It isn’t true, because it can’t be true. It isn’t true, because Aegaeon has gone out of his way to protect and guide me. He defended me on numerous occasions. He kept me safe from my own foolish decisions when no one else could reach me.
Her heart hurt.
“Give her time, mate,” Loto pleaded. “You can’t rush her to make this decision.”
“But I must,” Demetrius said with a heavy sigh that dropped his broad shoulders. “Don’t you know that I would prefer not to place our queen in this position? Were time on our side, I would give her as long as she needed. Word on the street from many of my informants is that Lady Thalia plans to leave to explore the excavation site approved by Her Majesty weeks ago. Once she travels beyond the city, she’s lost. The ocean is wide beyond Atlantis, and with the rise of the Gloom, even with assistance from our allies, the likelihood of finding her again is low.”
“She’s leaving to the excavation site,” Manu said, crossing his arms. “How difficult can it be to find her? Loto, you sent ships that way, didn’t you?”
Demetrius laughed. “Generous of you to assume Lady Thalia will go to the precise location given to us. We must stop her before she leaves the city. We have allies aplenty.”
All eyes were on Kai, and she hated it. Of all the decisions made since her elevation to the role of queen, this one—making the divisive decision that may land her family in prison—was the one she’d never expected.
Demetrius spread out the parchment.
Because she was queen, because nothing about ruling Atlantis had yet to be easy, Kai signed the warrant for her aunt and uncle as Thalia’s accomplices.
24
A True Queen
Due to the nature of the arrest, Loto sent a squad of his mers to serve as backup. It should have been easy, even if Thalia resisted, but their primary fear was that the woman would have an army of her own lying in wait.
They were right.
It was a shitshow from the very beginning, and Kai knew this because she watched the entire thing from the viewing crystal of Demetrius’s badge.
At the same time that a team moved in to arrest Thalia, another squad reached the residence of Aegaeon and Nammu, only to find neither mer was on the premises. They kicked in the door of an empty home only to discover much of it had been stripped bare and scarcely appeared to be inhabited at all.
Meanwhile, Thalia’s chief maid refused them entrance. They discovered why when a coral skipper broke away from the property and tore down the road, resulting in a chase throughout Atlantis that didn’t end until they reached the western docks.
With Manu beside her, Kai sat with her attention glued to the crystal display as Nammu and Aegaeon emerged from the skipper on Thalia’s heels. When authorities attempted to talk her down and to convince both to peacefully enter custody, Thalia let loose jagged streaks of ice and a torrential flood of aquamancy that swept keepers down the length of the docks.
“No,” Kai whispered.
She’d been a fool to believe that they would come peacefully, yet she’d hoped just the same that Aegaeon would speak sense into them. He moved with Nammu, rushing with her toward a spectacular sandcruiser, the Atlantian version of a svelte yacht, but designed for comfort while coasting along the ocean bottoms.
As feared, Myrmidons in black spilled from within it onto the docks and covered the nobles’ retreat. Harpoons flew and nonlethal stun bolts charged the air. Thalia commanded the currents of water with decades of practice fueling each of her assaults.
Nammu lacked their control. Despite her high mer heritage, she did nothing to pull her weight during their mad flight down the docks, but Aegaeon’s crafty use of aquatic magic compensated for her ineptitude. Discs of water and ice materialized, always manifesting in the nick of time.
A breath shuddered from Kai. Their escape plans and the presence of the black-shelled Myrmidons were as good an admission of guilt as any.
“Gods,” Manu breathed. Until then, he’d sat in silence, staring at the unfolding battle in numbed silence mirroring Kai’s despair.
Heracles growled under his breath as a keeper went down. “Fuck! We should have been there. We could have helped.”
“It isn’t your place,” Manu reminded him. “And none of us truly anticipated this.”
Myrmidons on both sides clashed, turning the docks into a warzone. Rounds flew in every direction, damaging adjacent properties and vessels. Kai watched the bloodbath with tears in her eyes.
Then one bolt pierced Aeageon in the calf. Whether it was intentional or by accident, she did not know, but he stumbled and fell forward with his leg pinned to the pier.
Nammu didn’t stop for him. She ran forward onto the gangplank and Thalia boarded without him. Two of the Myrmidons in black attempted to recover the fallen lord, but their efforts were in vain. The harpoon’s barb had penetrated the dock and couldn’t be budged.
“No bloody idea why they’re rushing to board. All gates were deactivated per your orders,” Loto said, staring grimly at the scene.
As he spoke the words, the gate rolled open. Loto’s livid features practically glowed red.
Thalia’s vessel shot through the aperture and into the abyss. With their escape fled their hopes of capturing the treacherous noble, hopes of taking her and Nammu alive in the city now gone.
“They left him. Look. Left him without any compunction. Nammu didn’t even look back.”
Demetrius’s voice came through over the comm. “We have Lord Aegaeon in our custody now, Your Majesty. Your orders?”
“Get him medical attention,” Kai breathed, overcome with a pain that tightened her throat, “then throw that treacherous nematode into the deepest cell of the royal jail.”
Kai couldn’t sleep. Atlantis’s loyalties had been divided, though Cosmas and Loto assured her it wasn’t everyone. It had been a calculated maneuver planned by Thalia weeks ahead of time, and the Myrmidons responsible for letting her past had turned themselves over without a fight. They hadn’t taken on the black armor to show their true support, but for a woman who had once fought beside them, they had been torn.
Thalia had preyed on their honor and divided them.
Kai loathed her as much as she loathed Nammu and Aegaeon, for whom there was no longer a doubt regarding their involvement. The only question that remained was how deeply in the web had they committed to her ruin and whether Keres had attempted to murder her on her uncle’s orders.
It hurt her to think of it.
In the week since his capture, no one, not even Demetrius’s most skilled interrogator convinced Aegaeon to talk. Whatever secrets he knew of Thalia and Nammu’s plans he seemed willing to take to his grave.
Suddenly, Kai no longer cared whether she could walk the streets of Atlantis.
Another hour of restless frustration passed, prompting Kai to creep from bed. Manu barely moved when she slid from beneath his massive arm, but she left him to rest alone in bed. Lately, he slept deep and long whenever he crawled beside her.
She wrapped herself in a silk robe then took to the halls to wander the palace with no destination in mind. Despite that, she wound up at the garden standing barefoot at the edge of the pool.
I wanted to make them proud of me.
A tiny voice, her own self-confidence, told her she had.
Most of the city did not loathe her. Most of the city did not believe her a failure. A small number of people had been manipulated by a merwoman with her own agenda.
No matter how she looked at it, however, the million-drachma question didn’t change, and no one would tell her what Lady Thalia hoped to accomplish.
A true queen would know.
You are a true queen. You saved many.
She had, hadn’t she?
You are loved, and you are wonderful.
Kai paused and glanced around her immediate surroundings, only to realize the little blob of plant life to her left wasn’t a mass of saltwater flora. Launa crawled toward her and grasp
ed her ankle, fluctuating in colors and giving a vibrant, enthusiastic greeting only an octopus could.
At once, a big grin broke across her face. “You’re the one hyping me up?”
Launa flashed colors and reached up with two tentacles, prompting Kai to lift the octopus into her arms for a fond embrace. “I love you, too, Launa. You should go cuddle your daddy now.”
He needs rest.
“True.”
She nuzzled Launa’s soft mantle and sighed, breathing in the scent of salt water and ink. Launa was all the child they needed for the moment, and their companion had been grossly neglected as of late. Once it was all over, for better or worse, they owed her a swim beyond the dome.
“Your Majesty,” a Royal Guard called from the path. The young mer jogged into view. “Apologies for the interruption. Vitalis seeks a moment of your time.”
“Let him know I’ll be there shortly.” She kissed the top of Launa’s head then crouched to set the cephalopod in the water, a stern warning on the tip of her tongue for the octopus to leave the newly planted Vircilien alone.
That warning died before a word parted her lips. Shimmering beneath the water, tendrils of green snaked through the sand and coiled over the anemone. The Vircilien that had been no longer than her index finger months ago had sent out runners into the sand bed.
As for its trunk, that emerged from the water and glittered against the waterfall, the once-delicate thing smaller than her hand now standing as tall as she.
25
A Concession of Love
“Good news!” Vitalis announced the moment Kai entered the study located one room off the healing house’s entrance. The old man leaned forward to peer at two laboratory beakers, one a deep, verdant green, the other glowing sapphire blue. Aside from her knowledge of marine biology and ocean diversity, Kai didn’t consider herself much of a scientist anymore. When it came to Atlantian science, she was ignorant and content to leave brighter mers to that work.
“Yes? What is it? What did you find out?”
“The foundling is not Calypso’s daughter.”
Relief crashed over Kai. She sagged and realized she could finally breathe. Giving that news to Amerin would have been heartbreaking. More than that, she didn’t know what she would do with a child in her possession carrying some latent form of the Gloom’s vile infection.
“That’s wonderful, Vitalis. Thank—”
“But she is most certainly Calypso’s granddaughter.”
The cold returned. Vitalis appeared so pleased by the news, however, that she spent a time staring at him, waiting for the punchline of the joke.
“Vitalis, that’s terrible news.”
“Not quite!” The smile on his craggy face turned the wrinkles into canyons. “Were the child a fourth daughter of Calypso, I imagine there are many who would call for her destruction. This gives her a fighting chance. Besides, I haven’t yet shared everything we recently discovered. I know the identity of the father.”
“Yes?” Her heart lurched into her throat. “Who is he?”
“Erasmus. The dirty little traitor who sold you and His Majesty to Calypso. It would seem that may have been part of their bargain. I cannot tell you the circumstances, but he fathered that child.”
Kai didn’t realize that her legs had gone weak until Vitalis pushed a chair beneath her. She sat in it heavily and cradled her face in both hands. “What does that mean for her?”
“It means she has a fighting chance that the Gloom may not take root in her, after all. All preliminary scans and bloodwork imply she carries no infection. Yet…I continue to question why this child was abandoned in a convenient place for you and His Majesty to discover. It would be in the best interests of all who are in close contact with her for the child to be brought to the healing house for further study.”
Kai’s heart sank. She tried to imagine Amerin agreeing to turning over the child, but the foul taste of creeping nausea rose into her mouth.
“Allow me to approach Lady Amerin. I will share this grave news.”
“No,” blurted out Kai promptly. “I brought the child into the palace and their lives. Let me do it. This doesn’t travel beyond us, though, all right?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
Kai left the chair and moved toward the door, only to pause and glance at the healer again. “How well do you know plants, Vitalis?”
The elderly mer blinked at her. “That’s an unusual question to ask. Plenty, I suppose. Plants are often a healer’s greatest tool when magic proves insufficient. Why do you ask?”
“The Vircilien did something unexpected. Andarien told me not to expect growth from it for years, but…it’s huge now. As tall as me. I followed the runners around the garden and found them creeping through the rocks. Some of the root system penetrated the filtration system that carries fresh salt water in from beyond the dome, too. It’s reaching outside Atlantis.”
“Interesting. Overnight?”
“Well, not overnight, but certainly fast. I haven’t asked Amerin yet if she noticed it growing.”
“Hm. Am I permitted to take a sample from this plant for analysis?”
“Please. Atlantis can’t afford for any more ill to befall it. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll contact Andarien.”
Had the elvish king neglected to tell them something integral to their safety about the plant? When he’d mentioned it taking centuries to flower and provide seed, she’d expected it to be a slow-growing addition to the garden that didn’t mature until the turn of the century, if not later.
As each day exposed a new horror, Kai wondered how many more fires she would have to put out.
A commotion in the corridors dragged Manu out of bed in the early hours of the morning. He dressed drowsily and staggered into the hallway to find Amerin and Kai at each other’s throats—not physically, but in the only way that the two ever argued.
Cosmas stood behind Amerin with his hands resting on her shoulders. She sat in her chair with their swaddled adopted daughter in her arms and tears glistening in her eyes.
Manu considered backing into their suite again, but he lingered helplessly. Finally, he moved up beside Kai and found himself under both mers’ scrutiny. He couldn’t look away from the pleading in their eyes.
Do something, Cosmas’s steady gaze seemed to say.
“I suppose it is time for the infant to transfer to Vitalis’s care?”
“It is,” Cosmas said, voice grave. “But she’s shown no sign of infection. She’s safe, Manu. Look at her. She’s pink and healthy. She’s a mer, like us. Not like them.”
Kai begged him in a look, and in one look, he felt the weight of her conflict, her pain, and her desire to do what was right.
What the fuck can I do to right this?
Was there a way to right the situation? He’d guessed from the start, when Kai came to him with Andarien’s suspicions, that the child would be related to one of the nymphs. For Calypso to have birthed the child, it meant a dark future for Atlantis, indicating Kai didn’t slay her after all.
Her daughters, on the other hand, possessed just as much strength, direct descendants of Pontus and gifted with his divine magic. Their breeding could be catastrophic.
“Please don’t take her,” Amerin pleaded.
Manu dragged in a deep breath. “We won’t take her.”
Kai jolted. The betrayal in her eyes wounded him. “Manu—”
“Because you’ll be with her every moment, Amerin. Consider this, if she does need care, or magical healing, should she not be a stone’s throw from Vitalis?”
“There is no magical healing for the Gloom.”
“Kai recovered from it. She and Atalanta share a divine ancestor. Is it not believable that Vitalis may synthesize a vaccine from the antibodies in Kai’s blood?”
“The old fool has been working on that for months,” Cosmas growled.
“Why does the time spent perfecting the vaccine negate its value? If Kai can recover, it is
probable others can. Amerin, stay with her in the healing house. We will not ask you to separate from your child.”
“No, never,” Kai agreed in a rush. “I’m so sorry. I only want what’s best for everyone. I don’t want to take her. I would never allow anyone to harm her. She’s a child.”
Cosmas relaxed. As his head fell back and the long, weighted breath left his lungs, Amerin raised one palm to the back of his hand resting on her shoulder. “If she’s fine with it, so am I.”
“I am.”
“Then is this matter resolved?” Manu asked.
The hard look between the two women eased, and a hint of a smile touched Amerin’s lips. “Yes. I’m sorry for yelling. I thought… When you came and said she’d have to go to Vitalis…” Her shoulders shuddered. “I’m sorry.”
Kai sagged. Manu only squeezed her tighter and relished the moment when she leaned against him for support instead of standing on her own. “I’m sorry for how I approached you. I’m an idiot.”
“Great. I’m glad all of you have made peace,” Heracles said from their rear, “because both of you and Cosmas are needed. Now. Aegaeon is ready to talk, but he says he’ll speak to no one if Kai isn’t present. Cosmas can sit this one out, but I thought he’d like to know.”
“Go,” Cosmas said, squeezing Amerin’s shoulder. “We’ll meet with Vitalis, then I’ll catch up to you at the gates.”
Manu sighed. From one fire to the next, it seemed peace would remain forever elusive to them.
26
The Deepest Cut
In the many months since her arrival to Atlantis, Kai had only visited the royal jails once. Once had been enough to learn that a disproportionate number of laborers and warriors inhabited those stone cells.
Goddess of Sea and War: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 3) Page 20