Chapter 6

Eurydice thought she might pass out. All of the blood rushed out of her head and left her feeling quite faint as she tried to comprehend Orpheus standing in front of her.

Everything about him was exactly the same as she remembered him, but the details were fuzzy. It was as though she was seeing him through a dream. It was like looking at a memory come to life, some sort of carbon copy of an original that was blurred around the edges. He was standing before her in the exact same outfit she remembered him wearing on the day of their wedding. His golden hair was sticking up in all directions—as though he’d been running his hands nervously through it all day—and his tunic was rich and finely embroidered. Even his fingers were adorned with rings, shining with jewels, although that was something she didn’t remember from the last time she’d seen him.

It must be more evidence of how rich a life he led in the mortal world, Eurydice thought to herself, completely hung up on a minuscule detail in the face of such an overwhelming sensation to have Orpheus standing in front of her.

Eurydice’s heart was racing, and she suddenly sucked in a breath, the realization dawning on her that she hadn’t been breathing.

“Eurydice?” Orpheus’s soft voice cut through the roar of her own blood pounding in her ears. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Eurydice choked out, her hands slick with sweat as she started rubbing them together. She was still trying to commit every minuscule inch of Orpheus to memory, studying him as though it was the last time she would ever see him instead of a reunion. She swayed on her feet as her heart slowly returned to a normal rhythm in her chest.

“Eurydice!” Orpheus sucked in a sharp, nervous breath, his hands going out to steady Eurydice.

His grip on her shoulders pulled Eurydice out of her overwhelming panic, the subtle heat of his hands awakening a thousand different recollections of nights past. The evenings and afternoons they’d spent exploring one another, desperate to soak up every minute they’d had together as if it was their last before they’d known how true that was.

Eurydice blinked several times, finally clearing some of the fog from her head, and her face broke out into a wide smile.

There he was, as sun-kissed as ever and smiling at her… Orpheus.

“Orpheus!” Eurydice half-shouted, grinning like a child with sweets as she threw her arms around his neck and launched herself at him. Orpheus didn’t pause for even a moment, joining her in raucous laughter as he started swinging her around. For a few moments, the air was thick with the sounds of laughter and uncapped joy, the melody of a reunion for the ages drifting through the skies of the Underworld.

From somewhere off in the distance, cheers started to erupt from the crowds that Hades had dispersed—who clearly stayed as close as they could to the action. A chorus of well-wishes started echoing out from the skies around them, cheering the lovers on.

“Eurydice!” Orpheus repeated her name again, spinning her in continuous circles, until after a few minutes, her feet finally touched the ground again.

Orpheus pulled back from her, cupping her face with his hands, his entire countenance as bright as the sun as he stared down at her face. They were both breathing heavily, trying to catch their racing, runaway pulses. Eurydice couldn’t find a single reason why she had been so worried before.

This is Orpheus… My Orpheus,she reminded herself. How I have missed my love!

“I’m… I’m so happy to see you,” Orpheus started, still shaking his head as if in mild disbelief. “I have to admit, I was nervous. I didn’t even know if you’d be willing to see me.”

Eurydice froze, the sudden joy and exhilaration she had been feeling moments before beginning to ebb away. That unfamiliar, cold, distant sensation started creeping up through her fingers and toes again.

What does that mean?Her thoughts started to run away from her as she desperately tried to make sense of the confusing barrage of feelings and sensations, unable to comprehend what her own heart was telling her.

Orpheus seemed to sense the confusion on her face, and his brow furrowed. He started to look Eurydice up and down as if he couldn’t tell who she was. Eurydice began to panic.

“What do you mean?” Eurydice choked out, a cold sheen of sweat breaking out on her forehead. “I… I was excited to see you. I am excited to see you. You… You’re my husband.” Eurydice started to repeat the same words to herself over and over, the exact same incantation that she had been trying to convince herself of on her way to reunite with Orpheus.

Orpheus quickly buried his surprised expression and started nodding, rapidly confirming what Eurydice was saying. “Yes, of course, my love.” His cocksure grin was back. “I’m excited to see you too. It’s all that I’ve dreamed of for forty years.”

“What did you mean by that then? What did you mean when you said you weren’t sure if I would want to see you? Why do people keep asking me that?” Eurydice was unable to keep her voice from sounding shrill. There it was again—the sensation that there was something innately wrong about this reunion, like she was trying on a pair of shoes that were the wrong size. Orpheus only forced his smile even wider and began speaking confidently, burying away his own surprise from a few moments before.

“Don’t get worked up,” Orpheus chided her softly, running his hands up and down her arms. “It’s just been such a long time, Eurydice, that’s all. People fall out of love all the time, especially mortals, you know. I didn’t know if you’d wait for me after all this time. Time is the most fickle of masters. I’m positive that is what everyone else meant if they asked you about it too. We all weren’t sure if you would still be excited to see me after forty years in the Underworld. I’ve been told being dead does funny things to people.”

Some of the panic in Eurydice’s chest receded, and she nodded her head slowly. Orpheus pulled her against his chest in a hug and held her there, his arms wrapped tightly around her body.

Eurydice took several deep breaths, allowing herself to be comforted by the scent of Orpheus and his strong presence. She let her thoughts drift to the warm afternoons they’d spent together in sunny meadows, coaxing her heart rate back down as Orpheus gently rocked her back and forth.

She let herself get lost in the sensation, opting for his placating words instead of the chaos that was bubbling right under the surface of her skin. It was an uncomfortable feeling, this notion that there were things unsaid between them, but she had no idea where to start.

Eurydice didn’t know how much time had passed before Orpheus kissed her forehead, murmuring gentle words against her skin.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yes,” Eurydice sighed softly, allowing herself to surrender to the blissful feeling of being lead. There was one thing that she didn’t always mind whenever she was with Orpheus—he’d always make decisions for her, and sometimes, like this exact moment, she didn’t have any desire to pushback.

“Excellent. You probably were feeling overwhelmed. I’ll be the first one to admit that it’s…heavy seeing you again. I’ve missed you, Eurydice, but my goodness, is it something to see you again after all of these years.”

Orpheus smiled down at her, and for a second, Eurydice thought he was going to kiss her, but he seemed to change his mind at the last moment. There was something in his eyes that Eurydice couldn’t exactly pin down; it flickered for a brief second and was gone.

“Charon told me there’s a small homestead for me somewhere in this valley,” Orpheus grinned, “or off in Elysium, I think he said. I’ll be honest, I was a little preoccupied so I may have missed most of his orientation speech.”

Eurydice giggled at the idea of Charon monotoning his way through another ‘here’s what you need to know now that you’re dead’ monologue.

“I would assume Elysium, yes,” Eurydice smiled, “but we can always ask Makaria. Some souls don’t want a home in the Underworld. They prefer to remain more incorporeal, but others are much happier with a physical home, reminiscent of their time in the mortal world. I would assume you’re one of the latter?”

“Of course. A man needs his land,” Orpheus smiled, reaching down to grab Eurydice’s hand and giving it a soft squeeze. “Let’s go get your things, wherever they are, and then we can sort out where they’ve put me.”

Eurydice paused for a second, a cold chill running through her.

“…grab my things?”

“Well, of course,” Orpheus’s smile widened. “You’ll be coming to stay with me, wherever that is, won’t you? It wouldn’t do to have a wife sleeping apart from her husband.” Orpheus tugged on Eurydice’s hand and brought her closer to his body, his voice dropping lower. “Besides, we got so little time together in the mortal world once we were wed. I’ve technically never claimed my husband’s rights.”

He waggled his eyebrows in a way that was clearly supposed to be half-seductive and half-joking, but it only made Eurydice’s stomach sink lower.

“Yes, of course.” She forced a small grin on her face. “Of course I’ll be staying with you.” Eurydice forced herself not to think about surrendering her place in the forests of Asphodel, of saying goodbye to her refuge of trees and nymphs, and forgoing it all to live with Orpheus. The four stone walls of a mortal’s home had always felt like a trap to Eurydice, and it was something she had told him many times leading up to their wedding when they were alive.

He probably just forgot, Eurydice began bargaining with herself, keeping a placating grin on her face. You can always discuss it later. There’s no need to start fighting right now, not so soon after we’ve been reunited. It’s going to take time to get used to one another again. Yes, that’s it. It’s going to take some time.

Orpheus seemed completely unaware of the inner turmoil Eurydice was sorting through.

“Excellent.” Orpheus winked. “Lead the way.”

Eurydice nodded, and they began walking through the valley of Asphodel, Eurydice lost in her thoughts as she tried to reconcile everything she was feeling with the solid, nearly ominous presence of Orpheus in the flesh beside her.

He immediately launched into a series of stories regarding his last few days in the mortal world, leading up to his death, and Eurydice pretended to listen to his depictions of grandeur, wondering all the while if he would ever stop to ask her a single question about how she’d spent her decades without him.

Reunions are meant to be this overwhelming…right?