Page 69 of The Ruin of Eros

In the horse’s saddlebags I have the few valuables I found that had not been taken. A handful of coins; a gold signet ring of my father’s. There was no food left in the house, but the garden had not yet been fully dug up, so I was able to forage a little there, and put the grains and vegetables I gathered in a sack to take with us, along with a full waterskin. Along with the coins, I’m hoping that will last long enough to get us to Delphi. After that, I’ll have to figure something else out.

I noticed something else, when I was fastening on my bag of meager provisions: a quiver of arrows, hooked to the horse’s saddle. I would have noticed them earlier, I suppose, if I hadn’t been so distracted. Out in the barn I found an old bow, and now I ride with the quiver of arrows slung across my back.

Poison arrows. I wonder what he carried them for. And then I think of the things he said to me; the lessons, as I see it now, that he was trying to teach me.

What is a god but a demon by another name?

Just because he is the god of love, does not mean he isn’t dangerous. All gods are dangerous. I should know that by now.

Either way, I’m glad of the extra defense. When Father taught us combat, Dimitra was always better with the sword or javelin, but I could shoot an arrow straighter than she ever could, so these won’t go amiss.

I adjust the quiver on my back, and look out over themountain road, the azure sea in the distance. Soon it’s nearing sunset; the sky is clear except for a patch of thick clouds blowing in from the west. A flock of birds flies overhead—they circle once, split apart, then knit back together. Although I ride alone, with not another soul in sight, I wonder how many traveled along this mountain pass a short while ago, in the exodus Lydia described. As for us, our road will go west from here, before taking us down through the mountain passes to the coast, and then we’ll follow the bay around toward the crossing at Patras. Then we’ll go east again, skirting Nafpaktos and Galaxidi, until we finally reach Delphi.

The stallion snorts and shakes his mane; I almost think he welcomes the journey. That makes one of us.

I reach a hand forward and stroke the side of his great muzzle.

Ajax,I remember. That is this noble creature’s name.

“You have done me a great service,” I say to him. “I hope you will not regret it.”

I had half-expected him to turn against me, the further I led him from the temple. I thought perhaps he would pull away, seeking to return to his master, but he rides as easily with me as if we were old friends. Even so, I have the sense that all of it is on his terms: I have not forgotten the way it went before, when I tried to ride him out of there against his will.

As stubborn as his master, I think, but it only brings a tightness to my chest.

You will not see me again, he said.

Forget what you can.

The words echo through me. Did he mean it? After all that happened between us? Perhaps he hates me now. I betrayed him, after all. I broke a vow, somehow I brought his temple to the ground. He warned me—it was the one thing he made me promise.

If only he had told me the truth,I think, but I know well enough why he didn’t. Better to let me believe he was monstrous, if it kept me from the temptation of looking. If it kept me from a curse of madness.

So am I mad? Perhaps. If love is madness, if desire is madness.

It sounds wrong—it sounds stupid and dangerous—to use words like that. Words likelove. But what else am I to call this? First I hated him. Then I desired him. Then I began to love him. All against my wishes, against my better judgment.

And I cannot forget that feeling, when he first opened his eyes. It felt like falling through time, as if the future and the past had compressed into one. And the most strange and wondrous part of all: in each instant,hewas there. As though the memories of the future were already made, as though the whole of our lives had already been intertwined. Whatever part of our mortal selves is deathless, Ifeltthat part of me sing out. How can I describe it, except that I felt certain our fates were bound?

But that cannot be.

It must not be. It is impossible, and worse than impossible, it’s dangerous.

He will return to the Pantheon, and forget me. What was it he said, before?Your lifetime, your father’s and your father’s father’s, are nothing to a god.He may not forget me overnight, but what does time matter to him?

I lower my head, and turn into the wind. We ride through the night. I’m tired, but not tired enough to sleep—and besides, I feel safer up here, on Ajax’s broad back. There are few places to seek shelter on these open roads, and no telling who or what might come across me as I slept.

I bring my fingers to the Shroud that hangs around my neck. I suppose it must be working: the earth has not opened up to swallow me yet, nor has some dreaded creature emerged fromthese mountain passes.

Did he really think he could rescue me from the cliffs that day, and keep the secret from her? Did he really believe she would not find us out?

Gods can be fools, I suppose, as much as mortals can. But he was right about one thing: the wrath she has for me will only be redoubled now.

I think of all the little things he told me, the oblique comments that meant nothing at the time. The family he spoke of, the two brothers he’d been parted from in childhood. I know who they are: Aphrodite may be married to Hephaestus, but none of her children come from his seed—she is the goddess of love, but not loyalty, and her three sons are all born of the war-god, Ares. And of these, Eros is known to be her favorite. The youngest; the one she raised to be like her, a love-god, while Ares raised the other two in his own image.

A dangerous family, to be sure.

Still, whatever offense Eros has caused to his family, I suppose it is nothing to mine. I finger the knot in the medallion’s leather string again. I had better ensure it does not loosen. The moonlight picks out the path ahead, but my eye can only follow some small distance before it blends back into brush. It would be easy, I think, to get lost up here. I am tired, but I keep my eyes open, and the threat of sliding off of Ajax’s broad back is incentive enough.

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