“It doesn’t seem like you’ve been left wanting.” Ares moves closer until he’s only a few inches away from me. He’s taller now, stronger than he was before, and his armor is flecked with droplets of blood. They’re still wet. “Perhaps Mother was right. Perhaps all you are and all you’ll ever be is a whore.”
Cyrus’s fist comes out of nowhere. One moment Ares is in front of me, and the next he’s sprawled out beside the fire. I gasp and step back. Cyrus is on his feet, his legs trembling with the effort of standing upright, but I’ve never seen him look so impassioned.
“You will speak to her with the respect the mother of your child deserves,” he says. “Or you will leave.”
Ares scrambles to his feet again, looking both stunned and more enraged than I’ve ever seen him before. He pulls out his sword, holding it between them as if he’s begging Cyrus for an excuse to use it. “How dare you. Do you know who I am?”
Cyrus says nothing. His hands are clenched into fists, and he stares down Ares as if they’re equals. But they’re not—Ares is a god, and Cyrus is mortal. It’s a small miracle Ares hasn’t killed him yet, but I’m sure Cyrus will have a one-way ticket to Hades’s realm soon enough.
“Stop it, please,” I beg. “He’ll leave as soon as he’s healed, all right? Just don’t hurt him.”
My protests change nothing. They still stare at one another, as if caught in a silent battle, and I don’t know what to do. I clutch Eros closer, and he begins to cry. But there’s nothing I can do to comfort him, either. I’m helpless.
At last, Ares’s mask of rage slips, and he begins to laugh. It’s a mocking sound though, the kind of empty, haunting laugh that isn’t a laugh at all. “You,” he says. “You sick, twisted bastard. Aphrodite has no idea, does she?”
I frown. “No idea about what?”
Ares shakes his head, his focus still locked on Cyrus. “Would you like to tell her, or shall I?”
I expect Cyrus to deny knowing what he’s talking about—after all, I’ve been with him for sixteen days. Ares only arrived moments ago. But instead Cyrus’s expression crumbles, and he turns to me. “I’m so very sorry for my deception.”
“What deception?” I look from one to the other, my heart pounding. “What are you two talking about?”
Ares sheaths his sword. “He isn’t mortal,” he says. “He’s been lying to you all this time, haven’t you, brother?”
My mouth drops open. Cold horror washes through me, so icy and real that I shiver, and I stare at Cyrus. “Brother?”
Ares smirks. “I’ll be outside while the two of you sort things out. But when I return, I expect him to be gone.”
He slips out of the grotto, leaving Cyrus and me alone. No, not Cyrus. Never Cyrus.
“Hephaestus,” I whisper, and he stares at the floor. “You lied to me.”
Anyone else would deny it. He didn’t really lie, after all—he never told me his name. He never claimed to be someone he wasn’t. But he never told me the truth, either. He pretended not to know me, and his mortal form alone was an intentional deception.
Hephaestus nods. “I’m sorry.”
“But—you’re mortal,” I say, dazed.
“I’ve been searching for you ever since you left, and I scoured the world looking for this place. The only way I could blend in was to take a mortal form. I knew my boat might crash. I knew I might feel pain. It was a risk, but for you…” He clears his throat. “Please forgive me.”
“I don’t…” I trail off and stare at him as if this is the first time I’ve ever seen him. It is, in a way. “Why are you here?”
He grimaces. “Because I want you to have the life you deserve. I’m not very good with words, but I love you, Aphrodite. I’ve loved you my entire life. Not because of what you look like, not because of the horrible arrangement my father made, but because of who you are underneath. You radiate. You’re sunshine. You make the world a brighter place just by existing. You see the beauty underneath the surface, and the way you love—I’ve never seen anything more inspiring. And what you’ve done for me on this island…” He shakes his head. “You risked your safety to heal me. You took extraordinary measures when anyone else would have left me to die. You gave hope to the hopeless, and that is the person I love. I only wish you would let me show you.”
I open and shut my mouth, speechless. What am I supposed to say? What does he expect me to do? Up and leave this place just because he found me and tricked me into caring about him? “Nothing’s changed, you know,” I say in a shaky voice that betrays me. “I still love Ares.”
“Even though Ares loves himself more than he could ever love you?”
I recoil. “You have no idea how much Ares loves me.”
“I know he left you alone with your baby son,” says Hephaestus. “I know he’s been gone long enough for you to feel lonely and betrayed.”
“You don’t know that,” I mutter.
“I saw how you looked at him when he came back. If you truly loved him the way you claim, it would have been an entirely different look,” he says. “You can love more than one person, you know.”
“I love Ares. Just Ares.” I say this more forcefully, as if I’m trying to convince both of us. He frowns, and I know he hears it, too.
“Love isn’t just passion and noise and lust,” he says. “Love is the way you feel for Eros. Love is the way I feel for you, the way you fill something inside me whenever you so much as walk into the same room. Sometimes love is quiet, lingering in the background until you least expect it. But love is always there for you. Ares hasn’t been.”
It’s my turn to look away now. The way he talks about my relationship with Ares as if it’s only temporary, as if it isn’t the best I could have—I don’t know how to swallow that.
“Aphrodite,” says Hephaestus, and he reaches for my hand. His fingertips graze my knuckles before I pull away. “Love is an action, not a word.”
“I don’t need a lecture on what love is.” I hiccup. I’m crying now. “I’m the goddess of love. I know what it is better than anyone else.”
“Then prove it,” he says. “Come with me. Or tell Ares he isn’t welcome anymore. We can stay on Olympus, we can stay here, or—or if it’s what you want, I will leave you in peace. Just don’t let him do this to you. He’s hurt you enough already, and you deserve better. You are better.”
My vision blurs, and I can barely make out his face anymore. Just those piercing gray eyes that aren’t really his. “I’m not,” I whisper. “This is my home. Ares is my home.”
“Your home is love,” he says. “I could be that love if you’d let me. I want to be there for you and Eros. Not when I feel like it, but every moment of every day for as long as you’ll both have me. Let me love you. Please.”
I hiccup. I must look like a disaster, but Hephaestus’s focus hasn’t shifted. If I do look awful, he doesn’t care. “I can’t choose,” I whisper. “Please don’t make me.”
He takes my hand again. This time I let him. “If he matters that much to you, then with me, you would never have to choose. As long as it’s what you truly want and as long as he never hurts you again, you’re free to love him as much as you’d like.”
I don’t understand what he means. No, I do understand—I understand what he thinks he means. But Hephaestus is Hera’s son through and through. Going into the kind of relationship he’s talking about—the kind where I could still love Ares and Hephaestus wouldn’t mind—will be too much for him after
a while. Maybe immediately. Maybe a few years. Maybe a few centuries or eons. But one day, Hephaestus will wake up and realize he doesn’t want to share me. Or he’ll give me the option of seeing others in the hope he’ll be enough.
“For me—” I hesitate. “For me, love isn’t something you only give once, and then it’s gone. Love is everywhere. Love is everything.”
He raises my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “I know. I have no interest in stifling you or loving a version of you that isn’t real, and to ask you to commit to me and only me…” He shakes his head. “It would go against your very nature, and I’m all right with that. More than all right. It’s part of what I love about you. As long as you’re happy, I’ll still be there for you regardless of who else you choose to love.”
I swallow. It seems impossible, but maybe he does understand. Maybe that’s the difference between him and Ares. After all, it was Ares who left me for what he thought were adventures more exciting than our life together, while Hephaestus scoured the earth trying to find me. If I left this island, would Ares do that? Would he search until he found me, no matter how long it took? Would he exchange his immortal form for pain and hunger and thirst just to have a chance of being with me?
I don’t know. I can’t think. Everything spins around me until I have to squeeze my eyes shut, and even in the darkness, I can see Hephaestus’s face. I can’t do this. I can’t choose. No matter what Hephaestus says, one day he’ll grow jealous. It’s natural. Even if he wouldn’t on his own, Hera will poison him against me, and our days would be numbered. And Ares—with him, I don’t even have the illusion of choice. But at least he loves me. At least he came back to me.
After years away without a second thought, while Hephaestus searched endlessly just for a chance to tell me he loves me.
Dammit. I bite my lip, and in my arms, Eros lets out another soft cry. That’s enough to draw me back down to earth. He’s my sun, my rock, my world, not Ares. Not Hephaestus. He’s the thing I love most in this world. And no matter what choice I make, I will always have him.
That doesn’t make it any easier, though.
“Please go,” I whisper after an eternity passes. “I need to be alone.”
My eyes are shut, but I feel the heat of Hephaestus’s palm hovering over my cheek. He doesn’t touch me, and I’m grateful for it, but I still feel a keen wrench of loss when he pulls away. “I’ll always be here for you and Eros, no matter who you choose,” he says. “Never forget that.”
I’m quiet as his uneven footsteps echo through the cavern, and at last it’s silent, save for the crackle of the fire. I sink into the nest of pillows and hold Eros tight. He seems to understand my turmoil, and he wraps his pudgy arms around me. I sigh into his hair. What am I supposed to do?
“I see he’s gone.”
My eyes open. Ares stands beside the fireplace, warming his hands. He stills wears his armor. What good he thinks it’ll do him here, I have no idea.
“I’m not surprised you didn’t recognize Hephaestus,” he says. “I didn’t until he punched me. He has a slight twist to his roundhouse—a sort of signature. Took me a moment, but I caught on soon enough. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Bastard must be desperate, barging in while I’m gone, trying to wreck our life together.”
I snort. “What life together?”
The words are out before I can stop them, and Ares looks as if I’ve slapped him.
“What do you mean?” he says in a cautious voice, the one that means he’s seconds from flying into a rage.
“I mean—” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat. “I mean you haven’t been here. In the past two years, you haven’t even bothered to check in on us, to visit Eros to make sure he knows who you are—none of that. You left me. You left us.”
He gapes at me, and the silence between us is so heavy that I think it’s going to suffocate me. At last he clenches his hands, his face growing redder by the moment. “I have duties. I don’t abandon them.”
“Are you saying I’ve abandoned mine?”
“Of course not.” His jaw is clenched now, too. “I came back to you.”
“For how long? Another three days? A year? Two? How long before you leave us again? And how long will you be gone next time? Two years? Ten? A century?”
He slams his fist into the rock wall so hard that the earth around us trembles. Eros starts to sob, and I cradle him.
“If that’s the way you want to see it, Aphrodite, then be my guest. But don’t you dare act like I’m the villain. I wasn’t the one who kissed my husband’s brother.”
“You—” My voice shakes. “You’re not my husband.”
“I would have been. I wanted to be. I came back to propose, you know. To tell you we were going to face Father and make him see that together, we’re undefeatable. Apparently I was wrong.”
He storms out of the grotto, once again leaving Eros and me. I don’t call after him. I’m too stunned for that. Was he really coming back to marry me? To have a life together, one I’d always dreamed about?
Or did he say that in the heat of the moment to make me feel even worse than I already do?
I hate myself for second-guessing him. I hate myself for thinking he’s capable of that kind of emotional brutality. But I’ve seen the blood on his armor, and the sword isn’t his only weapon. Ares always wins his battles, no matter the cost.
I spend the rest of the night crying silently. Ares doesn’t come back, nor does Hephaestus. I don’t expect them to, not really, but part of me hopes they will. A very large part of me. I can’t decide who I want to see more though, and that’s the part that hurts the most.
The next day, Eros and I play on the beach, and this time, when sunset comes, we don’t go back to the grotto. I gather him up in my arms, and staring into the rosy sky, I push myself upward toward Olympus. Toward home.
I don’t know who I’ll see or what I’ll find, but I do know one thing for sure: this has to end. And before it can, I have to make the hardest decision of my life.
* * *
I land in the middle of chaos.
On the floor, Ares and Hephaestus are locked together in battle while the council all shout over one another, forming a symphony of noise. Hera is the most vocal, despite her recent shaming and demotion, and she stands beside her throne, yelling so hard that her entire body glows with power.
Though she looks back at Zeus every few sentences, the majority of her anger’s directed toward Ares and Hephaestus. The sunset floor is cracked, and Ares throws punches faster than I can follow. Hephaestus, on the other hand, is only acting defensively, covering his face and eventually wrapping his thick arms around his brother. At first I don’t understand why he’d want to embrace Ares in the middle of an epic fight, but when Ares flails, unable to hit him, I get it.
“Stop it!” I cry, and at the sound of my voice, both of them look at me. Hephaestus turns red, clearly embarrassed to be caught, but Ares only narrows his eyes.
“Let me go,” growls Ares.
Hephaestus hesitates. “I will let you go if you promise to do as Aphrodite says.”
Clearly Hephaestus doesn’t believe it’ll actually happen, but Ares nods, and reluctantly Hephaestus releases him. For a moment, we all hold our breath, waiting for Ares to strike again, but instead he stumbles to his feet and trudges to his throne. Hephaestus takes a moment to recover on the ground, and he slowly follows. His eyes never leave me.
As they’re getting settled, Hera whirls
around to face me. Her entire being burns with fury, and my heart races. I’ve never been so afraid of anyone in my entire life. “How dare you set foot in Olympus after what you’ve done,” she snarls. I take a step back toward my throne, on the other side of Daddy. My stomach turns. Maybe I made a mistake, after all. It isn’t too late to return to my island, but the way Hephaestus watches me—I can’t go, not now.
“What did I do?” I say, cradling Eros as I perch on my seashell throne.
“Were you not paying attention just now?” she hisses, and before she can lay into me even more, Daddy interrupts.
“My sons have destroyed a significant portion of the palace in order to settle a tiff that you apparently caused.” His voice is as empty as his expression, and that twists the knife in my stomach. Couldn’t he at least pretend to care?
“Not to mention put them both in danger,” says Hera. I see it now, the fear in her eyes—I hear it in her voice, as well. It isn’t all anger. I hug Eros tighter.
“They’re immortal,” I say. “Any damage wouldn’t be permanent.”
Hera glances at Hephaestus, and I know what she’s thinking. Once upon a time, immortality didn’t protect him. Who’s to say it wouldn’t happen again? I don’t know the whole story—no one but Hera does, and she’s never bothered to talk to me about it. But I know it had to do with a fall to the earth. And if they’ve really destroyed part of Olympus…of course she’s upset. Any mother would be.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was just trying to help him—”
“It’s my fault,” says Hephaestus. “I tricked her into thinking I was someone else.”
“Did you trick her into falling in love with you, as well?” growls Ares, and the two glare at each other.
“You should’ve never returned,” says Hera. “You’ve never been anything but trouble, and the pain you’ve put my sons through—”