This Resurgence is not meant for mortal eyes. It leaves me gasping and small, my mind dizzy and struggling before these magnificent gods for all that they pretend to abase themselves with their sacrifices. I’m ashamed to say I amtoo… temporally limited… to fully grasp all that is taking place. I’m grateful when Okeanos grips my upper arm as if to steady me, no matter how foolish it may seem. It is the only thing grounding me.
The gods parade one after another, offering spectacular gifts on this altar of theirs to this lord they claim. Each time we see the swooping view of their worshippers and wealth, and I get the sense that I am seeing only the tiniest breath of what they are showing. There are conversations and nuances and exchanges going on around me all the while and my mortal eyes are too dim, my mortal ears too dull, my mortal reflexes far too slow to see them all.
Of them all, I adore Heskatan’s offering the most. She gave the horse she brought with her, and to my delight, her horse fledged, displaying great wings of golden feathers the moment before he was placed, trembling, upon that altar. For a bare instant I felt as though anything might be possible—and then he was gone and she was glorified, and I could taste the loss of him in the air I inhaled like the smell of the earth after a strong rain.
I am catching only the barest edge of what is so elaborately woven before me. And each time, when they are through, the sudden glory descends on them that I cannot bear to see and the same golden corona rings their blessed heads.
I am mortal. My flesh is temporary. I feel hatred deep in my bones for the disparity. I am small before it. The only thing worthy in me is this desire to hold my people together.
But entranced as I may be, I have not lost my head. Ihave counted the weapons I might use—Markanos’s heavy sword, Alexandros’s hammer, Aurelius’s blade, and Heskatan’s double-headed axe. I see no possibility of stealing any of them.
With a sinking feeling deep in my core, I note that my husband is still carrying his fishing spear strapped to his back, though he has no cause to fish here. The meaning slaps me in the face. It is his god weapon and it has been there the whole time, leaning against the wall of our little cottage when he was asleep in bed. At any time I could have taken it up and slain Okeanos. What a fool I am. I need not have come here at all. Did Vesuvius realize this when he asked me if I’d been recently married? And if he did, what motive had he for sending me here?
There’s nothing I can do about the dead god’s potential betrayal. I must be sensible. I am here now and the fishing spear may yet be the easiest weapon to take, for perhaps I can convince my husband to trust me. After all, I have slept at his side so innocently all these many nights. Mayhap I can put him at his ease and lead him to believe this night is no different from the rest.
I school my expression to mild interest, desperately keeping all my emotions deep inside where they will be unreadable to these great beings who care no more for me than a buzzing gnat.
Okeanos shifts and I know he is next. To my surprise he draws me with him. I want to protest, but my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth.
“All that is mine I give to honor the King of Heaven,” he says a little awkwardly.
I am beginning to realize that while powerful among the gods, Okeanos is shy. This attention makes him reticent. What he lays on the altar is a single pearl, pure white. It seems lowly and terribly mortal compared to the offerings of the others. I frown, concerned.
But Okeanos’s offering is accepted, and with it, I gasp, for I see my kingdom andallthe kingdoms of the sea through the view between the pillars of the white temple of Okeanos. They make me feel an almost physical thirst as I gaze down on their glories. But just as I am beginning to smile with the joy of teeming seas, prosperous cities, and hearty ships, the view we are offered sweeps across the green waves to watch the great storm swell over my island and my people fall beneath the waves, drown, and die.
My hand moves to my throat in horror. I can’t quite breathe. My ears roar with loss to where I can hear nothing of the murmurs of the other gods. I am lashed to the sight of this. This is the betrayal that has gutted me reenacted, and if I had any qualm that I may have misjudged, may have overreacted, it is extinguished.
We are betrayed at the hands of our god.
Invaders sweep over not just the one island I witnessed, but three more, and with them fire consumes whole cities. My whole body tightens as my people are herded onto ships and stolen away. And it’s only a glimpse, only a glimpse, but we sweep out to the Andalappo Isles, and they, too, are tornapart by raiders and fire and sword. We sweep still farther to where the sea has risen up and swelled in one great wave over the Pentalumus Peninsula. Men and women wash away like particles of sand along the shore, just as insignificant, just as tumbled under the waves to rise no more.
Betrayed. Utterly.
I am gasping as I hear Okeanos declare, “I declare a loss of eight cities, three islands, and the nation of Ghant Eliore.”
Lost or ruined by his own hand? I turn my face to his that he might see in my baleful eyes the judgment he deserves, but he does not look at me. His expression is stony and unmoving. And it only fuels what roars in my heart.
I’ve watched him clean fish while cities burned. I’ve watched him sleep while lives were lost. We spent an evening watching jellyfish. I feel not a shred of pity for him. My resolve hardens like his face and my blood burns with every pulse of my racing heart.
I will manage this godhood much better than he does. He has been wasting time speaking sweetly to his new wife and all the while his kingdom has been ravaged and swept from his grasp.
He looks to me a little uncertainly as he says, “And I declare I have gained a bride, a wife, a full equal.”
The blood in my ears roars. I smile reassuringly and absolutely falsely. I cannot stop my shaking, but I can force my mouth into an upward bow. Within, my heart howls.
“Yes,” I agree.
And I hate him for the flicker of hope I see in his eyes. Forhow he almost smiles, for how he looks away, intent on the scenes of his ruined kingdom as if he has any right to even look at them after all he’s done.
And I hate their King of Heaven, too, whoever he is, because the glory comes down and Okeanos fills with it, and his golden corona is so bright that I can’t even look, can’t even think, as he pulls me away so that Aurelius might take his turn.
“Well done, wife of mine,” he murmurs, but he can stuff his “well dones” down his own throat and gag on them. Or I can do that for him if he finds it too difficult.
I’m too upset to watch Aurelius place his gift on the altar. I can’t even say what it is.
I’m so deep in thought that I do not notice the rest of the ceremony. It is pageantry and ritualistic observance and drama and I care for none of it. The ceremony ends, the glory fades, and I am just beginning to wonder what comes next when I hear someone gasp, and I look up in time to see Treseano leap onto the altar.
His face is still glowing and bright from the power that has descended upon him, and as he spins to face us all, adopting a wide, half-crouched stance, he still carries the squirming burlap sack over one shoulder.
