“If all you want is my people’s safety, then why did you allow their islands to burn?” I challenge Okeanos. “Why not prevent the murder of Delarte?”
Okeanos is shaking his head before I’ve finished. “I was not able.” He’s speaking slowly, catching my gaze with his and holding it, and the look in his eyes is so open and trusting that it twists me. I keep seeing flashes of the man I was starting to know and it feels like finding a snake in your clothing. “You know this to be true. You were there. And you have lived these many days with me while I’ve laid bare my heart to you.”
“Weak.” Vesuvius’s mouth forms a grim line. He flows out of his corner and takes a place behind Okeanos, studying him as he speaks.
“You could have told me who you were right away. Or confessed it when I first threw the truth in your face,” I say. “You could have brought me with you to help if that was what you meant to do. We could have stayed on the Crocus Isles and ruled them together.”
He slices the air with his hand as if slicing through my argument. “That was never an option. We have bigger things to achieve than ruling just one island nation. I plan to show you all that godhood entails. I plan to induct you into every part of it. I want only to give you time to mourn first and time to move past your understandable thirst for vengeance. You did not hide that desire from me. Tell me, Coralys”—his voice stutters over my name—“do you want that vengeance still?”
I keep my face very smooth, but he seems to read the lie in it, for he is immediately distressed. He looks at me aghast.
“What will vengeance help? You will end up dead by my hand as I defend myself. And I will be shattered by the misery of it. And your people will have lost two champions for their cause in one fell blow.”
He pauses, breath heaving, and leans both hands on the bed, looking across it at me. I do not believe him. He is too beautiful and altogether too earnest. I am being manipulated with every flick of his green gaze into mine. My heart bending to his, wanting to trust, wanting to open myself in turn. It is that very softening and wanting that galvanizes me. I must act and act soon before I cannot tell truth from lies anymore.
His breath calms a little and he tries again, his tone almost wheedling.
“I’d hoped to persuade you. Over time. As I have said. When you had finished mourning your husband and I could appeal to your reason.” He grimaces. “I had not yet realized you would not use it for me.”
He has said the wrong thing. He has brought Lieve into this. My vision is dark with fury.
“I possess no reason? Is that what you credit to me?” I scoff.
“You misunderstand,” he says, but I will not listen.
“Yourreasoning is full of holes. If you are beset by enemies, then where are they now? We’re vulnerable on this island in the fog and no one has come for us. Why have they not claimed your territory in that Resurgence ceremony when they might have? Why have they not finished the job they started?”
He growls but does not answer. He has returned to pacing, as if that helps him think.
His clothing sticks to his very impressive figure and I study it with intent. He looks too strong for me to kill, despite the wound in his thigh that dribbles onto the stone like ink. But he has given me no other option. His explanation is not believable, and far from promising to stop in his headlong plunge into ruin, he seeks only to justify himself in it. I have never killed before and I worry that when the moment comes, I will not have the fortitude.
“I do not know which of them is set against me. Theevidence is conflicting. Am I being driven by prejudice? By emotion?” He’s back to his puzzle as if he’s solved me and can move on. “Perhaps more than one conspires against me. Two could harry me from the darkness more effectively. If I tear down the obvious contender, that may very well snap the trap and then whoever else wages war against me from the cover of the shadows might overwhelm my people while I am distracted. I must be patient. I must let them lead me to the others before I strike. I require a plan.”
His head snaps up and he looks me in the eye. I don’t know who he means by “the obvious,” for none of this is obvious to me. I stare at him stone-faced.
He clears his throat and takes a half step toward me, hesitating at the last moment. “We both know that you are a strong and capable queen. And I have given you a share of my power and all the explanations you could possibly desire. You must be my partner in this. You have the power to help me, even now, to turn the tides that swell over your islands and folk. As my wife and equal, you may even now join with me to repel our enemies and stand firm on our shores. You are indeed a woman of reason. Admirable, strong, honorable in every way. Say you understand and can set aside my failures and work with me to get what you’ve wanted all along.”
And again, I want to believe him. I can imagine myself at his side, fighting for my people. Standing against the gods who strike at them. We could work hand in hand as we did when we fished together. It’s a breath-snatching offer.
“Your people have only one enemy,” Vesuvius remindsme quietly. I had almost forgotten he was there. “And it’s not plotting, or malice, or the schemes of the gods. It’s this incompetent guardian, too obsessed with his own place and interests to protect them. Even now, listen to his words. He speaks of himself and his enemies. He speaks nothing of prosperity for the Crocus Isles.”
I do not trust the dead sea god any more than the live one. I jam his pearl back into my belt pouch before Vesuvius sees anything else and Okeanos frowns, watching me, though he couldn’t possibly see what item I’m slipping into the pocket. I’ve held that pearl in my palm this whole time.
The monster vanishes.
“Coralys,” Okeanos says, his voice half growl and half plea. He crosses the space between us in two long strides and takes my face between his gentle hands, and I wish the gap was so easy to bridge. I wish it could be so simple. “Drowned Queen. Harbor in this mad storm. I lay my whole self before you. Will you not be my wife in more than name? Will you not work with me? Choose me?”
He leans in close, his breath mingling with mine, and I can’t think. I can’t see clearly. For a moment, I see only him.
“Come,” he pleads, his lips nearly brushing mine as he speaks.
He takes me in his arms and holds me so reverently. His gaze is deep with emotion and it seeks to penetrate past my every defense. But I am terrified. And the more vulnerable he is, the more my breath hitches and my heart pounds. The more I lose the control I so desperately need.
“Do not continue doubting me,” he whispers. “Believe that I am who I say I am. That I want what you want. That I want you.”
And then the whisper turns to a kiss. Delicate, gentle. As if his pleading has turned from words to action and continues in this tender embrace. And I don’t stop him. I should, but I don’t. I let him taste me and persuade me and savor me. And to my shame, I savor it, too, for when again will I ever kiss a god? When again will I ever know that they taste of wine and honey and rays of sunshine on the sea?
And when he draws back and our eyelashes flutter open, I bite my tongue and tell him the only thing I can think to say.
