“Of course, Your Majesty. Whatever you’d like.”
Kai filled her lungs with a large breath and found her sense of peace. “My closest friend was attacked by Loyalists, and I’m certain that you are aware of the attempt on my life some months ago. The latter doesn’t trouble me nearly so much as the ruthless and evil assault on a defenseless royal servant incapable of defending herself and the loss of life incurred during this event.”
Consternation first knit his brow, then all sign of the reaction smoothed away. Studying his expression revealed little, but flickers of true sympathy rose on the surface like a scent wafting from a distant flower. “You have my condolences for the loss of your friend, Your Majesty. That is most unfortunate, but you must also be aware that I can no more be responsible for the act of every Loyalist than you can be for ever Myrmidon or keeper. Mers may join individual—”
“She survived. Her child did not.”
Democrates jerked as if he were slapped. The stoic expression flash-melted beneath a wave of visible indignation mixed with horror. “That isn’t how we operate. Loyalists would never harm a pregnant woman. Certainly not one among the servant class. We all understand they were victims of the royal and noble classes.”
“The woman in question was not visibly pregnant, yet she was easily identified as a servant of the palace. Servants, by their very nature and as dictated by the previous law, aren’t permitted to learn methods of combat.”
“Just the same, no self-respecting true Loyalist would harm a defenseless servant. I assure you, Your Majesty, whoever harmed your friend did not act in accordance with our philosophy.”
“But—”
“There are many forces in Atlantis,” Democrates spoke in a sudden whisper, leaned forward on the edge of his seat. “And I daresay many of them would prefer if the realm remained exactly as it is. If you are to be trusted at your word, you and I have a common goal. We both want a better Atlantis.”
“We do. Do my actions not speak for me?”
The man fell silent, studying her. Keen eyes searched her face, then the hard set of his jaw relaxed. “They do. I must be honest with you, Your Majesty. I nearly refused this meeting with you. Trust me when I say it was not because I did not want to discuss terms for peace between us. I’ve been followed and spent many weeks in hiding, emerging only for this encounter with you. Someone has it out for me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. A noble, perhaps. I wish that I could tell you.”
“I suppose you want me to assist you with that issue.”
“It would be greatly appreciated.”
“Then do we have a deal?” Kai asked.
“Indeed, we do, Your Majesty. I appreciate your service and your dedication to bringing the crooked to justice.” The man rose, only to dip forward into an elegant bow contrary to his hypermasculine appearance and chiseled muscles. Then he offered his hand to her.
It could be an attack in disguise, a distraction to lower my guard.
Earnest aquamarine eyes gazed back at her. He didn’t move or show any indication of withdrawing his hand. When she took it, the cool, polished surface of something small and hard pressed into her palm and slid toward Kai’s sleeve. Her startled gaze sought and locked on an unchanging expression.
“It’s been an honor as well as my pleasure to meet you, Queen Kailani. May we move Atlantis forward together down the road to justice.”
“Yes,” she said. “I look forward to forging a new alliance with the working class of Atlantis. I’ll be in touch.”
Kai had the grace to remain standing until Democrates was out the door. One Royal Guard approached him and another leaned inside to no doubt confirm she was whole and unharmed by the encounter.
“Everything all right, Your Majesty?”
As expected. Kai returned his concern with the expected smile. “Everything’s saline.”
Another ten minutes passed before she slid into the chair and set the ivory shell on the glass. While pretty, it was no larger than her thumb nail. A soft blush hue spread from the lip of it into the dark space inside the little conch, and it seemed ordinary at first, until light glinted over a sliver of translucent crystal protruding from the darkness.
She’d almost missed it.
The Royal Guards had definitely missed it, and if she were to tell Heracles, Aegaeon, or anyone else about the device, they’d have confiscated it at once and subjected it to scrutiny in some Myrmidon office.
He wanted me to have this for a reason.
Not one to disappoint her new allies, Kai shut the office door with a flick of her fingers, commanding wind with moisture in the air. Whatever secrets the shell held, she had a feeling they were the reason that someone wanted Democrates dead.
Whether or not that was connected to her own assassination attempt was a discovery she could only make by following the breadcrumbs he’d so kindly laid for her.
11
The Spoils of Victory
Preparing for the worst, Manu thought if he was swift he could grapple the thing and hurl it from the water entirely before it managed to grab ahold of him.
Then a jet of stinging ink clouded the water and dispersed around them. Black obscured his vision and pillowed through the garden. Half blinded, he squinted his eyes shut. He wasn’t entirely helpless. Any mer could see in low-light conditions, but Myrmidon trained to fight without any visibility at all.
He evaded it and spun to the side, though the jag shot toward him again upon realizing its prey hadn’t been rendered helpless. His eyes burned as fire raced up his nasal passages. He didn’t want to know how the rest of the aquatic life felt.
Amerin was going to kill him for this. Though he hadn’t been the one to set it free in the garden, he’d been the one to let it rampage unchecked. The longer the thing was loose in the garden, the more time it had to damage her work. As it barreled at him again with one powerful flex of its arms, he twisted to the side and snapped out one hand for its body. He succeeded in capturing it, but when he tried to fling it from the water, every one of its eight limbs wrapped around him tight. Barbs pricked his skin and punctured flesh. He ripped it off with his other arm and hurled it away, only for the living projectile to come hurtling back again.
Stop!
Manu shouted the command as loudly with his thoughts as he could have with his voice, but a gentle entreaty left him instead instead during the moments prior to what should have been a life-or-death situation. The thing had flattened into a disc with every arm equidistant in a pose meant to grasp him by the face and upper chest. It would have pumped its toxin directly into his throat.
Little by little, ripples in the water current alerted him to a change he didn’t understand. His mind’s eye detected the creature’s muscles relaxing as it moved nearer.
For the first time, he realized the toxin hadn’t hurt.
Not only had it not hurt, he had barely felt the pricks of its barbs entering his flesh. Despite that, nothing prepared him for the gentle touch of long legs crawling over the back of his hand. Manu sucked in a breath and let amazement overtake him. The jag had listened.
Water swirled and altered the current around him as a small voice called out from the shimmering violet cloud.
Who are you?
Time and time again since the emergence of his gift, Manu had one statement to offer.
I am Manu, and I would like to be your friend.
Little by little, the ink dispersed throughout the pool. The most sensitive creatures, such as the nearest anemone and corals, appeared still and paralyzed but unharmed. Most fish had swum far away to avoid the predator among them, but the current danced around them in a vortex stirred by a school of reef-dwelling fish circling far, far away. At that moment, an understanding fell over him, and he knew two things—the fish were dispersing the ink, and he wasn’t speaking to only one creature, but several voicing their curiosity as a collective.
I am Manu, son of Lago, chosen of Pontus
, and I will not harm you.
Manu opened his eyes to find a dozen crabs peering from crevices in the rock, each of their eyestalks focused only on him. The fish didn’t care to come nearer while he held the jag. While was now calm, a placid creature resting on his hand and no longer a savage beast, he couldn’t blame them.
Come with me, friend. It is time for you to return home to the owner who cares for you.
Manu kicked to the surface with his newfound friend wrapped around his shoulders. By the time he had coaxed it from around them and into the bin again, he wanted to beat his fellow commanders’ asses. All that stopped him was the realization that he had a tremendously unfair advantage over both as their king.
“What the fuck possessed you to endanger Amerin’s hard work this way? She loves this garden. Many years of her time and effort has been spent cultivating those corals. What is wrong with both of you?”
Elpis didn’t back down, but Heracles actually flinched back a step. A nervous laugh shook from his lungs.
“What was necessary,” she replied, raising her chin. A big purple welt stood out against her fair skin from the sting. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Did you think we’d let that thing in there without Amerin’s permission? Come on.” Heracles chuckled. “First thing we did was ask her if she’d mind. She said if it got you off your arse and made you try harder she was all for it, because she believed in you. And look. It worked. You’ve done it, mate. Now put that lid back on the bin…while I stand over here.”
“Truly, Manu. We believed in you. Amerin knows what is at stake, and I was prepared to exhaust all of my power to cleanse this water if I had to. We weren’t going to allow Amerin’s garden to come to harm anymore than we’d let this kill you.” She showed him the blowgun in her hands, presumably loaded with a sedative for the fish. “Anyway, the Vircilien isn’t in the water yet. She told us she’d be down later to do that.”
“None of that matters, though. You did it somehow.”
Manu sagged against the rail and cradled his head in his hands. Neither of his arms showed a sign of receiving a sting, not so much as a single puncture. “I don’t know how,” escaped him in a tired breath. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Perhaps that’s why it worked,” Heracles said. “You weren’t thinking. You acted on instinct and your reflexes took over. Now. Let’s take this big boy home to his father and call it a day.”
“I have a better plan,” Elpis said, smiling impishly despite being in what had to be immense pain. “How do you both feel about causing a little mischief for a good cause?”
How long had it been since Manu socialized with his friends?
Usually, Cosmas was the glue binding them all together, but during the long weeks of Amerin’s recovery period in the healing house, he’d become a shadow of his usual self, a dreary specter El and Manu barely saw. Not long after their return from the wedding, he took what El referred to as a mental health break, putting in for a season of leave from his duties and charging his captains with all responsibilities associated with the cavalry.
No one disputed that Cosmas deserved a break. They’d all overworked themselves during the weeks leading up to Kai’s coronation and then slaved even harder during the wedding and subsequent journey home through dangerous waters. Every single member of the Royal Army deserved a few days of down time.
They’d tried to give that to the mers, scheduling staggered groups of them for a few weeks’ holiday time with their families. Some opted to leave Atlantis for travel, since, with Kai’s blessing, Manu even figured bonuses into the budget of an additional month of wages.
Cosmas, however, hadn’t used his leave time to do anything but sit at home. With the exception of the wedding, Manu hadn’t seen his friend at all.
“This is long overdue,” Elpis said, standing on the walking path leading up to Cosmas’s cottage on the royal property. He didn’t live inside the palace in the royal suites, instead dwelling on the premises in one of the attached residences, an upscale shell cottage dedicated to prominent supporters of the royal family.
El also lived in one, occupying the home a couple units down the lane, but Manu had opted for a smaller residence just within the boundaries of the Royal District instead. He’d liked the privacy, and that if an authority figure was needed in the middle of the night, most opted to drag Elpis or Cosmas out of bed instead.
Now he lived inside the godsdamned palace and couldn’t avoid responsibility for more than a few minutes before someone was dragging him into one office or another. Manu wouldn’t change it if he could. Ruling the kingdom hadn’t been part of his plan, but lifting a share of the burden from Kai’s shoulders made up for the change in lifestyle.
“What’s the game plan?” Heracles asked.
“You two knock him out, and I tie him up?”
“He might come along willingly,” Manu reminded her.
“Might. You’ve seen him.”
Rubbing his chin, Manu gazed at the house in the distance. “Yeah. It’s a plan.”
Their strategy was to drop in unannounced flopped before they reached the door. Maybe he’d been warned. Maybe he saw them in passing through the window. Cosmas yanked open the door and glared at the approaching pair, clothed in ragged athletic pants and naught else. Exhaustion shadowed his blue eyes and left thumbprint-sized smudges beneath them. On top of that, he smelled like a distillery—never a good sign for a man who usually only drank in social situations.
He eyed them without budging from the doorway to invite the group inside. “What do you want?”
“Can Cosmas come out and play?” El asked, putting on a sweet smile.
“A little tired right now. Check back tomorrow?”
When he’d no doubt make another excuse.
“No dice, mate. You’re coming with us now,” El said.
“I appreciate the thought, but I’m not the most pleasant company.”
“Hey. No one said you have to be pleasant. Just there,” Heracles said. “Come out and get some fresh ocean water with us. It probably won’t make you feel better, but it beats the alternative. I need both of you if we’re to take Manu outside the dome without a full squad.”
“Or even to the Half-Baked Clam for a night of dancing,” Manu suggested. “Kai will loathe being torn away from her duties, but she would join us.”
Monthly visits to the club, dancing, or any of their other group activities had died, first because of their busy schedules, then later because they were all too wrapped in their own relationship woes to find time. Loto’s marriage was on the rocks, Manu married a queen, and El was so head over heels for a human that Manu thought she had it the worst of all of them.
After all, the objects of their affection didn’t have an eighty-year shelf-life.
“I don’t know,” Cosmas replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not in the mood for dancing.”
“Good. We can all be spared the agony of watching you flail on the dance floor,” El replied before barging past him. “If you won’t come out with us, we’re coming in for you.”
“El—” Cosmas started, only for Manu to shoulder past him, followed by Heracles. Resigned, he shut the door behind them.
Takeout boxes lined the counter along with empty sea glass bottles, each one smelling of a different liquor from the mer’s collection. When Cosmas hit the alcohol, he hit it hard, and must have worked this way through at least one or two bottles a day since Manu last saw him. El invaded the kitchen, dragged fish from the chill box, turned on the oven, and began whipping together dinner. Within a few seconds of her fingers touching an ice block of fish fillets, they rapidly thawed beneath her amazing command of ice and water magic. The water and melted condensation flowed into a thin stream that spilled into the sink and down the drain.
“You need a hand, El?” Manu called. He stacked a few takeout boxes and bent to retrieve an escaped bottle that had partially rolled beneath the futon.
“I’m good in her
e. Heracles, you mind shoving him into the shower while Manu works on the living room? It looks like a chum bucket. His bedroom probably isn’t any better.”
Heracles leaned into the room off the main foyer. His face contorted immediately. “It isn’t.”
“No one asked you any of you to barge into my home and…Manu, what are you doing?”
Manu glanced up. “Helping a friend.”
“You’re the king. You can’t be—”
“I’m your friend first. I can be your king another day.”
Heracles directed Cosmas to the shower then joined Manu in storming the rest of the home with a trash bag in hand. Then Heracles broke away from tidying to help Elpis in the kitchen. Together, they made a tolerable meal with what few goods the broken bachelor kept in his cold box.
“Did you leave a drop of wine in this place?” Heracles demanded as he set four fresh goblets on the small dining table.
Cosmas sighed. “In the cabinet by the door.”
They ate and they drank, but they were far from merry. Much as they tried not to push or coerce him into talking, Cosmas appeared satisfied with consuming the result of El’s labor in silence, fork lowering only when he chose to drain his portion of wine. When their friend held it out for a refill, Manu reached out to stop Heracles, only for El to shake her head.
“Cosmas, you know why we’re here, don’t you, love?” El started gently, pouring the wine herself. “We’re here because we’re worried about you, and also because we aren’t the only ones concerned abut your disappearance from public.”
“My uncle send you?”
“No.”
“It certainly wasn’t Amerin. She couldn’t give a swimming shit about me.”
Manu jerked in his seat. He would have doubted his own hearing if not for the mirroring expressions of dismay mingled with disbelief on Heracles and El’s faces. “I think,” he said carefully, enunciating his words slowly, “that we all know this to be untrue, Cosmas. Amerin loves you.”
“Loathes me. So much she chased me from her room in the healing house with the most awful words,” he whispered, sagging in his seat. Pain creased his features and the bitter waves of despair radiated from him like the realm’s most miserable siren’s song.
Goddess of Sea and War: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 3) Page 9