Waiting for him to reappear.
Poseidon turns, laughing, and evaporates in a funnel of water. Disappearing back into the ocean.
Down below, the whirlpool evaporates just as quickly as it formed.
It’s as if it was never there at all.
Even the storm has suddenly gone quiet, with a patch of clear sky opening up to stars overhead.
There’s nothing but midnight-black sea as far as the eye can see, calm peaks all the way until the lights on the distant shore.
Never have calm seas looked so horrifying.
Your heart wrenches.
A deep, aching loss tugs from within.
Maybe that’s your lifeline, the link connecting you with Ziros. How far can he go before it pulls him back?
God, you hope it will pull him back soon. And safely.
Then you can get far, far away and never set foot over the ocean again.
You hold your breath without realizing you’re doing it, unable to relax.
If only he’d told you he had an enemy in the ocean!
You cling to the handles of the sliding door, staring outside, afraid to move.
Waiting.
Waiting for Ziros to surface.
But you can’t hold your breath any longer. Can he?
A minute passes, then another.
You slip outside, moving to the rail. Gazing out over the sea as the deep ache within grows.
He can’t be gone.
He can’t!
You reach for the glowing tether that connects you, normally so faint you can barely see it even when you look, but now it’s glowing so brightly, it nearly stings your eyes where it gleams against the dark of the ocean surface where it disappears. And you feel even dizzier than when you’d held your breath.
That’s when you realize—this time, it’s not Ziros giving you his energy.
No.
You’re giving him yours.
But there’s a limit to how long you can last, especially after all that blood youdonated. All you can hope is that it will somehow help. That your blood will help him somehow.
That whatever is going on down there, it’s enough to save him. To help him hold out a little longer.
“Please,” you whisper into the sea. “Please, Ziros. Please be okay.”
35
