Chapter Thirty-Seven
The world is silver and ghostly, the moon hangs high and bright in the sky. I had not thought to be back on Olympus ever again.
It seems to me I have already aged years since yesterday on the beaches of Phaleron. But though I don’t like to say it, perhaps Nemese was right. There is more than one way to fight. Gods can overpower us with strength every time—but in stealth or trickery, a mortal may still sometimes get the upper hand. Tonight, at least, I hope so.
I’m coming for him, Dimitra. I send the thought up into the ether, hoping that someway, somehow, it will find its path to my sister’s ears.
I feel Eros’s warmth behind me, his chest against my back, his hands on the reins under mine. Even his bronze skin is pale and strange in the half-light, like something in a dream.
On the beach, after the Olympians were gone: those were the darkest hours I’ve yet known. Athena retreated to her temples, licking her wounds. Athens was ravaged. I suppose in time it will be rebuilt, but there will be no bringing back the dead, no future for those many bodies scattered on the beach or lying beneath the waves.
Ares went to see to his men; I suppose he could not stand to be around me a moment longer. But Nemese stayed. On the empty beach, beside my sister’s body, she told us of her plan. An imperfect plan, to be sure, but my hope-starved heart clung to it, as it clings still.
We buried my sister at sea, like so many of the dead. I buried Yiannis too. Part of me felt nothing but hate for him, even as I placed the coins upon his eyes. Once more I saw that arrow fly from his bow, piercing my sister’s skin. Curses hung about my lips, ready to condemn his soul to the worst places. But some other part of me thought of his mother, imagined her bathing her newborn son, watching those eyes close as she knelt over his cradle. His eyes have closed forever, now. And I am far from innocent in that.
I used to think innocence was a question of good intentions, that if you were pure of heart, you could never truly be guilty. Now I don’t know. There’s blood on my hands that will never be washed off and I must learn to live with it.
But perhaps I was never so pure of heart as I thought.
It still galls me that Zeus has the blade; that I gave it to him in return for an assurance that meant nothing. I should have known better than to trust a god. I should have known that to bargain with them is still to lose. They deal in half-truths, false promises.
Does that run in my veins, too?
Such thoughts are harder to push aside now, ever since I looked into the eyes of the sea-god and saw the truth I didn’t want to know.
They always said how much Nikos looked like me. Did some part of me guess all along? My mother came from Atlantis, after all.
It was the first thing I heard about that storied isle. A place where the gods once walked; some say they walk there still . And the sea-god chief among them.
I once thought of my parents’ union as a great love story, but I see it in a new light now. Unlike Dimitra, my mother did not want to be pursued by a god. For her, Atlantis was a dangerous place, and she took the first escape path she found: a foreign soldier from a city far away, someone who would take her where the god’s gaze would not find her. My father may not have been her great love, but he was her salvation. For a while, at least.
And my sister…I do not think it is coincidence that her fate became tangled in the same story. Her fate and my mother’s and mine: three threads that became woven together. Because of what happened to my mother, I was born different. Because of it, my father and sister were banished. Because he had nowhere else to go, he sought refuge in the only other home he’d known. Atlantis.
Unlike my mother, Dimitra sought out the sea-god’s attentions. But my sister’s insatiable ambition, her willingness to risk everything for power—those threads were sown long ago, too. That rivalry; the furious conviction she always had that I would somehow outdo her, that I was born to something she was not. I think it was no coincidence that she found herself a king for a husband, though it almost cost her her life, and then sought out a god, though the risks there were even greater. So many grains of sand, weighing in the scales. Yes, my sister made her choices. But did she make them freely? Perhaps. I cannot say.
I think it’s fitting that we gave her a sea-burial. Better that than the cold, hard earth. My sister was never one to lie trapped and still. And perhaps some part of me felt a vindication in sending her to where the sea-god could not ignore her. Her dark hair floated for a moment on the surface, the last part of her to vanish. I thought of him as I watched her body sink beneath the waves. I thought of how he walked away from us that day; how I called, and he did not turn.
I dreamed of him last night—of Poseidon. A strange, sightless dream. There was only darkness, and a voice. His voice, drifting in the air around me.
“I am sorry, child,” it said. “It was not my plan.”
I strained my eyes, looking for a light in the dark, but there was nothing.
“Whose plan, then?” I demanded. “You are a god. Do not claim to be powerless.”
“Even a god cannot thwart the Fates,” the voice said. “Nikos had to fight that day. It was foretold.”
“You almost killed him!” I shouted into the dark. “And even now, he may yet die!”
“There is every difference in the world,” the voice said, “between dying and almost dying. The boy did not die. Nor will he, if you follow your path.”
My path?
“ You failed him,” I shouted. “Not me. I will not bear the blame.”
The voice was silent then. Not gone, but waiting out my rage.
“And what of my sister?” I said at last, the words heavy, sharp in my throat. “Was it her fate to die?”
The voice did not answer straight away.
“She died to save her son, Psyche,” it said then. “Do you think she did not choose her fate? Do you think she would not have chosen it, many times over?”
I felt the bitterness well up in me.
“But I did not choose it!” I burst out. I didn’t want her to die. To leave me. She was all that was left, and then she was gone.
But no, I remind myself now. Not all that was left. There is Nikos. Now he is the last of my kin.
Ajax rounds a final corner, his black coat like liquid in the moonlight, the sound of his hoofbeats swallowed and noiseless. He draws to a halt and Eros slides down, then gives me his hand to help me dismount. We’re outside the Garden of the Hesperides. The trees loom over the walls, their white branches now ghostly in the light. Ghosts and memories.
A figure steps out of the shadows; she has been waiting for us. Nemese’s hair is aflame in the night. She offers no greeting. I had not thought to ever accept her help.
Then again, I had not thought she would offer it.
She nods at us, and holds out something toward me— the lantern she spoke of. It’s small, barely the size of my hand, almost weightless in my grip. It belongs to her mother, the goddess Nyx herself. Nyx is not to know that we have borrowed it.
“Ready?” Eros murmurs.
I nod, although I hardly feel it. I cannot hide from myself what danger we risk just by being here. The knowledge slides over me, a cold touch against my skin, making the small hairs stand on end.
Once again, the garden gate is open. Did Nemese open it already? Or is it possible that the garden somehow senses us?
Eros walks through first. I follow, and Nemese walks behind.
At night the trees seem taller, their branches more gnarled, reaching like hands as we pass. The apples that hang silently from the boughs look silver in this light, not golden. But the faint perfume in the air is the same.
Eros does not hesitate, navigating the web of paths through the towering trees. They’re lined with pale stones that shimmer faintly. Moonlight slides along low-hanging branches, its patterns shifting against the ground. Shadows pool into strange, liquid shapes, hovering at the edge of my vision. I glance down at the lantern in my hand, and my breath comes shallow in the silence; the only sound is the faint rustling of Eros’s cloak ahead of me as it brushes through the foliage. I think of Ajax, patiently waiting outside the gate. Neither he nor we can guess how long it will be till our return.
The orchard is large; I do not know how long we walk before we see the edge of the maze: a wall of dense, tangled thorns woven so thickly together they might as well be stone. I did not see it when I was here before, but then, I did not venture far that time. Nemese says the maze lies right at the heart of the garden, and that the gods are known to hide many things here. Secrets. Treasures. Prisoners. Not the condemned, of course—something much worse awaits them—but those whose fate is not yet sealed.
“There it is,” Eros says, his voice so low I wonder at first if I really heard him.
He’s found the entrance, or an entrance, at least. A narrow, twisting gap barely wide enough to squeeze through—if one is willing to submit to the thorns. Eros has explained to me how the thorns guard the entrance to the maze, gatekeepers to any who attempt to pass through. They are bred to sense ichor—gods’ blood. If Eros were to attempt it they would betray his presence with a cry that would call all of Olympus down upon us. But these cursed thorns were built to sense gods’ blood, not mortals’. A mortal may pass through the maze unseen.
Or that is what we hope.
“Here,” Nemese says, and reaches a hand out to the lantern I’m carrying. Instantly a flame blooms inside, but the flame is blacker than the night. Since it belongs to Night itself, instead of light, it casts shadows.
According to Eros, inside the maze are many deceptions: paths that are not real, that lead to nowhere. Even if I hold this lantern up to them, those moonlit paths will glow false and bright as before. But when I hold the lantern up before the real path, it will turn to shadow. That is how I am to know which way to go.
Nemese gives me a quick nod, letting me know it’s time, but Eros catches my hand before I can go. His thumb brushes the flesh of my palm, a dart of heat that rushes through me, warming all that I am. His eyes linger on my face, and I see the pain in them, the doubt. If he could go instead of me, he would. But he can’t.
I drop my eyes from his. It’s time, and to delay will only make it harder.
The first one is quick—a sharp, stinging scratch. I wince as the thorn pierces my skin, but it’s already done: a warm bead of blood wells up and rolls down my wrist, absorbed instantly by the twisting vines. The first test.
As I push in further, the thorns catch my skin in a dozen places. Each scratch burns for a moment, leaving a fine line of blood in its wake. Each an offering for the maze to drink. I wait for something to happen—for some alarm, some thunderous roar. For the vines to swell up over me in some monstrous rush, binding me here forever. But they hold still and silent. They have taken their toll, and after a moment, the dark leaves part slightly. I press on. The path is narrow, winding forward into the darkness. When I step forward, the thorns seal shut behind me. I stare back at the vanished opening. I tear a strip from my robe, tie it against the thorns there, hopeful that it will help me find my way out again if I make it back.
When I make it back.
I pull the knot tight, leaving the white fabric streaked with blood. Then I turn back to the maze, and to the shadows that lie ahead.