This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(8)

I open my eyes and step back. Athena looks pleased, Zeus looks smug and Hephaestus is watching me with a kind of wonder. “Everyone will want her,” I say. “That’s my gift.”

“She has everything we can give her,” Athena breathes. “Pandora.”

And, now that she’s complete, she opens her eyes.



* * *



—

Zeus steers me back through the forge, while Athena stays behind to tend to the woman.

“You’ll feast with us tonight,” he says.

I’m not foolish enough to think this is a casual request. Zeus is in the business of giving orders, not asking.

“You can take this, if you want.” It’s Hephaestus, hurrying after us, the silver vase in his hand. “I noticed you looking at it,” he says.

I’m touched, both by the gesture and by the sight of his heavy fingers looped through the handle. He’s so bulky that he looks like he should be clumsy, but he holds the vase with such tender care, as though he might crush it in his fist—which he easily could. It’s hard to believe that he can create such tiny, precise details, and for a second I picture him leaning over the silver with his eyes squinting in concentration, utterly absorbed as he coaxes living beauty from inert metal. “Thank you,” I say, placing my hand over his. His skin is softer than it looks, warm under my touch. His face reddens, and I can feel Zeus’ gleeful amusement. “But I’d rather have this actually.”

I pluck a necklace from a shelf at the side of the forge—a shining heap of deep-green stones linked together with delicate gold filigree so thin it’s almost invisible.

“Of course.”

“I’ve always loved your jewelry,” I tell him. And it’s true; I was here when he was developing his talents, when Zeus and Hera were despairing over their ungainly son who seemed to have no dazzling skill befitting a god until the moment he seized hold of metal and transformed it into something divine.

“I’ll stay tonight,” I tell Zeus, coiling the necklace in my fist and smiling back at them both. “I’ll go and prepare in my quarters.”

He nods, pleased. “The Graces will attend to you.”

“Thank you.” With that, I’m gone, hastening down the steps of the forge, my dress fluttering around my ankles as the doors swing closed behind me, silent and smooth on the perfectly oiled hinges.





3


My quarters on the mountain summit are just as I left them. Zeus has kept his promise and dispatched two of the three Graces, attendant goddesses of Olympus, to wait on me. The sisters have been as deft as the Horae in filling bronze bowls with flowers which remind me of home. No dust has dared to settle on the furniture, no creeping decay or signs of neglect sully the pristine floors and walls of this divine house.

I step out of my bedchamber to the starlit veranda, resting my hands on the waist-high wall and leaning out. Beneath me, the steep slopes of the mountain drop away, wispy clouds floating through the air, ethereal puffs of mist that drift through the darkening sky.

I hear the soft footsteps of the Graces, and I turn to welcome them. They’re beautiful—so lovely that I would fear for them here on Mount Olympus within reach of Zeus and Poseidon, except that ordinarily they’re the handmaidens of Hera. She might be Zeus’ wife and bound to defer to him like the rest of us, but even he knows better than to encroach on the women under her grudging circle of protection.

Now they have mine too, and I’m sure they’ll have an easier time of it in my house than in their shrewish queen’s.

They dress me in fresh robes, dab perfumed ointments into my skin and adorn me with jewels.

“All the gods are feasting tonight,” Pasithea says to me as she hangs Hephaestus’ glittering necklace around my throat.

“And you’ll outshine them all,” the other, Charis, adds.

I smile at her, glancing at my reflection. “Thanks to your efforts,” I say.

A rosy wash of surprise warms her cheeks and her eyes brighten. “Do you want us to accompany you there?” she asks.

I stand and link my arm through hers. “Of course,” I say, and we leave the house together, walking across the courtyard to the main palace.

When we enter through the magnificent throne room to the feasting hall behind, the rest of the Olympian gods are already seated. Zeus, Poseidon and Athena are at the head of the first table, while Hestia and Hera sit at the far end. Apollo, God of Prophecy, lounges in his tall chair, his perpetual expression of lofty amusement never detracting from his golden beauty. Beside him sits his wild twin, Artemis, Goddess of Hunting, called from her forests and here under protest. I note the scratches on her legs, her calves exposed by her short tunic, and the leaves still stuck in her tumbling curls. She makes no effort to fit in with the rest of us. Hermes laughs with Apollo, casting me a meaningful glance as he notices my arrival. I smile and take my seat among them, beside Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. Hephaestus, opposite me, looks up, and, when he notices that I’m wearing his necklace, his cheeks flush just a little. The other tables are busy with lesser gods and nymphs invited to feast alongside us.

The moon glimmers above the mountain, and the wine flows alongside golden nectar and ambrosia. As it always does, the conversation soon turns to divine boasts—worshippers, conquests, favors granted or wrath inflicted according to the whims of the gods. Hephaestus shyly describes how Helios has asked him to build another chariot, more magnificent than the one he already has. I contribute my story of Phaon, blessed in old age with a second youth and good looks so that he can find a love that honors me. All the while, I’m attuned to the sparks that fly across the halls of Olympus. Apollo, catching the eye of a serving-boy. Hermes, charming a nymph with his sharp wit, his eyes flickering briefly to mine to see if I’m watching as she leans over with her wine jug, skimming just a breath too close to him. Pasithea, hands clasped under her chin and her bare shoulder gleaming in the torchlight; the god she’s talking to unable to tear his gaze away. It hums underneath everything else: the meeting of eyes, the flutter of hearts and the stirring of desire as hands brush together and whispers are exchanged—teasing promises, murmured invitations among the throng of immortals who dine with us.