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The changes in their bodies made them move differently, faster and liquid, almost like the water in the Fount. Nyxara and Hestraon followed Braxtos down the mountain, weaving around huts and cathedrals, the boatbuilders hard at work on the vessels that they sent out from the island, bringing word to the world of the new gods that had risen to take the place of the Fount. The three of them ignored it, even as work stopped in their wake, as every human knelt and pressed their faces to the ground.
Caeliar was on the beach, staring at the ocean as if it had personally insulted her. Her feet were planted firmly in the foam, her hands clenched by her sides. Lereal stood a few yards back, arms crossed, worrying at their nearly invisible nails with their teeth. Apollius was nowhere to be seen.
At the sound of their approach, Caeliar turned around, her eyes flinty. “Watch,” she said, no preamble. She stepped forward, into the sea.
It parted for her, the water forming small walls on either side, her bare feet making their way over shell and coral as if this were softest carpet. Nyxara had seen her do this often enough that she knew the exact place where she’d stop—just beyond a barnacle-covered rock a few feet past the shoreline.
Caeliar reached it. Kept going.
The walls of water grew higher as she moved forward, a determined gait into the depths. Nyxara knew that if nothing stopped her, she’d walk all the way back to the continent like this, crossing the seafloor as if it were a ballroom.
But then Caeliar froze. Her whole body stood straight, too straight, then cramped to the side, as if some giant fist had closed around her, crumpled her like paper. A strangled scream wrenched from her throat, but it was closer to rage than pain.
Everyone else’s eyes stayed on their friend in the sea, but something brushed across the back of Nyxara’s neck, some awareness. She turned.
Apollius, right where gravel became sand, where the line of decaying trees began. His hand was outstretched, fingers crooking in the air, pointed right at Caeliar. Manipulating the life within her, seizing the threads of it in his fist, weaving them into a cage.
He met Nyxara’s eyes. He didn’t look away.
That night, she met Hestraon in the grove. They kissed, they slid together, heat and skin and sweat, and afterward they lay looking up at the sky, at the moon hanging like a jewel in the dark.
“We can leave,” she murmured. “He’s the one keeping us here.”
He sighed, as if he was disappointed, but not surprised. “But why?”
“Because he never learned to be alone.” Just saying that much against him was enough to make the edges of her mind ache, a phantom pulling at her temples. His bonds, stretched to their limits.
“He isn’t alone. He has the whole world to worship him now.” Hestraon looked at her, the moon shining in his eyes. He’d made a fire in the center of the grove, and the flames stood tall and still as stone. “Maybe you can convince him to let the rest of us go, now that he has that. Maybe he’ll let you go, too.”
Nyxara knew that wasn’t true. He’d never let her go. But maybe there was hope for the others.
So she rose and held out her hand to Hestraon. He took it. They went to find Apollius.
He was in the plaza, sitting at the edge of the Fount, staring into its mirror-like surface. The penitents had made this place a palace, had brought him cloth-of-gold and sumptuous embroidery to wear, but the robe he wore now was simple linen, hanging off his shoulder, and he wore nothing beneath.
She didn’t speak when she went to him, though she could tell by his sharp intake of breath that he smelled Hestraon on her. She kissed him, and pushed aside his robe.
Behind her, Hestraon pulled her own robe from her body, baring her for the other man. He bent to kiss her shoulder, and Apollius’s hand that wasn’t in Nyxara’s hair tangled in Hestraon’s, instead, pushing his head down, making him kiss all along her collarbone, her neck. Apollius sat back, and Nyxara stepped forward, Hestraon’s hands on her waist—
No. This is mine.
Later, when Hestraon had gone and it was only Apollius and Nyxara lying by the Fount, he pushed up on his elbow. “Did you finally get him out of your system?”
“Did you?” she countered.
His hand was in her hair. It tightened, almost enough to be painful.
“It won’t happen again,” she said, both an answer and not. She threw her leg over him, pinned him to the ground. He was hard again; she slipped him inside, clenched down hard. “I’ll marry you, Apollius.”
He rolled his hips even as he glared. “I sense a bargain.”
Nyxara swallowed, fighting against a moan despite herself. “I’ll marry you,” she repeated, “if you let the others go.”
The snarl was back, twisting his face. He’d been handsome before; now, he was so beautiful it was terrifying, gold phosphorescence running beneath his skin, making him shine like a man-shaped sun. “I can make that deal,” he said, thrusting into her again, harder. “As long as you’re with me, near the source, the power will be, too. We need each other, Nyxara, we always have.” His thrusts slowed, now, became something that felt like he actually loved her and didn’t just want to possess her. “As long as you’re here, I don’t need the rest.”
He rocked upward, and she gasped at the sky, breaking apart around him, same as always.
But she married him, and he still didn’t lift whatever it was that he’d done to keep the others on the island. They still contorted in pain when they tried to step off the shore.
