Take your breath for Aurelius,
Drink your drop for Okeanos,
Plant your seed for Glorian,
Give your kiss for El’Dorian,
Sing your song for Ordanus,
Strike your hammer for Alexandros,
Walk your trail for Pagetto,
Dig your grave for Treseano,
But for me it is Heskatan with her snorting horses,
And Markanos will guide me through battle’s courses,
And your love will fade, my dear, as my death takes me
And in the Nightwaters, all ten gods I’ll see.
Could that song have once said, “Drink your drop for Vesuvius”? And if it did, then how did Okeanos replace him? Is it truly as easy as just killing the god and taking his crown?
Vesuvius makes my skin crawl. Would a god have that effect? Okeanos does not.
What if Vesuvius attacks me? He could overpower me. He could kill me. Perhaps he could even trap me in that pearl with him—however that works.
But what if he says that he can help me kill a god? Surely we will both want revenge on the god who has destroyed us. Would working with him transform me into someone complicit in evil rather than a champion of the good?
A tiny voice in my mind reminds me that vengeance is rarely a “good,” but it can go right back to where it came from. I do not require a conscience at the moment. And besides, my aim is higher than vengeance. My goal is justice, restoration, peace. Just not peace for Okeanos.
It is the sixth afternoon after Oke is gone and I am on the shore with a book on my knee, staring at the sea, that I take out the pearl and the thimble and look at them. The pearl is a normal black pearl. It has no mark to distinguish it, no way to expect it is anything but a precious bauble. I set it to the side on the sand and look at the thimble. This is even simpler and even stranger for its simplicity.
But I realize something as I stare at the thimble. In the time we have been married Oke has only asked me to do one thing. Fill this thimble with riches.
It’s one of his tasks. I remember the first four very clearly.
Win a god’s oath.
Wed the drowned queen.
Collect the dead to serve.
Fill a thimble with riches.
Is it a test to determine if I can help him fulfill them? He has presented me with his fourth task in such a simple manner that it is hard to be certain.
Well. He and his test can both go and hang for all I care.
I am crying as I sit here, great, fat, angry tears as if my small saltwater contribution could match the salt of Okeanos’s sea. The disparity reminds me of the gap between god and man, and that only makes me more furious. Bitterly, I catch my tears in the thimble, one by one until I fill it up.
I’m spiteful in catching them, in filling Oke’s little thimble. I make sure to catch every one.
With care, I tuck the pearl back in my belt pouch and carry the little thimble back to the house and set it on the table. I’m perversely proud of myself. He asked for riches from me and instead I have given him evidence of what a pauper I am, for I have nothing left but my bitterness and rage. I’ve filled his thimble with both. He can choke on them when he gets back.
Oddly, the thought comforts me enough that I draw the pearl back out, and with a sigh, I confront my fears. Let’s see what the soul of a dead god has to say for itself.
