Page 100 of The Ruin of Eros

And it’s a long time before we come up for air.

*

Afterwards, we lie panting, his bronze flesh next to mine. He runs a finger over my bare skin. I am beaded with sweat, my hair tousled. And despite having spent until there was nothing left to give, I feel desire awakening in me once more.

I will never have enough of him, I think. Never.

And that thought, if I truly let myself think it, brings me pain.

“What is it like to be immortal?” I turn to him. “How does it feel?”

I watch his finger trace patterns on my skin.

“I do not know how it is to be any other way.” He pauses. “I do not envy you mortals. You have so little time. And yet…you find purpose, much quicker than we do. Quicker, and perhaps deeper.”

I swallow. His words remind me of other things, and as I stare at the ceiling I tell him what the oracle said about my family.

“I am grieved to hear it,” he says.

I gaze up at the ceiling’s interweaving tapestry of vines and leaves. It occurs to me that the oracle’s words were both blessing and curse, all interwoven like the vines. The blessing is in knowing my family are alive. And yet, not to see them again in this life…

Perhaps the oracle is wrong, I think. But oracles are neverwrong.

“You are courageous,” Eros says at last. “All you mortals. We are not tested as you are.”

“I did not think you admired mortals much,” I say. I can’t help remembering the disdainful way he spoke of mortals when I first knew him, in his palace. As though we were some lesser form of life.

He frowns.

“For a long time I knew no better. I was not raised to honor mortals.” He looks at me. “But then, you too made free to tell me how much you hated my kind, did you not?”

I thought you were something else,I want to say, then stop, remembering his words about demons and gods and the eye of the beholder. Maybe Idohate his kind. Or maybe I just hate how much power they have.

“I thought you had cheated me,” I remind him. “I do not like to have my choices made for me. Nor to feel tricked.”

He looks at me for a while, his eyes wandering around my face. One hand reaches out and plays with a strand of my hair.

“I tried to persuade her, you know, once I knew my mother’s plans for you. I tried to change her mind. Despite how I wanted you, interfering in your life was not my first resort.” He shrugs. “But I admit, I was not used to having to explain myself to mortals, nor consulting their opinions. The gods would say that mortals rarely know what is best for them.”

The words sting, but I let them settle. They are arrogant words, but not without truth.

“I suppose it is true, we rarely know what is best for us. And yet everyone bears their own mistakes better, I think, than any choices forced upon us.” I look at him. “Could you not just have told me from the start? Could you not have let me know who you were?”

He runs the side of his thumb along my face.

“And would you have believed me? I think you would have been ever more suspicious, then. You would have thought me the worst of demons then, trying to deceive you.” He looks at me. “Besides, I have a god’s pride, Psyche. It was taught to me from a young age. I thought that with time, your feelings would change.”

I frown at him.

“Without ever seeing your face?”

And yet, he was not wrong. I can’t deny it. My feelingsdidchange.

“I did not believe it would be possible for you to ever see my face. And if you had known the truth of who I was…I did not want your awe, Psyche. I did not want your worship. I wanted your desire.”

I turn to see his face better in the dim glow.

“You had it,” I say. “You have it.” I hesitate. A question pulls at me.

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