The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Psyche?” His voice dies in his throat.

Gently I reach for the blindfold and pull it free. His eyes blink open, and every thought disappears from my mind. I have experienced it before, and still I was not prepared for it: this vertigo, this feeling of plummeting through time itself. I’m at the center of all things: the past and the future and all the paths between them open to me like a flower. Light runs in my veins.

“Psyche,” he says.

My name has never sounded so beautiful.

For a moment we stare at each other.

“You are well. You are safe. But…” His voice is full of wonder. “How is it that you look upon me, and are not mad?”

A question I, too, have asked.

“Perhaps your face is not the curse you think it is—perhaps it never was.” It seems like something Aphrodite would lie about: a jealous mother trying to keep her son close, preventing him from consorting with the mortal world.

He shakes his head.

“But…but how came you to be here? You could not possibly—”

He sits up straighter.

“Unless you are not Psyche all, and just some trickery of my brother’s.”

“But—of course I am Psyche.” He thinks I’m an illusion of some kind; a trick? I think fast, and pull the Shroud from beneath my robe. “You alone know I wear this. If I were just an illusion crafted to deceive you, whoever crafted it could not have known of this.”

He breathes more easily, but as he stares at me the wonder in his eyes only grows.

“But…how came you to be here? I know this mountain, and it is not hospitable to humans.”

His understatement almost makes me laugh.

“I went to Delphi,” I say. “The oracle told me what had befallen you, and I came to find you—though I admit, I came close to not succeeding.”

His eyes—those glorious eyes—continue to study me. And then the look on his face gives way to pain.

“She should never have advised you to come here. You have done more than I dreamed a mortal could do. And yet…you cannot free me from here, Psyche. You must leave now, while you still can.”

“ Leave here? After all this?” To turn around and go back, now! Surely he is the one who is mad.

He just shakes his head.

“I cannot get you out of this place. But there must be some exit you can take, and you must seek it, quickly, before…”

“I’m not leaving without you!”

He bangs his fists on the stone chair; the chains rattle.

“Psyche, do you see these shackles? Who do you think made them?” He glares. “Hephaestus is blacksmith of the gods, Psyche! No one can free me from them, still less a mortal! And one or other of my brothers will be coming soon, to check on me: I cannot risk them finding you here.”

I kneel before his chair, and draw the dagger from its sheath. Perhaps there is such a thing as Fate. For how else would such a knife lie at my belt?

“There is something in my possession,” I say, “which may cut even the steel of Hephaestus.”

Eros just stares at me. His face twists when he looks at the dagger, as though the sight of it causes him some pain.

“It is cursed—my ears ring with the sound of it.”

I hear nothing, but he winces as though some high whine has pierced the air.

“I will be sure,” I say, “not to let it harm you.”

But he simply stares.

“Psyche, what is it?”

“If it is what I think it is…” I force myself to meet his eyes. “Then, adamantine.”

His lips draw back, his face turns pale. For a moment he is silent.

“ Adamantine ?” He shakes his head. “ You possess a blade of adamantine? It cannot be. No more than three such are known to exist—and you have one?”

“I think so.”

His beautiful face clouds over.

“You tell me you have scaled Olympus, as no mortal has in centuries, and you look on my face without harm; now you say you carry a weapon that can kill a god? What is it you are keeping from me, Psyche?”

My throat tightens.

“Nothing! What do you accuse me of? I have done all this for you !”

Fire dances in his eyes. “What do I accuse you of? I say that you have lied to me.”

I throw down the blade and stare at him.

“I have not lied. I do not know why I can look upon your face without paying the price, and as for this knife, it was my mother’s—how she came by it, I know not. As to how I made it through this cursed place, perhaps some god or other chose to aid me. Or perhaps,” I glare at him, “just perhaps, I am braver and stronger and have more fortitude than you are ready to admit!”

His eyes lock on mine, neither of us willing to look away. And then his face softens, and he shakes his head.

“You are right, Psyche. Forgive me.”

I close my eyes, savoring the sound of his voice. When I open my eyes, he’s looking at me. I take up the knife again.

“I won’t bring the blade any closer unless you trust me to,” I say.

“I trust you,” he says, his eyes still on mine.

I go to examine the shackles, but when I try to grip it I cry out in shock. The steel burns like fire.

“I cannot hold it,” I say, ignoring the pain in my hand. If I cannot hold the shackle steady as I cut, how am I to slice through it safely?

“Try and slide the knife inside the shackle,” he says. “Then pull outwards.”

It’s a good thought, but when I turn the dagger on its flat side and ease it underneath the shackle, against his skin, I hear him swallow a gasp. The very touch of the ore must cause him pain.

I get a hold, then pull the knife back toward me—but it cuts faster, slicker, than I expected, and I yelp as the blade swings back too sharply in my direction. I steady my arm just in time.

“Psyche…” Eros says, but he doesn’t need to say be careful . I’m trembling now.

“I saw it cut through stone.” My voice shakes. “And through wood as though it were butter. And yet I did not expect…” I don’t know what to say. The more I see of it, the easier it is for me to believe a blade like this can kill a god. And the harder it is for me to believe that my mother came by it innocently. I think Eros was right to be suspicious, though not of me: there is more here, there must be, than meets the eye.

Eros stares at the blade in my hand.

“I have only heard of adamantine, never seen it,” he says quietly. “Zeus forged the blade when he killed the god Kronos, and a second when we went to war against the Titans. There was tale of a third blade, but if it existed, its whereabouts was unknown.” He looks down at the one in my hand, wondering.

“Zeus never spoke of where he got the ore; he refused to. The two blades we know of are under lock and key in the inner sanctum of the gods. The vault cannot be opened unless all twelve Olympians unite to do it. That is how dangerous this is.”

I look up at him, then away.

“Is it true that it can kill a god?” My mouth feels dry as I ask the question. “I cut a dryad’s branch with it, but the dryad did not die.”

Eros shakes his head.

“A tree will not die unless it is felled or its roots destroyed. But if you sever the limb with adamantine, it will never grow back—that is the difference between adamantine and any other blade.” He looks at me. “You have heard of Prometheus and his punishment?”

I know the story: every day an eagle plucked out his heart, and every day the heart grew back.

“Immortals regenerate, Psyche. They may be injured, they may suffer pain, but the wound will always heal. Except,” he says, “a wound inflicted by adamantine ore.”

I turn the knife over in my hands, trying to absorb all that I’m hearing.

I move down to the shackle on his leg, and though even the merest touch against his skin seems to scald him, he is careful not to flinch. I cut through this one just as easily as the first, and more smoothly now. We both watch the metal fall away.

“It is incredible.” He pauses. “And yet, not the most incredible thing to have happened to me today.” His voice carries the meaning of his words, and I know his eyes are on my face. I don’t look up. I can’t. When we are free, I tell myself, and gone from here: then I will gaze and gaze upon him. But it is so hard not to look at him. And the scent of him! I had forgotten. Instead of a dank cave, we seem to linger in a forest, where the wind carries the rich scent of cypress and cedar, of sandalwood and myrrh.

I’m leaning in to start on his leg-shackles when I freeze.

“What was that?” I whisper.

But one look at his face tells me all I need to know.

Someone is coming.