Chapter Ten
I run and stop, run and stop, pausing only long enough to gather my breath before I push myself onward once more. I careen downhill, through the olive grove and out the other side. It’s late afternoon but the skies are hazy, no longer golden; I can barely make out the ring of mist that marks the barrier to the mortal world.
How am I going to get out of here—out of the gods’ citadel, and then down that terrible mountain? I grit my teeth. I may not have the weapons I had before, but I have more experience.
The grasses brush my ankles as I race on. I thought it was always perfect weather on Olympus, but I was wrong. The sky is growing overcast, and a wind is rising. It’s a strange wind—it seems to be blowing from all directions at once. They are little more than breezes at first, but the further I go, the stronger they seem to become, like four separate voices. My lungs are pleading for a rest, but I can’t listen to them. Hermes will not take long. His excitement at holding an adamantine blade in his hands will speed his way there—and his rage when he does not find it there will spur him even faster on the way back.
When I have no breath left I stop and look around me. A long, grassy meadow, thick with wildflowers. I’ve been running through it for some time and yet I cannot see the end of it. But as I look around, something teases at my memory. These wildflowers: They’re familiar. They look like the one Hermes drew from his robes when he came for us, the one that gave Ajax flight. Milky and star-shaped, with a blue eye in the center. The whole meadow is thronged with them and their unearthly glow. Anemones, wind-flowers. Straight from Aeolus’s meadow , Hermes said.
Then, as the wind rises even higher, I spot the horses— four of them. A blue roan, a chestnut, one pure white, and one sand-colored—and all of them winged.
Aeolus’s meadows. Aeolus, god of the four winds. Master of the four great horses. But now that I’ve seen them, the horses have seen me, too. They stop their grazing, becoming alert. A thought takes root in my head—a wild thought, a reckless one. But is it so impossible? I came here on a winged horse. Who is to say I should not leave on one?
It was no illusion, this sensation I had of four winds blowing at once. I take a careful step nearer, and thankfully, the horses don’t bolt. I can see them properly now. Closest is the white one, whose bright mane hangs like icicles, and even from here seems to emit a chill.
“You are Boreas,” I say. “Wind of the north.”
He snorts, an icy fog of white blasting from his nostrils. I turn my head to his neighbor, a blue roan with dappled markings like a sea-storm.
“Eurus,” I bow. “The sea-wind from the east.”
Then the sand-colored horse, who kicks at the ground as it watches me, raising a cloud of dust.
“Notos,” I say. The South wind, hot and dry, borne of the desert.
“And you”—my eyes fall last on the little chestnut, smaller than the others, its brown coat giving off a soft, honeyed glow. “You are Zephyrus.” The warm West wind, gentle in temperament, soft of breath. Is my idea so very foolish? I breathe deep, and step closer.
“Please,” I say. “I need your help. I must journey to my husband, the god Eros. He is in Sparta, and I must go to him as a matter of urgency.” My throat feels dry. Do they understand me, or care? I suppose they do the gods’ will, and obey no one but their master. Certainly not pleading, desperate mortals.
But you have god’s blood in you, too , a voice pipes up within me.
“We will be in your debt, my husband and I,” I continue. “If you do me this favor.”
I take a step closer, but as I do, the horses whicker and stir. The blue one lets out a whinny and canters away from me. My heart thumps. I only hope he hasn’t gone to find his master.
If only I could make them understand.
Where is it now, that little power I had before? I have let it grow into disuse. In Atlantis I strengthened it, coached it: every day I tried my hardest to listen to the world around me, to the creatures and their voices.
I am out of practice, but that does not mean the skill has gone from me entirely. I close my eyes, trying to remember. Trying to recover what has drifted and turned weak. Trying, once more, to listen. Then I open my eyes, and kneel down slowly on the grass. I concentrate, empty my mind. The winds blow harder.
She kneels , one of them, the sand-colored one, seems to say.
Needs us , adds the chestnut. The voice in my head is soft, pitying.
Foolish mortal , comes from the ice-white horse. This voice is thick with scorn, sharp and merciless. The North wind, certainly, will not help me.
I push my mind to dig deeper. To do more than hear their thoughts. I need to do what Eros did—I need to speak, not just listen. I focus on the soft brown one with all my might, trying to communicate who I am, what I need.
He scuffs a hoof gently in the grass.
You are Zephyrus, I think. Wind of the West. I am Psyche of Sikyon. Wife to the god Eros .
The white horse snorts again, making the chestnut shy back, suddenly nervous.
And I know you too, Boreas, I think, turning to face his sharp muzzle, his pale, stormy eyes. His nostrils flare. I may know who he is, but that does not make him like me any better.
Please, I think, as fiercely as I can. Please, will one of you take me where I need to go? My life may depend upon it.
The sand-colored one moves restlessly back and forth.
Please, Zephyrus. I look to the chestnut, this gentlest of winds, the one beloved by my people. Bringer of spring, nurturer of our lands. He looks at me with those deep, limpid eyes. I think perhaps, just perhaps, he will come to me. And then a clap of thunder makes all three horses raise their heads—and as one, they turn from me and bolt for the distant meadow.
“ No ,” I shout. “Please, Zephyrus! You have to help me!”
But he’s gone. The thunder—was that Zeus’s command? It doesn’t matter now. I blink at the empty field, the grey, roiling sky, the trampled wildflowers. Hermes is likely already on his way back.
A snapping sound behind me makes me go very still. Skin prickling, I turn.
And there, standing behind me, is the blue horse.
I stare. “You came back.”
It snorts, but gently; the breath that flares from its nostrils is cool, but not icy. Bracing, and a little briny. Eurus, the wind of the East; of the high seas.
He snorts again, tail flicking, and moves closer. He does not have Zephyrus’s gentleness; there is nothing docile in him. His eyes are wild, glinting like the sea. His coat is rough, not sleek like the chestnut’s, but wind-ruffled.
But he is here. I smile to myself.
What was I thinking? A soft wind was never in my future.
*
The vertiginous drop in front of me doesn’t scare me quite so much as it did before, but I don’t loosen my grip for a moment, keeping my hands tight in Eurus’s mane and my thighs hugging his flanks as hard as I can. We are still in the realms of Olympus: somewhere below us is the wall that marks the border between the gods’ home and all that lies without, but everything is shrouded in mist. The mist reaches up here, too, into the high skies where Eurus has taken us. I do not remember a mist like this when Hermes brought us. Perhaps he knew some way to bypass it—or perhaps it is growing worse, a result of Zeus’s distemper. But as we ride through it I feel it seeping into me, not only my clothing and my hair, but into my bones and deep inside my mind. It’s a cold feeling, a mix of doubt and dread. It seems to me a dozen voices have taken root inside my skull. Turn right, turn left, turn back. But I know these mind games, and I lock my jaw and urge Eurus to go higher, as high as he can, to shake off this confounding fog. When it starts to separate, the tendrils teasing thin as sheep’s wool, it comes none too soon. My temples are pounding, and I feel as though I haven’t slept for days. But I can breathe again.
Far below are the slopes of Olympus. I keep my eyes forward, toward the south, keeping watch for the small settlements, the marks of civilization that must come soon—the signs that we are far enough from the foothills of Olympus that mortals dare settle here.
Eurus’s breath steams into the air. The day is waning. From what I know of Sparta, it is more or less a straight shot south of here, and while there is still light in the sky, it should not be too hard to tell which way to go. Far to our left is the Aegean: we must keep that at a steady distance until the great isthmus of Corinth, where we curve inland. But Eurus flies so fast that I find myself losing my bearings, unable to make out the thin band of blue that marks the sea; unable to make out anything but a blur. I grip his mane tighter. I feel almost as though I were on a ship at sea. The wind is high, with a cold, wet edge. Below us, it seems to me it is already raining.
Eurus, the sea-wind of the East. Of course: he brings the weather with him.
He seems to relish the journey, racing through the air on a wild, keen path. It occurs to me that perhaps it was not my pleading that persuaded him to accompany me at all. I sense in him that deep desire to run unfettered through the skies. On other days, he must surely stick to his master’s chosen paths, but he is bored, perhaps, with the sea-towns, the coastal cities where he is known. He wants to travel somewhere new.
I understand you, my friend . I, too, prefer to run free.
Aeolus will raise the alarm about his stolen horse; there will be further uproar, no doubt, and Athena and Hermes will tell their stories. It may come out about the stolen apple, and for all I know, the other Olympians will give credence to what Hermes says: that I still carry a dangerous blade, that I am an enemy who means them harm.
I suspect Eros will not be pleased. But the memory of the tapestry flits back into my mind. If Eros is angry, well, I have some anger of my own to contend with. And I do not regret my escape. Even if I have to keep looking over my shoulder for signs of Deimos’s approach, I’m surely safer out here, on the move, than cooped up in a palace, among the cold glass spires of Olympus.
Up in the sky, it’s hard to say how much time has passed. It seems to me that the orange light of sunset lasts far longer than I’ve ever seen it do from my earthbound perspective. It’s almost as though we’re keeping pace with the chariot of the sun itself. But I’m beginning to worry that even so, we’ve been up here too long. I believe we passed the isthmus of Corinth some time back, and the Ionian sea.
“You are taking me to Sparta, aren’t you?” I murmur into the horse’s ear. My thighs have been clenched against his flanks so long I’m half numb. But then, in the distance, I can suddenly make out the great blue ridges of the Peloponnese, and then, as we draw closer, the rugged peaks of Taigetos, stark and uncompromising, emerging from that rolling blue expanse. I have heard of this range, the proud sentinels that stand over Sparta, sheltering that great city and its fertile plains. But seeing it in the flesh—seeing it as the very highest-soaring eagles must see it—is breathtaking. The uppermost peaks are jagged, pale and bare as bone; below the peaks, they are filled with shadows, thick black gorges carved out against the last rays of the setting sun. I inhale, taking in its harsh beauty, hearing nothing but the sound of Eurus’s great wings that fill the air around me.
Soon, I can see the great, unfolding plain of Laconia, vast and shimmering green, and the silver swath of river that threads through it. And then, as we fly closer, Sparta itself: great structures of stone that look tiny from the air; clusters of life; buildings and temples, and roads moving through the city like pale threads; empty open spaces that I take to be meeting squares or training grounds.
I exhale.
Finding Eros, I suspect, will not be straightforward.
But first, we have to land.