This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(57)

“I won’t go back to Olympus,” he says.

“You don’t need to decide that now.”

“I’ve decided. And”—he draws a long breath—“you know why it matters to me.”

Silence quivers between us.

I’m the one who breaks it, leaving his unspoken question unanswered. “You need to recover your strength,” I say again. “I’ll leave these jars, and I’ll bring more. If it’s difficult for me to get away, you’ll be all right for a while.” I pause. “I can send Charis instead, if you prefer.”

“It makes no difference,” he says. The heat has drained from his voice, leaving it hardened and heavy.

“I don’t have to go at once,” I say. “I can stay. I can tell you everything that’s happened on Olympus while you’ve been…or other stories, you must have been lonely here and…” I flounder, trying to think of how best to lift his spirits.

He shakes his head slightly.

“You’re too weary for conversation.”

“Maybe.” He sets down the goblet I brought him on the floor. “You should go.”

I nod.

“And I hope you come back. Send Charis if you like. But, Aphrodite.” He leans his head back against the rock pillar, looking up at me. “You should know that Ares is a terrible mistake. The worst you’ve ever made. You don’t have to believe me, but I have to tell you.”

My throat tightens. “So you’ve told me.”

“Don’t fall in love with him. Don’t let him destroy you like everything else he touches.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I say.

“But I do.”

“Just rest,” I tell him. “I’ll be back when I can.” I try to make my voice breezy and light, as though his words won’t echo in my mind when I leave.

I won’t let it happen.

I will never fall in love with Ares.





16


Ares returns from Corinth under the cover of night. The first I know of it is when I startle awake to the sound of him climbing over the balcony outside my bedchamber.

I sit up, clutching the furs to my chest, thinking for a second that Zeus is rampaging again. But it’s just the clatter of Ares’ spear falling to the floor as he swings himself down.

Then he’s standing, framed in the archway, stars shimmering in the dark skies behind him.

“Why did you come that way?” I ask. “Did you scale the mountainside?”

“I didn’t want to be seen.”

He comes into the room, unhooking his breastplate, setting it down more carefully than his spear. The only light is from the stars, but the shadowed shape of him outlined against their faint, distant glow still quickens my pulse. “Did you free Thanatos?” I ask.

He sits on the bed, leaning in to me, his face close to mine. My senses are flooded, stupefied with his scent of earth and wood and leather, the warmth of his skin and the intoxicating nearness of his lips.

“As soon as I was done with Sisyphus, I came straight here,” he says. “To you.” He slides the furs away from my shoulders, and his hand slips down to my hip, the other twisting in my hair as he kisses me fiercely.

I don’t want him to stop, but I press my hand against his chest, pushing him back.

“Why did you go there?” I ask. “I didn’t think you took orders from Zeus.”

He pauses. “I thought there had been enough discord on Olympus lately.”

“That’s never bothered you before.”

“No,” he says, “but it upset you. I thought this time I’d keep the peace. Do what he asked.”

“For me?” I ask.

He leans back, a wariness in the set of his shoulders. I can see in the shadows how his brows draw together in confusion. “Shouldn’t I have?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Aphrodite,” he says, “what’s wrong?”

I look down. “I told you this had to stop happening.”

He recoils. “Do you want me to go?”

I can’t answer, because the truth is that I don’t. But he takes my silence to mean the opposite, and in a moment he’s on his feet, poised to leave.

“Ares,” I say, reaching for his hand.

He stares at my fingers intertwining with his. “What do you want?”

“I didn’t think,” I say, “that it would be like this between us.”

His eyes find mine again in the dim light. “Like what?”

“So…” I search for the words that can describe this. “So…so all-consuming.” Unlike any other affair I’ve known, in all the centuries I’ve lived.

“I did.” His voice is low and steady. “I knew from the moment it started, from the first time you came to Thrace, that I wouldn’t stop thinking of you, not even for a second.”

This is what Demeter and Hephaestus don’t know. What they could never see.

“I know,” he continues, sitting down on the bed again, his hand still clasped in mine, “why you don’t want the other gods to know that you’re with me. It’s because of who I am. But I don’t care. I have no friends among them. What they think doesn’t matter to me. I only want to keep them from having anything they can use against you—against either of us.”