“I didn’t think gods could die,” I say stupidly.
Markanos barks a despairing laugh. “Because they rarely do. Once in a dozen centuries, perhaps. Never four at once.”
He wipes his forehead anxiously and then realizes he is still carrying the shadow creature.
“I need to look to my people,” he says suddenly, taking a step backward. It’s the most uncertain I’ve ever seen him. “I need to discover if there is some threat I’ve overlooked. I need to be sure…”
“But, Markanos,” I say, fighting to stay conscious as my physical situation becomes unbearable. “We need to think this through. Who has killed Treseano and what does it mean that he’s dead?”
“It means your husband is free. Is that not enough for you?” he roars, spinning to face me.
“Someone is killing gods. On both sides of this rebellion,” I say in a small voice. The pain of my ruined leg washes over me in burning waves, nausea shudders through me, and my vision narrows to blackness. “We don’t dare just run from here. We have to consider. We have to protect ourselves from betrayal.”
“That’s rich, coming from the woman who slew my friend while he slept,” Markanos spits out, his face bleak, and before I can respond, he slashes his sword through the air and he’s gone. I’m left on this lonely island with nothing but a dead god hanging from a statue, a dead monster shriveling on theground nearby, and the ghosts of my past clinging to everything I see.
I try to search Treseano for any kind of clue as to who has killed him, but there is nothing to find but what we’ve already seen, and if it would be obvious to someone else, it is not to me.
It takes all my willpower to force my leg to carry me to the edge of the island and to fall from there into the sea. All my efforts are spent in moving, in not panicking, in not fainting, and in reaching the salt.
The second I fall into the water, gasping with relief at the smell of the ocean and the way it hugs my flesh, I twist my hand and rush through the water back to home, washing up like flotsam on the shore of my island. I don’t know where on the shore I arrive. I don’t care. I crawl up the stone and collapse, clutching my ruined leg with both hands as if I can press the flesh back to the bone.
I’m sobbing, my breath in my chest panicked and rushing in and out far too fast. I black out.
I’m in and out of consciousness several times before I stumble up to the cottage.
I must not die like this. Not like this. Not when I’ve achieved nothing and my people and nation are as shredded as my leg. I must hold on for them, for Oke.
My thoughts are scattered and hard to grasp, sliced from me by pain and fear.
I collapse on the swinging bed and try to tend my leg. The flesh hangs in uneven scraps from the bone and I don’tknow how to put them back together again. I flinch back from the idea of cutting my skin and muscle away to trim what’s left, even if they are mostly hanging free already. The very thought overwhelms me, and my head spins, my stomach revolts, and I lay back on the pillows, gasping in harsh breaths, and let sweet blackness claim me.
Chapter Thirty-One
Iwake muzzy and disoriented, blinking in the white light. It’s day. That means something. Something about the deeps of the sea and too many legs, but I can’t remember what it is. I pull myself up onto my elbows, dragging my hair—curling with sweat damp—out of my face. I look down the bed at my legs. There are two. They both look perfectly well.
It’s only as I stare at them that I remember how they looked last night and must sprint out the door of the cottage to empty my stomach into the weeds. The sharp morning breeze kicks up against my suddenly flushed face, and I take long, aching breaths, my eyes growing wider and wider as I look at my naked legs.
They are whole.
How is that possible?
But that’s the secret to how they torment Oke, is it not? Eaten all day, healed in the night. It’s the one thing that, apparently, I can get right as a god. I heal. Shockingly fast. And it makes all the god corpses I’ve seen that much more grisly, knowing that if that final blow had not been dealt, that they could have dragged themselves out of bed the next morning in the same way—whole and well as if nothing had ever happened.
It takes me some time to gather myself together enough to wash and dress. My hands still shake as I work. We had thought—or perhaps hoped—that Treseano’s creatures were the key to Oke’s healing and freedom. Which means, if we are right, then he could be freed by the death of one, healed by the death of the other, and if fortune has graced me with her spice-laden smile, then that might have even completed one of Oke’s tasks and brought him that much closer to the desire of his heart—the ancient Lighthouse.
I should be able to go straight to his island in the sea and bring him home. It is strange that he is not here already, in fact.
I frown.
Unless, perhaps, he is healed of the godwound, and freed of the anchor, but the effects linger? Perhaps he is unconscious, healing, but dead to the world as I was only a short time ago?
I should go and check.
I gather up what I’ll need, preparing fish and flasks of water, blankets and extra clothing. I bring a lantern and fuel,and the trident. I’m anxious, my thoughts skittering one way and then the next, and at the same time I’m excited. I want to see him. And not just as I’ve always seen him, but whole and healthy—free finally of torture and imprisonment—and smiling at me. The thought of it makes my breath catch a little, and I have to shake my head at myself.
Just do the work, Coralys. Be glad if he welcomes you at all. He’ll still be half-dead and bound to you. You can’t fix that no matter what you do.
But I am still looking forward to seeing the expression in his eyes when I announce to him that we’re one step closer to his goal.
