Chapter Thirty
I am not overly fond of Okeanos’s friend and his overbearing demeanor, but I will say this for him as an ally—he does not treat me as disposable. Before I’m even blinking back to awareness on this new plane, he’s already sprung in front of me, sword drawn in a defensive posture.
“First we’ll try where Treseano stays when he is here,” Markanos says, already moving.
We’ve arrived under his statue in the common area of the stark white island. There is no table and no dead goddess displayed this time, and yet I’m just as tense.
Water still trickles from the mouths of the towering statues.
This time, I look and confirm that Ordanus’s mouth is as dry as El’Dorian’s.
Who will they be replaced by and how soon?
I can’t help but look over at the statue of Okeanos.
I had stood under its shadow last time and I had not had the chance to properly appreciate it, but here it is in all its glory, and I’m struck again by his beauty and power and otherworldliness and the horror that I tried to shatter all that.
There is no image of me beside him and his fountain still dribbles out a finger-thick runnel. I do not know what to make of that.
“So the gods have assigned places here, then?” I ask, trying to steady myself by focusing on the task at hand.
“Of course. We must sleep one night here every epoch. We’ve each staked out a place of our own.
Did you not sleep here in Okeanos’s bed?
” He makes a solid point. “And people—even gods—like familiarity. Especially here, where we’re disconnected from the world beyond.
Fortunately, there are few places to hide here. ”
He gives me a weighted look at that and I return it.
I follow him out across the stone bridge that curves like a rib.
Last time I was here, the sun was setting, painting this white bridge in soft color, but now it is fully dark and only the illumination of the faraway lanterns lights our path.
I grit my teeth and place my feet with care.
Though there is water nearby, I can’t seem to properly feel the sea.
It’s as if it is a very long way away even though it ought to be right here.
I can feel the echo of it, but it is like a memory of a friend long passed to the Nightwaters.
Okeanos used the power of the sea to fight when he was here, but I am not certain that it will be available to me. It seems too far away.
I take in a long breath to steady myself.
There is no room for anything less than courage.
I have already lost everything. I have already gambled my life and soul.
What is one more venture to forward my goal?
I reach for the tide, feel it reach back, and I allow myself a very slight smile.
Well and good. I hold my trident in both hands as Markanos keeps talking, not even noticing my battle and triumph over the tide.
“That’s why he’ll be on his island here. People seek the comfort of familiarity. They can’t help it. It’s instinctual. A smart man might think he’d choose to hide on my island or yours, but he’ll hide on his own. It’s his. Familiar. Right.”
“I don’t understand why he’s here at all,” I grumble. “Isn’t he leading a rebellion? If he was not at home, then it makes more sense that he would be with an ally.”
“The gods are not so friendly as that, Wife of Okeanos.” Markanos laughs.
“Offering succor to another god would be like taking a serpent to the breast. It will not end well. And even if that were not the case, he would still be here. Why go to all the trouble of luring us out just to hide when we fall into his hands?”
He helps me over a part of the rib that is tricky to navigate both because of its slick surface and strange curvature. I offer him a wry smile of gratitude.
“I don’t see how you think he lured us here. We are hunting him,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “Of course he’s luring us.
That’s what the attack was—in part, at least. I don’t think he would have cried if it succeeded, but he had to have guessed it might fail.
My prowess in battle is well known, as is my thirst for action.
He is certainly luring me out to ground he is more familiar with so that he might strike when he is most likely to win. ”
“And is he most likely to win here?” I can’t keep the dryness from my tone.
“No one is likely to win if they oppose me.” He seems very sanguine for someone who believes he is walking into a trap.
“I would think he would have lured you to his home, then,” I say.
Markanos grunts. I shoot him a sideways glance. He has no answer for that, and for some reason it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Something is not quite right here.
“And what do you expect me to do when we find him?” I ask, feigning diffidence. I haven’t told him that I don’t know how to fight. I would have assumed he could already tell by looking at me and seeing my performance so far.
“What I expect from you,” Markanos says, still leading the way, “is for you to provoke just one of those creatures. You don’t have to kill it. Keep it distracted long enough for me to sort out the other one and engage Treseano in battle.”
“And how will I keep its eye on me?” I ask tightly.
“Don’t die too quickly.”
That seems to be all he has to share and I’m almost grateful. It’s hard enough to hold on to my nerve without too many instructions distracting me.
We have crossed the rib and are on the other side where the islands hang cloaked in mist and lit by their elaborate hanging lanterns.
I watch the cloaked heaviness with wary eyes, feeling that at any moment one of those terrible black creatures might shoot out of the mist and wrap me in its sinuous body.
I can still feel the bruises where it squeezed me yesterday and I taste acid in my mouth at the memory of it.
“Tuck in behind me,” Markanos growls to me. “My job is to look ahead for a sign of the enemy. Your job is to scan the islands as we pass and to keep an eye behind us. We’ll aim straight for Treseano’s island, but it is grouped among those farthest from here.”
“My job sounds a lot harder to manage,” I say, trying to look everywhere at once.
“Do you think so? If you’d been with me when we took Grentale Castle, you wouldn’t be saying that.
The first vanguard caught an arrow in the eye.
The second was done in by boiling oil through a murder hole.
Didn’t hit him head-on, just splashed. Terrible way to die.
I can hear his screams still if I try to recall it and it was nigh on a thousand years before now.
Third man took a blade to the gullet. That was Brennicus, my best friend, a wrestler. ”
“A wrestler?”
“Mmm.” He sounds lost in thought. “It was he who found me a place in the army. I carry his dagger yet.” He pats his hip. “I was fourth in the vanguard. I stepped over him as he bled out and took the day. That was before I was a god, of course, but I did love war even then.”
“You loved it?” I whisper, aghast. My eyes are trying to discern if that is something moving or if it is simply a shadow.
“I was good at it. We tend to love doing things we’re good at.
” He shrugs uncomfortably. “I won’t say I didn’t mourn my friends who died.
Mourned them for centuries—and that’s longer than most mortals are remembered, but I wouldn’t be God of War if I didn’t love the work.
It’s the strategy of it, the quick responses, the gut instincts that surge up, the way you’re gambling with the biggest stakes possible—lives and nations.
It’s addictive. And more than that. Hate injustice?
War is the quick end to that. Want a tyrant overthrown? War.”
“You’re oversimplifying.”
“I am speaking what I know. I am the God of War because I respect it and know its worth. Do not you love the sea?”
“Of course. But all of us from the Crocus Isles love the sea. It’s our lifeblood.”
“Mm-hmm. And even if you slew Okeanos, if you didn’t love the sea with all your heart, you could never be god of it.”
“Then why did you suggest I could take over from Ordanus? Did you think I could love music and art that way?”
He shrugs. “You’d learn the love of it fast, or you’d die along the way. Same with war for me. I don’t fuss much about it. We love what we love, and we make it our god.”
“No, we make ourselves gods,” I say absently. I could have sworn that shadow moved a moment ago along that hanging island closest to us. It takes all my courage to keep moving forward as the shadows pulse around us.
“Yes. We do,” Markanos argues, oblivious to my concern. “Because we love ourselves. It was my idea to become a god. I went out and looked for Lichenchus, who was God of War before me, and it took me forty grim years to find him and slay him.”
He’s silent then for a while as we make our way forward.
Twice he creeps up a set of stairs to check an island platform—both are empty of living things, though they are elaborately furnished and bear enough of the taste of their owners that one can guess whose they are.
I am certain that the first is Glorian’s.
It’s decked with pillows and woven cloths depicting large flowers and birds and there is a raised garden filled with pale decorative grasses and night-blooming flowers.
The second is dark and stark as the mood of Heskatan.
It boasts four separate wardrobes laid out much like walls, a raised box bed one must climb a ladder to enter, and a beautifully stitched saddle displayed on its own stand.
Markanos grunts at each empty island, but I do not think he expected them to be occupied. We both know we will find Treseano in his own place.
Even so, I feel eyes on my back. But though the feeling grows with each step, every time I twist to look, nothing is there.