Chapter Six
I think he’s probably crazy and definitely dangerous, but as long as he’s willing to go along with my plans for vengeance, then I really don’t care.
I will find the god responsible for the death of my husband and I will make that god suffer to the full measure that I have suffered. Even if it seems impossible.
Oke cannot prevent it. In his current state, he can’t overpower me, and I’m not certain he will live the seven-day out in either case.
He settles back on his seat looking almost content. The wind whips up, tossing the sea in choppy frenetic waves, and I snug his tunic around me for what little protection it offers.
“Home then, I think,” Oke says. He scrubs his fingers through his beard as if considering something, lifts that hand, and makes a twisting motion as if he is turning a large bowl.
My vision warps like I’ve gone underwater. I grip the gunwale tightly and try not to panic. Two blinks and my sight is clear again and I’m looking at the waves just as I was looking at them before.
A trick of the imagination, then. Nothing to get worked up about. I have been under a great deal of pressure. And if the sea looks brighter, sharper, wilder, it’s only because my heart is racing from a little burst of surprise, not because anything has changed.
I glance back at Oke, keeping a smooth smile on my face so he doesn’t notice my little…
episode. He’s standing now, one hand still on the tiller.
He’s loosened his hair and it whips behind him in the wind like a sail.
I’d think he was enjoying himself if it weren’t for the steady drip of red on the floor and how he hunches over one side.
With care, I turn instead to the bow. I find my hands shake every time I think again of the wound I saw.
There is something passing strange in how he might bear it but not die of it.
Perhaps he is a hero of the gods—set above we usual mortals—or something more powerful and unnatural still.
But no, I am only shaken up and imagining things.
Turning to face forward is not the relief I thought it would be, for an island rises before us that was not there before.
And it is not the green glass nub I’d expected, though I could almost swear this is where that is located.
No, the isle rises up like a fortress from the sea, white stone walls pocked with birds’ nests and green plants.
Carved into the white rock, and then marching out into the water like a welcome party, are a series of stone statues colossal in size.
Wind and waves have worn them so that their proud, human features have rounded and softened, but I get the terrible sense that they were once flinty and that that very sharpness remains in spirit and watches me.
They vary in fashion of clothing and weapons as if marching through the generations from ages past until now.
“You have an army,” I say mildly.
“These are no friends of mine,” Oke objects absently as we sail past one of the statues. It’s only visible from the nose up—the pounding waves smash just under the vacant stone eyes. It’s missing an ear.
My eyes flick from face to face—some half-hidden by surf, others fully exposed.
They are all watching me. Or they seem to be.
But we are sailing toward a small bay nestled into the island that cradles a jetty.
Perhaps these stone monstrosities were erected to purposely make visitors’ skin crawl.
It seems a strange choice, but I can hardly blame the man bleeding in the boat for it.
These statues are hundreds of years old, judging by their weathering.
And I should know about them. An island like this?
Just off the coast of the Crocus Isles? It should have featured in my lessons as a child.
I should have been taken to tour it and charged with guarding it and been given the heavy responsibility of keeping the statues from falling into greater disrepair.
I glance at Oke and he almost smiles. “You get used to their judging looks. Or at least, you promise them you’ll someday make them proud instead.”
“How long have you lived here?” I ask, keeping my tone light and trying not to shiver.
He waves a hand as if it isn’t important. “For as long as I’ve been the Fisher King.”
My heart is racing.
“And are there truly no other people here?”
He laughs softly. “Just the guardians, the birds, the souls of the dead, and me.”
My skin crawls with his words.
Well, I tell myself, you wanted vengeance on the gods.
You might need to face a certain amount of strangeness to manage that.
But it will be worth it to avenge the man who stole sugar buns for you when you were a child, stole your kisses thereafter, and made your throne so strong and sure that you never had need to doubt until the gods unleashed their cataclysm upon you.
I set my jaw, face forward, and concentrate on the task at hand.
“Mind the sail,” Oke orders me in the crisp tone I’m used to aboard ship. And before I realize I’ve jumped to obey, my hands are already at work, trimming sail and preparing to dock as he steers us into the jetty.
I’m busy for a few moments in the kind of way that makes worry impossible, and by the time my tasks are done and I can look up again, we’re pulling up alongside the dock—a feature as much in need of maintenance as everything surrounding Oke—and the whole bay is laid out around me in a glory of frothy waves, white gleaming sand, dancing tree limbs, and blank staring stone faces.
I’m so overwhelmed by the side-by-side glory and strangeness of this place that we’re almost fully docked before I realize there is someone waiting for us on the very end of the jetty and that my husband is frozen like one of the warrior statues as he stares at our welcomer.
The man is young—twenty summers, perhaps—and lithe of build.
He lounges against one of the uprights of the jetty, standing on tiptoes on the final board of the structure, looking as at home as a cat walking on the top of a narrow wall.
At his hip dangles a spatha sporting a guard studded with sapphires, and at his throat hangs a huge uncut moonstone on a golden chain.
He winks at me as we grow close enough to see details, and his pointed chin and bouncing black curls combine to give him the look of mischief come to life… and to visit.
“Who is this?” I ask in an undertone, trying to tug down the rough tunic I’m wearing to cover my knees. It’s not working.
In contrast, the stranger is dressed in a short exomis of carmine silk, draped to reveal one creamy muscled shoulder.
He’s knotted it almost indolently around his hips in a way that highlights what it’s meant to conceal.
He’s well muscled despite his lithe figure, and clearly wealthy despite his slothful pose.
That exomis is stitched with thread of gold and his wide belt is of fine-grained leather, sewn with seed pearls.
Even at my finest, I would have struggled to find riches to match the ones this young man festoons about his person with seeming carelessness.
“A cousin of mine,” Oke says shortly. He seems displeased.
We draw up to the jetty and he begins to tie up without acknowledging the raised eyebrows of this “cousin” of his.
“No greeting? How terribly rude,” the cousin says. “You won’t ask me in?”
Oke gives him a speaking look. Blood or not, they are not friends.
“You may not set foot on my ground.”
Where Oke’s laughter is the murmur of the waves, this stranger laughs light as air. He looks very pointedly at his sandaled toes on the edge of the dock. They almost seem to hover over the wood, though of course that is impossible.
“Is that so? And yet I’ve found an inch that will allow me. And perhaps the lady will invite me in. Who are you, fair lady?”
I size him up. A layabout, I decide. Those lily-white hands bear no scars or calluses and that kind of attitude is not that of a leader of men. Royal, no doubt, in those clothes. But not a royal I know. And I know everyone along the coast of the mainland within a hundred leagues of here.
Perhaps Oke exaggerated when he called him cousin. But I have no explanation for how he is here with no boat, no attendants, and no guards.
“I am the fisherman’s wife.”
I’ve learned over the years that men who think they are important rarely agree to associate with those they consider under them. I already don’t want to associate with this man. I’m happy to be as low as he’d like.
“Felicitations!” His eyes grow wider. “What wonderful news! I came to find out if my old friend had perished and instead I discover he has wed!”
“Perished?” Oke stills, watching the other man like he is a threat, and I realize this cousin must know about Oke’s wound.
“A little bird told me some ill had befallen you,” the cousin says lightly, brushing a gaze over Oke, who straightens as if to hide that he is wounded, though there is blood leaking through his trousers. “It seems it greatly exaggerated.”
Oke grunts.
“Invite me in, lovely fisherman’s wife, and we will drink to your good health.”
I watch him blank-faced. Am I a child of five summers to fall for such a simple ruse?
“What was she, cousin?” the cousin presses, his smile turning cunning. Clearly, he is not one to pick up on the desires of others. We both want him gone. “A priestess? A princess, perhaps.”
He is clearly trying to flatter me.
“A queen.” Oke’s voice is firm. The smile is gone. His tone remains light, but it feels barbed.
“Alive and married to a queen. What a funny turn of events.”
I frown. He doesn’t seem surprised, despite his words.
The cousin shifts slightly as if to highlight the sword at his hip, and something I can’t quite translate flashes in his expression. “And you are well?”
He points to where Oke has dripped blood across the jetty.
“Quite well.” My husband’s voice is a sheathed sword sliding free.
I wonder what it costs him to stand up so straight. He offers a hand to help me disembark, and I take it. I don’t need it, but also I don’t dare shame him in front of this man. I do not understand what flows beneath the surface of their conversation.
“Then you’ll come to Midsummer Eve, of course?” There’s something in our visitor’s voice. A hint of a challenge mixed with mockery. “To the Resurgence.”
“What is the Resurgence?” I ask.
It occurs to me that there’s another way to be a rich layabout that doesn’t involve ruling a kingdom.
One could have the favor of one of the ten gods.
If this cousin were the champion of a god, he might know where they are.
Or at least where one of them is. And he might be able to appear places without a conveyance.
He might even be able to inflict godwounds.
But which god has given his favor to this peacock?
Not Heskatan or Markanos, known for battle.
Not with that unblemished skin. Perhaps Ordanus, God of Art. They say he craves pretty things.
And what would that make his cousin?
Beside me, Oke stiffens just as my feet hit the pier.
Our visitor smiles. “Have you an unfulfilled dream, Queen Fisherwoman? Some vile little hope of the heart? Or perhaps you are too pure for that. Perhaps you love light and beauty and there’s some injustice you’d like put right.
” He has blue eyes. They light up from within when he sees he’s struck a chord.
“If you come to the Resurgence, you can have anything you desire, Ragged Lady. You could ransom a god.” He smirks.
“Think on it. And if you decide to come, make the payment, and join us.”
“The payment?”
He splays out his fingers for me. They’re bedecked with gem-encrusted rings. Except for one that’s missing.
“Cut off your finger, throw it into the sea, and say, ‘I wager my soul for the will of my heart’ and I’ll bring you to where I am. Easy enough.”
“I think you’ve said enough now, cousin,” my husband says. “And even if you have not, you have utterly bored me. Fly off somewhere else.”
And without another word, he sweeps an arm around me, turns, and sets an unrelenting pace up the jetty toward the heart of the island.
I look back once and see our visitor standing there.
He raises his hand like he’s holding a bowl, and as my eyes are still widening, he twists his hand and disappears.
An icy chill slices down into my belly. I have seen magic.
And I have seen it done twice—I’m certain of that now.