The colossal eye beneath them held Apollo suspended in perfect stillness, a moment stretched between heartbeats. His lungs burned with the need to breathe, yet his chest refused to expand. The gold in his veins, normally a constant companion, lay dormant, as if cowed by the ancient presence below.
'It sees me,' Apollo realized with a cold certainty. 'Not the mortal shell I've cultivated, but what lies beneath.'
Around him, his companions hung motionless in the water, neither drowning nor swimming, existing in that impossible space between life and death.
Thorin clutched the trident fragment to his chest, its blue-green light pulsing in defiance against the eye's golden scrutiny.
Cale's face was frozen in an expression of reverent wonder, blood from his nose suspended in crimson droplets that refused to disperse.
Mira's body still glowed with the faint resonance of the temple, her outline blurring where water met skin, as if the boundary between them had become negotiable.
