“You have named me God of the Sea. You have named me Okeanos.” He pauses, his eyes boring into mine. “But I am the son of a fisherman, Lady of the Sea. I lived with my family until I was a boy of eighteen, fishing and working hard under the hot gaze of the sun before the gods of heaven.” His eyes plead for me to understand. “My father was a hardworking man with scarred hands and a quick smile. Stergios. He taught me everything about finding fish and luringthem into the nets, and he would joke that such was the way that he lured my mother into his home. My mother was Alai, daughter of a fish merchant. Together they raised four of us in a cottage no bigger than mine here, and I had planned to do the same. I had even chosen a girl I thought to make my wife. She was warm, kind, good to children. She lived in our small village.”
The storm still brews above us but no rain has fallen yet, and when he flings himself onto a natural seat on the rock, he winces as if he has forgotten that he is wounded and ought to take care.
It does not stop the rush of his words. “A storm came one day—greater than any I’ve seen before or since. I was out in my boat, tending the nets, out of the sight of land. I could not make shore. I stayed low in my boat and fought the wind and rain for hours until I was near exhaustion.”
This part clearly pains him and he looks away. I let my eyes linger.
“When I returned, there was nothing left. The storm had swept our island bare. The surge of the sea swallowed everything. A little wreckage was all that remained and not a soul survived.” He swallows. “I waited for survivors seven days. And then, desperate, I prayed.”
My heart squeezes. This is my story, too.
“It is possible it was hubris that gave me the boldness to ask the God of the Sea for the souls of my family back. But I think it was only love.” His hand squeezes into a fist and then, spasming, releases again. The lines on his face aredeeper, the expression stark with remembered pain. “That is not how he took it, though. Vesuvius descended upon me and just as hope was lighting my eyes, he struck me hard, shoved my face into the sand, and told me to clean his name from my mouth. I will not deny that I tried to fight back—struggled with all my might—but it was for nothing. In the end, he stripped me bare with his own hands. Is that an honor, do you think? For a god to pay such special attention to your humiliation?”
This is my exact story. He has stripped me bare. Can he not see it? I’m trembling a little, whether from rage for what was done to me or rage at what was done to him, I don’t know.
His voice is desolate. “He took from me all I had left. My boat. My nets. My spear. And he left me in the sand naked and with nothing.”
And I am thinking of Vesuvius. I am thinking of his tentacles and the look in his eye when he told me he wanted only one god dead. He wants to strip this man twice. I shudder.
Okeanos is silent for a long time and I’m silent with him, both our breaths trembling together under the gathering storm. He’s beautiful in his tragedy. I am overwhelmed by mine. And when the first drops of rain fall, it is as if the heavens mourn with us.
Oke gusts a wry laugh. “Hefound me then. Offered me what the God of the Sea would not. Gave me a home and a place and the soul of Vesuvius.”
A cold creeping sensation runs through me. I have beenconsorting with his enemy and now I sit here and hear his confession. What would he do to me if he knew?
“I can never turn on him.” Oke looks out to the horizon again now, his gaze steady and fixed as if he is saying a vow. I don’t know who he means, some friend, perhaps, but it hardly signifies. For it is not a matter of who he will betray but who will betray him, and I feel my face grow hot, for it is I. “Not after all he’s done for me. No matter who is standing against us.”
“No matter who?” I ask softly.
“Yes.” He clenches his jaw even tighter. The muscle in it pulses and highlights all the other unforgiving lines of his face. The rain is coming down on us gently. It’s warm as it plasters our hair to our faces.
“But you cannot give that loyalty to my people?” I ask, for while I feel absolute sympathy for his tale, I am still implacable. He is both betrayed and betrayer. He has not helped my people. He has not stood in the way of calamity. He is either cruel or incompetent. Either way he must be dragged down so that someone else—someone who will truly shelter them—can take his place.
“I have given my loyalty to your people—and more besides,” he says, and he is not looking at me, he is looking far into the distance. “I am working to build them a safe place. A place where they can be free of all this.”
The words spring from my lips before my thoughts are fully formed. “They had a safe place, on their islands, where I ruled.”
He’s shaking his head. “Not safe enough.”
“Not when you do not defend it,” I spit at him. Any sympathy I had is washed away with the rain.
“There is not enough space on the Crocus Isles.” He glances at me then. “All the people of the sea are mine, not merely the few you consider your own.”
“The few—” It’s like he’s snatched the breath from my lungs. “You should be out there fighting for them. Defending them. Guarding them. Not… building some fortress somewhere. Besides, I have watched you. You fish. You waste your time with me. You are not building anything. You are not doinganything.”
He shakes his head in denial, but he does not look at me. “We aren’t so different, you and I. We both cannot walk away when those we love are hurt.”
“We are entirely different,” I say, shaking. I came so close to being moved by him and his story. I am aghast at myself.
“Work with me,” he pleads.
Does he think I can forget so soon all he has destroyed? I cannot allow him to be our god.
And when he reaches out a tentative finger and strokes the outside edge of my smallest finger nearest to him, this ghost of a movement stabs me like a knife, for I see the lonely boy—his family and hopes lost forever—but I also see the incompetent god who I must tear down so that he might be replaced with another.
“Help me build this fortress for your people and mine,” he implores gently. “You have guessed who I am. Now divine the purpose in what I have done.”
But I dare not let him see my heart. I must keep him trusting me. I must keep him at his ease. For no mortal weapon will kill a god, and I must have the tools I require before I act.
