I didn’t even have time to shut my gaping jaw again before Ceres grabbed my hand and gently tugged me down the steps of her temple. Xanthy had her head and half her body stuck into the sacred wheat fields. She was munching away, but Ceres didn’t seem to care. With an effortless and fluid motion, she grasped my waist and plopped me onto Xanthy’s back. Then Ceres swung herself up behind me and clasped two fistfuls of Xanthy’s mane, steering her out of the chest-high stalks of wheat.
I felt her nudge Xanthy forward into a trot, and then we were flying. It wasn’t flying the way a bird flies though - or the way Eros flew. There was no effort, and no soaring or gliding. It was more like being a feather caught in the wind, floating, twirling, falling. Only with unimaginable speed. It was exhilarating and terrifying at once.
Ceres laughed like a giddy child behind me. “Isn’t this great? I love not having to rely on wings to get around.”
I hugged myself tighter to Xanthy’s neck even though I was pretty sure Ceres wouldn’t let me fall. I had to disagree with her though. I’d flown on wings and found it to be a superior, and far less nauseating, way to travel.
In less time than it would’ve taken me just to get back out of the gates of Eleusis, we landed on Mount Olympus. The air was cooler, the ground rockier. A chill ran up my spine, making me shudder.
Ceres slid off Xanthy’s back with the fluidity of water. “Come on, dear,” she said as she pulled me down. “You can stay with me tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go to Aphrodite.”
Chapter 44 - Eros
Eros stayed awake that night, swarmed by memories. His mind replayed Psyche’s stories a hundred times — from the first ones she’d told him over cheesecake to the ones leading up to their fight. They were stories he’d made her tell so that he could remember her while they were apart. Now the stories prevented him from forgetting.
As he tossed, alone in his bed, he heard Psyche’s gentle voice; remembered her delicate laughter as she recalled something funny. And then when she’d finally kissed him, her lips burned their impression into his. The short time they’d spent together crashed around him, pouring over his head like drowning waves.
When dawn finally broke, Eros rolled over and pulled his blanket over his head with a groan. He knew Aphrodite had removed the sting of love’s arrow. But he felt hungover on the love just the same, like it was an intoxicating liquor that left him wanting more even after it had run through his system.
He closed his eyes against the intruding light. More memories filled the lightless void. He could see her eyes flutter. He felt her soft fingertips on his cheek. Psyche’s breath whispered in his ear.
“Enough!” Eros pushed the blanket away and sat up. His feet swung to the floor as he brushed through his tangle of curls.
“This is enough,” he told himself. “It’s time to get back to work.”
He shuffled out of bed and into his open courtyard. Besides forcing Psyche from his mind, work would help with some other problems he’d been avoiding.
His first and most immediate non-Psyche problem was that Zeus was going to open up the heavens on him if he didn’t start answering some prayers. His second, and more troubling problem, was that his mother was determined to see him with Iris. But, if he used Iris to help with problem one, he’d also get Aphrodite to back off for awhile on problem two. He could work that angle if he had to.
From his courtyard, Eros began tuning in to prayers. At first the words ran together like the background buzz at a large dinner. Working through the jumble, he managed to separate the requests into discernible snippets.
“And I swear if you make him stay away from the prostitutes, I will be all the woman he needs.” Eros didn’t even have to look to know who was making that request. She’d be a middle-aged Senator’s wife, the bloom of her youth slowly wilting as she fussed over children and arranged gatherings for her ungrateful husband. He’d heard a thousand prayers just like it before. He was sympathetic, but uninterested.
“Ever since I heard about Zeus appearing to Ledo as a swan, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of him coming to me in disguise. Maybe a lion or snake. Can you use your arrows to convince…”
Um, definitely not. Next.
“…and I know you usually make people fall in love, but could you make this girl stop loving me? I know I’m good looking, but she won’t leave me alone, no matter what I do to her. Like when I tripped her and she fell into a pile of horse crap. Didn’t matter. She just kept following me around stinky. It’s getting hard to get the pretty girls to notice me because they actually think I’m with her.”
Eros chuckled. “Look in a mirror. It’s probably not your shadow-girl driving them off,” he murmured. For a second, Eros considered making the man fall in love with the pesky girl as punishment for being so proud. But love, even if unwelcome, would make the dope happy. Staying miserable and hounded would be better.
Next.
Then Eros heard a voice that was sweet and young, yet nearly strangled with fear. “Today I will marry a man I’ve never met. Mother tells me he’s only twenty years older than I am, so it could be worse since I’ll be his second wife. But I’m so frightened.”
Eros scanned quickly for the girl, finding her curled in a chair by her window.
“I’ve heard he loved his first wife before she died and I’m worried there’ll be no room in his heart for me. I know our marriage is political now, but I pray that it’ll develop into more. Please, Lord Eros, if you can open my husband’s heart to me, I will forever be in your debt.”
The girl closed her eyes and dropped her head onto the knees. Eros almost felt the torture in her heart. Now that was a prayer worthy of answer.
And he knew how to use Iris to grant the wish.
All he had to do was wait for Iris to arrive. Even after their tiff the day before, Eros was sure he hadn’t seen the last of her. As expected, she floated into Eros’s palace as soon as the midmorning sun began streaming its warm, yellow rays through his windows. Eros wasn’t even close to liking her, but he figured he owed her at least tolerance for tipping him off about Ares’s attack on Psyche. Of course, Iris didn’t know she was sparing Psyche’s life, but Eros was still begrudgingly grateful.
“Hello, Eros,” Iris purred. Today her skin tone had a touch of blue. Not deep like a blueberry. Just a thin cast of blue, like she was freezing from the inside out. “Maybe she is,” he mused. “She usually gives me the chills.”
She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “What? You look like you just remembered a good joke.”
“I was just thinking of the work we have to do today. It should be fun.”
“Work and fun don’t usually mix,” Iris said. A wry smile pulled at her lips. “But I’m intrigued by the ‘we’ part of it.”
Eros told her about the young bride and his plans for granting her prayer. Not unsurprisingly, Iris agreed to come along. Once at the bride’s home, the gods disguised themselves as wedding guests. Blending in with the throng of strangers filling the streets outside, they waited for her wedding procession to begin.
“The bride will lead us right to the groom,” Eros whispered to Iris. “It’ll save us having to look for him ourselves.”
“I guess we wouldn’t want to accidentally find the wrong groom,” Iris said with a grimace. Eros raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement.
Before long, the young bride emerged from her parents’ home. Her gown was made from a fine red silk and embroidered with a Greek key pattern in gold along the hem. Her light brown hair and wide hazel eyes looked plain against the elaborate wedding costume. Nothing like Psyche had looked that first night … Eros shook his head to rattle out the memories.
“Poor thing,” Iris said. “She’s scared to death. It’s written all over her face.”
Eros nodded. “Some prayers just have to be answered.” Then he slipped further into the crowd to follow the wedding procession as it made its way from the bride’s former home to the groom’s. Iris hugged
in close behind him.
When the procession started singing, Eros joined in. Iris shot him a sideways look that asked why he was participating in a human ceremony.
“I’m blending in, remember?” Eros smiled and winked. “You sing too.”
As they walked and sang, Eros’ hand inadvertently brushed against Iris’s fingertips. Her hands weren’t icy like Eros had expected.
When they reached the groom’s house, Eros grabbed Iris’s elbow and skirted sideways around the crowd. “Come on,” he whispered. “Everyone will be going inside for the banquet. We can slip around back.”
From the courtyard, Eros easily picked out the young bride in her screaming red gown. Beside her was a man Eros suspected was the groom. The dome of his bald head shined in the late-afternoon sun. Eros’s suspicions were confirmed when the man began vigorously shaking the paw of a formidable-looking man and promising to take good care of his new bride.
With much-practiced ease, Eros pulled an arrow from the quiver and drew back his bow. No one noticed as the silver arrow exploded with a burst of starshine into the man’s back. The yellow-white crystals momentarily sprinkling the air were lost on all but Eros and Iris.
“That should do it,” Eros said, slipping his bow back over his shoulder. “Prayer answered.” When he turned to look at Iris, her jaw hung open and her eyes were frozen on the spot in the man’s back where the arrow had vaporized.
“What’d you think was going to happen?” he asked with a satisfied smile.
“I — I don’t know,” Iris said. “How did they not see? It was so beautiful.”
“They’re human. They only see what their eyes can comprehend.”
Some thought tugged at the back of Eros’s mind. He tried to bring the thought forward, but set it aside when it didn’t easily surface.
“Come on,” he said, tugging at Iris’s arm and leading her out of the courtyard, “it’s your turn to work some magic.”
Iris looked up. The sun shone unmercifully from a pristine blue sky where only a smattering of clouds puffed here and there. She shook her head.
“I need more clouds. Rainbows don’t work in pure sunlight.”
Eros stopped. “What do you mean?”
Iris shrugged. “I can’t just make rainbows appear anywhere. I need sun and rain clouds.”
Eros’s eyes flattened. “You might have clued me in to that little detail before you agreed to help.” He threw up his hands and raised his wings to fly.
“Wait!” Iris said. “All we have to do is get Helios to drive behind one of the clouds.” She pointed to a rocky grey-colored cloud near the horizon. “That one has rain in it. It would work.”
“Oh. So all we have to do is get the sun to fly off course and we’re in business. Sure. No problem.” Eros rolled his eyes.
“For a god, you aren’t very clever about using your gifts,” Iris said. “Helios would gladly take a jaunt behind that cloud if something tempting enough were up there.”
Eros and Iris looked at each other. “Who?” they said in unison, then laughed together.
“A girl would have to be pretty dazzling to get the sun’s attention,” Iris said.
“Of course!” Eros said. “Aglaia.” The Grace of Radiance. “Helios would be drawn to her even without my arrows.”
Iris gave him an quick, excited hug. “Perfect! Now how do we get her up there?”
“I’m the one who’s not very clever?” Eros asked. “I can make him think Aglaia is up there, but the illusion won’t hold when he tries to talk to her. Can you work quickly?”
Iris burst into the air, calling back for Eros. “What are you waiting for?”
With a jump and a flap of his wings, Eros sped past her. “Work fast, remember?”
Iris answered with a laugh as the gods sped toward the lone rain cloud.
When they got to the cloud, Eros reached for his arrows and Iris perched on the edge like a diver about to jump into the sea. Eros’s arrow caught Helios in the shoulder and his head snapped around toward the pair.
Helios’s gaze tightened on a hologram of dancing light. The mirage took shape in the figure of a sparkling girl whose hair moved with the wind and whose eyes flashed with the brilliance of the stars. A perfect duplication of Aglaia. She tip-toed across the air toward the rain cloud.
“It’s working,” Iris whispered as Helios turned his solar steeds toward the girl.
“Get ready,” Eros said. “Helios won’t stay enchanted after she disappears.”
Helios’s chariot drew closer, shooting spikes of heat toward the gods as he neared. Iris flinched. “I can’t believe I’m doing this for a human.”
In a flash of searing light, Helios was behind the cloud. Iris dove, drawing her palate of colors across the sky as she fell. Her rainbow illuminated the sky and just for a moment, Eros thought he saw a red-dressed girl looking up in awe.
As Iris touched down behind a hill and tucked away the tail of her rainbow, an accusing boom of a voice call out. “Eros!”
Iris had only just spun around to look when Eros tore down from the sky and swooped her up in his arms.
“Let’s go,” he said, furiously flapping his wings back toward Olympus. When Eros set Iris down back at his palace, they both burst out laughing.
“I assume Helios wasn’t pleased?”
“You could say that.”
“Aren’t you worried?” Iris asked, wide-eyed.
“Nope. He can’t hurt me. Besides, that was fun.” Eros looked at Iris. “Thanks for playing along with me. I needed that.”
Iris took a step closer to Eros. “I could be a lot of things you need.”
The smile fell from Eros’s face, but kindness remained in his eyes. He ran his hands down Iris’s delicate arms and clasped her hands. When had her hue changed from blue to pink?, he wondered. She looked almost edible flushed with a more natural color.
“I’m just not ready yet,” he breathed, looking down at their hands laced together.
Iris pulled one hand free and raised Eros’s chin until his eyes met hers. “It’s okay. I said a lot of things yesterday that I shouldn’t have … If you can forgive me, I can wait. Deal?”
Eros looked off in the distance. “I forgive you.”
Iris raised up on her toes and kissed Eros on the cheek. “Good night.”
He watched her sultry aura of shimmering colors trail her out the door.
That night, alone in his palace, Eros relaxed with the pleasant tiredness that comes from a satisfying day. He’d answered a prayer and used his arrows on a god other than Zeus. What more could he ask for?
The thought was barely out of his head before Eros regretted it. He could ask for Psyche to have loved him enough to trust him. He’d forgotten her while he was out playing with Iris, but memories of her came crashing back in the solitude of his home.
Eros was angry with himself for being so easily amused by Iris. Yesterday he had hated her, but today … not so much. And he was shocked to think he could so easily be drawn to her after the devotion he’d held for Psyche. Was giving Psyche up really as easy as wiping away the magic of his arrows?
As Eros mulled it over, the little flicker of a thought he’d ignored back at the wedding crept to the surface.
They’re human. They only see what their eyes can comprehend.
Even if she had some divine blood running through her veins, Psyche was still human. She could only see what her eyes could comprehend. “Yeah, so,” he goaded himself. There was something there. What was he missing?
Eros thought through everything that had happened leading up to Psyche’s betrayal. They’d fought. Then made up. Psyche’s sister came to visit, but Alexa said Psyche hadn’t listened to them.
And then he remembered. Alexa told him she’d shown herself to Chara. And when Psyche was trying to explain herself, she’s started to say something about Alexa, but he’d cut her off.
What if Psyche had seen Alexa too? Psyche’s eyes would only comprehend betr
ayal. She’d see a palace built on lies. A supposed best friend stabbing her in the back.
Hope too painful for words grabbed Eros’s heart and squeezed. He had to find Alexa. If his hunch was right, Psyche was the one who deserved his forgiveness.
Perhaps he would need some forgiveness of his own.
Chapter 45 - Psyche
When I woke up the next morning, my mind instantly clamped down with the fear of facing Aphrodite. There was nothing to do though except busy myself with getting ready.
Ceres floated in with her carefree nonchalance as I wound my hair neatly into a bun. When she opened her hand, a tiny white daisy materialized. She tucked the delicate flower behind my ear before taking my hands in her own.
Destined Page 23
