringing back to me.

I try again.

Now I’m sure there is a faint answer, overlapping with my echo.

The dim light streaming in behind me is swallowed by the blackness within. I press my hand against the rocky wall, taking one step and then another. “Hephaestus?” I call again.

This time it’s clearer, though still indistinguishable. It might not be words, only a groan. But it’s him, I’m convinced of it.