Chapter Twenty-Two #2
He shakes his head sadly. “With the loss of Queen Coralys, no one wanted to serve in this temple. It is said to be a bad omen, a place where our queen was led astray and duped, for why else would her bargain have failed? When the raiders attacked Calypsala and slaughtered our king, that was further proof. The temple was abandoned and the people have fled to the capital for succor. Perhaps it is for the best. There are rumors that there may be war soon on the mainland.”
“War?” I say warily, but I know he is right. Was that not Glorian’s complaint? That her rivals were raising up secret armies?
“While I, a priest of Okeanos, should embrace a return to religious dedication, I fear that it is only an excuse. They say nations are aligning according to their patron gods. They say—” He glances at the girl as if he doesn’t want to say more with her there.
In a calmer, quieter tone he says, “I’m sure we’re safe here.
Why don’t you give the lady the dress and go play with the goats? ”
The girl offers me the bundle again.
“Thank you,” I tell her, and she’s gone in a flash.
“Not all who wear pearls can afford to give them up, and the body needs clothing,” the priest says, glancing at the pearl cuirass I wear.
I finger it nervously. Does he know these are not real pearls? He looks away as if he doesn’t dare look at them.
They have offered me a peplos—one in good repair, fit for a minor noble or well-off merchant. I cannot pay him for it and I feel ashamed.
“Thank you,” I say, for thanks is all I have to give.
“If you’ll take my advice, lady, you’ll stay,” he says a little shyly.
“There are many homes on the island that could be fixed. We keep goats and bees and there is enough food for one more. Don’t go to the mainland.
Don’t get caught up in this strange war.
” He drops his voice and he checks over his shoulder to be sure the girl is really gone.
“The gods are best left alone for the most part. You’d be safer here. ”
“In a temple?” I ask in disbelief.
“In Okeanos’s Temple,” the man—a priest, I suppose—says with the kind of reverence I’ve never before heard in a voice. “I met him once.”
I lift an eyebrow in doubt, but he raises a finger.
“I truly did, lady. I prayed to him when the raiders killed my wife not a month back.” There’s a tightness to his mouth as he says it and something cold fills me.
I saw what those raiders did. I know of what he speaks.
And just like him, I lost a partner only a short time ago.
The pain in his eyes is echoed in mine. “He made me a promise. He told me he would make us a place where we could be safe. All of us. If we would just hold on.”
I point to the lighthouses at the base of the dais. “Have those always been there?”
And his eyes widen as he realizes I know exactly what he’s talking about, and he has to clear his throat to answer.
“For as long as I have been here. But I cannot say if they were here before that.” He pauses and it is a pregnant pause indeed. “Have you ever met Okeanos, then, great God of the Sea, mighty and benevolent?”
I snort and turn away. “I should hope so. I am his wife.”
I do not stay long after that. Seeing the hope mingled with disbelief in his eyes is too much for me.
There is a war out there somewhere, god against god.
I know it is real. And I know there will never be a place of safety for this man and his child because I killed the one who was building the Lighthouse meant to be that place of safety.
I flee Talasa and I do not look back.
I feel as though I am sinking, sinking, sinking.
War is brewing. And my people may become caught in it. I must find out more. I must find someone I know.
I no longer need anyone to instruct me on how to turn my hand now that I am the sea.
I can find any place as long as the waves lap the land there.
I go immediately to my other islands. I start with Tempest Reef, skipping from place to place along her shore.
Her cities are silent and dark. Her docks empty.
I move faster and faster, gripped with panic.
Next is Bon Verdas. There will be life here. There must be.
I am right. There are fishing sloops and a tiny wash of light spilling across the bay. This was never a large city nor a wealthy one. But our dye makers and merchants are based there and foundries make bells and other ship equipment. There may be someone I know close by.
I flow out of the sea, dressed now in the gift of the priest. It is good. I am less noticeable wearing a dress than I had been in an overlarge tunic.
My heart is in my throat, my lungs burn and ache with every panicked breath, but I know what has drawn me here.
I felt him in the water. I hurry to a bay just south of the city and step from the water there just as Turbote steps from a small tide pool, supported by his son, Frexole, and Garnet, who was chief steward of the Royal House.
“Turbote,” I say.
“Goddess, have mercy,” my old advisor breathes, startled. He drops to a knee, his old bones clicking in a way that makes me flinch. The men with him hurry to join him.
He does not know me. I touch my cheek on instinct, wondering if I have changed in appearance. My breath stills in my lungs as I realize that somehow I have taken on that same nature of the gods that once bid me to bow. Surely I am a god to these people, and if a god, then responsible for them.
No one cares that I try to stop them, that I gesture for them to rise, nor do they give me even a moment to speak. Their chests heave with sudden anxiety and their faces are etched with the same. Never did they act so when I was queen.
“We abase ourselves. Please. Ask no more of us. We cannot bear it,” Turbote manages to gasp.
“Turbote, it is I,” I say, uncertain.
“She speaks your name,” Garnet whispers in horror.
“It is I, Coralys,” I try again.
“Great Goddess, spare us your wrath,” Turbote murmurs. He looks up into my face and there is not a shred of recognition there. How can he not see me? I have given him my name. He appears almost guilty. “Do not ask more from us.”
My words are as uncertain as my thoughts. “Has what has been asked of you been too hard?”
I am confused by their reaction to me. The priest and the girl only saw a lost lady. These three act as though they have met the guardian of the afterlife carrying a blazing sword. They keep their eyes averted and Garnet is covering his face.
“Never, never, Goddess.” Turbote makes a holy sign across his chest. “Did we not offer up the daughter of Prexot only yesterday to the God of the Sea?”
I rock backward in horror. But that would have been me. And I did not ask for that.
I hold up a hand. My mouth is so dry I must wet my lips to speak.
“You must stop such things immediately. You must make no human sacrifices.”
“We would never hold back what belongs to the gods, Great Lady,” he says, lifting both hands reverently.
I feel ill. I want to shake Turbote. I want to scream that he lies.
And with a pang I remember how he told me that Okeanos demanded the same thing of him.
And I believed him.
My tongue tastes acid, and bile rises, burning in my chest. Perhaps Okeanos was not the liar I thought he was.
“If we stop,” Turbote’s son says in a reverent hush, “then things will only grow worse. Already our babies are stillborn, our nets are empty, our houses catch fire, and there is no rain. Already our lands are lost to raiders. How much worse if we fail to worship Okeanos, God of the Sea?”
“But Okeanos is dead,” I whisper in despair before I realize I have said it. “And even if he were not, he would not ask this of you.”
Turbote looks at me square in the face for the first time since I arrived and I see sheer terror in his eyes. “Was he not here only this morning? Did he not demand our sacrifice?”
“Did he?” I echo.
Markanos did say that my husband was not dead.
But I felt for his pulse and it was not there.
I felt his death gasp as if it were a knife in my own chest. This makes no sense to me.
Besides which, now that I know who Okeanos is, I know he would not ask for virgin sacrifices.
Or any human sacrifice. I may place blame at his feet for many things, but never that.
Someone must be impersonating my husband. And for them to do it so swiftly, it must be a god who knows he is dead.
“Honored Goddess, only tell us what more you want,” Turbote begs, cringing, and I blink away the black stars that dance across my vision.
I feel sick. I think… it’s possible… that I might have been wrong about Okeanos. About this one thing, at least.
Turbote’s still spewing his words up and I wish I’d never come here. “Do not fear we will buck your will. Did we not exile Gheric Rodehands for trying to take what was the gods’? He and the thousand who stood with him? We will deny you nothing.”
Gheric Rodehands. Again. I shoot Turbote a suspicious look. His mistrust of this political rival is long-standing. Even as queen I had to prevent him from laying a punishment on Gheric Rodehands for his talk against a monarchy. I see Turbote has wasted no time in quickly dispatching his rivals.
“How did he take from the gods?” I ask warily.
“He stole back the sacrifices, O Shining One,” Garnet murmurs. “He took from your hand what we held in keeping to offer to the depths.”
They exiled him for saving the girls they were throwing into the sea? This grows worse and worse.
“You will invite him back,” I say sternly. “You will need every possible ally here when the storm comes.”
If there truly is a god war, it will come to these islands as well. No place on earth will be spared.
“We will deny you nothing,” Turbote repeats. “Only please… please, if you will, plead with Okeanos for us that we might have full nets again.”
“I make you no promises,” I say abruptly, for I am choking on what I have heard. This is worse than madness. They exiled people. Because they refused to submit to insanity. They killed others. For nothing. “But you must promise me not to sacrifice any more people to the sea.”
“That,” Turbote says earnestly, “we will never agree to do. We must obey the gods.”
But I am a god and he is not obeying me.
I turn back to the sea, sick and reeling. I must find whoever is impersonating my dead husband and issuing such grim orders in his place, and I must determine if I still have a people left to save or if they have all become as corrupt as my old advisor.