The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Forty-One

“It will be all right,” he whispers in my hair, as he climbs up behind me.

I don’t know whether to believe him. But I’m choosing to.

“Remember, while my mother believes you dead, we have the advantage.”

I shiver. While my mother believes you dead. Still, Eros is right. She thinks her work is done. She will not tell her followers to look for me now. It is to our advantage. But just in case, Eros holds the adamantine dagger in his hand, ready for any other creature that may come this way.

The enormity of what we’re doing is not lost on me. Looking up at the pitch-black night only makes it clearer.

“They will never let you back into Olympus, while you are with me. Will they?”

He takes the reins and gives them a brisk shake. His voice is brisk too.

“So I will live in the mortal realm, as you do. We will make our home here.”

I try to imagine that. To live alongside a god—a fallen god—among my own people.

“And how will we live?” I say. “I have my father’s ring to sell, at least.” I glance toward the saddlebags. “I suppose that may get us as far as Atlantis.”

Eros laughs low behind me—the sound is the last thing I expected, but it warms me.

“I may be a weakened god, wife, but I am still a god. Have a little faith.”

And I do. I am learning to live in a world of uncertainty, a world stranger, darker, and more miraculous than any I could have imagined. And I ride with a god by my side.

“You should sleep, Psyche,” he says, as the sun starts to wake over the horizon line. “You have not rested at all tonight—nor for many days, I think.”

“It’s no use,” I tell him. “My mind turns too fast.” I would dearly like to rest, but sleep eludes me.

“If you wish to sleep, I can command it.” From behind me, he brushes a hair back from my face.

I remember the first night I met him. I settle back into his broad chest. I stare around us at the dark plains, the blue glow of the sky over the forests.

“Bewitch me, then,” I say, and I think I hear the smile in his voice as he speaks the word. Skotos : Darkness . The murmur of his voice is soft, like a blindfold made of silk.

And this time, sleep comes as a friend.

*

The villages rise up and fall away, stony outcroppings on shallow hills, wooden shanties in shadowed valleys. I doze and wake, and doze and wake, and whenever I wake I feel Eros’s strong arms around me, girding me at the waist, holding me steady and safe. We don’t talk much, but sometimes he sings, and when he does, he sings the music of the stars. I feel the blood in my body sing back to him, resonating to his pitch like a struck chime.

Two travelers, one an earthbound god, and one…What am I?

I thought I knew, but now I cannot say. I would like to think that in Atlantis, we may find some answers. It is my mother’s homeland, and the home of the mysteries she has left me with.

We cross rivers and follow mountain passes, and look down at the world from a great height, at forests like green blankets or the wide sweep of ocean. Once we see a fleet of battleships in the distance and I can’t help but wonder, are they going to Atlantis too?

With every village we pass, I think about the changed world we’re traveling through, the one that is weakening him. We pass small shrines in his name that are bare of offerings; I wonder if even the icons sold in the markets here have been put away for lack of trade.

Mostly we camp in the forests, but sometimes a village is safer than bare, open plains. When we stop to ask for shelter, it’s Eros who does the asking. Tonight he dismounts and leads us to the door of a little house on the outskirts of a village. There is a hay-barn, and a chicken pecking out front.

My husband knocks, and the door opens on a man of my father’s age, but leather-skinned and whiskered. I hear Eros ask humbly for a night’s lodging, and for some food for his wife. Wife: the word still shimmers in my ears.

I see the man’s eyes take me in, and how his gaze narrows. He is wondering at such a beautiful horse, at my torn but once-elegant clothes. Why is it, he’s wondering, that a couple such as these should be beggars?

“You are welcome here,” the man says at last, though he sounds less than pleased. “Tie up the horse, and you may eat at my table.”

I walk inside their small home while Eros attends to Ajax. I feel the gap of cold air behind me where he stood. How quickly my body has grown used to his; without it, there’s an absence.

The man’s wife greets me with the same wary courtesy.

“Sit, please.” The house is small but clean, one large room where this couple must eat, sleep, work, and rest.

“You will eat with us.”

In Sikyon mostly the men and women eat separately, but here there is only one room, one table. Eros enters noiselessly through the front door, the cool night air flowing from the folds of his cloak, and the woman of the house looks up, alarmed. The sight of him does not seem to reassure her much, but her husband gives her a small nod.

“There was a festival in our village today,” he says. “A goat was sacrificed. So you will eat meat with us tonight. Your visit is well-timed.”

It is only a small bit of meat, but they offer it to us first, along with a dish of emmer wheat and some bread.

“You are gracious,” Eros says. He eats carefully, from beneath his hood. He takes only a small amount. Human food is neither here nor there for him, but it is important not to offend our hosts, nor to draw too much attention. But tonight, that is not enough.

“Traveler,” our host says. “Why do you wear your cloak, still? It is customary, here, to show one’s face to one’s hosts.”

Eros lifts his glass, takes a sip of the wine they have poured. He answers smoothly, with just the briefest hesitation.

“My family, sir, has been involved in a great feud. As a result, there are those from my hometown that would do me harm. I do not wish for others to become involved in our troubled tale. And so I keep my face hidden.”

The woman sits back in alarm.

“I assure you,” Eros continues, “no one will come knocking for me here. No one who wishes me harm knows where I am. Let us keep it that way.”

The man nods slowly, but I see the glance that passes between him and his wife.

“Whither do you travel?” the wife says finally, addressing her question to me this time. Her voice is strained, her hand moves nervously as she speaks, and I feel guilty, witnessing this discomfort at our presence. We should have tried another house.

“To Atlantis,” I say, and see her expression change. Eros’s boot nudges mine beneath the table.

The husband and wife share another glance, and this one piques my curiosity. What have they heard? Something they’re not telling us?

“You are not the first,” the man says eventually, “to come this way, seeking shelter on the road to Atlantis.”

“Indeed?” Eros says.

“It’s true,” the wife chimes in, her curiosity seeming to trump her suspicion for a moment. “There were two others, back when the summer was young. Ostraka ,” she adds, in confidential tones. “A father and a daughter.”

I stare.

A father and a daughter.

But that could be anyone. There may be many such, on the roads between here and Atlantis. This strange feeling in my chest is nothing more than my wishful heart.

And yet…

Atlantis is not only my mother’s ancestral home, it is the land where my father fought. He was a leader of troops there; he helped the Atlanteans win their war and won himself some acclaim on the battlefield. They said even the king had shown him some favor.

It would be a logical place, would it not, to try his welcome?

I swallow.

“What did they look like?” I say. “The father and daughter.”

Eros’s hood turns toward me. I feel him wanting to caution me. The eagerness in my voice must be too sharp to miss.

“The girl was young, like you, miss,” the woman says. “But dark of hair. The man had an old soldier’s build, and walked with a limp. Grey, but with a little red left in his beard.”

I stifle the gasp in my throat, but if I fool our hosts, I don’t fool Eros. He understands. He knows.

My family. Alive.

“Excuse me,” I stand from the table, so abruptly that I almost overturn the meager meal. “I—I am very tired. Is there a place I might lie down?”

Another glance passes between our hosts, and the woman glances down at my barely touched plate with some resentment.

“I will show you.” She stands, and Eros stands too, and bows deeply.

“Good hosts, I will accompany my wife. I fear she is feeling faint after our journey. We are most grateful for your kindness. We will leave at first light, once she is rested—I will bid you our thanks now; we will be gone before you wake.”

“Very well,” the husband says, but his eyes have narrowed again at such abruptness. We file out after the wife, who takes us to the barn. It is dry in here, warm enough and sweet with hay.

“Rest well,” she says, but with some doubt in her voice, and casts a last, lingering look at Eros’s cloaked face. When she has gone he lowers the hood. I feel his stare, and he takes my chin in his hand then, gently moving my gaze to his.

“You believe it is your father and sister?”

I nod. Early in the summer , the woman said. It is autumn now.

“My father had ties to Atlantis,” I explain. “It would be a logical place for an outcast to try.”

Eros hesitates, looking at me.

“Psyche…even if it was them, even if they are alive: you remember, don’t you, what the oracle said?”

His words bring me unpleasantly back to earth. I remember all too well. She said that though they lived, I would not see them again in this life.

And then I start; a tremor goes through me.

That’s not what she said.

She said I would not see them again as a mortal.

As a mortal. What if she meant…

“Damn the woman for talking in riddles!” I burst out. “Eros”—I turn to him—“you said, before, remember? You said I was no ordinary mortal. That I was ‘something more than mortal.’”

What if the oracle wasn’t talking about death? What if she meant a different sort of transition; if my days as a mortal are now behind me?

The thought sends shivers through me. Could I really be such a creature as Eros has described? It seems likelier that this is some wishful fantasy.

And yet.

And yet.

Eros looks at me gravely. He has understood.

“I take your meaning,” he says. “And it’s true: trickery is the nature of an oracle’s speech. But…we cannot know, Psyche.”

He gestures toward the hay, and uses some small power of his to transform it into a bed of feathers. These little tricks cost him nothing. Even in his weakened state he can perform them without strain.

“Come. Lie down. If what she has said is true, there may be cause for rejoicing, but you must rest either way.”

He sounds almost stern. There’s something he’s not saying. I look into his eyes—even now, that shock of being able to see him, the whole of him, uncovered, sends a bolt through me—but he turns away.

“What is it?” I say. “You do not trust our hosts? They have no reason to lie.”

I wonder for a moment if it could be jealousy. Does he want me all to himself? Does he not want me to find my family?

Eros says nothing, just removes his cloak and takes the fastening from his robe. It falls from his body and despite myself, I flush. Is he trying to distract me? He spreads his chiton out over the feathers, until it stretches wide enough to accommodate the two of us.

“It’s not that,” he says.

“Then what?”

He sighs, and meets my gaze.

“I fear for you, Psyche,” he says. “I fear for your hope; I see it in your eyes. Even if you are reunited…your family has abandoned you once before. Who is to say they won’t do so again? Perhaps they will not welcome your return in the way you expect.”

I feel as though I’ve been slapped. He knows where my most vulnerable places are. He knows it in my body, and he knows it in my soul. It hurts, to be so transparent to someone else. I can’t hide my hopes, any more than I can hide my desire. I lie down, and pull my own chiton over us as a cover.

“Hope is no bad thing,” I say.

He sighs, settles a warm hand on my hip.

“It’s late in the night to argue.” He pulls me in close to him. “Psyche…” His hand caresses the length of my spine, and the touch makes me shiver, that heady rush that blocks out thought. Tonight, though, my thoughts are persistent. But then he whispers my name again—my god-husband, my demon lover—and this time I yield to it. I forget the future, and the past. I let the world shrink until it’s just the two of us, and nothing more.

*

A little while later I find myself awake. I hover for a moment at the threshold of consciousness, my mind still soft with dreaming, and at first, I cannot recall where I am. But there are gaps in the thatch roof above us, where starlight shivers through the crannies, giving just enough grey light to make out the outlines of things, and remember. And then a noise comes, and I realize I did not wake by accident.

I hold my breath, noiselessly turning my head toward the door. Beside me, Eros lies enveloped in the sheet as if it were a shroud. By the door, something moves again.

Some one. The husband—our host. I see the shape of him as he takes another step toward the bed. He is only a few paces from us now. The sheet has pooled below my breasts; I dare not move it to cover myself.

Is that what he is here for? Some voyeurism?

I do not think so. My heart palpitates furiously. I remind myself my husband is a god; that nothing short of the adamantine dagger he keeps under his pillow could slit his throat. But any sharp blade could still slit mine.

A small light flares, and I hover my eyelids low to feign sleep. The man holds the oil lamp high over his head, and takes a final silent step to the bed. But it’s not me he’s looking at: his eyes are on the shrouded figure beside me. His hand reaches out and closes over a fold of the fabric, ready to pull it back, and uncover my husband’s face.

I shake off the paralysis.

“No!” I shout, but Eros’s hand has already darted out from under the sheet, clenching around the man’s throat with a movement so sudden I gasp. Our host calls out in horror and drops his oil lamp to the floor, wheezing for air.

I gather the sheet around me as I leap from the bed. Eros stands tall, holding the man aloft; the man’s bare feet pedal the empty air, looking for purchase. His eyes are closed, screwed up as he fights for breath.

At least there’s that.

And then his wife bursts into the room—roused, presumably, by all the shouting.

“Close your eyes!” I scream. “Woman, look away!”

I see the flash of her terrified gaze, but something in my voice must get through. She shuts her eyes, though she’s trembling.

“What witchcraft is this?” she whimpers.

Then Eros tosses the man toward the floor, where he lies for a moment, panting and wheezing. And in that instant Eros has pulled his cloak from where it lies on the ground, and covered himself.

“You are safe now,” he says, his voice low with spent anger, and I realize then that the fury I saw was not really about our host or his insolence. It was about having to live like this; about the curse he carries with him, and having to guard against it, night and day. About having to live a concealed life.

The man climbs slowly to his feet, staring in the half-dark. The woman’s closed eyelids tremble.

“Michalis?” she whispers. “Are you all right?”

“You can open your eyes,” I say. “You will find your husband much as he was.” Just a little shaken up , I add silently, which is no more than he deserves.

“Sir, I—we meant no harm.” The man speaks hoarsely. “I…my wife made me come in here. You would not show your face, and she feared we had a murderer sleeping among us, or a monster. I tried to disabuse her of her foolishness, sir…”

He rattles on, but I am somewhat relieved. Not spies of Aphrodite’s, then—just human nosiness and fear.

“Do not blame your wife for your own actions,” Eros says. “And be thankful you did not see what is under this hood. We mean you no harm, but will take our leave of you now. You may return to your beds.”

But the two seem frozen to the floor.

“I told you,” Eros says, “I mean you no harm. Whatever pain I caused you, believe me, it was to your benefit, rather than achieve what you intended.”

They are unconvinced, still, but nervousness has got the better of them, and the wife backs toward the door.

“We’ll go, then, and ask no questions. Whoever you may be, sir, it’s nothing to us.”

“Wait!”

The word bursts from me suddenly, as unexpected to me as it is to any one of them. Now is the time for us to leave quietly—and any other night, I would. But tonight…call it courage or foolishness. Call it an impulsive streak I thought I’d buried, but suddenly I want justice. Why should my lover hide in the shadows? Why should he be thought a murderer and a fugitive? Why should he be denied his name as well as his power?

“There is a reason why my husband hid from you,” I say. “But it is not the reason you think.”

Beneath his hood I feel Eros look my way; I can sense his surprise, his wariness, but it seems I’ve shocked him into silence.

I look our hosts in the eye.

“He is no criminal,” I say. “He is a god. That is why he cloaks himself like this from you.”

At that, their eyes truly boggle. What a wild claim they must think this! They stare, jaws agape, and for a moment I wonder if one will laugh. But the moment passes.

“Did you say, miss…”

“Mortals may not look upon his face, for to do so drives them to madness. To spare you such a fate, he shields himself when he walks among mortal folk.”

“Psyche…” Eros murmurs, but it’s too late now.

“Turn around,” I beg him. “Show them your wings.”

He hesitates. Then finally he turns and loosens the robe from his shoulders, spreading two majestic wings. The sable-black expanse of them seems almost to fill the room, and his skin radiates light in this dim place, as if from somewhere in the core of him. Our two hosts stare, mouths agape. The room is silent as a stone. Then the wings retract, and he pulls the cloak back across them. When my husband turns, his face is veiled again.

The man drops to his knees, and pulls his wife down beside him.

“What god are you, Great One?”

“He is the lord Eros,” I say. “Son of Aphrodite, and of Ares the Destroyer.”

“Lord Eros,” our host murmurs. “We have insulted you. Yet you have been merciful.”

I sense Eros’s discomfort.

“Rise, both of you, rise,” he says. All of this has embarrassed him, I think, but it does not embarrass me. Let them see him for who he is. He is a true god, truer than those parasites on Mount Olympus who do nothing for their followers except drink our world dry. And yet his following has been stolen from him, his power shrunken while Aphrodite’s power grows.

Well, followings can be rebuilt.

I watch the couple as they shuffle to their feet.

“What you say is true. This god is merciful: for the benefit of mortals he hides his glory, though it would please him more to walk in the light as you do.” I clear my throat; I don’t dare look at Eros. I don’t know that he will approve of what I’m doing.

“If you haven’t heard the rumor, no doubt you will soon: that Aphrodite, his divine mother, no longer wishes our people to worship him. But let me ask you this—has Aphrodite ever walked among you? Does she break bread with her followers? Does she visit them and share their table? Aphrodite,” I continue, “believes mortals are here only to serve her, and have no value of their own. That is how most of your gods think. They do not trouble themselves to descend from Olympus to know you. But my husband is different. He does not disdain the mortal race. Remember this, when you next visit your temples. Tell your friends that the god Eros walks among you, and consider who is deserving of your prayers.”

Their faces are ashen by now. I suspect they have heard of Aphrodite’s demands already. They’re wondering exactly how hard she’ll punish them if they leave offerings at a temple that’s forbidden.

“Your acts need not be public for all to see,” I say. “Grand offerings at the temple are just one form of prayer. Even Aphrodite cannot see the silent offerings made in the heart. These too count.”

The silence seems to pulse while I wait for someone else to move or speak. Though all I see of Eros is his dark hood, I know every motion of his now, and I know that beneath the hood he’s staring at me. Surprised? Amused?

Concerned?

“We shall do so,” the woman says finally, and bows. Then she hesitates, and looks at me.

“And will you tell us your name, goddess, so we may do the same for you?”

Now I’m the speechless one.

“Oh.” I clear my throat. “No, I…”

“She is Psyche, my wife and consort,” Eros speaks. “Whatever you offer in my name, you may offer to us both.”

As one, the grey-haired couple bow, and I’m the one left staring.

*

Outside, as I’m untying Ajax from the post, I see Eros press his hand against the barn wall. It’s a deliberate gesture, the kind a man might make to test the stone’s warmth. I glance curiously at him, then go to the barn wall and peer inside a crack. Now where before it housed only bales of hay, it is full of grain, and barrels of wine.

“You are a merciful god,” I say, and take his hand in mine.

He gives me one of his impenetrable looks, and lifts me high onto Ajax’s back. Then he swings himself up behind me and grips the reins. Ajax breaks into a trot, then a canter, and soon a gallop. Behind me, Eros’s warm body barely shifts with the motion. I lean against him, then feel his hand brush my jaw; he runs a finger slowly down my neck.

“I am merciful,” he says. “To those who deserve it. And for those who injure what I most treasure: Psyche, you will learn, I am something else altogether.”

Ajax’s sleek black mane thrusts ahead. The village is far behind us.

We gallop through the last, soft hours of the night, through fields and woods, until the sea is in view at last.

And we wait on the clifftop, Eros and Ajax and I. We watch the light creep pink across the horizon. We smell dawn on the air.

There, out over the water, our sun is rising.