Page 56 of The Ruin of Eros

It didn’t work.

I close my eyes again. Trapped. And worse than before, now. Will he lock me in my room after this? I’ll never get another chance.

He dabs the cold compress across my forehead again, then drops it in a pail by his feet.

“Ajax is a strong creature. Your injury is serious.”

I try to turn away, but a shriek of pain races up my right side.

“Be still,” he urges. “Psyche, did you hear what I said? Your injuries are...considerable.”

Even blinking hurts.

“How bad?” I say finally.

“Your right leg and arm were crushed. Some bone fragments, I fear, may be too small to heal fully. Your organs, at least, were spared. The damage to tendons, ligaments, I have not counted.”

The recitation is a grim one, and I can tell by the flatness of his voice that he knows it. He doesn’t sound angry: he sounds cold and emotionless, which I suppose I should be used to by now. Perhaps the anger will come later.

“I will bring whatever remedies my garden has to offer,” hesays. “But nonetheless, you are mortal.”

I look away.

“If you mean I’m to die from this, then say it.”

He sighs.

“No, but as to whether you will walk again, I will not venture. It may be a slow process, and the healing will be painful.” He sits back. “But you will have my care and Aletheia’s, day or night.”

I close my eyes tight. To never walk again...I try to picture such an altered life. After all that has already happened, perhaps such a change should feel small. But now it strikes me that I should have taken up the demon’s offers when I had the chance: I should have run through those endless gardens and felt the scented grass crush under my feet, exploring as far as my legs would take me; I should have swum with the nymphs in that crystalline water.

“I had to get to Sikyon,” I say. “My family...”

But the act of speaking hurts, and I stop.

“I should have guessed you would attempt something like this,” he sighs. I look up at the cloaked face. From here, I see the merest trace of his shadowed jaw.

“You think Aphrodite’s eye does not search for you out there? It is foolish of you not to believe me.”

“Believe you?” I wheeze. “You wonder that I do not trust your words? Think of what you concealed from me.” Although the pain is shattering, I turn my head to look at him directly.

He bows his head just a fraction.

“I should not have concealed Sikyon’s fate from you. And yet I spoke the truth about your family. I believe they are yet alive, and thought perhaps in time I would be able to bring you good news. I did not wish to torment you with the knowledge of a tragedy you could not change. What is done now, is done. Neither of us can undo it.”

“You spoke so carelessly of them,” I murmur. “You told metheir lives did not matter. As if what had happened was nothing.”

The black hood bows further.

“I did not mean to sound so callous. I merely meant...Psyche, I knew you would hold yourself responsible. As I held myself responsible: I should have predicted there would be some such retribution. I should have predicted it, but I did not.” He pauses. “I don’t regret saving you that day—I cannot regret it—but I blame myself for not foreseeing what would happen, for not being able to warn or save your people. When I spoke harshly last night, I was trying to ease that guilt. It is true that to my kind, all mortal life seems brief—sooner or later, all of you will enter Hades’ realm. But that does not mean your lives aboveground do not matter. I will carry Sikyon’s tragedy with me.”

Something floods me with his words, and I close my eyes. I cannot help it: I picture the children of the village, the small ones playing with marbles in the agora. And the youths I knew and the girls my age, recently married or about to wed. The elderly, the infirm, the frail. Which of them made it out of there?

“If you had left me on that rock…” The words tumble out, bitter. “If we had let the goddess have her way, they would all still be alive.”

He sits silent for a while.

“Lives are not coins, Psyche,” he says at last. “They cannot be so easily traded, one for another. Justice has a price of its own, and your death would have been a great injustice. I cannot regret my actions there—only that I could not avert that which came after.”

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