This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(61)

He doesn’t answer.

I swallow. “Well,” I say, “I’ll go, then.”

As I walk to the entrance, the sound of hammering resumes behind me, the forge bursting back into action. The clang of metal and stone, the hiss of fire and steam, noises I once found so welcoming.

When I swing the door shut in my wake, there is nothing but silence.



* * *



—

I find Eros in a glade on Cyprus, a favorite spot of his. He’s reclining on the grassy earth, his back propped up against a low rock. A mortal man sleeps against his bare chest, held in the circle of his arms, dappled sunlight falling across his face.

“Are you busy?” I ask, my voice low.

Eros smiles up at me. “Not now,” he says and gently eases his way free, resting his lover’s head carefully on the ground without disturbing him.

He stands, wrapping a chiton loosely around one shoulder so that it falls free of his wings, and we walk some distance away. “Handsome,” I remark, glancing at the mortal before I conjure mist around us to conceal us from view if he wakes.

“He is.” Our quiet conversation doesn’t make the man so much as stir from his slumber. “What brings you here? You look troubled.”

As we stroll along the bank of the stream running through the glade, the water bubbling merrily and crystal clear, I tell him about Hephaestus.

“Hardly a surprise,” he says.

“I know.”

“You weren’t tempted by him, then?”

“I wasn’t.”

Eros tilts his head, thoughtful. “He’s not just a blacksmith anymore; he’s the God of the Volcano,” he says. “And a lonely exile. You don’t find that romantic? Intriguing? Inviting?” He lingers over the words with relish.

“No. But it sounds like you might.” I rake my fingers through my hair in exasperation.

He looks at me appraisingly. “You turned Dionysus down on Naxos,” he says. “And now Hephaestus. Not because of Ares, surely?”

“No,” I say, “it can’t be that.” Ares was supposed to be what all my affairs have been—short-lived and one of many.

And then he told me I had his heart. And I can’t stop mine from yearning for him alone.

Eros nods shrewdly. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “This is what you do; it’s who you are. So you’re in love with Ares now. You’ll be in love a hundred more times. That’s the part of you that will never change, and nor should it.”

“Maybe,” I say. I know what he’s saying makes sense.

Eros glances at me under his long lashes, then changes the subject. “You didn’t see Galatea in Sicily?”

“No,” I say. “Is that where you took her?”

He nods. “The forest nymphs she joined,” he says, “they belong to Artemis.”

I frown. “Galatea is in the service of Artemis?”

He looks rueful. “She’s Artemis’ beloved now.”

I consider it. “That might not be so bad,” I reason. “It might give Artemis something to be grateful to me for at last.”

Eros winces. “Not exactly,” he says.

“What do you mean? I created Galatea!”

Eros claps his hand on my shoulder in sympathy. “You know Artemis,” he says. “Always contrary. She bears a grudge against you for what Pygmalion did to her lover.”

I flounder. “But if it wasn’t for me, Galatea wouldn’t even exist.”

“There’s no reasoning with her,” Eros says. “You know that.”

I sigh. Over by the rock, the sleeping man begins to stir. “I’ll leave you,” I say, nodding toward him.

“No,” says Eros. “I’m not staying. In fact, why don’t you come with me? I’m going to the Hellespont.”

“What for?”

“There’s a girl in a tower there, separated from her lover by the water. Now that the waves have calmed, and the winter storms are over, I’ll whisper to her to set a light in the window, guiding him so he can swim across and climb to her.”

“That sounds nice,” I say. I imagine the young man plunging into the cold water, his eyes fixed on the star of light shining in the darkness, every stroke bringing him closer to her while she waits, eager for him to be in her arms.

“Or else there’s the daughter of a king who’s been praying to us. She’s fallen in love with the leader of the invading enemy. She watches every battle, dreaming of betrayal, searching for a way to give him the advantage so he can take their city and her with it.”

“I don’t think that can end very well,” I say, doubtful, and Eros shrugs.

“It doesn’t matter how it ends,” he says. “It’s the thrill of it now, the heat and the passion, the way that love makes them burn. That’s what you always taught me.”

I bite my lip. “So long as they don’t all end up in ashes.”

He squeezes my hand. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Are you coming?”

I shake my head. “No. You take care of it.”

I watch him disappear into the skies. His words still linger in my mind: that this affair with Ares will give way to a hundred more. He knows me well enough for me to think he’s right.