ares who exchanges
bodies for gold;
bodies for gold;
O’s face goes a little warm when she sees Anandi’s fringe lowering to her neck. It’s like nothing she’s ever caught a glimpse of before; she almost feels bad for witnessing it, like she’s sticking her nose somewhere it very much shouldn’t be. Like watching a wedding you’re not invited to. Like watching someone undress with their back turned to you. Her mouth all of a sudden feels very dry, and her eyes drop to the ground with a measure of self-consciousness, as unusual for her as the electricity that tingles up and down her spine. (The ground at their feet is already being swept clean of footprints by the seething waves; to see the evidence of their encounter erased so quickly almost makes her sad.)
Normally she would feel like prey, being circled like this. She wilts a little under the heat of Anandi’s stare; there is no escape from the tight circle she winds around Apolonia, but anyway she doesn’t mind it, wouldn’t want to leave. Here is where her heart beats, here is where her skin burns. To be pinned in by Anandi is to be cast under the eye of God. There are worse and less pious ways to die.
I have plans. O’s whole body smarts like she’s been whipped. Indignance overcomes her. She blinks in hot surprise, her brow furrows, her mouth twists—what plan, she wants to prod, could be more important than this, but something stops her. She even leans back. Maybe it’s the way Anandi’s pupils have blown to full moons, silver against leafy green—more likely it’s the change in her voice, rougher, thicker, tight with too much effort.
The thing that sparks in O’s stomach at the sound of it could be terror or it could be craving; at this point it all tastes the same.
She clenches her jaw, lifts her head. Even over the fan of her dark lashes she can read the silver of Anandi’s face, how it smiles with something feral, how it twitches as if it cannot quite be controlled: to anyone else she might make a scornful comment, your mask is slipping, but the words won’t quite come out of her. For once she doesn’t have the vitriol. Instead she blinks heavy, tilts her head sharp like a wolf.
“Yes,” she says, and backs away in the wrong direction as Anandi slips away. She almost isn’t disappointed.
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