Page 10 of Aïdes the Unseen
I turned the pit of a plum over in my hand. “Part of it.”
He grinned. “You’re learning.”
The play ended in a tangle of laughter and limbs, with one actor passed out and another pretending to give birth to a goat.
The crowd roared their approval. Dionysus stood, raised his cup, and toasted no one in particular. Then the first bonfire was lit.
It caught like it had been waiting—dry pinewood snapping, sparks rushing upward like spirits returning to the sky. More fires followed, dotted across the field like constellations turned inside out.
That’s when they came.
The dryads slipped from the olive trees, pale green and willowy, their eyes wide and gleaming. Nymphs danced barefootfrom the riverbanks, wet hair glistening. A few sprites buzzed in on wings too small for their bodies, but full of laughter, flower-faced and bright. The mortals barely paused, too deep in their revelry to question the guests who shimmered slightly when they moved. Tonight, the veil was thin. That was enough.
One dryad took a young farmer’s hand and pulled him into the ring of dancers. A water nymph stole a girl’s necklace and fled giggling, only to be chased into the reeds. The celebration had begun to tip toward the wild, the sacred, the dangerous.
Then the music changed.
It started with a single string, plucked just once—perfect, clear, sunshot. Then a second note followed, then a cascade like water poured over marble. The revelers stilled as he stepped into the firelight, golden as the dawn, a lyre in his arms.
Apollo.
He wore a crown of laurel and arrogance, and he walked like the ground loved him. His smile cut through the night like a blade of polished bronze.
“Ah,” Hermes muttered beside me. “The god of subtle entrances.”
Apollo didn’t look at him. He looked atme.
“Kore,” he said, and my name in his mouth was softer than I’d expected. “You glow with the season, and still, everything bends toward you.”
I didn’t move.
He strummed once more. “Let me offer you a song,” he said. “No riddles. No prophecy. Just music.”
Hermes scoffed under his breath. “So, a lie, then.”
Apollo glanced sideways. “Must you always be the mosquito at the feast?”
“I live to irritate,” Hermes said with a shrug. “It's one of my more honest traits.”
Apollo turned back to me, his voice a little lower. “Spring is always yours, but even the sun would turn in its course to warm your feet.”
I met his gaze. His beauty was absolute, crafted and distant. He was poetry without the flaw that makes it human. It was not the kind of beauty I wanted anymore.
“I’m already warm,” I said.
He faltered for half a beat. Then he smiled, gracious in his retreat. “Then let the rest listen.” And he began to play.
The mortals circled close again, caught in the melody, their eyes reflecting firelight and longing. Lovers leaned together. One nymph wept. Even the fig trees seemed to lean in, heavy with fruit and listening.
Beside me, Hermes sat on a flat stone, swirling a fig leaf in a half-empty cup of wine. “He really doesn’t do well withno,” he said.
I watched Apollo’s hands on the strings, the light in his hair, the perfection of his face. Nothing within me stirred.
“No,” I said softly. “He doesn’t.”
I kept the rest of my thoughts a secret. Apollo was not the one I missed.
The mead was thick and golden, laced with crushed petals and herbs that numbed the tongue and warmed the throat. Hermes refilled my cup without asking. His own was already empty. He drank like someone who never worried about the cost.
