Oke meets my eye, and I almost step back from the intensity of his gaze before I remember I’m helping him along the boardwalk.
“I do not yet know which god has wounded me. It may very well be my cousin who is to blame in the end. Trust I will discover the culprit and put an end to this.”
Perhaps our ends align more than I guessed. Did he balk at a task from his patron? Or did he enrage his god’s enemiesand draw attention to himself? It’s hard to look at him without laughing at either suggestion. He looks like nothing more than the fisherman he claims to be. But the truth is clear as a coin in a fish’s mouth. He is a god-touched hero. And he’s drawn me into his world of power and wrath by bringing me here. I must learn the lay of things as quickly as I can.
I press on. “And these exchanges you speak of? They are permanent? Once a thing is sacrificed for and purchased, then it’s kept forever?”
He scoffs and I find the bitter sound of it bracing but also a small comfort. I am deep in the currents of bitter sorrow and disillusionment myself, and both are welcome on the lips of another.
“Did you get to keep crown and kingdom forever?”
“No,” I say wistfully. “I didn’t get to keep my dear husband, either, if we’re listing gifts snatched back by the gods. And I would have rather had him than ten crowns.”
Oke grunts at that and I am not sure if it is meant to be agreement or compassion.
“He was the love of your life, then?”
It’s a question he means to sound casual, but I answer it in the spirit it is given—with sincerity—though I choke a little on my words, wrenching as they are.
“He was my very best friend and a kind and loyal man. And I will miss him every day I’m granted.”
I’m blinking back hot tears at even such a short admission and I’m grateful when he does not press me for more. What does he want? Should I bare my heart to him and show himit holds a wound as damaging as his own? Maybe my hurt is also never-healing.
We turn a corner, and his home comes into sight. I hold back the sigh that wants to escape me. I don’t know why I expected his home to be anything better than the boat or the tunic, but some silently optimistic fool in the back of my mind was clinging to the wild hope of a real house. What does it matter, really? I can mourn here, I suppose, as easily as anywhere else.
What greets my eye is a tiny fishing shack made of driftwood boards and flying a ragged flag above it made of sailcloth. The flag is stitched with a symbol of Okeanos—tentacles wrapped around a fishing spear—a good omen, I suppose, though whether that god would feel honored by a ragged banner I could not tell you. It is a clear sign that I have guessed correctly. He is the scion of the God of the Sea.
“All things come unraveled eventually,” Oke says, and I don’t know if he means these powerful acts made by sacrifice, or my life, or his home, or his relationship to his sponsor god. “Whether by time, or by neglect, or by purposeful breaking.”
I force the door open with some effort. The hinge needs repairing, of course. I’m grateful that at least his home does not smell of mold or decay. It’s open to one side with only sailcloth curtains to offer any shelter. They are currently tied back. A huge loft bed hangs from chains in one corner—large enough to sleep an entire family and heaped with ragged pillows. Closest to the door is a small makeshift kitchen: a hearth set with wood, a jumble of hanging pots and pans, and a bit of a hutch with a breadboard. On that side butcloser to the window is a rough-hewn table, ship’s chests for benches, and a wall of shelves.
To my horror, someone has filled every inch of the shelves with priceless books. The weather will ruin them. All this wealth of knowledge in sea air and exposed to the elements. It’s a crime.
I am blinking back tears and I cannot say why. I do not think it is for the books.
“Welcome home,” Oke says wryly. He walks to the open side of the wall, leans against the post there, and looks out over the sea. He sounds almost emotional himself when he says, “I declare that what is mine belongs to you. It is yours.”
What a formal way to make the offer. I look around the room, my eyes settling once more on the books.
“Thank you.”
“You should read as many of those as you can.” He’s still looking out over the sea where the sun is sinking low over the water. Is it truly so late in the day? “And if you’ll heed the will of your new husband, you’ll give me the boon of not sawing off your own fingers and throwing them into the sea.”
He turns to me and takes my hands in one of his, using the other to gently touch the tip of each finger.
I shiver at his touch and hope he does not notice. It is a small betrayal of the man I mourn to find the touch of another enticing, but what I long for is not passion, it is arms to hold me while I cry, someone to make the world safe again, someone to make it possible for me to be the Coralys I was just days ago.
His gaze flicks up from my fingers to me and my breathcatches at what I see in his eyes. There’s a flicker of something there. Interest. Desire. It is hard to be certain of the depth of the intent, but it is unmistakable.
“I have counted.” Though his actions are needlessly intimate, his expression is grave.
His green eyes have shifted from what flickered before to something very alike to understanding and they make the backs of my legs feel weak for a moment. Is it a wonderful thing to be seen or a terrible one? I cannot tell you in this moment. I know only that he does see me somehow in a way I did not yet expect.
“There are ten fingers here. I would like it to remain so.”
“I think I can manage that much,” I say a little more tightly than I would like. My voice is not fully my own.
I steal a surreptitious look at his bleeding wound. With night approaching another bride might anticipate—or fear—the attentions of her new husband. Given how painful his wound seems, I have nothing to fear on that score. Though I am starting to suspect fear would not factor into things.
