Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
“Are you reliving it?”
His eyes squint. Like he’s thinking very hard. He closes them for a long moment. Then opens them again.
“Is it torture?” I ask. “Being in this time?”
And he laughs. “That’s one way to put it.”
This makes sense. This is why he hates this place and wants to leave. “Is it Pressia, then? The woman you’re obsessed with?” I don’t know why this comes out with such scorn, but it certainly does. “Is she still trying to torture you?”
“It can only be her. Who else could it be?”
“Why is she so unsatisfied with your punishment? It’s crone-ish, isn’t it? It makes her kind of a shrew. Why can’t she just leave you alone?” He doesn’t offer up an answer. So I am forced to ask. “What did you do to her, Eros?”
He’s going to protest, but I reach up and touch his lips with my fingertips. Hushing him. This is his weakness, I realize. Her. Pressia. I’m sure they were lovers at some point. And he broke her in some way. What other reason is there for a woman to chase the god of love through time and space with an extended curse?
“You must’ve done something. Even if you don’t remember it, you wronged this woman and she is still very angry. So think very hard and figure that out. You don’t need to tell me about it, you just need to admit that you did it. Only then will you find a way past this punishment.”
“Be the man I should’ve been?”
“What?”
“Her spell. The last part goes, ‘So go, and live, and rejoice. But know, my enemy, this is not your choice. Goodbye, lost god, be gone for good. Be the man you know you should.’ And I know what you’re gonna ask next, because you’ve already asked it. But see, I’m not lying, Callistina. I don’t know what I did. She’s… an oracle. She saw me do something in the future and she cursed me for it. I don’t know what I did.” His eyes are searching mine, like he is desperate for me to understand him.
“That must be it, then.”
“What must be it?”
“An oracle is nothing more than a door traveler. Like we are door travelers. We know things that will happen in the future because we’ve been there. We’ve lived it. Pressia traveled to the future. She saw you do something—something to her, probably—and then decided you’re dangerous. This is why she cursed you. To stop it from happening.”
“She didn’t just curse me. She handed me over to the gods and goddesses so they could…” He sighs. “Emasculate me.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Emasculate?”
“You say that like it’s untrue. Is that not what they did?”
Now I laugh. “No, Eros. They have not emasculated you.” It’s so preposterous, I laugh again. “You’re…” And now I think I’ve gone too far, so I stop.
“I’m… what?”
“Never mind.”
“No, what were you gonna say?”
“Well, my choice of word would be… dethroned. They dethroned you. They didn’t emasculate you. You are more… masculated than any man I’ve ever met!”
He smiles. Then laughs. “More masculated?”
“You get the idea. You’re… you. The god of love. You’re just… not emasculated.”
“Dethroned, you say?”
“It fits, doesn’t it?”
“Then that would mean we have something in common.” He winks. “Wouldn’t it.”
I suck in a breath and answer on the exhale. “I guess it would.”
‘Dethroned’ wasn’t what I wanted to say. And ‘masculated’ was the result of not being able to admit to how I really see him. Which is strong. Also capable, and powerful, and handsome. There are a lot of words to describe Eros and never in a million years would ‘emasculated’ be one of them.
But if I told him all that, he would think I like him. And I don’t.
Not in the way it would come across. Which would be romantic love. And may the gods help me if I fall in love with Eros because he would never love me back and it would break me. I’m just starting to put myself back together, I can’t afford another shattering.
“Do you wanna hear what I’m thinking now?” Eros says, pulling me out of my disjointed thoughts.
“Sure.”
“I’m thinking… those doors in the hallway? I think they go somewhere important. And the fact that the first door led us here, to my beginning, but more importantly to a place that has no connection to you, well, that presents as evidence to me that this hallway we’re in is a trip into my past, not yours.”
“So you can find an understanding?” I ask. Eros nods. “That will enlighten you? And possibly free you from your curse?”
“I don’t know. But the doors were in that hallway for a reason. And we know for a fact that they are set up in some predetermined order.”
“The ordered list,” I say. Mostly under my breath.