The river moved without urgency past the mossy stones, carrying the cold of somewhere higher up in the mountains — clean, indifferent, the kind of water that had been running this particular course for centuries and would continue long after everyone standing beside it was gone.
Nathan stood at its edge and let Aphrodite work.
She had been at it for a while — her fingers moving through his hair, across his face, her power operating with the precise, intimate attention of a goddess whose domain included physical form in every dimension. Not painful. Not dramatic. Simply a gradual, careful revision, the way a sculptor removes material until the shape underneath is revealed.
She stepped back.
"There," she said, her pink eyes moving across her work with the satisfaction of someone who had genuinely enjoyed the process. "You look very good."
Nathan turned toward the river.
