This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(68)

The horses trot forwards, the wheels of the chariot rolling smoothly across the yard. “He won’t know I’m there,” he says, his voice grim. “Unless you’re wrong.”

I shake my head. “I’m not.”



* * *



—

There is no sign of Dionysus in the forge. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Hephaestus came up with this all by himself.

The Cyclopes are working, and one nods in greeting when I walk through the entrance.

“Where’s Hephaestus?” I ask.

“I’m here.”

I turn in surprise, and he stands up from the anvil he was leaning over.

“I thought—” I say.

“That I’d be hiding?” He slides the hammer he’s wielding onto a hook and comes over to me. His hands are stained with soot and ash, but his eyes are clear and untroubled.

“Hiding, drinking, sleeping it off, I don’t know.”

“No,” he says. “Why would I be?”

“Perhaps because all the gods of Olympus are furious with you?”

He shakes his head. “Zeus and Hera, I’m sure. But it’s just a diversion to the rest of them, isn’t it?”

“Not me.”

The surprise stamped across his face reassures me that he really does know nothing of Zeus’ marriage contest. I was almost certain that it came from Hera, not Hephaestus, but nonetheless the proof of it is welcome. “Why?” he asks.

I raise my voice over the noise of the workshop. “Because Zeus has made it a contest to see who can free Hera, and whoever succeeds gets to marry me.”

A Cyclops glances up from the hot, glowing sword he’s been working into shape, the vivid sparks subsiding as the hammer hangs loose in his fist, the weapon forgotten.

Hephaestus stares, similarly dumbstruck.

“He wants her free,” I say. “You must have known he would.”

He rubs his chin. “There are all sorts of things I imagined he might do but I didn’t think you’d be involved in any of them. I knew he’d want her free. I didn’t think—I didn’t know he’d do this.”

“That’s because you underestimate Hera,” I tell him. “She’s had a long time to perfect her strategies. She thinks ahead, she knows how to manipulate. Maybe Zeus would have bargained on his threats and punishment being enough, but not her.”

At the mention of her name, his whole attitude hardens.

“It was never Hera’s fault,” I say. “It was Zeus who exiled you, not her.”

“She’s the reason,” he says. “The reason I’m not on Olympus. Dionysus too.”

“I understand you want revenge,” I say. “And you’ve had it. You’ve humiliated her now, in front of all Olympus. You’ve shown her and Zeus to be powerless against your skill; everything’s in your hands. If you let her go now, they won’t act against you. You can demand your throne again and they’ll have to give it to you.”

His silence is beginning to unnerve me.

“I came to tell you,” I say. “So that you’d know you have the power. Just tell me how the locks work, whatever it is I need to do to let her out. You don’t have to be the one to go in and do it; I’ll tell them you decided to be merciful.”

The Cyclops has resumed his hammering. One of his brothers stokes up the furnace; the molten lava heaves and spits, and I press my hand against my forehead. The din and the heat are so intense.

He says something, too quietly for me to hear.

“What?” I ask.

His eyes are somber.

“What is it?” I say again.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

He sighs, then gestures toward the door that leads out of the forge, deeper into the volcano. I follow him, and when the door closes behind us, the muffling of the noise is a welcome relief.

It’s neat and clean in here; sparsely furnished with three-legged stools and a table. I notice there’s a rug laid on the smooth rock now, and I’m sure I recognize the handiwork of Charis in its cheerful colors. She’s an accomplished weaver; I can picture her at the loom in my Olympian apartments, singing to herself as she weaves, imagining how she might brighten up the gloomy interior of a volcano.

“I can’t let her go,” Hephaestus says.

“Why not?” Despite the warmth of the chamber, my body suddenly feels cold.

He lets out a long breath. “She thought it was a peace offering,” he says. “That I’d carved it for her as a gift.”

“And?”

“It didn’t even occur to her to ask herself why it would be me giving a peace offering,” he goes on. “She didn’t wonder what I had to apologize for. She thought it was her due.”

That sounds like Hera. “What did you expect?” I wonder.

His smile is bitter, entirely without mirth. “Nothing,” he says. “She wouldn’t understand. She can’t understand. How long have I been here now? And all that time at the beginning I was alone, with nothing to do but think.”

“Until I got here.” I keep my voice gentle, giving no hint of the panic starting to swirl inside me. “And now look at everything you’ve built.”