My eyes narrow as my mind races, but I do not need to speak. My knowledge has freed his tongue.
He hitches his chiton up scandalously, until it barely covers the essentials, and reveals the gaping wound I knew I would see there. Itissmaller and there are no barnacles in his twin wound, though I think I see a skim of fungus growing pale within the depths of it.
“You wish to ask me why. Why trap him and wound him? Why make it impossible for him to reach his people in time to prevent one queen from making a terrible mistake?”
Here he smirks, but my eyes flick to Okeanos. I see his throat bob as he tries to swallow, his shoulder hitch as he tries to rise, and I can tell by the deep darkness in his green eyes that he is aware of everything being said while he lies immobile. Fury burns in those eyes.
Aurelius does not notice, or if he does, then he does not care.
“If you wish to win a war,” he says, “it’s usually best to be a step ahead of your enemies. In fact, it’s best to take out your strongest foe before he even realizes there is a battle. That is the course I took. I knew well that even taken by surprise the lion of gods would be hard to fell.” He pauses as if he’s savoring these words. “But he could be sapped. He could bedrained of strength. And while he was licking his wounds, I could trap one of his key pieces—a queen he has oft used to exercise his will. It mattered not to me who you married, for anyone could be my pawn. I needed only be sure that it broke your heart so that you turned in his hand—no longer a clever weapon but a double-edged blade.”
I feel a little faint at this. For I have been steered as easily as a ship driven before the wind, the merest touch to the tiller enough to divert her. Worse than that, I have come to this confrontation thinking I had five completed tasks in my hand—only to discover I am unarmed. I have only four. I must regain some footing here and quickly, or Okeanos and I will both be dead.
“Then why kill the man you chose to be the face of your rebellion?” I ask him, trying to gain more time to think. “Why slaughter Treseano?”
“What is this you say?” Aurelius looks surprised. Genuinely so.
“You did not know he was dead?” I frown, but before I can elaborate a familiar squelching turns my attention toward the figure sliding out from behind the statue of Okeanos.
Aurelius still seems shaken when he says with false charm, “Ah, and now here is friend Vesuvius come to join us. And just in time, for if we are to have this pleasant discussion, who should be more welcome than he who devised these plans to begin with?”
Vesuvius.
My eyes widen in horror. There is acid in my mouth andit waters as if I am about to vomit, but that is nothing compared to the scent of death that accompanies the former sea god as he squelches up the stairs. I do not know if it is simply in my mind that I smell it, but decay clogs my nose and makes my mouth water even harder.
He has betrayed me. Not just now, but all along. I should not be surprised.
Vesuvius has found a crown somewhere. He wears it, slightly off-kilter, on his brow, and he bounces on his palm the black pearl that he so recently stole from me.
I am still unable to pass through the wall Aurelius has made, but I can move enough to sidle away from the former sea god as he passes by.
“You,” I whisper, shuddering.
“Me,” he coos. “It was always me, though of course you never saw it.”
I turn to Aurelius, accusing, “This is who you call friend?”
“Did you not call him the same?” Aurelius asks, his lip curling. “Vesuvius is the very dearest of my friends and has been for many centuries, long before Okeanos usurped him in such an underhanded way.”
And the look he exchanges with Vesuvius tells me more than any of his words could. There is a devotion here that I have not reckoned with.
Vesuvius keeps speaking, ignoring our byplay. “Did you really think, Coralys, that you would find my prison lying around neglected in your home? Did you ever stop to wonder if it wasmeantto be there?”
Ice stabs down my spine, and I can hardly make my mouth work to form the words. Behind them, Okeanos lets out a sigh that I think might be a groan if he had the strength. His eyelids flicker.
“But who could go into Okeanos’s home except for himself?”
“Ah, but he was married by then,” Aurelius says, leaning back and resting a hand on the knee of Okeanos’s corpse.
Oke’s hand flinches, but he can’t move away, and something within me lurches at this violation. Our eyes meet and I shy away from what I see in them. When I look back at Aurelius, he is enjoying watching us both.
“It’s always a dread thing to bind yourself to another. For in tying one thing to your breast you may very well tie others with it. Think, Drowned Queen.” I do not need his admonishment, my brain is working furiously. “Think on the treaty you signed just a handful of years ago. A treaty with the Spear Coast. Did you not offer them free access to your seas and all the lands they touch, that they may set foot on your land and you on theirs for as long as your life endured?”
I stare at him. It was a simple treaty with a faraway country meant to offer both our populations succor when far from home.
“What of it?” I ask.
His smile is secretive. “The Spear Coast bows its knee to me—or did the day before your dread wedding. I was given the name of king as they became a theocracy. And so I—one of them—could step on the land of Okeanos when he became one with you.”
