My vision goes white. My ears ring in the nothing. The ocean is glass, the clouds are gone, and the air is still, minus one soft breeze.
He cinches the bag shut with one sharp pull, and the contempt in his pale, luminous eyes when he looks at me…
I’ve been looked at like I’m nothing before. My ex did it when he told me I didn’t fit his plan. My parents did it every time my grades came back as anything less than an A, which was more times than not. Vera does it twice a day as a hobby.
This is different. This is someone looking at me and seeing something specific that they hate.
“That’s Tempest’s magic,” he says, her name coming out of his mouth like it’s poison he’s been holding on his tongue for centuries. “Which means she apparently has a terrible taste in champions.”
14
JADE
Saltwater soaks through my clothes,pools in the hollow of my collarbone, and drips from my hair into my eyes. The deck is hard and cold underneath me, my hands shaking where they press against the wood.
Get up. Stop kneeling like you’re waiting to be executed.
But all I can do is stare at the bag thatswallowed my storm,and at the man who’s standing on water like it’s solid ground.
“Who are you?” The question scrapes out of my throat, even though it’s a stupid question that will probably get me killed.
His lip curls. “You don’t know.”
I shake my head, the movement causing more saltwater to land in my eyes.
“Tempest chose a champion who doesn’t recognize the gods of her own domain.” He rolls his eyes—literallyrolls his eyes.“Magnificent. Truly.”
“She didn’t exactly leave an instruction manual.” I huff, since apparently we’re bickering like teenagers in the high school cafeteria now. “It was more of a ‘touch your forehead during a silver lightning storm and then disappear forever’ kind of situation.”
His eyes narrow, and for a second I think he’s going to kill me for that, which would honestly be pretty on brand for the day I’m having.
Instead, he steps onto the boat, and the deck doesn’t creak under him, as if he’s made of air.
“I am Aeolus.” He holds up the leather bag, and the storm inside it screams and writhes. “And I just saved your miserable lives from your own incompetence.”
Aeolus.
Wait. I know that name. He was inThe Odyssey,and I know the name from a musical my high school arts teacher made us listen to a few times while we painted—the epic one about Odysseus’s adventures, which was literally called Epic.
Aeolus’s name sparks ones of the songs to play in my head.
Great wind god Aeolus…
“You’re the wind god,” I say, proud of myself for actually knowing something useful around here for a change. “FromThe Odyssey.You gave Odysseus a bag, his crew opened it, and they were lost at sea for years.”
“Yes. That’s what I am now. A character in a dead man’s poem. A footnote in mortal history,” he says with contempt, and he turns the bag over in his hands, the storm inside howling again. “I was ancient before Homer learned to speak. I held the winds in my fist when your species was figuring out fire. But yes—the wind god fromThe Odyssey.That’s me.”
Logan’s frozen near the railing, his eyes tracking between Aeolus and me with the calculating look that means he already has seventeen different contingency plans. Callie’s gripping a rope, her hair plastered to her face. Evie’s collapsed against the back mast. Kieran stands next to her with his hand on his blade, like that’s going to help against a god.
Finally, Logan cuts through the silence, calm and measured, like he’s having a normal conversation and not standing in frontof an ancient deity who could and possibly will destroy us with a thought.
“You know Tempest,” he says, as ifthat’sthe biggest problem we have right now.
Aeolus’s attention shifts to Logan, and his eyes sharpen.
“Iknewher,” he says, the words heavy and loaded. “Her storms fed my winds. Her thunder was born from my breath. We were...”
He trails off, and the water around the boat shivers.
