Page 135 of Kneel Before Me

“Where are we?” she whispered.

Kronos stepped forward. “You shall see.”

He pushed the door open, and Daphne gasped.

Before her was a massive lake—beautiful and dark and endless, its shores trailing off into the darkness. She had never seen something so massive.

“Are we allowed to be here?” Daphne whispered. Her words echoed.

“Yes,” Kronos said. “No one is here.”

“What is this place?”

“It is where we gather. We consider it sacred.”

“What makes it sacred?”

“It is believed that Kora herself bathed there.”

Daphne’s mouth fell open. “Are you serious?”

Kronos smiled at her expression. “Yes, I am.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

But Daphne trailed off. Like everyone else in the village, she’d been raised to worship the gods. Kora was their benevolent mother, goddess of fertility. Yet Daphne had never really thought of her as…real. Picturing an actual, physical person was impossible. Kora was a goddess—an ethereal being who was beyond what mere mortals could comprehend. To see this lake and to think that she had actually bathed here… It was unbelievable.

“Is it not beautiful?” Kronos whispered.

It was. Daphne had never been to the sea before, but she imagined it must be something like this. A sloped, sandy shore dipped gently down toward the edge of the lake. The water went on seemingly forever, as far as the eye could see. The lake was surrounded by a series of grottos that dotted the edges until they, too, disappeared into the ether. Daphne couldn’t grasp such magnitude.

“It’s…huge,” she whispered.

“It is,” Kronos said calmly.

Surely, he had seen it a hundred times before. But for Daphne—who had hardly left the village walls—it made her feel unimaginably small.

“Shall we…take a swim?” Kronos asked.

Daphne nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

Kronos walked forward, stopping at the edge of the water. So did Daphne. They looked out over the glassy expanse.

“After you,” Kronos said quietly.

Daphne took a tentative step forward. The moment she submerged her toes, she sighed. The water was gloriously warm, lapping gently at her feet. She took another step, submerging herself up to her knees. She looked up at Kronos. He was watching her in awe, his expression calm and joyous. They walked together, hand in hand, and the farther they went, the quieter it got. The water was up to her thighs now, swirling over her skin in gentle whorls. Something within Daphne was deeply soothed by the sensation.

“How do you feel?” Kronos murmured, as if he could read her mind.

“Calm,” she said. “Is that normal?”

He shrugged. “I do not know.”

She looked up at him in surprise. “Are you saying that I’m…the first human to be here?”