The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Nineteen

The easy motions are so familiar, I could be at home in that little upstairs room once more. It is like a dance I learned in childhood, and my limbs move back into it as easily as breathing. Except that this loom is more powerful, more sure, more effortless, than any instrument I have known. My fingers feel graceful, and my movements sure.

It was Old Lydia, our neighbor, who first taught Dimitra and me to weave when we were young girls. I was fascinated from the first—the movement of the threads, the way the pattern slowly emerged like a shape rising from the sand. I remember Lydia’s calloused hands on mine as she showed me the rhythms of it. Warp, and weft. Warp, and weft. Gently, Psyche. Use patience.

Patience was something Dimitra did not have. She found it tedious, this women’s work. And true, the carding, the spinning, all that is slow and dull enough. But once the thread is on the loom—to me, that is where the magic begins: where a story knots itself to life. It is only fabric, it may not last as long as the glazed pots and ewers that our menfolk get to make, but once those threads knot into place, it feels to me as if nothing can ever truly unknot them. No matter if the fabric is reduced to ash or rot in the years yet to come. Whenever we make something truly beautiful, its story lives forever.

Or at least that’s what I think.

Even so, it surprises me, how right it feels, to be weaving again—despite all that has happened to me. Everything certain has crumbled. Everything I knew is upended. But this, this simple movement, feels like one true thing. I watch my hands move, shift, adjust, as if of their own accord. Without anxiety, without doubt. And for the first time in days, I allow myself to exhale.

I don’t know how much time passes.

I stop with a jolt when I notice the thread is gone, and I have to return to the wall for another spool. Then I begin again, the tray of the loom sighing gently with each warp and weft, moving with the lightest touch, following the pressure of my hand like some great beast trained to the subtlest command.

When I look up again it’s past dusk.

I stand back from my handiwork and look at it properly for the first time. It’s beautiful—without a doubt the most beautiful thing I have made—but it unnerves me, too.

Sometimes it is like this when I weave. Images come to me, pictures in my head that have no home in my waking hours. Perhaps they are things I dreamed once, I cannot say.

Here I have woven a gold background, overlaid with white feathers. But the feathers do not float gently through the design, the way I had imagined—instead the pattern is turbulent and chaotic, as if it were the result of some terrible skirmish. Except that they are white, they remind me of his feathers, those great and terrible wings.

And the ribbons of red which I’d woven through the design…they are beautiful, like a river of rubies glinting against the gold…but even more than rubies, it makes me think of blood.

I take another step back. The tapestry shimmers, glints. It is beautiful…but part of me is glad to turn away from it.

I close the door with a last look back, and move swiftly down the corridors. It is dinner-hour—but when I enter the great-room, it’s empty and silent. No fire burns in the hearth. I retreat to my bedroom, where I find the bread and water on a tray. I eat it steadily, and try to ignore the unnerving feeling of disappointment. It is not him I wished to see, I remind myself. It is only his news I am hungry for.

My dreams that night are feverish and strange. First I dream of Sikyon, and in the dream the streets are covered in smoke, and I glimpse the agora through a canopy of flame. Then when I finally fall back asleep, I dream of something else entirely. I hesitate to admit it.

I dream of him.

I dream that he steps toward me and waits, and in the dream I know exactly what he’s waiting for. And so I reach for the black hood that shrouds him, gathering up a silken handful. I can feel it already, that song of life-blood when my skin meets his. And then I lift the hood back, and—

I wake up.

A moment more, just one moment more, and I would have seen his face.

And it troubles me, just how much I wanted to.

*

The next day I return to the loom again. It’s strange, but it calls to me. I want to feel the silk thread running through my fingers; I want to close my eyes and follow this call that summons me, creating patterns that don’t belong to my waking thoughts. It feels as though I shed the most burdened part of myself, and instead, some great, deep magic is called up from a hidden place inside me. The act of creation brings me release. Relief. Purpose . It gives me a place to live for a few hours where I don’t have to think about Father and Dimitra, and if they’re all right.

Where I don’t have to think about him.

But when my fingers are stiff and the light’s growing dim, I stop. I feel a strange fluttering in my chest as I walk along the corridors, and push open the door to the great-room, but once again the room is dark, the table bare.

In my room, I toy with the crusts on my plate. The truth is, they taste less appealing as the days go by—more and more like mortal food. I wonder if I’m getting used to this place, after all. If I might be getting stronger, better able to resist it.

I dream the same dreams as the night before. This time he turns his face from me just as I am about to see it. And when I wake, it’s not like awakening from the Sikyon nightmare. There’s no horror, just a strange ache. An ache I’d rather not think about.

An ache that is much to inconvenient to admit.

*

In the weaving-room, these strange and beautiful visions continue to pour out of me—images of spires and temples I’ve never seen; a whole blue-green city submerged under the water. Perhaps they are childhood fantasies I’ve forgotten, places spoken of in myth that took root in my imaginings. Wherever they’re from, it is a release to me to give them voice here. I am in no danger of running out of silk; there seems to be an endless amount.

On the third day, as I ready my tired limbs to return to the great-room and its silence, I hear a sound in the corridor.

Echoing footsteps, firm and sharp.

I wait by the doorway as he rounds the corner. He pauses, as though startled by the sight of me. Then he bows stiffly, just a small dip of his head, like the gentlemen of Sikyon do to the women of high rank.

“You are returned,” I say.

“As you see.”

I have heard that in some distant lands the women are cloaked from head to toe, their faces veiled and bodies covered as if by a shroud. Perhaps in those lands they have learned to read each other’s forms the way I have learned to read his. It feels as if I know his every movement now: the way the back of his neck lifts in surprise when I startle him, or how those broad shoulders straighten from behind when he hears me enter a room. The slightest drum of his hand on the dinner table, or how he presses the pads of his fingers thoughtfully against the wood before he speaks. Now, what I notice is the stiff way he holds his hands at his sides. I read reluctance there.

“You have news?” I say.

“I regret to say…” He clears his throat. “I have discovered nothing yet.”

I drop my eyes. Travel can be dangerous in these lands. My father’s fighting days are behind him, and though Dimitra has skill enough with a weapon, I do not think the two of them alone could fight off many men.

But I must ward off thoughts like these. I must keep my heart strong.

“Thank you.” I stumble over the words. “For continuing to search.”

His head dips low.

“They are beloved to you.” He pauses. “And you to them.”

“Yes,” I say finally. Before, it seemed he only wanted to remind me of their abandonment. Now he offers me sympathy. Is he the one who has changed so much…or am I?

He draws closer to the doorway where I stand. It does not escape him, I’m sure, that he has found me in the weaving-room. I wonder if he is remembering the last conversation—argument—we had, before he left. I see him shift his gaze: he’s no longer looking at me but over my shoulder, toward the loom.

“This is your work?”

I flush. In Sikyon I was always praised for my handiwork. But perhaps to him, it is clumsy and…what was the word Klaia used? Coarse .

“I am out of practice,” I say stiffly, touching my warm cheeks, wishing they would cool before he returns his glance to me.

“But this is no traditional design.” He sounds puzzled. Displeased, even.

He’s right, of course. All our art-making follows strict patterns. The potters make only certain shapes of vases. The vase-painters only paint certain kinds of scenes. It is the same for weavers: we weave the patterns we have been taught. Some are geometric, following a strict order and color. Some are scenes from popular stories, showing patron gods or goddesses. But never anything like this.

The white feathers float in the air, disconnected and without meaning. The blood-red ribbon weaves through it. It looks like what it is: a strange dream.

“I don’t know why I made it,” I admit. “It just happened. I think perhaps I saw it in a dream once.”

He steps past me, his back to me now, and touches the fabric.

“And do you have many such dreams?” I can’t quite identify what I’m hearing in his voice. Not anger, nor disapproval, but a kind of urgency, it seems. But perhaps I have imagined it.

“Not many,” I say. “Not that I remember. I rarely remember dreams.”

“I see. And do you remember what you dreamed of last night?”

I flush deeper, and shake my head. I do, but I’m not about to tell him.

We are silent for a moment, then.

“Aletheia will be waiting,” he says, and proceeds down the corridor.

He does not eat tonight, only sits at the table while Aletheia brings bread and water.

“Tell me about them,” he says. “About your family.”

I look at him, not knowing what to say.

“My mother died when I was born,” I say at last. “I have a father and a sister.”

He nods. He knows this, I think. He knew my life before he took me from it.

“You are the younger sister?”

I nod. I’m off-balance in this conversation, which feels so natural, so calm.

“Dimitra is my half-sister, in fact. Her mother is dead, just as mine is.” I pause. “We were close as children. But”—I wonder how my tongue runs so loose, tonight—”my father showed me too much favor, and it came between us.”

It is something I have always been ashamed to admit. It is not until tonight that it occurs to me to question why I should carry the shame. I never asked for, nor wanted, such inequality.

“He favored you,” the demon murmurs. “And yet he let the king appoint your death.”

The comment does not offend me now as it would have before. It’s simply true.

“My father is a brave man,” I say. “A soldier. But he is not a rebel by nature.”

“Not like you?” There’s a touch of amusement in his voice which I recognize from before, but it doesn’t seem mocking now. Was it mockery, before? Was it always so unkind as I believed?

“I am no natural born rebel, either.” I look up. “If I am one now, it is through my situation and not by birth.”

He refrains from disagreeing. I toy with another crust on my plate. Eventually he speaks.

“You think I understand nothing of your life. And yet, I do. I had a family too—and they, too, are lost to me.”

I stare at him. A family! And yet, why should a demon not come from somewhere?

“I was born one of three brothers,” he goes on. “As children we were always together. But as we grew, we became divided. I had my mother’s favor, which made them dislike me.” He taps the table gently with his fingers. “Such favor is not always a gift, is it?” He pauses again. “They have abandoned me, now.”

I frown. Until now, he has cloaked every detail of himself—even more effectively than he has hidden his face. I do not even know what name he goes by, in my world. Now, this fragment of information seems to change him.

“Do you miss your brothers?” I say. I don’t know why. The words just spill from me. The black hood shifts; his head tilts to one side, considering.

“We are very different,” he says shortly. “And besides, they have each other.”

The strangest impulse comes over me then. His hand rests on the table, and my own is only inches away. If I wanted, I could reach out and cover his hand with mine.

But I don’t.

Because that would be madness.

“Why can I not see your face?” I blurt out.

He turns; I feel the stare.

“I know I cannot, but why can I not?”

He is quiet for a while. When he speaks, it’s not an answer to my question.

“Does it matter so very much?” His hands lie on the table in front of him, each knuckle smooth and well-defined in the candlelight.

“The eyes,” he says quietly, “are only one-fifth of the mortal senses.”

Why must you cling to this one thing? he means. I look toward my plate.

“But it’s not that I cannot see you,” I say. “It’s that I may not. There is a difference.”

“Yes,” he says at last, and there’s a sigh in his voice. “There is.”

If I had been born blind, I wonder suddenly, would I, could I, feel like a true wife to him?

Senseless thought . I am a wife in nothing but name. Wife is what I might have been to any human man. But this…this is just a bizarre and temporary alliance.

Temporary. That is key.

That is the part I must not forget.

“I am sorry, Psyche.” He touches my arm, only a brief touch, but I jerk back as though from a hot spark. It was not painful—quite the contrary—but the warmth of it lingers, just above my elbow. A glow, as if I had been standing in the sun.

He clears his throat.

“I—I am tired,” I say. “I will take my leave now.”

He says nothing as I push back my chair. The cool air of my bedroom is a relief against my hot cheeks. I go to the window and stare out at the unmoving sea.

I can surely diagnose what is wrong with me. I have been torn away from those I love; from everything I know. After so much loss so fast, I am not myself. The madness will surely pass. It is some symptom of my unfortunate situation, that I should be developing this…this grotesque preoccupation, I must call it, with the creature who brought me here. I suppose any wind-tossed, dizzy sparrow might cling to a wildcat’s back in a storm.

But I am no sparrow. I am a woman, with a woman’s courage, and a woman’s sense. And however wind-tossed my mind, I know what I may and may not cling to.

I wish I could go home, just for a moment. The pang comes over me as I stand here. The thought of sitting, just for a moment, in our courtyard again, hearing the soft splash of a fish in its shallow pond…of walking the road to the agora, with all its familiar sights, the trees and houses and stalls and merchants…

I wish I could see it all, just for a moment. It would be such a comfort.

And as I stare out the illusion-window, the thought comes to me. Think of it as a mural , he said. He told me I could conjure other images if I wished. What if that means real places, as well as imagined ones? When I saw him conjuring that tremendous citadel, before, didn’t he as much as admit it?

I stand in front of the window and clear my throat.

“Show me Sikyon,” I say aloud. Nothing happens. I take a breath, and place my fingers against the gypsum. My heart seems to constrict for a moment.

Sikyon , I think, closing my eyes. Show me Sikyon. Please .

And when I open my eyes, the seascape has disappeared into darkness. Slowly, haltingly, a new image floods in.

And when it does, a wave of horror floods me.