Chapter Eighteen
This plane of the gods makes no logical sense, though I’m too shaken to dwell on its strangeness.
We backtrack—me with shaking limbs and a set expression, and Okeanos with a grim jaw and easy grace—to the island with the tall statues.
In silence, we follow another small archipelago of pale spinelike rocks.
I scrape my palms twice as I scramble to keep up with Okeanos.
He hardly seems to notice how difficult it is to traverse this non-path.
Eventually we emerge at the end of the spine to where a group of small islands hang in the air wreathed in mist, connected only by ridges of crenellated rocks that can be climbed like stairs if you are a god or a mountain goat.
I stare at the nearest hanging island as we circumnavigate it.
Watching a chunk of rock hang over the water supported only by a slender branch of stone the width of my wrist makes my stomach flip.
The mist is too thick to see what lies upon each island and it even muffles sound so that when Pagetto and Glorian disappear up an arch of rock ahead of us, they are lost to us entirely.
I’m sweaty almost immediately, my muscles trembling as I leap from rock to rock, trying not to tumble into the dark waters.
To my shame, Okeanos catches me when I slip on a spur of rock, one hand supporting my lower back while the other catches my elbow.
Every muscle tenses at his touch. He is a god.
He still glows with power. I just watched the gods cut down mortals like overgrown grass.
And he is touching me. My stomach swims with the knowledge of that.
Elaborate lanterns hang from the bottom of each island, lit with an otherworldly flame. They cast stark shadows on Okeanos’s face so I cannot divine his thoughts as he leads us to the highest hanging island and helps me to scramble up the last nearly vertical climb.
I crawl over the edge of the rock and sit a moment, gasping as I collect myself.
The island is double the size of Oke’s cottage and boasts a large bed, the headboard of which is made of silver-inlaid coral; two inlaid chests, again with a spreading coral motif; a little table laid out with crystal bottles of drink; and a cunningly crafted wardrobe carved like dancing waves.
The wardrobe is set with mother-of-pearl, and between the swirling panels, little carved fish poke out in unexpected places.
On either side of the wardrobe someone has set carved statues of a pair of swordfish leaping.
I am disheveled, tattered, abraded, and streaked in other people’s blood. I do not look very queenlike and certainly do not look like the wife of a god—even a god like Okeanos who is as responsible for the deaths of thousands as if he had murdered them himself.
I wipe my face with a hand and swallow down a spike of fear before reaching a trembling hand into my belt pouch.
I hope I have not lost Vesuvius’s pearl.
I may need him yet. I draw the pearl out as Okeanos is hauling himself over the lip of the island, his shoulders tense with the effort.
He leaves a trail of blood—this time not only from his wound but from the carnage he helped to create.
His fishing spear remains in one hand. It’s stained with killing.
I must have been crying without realizing it, for the moment I draw Vesuvius’s pearl out of the pouch, he slips from it in a searing stream of mist. He takes one look at Okeanos and the expression on his face is crowing delight mixed with animosity.
One finger presses over his lips as he looks at me, and swallowing, I tuck the pearl deeper into my fist.
He’s no ally of mine, but if I have to run, if I have a chance to kill, he might be the tool I need in that moment.
“We must tarry here until morning,” Okeanos says distractedly. “The blessing of the King of Heaven is not complete unless a night is spent under his roof. Markanos told me once of a god who left before it was completed. Bareus, God of Fire.”
“There is no God of Fire,” I say between chattering teeth. What is wrong with me?
“Certainly not anymore. Not all gods are replaced when they pass. Sometimes, they just cease to exist at all,” Okeanos murmurs. “Can you calm yourself, Coralys?”
In Okeanos’s terribly glowing face, I can almost make out those familiar green eyes. I can almost remember the kind fisherman I married, but trying to put the two of them together in my mind makes me shudder even more.
I just watched thirty people smashed to unrecognizable pieces.
I just watched a god idly pick up the head of a man as a child might pick up the piece of a vase he broke—a little regretfully, but with no intention of preventing it from happening a second time.
Still shaking uncontrollably from witnessing such a horror, I have followed Okeanos onto this impossible island and felt his hands touch me as if he were a mortal man and not a god.
But I must not let myself forget the truth—that evil can have a lovely face, that horror can be an artist.
“What is this place?” I whisper.
“It looks different to each one,” he says. Behind him, Vesuvius has drifted over to the table and peers at the food laid out upon it. “But I think you see it as I do—as an island of refuge.”
He reaches for me as if to wipe a tear from my cheek, but I flinch back and he winces. I am in no mood to be touched. And if I am to do what comes next, I must not forget what he is.
Hesitantly, he returns to pacing.
“Surely now you see why my goal is to build a refuge for our people,” he says. “Our enemies stalk and harry us. They threaten war—a war that I think one of them has already begun. They seek to force me into a trap of their making.”
“Our enemies?”
Vesuvius snorts and I am grateful he can only be perceived by me. He’s propped against one of the swordfish, his tentacles swelling out and rippling back with each motion of the sea.
“Our enemies,” Okeanos repeats, stilling for a moment and looking at me.
His green eyes are lit by his halo and his nose and jaw are both sharper in the bright light.
“Let us speak plainly, for you know my heart and all my secrets. I told you, Coralys, that I had a people I would save. I bid you help me. They are the folk of the sea, and their enemies are my enemies… and yours.” He bites his lip, looking pained.
“You have seen my failure to hold back their attackers.”
I have seen it, yes. I am bleeding out with the pain of it and scalded by the fear it will continue while he seems to take it in stride.
It is no surprise that he does not mourn.
What are mortals to the gods except playthings to be discarded when they are not presently wanted?
But I cannot allow my people to be playing pieces to him as I have been.
No matter how clever his ideas or noble his goals, he’s lost sight of them as individual people.
They are not a school of fish to be judged as a whole, a few individuals lost for the good of the rest. They are each one precious. Like Lieve was to me.
He goes on, “I have made every effort, but as you have seen tonight, we are constrained by the laws of heaven. We may guide, we may tend, and in some things we gods may even interfere, but when it comes to war, to seizing lands, to wholesale slaughter—these are the tools of mortals, and to use them, or even counter them, requires the work of mortal hands. I confess the loss of you as queen of the Crocus Isles has cost me an ally in this, but perhaps you see that as my wife you can work with me. That is why you came here tonight, is it not, though you were late to the decision?”
My breath freezes in my lungs. He does not suspect. He thinks I came here to work with him as he asked me to before he left. I am very, very still.
“Together we can build this refuge. Together we can find the source of our people’s misery and excise it.” He’s back to looking into the distance, thinking. “Which god is calling us out? Who is it that endangers our plan?”
“Okeanos lies,” Vesuvius says, examining one tentacle as one might examine their fingernails.
I look at him and he lifts a brow at me as if he is patiently waiting for a child to catch up with his explanation.
“This is his chance to firmly pin you in place and secure your oath to help him. Don’t do it.
You have seen with your own eyes what he has done to the ones you love.
Do you really think it is these nebulous enemies who have swept away the lives of your people?
Was it Aurelius’s banner that flew over the raiders on your island?
Was it Treseano who claimed you as his reluctant bride? ”
He is right. I will not be so dazzled by beauty and majesty that I forget what I know to be true. But I do not trust Vesuvius.
I draw myself up and speak. “If all that you say is true, then tell me how you care about a people you watched wrecked by a storm while you did nothing to save or succor them.”
“You refer to when your husband was killed.” His tone is sharp, decisive.
I flinch but he goes on.
“I was delayed. You have seen my godwound.” His voice is burred. “I couldn’t come sooner, though I tried.”
But I am not having this. “You intentionally delayed until I struck a bargain with you. You forced a marriage to further your own ends and in the process many were lost. It was manipulation, plain and simple.”
He lifts his hands. “You blame me falsely. I made no bargain with you until we spoke our wedding vows. You were tricked by another.” He stops, considering. “Possibly someone with a hold on your kingdom so that he could maneuver a mortal into power in order to steal it from me.”
“That’s not possible,” I say, shaking with anger. Now he’s just inventing conspiracies. Who else will he pretend has power over the sea except the God of the Sea?