Above by Sotia Lazu

Author:Sotia Lazu [Lazu, Sotia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Acelette Press
Published: 2019-05-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Circe,” Nerites bellowed, his voice bouncing off the council room walls. “Show yourself, witch.” Now that Magda was safe, he’d find out what the witch knew.

Circe appeared between him and the nearest of the high-back chairs surrounding the large table Nereus seldom sat at when he met with his generals. She was close enough Nerites took a startled step backward.

“Do you remember now?” She sounded almost timid, nothing like her usual, confident self.

If she was looking for his pity, she’d be sorely disappointed. “She’s Aphrodite, isn’t she?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his glare daring her to lie.

Circe searched his gaze, looking hopeful, more than intimidated. Not that much intimidated the daughter of Helios. “Do you remember?” she asked again.

He huffed. “I remember loving her. Remember how deep it sliced to turn my back to our love, for the good of my people.”

She licked her lips. Was she nervous? That was something else he’d never associated with the know-it-all who’d been around since before his birth. “Do you remember me, taking away your memories of her?” she asked.

She jumped back, into the chair, and he realized his hands were clenched at his sides, elbows drawn back as if he meant to pounce. He forced his fists to relax. “Why would you do that?” Keeping from screaming was hard, but he needed answers.

Circe turned away, busying herself with moving the chair closer to the table. She proceeded to nudge the next seat forward, and then the next one and the one after that. She kept going, imperceptibly correcting the positioning of chairs, until the table was between her and Nerites. “Because Aphrodite begged me. She waited for you as long as she could, but you never went to her.”

She waited? But she left him. “No. She said we were done. That if I stayed in Vythos, she’d have nothing to do with me.”

Circe’s look was full of disdain now. “So you gave up. You stayed here, wallowing in misery, while she wilted away. Typical male.”

It was common knowledge in Vythos that Odysseus had claimed the witch’s heart and body, before sneaking from her island in the middle of the night to return to his wife. The witch never forgave him, and her distrust of men kept her from ever finding love again. But Nerites wasn’t to blame for that, and he wasn’t to blame for this.

“Wilted away?” He sneered as new—old—memories rose to the surface. “She mated with Hephaestus. Bore his son.” The pain of that betrayal cut him as deep now as on the day he found out she’d moved on.

“Zeus forced their marriage, but she never shared the coppersmith’s bed.”

Aphrodite never slept with Hephaestus? Who fathered the boy? “Was it Ares’, then?” Were the rumors of Aphrodite’s affair with the god of war true?

“She had your son, you bullheaded male. Eros is yours, and so was she, until the day she faded from existence.”

His son? Eros. Nerites had heard the name time and again, but it always slipped through the cracks of his memory, like he wasn’t supposed to know it.

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