This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(77)
“Find another. I know.” I link my fingers through hers. It’s what I breathe into the ears of heartbroken worshippers too. I’ve always felt most tenderly toward those who never learn; the ones who keep falling headlong into their next adventure, only to find themselves over the remains of a fire, sending the smoke of their charred hopes up to me once more. Next time, I promise them.
I only wish that I could find the hope in a next time for myself.
The Horae hope for me, though, their soothing ministrations as sweet and loving as a mother spreading honey on a child’s cut knee. They’ve been here for every ending.
Even if no other ending ever felt like this one.
They lead me down the slopes, the four of us walking back toward my sanctuary together.
“I just can’t understand how it all went so wrong so quickly,” I say. It won’t stop churning in my mind, the way everything spiraled out of control.
Hephaestus, setting out to trap Hera and ensnaring himself along with me.
Dionysus, drawn irresistibly to chaos, urging him on.
Zeus, a petty tyrant cunning enough to spot his opportunity and ruthless enough to take it.
Ares, too intractable to compromise, too stubborn to be persuaded.
And me, reckless enough to swear the oath.
“You were brave,” says Auge. “Maybe rash too. But what else could you do?”
“Ares said we could fight,” I answer. “Run or fight, those were his choices.”
“Isn’t it braver to stay?” Dysis counters. “To see it through?”
“If anything,” Auge says, waspish, “it’s Ares who’s the coward.”
I wince. “That’s not true.”
“Then why can’t he show his face?” she asks.
“Hurt pride,” Hesperis says.
I shake my head. “I think it’s more than that,” I say. It’s an effort to drag the words up from deep inside, to haul them from the aching hollow that’s opened up since we parted. “I don’t think he ever believed I loved him as much as he loved me. I think he was always waiting for it to fall apart.”
“Well,” says Hesperis, caution elongating the word as she glances sidelong at me. “You could try talking to him one more time. If you really wanted to.”
“I don’t think,” I say heavily, “that he’ll ever accept my marrying his brother.”
“Why not?” she asks tartly. “It’s worse for you, isn’t it?”
“You’ve always found a way to protect your realm,” Dysis interjects, calm and measured. “Zeus has always trusted you enough to leave you alone. This is a sacrifice, but it means Zeus gets what he wants and Olympus stays peaceful. Ares can understand that when he gets past his anger, can’t he?”
“And, if he can’t,” Hesperis says, “you’ll know it’s really over. Then you can move on.”
Their words are like sunlight. I absorb them; the warmth and the glow of this precious friendship encouraging tiny shoots of optimism to sprout in the barren desolation that Ares has left behind.
Maybe it isn’t over between us. Maybe it never will be.
I look between each of their hopeful, tender faces. If they think it’s worth trying—if there’s any chance at all—I should do it. I nod. Through the fog of dreary exhaustion that’s enveloped me, I feel a flicker of energy return. A little spark of belief; a fragile light in the darkness. “I’ll go back,” I say. “I’ll try again.”
But when I get to Thrace, his mansion is empty. The stables are deserted, the floor swept clean, and the Keres gone along with the horses and bronze-wheeled chariot. I wander across the courtyard, searching for signs of life. It’s always been a quiet, lonely place, but the solitude feels different, abandoned.
There’s no sound at all, not even the croak of the vulture or the scrape of its clawed talons against the stone.
I push the heavy doors open, but the house is in darkness. No torches lit, no fires burning. I walk through the corridors to his bedchamber and find nothing there either. No furs left heaped on the bed, no spear leaning against the wall, no sign that he was ever here.
It’s as though he never existed. As though our love was something I only ever dreamed.
I step out onto the veranda. The sparse leaves I once summoned into life have dropped from the tree, curled and brown and dead on the floor. When I reach out and touch its withered branch, it doesn’t stir or shudder under my fingers as it did before.
With a mounting sense of panic, I hurry back through the dark hall and out into the courtyard. I stoop to touch the ground, willing it to breathe and open up to me, to yield itself and burst into bloom once more. I want those strange and sinister flowers; I want to feel this place give in to me like it used to.
But it doesn’t happen. There’s nothing here but rock and dirt, lifeless and cold.
Ares is gone.
* * *
—
In my chariot, the wind whips against my face, a stinging and relentless cold that rakes across my skin. I barely notice what lands and seas spread out beneath me or how the clouds coil around me, ghostly wraiths that cling on, a damp chill that permeates my flesh all the way through to my soul.
It’s then, alone in the skies, that the truth breaks me apart. It’s a brutal clarity; a flash of lightning that illuminates the wreckage of us, and there is nowhere I can hide from it. The sobs overtake me in a storm of grief, racking my chest, startling the doves, who jerk and rear upward in consternation, but I can’t stop. I’m left holding on to the wooden rail, exhausted and drained, as I open my eyes to the familiar shores of Cyprus ahead.