The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Fifteen

He stops at a turn in the corridor and opens a door, gesturing me to step inside. I hesitate, but once I see what’s through the doorway, I gasp.

A loom. But it’s the largest I’ve ever seen, larger than I knew a loom could be. Its wood gleams like some magnificent instrument, its shafts and beams and heddles so intricately connected I feel dazed just looking at it. This whole vast room is dedicated solely to the loom and to its craft: over on the far wall are skeins upon skeins of spun silk, of more colors than I ever knew existed, all neatly spooled, waiting there for their beauty to be put to use.

“Whose…whose room is this?” Somehow I already know it’s not Aletheia’s.

He turns a little; the hood shivers.

“It is here for you. I guarantee you will make no tapestry more beautiful than any you weave on it. It is made from the trees of the forest of Foloi.”

The forests of Foloi. It’s where the centaurs are said to roam.

“But…it’s extraordinary…” I stare at the length of it, enough to fill many times over the room I slept in in Sikyon. I don’t know if I could use a loom so grand; if I would even know how.

“It looks more fit for the Moriae than for mortal use.”

I’m speaking more to myself than to him, but the black hood shifts sharply.

“The Fates—you believe in them?”

I flush. I wish my cheeks did not redden so easily. I wish my voice did not give everything away. It is unfair that I should be so transparent to him, while he has the advantage of his cloak.

“Everyone believes in the Fates,” I say. The Moriae, the Fates, the Three Sisters—people have different names for them but everyone knows who they are. They measure out a person’s life. The youngest sister spins the thread, the middle sister weaves it, and the eldest sister holds the shears. When she decides your time is through, it’s through.

“Not everyone. ” His voice is crisp. “Faith and ritual are two different things, Psyche. Anyone may follow a ritual, but not everyone believes. Besides,” he says, “I asked whether you believed in them.”

I’m silent for a moment then.

When I was a child I believed every story my father told me: of great heroes, powerful immortals, celestial battles through the ages. No detail was too extraordinary to be believed. But as we age, our minds change. And yet…

“I do believe in them,” I say quietly.

My mother died the hour I was born. They say she only held me long enough to speak my name. And perhaps that is the reason I believe. It seems to me there must have been some reason for it. Not a kind reason, or even a fair one—no one ever said the gods were merciful. But I have to believe there is some order by which they weave and cull our lives. Otherwise it’s just chaos. No rhyme or reason. And it seems to me I can’t believe in that.

“And this?” He lifts a small medallion at my throat and I swallow, feeling his hand so near me. I can smell the cedarwood scent of him. The medallion bears the figure of the god Eros—my father gave it to me when I was a child, to ward off harm. Although perhaps of late it has not done its job very well.

“You have a particular devotion to Eros?” I am sure I hear a smirk in his voice. I know what he’s thinking. Eros is the god of Love, but the god of more bodily pleasures too.

“He is the patron of my city,” I snap. “And I gladly give him my allegiance.”

“Then tell me—” He drops the medallion back against my throat. “What would you say is the difference, exactly, between demons and gods?”

I eye him sidelong. I have no interest in his trick questions.

“Seeing as you despise demons so much, and yet worship your gods so ardently. What’s the difference between them?”

Something about the way he asks the question makes me feel stupid—makes my father, and Dimitra, and all of Sikyon, sound stupid—and I resent him for it.

“Demons sow confusion,” I say boldly. “Anarchy. Brutality and war.”

“And what of Eris?” he counters. “What of Ares? Of Deimos and Phobos?”

I know the gods he’s naming: the goddess of discord, the god of war. And Ares’s twin sons, young gods of terror who go with him to the battlefield.

I set my jaw. I feel he’s tricking me, and yet I can’t find a winning answer. The gods he names may wreak havoc, yes, but they are part of the great balance of all things. They, too, must have their place in the pantheon. I frown. But then, if we were to call a demon by a god’s name…

I can feel his eyes on me, enjoying my confusion.

“Perhaps gods and demons, Psyche, are all in the eye of the beholder.” I hear the satisfaction in his voice. “Perhaps all either of them do is bring man’s true nature to the surface.”

*

I follow him back along the corridors, until we near the door to the great-room. And then he takes a familiar strip of silk from his cloak and beckons me to turn around. I hesitate.

“Psyche, there’s no need to make this difficult.”

Reluctantly I turn and feel the blindfold slip over my eyes. The touch of his hands is a shock again. His skin feels no different than a human’s, but something very different throbs below its surface—the immortal part of him, the life force, more silent than a heartbeat but alive as a hummingbird’s wing.

“Very good.”

I hear the door open, and he puts an arm under mine to guide me. Such a strange feeling. It’s almost....

No matter. I dismiss the thought as we advance into the room, and the delicious smells fill me with desire and dread.

“I know you have been reluctant to dine here.” His voice seems very near. “But you must eat. You are mortal: we both know what must happen if you continue to refuse my food.”

The few shelled peas from the garden have long since ceased to quiet my appetite.

“Maybe…just some bread and water…”

“Sit,” he says, and guides me to a chair. If he senses the desperate grumbling from my stomach, he makes no comment on it. There is something strangely intimate about his voice when I am blindfolded—as though he speaks directly inside my head, to my inmost thoughts.

“I recognize you are at a disadvantage: I have desired you to eat with me, but you cannot see all the dishes laid before you.” He clears his throat. “Perhaps I can describe them to you. I will fill a platter with whatever you desire.”

I say nothing. If his gallantry surprises me—which it does—then I don’t let it move me. Gallantry is easy when you’re the one in charge. I’m not so cheap a plaything that he can sway me with some handsome words. But it galls me, how my skin responds to his voice.

“Rolled lamb,” he begins. “Stuffed with mint and dates. Skewers of fish with lemon and tarragon. Sliced pomegranate. Aloe with shaved ice. Braised eel, sturgeon roe; asparagus broth…” He goes on, naming delicacies I could imagine only on a king’s table.

I shake my head slightly.

“Psyche, you must stop this. Do you think I will send you home if you do not eat? I will not.”

“It’s not that,” I say faintly, although perhaps part of me had been thinking that. But I don’t think it any longer.

I don’t know if it’s fear or hunger that makes me tremble; my hand smacks into something, and I hear the sound of a glass topple and roll. The smell that wafts my way tells me it was wine.

“Never mind,” he says. Then he takes my hand in his, and places a fresh glass in it. “Have mine.”

I pull away, but he’s already let go and I don’t want to spill a second glass.

“It’s good,” he says. “Trust me.”

But I can’t trust you.

I can feel him watching me, even if I can’t see it. Slowly, I take the glass to my lips, and take the smallest sip. It floods me—the most miraculous feeling. It’s like jumping into the sea and feeling all the blood in your body cry out with cold, but instead of cold, it’s joy. It’s as though I can feel all the pathways of my body at once, all lit up like a bright torch.

I put down the wine and let out a small gasp.

“You like it?” he says, a smile in his voice. Unless it’s a smirk. Beneath the blindfold, I can’t quite be sure.

Then a plate lands in front of me, very gently placed. I hear it, but mainly I smell it, the wonderful aromas drifting toward me.

And I cannot hold out forever, he is right. Even if he were not determined that I eat, I know I can’t keep going like this. If I am to break free of this place, then I must live; I must keep my body strong.

“Will it be like before?” I say. “Will I…lose myself?”

He is quiet.

“I cannot say,” he admits finally. “It is different for everyone.”

I turn my face toward his voice.

“What do you mean? Different for whom?”

“Those I feed,” he says simply, “all feel it. But what each feels, tastes, that is different for everyone. It is about you, Psyche, as much as it is about me.”

I think of Persephone, condemned to the Underworld because of one bite of Hades’ fruit. But this creature is no god, and I am no goddess.

Falteringly, I move my hand. On the right is the lamb, he said. I move my hand a little to the side, and my pinkie finger nudges the warm bread. I tear a piece, then use it to scoop up some of the lamb. My mouth is watering uncontrollably; my stomach is growling. But still I cannot seem to put it in my mouth. The sip of wine, small as it was, was enough to remind me of the magic of this place; of how intoxicating any morsel on this table can be. I don’t know if I can bring myself to eat in front of him. I lost myself once before, with that peach—I would surely have dived off the cliff for one more bite, had I not still been in chains.

I swallow.

“My hand shakes too much. I cannot see what is on my plate. Let me take it into my room, and eat there, without the blindfold.”

There’s a pause.

“I have not asked to share your bed, but I ask that you share my table.” He pauses. “Here. I will help you.”

I hear movement; new wafts of deliciousness. Then a shock of nearness: I don’t know how I know exactly, but I sense him here, quite close to my face. I smell, underneath the smells of food, that particular scent of his: myrrh and honey, cedar and pine.

“A morsel of lamb,” he says. “With rosemary, thyme, lemon. On a piece of bread, with olive paste.”

I sit frozen. He’s holding it in front of my mouth. He is proposing to…feed me?

“I…”

I sit back into my chair. This is how infants look, I suppose, resisting attempts to make them eat.

“Psyche, come.” His voice is reasonable, even amused. “You cannot starve.”

I’m trying to resist, but all I can smell is the mouthful of food hovering just before my nostrils. My stomach feels like there is some wild creature inside, hurling itself at the walls. I am so empty inside, I could faint.

“Psyche?”

The meat smells of open fires, of red wine on winter nights; of butter pooling in a hot pan; of juniper and the deep woods.

“Just one bite.”

I’m hungrier than I knew a person could be. Every fiber of my being calls out for it and I can already all but taste it, the crisp charred edges of the lamb, the melting center, the juices flowing down my throat.

I don’t think I even decide to open my mouth, it just happens. And then I’m tasting it, and it’s like nothing I can describe. The meat slides onto my tongue, the richness of the herbs, the bright glow of salt, all of it unfolding in my mouth like a gift, touching all the corners of my tongue at once. And then the taste spreads beyond my tongue—to my throat, and up into my skull, and down to my belly, where a hot glow begins to spread.

Yes, I remember this feeling. This euphoria that stokes the very hunger it satisfies.

“Not so bad, see?” I can hear the smile in his voice. The myrrh-and-honey smell wafts my way again.

My hands are still trembling, but it’s a different kind of trembling now.

“More?” he says.

I nod, and when he puts another mouthful in front of me I don’t even need his voice to guide me—I can tell by my quivering nostrils, and I open my mouth again.

It is as though my blood has turned to gold; it is as though all my veins are singing. My head is swimming, my body is aflame. It is almost a trance; I suppose that I could move if I wanted to, but I don’t have to. All I need do is sit here, and open my mouth like a baby bird.

Like a bird.

The images flash into my mind, jarring and sharp: the birds squawking in their aviary, their white palace. Their cage.

Birds that never see the sky.

His fingers brush against my lips. Fingers that smell of every delicious thing—of spices and butter and smoke and berries and warmth—and that beneath it, smell of him.

Suddenly my stomach turns. I push my chair back as hard as I can.

“Get away from me!”

On my feet now, I bump against the chair and feel it topple. I find my bedroom door blindly, and scrabble inside. I lean against the wall, rip the tie from across my eyes, and stare at the ceiling, my breath heaving.

“Psyche…”

When he calls out, his voice is distant; he has not followed me to my door.

“Leave me alone, demon ,” I spit back.

There’s a pause. When he speaks, his voice has turned from impatient to something colder.

“I would advise you, mortal, to have more care with how you talk to me.”

I hear the squeal of a chair then, and the slam of a door. I don’t have to peer out to know the room is empty once more.

*

I go to bed in my clothes; I don’t want to see my body or its bare skin. I am ashamed of it tonight, of how it betrayed me in so short a time. I pace the room to the point of exhaustion before collapsing on the bed, and when I sleep, dreams plague me. Inconvenient dreams, dreams I do not wish to acknowledge.

In the morning when I wake, my heart is beating fast. It’s as if the memories of last night have struck fresh. My cheeks burn.

What was I thinking?

I wasn’t thinking. I am a mortal; mortal temptation, I could resist. But this…it was not the stuff I was made for.

I hate him. I hate him, this dark shadow of a creature. Aprósopos , the Faceless One. I sit on the side of the bed, and feel a dullness in the pit of my stomach. I don’t want to face him tonight. He enjoyed it, I am sure, seeing me suddenly so in thrall. How he must have smirked. I set my jaw. His demon foodstuffs cast some spell I cannot help. What I felt last night, for those few moments…it was some bewitchment, some entrapment. Nothing more.

I will refuse to join his table tonight. He can threaten me however he likes.

It’s barely light when I hear a noise in the room outside. Him?

But when I peer through the crack, it’s not him, but Aletheia. And she’s carrying something.

A key.

My heart beats faster. A key . Keys are rare things in Sikyon, but I am sure that’s what that metal object is. And I think I know what this key is for: there is only one place in this palace that I have found locked, and I know that gate leads to the outside world.

I watch the door fall closed behind Aletheia, then take a breath, and slip from my room.