His eyes harden like ice in a northern harbor. “Enough, woman. Is this about stopping what’s happening on your islands? Or is this about vengeance for your lost power and dead husband?”
“Why can’t it be both?” My voice is loud but it is small compared to the roar of the sea, and I’m furious at myself for not being strong enough.
“How charming,” he says, taking a step back from me to the edge of the dark rocks. “It must be a wonderful thing to judge justly without requiring evidence.”
“I thought you had somewhere to go.” I lace each syllable with poison.
His lip curls and he shakes his head at me in censure, and then, in a graceful dive, he leaps from the rocks and cuts a clean path into the sea. There is not even a splash to give evidence that he was ever here.
And I am left alone and shivering on the rocks with nothing to warm me but the sure knowledge that I have angered my husband and fought with him, but I have also narrowed my possible enemies from ten gods to one. And better still, I have a weapon I did not expect—a black pearl and a strange creature who offered to bargain with me.
Chapter Twelve
Iam lonely in a way that feels like a freezing wind blowing through my flesh and into my bones. It’s both a physical loneliness and a loneliness of purpose, for I am the only one still alive who is trying to fulfill this goal—the preserving of my people through the sacrifice of my freedom.
I have never before been alone. As a girl, I had been cared for and tutored by a string of attendants from birth. As queen, there was a never-ending stream of people dressing me, feeding me, cleaning around me, or needing my ear, my word, or my signet ring to aid them. We all had the same goal. The same guiding purpose.
I’m haunted by the expression on Okeanos’s face and the memory of his gentle touch as he drew me close when we fought—almost as if he was trying to comfort me while I was raging at him. And I am sick with the knowledge thatI was maneuvered into marriage by the very god who first drowned my husband and then drifted in to sweep me away like a bit of flotsam on the shore. It makes my head roar and my heart quicken.
I know how gods play with mortals. But this is a betrayal worse than when Epicus slew his father and fed his feet to the sharks. This is a betrayal worse than when Shimea slew her lover with the knife he gifted her to seal their bond. This is a betrayal worse than when Anticus stole his brother’s kingdom when he was away, marrying his wife, adopting his son, and expunging his name from the histories. It is a worse betrayal because I have been betrayed by both my god and my husband.
I do not go back to the islands with a twist of my hand and magic. If there’s even a shred of hope that Okeanos might fight for my people, then I do not want to distract him from that. I might feel with every breath the sting of his betrayal, but I am no fool. I nearly died in the waters with Turbote. I certainly will not live through that a second time.
And while I could go back later and be queen, that would negate my bargain and Okeanos might swallow my islands whole.
In my tangled fight with that enemy warrior, he left a nasty gouge in the flesh of my arm. I turn my attention to binding that wound. And as I do, I think of how a god can be killed. The warrior attacking me had tried and then those tentacles swept him aside. For such an act to succeed, it would have to be by surprise.
But even as I think this, I am reminded of Oke’s handson mine—strong and sure—as I cast out heavy rope nets to fish. I remember how even that terrible godwound barely slowed him.
He could return home at any moment. And then what will I say to him? What will Idoto him?
Emotion saws raw and hot through my chest, tugging me first one way and then another.
I could tell him that I must make him pay for what he did to Lieve and my people. I could still try to get my vengeance.
I saw the ruined faces of my people. Our entire island was ravaged, gone. I can only imagine how many other faces I would have recognized had I sifted through the dead.
Okeanos was their god. He knew exactly what he was doing when he stepped foot first on my dock. And he knew who I was when he bargained with me in that temple and then killed Lieve.
No matter how sweet or shy he has appeared over these past few weeks, it does not change any of that. He wears his face as he wears his pearls. Just another beautiful thing he clothes himself with—no more the truth of who he is than any garment might be.
I’ll admit that I indulge in a few sobbing jags and some furious rock throwing as the only means of temporarily calming the storm inside my heart.
I do not like either of my options, but I must choose. Either I align myself with the god who ruined my people and my life, or I defy him and seek his destruction.
I know my own mettle. I know I do not give over easily. Iam almost certain to choose the second path, so why does it cause me guilt to think of it? Why does my mind shy away from the idea of taking Okeanos’s life?
He deserves it entirely. He has failed terribly in his role as God of the Sea. Or he has intentionally used his position to benefit himself. Either way he has made himself my enemy. He has rent a hole in my heart so deep that no vengeance shall ever suffice, no penalty shall ever pay for what was lost to me. No matter how much I might like him as a man, he is also my traitor god.
Over the next days, I turn in my turmoil to the books. I am a fast reader, but not all of them are in a language I know. I am versed in Archaen—the language of my islands and most of the coast—High Archaen for holy works; Greillic; and some Farsadean. There are about thirty volumes written in none of those, and since they also have no woodcuts, I cannot tell what their subject is. I work my way through the others, one at a time, bringing them with me as I check my lines, wash my laundry, set my fire, and curl alone in my bed. It’s cold when I’m the only one in it and the winds from the shore whip in through the open window and chill me to the bones until I bury myself beneath a heap of tattered pillows like a crab crawling under the sand.
I dredge out every bit of knowledge I can as I plot.
And through it all, I keep that black pearl close, and I think. I have not yet decided if what I saw was a hallucination brought on by trauma, for Turbote did not also see it, or a true creature.
If he was real, then he is connected to this pearl. If he was real, then he offered to make a bargain with me to defeat my enemies. Do I dare to bargain with a monster or an ancient god or whatever this thing might be? I don’t want to end up holding my own severed head, or manacled to six other women and thrown down a well, or any of the other things depicted in the books on Oke’s shelves. I shudder at the thought.
Vesuvius is not in my childhood list of gods, though the song runs through my mind more than once as I consider him.
