Chapter 13 #2
I break the kiss, stepping back, finding the straps to unhook his armor.
His breath is coming fast and ragged. I push the metal away, letting it fall with a crash, and run my hands across the soft, worn leather beneath, as warm and supple as skin.
The earthy, smoky scent of him floods my senses as he grips my shoulder, unclasping the brooch that holds my dress, so that it slips down my body to the tiled floor.
Outside, the moon slides from the cover of wispy clouds and light spills over us, casting our shadows onto the wall.
I watch them merge together into one.
—
“Did you really abandon your war just for me?” I stretch luxuriously in the softness of the bed, my skin still tingling.
His eyes gleam in the gray half-light. “Who says I’ve abandoned it?”
“Hmm.” I press myself closer to his body, sliding one leg around him, my thigh warm against his.
His heart beats underneath my palm, slowing back down to a steady rhythm.
I trace circles on his chest, idly twisting my fingers in the fine dark scattering of hair, drifting down toward the sculpted planes of his abdomen.
“Well, you’re here. You didn’t come back to Olympus for anything else, did you? ”
He slips his finger under my chin, tilting my face toward his. “There’s nothing else I want here. Only you.”
My hand pauses. “So you won’t go into battle now.”
His lips brush mine, warm and eager. “Not immediately,” he mumbles into the kiss.
“But you won’t call your warriors home either. You’ll still let them fight.”
He pulls back a fraction. “How would I stop them?”
A laugh bubbles in my throat. “You’re their god.”
“So I’ll fight alongside them,” he says.
“But—”
“I told you that I’d never want to change you.” He pushes a strand of hair out of my face, hooking it behind my ear. “Do you really want me to be something different to what I am?”
“Maybe I want the world to be different,” I whisper.
He kisses me again, deeper, with more intent. “Maybe one day it will be.”
He rolls over, flipping me onto my back so that he’s above me, his hips pressing into mine so that I’m deliciously imprisoned, the rest of our conversation lost entirely.
I don’t think of Hephaestus or Eris, or of where he’ll go after this.
As his lips trail down my neck and I arch against him, and he moves lower and I gasp, it feels as though there will never be anything but this again.
Us, unraveling together, shattering into stars and everything else forgotten like it never existed at all.
I wish it could last forever, but, when the night gives way to the rosy light of dawn, he rises to dress, strapping his armor back on.
“Go to Mount Haemus.” He smiles back at me. “You could wait for me there.”
“While you’re at war?” I sigh, exasperated. “I don’t think so.”
I want him to stay. I want him to take me in his arms again; I want to feel the reassuring heat and strength of his body against mine, something solid and dependable to hold on to.
But if that’s what I want, the God of War was a bad choice.
“Forget about Hephaestus,” he says.
“It’s not that easy,” I say. “Not for me.”
He hesitates. “You will come back to Thrace, though, won’t you?” He’s standing, framed in the light spilling through the drapes, his helmet dangling from his hand. He rubs the stiff bristles of the plume between his thumb and finger, waiting for my answer.
I sigh again. I don’t want to stay on Mount Olympus, but I don’t want to think of his desolate Thracian mansion either, haunted by the shrieks of his warlike followers.
On Cyprus, my bathing pool will be crystal clear.
The flowers around the edge will be bright and vivid, and the sunlight will shimmer through the rippling waterfall.
The water will be cool, cleansing every trace of Ares from my skin, and afterward the Horae will be ready with perfumed oil to make my skin gleam.
I’ll breathe in the scent of crushed roses and drape myself in fresh white linen and I’ll feel restored.
That should be true. I should be able to shake him off.
But I know the memory of his touch will cling to me.
That however horrified I feel at his lack of care for his brother, I still want him with a hunger that feels like it can never be sated, one that’s ever replenishing. I haven’t had enough, not yet.
“Don’t stay away too long,” I tell him.
He drops the helmet and his arms are around me, his kiss fierce and deep. “I’ll be back,” he vows, “the instant I can leave.”
“Why go at all?” I whisper.
“They need me,” he says. “My fighters. Their land is under threat, their homes and their families. I’m their god. I have to be with them. You can understand that.”
I could argue that his own family is in need right now, but there’s no point. Hephaestus’ plight would never sway him.
I watch him go, then force myself into action. I’m not going to stay here and listen to any more of Zeus’ proclamations. I certainly won’t languish, waiting for Ares to return. I’ll gather my nymphs and go back home.
—
The familiar shores of my island instill in me a sense of peace: the sinuous curves of its bays, the clustered forests and high peaks of its mountains.
I land my chariot in my sacred grove, the Horae swift on my heels, and bathe before making my way to Paphos on foot.
I’m wrapped in mist that will shield me from any mortal eyes, but I want to feel the grass and earth beneath me and breathe in the scent of wild thyme and lavender, let the warmth of the air kiss my skin and dry the moisture from the curly tendrils of my hair.
The songs float from the sanctuary, prayers rising like smoke, the old familiarity like a warm cloak around my shoulders.
Among them is a voice I recognize. I stop dead on the path, my jaw dropping as his words separate from the throng, winding their way around me, sliding under my skin.
…better than any other woman…vile, revolting, shameless…pure as the ivory I used to carve her…untouched by any man but me…all women apart from her so disgusting, so putrid, I could never lower myself…and so she is my gift, my prize for enduring…
I can’t believe it. He’s holding forth outside the temple—my temple—his sonorous drone carrying on the lotus-scented air, the tedious hum of it drowning out the gentle splash of frogs tumbling into the ponds and nightingales trilling from their branches.
Pygmalion, no longer humble but puffed up with self-importance.
Telling women—my women, worshippers come to honor me—how superior his creation is to them, and now I see it clearly.
His love for his statue wasn’t motivated by desire for her but by how deeply he despises women, how much he loathes them, how angry he is because he wants them—and so he found a way to possess one. And I was the one who gave her to him.
I’m furious I let his flattery cloud my view. I didn’t see it then, only heard the way he begged and fawned, and I took pity on him. Granted his wish because he sounded plaintive and sincere, because he praised me and I liked it.
I jolt myself out of my frozen trance and stride toward the temple with renewed purpose. As I approach, my skin ripples and transforms, taking on the guise of a mortal woman, one who can join the crowd of worshippers that he’s berating.
I slip into the melee of girls who shuffle, uncertain, while he lectures by the altar, jabbing a finger toward us, spittle hanging from his lip.
Glances flash between them as they shrug.
They just want to make their offerings in peace, and no one quite knows what to do except wait for him to go away.
I make my way through, taking care to be gentle with their fragile human bodies.
I smile as I pass each young woman, feeling the press of warm skin and inhaling the bite of salt and perfume that rises from them.
As I move, I catch quiet scraps of conversation, rolled eyes and wry smiles that make my heart swell with tender pride.
For the most part, they aren’t cowed, only irritated by him.
When I get to the front, he gives me a withering glare. Contempt radiates from him as he raises his arm, pointing directly at me. “Vile, painted women,” he says, “decorated to tempt us, to hide their ugly souls.”
I think he expects me to drop my gaze, but I don’t.
“You should learn from her example,” he says, seizing hold of the woman at his side, and now I see Galatea is with him. She looks down at the ground, her hair falling across her face. “Modest and silent,” he says. “You should all be asking Aphrodite to bless you like she blessed Galatea.”
I turn my attention to her, willing her to look up. When she does, I see the resignation in her eyes—and the embarrassment too.
My fingers curl into fists and I’m tempted to silence him, to cut off his hateful diatribe mid-sentence—to transform him into one of those croaking frogs, or turn him to stone himself, or else curse him with an all-consuming love for a wild bear or ferocious bull.
Any of these would be fitting, but I want to see him humiliated. I want to pluck away his self-satisfaction and leave him exposed. I want him to lose what it is he holds so very dear, in front of all the women he loathes.
I can’t punish Zeus. I can’t rescue Hephaestus. I can’t keep Ares from war and bloodshed.
But I have plenty of power, and here is a chance to use it for something truly worthwhile.
I lift the remnants of the charm I placed upon her. It’s easy to clear her vision when the love she felt for him was never real. Now there’s nothing standing in her way.
She stiffens. Her eyes flit across the women in confusion.
Leave him, I urge her. Run away and claim the life I gave you for your own.
I hear her heart flutter like a hummingbird’s wings as a vision of freedom opens up before her.
I vanish from the crowd, disappearing from sight before her eyes can alight on me.
There are gasps of bewilderment, girls turning to one another, staring at the space where I stood.
I watch, unseen, as even Pygmalion falters and trails off, unsure of himself, not knowing whether to take this as vindication or warning.
It doesn’t matter. He’ll know soon enough.
It’s not as ostentatious as petrifying him into a statue or flinging him off the hilltop.
But the certainty spreads through Galatea’s veins, the determination and the courage to go, and I see a beautiful vision ahead.
Pygmalion in his studio, bitter and broken and desperately alone.
The memories he’s left with will be a torture, not a balm.
He’ll carve more statues, hacking away at insensible stone, trying all his life to recapture the happiness he knew, but he’ll never hold it in his hands again.
He’ll lie by himself every night, thinking of the love he so briefly had.
He’ll remember when his solitude was brightened by her presence, and he’ll strain to hear the sound of her footsteps in the hallway, but it will only ever be a phantom.
It’s so simple, but I know the cruelest thing I can do is desert him.
There can be no worse punishment than knowing that kind of love and having it snatched away forever.