“Turbote,” I say.
“Goddess, have mercy,” my old advisor breathes, startled. He drops to a knee, his old bones clicking in a way that makes me flinch. The men with him hurry to join him.
He does not know me. I touch my cheek on instinct, wondering if I have changed in appearance. My breath stills in my lungs as I realize that somehow I have taken on that same nature of the gods that once bid me to bow. Surely I am a god to these people, and if a god, then responsible for them.
No one cares that I try to stop them, that I gesture for them to rise, nor do they give me even a moment to speak. Their chests heave with sudden anxiety and their faces are etched with the same. Never did they act so when I was queen.
“We abase ourselves. Please. Ask no more of us. We cannot bear it,” Turbote manages to gasp.
“Turbote, it is I,” I say, uncertain.
“She speaks your name,” Garnet whispers in horror.
“It is I, Coralys,” I try again.
“Great Goddess, spare us your wrath,” Turbote murmurs. He looks up into my face and there is not a shred of recognition there. How can he not see me? I have given him my name. He appears almost guilty. “Do not ask more from us.”
My words are as uncertain as my thoughts. “Has what has been asked of you been too hard?”
I am confused by their reaction to me. The priest and the girl only saw a lost lady. These three act as though they have met the guardian of the afterlife carrying a blazing sword. They keep their eyes averted and Garnet is covering his face.
“Never, never, Goddess.” Turbote makes a holy sign across his chest. “Did we not offer up the daughter of Prexot only yesterday to the God of the Sea?”
I rock backward in horror. But that would have been me. And I did not ask for that.
I hold up a hand. My mouth is so dry I must wet my lips to speak.
“You must stop such things immediately. You must make no human sacrifices.”
“We would never hold back what belongs to the gods, Great Lady,” he says, lifting both hands reverently.
I feel ill. I want to shake Turbote. I want to scream that he lies.
And with a pang I remember how he told me that Okeanos demanded the same thing of him.
And I believed him.
My tongue tastes acid, and bile rises, burning in my chest. Perhaps Okeanos was not the liar I thought he was.
“If we stop,” Turbote’s son says in a reverent hush, “then things will only grow worse. Already our babies are stillborn, our nets are empty, our houses catch fire, and there is norain. Already our lands are lost to raiders. How much worse if we fail to worship Okeanos, God of the Sea?”
“But Okeanos is dead,” I whisper in despair before I realize I have said it. “And even if he were not, he would not ask this of you.”
Turbote looks at me square in the face for the first time since I arrived and I see sheer terror in his eyes. “Was he not here only this morning? Did he not demand our sacrifice?”
“Did he?” I echo.
Markanos did say that my husband was not dead. But I felt for his pulse and it was not there. I felt his death gasp as if it were a knife in my own chest. This makes no sense to me. Besides which, now that I know who Okeanos is, I know he would not ask for virgin sacrifices. Or any human sacrifice. I may place blame at his feet for many things, but never that.
Someone must be impersonating my husband. And for them to do it so swiftly, it must be a god who knows he is dead.
“Honored Goddess, only tell us what more you want,” Turbote begs, cringing, and I blink away the black stars that dance across my vision.
I feel sick. I think… it’s possible… that I might have been wrong about Okeanos. About this one thing, at least.
Turbote’s still spewing his words up and I wish I’d never come here. “Do not fear we will buck your will. Did we not exile Gheric Rodehands for trying to take what was thegods’? He and the thousand who stood with him? We will deny you nothing.”
Gheric Rodehands. Again. I shoot Turbote a suspicious look. His mistrust of this political rival is long-standing. Even as queen I had to prevent him from laying a punishment on Gheric Rodehands for his talk against a monarchy. I see Turbote has wasted no time in quickly dispatching his rivals.
