Heracles laughed. “No, just a regular battle wound, I’m afraid.”
“What about this?” She trailed her finger down the scar that sliced the skin from his eyebrow to his jaw.
“That—” he took her fingers and kissed them “—was a feather from one of those birds you...drowned?”
She sat up, suddenly remembering something that had occurred to her earlier on the ship. “How did you come to arrive at the beach at the same time as theArgo?”
“Lucky coincidence. Dolos and I spotted the Stymphalian birds a few weeks ago. We were tracking them.” He pointed to his face. “I had some unfinished business.”
He drew her back to the sand, and they lay for a while, staring at the night sky.
Heracles traced his fingers along the curve of her waist. “Dolos told me, if I do what my father wants, I’ll be transformed into a star when I die.”
Danae looked at the lights twinkling above them. “Is that what you want?”
Heracles shrugged. “It is the highest honor the gods can bestow. But it always seems lonely to me. Burning alone in the firmament, forever staring down at earth. Always so far away.”
She wondered if he was thinking of his family. She knew if he could, he would be with his wife and children. When her time came, she would always choose to be with Alea.
“My mother loves the stars. She knows the stories of every soul the gods have placed up there to shine for all eternity. Most of them anyway—some she definitely made up.”
“Tell me about them.”
She pointed to the sky, tracing the lights with her finger. “That cluster is the queen Cassiopeia—she’s upside down as punishment for being vain.” Heracles snorted. “Those three there are the belt of the giant Orion, and those are Andromeda, the princess rescued by Perseus from the jaws of a sea monster.”
Her mind went blank. She dropped her hand, suddenly feeling foolish. A crack appeared in the cocoon of their intimacy. A prickle of guilt that she was wasting time.
“Heracles—” She propped herself onto her elbow and looked at him. “Would you ever challenge your father?”
The hero frowned. “That’s a big thing to ask.”
“Heracles!” The cry echoed across the dunes.
“Shit.” Danae scrabbled to find her dress, only just tugging it on before Dolos appeared. Heracles made no attempt to cover himself.
The healer stopped still when he saw them. His eyes hardened like frosted earth.
“Jason is asking for you both.”
“How’s Peleus?” Danae hurriedly got to her feet.
“I’ve done all I can. How he recovers over the next day will be crucial. That stitching was terrible, no wonder it got infected.” Dolos cleared his throat. “But without it, he would have certainly bled to death. You saved his life. For now, anyway.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Dolos. I’m so glad you’re back.”
The healer nodded curtly then turned to Heracles. “Are you coming?”
The hero grinned, stretched like a cat, then slowly got to his feet. Dolos tapped his foot as Heracles fastened his kilt about his waist and flicked the sand from his lion hide.
“I’ll catch you up,” Danae said as the two men headed back toward the beach.
As she watched them walk away, worry crept into her heart.
In his arms, she’d felt so strongly that her own and Heracles’s destinies were entwined. He’d been returned to her. Surely that meant they were fated to walk the same path. The odds of him finding theArgoat the exact moment he did were too slim to be chance.
But Phineus’s words echoed through her mind.Trust no one.
She slipped her hand into the pocket of her dress and pulled out the omphalos shard. Ever since she’d learned of its origins, she’d kept it on her at all times. She unwrapped it and let it roll, naked into her palm. Immediately, her life-threads rushed into her hand, clustering against her skin like fish seeking crumbs on the surface of a pool. She breathed out slowly as they were sucked into the stone. Then she was plunged into darkness, suspended outside her body in the void.
