Page 93 of Until the End of Ever
He was young, and quite beautiful, with wavy white hair falling to his knees, and sea-blue eyes, not unlike Kleos's and yet infinitely colder, the very violence of the crashing waves reflected in their depths.
How foolish I was to have dismissed it all.
I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. Her eyes could very well have beenskyblue. But with insight—duh. She even smelled like the sea.
Poseidon appeared the picture of affable relaxation, holding himself not unlike my father when he received guests. But his very presence was enough to crush my courage, my will, my hope. I knew he could destroy us with a fleeting thought.
And by the looks he shot me? He just might.
The divine monster grinned. It was not pleasant. “Man, Apollo was not kidding. You guys areentertaining.”
I moved first, bowing respectfully, though Kleos and I were both already on our knees, so I couldn’t properly prostrate myself.
Instead of kneeling before him, Kleos stood, taking three steps toward him. I had to restrain myself from grabbing her and shoving her behind me, where she’d be safe. Safer. He could go through me, easily.
She seemed to think better of it once she was closer, pausing a few feet away from his throne, and allowing me to breathe again.
“You were the old man, that day,” she murmured. “You saved me. Then and now.”
As the god didn’t seem to care one way or another, I got to my feet, too.
Poseidon’s face seemed to blur, and the next moment he was decades older, before returning to his wrinkle-free version.
“I attract less attention in the other form,” he told her with a smile. “And yeah, I guess. You were a cute kid, you know? Plus, technically, the whole thing was my fault for leaving my books out.”
He shrugged indifferently, as though recreating her had been an afterthought, an easy feat.
And perhaps it had been.
“Thank you,” Kleos blurted. “I looked for you—for years. To say thank you.”
“I know. I had to stop hanging out in the Hall after that. Relentless little thing. And curious. Far too curious for your own good.”
He said all that with a kind smile, which was…strange? I still retained an air of absolute danger whenever I could bring myself to stare at him directly, rather than look at Kleos, desperate to keep her safe when I knew my power would mean nothing.
Helplessness wasn’t a state I was used to. Even before Apollo, I hadn’t felt this inept.
Poseidon didn’t even have to kill us. He could just dissolve this water bubble full of air, and let us drown, if we weren’t torn apart by the creatures of the deep first.
“Why?” she asked, perfectly comfortable with holding a conversation now.
That made one of us.
“I was trying to avoid this.” He waved towards her. “Or delay it as much as possible. One little interaction could have gone unnoticed. If you’d seen me again, it was likely that your existence would have been spotted sooner.”
“And that’s a problem?” I made myself ask.
Those sea blue eyes were not particularly kind when directed towards me. At least they didn’t turn to fire like Apollo’s.
“I don’t know, you tell me. Does it feel like our Kleos is having a nice, peaceful life since she’s been noticed?”
I felt stupid, understanding his meaning. “Now someone knows you’d made a new goddess, they fear what she could be when she comes of age.”
Apollo had already told us as much, of course, but I had problems computing the concept of fear with the thing sitting before us.
What would he have to be wary of?
But of course, there was an answer to that too.
