CHAPTER 40: LOW TIDE

The relic pulsed against Apollo’s palm like a second heart, hungry and insistent.

"We need to move," Apollo said, his voice tight as he fumbled with his pack. The chamber had grown smaller somehow, the walls pressing in with each ragged breath they took.

He pulled out a length of cloth, faded blue, frayed at the edges, and wrapped the spiral artifact with quick, precise movements. Even through the fabric, he could feel its warmth, its strange vitality.

The sea rushed in behind them, swallowing the tunnel inch by greedy inch.

"That’s it?" Nik asked, eyes darting between Apollo’s hands and the rising water. "We came all this way for... what exactly?"

"Something that doesn’t belong to you," Lyra said, her voice flat. She was already moving toward the exit, bow slung over her shoulder, every muscle coiled for flight.

Apollo secured the wrapped relic in his pack, feeling its weight settle against his spine. ’Not just weight,’ he thought. ’Presence.’ The thing had awareness, he was certain of it now.

"Whatever it is," Thorin grumbled, "it better be worth drowning for."

Cale’s face remained impassive, but his eyes tracked Apollo’s movements with unsettling focus. "Time to go," he said, not a suggestion but a command.

They filed into the tunnel, the water already at their waists where before it had barely reached their knees.

The tide was turning faster than expected, each wave pushing farther into the passage. Apollo felt the current tug at his legs, insistent fingers trying to pull him back toward the chamber.

The light ahead wavered, distorted by the water’s surface. What had been a straight path now twisted like a living thing, shadows bending where no shadows should be. Apollo pushed forward, one hand braced against the slick stone wall.

The water rose to his chest, cold enough to make his lungs seize. Behind him, Thorin let out a string of curses, each one punctuated by a labored breath.

"Drown in a puddle," the dwarf muttered, "after surviving the fucking basin. What a joke."

Cale shot him a sharp look. "Save your breath for swimming," he said, voice barely audible over the rush of water.

The tunnel narrowed, forcing them to press forward in single file. Apollo felt the pack grow heavier, as if the relic were drinking in the seawater, gorging itself. The gold in his veins responded, a low hum that matched the rhythm of the waves.

A surge pushed them forward, then pulled back with twice the force. Nik stumbled, went under for a heart-stopping moment before Renna’s hand shot out and yanked him upright. He came up sputtering, eyes wide.

"Keep moving," Lyra urged from ahead, her voice strained. "The mouth is right there."

Apollo squinted against the glare. The exit wavered, a bright smear against the darkness of the tunnel. Another wave hit, this one strong enough to lift him off his feet for a moment. He kicked, fought the current, felt the gold in his blood respond with a surge of its own.

The cave spat them out into blinding sunlight, one by one. Apollo staggered onto wet stone, water streaming from his clothes, lungs burning. The pack felt impossibly heavy, as if he’d stuffed it with lead instead of a single artifact wrapped in cloth.

He blinked against the sudden brightness, eyes watering. The world outside was harsh, overexposed after the dim blue of the cave. Wet stone gleamed around them, the cave mouth now little more than a dark smudge in the cliff face, nearly invisible unless you knew exactly where to look.

Renna glanced back once, eyes narrowed, hand tight around her spear. Something in her posture, the rigid line of her shoulders, the careful placement of her feet, suggested she expected pursuit. After a long moment, she turned away, but the tension remained in the set of her jaw.

They followed the shoreline in silence, each lost in private exhaustion. The path opened into a long curve of beach bordered by low cliffs, the sand a pale gold that hurt Apollo’s eyes. The sea was louder here, more insistent, as if trying to remind them of its power, its patience.

A gull dived close, crying sharply before vanishing over the waves. Apollo watched it go, envying its freedom, its certainty of purpose.

They spread out as they walked. Cale and Thorin ahead, Nik and Yiv trailing behind, voices low as they debated something Apollo couldn’t quite hear. Lyra kept pace beside him, her silence a question he wasn’t ready to answer.

He adjusted the pack on his shoulder, feeling the relic shift. Through the layers of cloth and leather, he felt its thrum, not constant, but pulsing in perfect rhythm with the surf. In, out. In, out. Like breathing. Like waiting.

’What are you?’ he wondered, not for the first time. The gold in his veins seemed to answer, a warm tingle that spread from his core to his fingertips.

He said nothing about it to the others. Some discoveries were too personal, too dangerous to share, even with those who’d risked their lives beside him.

They rounded a bend in the coastline, and the inlet vanished from sight. The cliffs rose higher, casting long shadows across the sand. But though the cave was gone from view, Apollo could still hear it, the peculiar echo of water against stone, the hollow rush that had filled that perfect circular chamber.

The sea kept breathing behind them, as if it had not yet finished deciding what to do about what they’d taken.

The relic’s weight shifted in Apollo’s pack, not like an object settling but like something alive making a decision.

They’d begun the climb inland at midday, leaving the shoreline behind with each upward step.

Apollo shouldered his pack tighter, feeling the wrapped artifact press against his spine as he picked his way through the scrub hills. The sea had become a silver ribbon in the distance, but its pull hadn’t diminished.

’It wants to go back,’ he thought, adjusting the strap again when the weight inside seemed to list toward the coast.