CHAPTER 42: THE CURRENT

Apollo woke to a world drowned in milk.

The fog had invaded during the night, a silent tide that transformed the dell into a bowl of churning white. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, but the murkiness remained, thick enough that the treeline, barely thirty paces away, appeared doubled, the second image a ghostly echo floating above the first.

"What in all hells," Nik muttered nearby, voice muffled by the dense air.

Apollo sat up, joints protesting after the cold night. The relic pulsed in his pack, its presence more intrusive than before.

He hadn’t touched it since wrapping it in the cave, but somehow it felt heavier this morning, as if it had been feeding on the fog.

’It’s growing stronger,’ he thought, rolling his shoulders to ease the phantom weight already settling between his shoulder blades.

Cale moved through the haze like a shadow, gathering his gear with mechanical efficiency. "We need to move," he said, voice low but carrying in the strange acoustics of the fog. "This could last all day."

They broke camp quickly, no one wanting to linger in the smothering whiteness. Apollo shouldered his pack, wincing as the relic settled against his spine, definitely heavier than yesterday, though no one else seemed to notice the difference.

The gold in his veins thrummed in response, a warm current that spread up his arms and into his chest.

Lyra appeared at his side, her face half-obscured by the mist. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost," she said.

Apollo managed a tight smile. "Just didn’t sleep well."

She studied him a moment longer, then nodded toward the eastern ridge. "Cale says we should make the valley by nightfall if we push hard."

"East," Apollo repeated, the word feeling wrong in his mouth. The relic pulsed once, hard enough that he had to suppress a flinch.

They set out in single file, Cale leading, then Renna with her spear held ready, as if expecting the fog itself to attack. Apollo fell into place behind Lyra, watching the confident set of her shoulders, the precise way she placed each foot.

Nik, Yiv, and Thorin brought up the rear, their forms growing less distinct with each step, until they were little more than smudges in the white.

The dog stayed close to Apollo’s heels, its fur damp with condensation. Every few minutes, it would stop and look back the way they’d come, ears pricked, before hurrying to catch up.

They climbed steadily for hours, the terrain growing rockier as they ascended.

Cale navigated with the surety of someone who had memorized every contour of the land, though the fog reduced visibility to less than ten paces in any direction.

"Ridge is familiar," Cale said during a brief rest. "Same one we mapped yesterday. Should take us inland toward the glass fields."

Apollo nodded, though doubt gnawed at him. Something about the rocks felt wrong, not just unfamiliar, but impossibly so, as if they’d wandered onto a different mountain altogether. The relic hummed against his back, a constant reminder of its presence.

Renna stopped suddenly, pointing to a formation just visible through the mist. "That boulder," she said, voice sharp with confusion. "The split one. We passed it hours ago."

Apollo squinted at the shape, a massive stone cleaved nearly in two, as if struck by lightning. It did look familiar, though he couldn’t remember seeing it earlier that day.

Cale frowned, stepping closer to examine the rock. "That’s not possible. We’ve been climbing steadily east."

"I know what I saw," Renna insisted. "We circled back somehow."

Nik shrugged, unconcerned. "Fog plays tricks. Everything looks the same in this soup."

"No," Thorin said, running a hand over his beard. "She’s right. I remember that crack, looks like a dwarf’s axe did the splitting."

They gathered around the boulder, each examining it as if it might reveal some explanation for their disorientation.

Apollo hung back, feeling the relic’s weight shift in his pack, a subtle adjustment that seemed to pull him westward. In the back of his mind, a sound grew louder, not quite a voice, but a rushing, like water moving fast over stone.

’It’s leading us,’ he realized, the certainty cold in his stomach. ’Has been since we took it.’

The group pressed on, mood souring as the fog refused to lift. Thorin fell into step beside Apollo, his usual stoicism replaced by an uncharacteristic chattiness.

"Reminds me of a smuggler I knew in the eastern ports," the dwarf began, voice gruff but animated. "Fellow named Durnik, had a face like a landslide and hands quick enough to steal your shadow. He ran goods through the Whistling Narrows when the Watch had it blockaded."

Apollo nodded, only half-listening as the rushing in his ears grew louder. The relic pulsed, urging him to turn, to go west instead of east.

"Clever bastard," Thorin continued, "had a system with colored lanterns, green for clear passage, red for patrol boats. One night, fog thick as this rolled in, and Durnik couldn’t see the signals. Had to navigate by memory alone."

The dwarf paused, took a breath, then began again: "Reminds me of a smuggler I knew in the eastern ports. Fellow named Durnik, had a face like a landslide and hands quick enough to steal your shadow. He ran goods through the Whistling Narrows when the Watch had it blockaded."

Apollo blinked, glancing sideways at Thorin. The dwarf’s expression hadn’t changed, his eyes fixed ahead as if he hadn’t just repeated himself word for word.

"You already told us that part," Lyra called from ahead, turning to look back at them.

Thorin scowled. "No, I didn’t. I just started the story."

"You did," Apollo said quietly. "About Durnik and the colored lanterns."

"And the fog," Lyra added.

Thorin’s frown deepened. "I know my own stories," he insisted. "I hadn’t gotten to the lanterns yet."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group. Even Nik, usually quick with a joke, seemed unsettled.

They continued walking, each lost in private thoughts. The fog swirled around them, sometimes thinning enough to reveal a patch of sky, other times thickening until Apollo could barely see Lyra’s back a few paces ahead.

Every time they paused to check their direction, the rushing in Apollo’s ears intensified. His body seemed to know where to go without conscious thought, an internal compass that kept trying to swing west no matter how firmly he set his feet eastward. The gold in his veins responded to the pull, warming under his skin.

By midday, the fog had begun to thin, revealing glimpses of the landscape around them. The rocks were different, sharper, darker than the formations they’d passed earlier. No one mentioned it, but Apollo saw the confusion in their eyes as they surveyed terrain that should have been familiar but wasn’t.

"We need to adjust course," Cale announced after consulting what might have been a map or just his own memory. "Too far north. Need to head southeast to hit the valley."

Apollo felt the relic pulse in protest, the rushing in his ears becoming almost deafening. His hand rose of its own accord, pointing west before he could stop himself.

"That way," he said, then immediately regretted it.

Cale looked at him, eyes narrowing. "That’s back toward the coast."

"I know," Apollo said, lowering his hand. "Just thought I saw a clearer path."

Cale studied him a moment longer, then turned away. "Southeast," he repeated, more firmly this time.

They walked for hours more, the fog retreating in patches only to surge back without warning. The terrain grew increasingly unfamiliar, rock formations none of them recognized, paths that seemed to double back on themselves despite their careful navigation.

The rushing in Apollo’s ears never ceased. It ebbed and flowed with the fog, growing louder whenever they turned away from the west, quieter when they inadvertently moved toward it.

The relic’s weight seemed to increase with each step in the "wrong" direction, until Apollo’s shoulders ached with the burden.

Late in the afternoon, they began climbing a steep ridge, the last major ascent before the valley, according to Cale.

The fog had finally retreated, leaving the air clear but strange, too bright, somehow, as if the light were being filtered through glass instead of cloud.

Apollo felt the relic’s pulse quicken as they neared the summit. The rushing in his ears had become a roar, drowning out even Nik’s complaints about the steepness of the climb. His blood sang with gold, every vein alight with a power he hadn’t felt since before the basin.

They crested the ridge together, a ragged line of exhausted travelers emerging onto a broad, flat expanse of stone. For a moment, no one spoke. No one could.

Below them, stretching to the horizon, was the ocean.

The same ocean they had left behind two days ago. The same impossible blue, the same glittering surface catching the late afternoon sun. The same distant line where water met sky.

"That can’t be right," Nik said, voice hollow with disbelief.

Lyra turned in a slow circle, as if expecting to see different terrain behind them. "We’ve been heading east," she insisted. "Inland. Away from the coast."

Cale said nothing, his face gone slack with shock. Renna cursed, low and vicious, while Thorin and Yiv stared open-mouthed at the impossible vista.

Only Apollo wasn’t surprised. The relic had led them here, had been leading them all along, bending their path little by little, turning them around in the fog without their knowledge. The rushing in his ears quieted to a gentle murmur, almost like satisfaction.

"How?" Lyra demanded, turning to Apollo with accusation in her eyes. "How is this possible?"

Before he could answer, the wind shifted, carrying the sound of waves breaking against the shore far below. The relic’s pull eased, the weight in his pack settling into something almost comfortable, as if it had accomplished what it set out to do.

Apollo said nothing. His knuckles were white on his pack straps, fingers clenched so tight he could feel the tendons straining. The gold in his veins cooled, retreating beneath his skin like a tide going out.

"We’re going the wrong way," Lyra said, but the sea below them glittered like it had been waiting.