The King of Hearts - Jovee Winters Page 0,25
me to trust him. That without him I would not be able to pull this off. If he’d found me, others would soon too. Atropos had done something to my mind, allowing me to hide what mother could see through my eyes, but that wouldn’t stop her from being able to peer through the clouds down at this land. Unless, of courses, Dionysus hid this place from all prying eyes.
“Three…”
I took his hand. Instantly a glow burned bright between our palms, and then I felt the air quicken with power. A pact had been sealed. Fate had shifted.
I cocked my head.
“All of this for me? Why?” I asked, confused. I was an insignificant god in terms of power within the pantheon. Dionysus too, even though he was considered one of the big twelve. Yet, I felt like something of great portend had just occurred but I wasn’t sure what.
“She likes gardens by the by. Flowers from exotic lands.”
And then, just like that, Dionysus was gone.
And not a moment later, there was a loud knocking at the door. The walls boomed with the echoing sound.
Confused, I walked to the door. Opened it. And standing there, was mother. Dressed in robes of shimmering white.
“Why the hell can’t I see you anymore, Eros! Why have you hidden yourself so? Making me come to you. You know how busy I am.”
That was it. No words of greeting. Just scolding’s. As mother often did. My heart clenched, realizing how accurate Dionysus’s prophecy had been. Mother had been watching this land already. But with it hidden from her gaze in the sky the only way for her to see me now would be to actually come to me, which she wouldn’t do much of. Mother detested leaving Olympus for long periods of time. The fact that she’d come to showed just how desperate she was beginning to feel.
I pushed down my nerves and affected a nonchalant grin.
“Hello to you too,” I said after she’d pushed her way through, bumping into my shoulder. I shut the door behind her.
“Why the devil are you staying at one of Dionysus’s slummy palaces?” she asked with a snarl.
I frowned. “What?” And turning, I saw all the same craftsmanship. My paintings were still lining the walls. The mosaic with only the stenciled image sketched upon the walls, was before us.
She pointed to a painting of the bloody and broken minotaur, looking up into the heavens with a mask of piercing sorrow in his eyes.
“Hello,” she snarled. “This piece of perversion is unfit to look upon. All these nude women and that man’s cock dripping with jizz. It’s filthy.”
I blinked. Mother was no prude, so she must have issue with the fact that it was a nude woman she saw. But… I frowned.
I’d not painted a single nude.
I shook my head. Completely baffled. She walked up to a marble statue I’d sculpted, and snarled. It was of a rose growing up from a skull shaped rock.
“Fucking nudes,” she snapped. “Do not look upon them, Eros. Women are perversions, they will hurt you. They will ruin you.”
“I…I promise,” I said, and meant it. Because I couldn’t see what she was seeing. She turned my rose around and I frowned.
Had Dionysus enchanted this palace so that mother only saw what he wanted her to see? Must have, because mother wasn’t prone to imaginations, and yet I could not see any of what she did. After she’d walked up and down the great hall, covering up the “nudes,” she finally turned to me.
A glowering look of displeasure upon her face. “Well, son. What have you to say for yourself?”
More confused than I’d ever been, I shrugged. Not exactly sure what the right answer to give here was.
Rolling her eyes theatrically, she shook her head. “You’ve kept yourself sealed in shadow for days. I cannot see through your eyes. You promised, how could I have raised such a selfish boy?”
Schooling my features was an automatic thing for me. “I did exactly as bid, mother. I gave her the potion. The men of the village find her repulsive. Uncle’s plan work—”
“Yes,” she snarled, “and now he’s got you set up in his own warded palace. I cannot look upon you from the heavens. What have you two got up to, Eros? What are you hiding from me?” She took a step closer.
I swallowed, heart racing furiously in my chest, but outwardly I was calm as ever. “Nothing,” I said with such complete conviction that I even believed