nearby log, hands dangling between his spread knees, expression gone hard yet his mouth slack with disbelief.
“You’re giving up,” I say, not anywhere close to a question.
“What else are we going to do? Swim across?” He sneers at the lake. “Knowing the Moirai, there’s something waiting for us in those depths.”
“We could try instead of waiting here like—” I huff, running a hand through my hair, uncaring when I rip strands free. “Like cowards.”
He shrugs. “I’d rather be a coward than stuck in that lake with whatever beast they’ve set loose in it. Besides, I’m tired of being cold to my bones and swimming in winter will only worsen that situation.”
I throw my hands out, then up. “We have to try!”
He narrows his eyes. “Why bother? They’ve bested us, Chloe. Might as well admit it and get back to Lemea before spring hits and we’re stuck outdoors in the rain.”
“Because—because—” I snarl, Stam snapping at the air by my neck in her matching rage. Atia curls tight to my neck, unwilling to get involved. “Because we can’t come all this way to just give up.”
He shrugs, leaning back on the trunk and tilting his head back without a care in the world. “Go on. Try.”
“You’ve never been a coward before, Than.”
“I’ve never been bested before, either. There truly is a first time for everything.”
Rage boils in my veins, setting my skin aflame. Turning around, I stomp toward the lake, stopping where the rough edge meets water, then pause, staring into the murky depths. Glimmers of movement stir beneath the surface. Fish, probably.
Or something more sinister, my fear chants. Something with big teeth.
Fear running rampant in my mind, I back away from the lake, imagining a terrible monster ready to burst from beneath the still surface. Then I shake my head, snorting a laugh. Why am I afraid? I’m immortal. Better, I’m a monster myself—or a creature, the term Dionysus seems to favor. Pain is still pain regardless of my immortality, true, but there’s nothing the lake can do to me that’s worse than what the Olympian Palace’s dungeon did to my mind.
“You’re really giving up?” I ask, rage swelling within me once again.
This isn’t like him, part of me insists, but I brush it aside. We’ve known each other for what, a handful of months?
Long enough to fall in love, that same part argues.
This is what Stam and Atia must feel like—divided by two warring parts of themselves—snake and girl.
I kick a pebble, watching as it splashes into the lake, ripples cascading as it sinks. But it doesn’t take the edge off my anger, doesn’t dull Thanatos’ answering of course. The action only furthers the red-black creeping into my vision. I’m angry, so angry, and there’s nothing I can do.
There’s nothing I can do.
With a shriek, I kick another pebble. It sails through the air, plunking into the lake. The ripples spread farther this time.
I whip around, baring my teeth at Thanatos. “You’re just going to sit there?”
He shrugs, picking at the peeling bark by his hand. “There’s nothing else I can do.”
“Nothing else you can do?” My shoulders jump with each shuddering breath. “Nothing else you can do!?”
I stride closer to the lakeshore, uncaring of my pant hem catching on a jutting rock and tearing. Lifting my foot, I kick at the next pebble, more of a rock, with all my might. Only I miscalculate, foot striking too high, and teeter for a long moment, one foot extended toward the lake, the other barely rooting me to the earth.
One knee wobbles. The leg and foot attached waver, just enough to throw me off balance. With a shout, I plummet into the lake.
Bubbles and ripples and my loose tunic floating near my head. Chaos, blue-hued, then green, while I struggle to the surface beneath the weight of my clothes. I splutter, coughing water out of my mouth. My ears clear to hear Thanatos’ howling laughter.
With a frantic series of strokes, I return to the shore and drag myself onto the hard stone. I stumble to my feet, face hot. “And now you’re laughing at me. Great, just great.”
He dabs tears from his dancing eyes. “Oh, shut up and look behind you.”
Grumbling, I turn with exaggerated slowness, sending him into another peal of laughter. A smile tugs at one side of my mouth, unwilling to be stifled.
Water, once murky with a blue tint, shines green. The surface smooths to stillness. The lake glimmers, an emerald reflecting the sky above in shades of moss, pine, and juniper.
“I always suspected you had some of Poseidon’s ability,” Thanatos says, breaking me from my dazed staring. “But I wasn’t sure until you tried to kill him. The water in that bowl beforehand was precisely this shade; nothing he would have liked, as taken by the cerulean Synoro Sea as he is.”
“But seawater has never yielded to me.”
He shrugs. “Maybe it would if you spent time around it. Demigods often have abilities related to their godly parent, but rarely an exact match. Artemis and Apollo, for example. Zeus is the god of the sky, and they’re the gods of the sun and moon, both of which move through the sky.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying perhaps you have an affinity for freshwater like in that bowl and now within this lake.”
I think back to all the time I spent splashing in the freshwater river running between Kos and Khios. Or the days I spent stomping through puddles after a rainstorm. The water was always more green than blue, but my mother attributed it to the host of greenery and moss atop the two islands. Yet I thought it odd how her smile always went tight after saying so.
Plus, there’s the stream between the islands, turned green before I left the islands with Nyx and my aunts, something I dismissed as me seeing things in my panic. Then the bowl in Poseidon’s room.
Could he be right? Could I have inherited an ability with water?
I stare at the lake with fresh eyes. If I could control my ability, there’s a chance we could get to the Moirai’s tower.
“If you suspected I could do something with this.” I flail a hand at the lake. “Why give up on reaching the tower?”
“I was acting. When have you known me to give up on anything worthwhile?”
Thinking back to his determination to find me locked away in the palace’s hidden dungeon, allying himself with Dionysus, I realize he has a point. Despite myself, I grin. “I should’ve known you were acting. You’re many things, but rarely indifferent.”
His smile softens into something sweet, something I want to press a kiss to, if only to feel the smooth curve of his lips beneath mine.
Instead, I put on an air of haughty scorn, tilting my head and pointing my nose to the sky. “You could’ve said something sooner.”
“True.” He rolls his eyes. “Now stop. Honestly, you’re a worse actor than I am.”
Breaking into giggling, I wave him over. He stands, swaggering with false arrogance, sending me into a fresh burst of giggles as soon as the previous wave subsides.
“Stop,” I wheeze.
“Stop what?” he says, hands on his hips, his face twisted into such frigid disdain I’m immediately reminded of Hera.
My laughter tapers off. The light mood disintegrates along with my humor. We’re here laughing, having fun, while Zeus has Hera. She’s not someone I like, not someone I trust all that much, but she was willing to bargain with the Moirai to change the realm.
Here we are, laughing so close to the tower the Moirai make their home, while she’s likely being tortured and punished.
How long before Zeus learns what she was trying to do? How long before he suspects someone else may step in and take her place?
Falling to my knees, I pick at a nearby pebble until my nail cracks. Thanatos crouches beside me, offering his silent support.
“How much time do you think we have? Before Zeus comes to find the rest of the group or us?” I ask.
“A few more days, if we’re lucky.” He glances at the pale blue sky above. “None, if we’re not.”
Steeling my resolve, I nod, then plunge a hand into the lake. Move, I command the rippling surface.
The lake goes still around my hand.
Move. Clear a path.
A trickle of green seeps from between my fingertips, lost to the lake in moments. Then nothing.
“You can do this, dearest,” Thanatos whispers. “Focus on the water touching your hand. Bend it to your will.”
Pushing one hand deeper into the water, I clutch Thanatos by his tunic with the other, using him as solid support so I don’t plunge into the icy lake.
MOVE.
PLEASE MOVE.
A bead of water separates from the rest, floating above the surface like a tiny emerald. With a flick of my eyes one way, then the other, I move it back and forth. It trembles at first, then forms into a tight droplet as my command over it strengthens.
“Another,” Thanatos says.
Another pops free from the lake, hovering close to the second, and they dance around each other. Then another, and another after that. Soon, a thin constellation of them hangs in the air, each glimmering like a small gem. I command them to join. They tremble for a long second, then rush into a ball of green water as big as my fist.
A droplet at a time, I add to the ball. Then I force whole fistfuls into it. It hovers, shaking above the rippling lake.
MORE.
Water runs in rivulets from the lake up to the ball, steadily growing in size. With each addition, the ball convulses that much more. My focus shatters into each chain of water, into each droplet creating the ball. My mind becomes water; the smooth glide of it over my hands, the clean taste of it on my tongue, the soothing splash of it in my ears.
“Chloe,” Thanatos says, breath tickling the shell of my ear.
Any focus I have left breaks into shards.
The ball wobbles down, convulsing. Then it explodes.
Water whips across my face, dampening my hair and snakes in a rush. I splutter, wiping my eyes, and blink until the waterlogged haze clears from my sight. Stam and Atia curl against my neck, hissing in irritation.
“It’s a start,” Thanatos says.
I turn to stare at him. Water drips down his angular nose, plopping onto his tunic in fat drops. His pale hair, once disheveled, slicks close to his scalp from the sudden deluge.
He blinks. “What?”
I erupt into laughter. “A start? I exploded water.”
His lips twitch. “Well, when you put it like that…”
I lean my head onto his shoulder, uncaring how the damp fabric of his tunic sticks to my cheek. Tears gather in the corner of my eyes, my body shaking with each burst of hysterical humor.
But humor can’t last forever, no matter how much we joke and flirt. Too soon, the tears seep into his tunic and my gasps turn to sobs. Turning my head, I swipe my tattered sleeve over my nose, but the tears and snot don’t stop coming.
“I’m sorry,” I say, fisting my hands in my shirt.
He rubs a hand over my back in wide circles. “Hush.”
I lean away, rocking back on my knees, and wipe my face again. “I’m sorry, for not being able to move enough of the water, for the snot—”
“Hey.” He ducks his head, trying to catch my eye. “Look at me. Please.”
I glance at his mouth, the stubble growing on his cheeks, the angular plane of his cheekbones. When I run out of other places to look, I meet his stare.
“Do I look mad? Disappointed? Upset?”
His mouth is soft, his brows smooth and unfurrowed. Slowly, I shake my head.
“We’ll figure this out. We always do.”
He says it with such belief, such conviction. Like his words are the way it is, are the way it’ll always be, and nothing can shake him or shake us.
Fresh tears build in my eyes.
He presses close, his forehead against mine. I inhale his scent of ash, smoke, and tree bark. The sweep of his pale eyelashes against his cheeks, how his breaths fan slow and steady over my mouth—I want to freeze this moment in time, to hold it close to my heart long after we’re gone.
I tilt my head a hair’s breadth, brushing my mouth over his. There’s the stroke of his tongue along my bottom lip, the heat of his breath filling my mouth, his hand brushing down my spine in a slow drag of delicious heat.
Not enough. I press closer, slotting my body into his. We fit perfectly.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, breathless, his lips kiss-swollen.
“I’m thinking I love you.” I press a kiss to the hinge of his jaw.
His next inhale is sharp. From my words or the kiss, I’m not sure. “And?”
“And that there are far too many clothes between us right now.”
A gust of cold air. His hand lifting my shirt, then sliding beneath, gliding across my bare skin. And oh, if I could describe his calluses against the sensitive skin covering my ribs, I would. But there’re no words, only heat.
“We can’t do this in front of the lake for the first time,” he says, yet doesn’t pull away when I tug him by the hair to meet me in a fierce kiss.
“Probably not.” I pull at his tunic, grunting when the buttons near the neck trap him in its folds. “But we can certainly try. Get this off you or I’ll rip it, so help me gods.”
He snorts a laugh, grinning brightly. Faint crinkles form at the corners of his eyes, turning him from an untouchable god into a charming man. With an exaggerated leer, he unclasps the buttons, fingers sure but slow. Torturously so.
“Than.”
He laughs again, pulling me into a kiss while undoing the last button.
As soon as it pops free, I rip the shirt over his head, running my hands along the planes of his chest. The hard edges of his ribs and sternum, the flat, smooth planes of his stomach, the quick beat of his heart. All within reach. All mine.
“Now you,” he murmurs, pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of my mouth.
I don’t bother with his seductive slowness, instead fumbling out of my shirt as quickly as possible. Stam and Atia, blessedly quiet, tuck closer to my neck to get out of the way.
“Eager?” His eyes run across my torso, bare except for the wraps covering my breasts, and I feel each sweep like he’s touching me instead.
Cold pebbles goosebumps along my skin. “I’m excited. Stop being an ass.”
He grins, all mischief. “Oh, I’ll show you an as—”
Laughter bursts from my mouth before he’s done. “You were really going to say—”
Another roar of laughter breaks free.
“I was until you ruined it. That was a golden opportunity!”
“It was something, but I wouldn’t call it golden. Rusty, maybe.”
He pouts. “Don’t joke. You think I’m funny, admit it.”
I kiss him, unable to contain my smile or another fit of giggles. “Fine, you’re funny.”
He breaks our kiss to snort a laugh. He keeps his head bowed, shoulders shaking. When he looks up again, it’s with a grin as bashful as it is boyish.
“What’s that look for?” I ask.
He shrugs one shoulder. “I love you, that’s all.”
I swipe a hand over my mouth, trying to contain the grin stretching across my face, then give up entirely. Why hide it? Why hide my love for him? I’m not afraid to be myself, not like I once was.
Affection and love surge through me. I duck my head, looking at the lake, my mind as calm as its unmoving surface. “I love you too.”
The lake ripples in a stripe down the middle, from the tower all the way to our bit of shore. Within a blink, ripples become waves, then movement.
I pour my love for him, for us, into a single, silent word.
Move.
It does.