I’m distracted for a moment by a small wave that moves up a little farther on the land than it ought to be able to go. It laps gently across my foot and then it is gone. I stare at it. I feel as if I’ve relived a moment of my life. My mouth is falling open and my breath draws in long and slow. Oh. Oh no.
I hear sand being kicked over the fire and then a hand is in mine before I can shake it off, and Markanos says bluntly, “We’ll go to your island and make a plan before we act.”
And then a sword is slashing through the air and we’re both taken far from the tiny island in the middle of the sea. The last thing I hear is Okeanos’s rasping breath going in and out of his ruined chest, and I wish I’d made no promise to him at all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
That wave. That single lapping wave. My mind is stuck on it.
When I had lived seventeen summers, I went out on the water in a small craft all alone but for a guard. I should not have gone out and I’d been warned many times to keep to shore unless I was well attended, but though I was princess and honored and loved, one thing I had very little of was adventure. I went out that day seeking it, and I would not even have taken Cyrus but that he found me as I was casting off and leapt aboard.
“You must not sail on your own, Princess,” he’d said, and then refused to answer any other question or obey any order. He was one of my guards, well my senior, and stubborn with duty, so in the end I took him with me. It was that or not go at all, and I was desperate for a taste of freedom.
Our excursion was a beautiful hour or two of my hand alone guiding where I went, my eye alone seeking out beauty, my joy alone choosing the winds to embrace. Almost, I could forget the glowering guard in the prow of the boat, lost in the beauty of a sea and sky as blue as lapis stones and great puffing clouds of stark white. We were off Talasa, the smallest of our islands, and there were few other craft at sea. I left them all in my wake and made for open water.
And it was only when I was far enough out that no other sails were in sight and the island had grown small off to starboard, that a squall whipped up out of nowhere. It swamped our boat and flipped her over so quickly that the world became a blur of dark bubbled brine and gasping, aching lungs.
To this day I do not know how I found Cyrus under the waves or how I managed to haul his unconscious bulk up onto the hull of the boat. I must have been gifted some strength beyond that allotted to mortals. Eventually I dragged myself up, too, and lay there slung over the keel alongside him, gasping, bruised, and exhausted. He lived. He breathed. But I was the only one aware and thus the only one to know that our boat was drifting farther and farther from land.
I could have tried to swim back. I might have even made it to shore. I was young and strong and a good swimmer. I could have tried to flip the boat over and get back in. Unlikely. It was heavy and I was already worn out. Besides, either way, it meant abandoning Cyrus to death and I found that I could not abandon him to save myself.
I knew full well that I had risked too much for the sake of adventure and it was my fault alone that he lay there insensible beside me, vulnerable to the elements, and the trick of fate that brought us there. It felt like hours that I lay there, my heart pounding, breath rasping, guilt and fear tearing me apart inside.
Only that time I’d stayed with the man who was suffering because of me. I had not walked away and abandoned him to his fate.
I’d sat up on the keel of the boat, looking desperately around me, and I’d tried to paddle us to shore with my hands. I’d begged and pleaded that we would survive. I’d beat the water out of Cyrus’s lungs and I’d crouched there on the hull heaving with sobs, afraid and certain we would die. But I couldn’t leave him. Not when he was helpless and alone. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.
And then there’d been a little wave. A wave I’d forgotten until I’d seen it again just now. It rippled up over my foot as if asking a question, and at my muffled sob it receded, and as it left, the wind changed.
It took hours—hours of me clutching Cyrus to keep him aboard and subtly shifting my weight to keep the boat from turning and dumping us into the water—but by the time the wind and waves stopped pushing hard to shore we had reached the land, and with shaking limbs and trembling breath, we’d come ashore, for Cyrus had revived by then and, moaning, realized our near miss from the jaws of death.
They’d had a ceremony to honor him. I’d said nothingabout that and neither had he, though he met my eyes once. Behind them, he barely concealed a hint of terror that I might deny what was being said of him. That I might tell everyone the truth of what had happened. But how could I? He would not have been out there at all but for me. If he was honored as a hero now—the man who saved the reckless princess’s life and brought her home again—and if I was scolded like a foolish child who nearly killed herself and another man, well, that was better than the alternative. Because I was responsible for what had happened. And if it were ever discovered that Cyrus was not the hero of the story, that he had not saved me from the waters but had needed to be saved, he would certainly be dismissed from service and I knew he had nowhere else to go.
And so I stood silent and took the judging looks and firm chastisement while they hailed Cyrus’s courage. I stood in the water with the rest of them as he received his honors and his laurel and I kept my mouth sealed shut. And I could have sworn there was a little wave then, too, that washed up, curious, questing, lapping at my knees.
I’d forgotten about that wave. But it comes back now with the memories and I have to swallow hard on what it stirs up in me. I’m not making the right choice this time, am I? This time, I’ve left the drowning man in the water. I’ve left him to suffer. And he made me promise to save myself. It’s all wrong.
I grit my teeth and try very hard not to think more on Cyrus and the boat and Okeanos and the island as we spin back to my home island and Markanos releases my hand.
We both come out of the spin gasping in the dark of night. There is very little moon. We have returned to Oke’s island. To my island.
“That’s the statue of Ochum,” Markanos says as we arrive. “Did Okeanos tell you the story?”
“No,” I say shortly.
I want him to get to the point and take his leave. My ship has gone wildly off the course I set for it and I am anxious to find some equilibrium. My husband is not dead and he says things that make my heart race for him even while it still mourns for Lieve. I’m tangled up and confused and I’ve gone and made a promise to help him in his all-consuming quest. I need time to sit with that.
Markanos ignores my tone, telling his story instead. Isn’t that just like gods. They always think their priorities are the only ones.
“Ithman was a king at the time, I think. Or close to. He attacks Ochum, the God of the Sea. Ambush. Fabulous fight. They wrestle in the water, thrashing, fighting. You wouldn’t think you could drown a sea god, and you shouldn’t be able to, but somehow he drowns him, right?”
“I thought only god weapons could kill the gods,” I say.
This time his laugh sounds nasty. “Who told you that? It’s an easy way to do it but not the only way. Anyway, Ithman drags his body up on shore and leaves it there while he rejoices. He’s done it. He’s a god. He feels the sea rushing into him from all around and he can’t help himself. Raises his hands and summons all water to him. That’s his downfallof course. It’s always in that moment of victory that you can be bitten hard by fate.” He pauses to laugh a moment and I frown at him. I’m not quite as amused as he is by stories of murder. “So he’s rejoicing, arms high, calling all the water to him, and he calls the water right out of Ochum’s lungs. The dead sea god revives. You’ve been around the sea enough to know that’s possible, right? A man can be dead. Fully dead… and then you can bring them back. Happens sometimes with drowning. So Ochum’s not dead anymore. Takes back his godhood. Great, right? I always thought so. Ithman hardly has time to blink and he’s mortal again. You’d think Ochum would kill him, but he figures it’s the best kind of joke. Puts Ithman in a tower prison. Can never touch the sea again. That’s cruelty right there. That’s revenge. Sometimes on a cold night I tell that story. Always warms the heart.”
I shiver.
“Is he still there?”
