Chapter Two
My fingers rush unwittingly to the Shroud at my neck, but it can do me no good now. He has seen me: those narrow, silvery eyes are drinking me in with lazy curiosity.
“Greetings, Psyche of Sikyon,” he addresses me. His is a beautiful face, as are all the gods’, but what I notice more than beauty is the look of mischief in it. There’s mischief in his voice, too, as though my very name is some teasing joke. His face is lean and sharp-chinned, like a fox; his hair slick and smooth against his shapely skull.
“My lord.” I manage a bow. But when I cast my eyes at Eros, his face gives me no clue as to what’s going on, just the frown that is becoming more and more customary these days.
“Psyche,” he says. “This is my cousin, the god Hermes.”
Hermes . The messenger god. The Silver-Tongued. He favors gossip, they say, and even more than that, chaos.
And now he knows our secret.
*
“Do you not think me very clever?” Sitting across the table from me, Hermes grins. The sight of him does not make sense in our home: the brightness that seems to radiate from him, and all his gold and ornamented clothes. It does not belong in a humble place like this.
“Of all the gods,” he leans toward me, his tone conspiratorial. “I flatter myself that I have the sharpest ears. And I am not above trading for information. Perhaps that is why I am always able to ferret out the truths that they cannot.” He smirks. “You have noticed, perhaps, a rather handsome hawk in a neighboring tree, of late? It has been my eyes and ears.”
I feel the blood rush to my face. Of course I remember the hawk—the one in the tree behind our house. I never thought twice about it.
“And how long,” I say stiffly, “have you been spying on us?”
Hermes only laughs, as though we are sharing some pleasant joke together, then shifts his gaze appraisingly to Eros. I see in that moment the contrast between them: how brightly Hermes glows, how every shimmer of his skin speaks of radiant good health, and how wan and faded Eros looks next to him.
“You are becoming quite the botanist, cousin,” he says. “Spending a lot of time in those woods, aren’t you? He was not keen on introducing you to me,” Hermes turns my way again, grins. “But I made him.”
Made him . A reminder of the power he holds over us. Many of the Olympians would dearly like to know where to find us, and he has already admitted, he is not above selling information for his own ends. I swallow the distaste in my voice before I speak.
“And why,” I say, “would you want to meet me?”
He laughs; a sharp sparkle goes through his eyes.
“Come now, you have no need for false modesty. Why, you must know you are much talked about on Olympus. You both are,” he amends. “Your very union, to begin with.” He looks at me, smirking. “It is unusual for gods to, shall we say, settle down , with a mortal. One does not expect such things to last, and yet you seem to be holding his interest rather well. That alone, I will confess, awakened my curiosity.”
I refuse to let him see me bristle.
“But then…well, all the trouble you’ve caused, dear girl. You have left quite a trail in your wake.”
I feel myself flush. I know the tally the gods have against me. It was because of me, because of a vow I made and broke, that Eros’s temple in Sikyon crumbled. And of course I’m the one who—inadvertently, mind you—raised his mother’s ire in the first place, and the reason Eros broke with her. The reason Aphrodite calls her son a blood traitor. I’m the one who threw the knife that maimed another of her sons, Deimos. It was in self-defense, but try telling that to the gods. How dare I have the temerity to throw an adamantine knife—a god-killing blade—at Eros’s brother, rather than let him destroy me? I only severed his wing, though I suspect I could have killed him if I’d wanted to. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice my aim. But instead Deimos lives, and hates me with a passion. As for his twin, Phobos, he died at my sister’s hands—pierced with adamantine, too, the only thing that can kill a god. But I suspect in Deimos’s eyes, and in Aphrodite’s, and perhaps for many others on Olympus, I am as much to blame for my sister’s deed as if I’d driven the wound in myself.
“Your company is as stimulating as ever, Hermes.” Eros is tight-lipped. “But I do not believe you came here just to make an introduction. What is your purpose with us?”
Hermes raises his eyebrows, as though Eros has said something unmannerly.
“You think I come here for selfish reasons? Does it not occur to you, cousin, that perhaps I am here for your sake? To offer you a well-timed warning, for example?”
I glance at Eros; his eyes narrow.
“And what sort of warning would that be?”
Hermes leans back in his chair, satisfied to have our full attention at last.
“You and your brothers. Well,” he corrects himself. “ Brother , I suppose I should say now. You’re a rather stubborn bunch.”
His tone is so arch, so wry, you’d think he didn’t care at all about Phobos’s death. It’s not that I would have expected compassion from him, but the idea of death is not something any god speaks of lightly. Mortality isn’t something they’ve ever had to reckon with.
Phobos was no innocent: he was, by my reckoning, a monster. And yet he was still Eros’s brother, and from what I’ve heard, he was different, once. I know Eros mourns his older brother, despite everything.
“I do not require you to mourn my brother’s death, cousin,” he says now in a low voice. “But I warn you not to speak of it so lightly.”
Hermes blinks in Eros’s direction. A threat? he might as well be saying. How quaint. Hermes has many half-siblings, but none that are close to him, and no spouse, no consort. I don’t suppose he really knows what it is to have your heart ripped out like that. To see a loved one suffer or die, right in front of your face. That is something Eros and I have in common.
“In any event,” Hermes continues, unshaken, “you should know that Deimos has been campaigning against you for many months now. First he sought a Convening, to persuade Zeus to release his blade-”
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but it still makes me shiver. A Convening is when the thirteen Olympians come together to pass justice, or what they consider justice. As for the blade he speaks of: It is said that three adamantine blades were forged, long ago. One of them belongs to Zeus still, but according to the decrees of Olympus, it is locked up and never to be used except with the permission of all the Olympian gods.
Apparently, Deimos sought to use it against us.
“And the outcome?’ Eros demands. Hermes shrugs.
“He did not get his way.” A flicker of excitement crosses his face, and I realize that he has something more to tell us, something worse. What’s more, he’s savoring it.
“But now,” he says, “the blade has disappeared. Gone in the night. And no one has seen Deimos since.”
The room is silent. Even the world outside seems mute, as though all the noises of the woods have fallen away at once.
“The First-Forged Blade?” Eros’s voice cracks as he speaks. He, too, seems in disbelief. “He stole it?”
Hermes crosses his long legs one over the other. “Indeed. And I suspect he means to come after you with it. Olympus is in chaos, as you can imagine. And as for you, I think you would be unwise to stay in any one place too long.” He glances between us, a new, shrewd look on his face. “Then again, your brother is not the only one with a god-killing blade. You would be evenly matched, would you not?” He smiles a lopsided smile.
So he thinks we still have our adamantine knife. I almost wish we did. It’s still a mystery how that blade came into my family’s possession, since only three were supposed to have been made, and no mortal by rights should have any claim on them—but whatever its origins, my time with it is over now.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eros snaps. “It was stolen from us in Atlantis, and drowned with the rest of the island, deep in an armory below the king’s palace.”
Hermes narrows his eyes, cat-like. “I can see why it benefits you to claim you don’t have it. Perhaps the rest of Olympus will believe you. But you can tell me, cousin.”
“He’s not lying,” I say sharply—more sharply than I ought to. “He’s not a liar.” Unlike you, Hermes the silver-tongued .
He glances at me, more amused than irritated.
Eros speaks quietly. “Adamantine killed my brother. I have no desire to hold such a blade again. But in any event, as I say, it is lost.”
Hermes frowns.
“You’re telling me it’s buried somewhere in the ocean? To be entombed there for all time? In that case,” he muses, looking from Eros to me and back, “you had better watch your backs.” He pauses. “You could come with me now, if you like. I can take you somewhere safe.” His teeth flash.
Before, he reminded me of a fox. Now I think of a wolf.
Eros sets his jaw.
“We will take your advice under consideration, cousin. Thank you for the warning.”
Hermes sighs, and extricates his legs from under the table, slowly getting to his feet.
“I shall take my leave, then. But remember: there are many gods on Olympus who would be most interested to know of your whereabouts. I shall keep your little secret, but do not forget my help.” He shrugs lightly. “I find, at some stage, there is always room to return a favor.”
I watch him go, the black-cloaked figure framed in our doorway, receding into the darker night. Eros comes to stand behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“Do you trust him?” I turn.
“No one trusts Hermes,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean he’s lying.”
I don’t know what benefit he could have derived from coming to warn us. But on the other hand, what benefit would there be in lying? I stare out through the open doorway: the quiet woods, the starlit sky. Thasos is a tiny island; we picked it for its seclusion.
“Do you think your brother could really find us here?”
Eros’s voice tightens, as it does whenever he’s forced to say something he does not wish to.
“It’s possible. But I do not think Deimos so wily as my cousin.”
I shudder, thinking again of the hawk’s nest behind our home. Now it seems to me a sly, treacherous thing.
“Then we should go,” I say. “Even if just to hide from Hermes. If what you say is true, no good can come from him knowing where we’ve made our home. Besides…” I say. “Our life here—it isn’t working. We can’t go on like this. You can’t go on like this.”
Eros frowns. He knows how I feel. I’ve always said I wouldn’t live like a fugitive again: always running, always looking over my shoulder, feeling death at my back. But what choice do we have?
“What’s happening to me,” he says slowly. “I cannot undo it. No matter where we go.”
I look him full in the face. Even wan and faded, he’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“How bad will it get?” I can’t meet his eyes. “If every last follower of yours were to disappear. What then?”
He looks away. “I hope not to find out.”
I think about the mountains surrounding our little valley. They have never felt so high; so impenetrable. Where before I saw magnificence in their rocky peaks, now I see walls that pen us in, cutting us off from the world.
“Once, we pretended to leave Greece,” I say. “Do you remember? We told my sister of a plan to travel to a foreign land, where you would be worshiped under a new name.” I look at him. “We could do that: journey to Aithiopia or Skythia. Carthage or Persia, or beyond.” A current of excitement runs through me. I think about riding on Ajax’s broad back once more, the breeze on my face, Eros’s strong arms around me, his warm chest against my back.
“Those lands have their own gods,” Eros reminds me. “Who do not welcome rivals.”
“We will find a small patch,” I answer. “Somewhere that will not be missed. Somewhere with room to grow.”
My husband is immortal, but I am not: we only have one life together. We cannot watch it wither. And I cannot watch him wither.
“Tomorrow, then.” He looks at me. The shadow of a smile plays over his face, a smile I have not seen in much too long. “We will leave at first light.”
Only, we do not get the chance.