Chapter 19
“I’ll persuade Hephaestus.”
Ares is at the stables, not yet gone. He must have been waiting to see if I’d follow.
“And if you can’t?” His jaw is granite, his teeth gritted, but his hands on the horse’s bridle are gentle as he attaches the reins.
“Hephaestus won’t do this to me,” I say. “He couldn’t have known this would be Zeus’ reaction.”
Ares stops what he’s doing and turns to face me. “You don’t know what he was thinking. For all you know, he set the condition himself.”
“No,” I say. “Hera came up with that part.”
“Hera?”
“Yes,” I tell him, impatient. “Because she knew that was how she could get you involved. Obviously, you’d never rescue her otherwise.”
He frowns. “Why me?”
“Because she thinks you’re the one Hephaestus won’t dare to refuse.”
He shakes his head. “Did anyone think that he would dare do what he’s done to Hera? To Zeus?”
“Exactly,” I say. “That’s why I don’t need you to get involved.
” I sigh. “Look, this is some impulsive, reckless scheme that Hephaestus has come up with—probably along with Dionysus. He wasn’t there today, did you notice?
” I say. “I can picture it: the two drinking together, complaining about Zeus and Hera…and now this. But he’ll have sobered up now.
I’ll go there and explain what’s happened, and he’ll tell me how to unlock the throne.
I’ll be the one responsible for freeing Hera.
The oath can’t be fulfilled if I’m the one who frees her. I won’t have to marry anyone.”
“You took an oath?” Ares asks.
“Well, yes. I had to.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“What other option was there?”
He stares at me. “You could have left. With me.”
“Ares—”
“He can’t replace you, and you know it. You’re more ancient than he is,” Ares says. “You were born from Ouranos, not Zeus.”
“But he can exile me, take my throne, banish me from Cyprus. I won’t walk away from my followers that easily. Besides, you heard the threats he was making. It wasn’t just against the two of us. What about the nymphs?”
He hesitates.
I take a step closer to him, taking one of his hands in mine. “I know you’d rather fight him, Ares, but I’m telling you my way is better.”
He inclines his head just a little, acknowledging the truth of it. “Fine,” he says. “You can go and talk to Hephaestus. But I’m coming with you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He pats the horse on its flank and steps up into the chariot, extending his hand to me. “I’ll wait outside,” he says, “while you try.”
“I don’t need to try,” I say. “As soon as Hephaestus realizes what he’s done, he’ll change his mind. I just need to tell him.”
“So it’ll make no difference that I’m there,” Ares says.
I consider it, then put my hand in his. “As long as Hephaestus doesn’t see you.”
The horses trot forwards, the wheels of the chariot rolling smoothly across the yard. “He won’t know I’m there,” he says, his voice grim. “Unless you’re wrong.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
—
There is no sign of Dionysus in the forge. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Hephaestus came up with this all by himself.
The Cyclopes are working, and one nods in greeting when I walk through the entrance.
“Where’s Hephaestus?” I ask.
“I’m here.”
I turn in surprise, and he stands up from the anvil he was leaning over.
“I thought—” I say.
“That I’d be hiding?” He slides the hammer he’s wielding onto a hook and comes over to me. His hands are stained with soot and ash, but his eyes are clear and untroubled.
“Hiding, drinking, sleeping it off, I don’t know.”
“No,” he says. “Why would I be?”
“Perhaps because all the gods of Olympus are furious with you?”
He shakes his head. “Zeus and Hera, I’m sure. But it’s just a diversion to the rest of them, isn’t it?”
“Not me.”
The surprise stamped across his face reassures me that he really does know nothing of Zeus’ marriage contest. I was almost certain that it came from Hera, not Hephaestus, but nonetheless the proof of it is welcome. “Why?” he asks.
I raise my voice over the noise of the workshop. “Because Zeus has made it a contest to see who can free Hera, and whoever succeeds gets to marry me.”
A Cyclops glances up from the hot, glowing sword he’s been working into shape, the vivid sparks subsiding as the hammer hangs loose in his fist, the weapon forgotten.
Hephaestus stares, similarly dumbstruck.
“He wants her free,” I say. “You must have known he would.”
He rubs his chin. “There are all sorts of things I imagined he might do but I didn’t think you’d be involved in any of them. I knew he’d want her free. I didn’t think—I didn’t know he’d do this.”
“That’s because you underestimate Hera,” I tell him. “She’s had a long time to perfect her strategies. She thinks ahead, she knows how to manipulate. Maybe Zeus would have bargained on his threats and punishment being enough, but not her.”
At the mention of her name, his whole attitude hardens.
“It was never Hera’s fault,” I say. “It was Zeus who exiled you, not her.”
“She’s the reason,” he says. “The reason I’m not on Olympus. Dionysus too.”
“I understand you want revenge,” I say. “And you’ve had it.
You’ve humiliated her now, in front of all Olympus.
You’ve shown her and Zeus to be powerless against your skill; everything’s in your hands.
If you let her go now, they won’t act against you.
You can demand your throne again and they’ll have to give it to you. ”
His silence is beginning to unnerve me.
“I came to tell you,” I say. “So that you’d know you have the power. Just tell me how the locks work, whatever it is I need to do to let her out. You don’t have to be the one to go in and do it; I’ll tell them you decided to be merciful.”
The Cyclops has resumed his hammering. One of his brothers stokes up the furnace; the molten lava heaves and spits, and I press my hand against my forehead. The din and the heat are so intense.
He says something, too quietly for me to hear.
“What?” I ask.
His eyes are somber.
“What is it?” I say again.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
He sighs, then gestures toward the door that leads out of the forge, deeper into the volcano. I follow him, and when the door closes behind us, the muffling of the noise is a welcome relief.
It’s neat and clean in here; sparsely furnished with three-legged stools and a table.
I notice there’s a rug laid on the smooth rock now, and I’m sure I recognize the handiwork of Charis in its cheerful colors.
She’s an accomplished weaver; I can picture her at the loom in my Olympian apartments, singing to herself as she weaves, imagining how she might brighten up the gloomy interior of a volcano.
“I can’t let her go,” Hephaestus says.
“Why not?” Despite the warmth of the chamber, my body suddenly feels cold.
He lets out a long breath. “She thought it was a peace offering,” he says. “That I’d carved it for her as a gift.”
“And?”
“It didn’t even occur to her to ask herself why it would be me giving a peace offering,” he goes on. “She didn’t wonder what I had to apologize for. She thought it was her due.”
That sounds like Hera. “What did you expect?” I wonder.
His smile is bitter, entirely without mirth. “Nothing,” he says. “She wouldn’t understand. She can’t understand. How long have I been here now? And all that time at the beginning I was alone, with nothing to do but think.”
“Until I got here.” I keep my voice gentle, giving no hint of the panic starting to swirl inside me. “And now look at everything you’ve built.”
He carries on as though I haven’t spoken. “She won’t know,” he says, “what it feels like. Not unless I make her understand.”
I shift, uneasy. “Hephaestus, this isn’t like you,” I say.
His eyes meet mine. “But it is,” he answers.
“No,” I say. “You sound like her. But you’re better than she is, you always have been. And you’re far better than Zeus.”
“And look where it got me,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “Look. You’ve made this place. It’s not an Olympian throne, but it’s yours. And if you free Hera, you can have your seat again. You can have everything.”
There’s a distance in his gaze, as though he’s somewhere I can’t reach. “If I let her go,” he says, “I prove them right.”
“Right about what?”
“About me.” He snaps back to himself, not remote and far away, but still resolute. “To them, mercy is weakness. I won’t do it.”
“But, Hephaestus—”
“I’m sorry, Aphrodite. I’m sorry they’ve made you a part of this. But I won’t let her go.”
“You have to,” I say.
“I don’t.” He sounds harsh for a moment, then softens. “But you have nothing to worry about. No god can make me free her, so no god can collect the prize.”
I close my eyes, a heavy weariness dragging in the pit of my stomach. “Oh, Hephaestus,” I say. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” He’s determined, I can see, but, when it comes to facing Zeus’ wrath again, I don’t know if he’ll be able to withstand it.
He frowns. “I don’t care what Zeus has planned,” he says.
It’s easy for him to say that now, and I’m sure he means it.
But Zeus has had many centuries to practice his brutalities, and the long-suffering gods and mortals in Tartarus can bear testament to how effective they are.
Prometheus’ fate has been held over us since the birth of humanity and it has lost no power since the moment Zeus declared it.
If anything, the horror has only grown with every relentless day that passes for the beleaguered Titan.
The banality of repetition, of agony inflicted over and over again, makes it worse than a more creative alternative.
However, I won’t let it come to that. Not for Hephaestus. Definitely not for me.
“Tell me how to unlock the chair. I’ll free Hera, not you. You won’t be capitulating to them.”
His silence unnerves me. I was so confident that I could make him see sense, my oath didn’t even seem like an impulsive decision. But now I can feel those shadowy silver waters rising around me, trapping me in place.
Did I gamble my own freedom on blind faith that I could talk Hephaestus round? I went to him when he was broken, I brought him sustenance and gave him hope for his future. How could he do this to me now? Hephaestus, the god I saved?
Or is it Hephaestus, the god I spurned, doing this? Whose heart I broke in this very cavern?
“Listen,” I say, desperation threading through my tone now. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you what you wanted. But please, please don’t punish me like this.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not about that. It’s not about you.”
“But it is now,” I protest. “Zeus brought me into this, and everyone else too. It’s not just between you and them anymore. Every other god is trying to set her free.”
He waves my words away. “It doesn’t matter if every other god on Olympus is against me,” he says. “It’s no different from how it’s always been.”
“It is different,” I say. “I was always on your side before.”
He won’t look me in the face. He turns away, and a dizziness tilts me off-balance, like I’m mired in sinking sands, clawing to stay upright.
Out in the forge, the hammers fall silent and the great hiss of the bellows ceases. A voice calls out “Aphrodite?” and Hephaestus recognizes it the same moment that I do.
Ares is here.