by Plum Pascal
“Go,” I urge quietly.
It costs her something to turn away from me—I can see as much in the expression she wears. She has to divorce her concern, a weighty sacrifice revealed in the set of her shoulders and the proud bearing in her face just before her profile disappears from view. It touches me that she cares. Perhaps, someday, she’ll feel for me what I’m beginning to feel for her. It’s that bloom of hope I use to quell my rising panic. We’ve made it past the first obstacle that is Andromeda’s garden.
Now, to penetrate the castle’s defenses.
The first corridor we enter is so breathtaking, the majority of our party draws in a shocked inhale. Bastion looks a tad wistful, and while I can’t read Aria’s expression from my angle, I assume it must be similar.
The hall is composed almost entirely of cut and polished peridotite. The verdant color is a shining assault to the eyes. Somehow, after the flowing motion and frenzied activity of the gyre and gardens, the fixed immobility of the stone seems a little sinister. Probably my own nerves talking. And even through the tense coil in my stomach, I can appreciate the beauty of this place.
A wave-like pattern has been cut into the stone, the whorls and eddies studded with sapphire, turquoise, and aquamarine. Where it meets the floor, the wave pattern shifts in color, composed of smooth, colored marble. Plum, green, and white run together in abstract swirls that convey a sense of grace.
And this is just an access corridor. I can’t imagine what sort of obscene displays of wealth await us in the bedchambers and the throne room.
I cut my gaze very briefly to Kassidy, who looks like she’s a few minutes away from filling her glass dome with drool. Her jaw swings open slightly, her emerald eyes wide, overall looking as though she’s been concussed.
Leith nudges her in the ribs and, though the gesture was meant to be a light tap, it makes her stagger a step.
“Kassidy,” he murmurs, his voice almost too low to be heard between his glass face shield and the gentle swoosh of the water through the corridor.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, shaking her head as though to knock the sense back into herself. “I think I’m having an orgasm. Fuck me. This place is...”
“Incredible,” Hook finishes. When I turn, I see his expression is almost a mirror of hers—awestruck and full of ready avarice. And now I remember why he’s called a pirate. The man knows his treasure.
Perhaps his obsession with Aria from the outset should have clued me in to the fact she’s a gem. More than a gem. She’s the entire treasure.
“We can’t dally,” Aria reprimands us all lightly. “The trident is in the throne room. We’re going to have to create a diversion to draw away enough of my father’s guards to make an incursion possible. I’ll take Bastion and Hook toward the east wing and disturb my mother’s old chambers. Doing so ought to anger my father enough to come deal with me personally. That will give Kassidy enough time to get the trident.”
“Not a chance,” Kassidy hisses back, shaking her head. “In case you’ve forgotten, you’re one of the Chosen.”
“I haven’t accepted that as fact,” Aria responds grimly. “And even if I am Chosen, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Um, I’m pretty damn sure you can pick up the trident yourself, Princess,” Kassidy responds.
“And if I can’t?” Aria snaps. “Then I’m stuck holding the useless fork while my father cuts through my friends and lovers. I won’t risk it. You have been proven to be Chosen, Kassidy. You need to wield the trident.”
Kassidy’s jaw flexes stubbornly, and she glares back at Aria. Leith is forced to step between the pair of quarreling women.
“This is pointless, Kassidy. Even if you’re right about Aria, it doesn’t change the fact that she needs to face her father on her terms. You know a thing or two about disappointing fathers. If you had a chance to go back, would you have ended things differently?”
Kassidy’s shoulders slump and she gives Leith a sullen look. “I’d kill my father myself, instead of letting my brothers do it,” she mumbles. Then she frowns. “Well-played, Leith. I’m so getting you back for that when we reach Delorood.”
Hunger stirs in Leith’s eyes when he stares down at her and his voice comes out with a husky note of promise when he speaks. “Looking forward to it, Goldilocks.”
Kassidy can’t contain a shiver at his words and poorly hides a smirk before glancing at the other two. They’re staring back at her with equal hunger. Three guesses what they’ll be up to if we survive the next few hours. I doubt they’ll even wait until Delorood—they’ll probably find a nice unoccupied shack on Cassio Island and bed down there for a day or three. I can’t blame them. If we do survive, I plan to demand a thorough tour of the castle from the new queen and see if I can coax her into christening every room with me.
One can wish.
We start down the corridor, the human or near-human members of our party walking across the marble floors out of habit. We’ve spent so much time in the open water, being attacked from all sides, there’s something comforting about settling our feet on something solid. The marble is cool beneath my bare feet. Unlike Hook, I didn’t come prepared—I never anticipated swimming without my apparatus. Thus, I’m only wearing a skintight suit that barely keeps the cold away.
And that’s why I notice the muck on the ground first. Most of the party have their eyes focused ahead or behind, watching for intruders. Kassidy’s attention is split between her lustful appreciation of her men, with a fair dash of lust directed at our lavish surroundings. I don’t think it’s truly malicious on her part, just ingrained during her many years as a Guild thief. I was raised in luxury and even I’m having trouble refocusing my attention.
I jerk my foot back instinctively, catching myself before I can groan in disgust as the muck coats the bottom of it. It’s a light golden color, which is the only reason I don’t immediately assume it’s shit. That, and I don’t think even the most classless boor would be able to shit on these floors.
My reaction draws the nearest bear’s eyes to me, and he follows my gaze down to the floor with a frown.
“What’s that?” Sorren asks.
I shrug. “I wish I knew.” Or, perhaps I don’t.
He pauses, hunkers down and swipes two metal-clad fingers through the goop. I almost tell him not to, given that most things beneath the sea seem easily able to disintegrate the suits. Nothing catastrophic happens, though. Sorren just frowns down at the stuff as he studies it.
“It’s organic matter of some sort.”
“Right you are,” a voice drawls.
And from around the corner steps a tall, well-built man.
No... that description doesn’t do him justice. He’s a golden-skinned man with flaming yellow and orange hair and eyes blazing with white-gold bursts. He appears around the corner as if he’s the sun punching through the clouds on a winter day. He radiates such immense light and heat that the rounded corridor abruptly feels like the stem of a pipe. His presence stabs at my eyes and I can’t look at him for more than a second or two. The water boils off him, so he’s standing in a bubble of open air that hovers a foot around his person.
I know who I’m looking at, and it’s enough to stomp out any sliver of hope of survival I might have held. He visited our kingdom just once, to negotiate terms of preemptive surrender with my father. His visit was the very thing that had convinced me we needed to side with the Guild.
“Lar,” I breathe.
The brother of the god, Sol. The second most powerful god of light Fantasia has ever had the displeasure to know.
The light of Lar’s smile reflects painfully off every stone in the hall. For a few seconds, I think the black shapes that dance in my vision are the beginnings of blindness. Then, they resolve themselves, and I wish it were something so benign.
Thirty more enormous eels swarm around him, like flickering, deadly shadows conjured by his light. He kicks something toward us and I see, my stomach sinking down
to my toes, that it’s a crate of Ambrosia. The one Kassidy had assumed lost. Triton’s men must have found it, and now Lar knows what we’ve been up to. Which means Morningstar will know as soon as he emerges. There will be no mercy for us now.
We win, here and now, or we die.
Lar lovingly traces a finger along the back of a nearby eel and its fins flare an angry red-orange in response.
“You’re responsible for those… abominations?” Aria spits at him.
Lar turns to face her with a wicked grin. “I consider them my offspring. Eels specially engineered to attack and kill anyone who opposes Triton.”
“They’re as revolting as you are,” Aria responds.
“Feast, my pets,” Lar purrs. “Leave the princess’ head for Andromeda. I think Triton’s wife would like to mount it to her bedroom wall.”
The eels seethe like living darkness down the corridor toward us. We have only seconds to react, so I do the only thing I can. I lunge forward, seizing Hook’s arm at the same time he grabs Aria’s. Then I yank hard, pulling them both out of the way of Lar and the eels, even as Aria takes the lead and drags us away at inhuman speed.
Kassidy and the bears will have to fend for themselves.
TWENTY-ONE
HOOK
Never thought I’d find myself grateful to the little shite who cut off my hand. My time as an immortal pirate and irredeemable scallywag has prepared me for much, but not losing a limb. And especially not this... fucking insanity I’ve been embroiled in since meeting my lovely princess.
But I find myself grateful for Pan and the fucking crocodile as Andric and I are forced to face down the eels coming for Aria. The tissues around the stump are mostly numb, which is a good thing because it means I won’t feel pain from the metal hook, which means the reinforced fae-spelled thing is the best weapon I have against the eels. Can’t burn my hand on a weapon, the way Andric does.
Angry blisters pop up along his skin anywhere he touches his sword, but the stubborn prince doesn’t drop it. Lad’s courageous and damn tough. Not bad, for a Prince. I suppose Aria could do worse for a husband.
No time to wade through the stew of unpleasant emotions that thought brings up.
The mucus keeps the worst of the heat off my skin, and even so, I feel like a lobster stuffed into a boiling pot. We streaked away in one direction while Kassidy, Bastion, and the bears went another. The eels are so fast, I would not believe it were I not seeing it with my own eyes.
But Aria is equally so. She outdoes herself, dragging us along at her top speed, and yet the eels are still only a foot behind us—and are gaining incrementally every time we’re forced to take a corner or ascend a chute leading up a level in the castle. For one or two bewildered seconds, I didn’t understood why there were no stairs. But, of course, no feet. So stairs are unnecessary.
I lunge, sticking the nearest of the eels with the curved point of my hook. It’s more difficult than it should be to wound the fuckers. Their skin is like rubber, thick and hard to penetrate, even with a blade. But when the point does sink in, I wrench the hook across its throat, tearing through the fat and sinew until its stubby head hangs limply off the side of its neck. The red-orange glow of its fins dies and it floats limply down toward the marble floor.
Andric and I have killed a pair each, but that still leaves eleven of the things pursuing us. Our surroundings flash by, not so pretty now that the murals and gem-lined walls reflect the scene of terror back to us in nightmarish shades of red and gold.
“Where are we going?” Andric pants, volume stolen by the effort it takes to hold onto his burning sword. Blisters cover his hands.
I’m not sure even one of Tenebris’ vaunted healing potions could heal the damage done to him. The poor lad’s going to have scarring for the rest of his life. We come out of this alive and I’ll christen him with his own Neverland moniker. Call him Scar, mayhap. Doubt he’ll appreciate the title for the honor it is, but he’s earned something for saving Aria twice now. For being there when I wasn’t…
“Throne room,” Aria says after a moment. The strain is beginning to sound in her tone. She can’t maintain this speed forever.
“Are you sure?” Andric asks.
She nods. “We have nothing to lose. If Kassidy’s wrong about the trident, we die. If we stay here, we die.”
Inescapable logic, in my book.
Lar turns the corner just as we begin to slow, preparing to ascend to a higher level. The gardens brought us in at a sub-level, and we have at least another story to climb before we reach the throne room. It’s that change in velocity that saves our lives.
A beam of white light lances from Lar’s finger, thin as fishing line, but more deadly than a cannonball. It streaks through the water, missing us by mere inches, and blows a hole the size of long nine in the marble pillar we just passed. The stone flies apart, spitting debris all over the fine floors. A chunk the size of an apple hits one of the eels and knocks it senseless, sending the thing pooling on the ground like black ribbon. Another strikes me in the thigh so hard, it steals my breath. A soft cry to my right tells me Andric was hit, as well. Poor fucker. I’ll never complain about him to Aria again.
Aria pauses only long enough to allow some of the debris to settle before she’s off again, streaking upward in a spiral toward the distant light above, holding each of us by the arm.
I spy a vaulted ceiling and more of the same grand architecture that pervades the castle. This must be the throne room. The pillars here shine like opal, casting patches of shimmering, multi-hued light around the room. What appears to be a delicate, trailing tentacle of gold wraps around the top of the pillar like ivy. As we ascend, I see the rest of the creature’s body is constructed of gold, the many tentacles of a kraken statue winding around most of the supporting beams. Clearly, the artist has never seen one of the beasties up close. This thing is delicate and appears quite harmless.
Real krakens are anything but.
We’ve just cleared the chute when something grabs the front of my swimming costume and yanks me hard enough that my arm almost pops from its socket. I’m forced to release Aria’s hand before she’s dragged sideways with me and slammed into a pillar. The force of the impact to my head leaves my vision pulsing white for a moment. My body staunchly refuses to register the pain for the first few seconds, and when it finally does catch up with the inevitable, the agony bleeds in slowly.
A long-fingered hand wraps around my throat, smothering the blackened mate mark that allows me to breathe. I seize, thrashing uselessly around the implacable grip my attacker has on my arm.
“Hello, sailor,” a woman’s voice croons into my ear. “Remember me?”
Ah, fuck.
I do remember this voice. So many people have tried to end me, the names and faces tend to blur together. Only a few truly stand out—the Lost Boys, Agatha, the Unseelie King, Septimus, and this bitch. Andromeda.
I suppose some would consider her fair. She’s objectively bonny, with the same silvery sheen to her skin that Aria sports. She’s also got an upturned nose and a full mouth, but that’s where the similarities end. This woman’s hair shines a white-blonde, the way it had when she tried to lure me into the cove all those years ago. Her eyes are the flat black of rubbery eel skin. That struck me, too, when I saw her the first time.
“Let him go, Andromeda!” Aria shrieks in the distance.
I have to wrench my neck to peer around my captor’s head. Aria has been hauled across the throne room. The place is cavernous, easily double or triple the size of the great hall in Andric’s castle. The floors are made of more polished stone, this time some sort of volcanic glass. Three more sirens are clustered around Aria, each pinning some part of her. The smallest of them jabs a knife at her throat and I thrash harder when dark blood beads on her skin. Andric is in a similar position, with two sirens holding him down.
Andromeda turns her head slightly to give Aria a triumphant smile.
“Thieving little b
itch,” she says, voice layered with sweet poison. “This one should have been mine years ago. Isn’t that right, my handsome sailor?”
With a smirk, she trails a finger along my jaw, then darts a pink tongue out to lick along the line of stubble down to my neck. I shudder when the fine edge of her teeth tests my shoulder. When I’m inside Aria and she bites like this, it’s thrilling. I never want to feel this woman’s anything on me ever again. Not when this is so clearly a show put on for Aria’s detriment.
I can’t say any of this out loud, of course. I can’t even draw in a breath past her hand that covers the mark. I’m going to drown at this bitch’s hands years after I thought I escaped her.
“Enough,” a voice booms.
The one word is so loud, I feel its vibrations deep in my bones. The pitch is deep and resonant, and it triggers instinctive terror, like the roll of thunder or the rushing of a million rocks as they pelt down the side of a mountain. When I turn my head, I find the body matches the volume.
The shape on the throne is truly monstrous—twice as tall and broad as any of Kassidy’s bears, the entire wide expanse of him layered in ready muscle. His head is completely bald, his face as craggy as a cliff, lacking any of the beauty Aria possesses. It’s as if he was hewn directly from stone and is capable of just as much pity.
Triton. It has to be.
Andromeda’s grip on my throat loosens just a fraction, but she doesn’t release me.
“Triton, my love...” she begins, dripping sugary falseness.
“The mortals are mine to punish or absolve, Andromeda,” he tells her, eyes narrowing.
It’s jarring to realize they’re the same color as Aria’s—the same exquisite blue. They shift to me next and I stiffen under their pitiless scrutiny, unconsciously trying to move away from the eerie magnetism of them. Power crackles off Triton in waves. I haven’t felt anything so potent since I was nearly killed by the Unseelie King.
Triton is a demigod, a semi-divine being with enough power to exert at least some control over the sea and all the beasties in it. Enough power to pry open my throat and scour my insides with salt and boiling water.