This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(98)

“It’s too much,” he tells her. “The men, they’re ready to give up.”

“Give up?” she asks.

“They want to go home,” he says. “Back to the land we left behind, to the elders that stayed there.”

She juts her chin, holding his gaze. “Back to the women too?” she asks.

He sighs. “The steppe called us away,” he says. “The elders, the women, they wanted to settle in one place. We wanted another life.”

She nods, eager.

“And we’re strong,” he goes on. “We’ve fought plenty of battles out here. We aren’t afraid. But your people…” He shakes his head. “They’re relentless. It never ends.”

I think the warmth in her cheeks is a glow of pride, but her eyes are troubled too. “They won’t stop,” she concedes. “I can’t convince them.”

He lifts his free hand to her face, cupping her cheek. “I can’t convince my people to stay.”

How many times have they stolen away together, I wonder, taking a furtive moment here and there, wrestling with the conflict that keeps them apart, knowing that they’re drawn to one another by a longing they can’t fight? Two lovers yearning so desperately for one another in a world that makes them enemies, their hearts at war with everything that tells them they shouldn’t be together.

It’s like a wave crashing over me, the salt and the sting squeezing the air from my throat, dragging me under as memories I’ve held at bay flood my senses.

Ares, unarmed in Cyprus, looking at me in the moonlight.

The taste of his lips, the rough press of his beard against my skin, the scent of earth and leather and flame.

The cold finality of his tone when he told me he wouldn’t stay.

I wrench myself free from the past. I’m not there, not anymore. I’m in the sunlight of this strange world, its air fresh in my lungs, and these lovers are not us.

They still have a chance.

Give them this moment, I think, and my power blossoms, rippling through the leaves like a soft gasp of desire.

They feel it. The urgency, the intensity of right now, that brings her lips to his. His hands tangle in her hair, hers pull him closer, and I don’t want them to break apart, but they must.

They whisper fervent goodbyes, desperate promises to find a way to meet again, before her hands slip from his and she turns to leave with one lingering glance back at him as she goes.

I flutter from my branch, following in her wake. I know he watches her go, aching with loneliness at every step.

I heard his prayer for a reason, and I can find a way to answer it. These two can be together; it’s in my power to make it so, and I will.

I don’t think the solution lies in the camp of defeated men.

I need to discover more about these warrior women.



* * *



—

I follow the girl as she makes her way back to her companions, who are riding through the steppe, stolen horses in tow. I choose a spot a little way behind, landing and shaking out my feathers into a muted version of my goddess self. Anyone passing would take me for a mortal.

That is, if they hadn’t watched me transform from bird to woman. But I hear a horse whinny in alarm, and I spin around to see someone standing behind me.

She holds a bronze sword in one hand, the horse’s rope in the other, and at her belt I see an iron dagger. Her mouth has fallen open, but she is poised, her cool stare just as sharp as either blade. Her short tunic is reminiscent of Artemis and her nymphs, but her legs are covered by close-fitting linen and her shoulders are draped with a leopard skin, the beast’s claws hanging by her waist. A necklace of alternating red and white beads is clasped around her throat, a diamond-shaped stone pendant resting between her breasts. Gold discs shine at her earlobes, each one etched with a lion, and her graying hair is pulled up away from her face.

“Don’t be afraid,” I tell her, though she doesn’t look fearful in the slightest. I’ve given myself away more prematurely than I had intended, but it doesn’t matter. She’s only a mortal woman.

“Should I kneel?” she asks. “Goddess.” Her tone isn’t disrespectful. She’s too intelligent to challenge me, too well versed in survival to risk offending a god, even one she doesn’t recognize.

“I don’t require it,” I answer. I eye her carefully, wondering how it is that she keeps her composure so well.

The horse at her side is beautiful, long-legged with a silvery coat and pale eyes, wide and fringed with thick lashes. “That’s not one of the horses you stole,” I say.

Amusement creeps into her eyes, a little twist of a smile breaking her wary demeanor as she shakes her head. “No. Our horses are better.”

“Then why did you take theirs?”

She shrugs. “We can use any horse. And it weakens the men, as you saw, to be without their animals. Do you want to take them back? Is that why you’re here?”

“If it is,” I ask, “what will you do?”

“Whatever you command.”

She might well appease me, but she isn’t afraid of me. If I returned those horses, her warriors would attack again without hesitation the moment I was gone. And this time, maybe they wouldn’t leave any men alive to pray for help.

“But,” she says, “perhaps you’ll come and meet my people first. We could make you understand what you saw.”