Chapter Text
I. The First Life
It begins like this:
Rain pouring from the sky, pelting anything it can reach. He lets it hit him, reveling in the sting. Clouds cover the sun, turning everything around him a dark, eerie grey. There’s wind, too, kicking up any dry sand that may remain, and blowing branches off trees in the distance.
The waves are rough and choppy, violently crashing against the shore. The tide is far too high, the crests far too tall, threatening the town that sits just beyond the sand. The ground trembles beneath him, only serving to make the waves more brutal.
Thunder crashes from atop a mountain in the distance, a flash of lightning following in quick succession. A warning, perhaps, though not one he intends to heed.
He stands knee-deep in the water, letting the strength of the currents wash over him. Power courses through his veins, the entire expanse of the sea and earth at his command. He takes it all in stride, allowing it to do as it pleases.
And there, beneath the thunder and the lightning and the waves that thrash like wild horses, he finds himself caught up in the feeling of it all, in the beauty of control and impulse—so much so that he barely hears the voice calling out to him.
“You should not be out there!”
He turns, not halting the storm raging on inside him.
A woman is standing on the beach, a hand above her eyes to shield them from the rain.
She takes a few steps forward before calling out again. “He must be displeased; it is not safe!”
Displeased .
Poseidon feels his lips twitch slightly at her assumption—if he was truly displeased , the town would be nothing more than rubble on the ground.
Despite her opposition to his being in the water, the woman continues to walk out toward him. Her peplos clings to her skin and some parts of her dark hair fly with the wind; others press tight against her forehead, unwilling to let go. She does not seem to care about any of this.
“Woman, what are you doing?” he calls, but she does not falter.
She has a mission. One that—if judging by the way she wades into the tide has anything to do with it—she intends to go through with.
A pity, really. Deep inside under the soil of his skin, where ichor flows, he can sense the tugging. A wave forms beneath him, crests, and finally, finally takes the woman with it, leaving only clouds of foam. Good riddance.
He is about to turn his focus on the clouds when he hears the gasp.
Her head cleaves through the water close enough to see her glistening cheeks and her matted hair, to hear her spluttering breaths and her greedy gulps.
“Are you insane?” he calls.
He truly wishes she was. But she does not seem to be. No matter his rage, or the seeming insignificance that she holds over the fate of such a meager village as Megara. What stays with him the most is the piercing gaze, like a gull that finally caught sight of the fish.
“I told you”—she insists, a hand held out to him as if she is the one in control of it all—“it isn’t safe!”
He stands there, rigid as a rock. Stares. She does, too, and he can feel her heartbeat. It has begun to calm and soothe, and the currents tug her toward him with tentative fingers.
“Why are you here, anyway?” Her voice rings over wind and rain.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Then come to shore, and I will tell you.”
Perhaps this mortal he will indulge.
“What is your name?”
Poseidon lets her ask questions; out of humor, he will answer them.
“Pelagaeus.”
It is a lie, of course. Or not a lie. It does not matter to him either way. A name is a name, and he’s had many before. And she will not remember his name after this life, she will not remember anything. Maybe his memories will fade as the years wear on. Maybe he will not even remember this encounter.
She nods, satisfied, and leads him toward shelter—an olive tree, thickened with age, its gnarled arms pointing to the ground. The leaves filter in a few pearls of rain, though with each second the storm has begun to cease anyway. He wonders, smiling a tad at her show of confidence, how long he has before this woman finds out who he truly is.
“Of the sea,” she remarks softly.
“Pardon?”
Their eyes lock. For the first time he can appreciate her beauty, now so near. No matter the mess she is in, her poise is regal, her chin jutted out. Wet hair has begun to settle into gentle waves. She has a sharp nose and sharp cheekbones. Delicate hands and delicate lips, tugged into a teasing smile.
“Pelagaeus, you say. Of the sea.”
“Oh, well,” he says, “that is how some call me.”
“And the others? How do they call you, if not Pelagaeus?”
Her dark eyebrow is raised in challenge, and the drizzle rustles through branches—taps the sand surrounding the olive tree like footsteps.
“Does it matter?”
“It is only a question.”
“And why would I give you an answer? I do not have the obligation to grant such a thing to a woman. Least of all a lone one as yourself.”
Then her smile turns smug. She doesn’t seem to mind his response, and perhaps this was her game all along. Perhaps she already knows his true name. Perhaps she is a goddess herself, simply playing a trick on him, making him out to be a fool. But no, through her eyes he sees that she genuinely is mortal—flesh and bone and blood of red, and no more important than the rest of them.
“Alright,” she tells him, after a beat of silence. “I will give you my name.”
“I did not ask for it.”
“But you want to know, do you not?”
And oh , it is a game, alright. His eyes rove her, from her barren feet to her loose hair. The white peplos she wears, just barely beginning to dry, is weaved with intricate designs of red, green, and blue—depictions of running deer and blowing trees and riders lengthened from the shoulder brooches to her shins. She is twenty and then some, if he had to guess.
“You are a princess. Or perhaps the daughter of a nobleman, at least.”
She shrugs flippantly. “You do not know. But you want to know, and for that, I will give you my name.” A pause. “Salacia.”
“Salacia?”
She nods.
“A rare name. I have known women of many names, but never Salacia.”
“I will admit that it is rare. My father desired originality. I am named after no one, unlike you, Pelagaeus.”
“I am also named after no one.”
She leans against the trunk and gazes at him critically. “I have read otherwise. Pelagaeus. Of the sea. That is another name for Poseidon, yes? I do not believe I am mistaken.”
And there it is.
“You can read?” he asks instead.
“I was taught by Pallas Athena herself.”
“Ah.”
He supposes that this fact clicks into place quite well. Her quick wit, her clever game—one that she has already marked an end to. One where she wins, where he has no choice but to follow through.
He does not like it, does not care for losing, does not care to be made a fool. There’s a familiar stir inside of him, one that demands to be felt, one that aims to make the oceans stir and the ground tremble, and yet…
And yet.
“Your family,” he says, stepping closer, “they are favored by my niece, then. They must be of importance.”
“Yes, they must be…Lord Poseidon.” And then, she looks at him—or through him, rather, to the sky behind, and that smug smile pulls at her lips once more. “Oh, how nice. The rains have stopped.”
Indeed, the sky has dimmed to a light gray, his own waters having slowed from a violent onslaught to something akin to calm. Poseidon clicks his tongue, letting out an amused scoff.
“That is why you brought me here, is it not?”
She ignores him—this Salacia. She is likely a princess, yet even princesses must bow down to the kings. And even kings must bow down to the gods. But she only walks away.
“The sand is still wet, I suppose,” she remarks, as her footsteps stain a path on virgin ground. “But it smells of petrichor. I have always loved that smell.”
Taught by Athena or not, any mortal can turn foolish and prideful if left alone, like stale bread. Poseidon’s eyes close; soon his very essence turns to mist, only to reform right before her. Now. Now, she falters. His trident is familiar and steady wrapped up in his hand as he wields it. It is not a weapon, but rather an extension of himself, a tool that demands its bearer to be respected.
“The calm can always change, you know,” he says, quiet as a tremor. Something flickers through her eyes, and he is almost certain that it is the flicker of fear. His own must be burning the deep green of satisfaction. No mortal can best him, in the end. Not even the most clever. “What made you believe that, by tricking me, you would make me turn the tide for you?”
She straightens. “You did turn the tide.”
Water rushes to their feet. Poseidon does not sense the cold, but Salacia does. She shivers.
“And the calm,” he says again, a little more force behind his words, “can always change.”
“What purpose would you have for doing that? Other than meaningless power? What is the outcome of destroying Megara? Of turning it to nothing more than rubble?”
“If I wanted to destroy your small, pitiful village, then I would’ve done just that from the very beginning.”
“You are blind,” she seethes. “I would not have disturbed your…spectacle if it had not been for my kingdom, my village being in danger of complete ruin. And for what? You do not mind, stopping or not. It is all the same to you. Thoughtless whims that suit your hunger for control.”
And perhaps it is also her wings of anger, those wings that come so near the sun for a kiss of death, that make him reconsider. Make him hesitate. What do I do with a woman like her?
Salacia. It is true. He has never in his millennium of existence met a Salacia before.
“Megara, is it?”
“Yes.”
“I admit, your village is so small I did not even think of destroying it.”
“That does not change the damage.”
Any fear that had once flickered in her eyes has vanished, replaced by something . He does not know what that something is; no mortal has ever looked at him the way she is now. She steps towards him and without thinking he follows, taking a step backward.
Water swirls up to his ankles, then partway up his calf. She must know what she’s doing, she is too smart not to. And yet, here she is, pushing him into the tide, into his domain.
He looks at her for a moment, at the way she pays no mind to how her barely dried peplos is once again becoming heavy with the weight of the water as she stands in front of him, nearly knee-deep in the tide.
“And what would you have me do?” he asks. “About the damages?”
She purses her lips, raising her chin slightly. “Nothing.”
He stops.
“Nothing?”
Salacia nods, but her eyes briefly look down at the water. It takes him a moment to realize that it has nearly stopped moving altogether, like it is holding its breath the same way he is.
“Nothing except to take your leave,” she says. Every aspect of her is regal, he thinks. A strength unknown to even goddesses. He does not say that, of course, but the thought is there; he wishes to forget it. “The village was perfectly fine without your being here. I am sure it will have no trouble returning to such in your absence.”
Just like stale bread left out in the sun, it is her time to crumble. He looks at her, sees the line crossed, and a cord beneath his stomach strengthens into ropes. The tide recedes until water is no longer touching either of them. It goes back further still, building, building, building.
“You would do best to watch your tongue, mortal.”
But she does not back down. She stands her ground, looking up at him, her eyes never once wavering, her posture never once relaxing, her breath never once faltering.
“If you were going to do anything, you would have already done it.”
She matches his tone, words eerily calm and laced with a barely contained hostility.
And the tremors start. They are small still. Contained, waiting to be released. He’s not even sure she can feel them, but then she inhales sharply and shakes her head.
“ My kingdom, not yours.”
Perhaps it is because he sees himself in her eyes—they are similar, after all. He has never been one to bow down, to listen to anyone but himself. Authority has no meaning to him, but defiance runs through his veins. It is his very being. He is the sea, and the sea does not like to be restrained.
And he can see the sea in her eyes, the wall of swirling water building behind them, waiting to be released, reflected back at him from the darkness of her irises. He can feel the sea in her spirit.
So perhaps that is why he leaves. Perhaps that is why he spares Megara, why he spares her.
Perhaps.
He does not stay away for very long.
If anyone were to ask, he would not be able to answer why. There is something unexplainable about his actions; he watches from afar, for two weeks at least, as she walks along the shore. A woman alone, with loose hair and a loose chiton. Only once did she wear a peplos. The time they met had been unexpected, but her time alone by the sea is deliberate, and so he supposes that she dresses as she pleases.
On day fifteen, the tide hisses more than usual. Salacia watches, sitting under the reflection of golden sand and rocks. He trudges to her through foam and green, and her spine straightens. He did not bring his trident, but he didn’t have to. There is a moment when they are paces away, and still, she will not stand. She squints from the sun, as if she has absorbed too much, and likely she has. Her beauty is a radiance; curls shining like jewels and skin a darker shade than usual. She has been here a while.
“Hm. It seems Pelagaeus has finally come out of his hiding place.”
A flash of annoyance floods through him. “I do not hide .”
She scoffs and flicks a pebble into the sea. “You have been watching me for days now. Watching, yet you did not come to say hello. I call that hiding .”
He does not ask how she knows this. Athena favors few, but Salacia is one of them. It is obvious enough. He is not certain anymore, that if he were to strike her, she would fall dead. It is a fact that intrigues him.
“I see everything that is near the sea,” he tells her.
“Is that so?”
“That is the reason I am here now.”
He sits beside her and she hums. “I think it is more likely because you could not help yourself. I told you to stay away,” she looks at him. “I knew you would not, of course; gods are all the same, after all.”
“How do you mean?”
“None of you have it in yourselves to listen to anyone. Especially not a mortal.”
“Why should we?”
“It might do you some good,” she says. Poseidon tilts his head slightly, and she continues. “What would you be without mortals to prove your superiority to? You would be nothing, and you know that as well as I. If you listen, for even a moment, you lose your sense of importance. And there is nothing a god craves more than importance .”
He cannot help but let his lips twitch up. There is irony in her statement; he knows she is not much different than him when it comes to listening.
“Oh, is that so, Your Highness ,” he says, trying for humor, or maybe patronization.
If it was patronization, it did not work, because Salacia sits up straighter, her pink lips curling up on one side, her eyes twinkling.
“I believe you are mistaken, my lord. It is not Your Highness , it is Your Majesty . I am the queen of Corinth.”
And like the snap of someone’s fingers, anger flares up inside of Poseidon.
Twice. Twice she has lied to him, twice he has played the fool. This village, this Megara , means nothing to her. It was nothing more than a trick, a ploy to belittle him. The water churns a few feet from where they sit and the ground trembles beneath him. His jaw is clenched, and he turns to meet her eyes.
She has such a delicate body—all mortals do. Breakable and frail, no harder to crush than a shell beneath his foot. A body so breakable should not be able to trick and trap him in place.
But her eyes make him stop.
There is no fear, and a part of him knew there would not be. They are the color of the ocean when it is peaceful, when waves do not bombard the shore as they are beginning to now.
They are calm.
For whatever reason, the calm in her eyes pulls him down, tugs on him like a current.
“Oh?” he says, finally.
And she smiles that smug smile again. “Yes, oh . King Glaucus is my husband.”
Glaucus, he recalls. Interesting, indeed. A mortal king, cursed by Zeus to never sire an heir.
He nods stiffly, the water still crashing violently but slowing ever so slightly.
“I did not lie to you,” she continues. “I was the princess of Megara once, and I like to believe that I still am. After all, the same blood that ran through my veins then runs through them now.”
“But you did lie,” he says. “Glaucus does not have a wife by the name of Salacia.”
“You are right; he does not,” she says, but she does not elaborate.
“What is your name, then, if not Salacia?” he asks, but he knows the answer. He recalls Mestra, the woman Glaucus had demanded to marry—after all, Poseidon is the one who had given her the ability to shapeshift. He is the reason she eluded the marriage. And if Mestra had not wanted to marry Glaucus, Poseidon cannot say he blames Eurymede for wanting the same.
“I believe you already know.”
He nods, taking her in “Why Salacia and not Eurymede?”
“I do not think it matters much. A name is nothing more than an identifier, and I prefer Salacia.”
Poseidon looks back out to the water, and it has calmed. The waves are soft now, smooth.
Salacia, Salacia, Salacia . It rolls off his tongue when he says it and sounds like the melody of a lyre when she does.
He, too, has gone by many other names, though none have been as dulcet as Salacia .
“Well then, Salacia,” and he says her name again if only to savor the way it feels in his mouth, the way she seems to relish the fact that he does not use her real name. “What is a queen like yourself doing so far from your home?”
She scoops up a pile of sand, lifting her hand and letting it slip through her fingers.
“Home is not the word I would use,” she picks up some more sand. “But if you must know, I am visiting my father. I have not seen him in some time.”
“Ah.”
“Ah, indeed. Glaucus does not mind much, I presume. He cannot have children, so it is not as if I am of use to him now.”
“So…Megara.”
Salacia turns to him and smiles just as the sun comes out from behind a cloud, dousing her in a honey-like glow.
“So Megara,” she nods.
He reaches a hand out towards the water, calling it to him. A wave climbs up the shore, circling their ankles, wetting the bottom of her chiton. The water pulls sand back as it retreats, revealing several small shells.
“The beaches here are better than in Corinth, I believe,” he says.
“Yes, they are. Too much rock in those parts. I can barely take any placid strolls.”
“You know, all rock will turn to sand. Eventually.”
“Eventually,” she agrees and looks at him pointedly, her chiton between her fists. “The tide does what it wants. And so the cycle continues. What belongs to the sea shall always return to it.”
“Is this your way of casting me out?”
A whisper of a smile plays on her lips. “I attempted doing that once already, did I not? But no, I am not. I am talking about these seashells,” she shows him the ones she has already picked up.
“Ah.”
“The beach here is much better than in Corinth, you are right; certainly Megara’s seashells are plentiful. But the tide wants what it wants.” Then, “Oh,” she says, reaching forward. She pushes aside some of the shells and sand, picking up a lone pearl. “I have always loved pearls. This one is beautiful, is it not?”
He watches as she rolls it between her fingers, the tiny ball shimmering in shades of pinks and purples. He watches her eyes, the way they look down at the pearl in admiration. He watches her lips and the smile that forms along them.
“It is,” he confirms, but his eyes have not strayed off of her.
He is playing a dangerous game, he knows. Being here, looking at her the way he is now. These kinds of affairs never end well.
She raises her chin. “Did you even look at it?”
And then her eyes find him, and, oh , this is a dangerous game indeed. There is intelligence in them as if she knows what he is thinking. There is a challenge in them, daring him to lie to her, to say something she knows to be untrue.
And he has never been one to shy away from a challenge.
His next words are carefully picked. “I see everything that is near the sea.”
She scoffs slightly, but that whisper of her smile remains. “So you have said.”
The world falls to shadow, and still, Poseidon lingers on the beach. There is a suspense here, like he is trapped in the middle of something. This beach has become the connection between the land and the sea, between his world and the mortal world, and he does not want to wander into either. Not yet.
A moment passes and the clouds part, the ghostly silver light of the moon leaking from the sky. It is nearly full. Just two days, now.
Something glimmers a few paces from him, like a white, faraway torch. A step towards it reveals the pearl Salacia had been holding, now rolling in the sand as the tide moves it around, but too stubborn to be swallowed whole.
Perhaps she had simply forgotten to take it home. But no, he thinks. Her eyes, that intelligence—she is not one to do anything by mistake, by accident. She had clearly meant to leave it behind, despite her admiration.
What belongs to the sea shall always return to it.
There are not many things Poseidon would admit not knowing the answer to, but the answer as to why he finds himself bending down and picking up the pearl is one of them.
It is a beautiful pearl, he thinks, examining it from every angle. It is smooth yet rough, and ever-so-slightly oval-shaped instead of circular. But for some reason that’s what is most alluring about this small, brilliant object, come to haunt him from the depths. He realizes it reminds him of her. Smooth and rough and brilliant. Perfectly imperfect. That night, under the soft guise of a nearly full moon, he takes the pearl.
But he means to give it back.
For Queen Salacia or Queen Eurymede?
Perhaps they are the same, but this pearl, he quickly decides, is for Queen Salacia. It will suit her better.
In the thick humidity of mid-June, his duties as a god do not seem to matter. His focus is elsewhere, on the thin band of gold bracketing the pearl that he holds between his fingers.
Thetis molded the necklace for him, a favor for something he can no longer remember. She is good with jewelry and asked few questions, something he finds himself thankful for after the fact. It is much more delicate than anything a blacksmith could craft; it’s thinner, not as sturdy. The chain is flexible, unlike the jewelry that is customary. There is no denying that it was created by a skilled hand, that it was crafted for someone of importance.
And even now, after the sun has set, his duties as a god do not matter. All that does is the connection between land and sea. Shore to olive trees. She is waiting under the oldest one, the darkness nearly making her out as invisible. His duties may be forgotten, but he is a god, and so he catches the glimpse of a smile and the shimmer of her eyes just fine.
When she steps away from the shadows, the full moon guides her to him. By nightfall , she had told him just two days ago. Meet me by nightfall .
As their footsteps draw nearer to each other, he can make out the now-familiar light in her eyes.
“It took you long enough,” she says.
“You did not specify when I should have come.”
“Aren’t gods supposed to read minds?” He knows she does not really believe this, yet he goes along, anyway.
“No, Your Majesty,” he says with a slight grin. “We cannot read minds.”
“Pity. If only you could.” And her lips spread into a coy smile.
“I admit, I am curious.” He does not specify what he is curious about, and he is not sure he knows.
“Is that why you have come these past days? Why you have watched for even longer? Because you are only curious?”
He pauses to regard her. Perhaps she is the one who can read minds. Ever since the beginning.
“Yes,” he tells her, the truth slipping from his lips before he can catch himself. “You are a curiosity of a woman. Layer after layer, and I just cannot seem to reach the end of you.”
“My greatest wish is that you shall never reach that end,” she replies.
“Your greatest wish? You would waste your greatest wish on my curiosity?”
“Hm, maybe you are right; maybe that is not my greatest wish.”
Her eyes dance, daring him to keep the conversation going, daring him to say the words on the tip of his tongue.
The words do not move, however, and are replaced by more curious musings. “What is your greatest wish, then?”
She mulls over her own words. “I think…I think it is simply to enjoy my life while I am here.”
It is the answer he should have expected from her; it suits her, Salacia.
She sits down in the sand, gesturing for him to do the same. They are just outside the branches of the olive trees so as to not obscure their view of the sky. Today, the stars are outshined by the moon. Selene watches over the world with just an eye, round and very silver.
They do not talk much, but it is not the same silence they have experienced before. It is not the intentional silence, the one where neither of them talks because they are taking in the things around them. This silence feels hesitant, as though they do not know what to do next.
Salacia is lying in the sand now, her dark hair fanned out around her like a halo. She is looking up at the sky, her eyebrows pinched together like she is deep in thought.
Poseidon leans over her slightly, looking down.
“Is something troubling you?”
She opens her eyes and stares at him. “Why do you want to know?” Then, sitting up and feigning surprise, “Do not tell me that you are worried about me. I was not aware that gods were capable of such emotions.”
Despite her lack of true shock over this revelation, Poseidon’s is abundant. He has never once felt real emotions. Love, worry, grief, fear—they are all mortal, they are rooted in empathy, something gods lack experience with.
And yet, when Salacia gives him that smile, he would swear up and down and on the River Styx that what he is feeling is something akin to mortal emotions.
His tongue feels heavy in his mouth when he speaks. “Gods are capable of many things.”
“Is that so?”
Her eyes lock on his, and there is a strange sense about them. They are not dark, not closed off; rather, they are bright, open, vulnerable. It is a look Poseidon is not well acquainted with—nobody has ever truly shown him vulnerability.
“I believe we are capable of things we do not even know,” he says slowly.
She nods, and her perceptive gaze says what she does not. I understand .
Despite the darkness of the night, the June air is still warm around them. It settles thickly over the two of them, and the only sounds to be heard are the rush of water and the miscellaneous noises of nature.
“My husband has come to visit me,” she says after a while. “That is why I told you to meet me by nightfall.”
“He keeps you busy during the day.” It is not a question, but an affirmation.
She clears her throat. “Yes. He does. But not at night. At night he is…busy, with the servant girls.”
He sees her swallow, and he sees her fingers subconsciously dance over her belly. Perhaps someday he truly will reach the end of all her layers. He likes to think he is starting to, but that is too foolish a thought.
“Men can please their desires,” she says, for the millionth time seeming to read right through him. “That is not what bothers me.”
A pause. She does not move. Does not flinch at the sudden clap of a wave.
Poseidon stares into the vastness of his realm, now barely touched by light. Patience is not his virtue, and silence is not his friend.
“What bothers you, then?”
“He wants to take me back,” she tells him, finally, “but I am not going. Corinth can do without her queen, for now.”
“Corinth is lucky to have a queen such as yourself.”
“Perhaps,” she muses. “Although it is not as if I have a say in the happenings. I have been made well aware of my place in that city.”
The words themselves do not give much away, but the tone in which they are spoken conveys a message meant for only those capable of picking up on it.
The water swirls around Poseidon’s ankles as he ponders his next words.
“Why did you marry him, then, if you do not care for him?”
She scoffs slightly. “You act as if I had a choice in the matter—I was auctioned off. I was a prize to be won, just as countless other women are.”
“Forgive me,” he says. “I only have a hard time believing that you of all people would yield to the whims of someone else. I cannot picture you doing anything you do not wish to do.”
“Yes, well,” she sighs. “Lady Athena has a way of getting others to do what she wants.”
“And you, of course, have such a knack for following orders,” he says, trying for a beam of light in the somber mood.
It works, because she laughs. He is almost certain he has never seen her laugh. Or heard it. It is like a fish leaping through the air, fast and free and very much alive. The stars twinkle in her eyes, and her lips form half of the moon.
“Ah, Pelagaeus,” she teases, “you are funny.”
“Pelagaeus?”
“If I am Salacia, then you are Pelagaeus.”
“And what of Eurymede?”
She drags herself up into a sitting position, looks at him. “What about Eurymede?”
“It is your given name. Why do you not like it?”
“As you said, I have a knack for following orders.”
Poseidon snorts. “Of course you do.”
She laughs again, lighter this time. A smaller fish. But he does not care; he finds that it is his new vice, making her laugh. Any laugh.
Then she quiets, and says, “I do not know, really. It is not that I do not like my given name; everyone knows me as Eurymede.”
“I am finding it hard to believe what you are telling me. Am I the only one who calls you Salacia?”
The side of her mouth tugs up. “Perhaps. You called yourself Pelagaeus, the first time we met, to trick me. It was only fair that I did the same, but—” Her hand flies to his lips, a breath’s distance away, pausing his open mouth—“it is more than that. Much more.”
Her hand falls back to her side. Now, he is allowed to talk. He almost laughs—at the absurdity of taking commands from a mortal woman.
“Well, Salacia, it does make sense. I had never heard that name before. It does not have any meaning, in any language that I know of.”
“Salacia does not exist,” she admits. “Not that I am aware. Only in my mind.”
“So you are saying that you invented the name on a whim, but you liked it?”
“That is not what I said. It is more than that, because I did not invent the name Salacia on a whim. I do not think I invented it at all.”
And he thinks again: what a strange, strange woman. She is smiling, knowing exactly what her tongue-in-cheek is doing to him.
“But…if it only exists in your mind, then Salacia is a creation made by only you.” Then, it dawns on him—“Unless, of course, it is a name whispered to you from the divine. In a dream, perhaps.” She is nodding already, glad that he has caught on— finally— as if he is a disciple and she is his teacher. He clamps that flare of annoyance down; after having so long a conversation with her it is easy to do so.
“Ah, now you understand. It is something like that.”
“Gods cannot read minds, remember?”
“But you have lived, have you not? Is that not enough to warrant that you understand what my words mean?”
He thinks about it, admittedly. All the treasons and the wars and the bloodshed and the tears and the laughter. They have all felt dispassionate to him.
“I have not lived the way you think I have,” he tells her, “So perhaps…I do not know everything.”
This satisfies her. “A god leaving his pride behind…” She clicks her tongue. “How unheard of.”
“Salacia, then,” he says, shifting the topic of conversation. “You think the name has not come from your mind?”
“Most likely not.” She says nothing else, her pleased smile turning into a frown. Her focus is on the sand, on her chiton, fingers twitching and making phantom shapes. She loves to fiddle with them. Taught by Athena. She must be good at weaving. Then, a murmur comes; “Dreams. I have heard the name whispered to me in dreams.”
“Is that so?”
Their eyes meet. Her hands fall silent. “A man, I am certain. I am staring out at the sea, or sometimes I am in the water, and I can breathe in it. Sometimes I am merely lying in the sand, with the sunlight hitting my face. But the man is always there. His voice. He calls to me, and I listen and go to him, but he is never there…and when I wake up, it is like I was never asleep.”
He considers this, takes her words in like wine, in slow relishes. This feels important, somehow. And she mentions the sea. There is a connection he sees but cannot reach, like a blinding star.
“Do you have an idea, or…some sort of clue, about who is sending you those dreams?”
“None.” Her brow furrows. It rattles her, not knowing. “Only that—and this will sound strange—but it feels like it is me, and not me. At the same time. It feels far away in the future, so perhaps it is prophetic. I have been Princess Eurymede all my life, and now I am Queen Eurymede. But when I met you, Salacia was teasing my mouth—all I wanted was to get her out, and I liked it once I did. I like Salacia. She has grown on me, I think.”
He regards her—her hair, falling down her back, a golden circlet resting on top. Her eyes, reflecting the silver glow of the moon, analyze him no differently than he does to her. Her lips, quirked up as if she knows something he does not. He has found that this is simply how she looks, always as though she is sure of everything.
“She has grown on me, too.” The words slip off his tongue before he can stop them, though that does not make them untrue.
Eventually, the conversation trails off to laughter, and hands that once fiddled with her chiton pick up pieces of shell out of the sand to toss at him.
At one point, she grabs his hand, tugging him to lie in the sand next to her. She points up to the constellations, telling him the same stories that were told to her when she was younger.
As the night stretches on, there are times when he thinks she may have been taken by sleep, only to turn his head and find her eyes looking back at him.
Poseidon has never been good at tracking time; one can only witness so many sunrises and sunsets before they all begin to blur together like the stories little ones are told in infancy.
If he had been bad at time before, he does not know what he is now.
He does not know what day it is, only that it is June. He does not remember how long he has been sitting out here with her—a few hours, perhaps—only that it has been long enough for the moon to crawl from just above the horizon to a high point in the sky, slowly beginning to sink again.
The moon is full, though, spilling silver across the sky. It flows down to the ground and envelops the world in an ethereal glow.
Her eyes look strange under its light, shining pools that swirl with blues and grays. The light traces her chiton, too, yellow cloth shining unnaturally bright, like a golden sun, and her hair the midnight shadow that spills from behind; it is almost as if she herself is glowing.
If he did not know better, he could understand how easy it would be to confuse her for a goddess. It is no wonder he thought to indulge her; he does not have trouble picturing her as one of them.
They are both on their sides facing each other, though no words have been passed between them for quite some time. Salacia’s fingers busy themselves in the sand, aimlessly drawing patterns, and his eyes drift from her fingers to her wrists to her face and the small, content smile that has situated itself on her lips.
He does not remember willing it to come to him—truthfully, he does not remember much other than her smile—but in the hand that had been resting on the sand there is now a thin golden band, the pearl she had found a few days ago suspended on it.
His mouth parts but no sound comes out. Instead, his hand inches towards her own. He does not touch her, but her own fingers stop dancing through the sand in favor of moving to his wrist. They trail slowly to the bottom of his palm, his fingers still curled around the necklace.
She brushes them away, slowly coaxing his hand open, and he lets her. She pauses when she catches the chain, her eyes snapping from their hands to his eyes.
“What are you holding?” she asks, her voice soft, breathy.
“You left it behind on the beach two days ago.”
And he shows her the pearl, embedded into his palm like a beating heart, the chain that holds it in place spilled like golden blood into the sand. Her lips part, but her focus is on the pearl, only the pearl. Fingers reach for it, then stop, as if her skin will burn away if she so much as touches its rough surface.
“I meant for it to stay behind,” she stammers. It is a miracle—for him to have turned her into a tongue-tied mess. “I thought—well, you of all people would understand: what belongs to the sea shall always return to it. Salacia may have been meant for me, but the pearl…I am still unsure. ”
“I am not a person,” he reminds her, “and I do understand what you meant, for once.” He chuckles. She doesn’t. The back of his hand brushes her palm and softer, this time, he says, “What belongs to the sea shall always return to it. Here”—he pours the necklace into her hand—“I believe this belongs to you.”
She does not smile. Her lip is puckered slightly, turning the pearl over in her hand. She rolls it between her fingers as if it were made of sea glass.
“What are you implying?”
He cannot confess everything. Not the way he sees her, like a goddess reborn out of the most beautiful shell, as if she were Aphrodite herself. No, better. Like seafoam carved her eyebrows and brightened her smile and spun her hair and swept her out into a ray of awaiting sunshine that kissed both her cheeks as an act of hospitality. She is not meant for this drab, weakened world. She is meant to live forever.
He chooses his words carefully. “Your dream must mean something. You must mean something special, Salacia, for me to have taken such an interest.”
“Do not flatter yourself,” she says, but her voice is like falling gravel down a deserted slope; the jab behind it does not pierce anything.
“I do not. Not with you.”
Her eyes are still trained on the pearl. For once, she is the one left speechless.
“You are different,” he says, though he had decided that weeks ago. “I see you as an equal, and I know you see me in the same light.” Tentatively, he places his hand over her own, covering the pearl necklace. “Look at me.”
Perhaps for the first time, she does as he asks without a remark.
“You, Salacia…” he trails off. There are many things he thinks of saying, many words his tongue tries to form, but he does not say any of them. Instead, he settles for the one thing that does not struggle to coax from his throat. “I believe that this is yours.”
“I do not—”
“There is a reason why I made it a necklace.”
And this —this feels like more of an eternity than anything he has ever known. This— her —the way she looks at him, shadows flooding her eyes and carving them into endless pools. Him, not knowing what do to other than keep looking at her, wondering what is going on inside her mind.
“Put it on for me, then.” Her words, despite sounding like more of a demand than a question, are quiet in a way he has not heard from her before. It is as though they had to travel a great distance to reach him, as though it had to span the veil between their two worlds.
She sits up properly again, holding the chain out to him. The dim light winks off its surface.
He does as she asks, and is only too pleased to do so. With one hand, she pushes her hair aside, revealing her delicate neck. Smooth under the glow of silver from the sky. His touch ghosts over her skin; he watches, mesmerized, as goosebumps form under his trail.
The clasp sticks together like magic—Thetis had told him that it is some sort of stone that likes to hold on to metals—and his hands fall gently from behind her neck. One stays on her shoulder, and when she leans back into him, the other smooths down her arm.
She tugs on the pearl and rests her head on his chest fully. He cannot see her face from this angle, but he can feel her breaths, deep and even, and he can feel the tide aching to match. Absently, he taps his fingers against her shoulder—warning, begging anyone watching to stop this before it is too late.
But who could stop him?
Her body turns in his direction, regarding him fully. “Thank you.”
Poseidon shakes his head slowly. “Do not thank me; I was only giving you what is rightfully yours.”
Another silence shrouds the two of them, and the hand that had been resting on her shoulder moves up, his thumb now brushing by her ear.
He does not know who moves first. He does not know whether she sits up straighter in his arms or if he bends down to meet her, but her fingers are trailing along the nape of his neck and their noses bump together gently and her breath ghosts along his skin in what could be either a tease or a promise.
He does know that he can feel her lips trembling slightly. There is hesitancy taking over her movements, her hands barely touching his neck as if she were about to vanish.
She closes her eyes right as he opens his.
“We should not…” she says, inhaling sharp and soft, and their noses brush once more. “We…I have a husband.”
He does not have the strength to see her. His eyes fall closed, and he leans further as he shakes his head. The motion is enough for a glancing touch of their lips.
“We should not,” he agrees, but he makes no effort to move away.
His palm cups her cheek. She leans into it, presses her mouth against his searing skin. Damn it all, he thinks. Damn it all. He does not care. Nothing matters, yet everything does. The ghost of his lips grazes her nose, eventually falling to the apple of her cheek. He places a kiss there, then beside, then below. Salacia’s eyes flutter. He kisses her there, too. And then his lips are hovering over the corner of her mouth and one of her hands is back in his hair, the other twisting her fingers in the front of his chiton.
Poseidon puts his forehead to hers.
The waves creep forward tentatively, surrounding their legs in the warm summer waters.
“Sei,” she says, nearly breathless.
He has been called many things, but Sei has never been one of them. He finds that it is his favorite—perhaps only because it had been her tongue to come up with it— and it takes nearly everything he has not to surge the few millimeters needed to take her lips with his own.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, and her hands clutch his chiton a little tighter. “Tell me to stop and I will stop.”
Her mouth parts, and then, “I do not want you to stop.”
And it is her. It is her who leans up, who kisses him fully. It is her who tugs on his hair, who pulls his mouth closer still. And for once in his existence, on this beach, with this woman, he does not feel greed. He does not feel the need to take, to conquer. His thumb brushes her cheek and hers tightens even further on his chiton, and all he feels is the need to give. To give and to give until he has nothing left.
She pulls away slightly, presses her lips to the corner of his mouth, his cheek, and then looks up at him with quizzical eyes.
“I do not know,” he says, answering her question before it is even asked.
“These things never work.”
He knows she is right—they never do. They are not meant to work, they are not meant to even exist, and yet he cannot stop himself from thinking that maybe, maybe , it could.
He nods. “It is a dangerous game.”
She is quiet for a moment, her eyes scanning his.
“I do not mind a little bit of danger.”
It becomes a habit for him to wade in the water off the shore of Megara, waiting for her to walk a familiar path through the sand to the shade of the olive trees.
He feels different when he is here, when he is on this beach with this woman. It is strange—humbling, perhaps—to not feel superior, but it does not anger him. He does not feel that familiar stirring deep within him, the one that claws its way out until the earth is shaking and the tides are retreating, building and building until everything crashes down.
She does not fear him, she does not treat him as a jar of greek fire, where one wrong move, one small spark, could set him aflame. She does not watch her words or her steps, she does not cower away when the tides retreat a little further than normal.
He finds that these facts make for much better company than any he has had before.
The pearl tied around her neck with a band of gold glints in the sunlight like a beacon, calling him to her.
There have been many moons since her husband departed from Megara, and Poseidon has spent each of them with her. They do not mention him, and any qualms she may have had the first time their lips touched have long since dissipated.
Poseidon is many things, but human is not one of them. He does not care much for their way of living, the way the Fates have planned each second of their lives for them. He does not like to be tied down, to have his actions decided for him, to surrender to anyone other than himself.
He does not know what it is to love. Gods are not capable of those things, they are not capable of forming attachments the same way that humans can. They are not made to love; they are made to rule.
And yet.
And yet those eyes make him weak, and that smile sends him to his knees, and the hand that trails along his stomach, up his chest, brushes his cheek, makes ichor rush through his veins.
Her hair falls down around them from where her lips hover over his. The sun shines golden behind her, her still damp skin glowing as if it was her blood that was made of gold.
His mind reels with thoughts of this, of her. He could spend a millennium like this, looking up at her, and it would not bore him. He could spend every sunset breathing her in.
But he is not a mortal, and she is not a goddess; she does not have an eternity.
Her lips brush against his own, chapped from the sun and the salt in the air and undoubtedly human , and he drinks in every ounce of mortality that she gives him like ambrosia and nectar on his tongue. If she does not have an eternity, he will embrace his own mortality.
He does not know what it is to love, but he can see it in her eyes and he can taste it on her lips, and he knows that he wants to learn.
;
It does not take long for him to learn.
He learns through the kisses that feel like stars bursting and the hitch of her breathing, through the sting of her nails and the flush of her cheeks, through the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and the laugh that bubbles out of her throat.
He learns, but he is not perfect. The ground still trembles when a nerve is struck and the waves still crash violently against the shore before he can tell himself to stop.
But this does not sway her from teaching him. She catches his anger with delicate hands, dispersing it until the tremors are unable to be felt.
The moon changes with the tides, and their love turns into something desperate. It becomes more sure, less hesitant. Her touch is his ambrosia, her lips nectar, and stil they are sweeter than any he has ever had.
Under the branches of the olive trees, the starlight is brighter than the silver of the moon, but her smile is brighter still. Their breathing settles, bodies relaxing into each other.
Eventually, her lips brush his cheek. “My husband has insisted on my return,” she says quietly in his ear. “I am not sure what I should tell him.”
He rolls her over, and now he is the one bearing down, kissing her neck. “Tell him you cannot.” Another kiss. “Tell him you are mine.”
Her lips pull up. “Is that so?” she teases. “Here I thought you were mine .”
He gives a small smile in return; they both know her words to be true. Yielding to a mortal is a foreign concept, yet he does it willingly for her.
“Yes. That, too,” he says.
She runs her fingers through his hair, pushing his head down to rest on her shoulder. “I am afraid I have run out of excuses; I have not been to Corinth in nearly six months, now.”
Six months , he thinks. Has he truly only known her for that long?
That long. He wants to laugh. What is he, a mortal? Six months is not even the blink of an eye.
He tells her so; “Six months is nothing.”
“He does not agree.”
He lifts his head. “I do not care what he thinks.” And then, at the quirk of her brow, “I care what you think.”
“And I think it would be best that I return before he gets suspicious.”
Something simmers within him, tying his stomach into a knot. He has gotten better at identifying feelings of love and contentment, but he does not know what this one is. But Salacia must know because she tilts his head to meet her eyes, and her thumb brushes his cheek while she gives him a reassuring smile.
“Do not look at me like that. I said that I must go back, not that you could not come with me.”
It only takes her words for him to understand the feeling. Worry, or something akin to it.
He wonders once more how she knows more about him than he does, how she knows his feelings even when he does not. Human , he thinks. Empathy is human, worry is human. Of course she would know what he was thinking by only the look on his face.
He clears his throat, but his words still feel thick. “That would be risky for you, would it not?”
“Perhaps. But so have the last months.”
She leans up, presses her lips to him. “Besides,” she says. “Life is rather dull without risks.”
He puts a hand on her waist, rolling them so she’s tucked against his side.
“It is.”
And then, he does not think of anything but her. Salacia, Salacia, Salacia. Her lips, her hair, her voice.
And then his heart beats fast and true, when the sun’s pink light dips ever slightly into the western horizon, when the moon hides behind the trees, waiting to climb into the sky, and the tide recedes. Gods cannot sleep like mortals, but he tries for her, this once.
He senses it, the moment she stirs, golden dawn kissing her awake for him.
“I have to go,” he whispers into her skin.
But she stops him there, her hands on his face.
“You do,” she agrees, “but I’ll see you in Corinth.”