Eris (The Lost Goddesses #4)

Chapter 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

T he next time Enzo woke, it was dark, and he was back in the car. He was in the passenger seat with a towel wrapped around his neck like a bib. It was stained with blood.

"What happened now?" he groaned.

"Don't move! Just don't fucking move," Eris snapped, tears in her eyes.

Enzo reached over and placed a hand on her leg. "It's just a nosebleed. It won't kill me."

"I might if you don't stop worrying me," she said and wiped her cheeks. "We are almost at Troy. I'm not waiting a second longer while you are still attached to the palladium. We break in if we have to. I don't care."

"By the stream, I saw the day that Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite. She looked so much like Bianca," Enzo said, using the towel to try and clean up his face. "Athena, she…she looked right at me like she was confused to see me there. I have Aeneas's memories of being there with the palladium after Troy fell. It's so strange to feel so connected to things that happened so long ago."

Eris reached over and stroked his hair. "This will be over soon. I'm not going to let it hurt you anymore."

Enzo caught her hand and kissed it. "I'm going to be okay. I swear. How much longer?"

"According to my maps, it takes about ten more minutes. Drink that bottle of water by your feet."

Enzo did as he was told. He was covered in bits of leaf and sand from the stream bed. He must look like a fright to have Eris so worried. He didn't have a headache. He was just thirsty and felt hollowed out inside.

"Hey, do you want to go and do thermal pools after this?" he asked.

In the light of the dashboard, her lips twitched. "Don't you dare make me laugh after I have been losing my mind for the past two hours. Are all mortals this difficult?"

"Only the best ones. Just remember I'm worth it for how hard I make you come," Enzo replied, waggling his brows at her.

Eris did laugh then. "I hope so because I am going to need all the orgasms to get over the stress you have put me through today."

"And the day's not even over yet," Enzo said.

They pulled into an empty parking lot minutes later. There was a boom gate across the road leading further in. The small building that was a gift shop and meeting point was locked up for the night. A huge wooden horse statue stood watchfully at the entrance into the park. Stray dogs came to sniff at them and the car, but the whole place seemed empty except for them and the ghosts.

Enzo was light-headed, but he still picked up the palladium to carry in. Eris was looking about them, alert and wary, her eyes shining with magic.

"Do you feel anything?" he asked her in a whisper. He didn't know why he was being so quiet when it was only them, but the moment and the moonlight glowing on the pale stones made everything sacred.

"Only a lot of regret," Eris replied. "Follow me. They found the remnants of the temple of Athena this way." She summoned her eerie silver flames once more and sent them ahead of them to light their path.

The palladium started to hum in his hands, and Enzo held it closer like he would a distressed child. "It's going to be okay, Atana. We are almost there now," he murmured.

Fresh blood was running from his nose and splattering onto the wood. He didn't tell Eris, just kept following her tall shadowy figure in the pale light. Flashes of memory bombarded him—images of the city when it was thriving, full of people laughing and music being played. The memories shifted to the city burning, the smell of the slaughterhouse in the air.

The temple to Athena rose up fully restored in one of Enzo's eyes, and in the other, there was nothing but foundation stones. He moved past Eris, following his visions of the past to where the palladium had once sat on an altar. It was wrapped in beaten gold with sacrifices, offerings, and incense at its feet.

"Lady Athena, Great Atana, we honor you," Enzo said, his mouth moving of its own accord. He swiped the blood from his nose and touched it to the wood. "With the ancient blood of the ones you once loved, we free you."

Enzo staggered back from the palladium, and Eris's strong arms caught him. "Easy, I have you," she said, and they lowered to the cold stone.

Enzo's heart was beating out of his chest. Ancient power thrummed from the palladium, and the wood splintered with a horrible cracking sound. A ghostly figure of the goddess rose from the broken wood.

"Are you seeing this too?" he whispered.

"Yes. It's her. Atana Potinija," Eris replied.

The ghostly goddess stretched out an arm that was twined with a golden snake and touched Enzo on the head. He tried to touch her back, but with a small smile, she disappeared. The pressure that had been in his head for days vanished, and Enzo collapsed in Eris's arms, his world spinning before all went dark.

Eris clutched Enzo tighter to her. There was so much blood on his face and chest. "Enzo? Please wake up," she begged, giving him a small shake.

"He will not," a voice said, crackling with age. The Fates were standing in the broken pieces of the palladium. "Some things should not be seen with mortal eyes, and he has already witnessed too much."

Eris wiped at the tears on her cheeks. "Please, he was helping with the task you set for him! Give him back. I'll do anything, Antropos."

The eldest of the Fates looked at her with endless eyes. "Would you keep your curse in exchange for this mortal's life?"

Eris looked down at the man in her arms. Enzo had made her feel more accepted and more loved in a few weeks than she had ever felt before. She thought of his cheeky little smile and the look on his face when he had told her that he loved her.

"Yes. I will keep my curse if you fix whatever this magic is over him. Give him back," Eris said, looking back at the Fates.

"Finally, she gets it!" Clotho chimed, her childlike voice high and excited.

Eris held Enzo closer to her. "What do you mean? I get what?"

Atropos gripped Eris's chin in her old, bony hand. "That it's not always about you."

"You are a goddess, and thousands died because of your hurt feelings," Lachesis said from beside Atropos. "As a goddess, every action you take has consequences. You were not invited to a wedding, so you caused a war that broke the balance in the ancient world. The universe must have balance, so you were cursed to right the scales of all those souls whose blood soaked this earth."

Eris shut her eyes against the tears and emotions flooding her. "I know, and I am sorry . I deserved the curse. I resented it, but I understood. I'll keep it."

"Child, you don't need to anymore. We release you," Atropos said, and Eris looked up.

Clotho grabbed something invisible by Eris's head, and the golden threads of the curse lit up around her like she was in a cocoon. Clotho laughed merrily and started to dance around her, and the golden threads unraveled. Eris heaved in her first easy breath in thousands of years. Her power filled her, and it felt untainted and fresh in her fingertips.

"What about Enzo?" she asked, but when she looked up, the Fates were gone.

Panic and agony laced through her, her power lashing out in fury. The shadows wrapped around them, and she teleported them to her house in Elysium.

The underworld shuddered at her arrival. The wards around Elysium hummed in warning that they were unsure whether she was a threat or not. She was an ancient force birthed in Tartarus, and she was heartbroken.

" Hermes Athanatos Diaktoros, I summon you ," Eris called out in the ancient tongue of the immortals, the power of her voice setting the walls of her villa shaking. Eris wiped the blood off Enzo's face with the skirt of her dress, her tears falling on him.

A golden line of light appeared before a door opened, and Hermes stepped through it.

"What is it with you goddesses breaking your mortals all the time?" he said.

"I didn't break him. The ancient spirit of Athena broke him, and the Fates left him like this."

Hermes stepped closer, wariness in his golden eyes. "You are going to need to let him go so I can take a look at him. If it's resurrection we are going to need, then I will have to take him to Thoth."

Eris's fingers slowly unclenched, and she laid Enzo down on marble floors. She edged back and started to cry again. She had lifetimes of tears she had refused to let herself shed, and now it was pouring out of her as her whole being cracked open.

Hermes crouched down by Enzo and lifted his eyelids. He waved his hand, and the blood all over Enzo's skin vanished. He placed his fingers on a place on Enzo's neck and put his ear to his chest.

"Eris? Who put you up to this?" Hermes asked.

"What are you talking about?" she sniffed.

"Did you use an ancient summoning just to fuck with me?" he demanded. "He's not dead, Eris. He's knocked out."

"No. No, he was dead. I am sure of it. There was a ghost inside the palladium, and she touched him…and then the Fates were there, and they asked me if I would keep my curse to keep him alive, and I said yes! But then they removed my curse, and he was still not moving!" Eris said and scrambled back over to Enzo.

Hermes frowned and pointed to Enzo's chest. "Put your head there." Eris laid her head down, and a deep thump echoed under her ear. "You hear that, goddess? That's a fucking heartbeat. He's fine. He's just sleeping off whatever magic has been riding him. Tell me again what happened, slower this time."

Eris sat up and cradled Enzo's head in her lap. She told Hermes everything, including how much she loved the man in her arms whom she thought she had lost forever.

"So her memories were trapped all this time," Hermes said once Eris was finished. He rubbed his beard. "I wonder how she's going to be feeling with all of that now unleashed on her. And you. You are finally free, huh?"

Eris nodded. "Yes. The curse is gone. I think I'll celebrate it more once I know Enzo is okay."

"He is okay, Eris. He's just wrecked from having an ancient goddess messing with his head," Hermes said and rested a hand on her shoulder. "You are going to be okay too."

Enzo stirred in her lap, and his eyes blinked open. "Eris? Where are we?"

"We are in Elysium. I did tell you that I would bring you here myself," she said, swallowing back her tears.

Enzo's eyes widened. "Did I die?"

"No, my love, you didn't die," she whispered as she leaned down to kiss him. "We both finally get to live."