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Braxtos crossed his arms. “So you’re back at the beginning, then. Found the Fount, but It’s useless.”
“Not useless.” Apollius stepped forward, tugging Nyxara along with him. She didn’t really want to get any closer to the Fount, or whatever It was, but his grip on her hand didn’t give her much choice. Hestraon stepped forward, too, his hand rising toward her before he made it fall back to his side.
Her jaw set tight as a prison lock. Both of them did this, all the time. Acted like they knew best, like she was something that needed protecting, something fragile. As if her own mind were a mystery to her, and both of them knew it better than she ever could.
It was exhausting, sometimes. She knew herself just fine.
“The Fount wouldn’t give me Its answers,” Apollius said, turning to face the friends he’d brought here, the ones he’d chosen to share this with. “But It has them. Somewhere inside. And we can find them.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, for them to understand what exactly he was suggesting. Lereal realized first. They shook their head. “You want us to go in there?”
“Not go in,” Apollius said. “We drink from It. Take part of It into ourselves.” He glared at the flat surface of the water, his reflection beaming the anger back at him. “Then It won’t be able to hide things from us.”
Lereal tugged nervously at the ends of their golden hair. “Sorry, Apollius, but I really don’t want to do that.”
No one seemed particularly enthused by the idea. Braxtos and Hestraon hung back at the edge of the ruined plaza, casting wary glances between them. Caeliar frowned at Apollius like she thought she hadn’t heard him correctly.
But Nyxara stared only at the Fount. She thought of power, of being someone that wouldn’t be underestimated, someone that no one would think they needed to protect. Protection was just control, in the end. A leash held by a benevolent hand was still a leash.
She shook free of Apollius’s grip.
He glanced at her, brow furrowed, before looking back at Lereal. “Do you know the way home, Lereal?”
Not a threat. Not yet. But the potential hung there, and it could alchemize at any moment.
Braxtos didn’t let it. He always said things in plain language. “You’re saying if we don’t drink, you won’t show us the way home.”
“Technically, you said it.” Apollius smiled, though his eyes stayed narrowed and flinty.
“Why?” Caeliar crossed her arms and canted her hips, though the posture didn’t dim the avid look in her eyes. “You want the answer, you drink.”
“I tried that already,” Apollius said quickly. But there was a tic in his neck, a strain in his jaw. “It needs more than just me.”
Hestraon stared at him, then Nyxara. They knew he was lying, at least partially. But what was there to say?
“I hate you sometimes,” Hestraon said to Apollius, and it didn’t sound like he was joking. Odd, how easily hate and love could fade into each other, passion in fluid forms.
Another not-quite-smile from Apollius, then he gestured at the Fount. “I’ll go first, take another drink. Show you there’s nothing to be afraid of. And you’ll come after me.”
And there was no question that they would, no matter how uneasy the five of them looked. Apollius had been the leader of their small group for so long; none of them really thought to gainsay him. There was something about his presence, like it held more weight than anyone else, like he took up all the air in a room. Since he’d returned from his journey, telling them all he’d finally found the Fount, that personal gravity had only grown heavier.
Apollius stepped up to the golden ledge. There was no chalice—he reached in with his hands, cupping them in the glass-clear water, disturbing the placid shine. The ripples expanded, reached the sides, kept going like a tide, as if the Fount had its own rhythms. As if a cycle started here was unending.
Water streamed from Apollius’s hands as he lifted them, shining in his palms. He closed his eyes. “You will give me what I need,” he murmured, almost a threat. “I will know all the answers.”
And that sounded so good, to have something that couldn’t lie to you. To know the secrets of the world, so it could never take you off guard.
Nyxara ran up to Apollius’s side as he lifted his hands to his mouth. She pressed her face near his, and opened her lips, and drank at the same time he did.
He startled, but just for a moment. Then he pressed closer to her, and she lifted her hands, too, so the water wouldn’t escape, and they both drank deep. It felt like they were even closer than they had been moments before, when he was inside her, his mouth on her own. This felt like they were two sides of the same coin, the sun and the moon, the light and the dark.
A rumble through the ground. The faintest sound of something cracking.
“One more,” Apollius murmured to her, tipping the rest of the water toward her mouth even as it streamed through his fingers. “Take one more.”
And she did. Two sips, singing through her like lightning.
Apollius’s wet hands came to either side of Nyxara’s face, cradling it like she was something precious. “I will never be apart from you,” he said, the waters of the Fount streaming from his mouth. “You will be mine forever, and you will never speak against me, never share my secrets or betray me. You will never try to leave me, ever.”
