The Reign of Olympus (Shadows of Olympus #3)
Chapter One
The day is still, almost windless. Only a hawk wheeling close overhead watches as I cross the field. Inside the barn it smells of pine and hay, and warm horse-breath.
“Hello, Ajax,” I murmur, and put out my palm to the black stallion. He nuzzles, snorts gently, then goes back to his trough. I shake the barley, and pour some water into his half-barrel.
“Where do you suppose your master is?” I say. I would feel foolish talking to any other horse, but Ajax is different. Meanwhile, the question hangs in the air. Eros can’t have gone far. I just wish he hadn’t taken to disappearing like this, these long walks, seemingly without purpose, from which he returns silent and withdrawn. If he’s restless, I don’t blame him. I just wish I knew what was going on.
If I had ever imagined living as the consort to a god, I am sure I would have imagined it very differently than this. A home above the clouds, perhaps, in the grandest of palaces, waited on hand and foot. Gold and jewels, nectar and ambrosia, of pleasure and listless indolence, the days melting together into one rich, endless season.
I blow on my hands. It’s cold in the barn. It’s cold in general, down here in the valley: the high mountain walls around us mean that the sun strikes late, and sets early. I don’t mind the cold. But sometimes, I’ll confess, it feels a little…claustrophobic. Around us the hills rise up in soft peaks, as though we were cupped inside the hollow of a great hand. I should feel safe, cared for, in our hollow. Some days I do. Other days, I wish I were standing at the top of those peaks, instead of down at their base. I’ll admit it’s pretty down here, with our cabin of sweet-smelling wood, the trunks felled from the forests that line these sloping hills. The wildflowers are plentiful, and the streams run with clear water. The animals I’ve seen here are soft-bellied, timid little things—hares and voles and the occasional fox, nothing that could harm us. A hawk has built its nest in the tree behind our cabin, a recent addition—the same hawk, no doubt, that was wheeling above me moments ago. I fancy sometimes that it is watching me, but that is hardly a gaze to be feared. I remind myself that we are lucky. We have some neighbors, but not too many, and not too close. We have our privacy, which, in our circumstances, is much needed. I still wear the Shroud—the talisman at my neck that keeps me safe from the other gods and their mind-sight—but even so, it is better not to call attention to ourselves. Better not to arouse suspicion, even among mortals.
A sweet, simple life. Once, it would have been everything I dreamed of. But now, after the things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done…I am different now, and I cannot seem to fit back into this world again. It is too quiet, too easily overtaken with memories. The seasons have passed since the day we fled Atlantis, but often I wake in the night and imagine it is all around us still: the tyrant king, the bloody battle, the mountain that spewed fire. I dream once more of my father’s body, lying cold on the rock before me, the king’s arrow through his heart. And I dream of my sister and her son, swallowed by a great wave, plucked from the shore of the island as if by an invisible hand. That image, perhaps, is the one that haunts me most of all.
The image of my nephew’s little hands clapping, for all the world as though he were ushering in the wave itself, drawing that monstrous wall of water toward him as if it were a game. And my sister, her eyes alight as she urged him on. Was it madness, or was it true what she said: that the child was in truth the son of the great sea-god himself? I would prefer to believe her. Anything, if it meant she and the boy were still alive. But there are many things I would like to believe in this world, and few of them that I know I should.
As for Eros, I don’t doubt the memories haunt him too. Certainly, this place has changed him—or perhaps it is not the place itself, but simply the passing days which drain him of his strength. Aphrodite’s vendetta against him has only grown. She is powerful enough to make mortals do as she commands, and she has commanded them to turn their backs on her son. Now that she has decimated his following his powers wane, worse than ever. I was naive: I thought it would hurt his pride, but little else. He’ll be like me , I had thought. Undying, yes, but otherwise, more like a mortal. But it is not at all as I had pictured. I know he loves me, but sometimes I can’t help wondering if he blames me, too. This is not the life for a god—not even a small god, some minor being of the woods and hills. Certainly not for a great Olympian. It is as though some dark sickness plagues him. He never used to sleep, but now sometimes, he sleeps later than I do. Other nights he goes out walking in the dark. He doesn’t want me to see that he’s unwell; he thinks of it as weakness. It’s not, but I don’t know what it means, and that frightens me. I tell myself it’s the reason for his absences; for these long days when he disappears into the forest from sunup to sundown. I tell myself it’s why he seems no longer to take the pleasure in me he once did. But I am not reassured. Sometimes I think he has been as far as the town, and I wonder if it’s my imagination that his cloak smells of woodsmoke and wine.
I can hear my sister’s voice in my head, picture her raised eyebrows, her sharp tongue. I don’t need to be reminded of what all our myths proclaim: that gods may like to have their way with mortals, bed them, seduce them, even woo them, but they are never faithful to them. Even a mortal man has trouble with that, and he only lives five-score years. What of an immortal, who lives forever? They are not built for such devotion.
I try to ignore the thought. I try not to think that the women on this island are very pretty, their skin well-tanned, their hair shiny, their curves ample and compelling.
Ajax snorts gently as I brush his coat. Of the three of us, I think he is the only one who seems at peace in our new life. I would not have thought it would suit him, either—a stallion used to the pastures of Olympus, one who rides with the gifts of the gods—but he seems to have taken to the peace and quiet. When I see him grazing on the long grass that surrounds our cabin as if he were any other horse, it would be easy to think he had forgotten all his wild adventures. But I do not think this noble creature forgets much.
Perhaps he is simply more patient than we are.
Or perhaps he knows that peace never lasts long, and he is determined to enjoy it.
The sky shifts from cloudless azure to soft grey-blue, and finally to mauve, as the hours wane into night. A breeze stirs the long grasses, and every time I see movement my heart leaps, waiting for his tall figure, dark against the sunset, the sound of his feet on the path to our door. But when his shadow finally rounds the bend, emerging out of the copse of pine trees, my heart leaps in quite a different way.
He is not alone.
*
My heart grows still as the two figures stride, almost noiseless, over the shivering grass. In the stable, Ajax whinnies.
Why would Eros risk bringing visitors here? Why would he risk our safety, and theirs? And with no warning…
My heart beats fast, as if I have been running. And yet I am colder, much colder, than I was before. I pull my chiton tighter around my shoulders, and step outside.
“Husband. You have brought a guest.”
Both of them pull back their hoods: Eros first, and then the stranger. And I see what some part of me has known since I saw him at my husband’s side.
The hooded stranger is a god.