CHAPTER 203: A BOY’S REFLECTION.

The Wound of the City

The harbor he had tilted days ago was gone. Its bell, its walls, its temples—reduced to flotsam strewn across the waves. Yet within the silence that followed its destruction, Poseidon listened.

And he heard them.

The whispers of mortals.

Not in temples. Not in prayer. But in desperation.

"Poseidon..." they muttered as they clung to broken beams, their eyes bloodshot and salt-stung. "Lord of the seas... spare us..."

Their words were not worship. Not yet. But desperation was a purer offering than any polished hymn. Poseidon felt the thrum of it pierce his veins.

They had forgotten his name for centuries. Now it returned like a tide.

Good, he thought. Let them remember what it means to call me.

---

Olympus Stirs

Far above, Olympus was not still.

The marble halls of the high gods trembled with anger and fear alike. Zeus’s thunder lashed the sky in white arcs, each strike scorching the clouds black. The assembly of gods had gathered—not in council, but in fury.

"He dares drown our cities!" roared Hera, her voice like sharpened glass. "He dares wear the title of Olympian without our sanction!"

Athena’s gray eyes were colder still. She leaned forward on her spear, her voice measured. "This is not a mortal rebellion. This is dominion. Poseidon has claimed what belongs to us all—the mortal realm."

"He has always claimed it," growled Ares, knuckles white around his blade. "But never like this. Never so openly."

Zeus’s voice boomed, silencing them all. "It is no longer the boy. It is the drowned god reborn. And if we wait—if we hesitate—Olympus itself will drown beneath him."

Murmurs rippled across the council.

Hades, lurking at the far end of the hall, finally spoke. His words were a whisper, yet carried across the marble like venom. "You cannot drown the dead. Let him come to me, and I shall cage him in the Styx as I did once before."

But even he knew the truth. The Styx had cracked the last time Poseidon had surged. The underworld itself was not beyond the sea’s reach.

Zeus slammed his thunderbolt into the floor, shattering the council table. "Enough! If Poseidon wishes war, then war he shall have."

---

The Mortal Rebellion

While gods debated, mortals bled.

Along the shattered coastline, survivors stumbled from the flood. Villages on high cliffs became crowded with refugees from the drowned city. Markets turned into camps. Famine stalked the land as saltwater ruined the crops.

But amid that ruin, voices rose.

A fisherman raised a broken oar like a banner. "Do you not see? The old gods do nothing! It was Poseidon who answered! He is wrath, but he is present!"

Others echoed him. Fear had twisted into reverence. Reverence into something sharper.

In the ruins of drowned temples, new shrines of driftwood and shells began to appear. At first crude. Then carved. Then burning with offerings.

The people no longer whispered his name. They cried it.

"Poseidon! Poseidon! Poseidon!"

And each cry was a stone added to his throne.

---

Poseidon’s Reflection

Beneath the waves, Poseidon felt the change like heat in his veins. Mortal voices echoed through the water, reaching him, feeding him.

He closed his eyes, and visions unfurled—cities bending beneath waves, priests kneeling in flooded sanctuaries, kings watching their crowns sink in salt.

But amid it all, one memory pierced him.

A boy’s reflection.

The Dominic he had once been. The fragile body. The trembling hands. The fear of dying in a sterile bed, lungs failing, eyes staring at a ceiling that never changed.

He remembered the weakness. The helplessness.

He would never allow it again.

And yet... somewhere within, that boy’s voice still whispered.

"Will you destroy them all? Even the innocent?"

Poseidon’s grip tightened around his trident, the seabed trembling beneath him. His answer came slow, heavy, and final.

"Innocence drowns as swiftly as guilt. The sea spares no one."

---

The Rising Sign

Far out at sea, the storm he had conjured twisted into something new.

Not merely clouds. Not merely lightning. A spiral vast enough to be seen across kingdoms, glowing blue in the night sky like a beacon.

Mortals called it the Drowned Star.

Priests trembled as they watched it grow brighter. Sailors fell to their knees on the decks of their ships. Kings whispered to their advisors in trembling voices.

The old prophecies spoke of it: The day the sea wears the sky, the drowned god shall rise crowned in blood.

And Poseidon smiled beneath the waves.

The crown was forming.

---

Olympus Decides

On Olympus, Zeus declared his verdict.

"The mortal world is tilting toward him. If he is not stopped now, he will not simply drown their cities—he will drown their faith. And once faith belongs to him, Olympus falls."

The gods raised their weapons. The decree was unanimous.

Poseidon would die.

---

The Rift Between

But not all gods agreed.

Aegirion, the young sea-god who had once walked with Poseidon in the Rift, remained silent as the others raised their spears and thunderbolts. His heart twisted. He had seen Dominic—the boy behind the god. He had seen humanity in those eyes.

And yet, now, Poseidon was more than mortal. More than god. Something new. Something the council feared because it was not theirs to control.

Aegirion clenched his trident. If I must choose between Olympus and the sea, then... I will choose the tide.

---

The Coronation

At midnight, the drowned star reached its zenith.

The seas rose not in waves but in walls. A thousand harbors tilted at once. Rivers reversed their course, flowing backward toward the ocean.

And at the center of it all, Poseidon rose from the trench.

Not a whisper. Not a shadow. Not a vessel.

But a god crowned in storm.

Water spiraled around his shoulders like a cloak, lightning danced in his eyes, and the sea itself bent as he walked.

When his feet touched the surface, mortals watching from the cliffs screamed—not in fear, but in awe.

The drowned god had returned.

And Olympus had declared war.