And if he had succeeded, would he have become god to our people? It is unsettling to think our fate can be decided by the bickering of deities and that we would have no chance to influence our future at all.
“Why do you all sit at table when El’Dorian flowers upon your meal?” Okeanos says in a tight voice. A muscle in his jaw jumps when he clenches it. He leans against one of the chairs, seeming casual, but I note how he takes a little weight off his wounded leg.
“While we yet live, we celebrate. We can hardly pause for every loss, or we would never feast at all,” Pagetto says neutrally, but I can tell she’s shaken, because her wine has dribbled from her goblet onto El’Dorian’s shoulder. “And look, even you, marked as you are by a cruel wound, are not killed by it.”
“Do you wish me so?” My husband’s tone is light, but his body is tense.
“Fate forfend,” she says, a little breathlessly. “But how do you stand before us so wounded?”
“One of you,” Okeanos says grimly, “has underestimated me.”
It’s such a preposterously mild statement for what’s happened that a surprised laugh slips from my mouth.
They all turn to me at once and frown.
“I think, husband, thatallhave underestimated you,” I say coolly.
“And you, Coralys?” he asks me as if it is just we two and not an entire audience. “Have you underestimated me?”
“You did say you absolved me of all guilt,” I remind him.
Outside the ring of looming god statues, the sky is darkening and the wind kicks up, swirling the sea into waves that crash against the white rock. I am not distracted by them. I look steadily into my husband’s eyes and I cannot read the expression he wears. He’s gripped by a powerful emotion—I can only imagine it must be fury—but when he answers, he does not sound angry, merely determined.
“It is so, Coralys.” He clears his throat and turns awayfrom me to the others. “As courageous as it no doubt is to scream into the abyss and mock death by feasting at a table laid with our dead friend, I have no care to join you in it.”
“It’s tradition,” Glorian counters, but I notice she has yet to eat, and her retainers hug close to her back as if they fear for her safety.
“Tradition to eat over the dead?” Okeanos presses.
“Tradition to break bread with one another,” Glorian says, her voice still tight. “Even in the face of incursions and brewing wars. Even in the face of insults and mortal losses. All of which are stirring now.” She looks down at his wound speculatively. “Even in the face of grievous wounds inflicted by brothers.”
“Brothers orsisters?” Okeanos murmurs, and she does not meet his eye.
Markanos coughs. “We could break tradition. This one time.” He looks upward. “Heaven forfend we incur the wrath of the King of Heaven.”
King of Heaven? Is this a real being or a superstition? I am mystified by the pronouncement. I have never heard of that name, not in our religious ceremonies, not in my libraries or reading. Not even in the books of Okeanos’s library, but it seems to suit the others, for they stand almost as one.
“The tuna was off anyway,” Pagetto says with a false note of bravado in her voice. I do not think she tasted the tuna.
Oke ignores her. “We will perform the Resurgence. We will do our duty, and then we will leave.”
When Aurelius clears his throat, his voice is light as if heis trying very hard not to weight it with anything. “You’ll leave tonight, Okeanos?”
Everyone stills, looking toward him.
Okeanos grimaces with half his mouth. “I will leave the next morning. As will my wife. As will any of you who possess the sense with which you ascended to godhood.” He flicks his gaze to me. “No god will remain a god for long without the blessing of the King of Heaven.”
So, he believes, too.
“Speaking of wives,” Alexandros says, crossing the floor to Okeanos. His golden head is held high. “You have married, Okeanos. And you have brought your short-lived bride here.” He lifts an eyebrow. “How fortuitous. Tell us, what tempted you to take a mortal to wife when none of the rest of us have made ourselves so vulnerable?”
Oke shifts so that his body is between me and Alexandros. I feel a twinge of guilt shiver through me.
“My wife is not what is at issue here.”
“Though shewashiding behind the statuary,” Aurelius says, sotto voce.
“Far more important is the question—who killed a goddess and left her here in our meeting place? And what will we do about it?”
