CHAPTER 193: POSEIDON’S OATH

The shoreline was no longer a boundary.

Where once the sea had bowed to the rhythm of moon and tide, now it pressed against the world like a beast too long chained. Waves no longer waited for wind; they moved with his breath. Currents no longer obeyed the pull of stars; they bent around his pulse.

Poseidon stood barefoot at the edge of the broken harbor, where the drowned bell lay half-buried in salt and stone. His gaze wandered across the ruins of the mortal city, where rooftops poked like jagged teeth from the shallow floodplain. Smoke coiled upward from fires that could not be doused, even though water licked every street.

The mortals had fled inland. Some carried children, others corpses. Their prayers no longer rose to the Seven Currents, nor to the false idols of their drowned temples. Their prayers went only to him.

And he heard them.

Every whisper. Every plea. Every curse.

But Poseidon did not answer. Not yet.

He closed his eyes, feeling the ocean itself whisper back—millions of drops speaking as one voice:

You are home. You are whole. You are remembered.

---

The Memory of the Abyss

The mortal eye could not see it, but beneath the harbor, trenches shifted. Ancient ridges groaned, reshaping themselves like living flesh. The earth’s bones bent to his will.

And with that movement came memory.

The drowned epochs.

The first storms.

The forgotten pact of gods.

Poseidon felt them all surge through him—centuries of silence peeling away like scales. The name Thalorin pressed against his mind, but he refused it. That name belonged to a husk, to the abyss that devoured without purpose.

I am not Thalorin, Poseidon thought, voice hard as stone. I am the tide reborn. I am Poseidon.

But still, he felt the hunger.

---

Olympus Watches

High above, Olympus had not been silent.

Zeus, wreathed in lightning, stood at the marble steps of his throne. The other gods had gathered in a semicircle, their faces painted with shadow and flame.

Athena spoke first, her eyes sharp as drawn steel.

"He does not rise as a vessel anymore. He rises as himself. If we delay, the seas will no longer obey Olympus."

Ares snarled, slamming his spear butt against the floor.

"Then why delay at all? Send me. I will carve the mortal shell from his chest and drag his essence back into the Rift."

But Hera’s voice cut across his rage.

"You think this is as simple as war, Ares? Look below. Mortals already kneel to him. If we strike blindly, we risk becoming tyrants in their eyes."

Zeus raised a hand, silencing them. His voice was thunder, but restrained.

"Poseidon was my brother. He is my brother. Once, he held domain beside me. If he has returned, he must be judged—but not as a beast. As a god."

Yet even as he said the words, thunder rattled across Olympus. He felt it too—the shifting of seas, the tilt of balance.

Poseidon was no longer waiting.

---

The Mortal Wreckage

Back at the harbor, Poseidon turned from the drowned city and walked inland. Each step pressed water into the earth, roots drinking his will. Trees leaned toward him as if they were bowing. The soil softened, salt filling veins where no ocean had ever touched.

The survivors scattered before him. Some screamed, others dropped to their knees.

"Lord of the Deep!" one fisherman cried, his hands shaking as he held a broken net. "Spare us! Spare our homes!"

Poseidon’s gaze fell on the man. For a heartbeat, Dominic’s shadow flickered in his eyes—the mortal boy who had once feared death, who had once prayed for mercy.

But Poseidon’s voice was heavier, colder.

"Your homes are not spared. They are reclaimed. The sea remembers what was always its own."

Children sobbed. Mothers dragged them away. Yet none dared to raise a weapon.

They knew instinctively: steel could not pierce the tide.

---

The Whisper Beneath

As Poseidon walked, the hum beneath his skin deepened. The sea did not merely follow him; it fed him.

The drowned voices of the past—mariners, priests, kings—all pressed at his mind. Not in words, but in intent. They wanted release. They wanted him to break the last seals that bound the abyss.

"Patience," he muttered aloud. His voice rippled the floodwater at his feet. "The gods will come soon enough. And when they do, the world will remember who commands the depths."

---

The Cracking Veil

That night, the sky itself buckled.

A fissure of light tore across the heavens, not lightning, but a rift between realms. Mortals gazed upward in terror as fire and cloud twisted, revealing Olympus faintly silhouetted beyond the veil.

Poseidon stopped in the flooded square, tilting his head to the heavens. A smile—sharp and humorless—cut across his lips.

"So," he said, his voice rolling with tide. "They watch."

The fissure pulsed. Thunder shook the ruined city. A voice boomed down—not to mortals, but to him alone.

"Poseidon. Return."

Zeus.

For the first time since his awakening, Poseidon laughed. It was not Dominic’s laugh. It was not Thalorin’s. It was something deeper.

"You chained me once," he called back, the sea itself rising with his words. "But chains rust. Oceans do not."

The fissure widened. The gods of Olympus prepared to descend.

---

The Mortal Subplot — Veyrus’ Gambit

Far inland, Chancellor Veyrus had not drowned with the harbor. His agents had dragged him from the flood, half-mad and coughing brine, but alive.

Now he sat in a ruined council hall, maps of the drowned coast spread before him. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling.

But his mind was sharp.

"The gods will strike him," Veyrus muttered. "But gods war slowly. Mortals bleed quickly. If we wait for Olympus, this kingdom is already gone."

He leaned over the maps, jabbing a finger at ancient glyphs scrawled into the margins. He had read too many forbidden tomes, paid too many assassins to steal texts from drowned monasteries. He knew of relics buried beneath the capital—the kind that could wound even divinity.

"If Poseidon believes himself untouchable," Veyrus whispered, "then it is mortals who will remind him he once walked among us."

Behind him, the Watcher of Tides stirred, still pale from drowning visions.

"You speak of weapons not meant for men."

Veyrus’s grin was bitter.

"Then perhaps it is time men became something more."

---

Poseidon’s Oath

At the broken harbor, Poseidon raised his trident from the floodwater. It had not been forged—it had grown with him, a weapon born of tide and bone. Water streamed from its tines, glowing faintly with abyssal light.

He thrust it into the earth. The ground trembled. Saltwater geysered upward, splitting streets and swallowing walls.

"I am Poseidon," he declared, his voice echoing across sea and sky alike. "Not your vessel. Not your shadow. I am the tide. And the tide bows to none."

Mortals fell to their knees, some in terror, others in worship.

High above, Olympus fell silent. Even Zeus’s thunder dimmed.

And far below, in the trench where no light touched, something vast stirred—an old hunger, recognizing its king.