CHAPTER 43: AGAINST THE TIDE

The ocean seemed to laugh at them, a vast blue joke at their expense.

"We’re turning east," Lyra announced, her voice cutting through the stunned silence on the ridge.

She didn’t look at the others, just pointed at a narrow path that wound away from the shore, her finger steady as a compass needle. "No more circling back. No more getting pulled off course."

Apollo felt the relic shift in his pack, a subtle weight adjustment like a child turning away in protest.

The gold in his veins cooled instantly, a chill that spread from his core to his fingertips. His mouth went dry.

No one argued. Not Cale, who stood with his arms crossed and eyes fixed on the distant horizon.

Not Renna, whose knuckles had gone white around her spear. Not even Nik, who for once seemed to have run out of clever remarks. There was something like relief in their collective silence, the comfort of having someone else make the hard choice.

Thorin shouldered his pack with a grunt. "About time," he muttered, but Apollo caught the uncertainty in his eyes.

They set off single file, Lyra leading with the determined stride of someone who refused to be fooled twice. The path narrowed as it climbed away from the ocean, winding between boulders streaked with lichen.

Apollo walked third in line, behind Cale, feeling the relic grow heavier with each step inland. His body felt wrong somehow, as if he were walking uphill when the ground was clearly sloping down.

’Stop fighting me,’ he thought, though he wasn’t sure if he was addressing the relic or himself.

An hour into their march, the fog returned. It rolled in from nowhere, thicker than the day before, swallowing the path ahead in billowing white. Within minutes, Apollo could barely see Cale’s back two paces ahead.

"Keep close!" Lyra called, her voice muffled by the dense air.

They pressed on, but the fog seemed to have substance now, pushing against them like a living thing. Apollo’s boots dragged through it as if wading through shallow water. His lungs felt tight, each breath a little less satisfying than the last.

The first rockslide came without warning. A rumble, then a cascade of stones tumbled across the path just ahead of Lyra. She jumped back, colliding with Cale, who steadied her with one hand.

"Path’s blocked," she announced, voice tight with frustration. "We’ll have to go around."

They detoured up a steeper incline, the fog so thick now that Apollo had to keep one hand on Cale’s pack to avoid losing him.

The relic pulsed against his spine, its rhythm increasing until it felt like a second heartbeat, sometimes matching his own, sometimes racing ahead, as if eager for something just out of reach.

When they regained the main path, they found it blocked again, this time by a massive trunk that hadn’t been there minutes before.

The wood was old, gray with age, but the break looked fresh, the splintered end still oozing sap.

"That’s not right," Thorin said, running his hand over the jagged wood. "No storm last night. No wind strong enough to take down a tree this size."

Renna pushed past him, examined the fallen trunk. "No axe marks either," she noted, then looked back the way they’d come. "Almost like it fell just to stop us."

Apollo said nothing, but he felt the relic’s satisfaction like a warm current under his skin.

They climbed over the trunk and continued, the fog thinning slightly as they descended into a shallow valley. For a brief, hopeful moment, the path ahead seemed clear, then the argument started.

"We’re drifting south," Cale insisted, holding out a small brass compass. The needle swung lazily, never quite settling. "Need to correct course."

Renna snatched the compass from his hand. "That can’t be right. The sun’s there." She pointed to a pale smudge barely visible through the fog. "If that’s east, we’re heading northeast, not south."

"The sun doesn’t lie," Cale countered. "The compass does. Something’s interfering with it."

"Or someone," Renna shot back, glaring at Apollo before turning her attention back to Cale. "You’re the one who’s supposed to know these hills. How did we end up back at the ocean yesterday?"

Cale’s expression darkened. "I told you, the fog..."

"The fog doesn’t change the shape of the land," Renna snapped. "We walked for two days. Two days! And ended up exactly where we started."

Apollo watched them argue, feeling the relic’s pulse quicken with each heated word. The gold in his veins responded, a warm tide rising from his core to his throat. He swallowed hard, tasting metal.

’You’re enjoying this,’ he thought, the realization cold in his stomach. The relic didn’t answer, but its weight shifted again, pressing against a spot between his shoulder blades that sent a pleasant shiver down his spine.

Thorin had stopped a few paces ahead, staring at the ground with a frown that carved deep lines around his mouth. "We’re walking crooked," he announced, interrupting Renna and Cale’s increasingly bitter exchange.

"What?" Lyra asked, turning back.

"Look at our tracks." Thorin pointed to the muddy ground behind them. "We think we’re walking straight, but we’re curving. Always west. Always back toward the damn ocean."

They all looked. Sure enough, their footprints formed a subtle arc, bending gradually toward the coast they couldn’t see but could still somehow sense, like a lodestone feeling for north.

The dog, which had been ranging ahead, suddenly trotted past them, heading back the way they’d come. Its tail was up, ears pricked forward with purpose.

"Hey!" Nik called. "Wrong way, mutt!"

The dog paused, looked back at them, then continued westward, disappearing into the fog.

Lyra whistled sharply. The dog whined but didn’t return. She whistled again, more insistent this time. After a long moment, the animal reappeared, head low and tail tucked, the picture of canine reluctance.

"Even the dog knows which way to go," Nik said, then withered under Lyra’s glare.

"We keep east," she said, voice flat. "Whatever’s pulling us back, we fight it."

Apollo nodded along with the others, but the moment he turned to face east again, his stomach lurched. A wave of nausea hit him so suddenly he had to press a hand to his mouth. The relic pulsed hard against his back, its rhythm now frantic, almost panicked.

’It doesn’t want to go this way,’ he realized, swallowing bile. His skin prickled with gooseflesh, every hair standing on end as Lyra set their new course.

They walked for hours, fighting the fog and their own disorientation. The path grew more difficult, muddy in places, overgrown in others, as if rarely used.

Apollo’s nausea came and went in waves, worst when they were heading directly east, easing slightly when the path forced them to turn north or south.

When he experimentally turned to look back west, the relief was immediate. The sickness vanished, replaced by a warm comfort that spread from the relic through his entire body.

The gold in his veins sang, a harmony with the artifact’s pulse that felt so right it was almost painful to turn away again.

At noon, they reached a fork in the path. The eastern route descended into a shallow depression filled with standing water, a flood that hadn’t been there the day before, though it hadn’t rained.

The western path climbed gently, dry and inviting, dappled with sunlight where the fog had begun to thin.

Lyra didn’t hesitate. "East," she said, already stepping into the water.

The others followed, splashing into the flood with varying degrees of reluctance. The water was shockingly cold, immediately numbing Apollo’s feet through his boots. It rose to their ankles, then mid-calf as the path dipped lower.

Thorin cursed steadily under his breath, a rhythmic litany that matched their splashing steps. Nik tried to lighten the mood with a joke about mermaids that fell flat.

Yiv remained silent, his face set in lines of grim determination.

Apollo trudged behind them, each step a battle against both the water and the relic’s insistent pull. The gold in his veins had gone cold, retreating beneath his skin as if hiding from the eastern path.

He felt hollow, diminished somehow, and worst of all, he missed the warmth. Missed the connection he’d felt when they were moving with the relic’s desires instead of against them.

They slogged through the flooded path for nearly an hour before the ground began to rise again, the water receding. As they climbed out, soaked and shivering, a gust of wind hit them, warm, salt-laden, carrying the unmistakable smell of kelp and open water.

Lyra’s shoulders stiffened, but she said nothing, just kept walking. The others exchanged glances but followed in silence.

By evening, they had climbed high enough to look back the way they’d come. The fog had thinned considerably, revealing rolling hills and patches of scrubland.

There was no sign of the ocean, not even a glimmer on the horizon. They had made progress, it seemed, real distance this time.

They made camp on a high slope sheltered by a cluster of wind-bent trees. No one mentioned the smell of salt that still lingered in the air, or the way the wind seemed to carry whispers just below the threshold of hearing. They ate in silence, too exhausted for stories or complaints.

As darkness fell, Apollo spread his bedroll at the edge of camp, away from the others. He lay down, feeling the relic settle against his side, its pulse now slow and steady, patient, almost. Waiting.

The fog continued to thin as night deepened, stars emerging one by one in the black sky. Apollo stared up at them, trying to focus on their cold, distant light instead of the growing sound that filled his head.

It started as a whisper, then grew steadily louder, the unmistakable rhythm of waves breaking against a shore. In, out. In, out. A perfect, endless pulse that matched the relic’s beat against his ribs.

He covered his ears, but the sound was inside him, not outside. The surf pounded in his skull like it was part of him now, like the ocean had found a way to flow through his veins alongside the gold.

Apollo lay staring at the dark, the surf pounding in his skull like it was inside him.