The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Twenty-Two

The flame seems suspended in the blackness, its small light floating on a dark sea.

His black cloak makes a deeper darkness than the night, and I see his golden hands wrapped around the taper, and the faintest outline of his jaw, uplit from the candlelight. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a glimpse of his face, and the sight of it teases strangely at me. There is nothing hideous about the flicker of it that I see. And then I remember to be afraid. What is he doing here, in my bedroom, in the middle of the night? Why does he come here in darkness, when I should be sleeping?

“Psyche. You are awake?”

For a moment I think of feigning sleep. But surely he can see the whites of my staring eyes—and besides, he is not easy to lie to.

“I am awake.”

The silence is thick as he gathers words. I realize he has come here to tell me something, and my first thought is for my family. His voice is heavy; my heart clenches. If he has news of them, it cannot be good.

“You are determined to leave,” he says at last. “I know that the escape you attempted, you will attempt again. And again.” The candle lowers; he sits down on the corner of the bed, opposite me.

“A woman of good sense, I think, would stay. But you will not. Am I correct?”

I stare into the darkness.

Will not. Cannot. It’s all the same. There’s nothing I can do about Sikyon’s destruction now. But I can’t hide in here while things get worse.

“I must face my fate,” I say finally. “Whatever it is.”

His head turns away from me. I can read him so well by now, but in the darkness I still struggle. Is he disappointed? Angry?

“It is foolish of you. But, if you must go…” He breaks off for a moment. “If you must go, if you will go...there is something I can give you.”

He reaches, then, inside his cloak, and pulls out what looks to be some kind of necklace: a leather string with a white stone medallion. The medallion has an eye carved into it.

“This,” he says quietly, “is a Shroud. There are only a few of them in the world.”

I gaze at it. I have never heard of such a thing.

“What’s it for?”

And why is he giving it to me?

“Wear it and you will be hidden from the eyes of the gods, when they search for you.”

I feel his gaze—but what he’s saying makes no sense.

“Hidden?”

“I cannot offer you complete invisibility,” he says. “No charm can grant that—but it will help. You must understand, Psyche: Aphrodite can track you as a hound tracks a rabbit. She could spot you a thousand leagues farther than the sharpest-sighted eagle. That is why mortals cannot flee the gods. That is to say, unshrouded mortals cannot flee the gods.”

He drops the medallion in my palm.

“But while you wear this, she cannot catch the scent, and her sight is dull.” I hear the frown in his voice. “Even so, try not to draw attention to yourself. Keep among crowds.”

I stare at the talisman in my palm. Can this be real? Is it some kind of hoax? Does the demon speak from some delusion? It is hard to believe I am holding an object of the kind of power he claims.

I turn my face up toward him.

“But…why are you doing this? Why are you giving this to me?”

He’s silent.

“You are a fool to leave,” he says then. “But if you insist on leaving…I made a promise to save you. You need not boast that I lied to you.” He watches me. “Put it around your neck.”

I reach, but a twinge of pain in my arm stops me. In this moment, my injuries were the last thing on my mind.

“Forgive me, I had forgotten. Here: I will do it.”

He takes the amulet and leans forward. He moves the hair away from the nape of my neck, his hands gliding over the skin there. I shiver, and he notices. His thumb hesitates, then grazes the skin once more, as if to test its power. This time, I swallow down the shiver, and he hesitates only a moment longer before pulling back.

“Wear it under your clothing,” he says. “Some may know its significance, and those that do will seek to take it from you.”

I run my hand over the stone. It is polished and cool. I’m sure kings have cleared out their coffers for objects of lesser power.

“You’re not angry with me?” I say slowly.

“I am angry,” he says, and from his voice I would almost believe he hated me, were it not for the gift I’m wearing at my neck. “I’m angry that you’re such a little fool. And I’m angry that I...” He stops.

“No matter.”

I don’t know what to say.

I have called him my captor these past days and weeks, in my head and even aloud. But that is no longer the right word. If I am honest, I don’t think it ever was. He has been haughty, he has been high-handed with his manners, but I think he did try to save me the only way he knew how.

And he’s saving me again.

When I go, none of this will seem real. I will wonder if I dreamed it up: the honey-wood scent of him; the roughness of his voice and the softness of his hands. The air about him like the air before a storm, crackling and smoky and sweet. The song that my skin makes when it touches his. The wind-rush in my blood when he speaks my name.

I cannot explain these things, or justify them, but there they are.

“Aletheia can pack you some supplies,” he says. “You will leave tomorrow, if you are well enough.”

Suddenly, it’s as though he wants me gone. It’s goodbye.

Just as you wanted .

Except not quite what I wanted.

I touch the cool edge of the medallion. How strange that it should have worked out like this.

“So I must bid you farewell now,” I say.

He inclines his head, but does not speak.

“When I was a child,” I say abruptly, “I played with a little girl who was blind. When we met, she put her hands to my face. To feel it; to see it with her hands.”

“Indeed.” His voice is detached and withdrawn.

“Might I do that now?” I say into the silence. The fabric of the cloak ripples as he turns.

“Why?”

I touch the medallion again.

“I owe you a great debt now. I know I cannot thank you face to face, nor bid you goodbye that way. But this would be a little like that.”

I can feel his stare on me.

“You wish to do this?”

“I…I would wish to remember something of you.” I hesitate. “I will wear the blindfold, if you wish.”

He is very still, and when he speaks, it’s halting.

“Very well,” he says.

I nod, my throat dry.

The blindfold lies on a small table near my bed. I gather it in my fingers, feeling his stare on me as I do so. I take a breath, and tie it on. Strangely, it feels like home: now that it is no longer my enemy, it has become like a friend. I know its dark and silken world.

“Why are you smiling?” he says, and immediately my smile disappears. My hands are hot; my skin tingles.

“I see nothing now. Will you take my hands?”

There is a hesitation, and the soft movement of fabric. I picture him lifting back his hood. I can hear him breathing.

“Very well,” he says again.

And then his hands fold over mine, and a surge rushes through me. I’m embarrassed by how hot my hands are, but I stop thinking about that as he leads them through the air and—gently, but to me it’s sudden as an explosion—places my palms against cool skin.

It’s like all my senses are fighting each other at once. Or like a brand-new sense, suddenly coming alive. The tips of my fingers are electric, a thousand points of sensation. It’s like lights going off behind my eyes. His hands guide mine over his face. His forehead, the downy hair of his eyebrows. The tender skin, impossibly tender, that marks the sockets of his eyes. I feel the sweep of his lashes as he blinks, and he moves my fingers down over his closed lids.

Am I breathing? I’m not sure.

I hadn’t expected him to trust me like this. My fingertips graze over his eyelids, feeling the tremor beneath, the slight flutter as though it’s an effort for him to keep them shut. My fingers brush the lashes again and travel down the slope of his nose, and across to his cheekbones.

He is beautiful, the thought comes to me, as sure as the sky.

The thought is strange, yet not strange at all.

His hands tighten on mine, his fingers around my wrists, his thumbs in the center of my palms. I can hear his breath, and no doubt he hears mine.

My fingers inch down toward his mouth. I try not to let the least sound escape me. I feel the bow of his upper lip, that little pucker at the center, yielding beneath my finger. One finger traces to the corner of his mouth—am I imagining that it quivers?—and then back over the bottom lip, smooth and full. I feel his breath now, the movement of air against my exploring fingers.

And I don’t move, can’t move. I just breathe.

I should take my hands away, but I don’t.

And then his hand is there, warm against the nape of my neck. Cradling the back of my head. Drawing me closer, inch by inch.

Until finally, his lips touch mine.

*

A shock runs the length of my body, rattling me like a bead. And yet inside the shock I am calm, weightless. I am the eye of the storm. My body is a raging wind, but in the center…in the center, there is a holy kind of emptiness. I feel a thread of heat rush from my throat and through each vein. The tips of my fingers pulse. The pit of my stomach contracts. Time warps, suspended. Nothing is real but this.

“Psyche,” he murmurs into my mouth, but my name is a word that lost all meaning a heartbeat ago.

His voice is a caress. A plea. A demand. I feel the shape of his jaw against mine as he draws back for a moment, taking air. My lips are cold and empty without his.

It doesn’t matter that I cannot see him, I feel where he is the way I’d know a fire in the room. I reach out my hand and it finds the back of his head, the nape of his neck, the tendons there pressing strong against my hot palm.

I have hated him, I have wanted to hate him. But I cannot find these thoughts now, the things I thought he was. Whatever he is, it is not evil. I feel it in his breath, in how he touches me: with such desire, and yet with humility.

With such care.

His cheek grazes mine; one hand rests against the brooch that pins my chiton , and I feel him toying with the clasp, his teasing touch waiting for permission.

“Yes,” I whisper, and the loosened silk slides free. I feel his hungry smile against my skin.

His hands lever me back against the bed. Silk rustles beneath us. Darkness like water. His hands at my throat, my shoulders, my collarbone, his fingertips grazing the length of my arm.

I want everything from him.

And he wants all of me.

Before, in my life in Sikyon, with Yiannis, I thought perhaps I knew desire…but I knew nothing at all. I thought desire a pleasant thing. Like the smell of fresh flowers, or sunlight on skin. Now I know better. Desire is not comfort. Desire is not peace. The only peace in desire is in knowing it will be gratified, and the hunger sated.

I give myself over to sensation. The caress of his hands, the crisp whisper of the sheets. I’m in a daze, my words gone, reduced to mere sounds. There is only pleasure and then more pleasure, and just when I think no more could be possible, I am proven wrong.

The darkness wraps around me. The world trembles.

Until finally, we see stars.

*

I wake from a dreamless sleep, deeper than I’ve ever known. It seems as though I have traveled a very great distance over many aeons, only to find myself conscious once more, waking into this mortal shell we call the body. I breathe softly, touch the fabric that still wraps my eyes. And I shiver, remembering the hours that passed before I slept. It seems like a dream, and yet I know it was no dream: my body still bears witness.

My mind is groggy as I tweak the corner of the blindfold. The windows seem blacker than before, and the candle long is extinguished. It’s ocean-dark in this room.

But he’s here.

I remember falling asleep with his arms encircling me, but even now, he has not retired to his own chamber, as I assumed he would. His body isn’t touching mine, but I can feel the warmth of him, the spell of him. I roll onto my side and take a breath. Through the thinnest of light, the barest shades of grey, I can make out the back of his head.

I see the curls, thick, lush, silky: even in this blackness I can see the sheen of them, and I have to force myself not to reach out and bury my hand in them.

And his back…I inch closer, peering in the darkness, to make out every curve of it. The broad shoulders, like a diver’s. The gleam of his skin. The sharp line of his spine, the firm shape of muscle.

I feel the heat rush back into my body at the sight of him. To see him, to see just this much of him! A warm joy spreads through me, deep and heady. I drink him in, all that I can see. My eyes seem to hurt with it; I have never looked this fiercely before.

The urge to reach out and touch him is almost overpowering, but I don’t dare. It might wake him.

Instead, slowly, I slide myself up onto one elbow. I can see more of him now: his ear, a perfect whorl, the darkness at the center of it strangely bewitching; the curve of his strong neck. The side of his jaw; the very edge of his cheekbone. Those glorious curls, the way they spring from the soft skin beneath his temple, thickening over the broad dome of his head. I open my mouth, as if I could drink in the smoky scent of him and hold it in my throat.

Dare I?

My heart thunders. I should not. I know I should not.

But it’s dark. It’s not even really looking.

The voices in my head argue, but the argument is only for show. The part of me that sits below the mind, the darker place where instinct rules, has already made the decision. I sit up, all the way up now, and hold my breath. On hands and knees I lever myself forwards, careful not to brush his sleeping form with my hair.

And I see him, at last.

For a moment, it feels like blindness. I don’t know how else to explain it.

He’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen—his lips, his face, the broad, soft brow relaxed in sleep—and every artist who’s ever tried to capture beauty has failed, failed miserably, because nothing I’ve ever seen, nothing I’ve dreamed of, comes close to this. But it’s more than beauty—much more than that. I don’t know how to describe it, except to say that it’s holy.

It’s like looking at the first and last sunset.

It’s like seeing the world be born.

Not a demon , my mind whispers.

Not a demon.

A god .

And then, he opens his eyes.