This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(54)

Ahead of me, a faint amber glow begins to appear, and the narrow tunnel widens as I walk. The ceiling slopes higher, the space around me opening up into a cavern, right in the heart of the volcano. A lake of liquid fire bubbles in the center, its light casting wild shadows across the empty space—empty, except for a figure, bent and hunched, leaning against a pillar of rock to hold himself up.

I gasp.

He lifts his eyes to mine. The hulking shape of his shoulders makes him immediately recognizable, and I’m glad of it, because I see no trace of my friend in the hollow gaze staring back at me.

“What is this?” I breathe.

He makes a sound—a bitter laugh or a sob, I don’t know which, only that it sounds painful, like it’s scraping free from a dry, charred throat. The molten lake surges in response to his voice, spitting and heaving. He lifts a hand and it calms under his gesture.

“You see,” he croaks. “Zeus threw me from the heavens and banished me here.”

I nod, tears starting in my eyes.

“He took everything from me,” he says. “And made me the God of the Volcano instead.”

The melting, seething rock shifting in rhythm with his words starts to make a kind of sense.

He could always bend metal to his will, direct its flow when he heated it to liquid, shaping it as he wanted. This is just the same. The burning river moves to his command. “That’s how you’ve made this place,” I say aloud. He hasn’t been suffocated by the weight of the mountain or scalded by its lava. He’s forced it into shape around him, carved out this craggy hall and the tunnel that led me here, tamed the fiery streams and made them run where he wishes. “It’s incredible.”

I jump at his bark of laughter. It’s nothing like any sound I’ve ever heard Hephaestus make. “It ruined me.”

I take a step closer. “What do you mean?”

He makes an effort to gather himself, to straighten up from the pillar, but his face tightens with pain. His fingers are splayed, gripping tight to the stone.

Gods are perfect, immortal and indestructible. But I’ve heard of divine suffering. Ouranos, my father, was torn to shreds, and Prometheus endures daily torment, though I’ve never seen it. I’ve never known a wounded god. I don’t know how to heal him. “Let me get you out of here,” I say.

“He’ll never allow it. I’m safer here than anywhere else.”

“Then I’ll bring you what you need. Nectar, ambrosia, anything you want.”

“You’ll leave?” Panic flares in his voice.

“But I’ll come back. I promise I’ll come back.” I draw close to him, my heart leaping with nerves. I’m afraid to touch him, anxious that I’ll cause him pain, but I crouch down at his side and slide my hand gently up his arm, around his heavy shoulders. He tenses, his body taut with agony or fear, but I feel him relax a little into my touch. “You can heal now,” I tell him. “You’ve survived Zeus’ wrath; you’ve conquered this volcano.”

“Don’t tell any of the others you’ve been here. Not Zeus.” He clutches at me, afraid.

I shake my head. “I won’t. I’ll go and come back without anyone knowing.”

It feels cruel to leave him, and a tendril of shame tugs at me as I glance back the way I came. The heat, the airlessness, the taste of despair that fills this place drags at my soul. I long for the sparkle of the sun on white-topped waves and the fresh tang of salt in the air, away from the monstrous orange light flickering on these dark walls and the sulphurous odor that clings to my hair and my skin.

He jerks his head in assent. I let go of him, half of me reluctant to leave and the other half eager to see the sky, to erase the sadness of this broken god from my mind long enough to summon the strength to see him again.

“Thank you,” he mutters.

“Don’t thank me,” I say. “I couldn’t get to you sooner, or else I would have.”

The sweat beads on his forehead. It’s an effort, I realize, for him to speak.

“Just wait for me,” I say, and I lean in to kiss his cheek. His skin is cool and damp. He doesn’t smell like Hephaestus; he barely looks like Hephaestus.

He doesn’t say anything.

I don’t let myself walk away too fast, as desperate as I am to be out of here. Only so I can bring him help sooner, I tell myself.

I feel sick and shaken when I reach the outside. I think of the promise I made him, not to let anyone else know. I could tell Charis the truth, but the image of Hephaestus clutching at the stone pillar, hardly able to hold himself up, makes me wonder if he’d want anyone else to see him like that. The other gods have always perceived him to be weak, ostracizing him even before he became an exile. I don’t want to reinforce that in her mind. We move in a world where our flawlessness defines us, exalts us above the rest of the world.

“You can’t break through a volcano.”

I jump, whirling around.

In the soft pink light of the emerging dawn, Demeter’s hair glows rich and glossy brown, like the polished sheen of carved cedar.

“Have you tried?” I ask.

“No. Zeus forbade it.”

“Then why are you here?”

She glances from side to side. “Let’s walk under the cover of the trees.”