The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Thirty-Five

Sunlight washes over me.

The hyacinths move softly in the breeze, and a great warmth goes over and through me, like fingers through my hair. I fall to the ground, and the ghost of what seems a hundred winters leaves my body. I allow myself one glance behind me, but when I do, it’s like looking through a window to another world. The black and grey shapes of the river, the bridge, the monster—all of it seems fuzzy and unclear. I wrap my hands around the Shroud and for the first time since I began this journey, I really believe I may reach its end. Around me the air is scented, rich as wine. I lie collapsed on the grass, feeling the breath warm my lungs, listening to the cottony sound of petals moving together in the warm breeze. When I feel able to move again, I grab onto a handful of the long grass and pull myself to my feet.

Above me is the great citadel, the realm of the gods. I suppose I should be afraid, but the city itself is like a spell, too dazzling in its beauty to look away. I’m ready to start walking again—and then a cold breeze stops me. The air here is so mild that the chill seems out of place, like it belongs across the river, on the winter side. But the wind isn’t coming from the river. It’s coming from a dark, round opening under the hill. An opening just high enough for a person to pass through.

A cave.

The gaping black mouth looks wrong against the bright greenery and riot of blossoms, a void where life should be.

But then I remember something.

Do not let your eyes grow dazzled.

The Pythia’s words come back to me, ringing like a warning in my ears.

You must seek out the darkness, daughter of Sikyon. You will not find him in the light.

Could this be what she meant?

I take a deep breath, and draw closer to the mouth of the cave. Cold air rushes toward me as though seeking me out. But there is no sign of life at all, only the small damp rivulets that coat the walls, slick with moss and dark-rooted plants. Beyond the first few paces, the cave grows dark.

I don’t much like the look of it, and yet instinct nudges at me. What if this is what the Pythia meant? The city above is as dazzling as a lure, drawing the eyes and the mind like moths to a flame. But I was told I would not find him in the light.

I feel for the dagger at my waist. I may be all out of poisoned arrows, but at least I am armed. Once I’m holding it in my hand I notice it seems to be emitting a faint glow. I step closer to the mouth of the cave, into the deeper dim. Sure enough, the blade glows brighter. There are some minerals, I have heard, that glow in the darkness. Is that all this is? Or is it the sign of some other, unnatural thing?

I shiver, and look down. And there, drifting in a puddle of water at the base of the tunnel, I see it: a black feather, brilliant as a raven’s, large as a crane’s.

And I know whose feather it is.

I take a breath, and step deeper into the tunnel.

*

I walk for what seems a long time. Every time I turn and look behind me, the mouth of the cave is still visible, close enough that it seems I could return to it in only a few paces. But I know I have been walking for much longer than that. And the further I go, the more my other senses, too, feel distorted. The blue-white light glows around me, creating shadows and phantom shapes that make me jump and gasp, yet turn out to be nothing. This endless dark does strange things to my mind. Memories surface, recent ones and old. I see scenes from my childhood again. I walk through the rooms of our old home as if in a dream. And then other things come to me, the horrors of the last days. I see Hector’s sister Kypris, her teeth bared, a knife glinting in her hand. I see the ruined streets of Sikyon. I see the eyes of a hundred wolves.

And then I take a step, and feel my balance give as my foot finds only empty air. I cry out as I tumble through the darkness…then land with a damp thud onto a watery, unpleasant cushion. It’s moss, and at least it broke my fall. I blink a few times, feeling the pain flow through my body—that was no little distance I fell. Then I sit up to find myself in a tremendous cavern.

It’s dimly lit by a faint reddish glow, and the great walls of rock are three times the height of a man. The cavern itself must stretch a great distance, for I cannot see its end. But not fifty paces from me sits a great stone chair, with a figure in it.

Eros.

It must be. Breathless, I sheathe my dagger, and drag myself from the moss.

“Brother?”

My breath hitches in my throat at the sound of his voice. It’s him. It’s really him, at last. But he can’t see me—they have blindfolded him, and bound him to the stone chair with shackles of some dark metal. It is those shackles that give off this dull red glow that lights the cave.

I step closer. Simply to see him is a shock all over again. The face that has swum up in visions as I slept; that I have seen only once before, but which has burned in my mind since. Here is that face again, and it is a thousand times brighter, a thousand times more beautiful, than any picture I can carry inside my head. The hair that curls like polished wood, his golden skin; the flush in his cheeks and the hollows beneath that sharpen them. He is carved more finely than the finest statue, but there is a warmth that breathes in every inch of him that no statue could ever achieve. To see him defies everything I think I know of beauty.

I take another step closer.

“Speak! Who are you?”

My heart thunders. I swallow hard, and reach out a hand. When I touch his arm a shiver tears through me, hot and bright. He starts, yet still I cannot bring myself to say his name: I did so once before, and when the word passed my lips, the sky fell.

“It is Psyche,” I say. “I am here. I have come for you.”