This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(78)

“Now I know,” I say to Hesperis when I land. “You were right. It’s over.”

They don’t need to ask what happened. They can see my red-rimmed eyes and hear the catch in my throat.

Auge’s voice is soft with sympathy. “So what now?”

I draw in a long, ragged breath. “I can’t avoid it anymore,” I say. I have to go through with this marriage.

I bathe, dress, let them brush my hair. Other gods might laugh, think me vain, but those same gods would be merciless if they ever saw me less than beautiful. It’s my armor, my protection against their mockery and their judgment. I can feel my strength return with every flower they weave into my crown, every jewel they fasten around my throat and wrists and in my ears, every cream and paste they dab into my skin. Aphrodite again, unchanged on the outside, no matter what ravages I feel within.

With the Horae at my side, I return to Mount Olympus. I’m prepared for Zeus to gloat about the wedding. What I’m not prepared for is Charis hurrying from the rooms before I can even get a word out.

I turn to the other nymphs. “She must know this isn’t my fault. I’m not taking Hephaestus from her by choice.”

Hesperis ushers me to the couch, pulling me down to sit. “That might make it even worse,” she suggests. “You have what she wishes for, and you don’t even want it.”

“If I could give it to her,” I say wearily, “I would.”

“She’ll get used to it,” Dysis says. “Give her time.”

“You look better,” Auge says, her eyes lingering thoughtfully on my face, and I know she’s not just referring to her own handiwork. “What is it? Was it going back to Thrace? I know it was painful—”

“It was,” I agree. “But it was the right thing to do.” I can’t torture myself with the idea that I could’ve changed my mind. I can’t run away with Ares now, even if I want to.

I’ve realized, with no possibility of denial, that there’s no choice but to move forwards. I just have to decide how to do it.

And I can see a chink of light in this prison of my own making. I railed against the prospect of marriage all of my existence because I never wanted to be caged, but now I realize I don’t have to be.

I won’t be a wife like Hera, her spark extinguished in bitter frustration, an emblem of what women must suffer in marriage. She’s reluctantly faithful to a philanderer she cannot love and brutally punished when her defiance goes too far, never able to openly challenge him when the rules that bind her don’t hold him at all.

Not so for me. I won’t give in to unhappiness. I’ll treat marriage with the same regard that Zeus does. I’ll keep my promise, to maintain peace and escape exile. But Zeus won’t win. I’ll keep my word, and nothing more. I won’t give up my freedom, and I won’t let marriage crush my spirit.

I’ll behave like a god because that’s what I am.



* * *



—

Demeter finds me at the gates of Olympus. Beneath us, a conflict seethes, Eris swooping above it like a malevolent bird of prey.

“She’s getting worse,” Demeter remarks.

I glance at her. Her lips are pursed, a crease deepening between her brows as she takes in the scene. “Much worse,” I agree. “This battle—it’s been going on for an entire mortal summer with no sign of abating.” A season in their world; a fleeting moment in ours.

Time is tumbling forwards so quickly, I can’t catch it or slow it down, only be carried on its current toward a future I didn’t choose.

Demeter looks around us at the empty snow-dusted slopes. “The other gods don’t care to watch?” she asks.

“Even Zeus has lost his appetite for it.”

“But not you?” Her voice is kind. “You never had much stomach for this before.”

“I still don’t,” I say. “I don’t want to see the suffering. I just wonder who will stop it now.”

“Won’t Ares resume his duties?” she says. “He’ll have to get Eris in hand eventually.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “He told me once that it used to be his worshippers that kept him here, that he couldn’t leave them. But he’s left them now. I think that means there’s nothing else to hold him to Olympus.”

“Nothing?” she asks. “Not even you?”

I shake my head. “Not anymore.” I pause, absorbing the weight of it. “But surely you think that’s for the best, don’t you, Demeter?”

Her eyes widen. “I don’t think any of this is for the best,” she says softly. “I hate to see you like this.”

“Like what?” I ask, lifting my head high.

“You’ve always insisted you’d never marry,” she says. “I hoped you’d be able to stick to that. I never wanted you to be constrained.”

I hold her gaze. “I won’t be.”

She smiles slightly, though it’s tinged with sadness. “I’m glad,” she says. “Have you talked to Hephaestus, then? Come to some arrangement?”

Hephaestus. The sound of his name is a blow to my chest. “No,” I say. “He hasn’t been back to Olympus since it all happened.”