Chapter 21
There’s no trace of Ares outside the volcano.
Instead, Dionysus is waiting. Brimming with vitality, his eyes bright and clear, as though he’s enjoying the spectacle.
“Oh,” I say wearily. “You.”
“I saw you coming,” he says. “I thought I’d give you the chance to talk to him alone. You and that war-god of yours. He left in quite a rage, didn’t he? I take it your plan didn’t work?”
I press my hand to my aching eyes. “Why did you come here?” I ask.
“I told you. I was curious.” His tone is friendly, edged with amusement. “But, when we talked, I realized that we truly are brothers. Both of us Olympian gods denied our place in the heavens.”
I was fooled by his love of merriment, by his dedication to pleasure. I underestimated his attraction to chaos.
“You could have charmed Zeus on his behalf,” I say. “You could have shown Hephaestus how to win back his favor. Not use him to take revenge on Hera without risking yourself.”
He shrugs off the accusation in my words. “Hephaestus did what he wanted to do,” he says. “And he’ll get what he wants out of it.”
“So far, all he’s gotten is a beating,” I hiss. “And worse to come, if he doesn’t submit to Zeus.”
“Why should he?” I can hear the wildness of the moonlit grove in his voice, the seductive undertow of intoxication spiraling into reckless danger. “Why should he do what you want?”
“I want him to be safe,” I insist. “You don’t know what Zeus can do.”
Dionysus scoffs. “Hephaestus can take care of himself.”
“Then leave him alone.” Rawness frays the edges of my words. “Don’t go back there. Not unless you make him undo this.”
His brow creases. “I didn’t think that you’d be so afraid.”
“I’m afraid,” I say, “of losing someone I love.”
There’s a flicker of understanding in his eyes. “Zeus won’t destroy Hephaestus for this,” he says. “If anything, it’s the kind of action he respects.”
“You don’t know him as well as you think,” I say. “You haven’t been on Olympus very long. It’s always better to stay out of Zeus and Hera’s way.”
“And if you can’t?” he asks. “What then?”
I glance back at the smoldering volcano. “I think we’re about to find out.”
—
I sit on the rocky shore of the bay where the Titan Kronos split our father down the center. The land that my feet first touched, the home that first welcomed me.
I let the night pass here, allowing the darkness to envelop me in its jasmine-scented embrace while I contemplate what to do next.
Wisps of pink cloud, warmed by the rising sun, float in the sky.
I picture Hera in the heavens, her face taut with pride, refusing to acknowledge the bite of shackles against her skin.
When Zeus hears that Ares has failed, he’ll make good on his promise to open the contest to all the gods of the world.
I wonder who will come. Weather gods arriving on Olympus in a shower of hailstones, cheeks puffed full of icy breath.
Rustic gods of the mountains, goat-legged or horse-hooved.
Gods from the deepest fathoms of the ocean, gilled and fish-scaled, their squid flesh cold and clammy.
I shudder.
“What’s wrong?” a voice asks me, and I recognize that sly tone, that taunting chill. Eris.
She appears by my elbow, a ghastly smile stretching her pale face. “Did Ares send you?” I ask, ignoring her question.
She shakes her head, and dark hair tumbles over her shoulders, spilling across her black cloak.
Everything about her is wrought in shades of midnight and moonlight—the abyss of her eyes, the bone-white delicacy of her face, the onyx stones that hang on a silver chain around her neck.
Even in her sourness, she’s beautiful. Like a viper: graceful and coiled.
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” she says, a singsong whisper in her voice.
“Such a rage he came back in from Sicily. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him so magnificent. ”
My skin prickles. Whatever she’s here for, it cannot be good. Every fiber of my being longs to get away from her. “If you’ve brought a message from him,” I begin, and she laughs, an unpleasant sound.
“I’m no messenger goddess,” she assures me. “I’m not here for Ares. I don’t do his errands.” Her tongue darts between her teeth, its little point caressing her lower lip in a movement so hungry and sensuous it both repels and fascinates me.
“We’re all at odds with one another already,” I tell her. “Me with Ares, him with Hephaestus, Hera with all of us. Surely even you can’t find any more strife to stir up, so what do you want?”
She tilts her head, amused. “Now’s the moment, Aphrodite,” she says. “Olympus is ripe for me. It’s like a rotten pear, bloated and stinking and swollen, ready to fall apart at the slightest pressure.”
I sigh. “Of course, you must be delighted with the way things are.” If Olympus is a rotten pear, she’s a wasp, burrowing into the fetid sweetness, drunk on its fermented flesh, sucking out every last drop until it collapses in on itself, an emptied husk shriveling away to nothing.
“Are you here to try to stir things up again between Ares and Hephaestus? Or are you hoping I’ll challenge Zeus? ”
She’s almost radiant with happiness. “Neither,” she smirks. “Neither will be necessary.”
I shouldn’t let her goad me into probing further. Whatever she knows—if she knows anything at all—it will be worse if it comes from her than any other source.
And yet, I can’t resist. “Just tell me,” I say. “You can hardly wait to.”
“The contest,” she purrs, “is over.”
My stomach lurches. “It is?”
She nods, contented. “Hera is free.”
It can’t be. No one can have unlocked those fetters; it isn’t possible.
“And”—she lingers over the words, finding it all so very delicious—“you have a husband, Aphrodite. At long last, after all these centuries.”
I stagger to my feet, my breath choking in my throat. “No. You’re lying.”
She springs up too, sleek as Dionysus’ leopard. “You know I’m not.”
I have a fistful of her cloak before I know what I’m doing. “Tell me.”
“Oh,” she says. “I’ll tell you. I wouldn’t want to miss your reaction.”
My reaction. That’s what she came for. Slowly, I unclench my fists, letting her go.
“Dionysus gave Hephaestus wine,” she says. “It made him so much more persuadable.”
“Do you mean—do you mean, Dionysus is the winner?” I choke.
“Oh, no,” she answers. “He wouldn’t take the credit.” Her eyes sparkle in the morning light, the sky washed through with coral behind her. “Hephaestus unchained Hera himself.”
“Hephaestus freed her of his own volition?” It doesn’t make sense.
“He did,” she says. “Zeus has restored him to Olympus and declared him the winner.”
The words die in my throat.
“You swore the oath,” she says, “and so it’s decided. Hephaestus will be your husband.”
I turn away from her without a word, blind and unheeding, stumbling down the shore. If she carries on talking, I don’t hear it.
Hephaestus. Hephaestus. I turn his name over and over in my head until the syllables fall apart, until it becomes meaningless.
Out in the bay, the waves crash against the lone rock that rises above the water, foaming white spray whipped into a wild froth.
When the blood of Ouranos spilled here, when his own son castrated him above the place we stand right now, I wasn’t the only immortal given life through his agony.
Giants walked here; the Furies too. My brothers and sisters, awakened through violence, seething like the wrathful sea.
The Giants plunged themselves into war, tearing themselves apart in battle.
The Furies have devoted their eternal lives to punishment and torment, their greatest satisfaction found in cursing others with the torture of our broken father.
I thought of them always as the shape of his pain; his howling fury given form.
When I followed them from these waters, I knew that my way was better. I heal, I soothe, I mend all suffering with love. It’s a greater force than rage, I know that.
But at this moment, it doesn’t feel that way.
Was this marriage what Hephaestus had intended all along? I think I hear Eris laugh again, but I don’t care now how much pleasure she takes from this. Let her revel in it all she likes.
I’m going to find Hephaestus, and, when I do, I’ll give her all the strife she craves.
—
I half expect his forge to be empty. All the way here, I pictured him restored to the heavens, enthroned at Zeus’ side, protected by the Olympians he’s managed to impress with his ruthlessness, with his conniving, with his chaos.
And, yet, the image of him smirking on a golden chair blurs and softens in my mind’s eye, and I see him laid low in an empty volcano, abandoned by everyone. Slumped at his brother’s feet, unable to withstand another blow.
Presenting me with a necklace, jeweled and sparkling, never asking for anything in return. Standing outside a mortal forge in the autumn air, listening to me talk, his warm gaze as comforting as the woodsmoke on the breeze.
I don’t know who he is anymore and I don’t know what I’ll find.
Somehow, the last thing I expect is to see him in his workshop, the same as he’s ever been.
Leaning more heavily on his staff, the fading traces of bruises discoloring his immortal flesh like a soft shadow, but Hephaestus still.
Broad and hulking, an apology haunting his eyes with an honesty that disarms me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, the moment I swing open the oak door. It’s too well-crafted to slam into the rocky wall, the hinges rolling too smoothly, denying me the resounding crash I want to hear.
“You’re sorry? How could you do this, and think ‘sorry’ could make any difference?”
He winces, holding up a hand as though to shield himself from the blistering fury in my voice. “I was very, very drunk. Dionysus—”
“Dionysus persuaded you to do this?” My voice is scathing.