All hell broke lose, as the hatred, shadow, and worst things of all creation poured from the vessel. Fouled water swirled around it in a whirlpool, carrying small shards of shells and ocean life suspended in the vortex.
The raw power tore Narkissa apart.
Kai ducked down and ripped the shield from a deceased Myrmidon. She dug her toes into the sand and raised the shield to guard her face. The occasional piece of debris plinked against the metal surface, knocking into it with enough force to dent the surface.
Life and energy hummed through the water with increasing frequency, as ribbons of power converged as one and the faded image of another place flickered into view. The obelisks weren’t merely pulling life from the ocean—they were using that very energy to open a gateway to another plane that seemed little more than treacherous void and hard rock, its colorless landscape hanging in a shimmering portal. In direct proportion to the charging gateway, more of the remaining life within the grotto shriveled, the coral bleaching and twilit, night-loving anemones losing their color.
“We have to get to that thing and shut it down,” Manu muttered.
“It’s too powerful. I can’t—how can we even get to it?”
He crouched and plunged one hand into the ground. The power of his voice echoed through her thoughts and reverberated through the ocean waters, a tremble she heard as clearly in her thoughts as she would have if he spoke.
We need you more than we deserve, but we cannot do this alone. Please come to me.
Kai wondered what he was doing until the first vibration throbbed underground and mounds of sand pulsed to an unheard rhythm. A multitude of burrowing creatures emerged from the packed sand, crustaceans and hard-bodied worms, things that should have stung and bitten and harmed them, or even fought as natural enemies, rushed toward Manu and clambered over him, becoming a suit of living armor. Within seconds they blended and became seamless, sharing their exoskeletons with him.
“This is why I was chosen. If we don’t do it together, we don’t have a chance. Neither of us can make it there alone. We were meant to do this together, so it can never happen again.”
Kai inhaled a deep breath and took hold of his shoulders from behind. “Together.”
Their destiny loomed before them, the portal gathering greater strength by the moment. The obelisks may as well have been a million miles away, for what good their slow crawl toward them was.
Though it must have been agonizing to endure, Manu moved forward relentlessly and shielded Kai from chipped rocks and the pieces of debris that eroded his exterior shell. As quickly as it could strip away the flesh beneath, the divine power restored him anew.
A purely malevolent force pulsed beyond the gateway. The image of the Gloom spreading across the surface replayed through her mind but toughened her resolve.
Kai loved the surface as much as Atlantis.
And she would not allow the dark ones to threaten either home.
The face of Phorcys filled the window of an expanding portal, growing in size to suit the evil Titans soon to emerge.
“Now!” Manu shouted once they were within range.
“You can’t have this world! It doesn’t belong to you!”
With scepter and trident, they both attacked the focal points of the gate in unison. Fissures of purple, negative light spread throughout the pair of obelisks as particles ranging from pebbles to fist-sized fragments broke away. Piece by piece the structure crumbled apart, aided by Kai’s magical control of the water. She eroded it with a precision she’d lacked in the days prior, snaking between the cracks and weak points.
All at once, the disintegrating remnants of the gateway hurtled toward the center with a tremendous pull. Kai fought against it, with her hand tightly clenched in Manu’s fist. She formed her tail to swim away, only to realize Manu had collapsed to one knee beside her.
“Leave me.”
“No!”
“I’m spent, Kai. I used all that I had to get us here.”
“I won’t leave you! You didn’t leave me, and I won’t leave you!”
“I’m deadweight, Kai. If you don’t leave me, we’ll both die.”
Her muscles screamed for mercy, a burning that grew all the more intense with each desperate kick of her tail.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
A fragile whisper of a sound reached her ears from the distance far ahead where the chamber’s only exit had begun to cave in and seal their exit.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Kai closed her eyes and surrendered to the magical storm raging behind her. Snaps of electricity and dark current ate the tip of her tail, but nothing inspired her more than the pained grunt from her husband.
I’m the ocean. No force in the water is more powerful than I.
One speck at a time, Kai felt herself coming apart in a painless disembodiment, the pieces of her becoming sea foam and bubbles. Cocooning Manu within the aquatic bubble of her own body, Kai shot forward and left the erupting pillars behind, jetting across the scarred battlefield and through the illusory wall as the power vacuum erupted behind them.
Reforming, she snapped together again on the ocean bed and lay there gasping beside Manu. An assortment of nicks and scratches marred his skin, his leggings in ribbons and pieces around his legs.
“They made it!” someone shouted, the voice reaching Kai through the exhausted haze falling over her. Her mind flirted with unconsciousness, a black fog robbing her vision of clarity.
“By the gods, they made it! Someone get El!”
Cosmas. She recognized the voice of her dear friend.
When her eyes shut again, she didn’t fight it. Finally, the worst was over, and she didn’t need to fight any longer.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Hand in hand with her king, Kai stepped into the renovated palace for the first time since its completion. The grand reopening celebration had been a beautiful ceremony, attended by thousands of citizens thronging the streets. All had been welcome to join, every mer and child. Even Launa had attended, wrapped around Manu’s shoulders the entire day.
The blending of gargoyle and Atlantian design shone, from the refinished stone to the shell décor. Their allies had been a boon in multiple ways, not only on the battlefield on that faithful day by leading Loto and Cosmas to the magical disturbance felt in the stone, but in teaching their people how to repair the city with their own latent magic.
They completed the palace repairs in months, instead of the projected years-long effort. Had Kai and Manu not undertaken a journey across their queendom’s many cities, the palace may have reopened much sooner.
But it had been a year of truly living. She’d swum in pristine waters alongside him, visited mers of distant colonies, and swam alongside her sister with sharks in Galveston.
It was a beautiful year following a long period of strife and sacrifice.
Most of the treacherous Myrmidons had been rooted out, and any others who might have opposed her lost motivation after the defeat of the Gloom. After Astraia sabotaged her sister’s diabolical efforts, the army in her company became little more than snakes lacking their heads, mindless beasts without control.
“Wait!” Amerin shouted from behind them, followed by her husband. Now far too large to be swaddled in a blanket, Atalanta rode on her mother’s lap. “You’re not allowed to proceed to the gardens without us.”
Kai cocked one brow. “Oh?”
“Nope.”
Cosmas entered behind them and gave a grin. “She broke away from the celebration because she wanted to see your face the first time you look at it.”
“Fine. But someone has to give me hugs.”
“Me!”
“Yes, you,” Kai replied to the girl, who she lifted into her arms and hugged tight, giving kisses to her plump cheeks. Her indigo hair was a halo of curls around her round face. Any sign of the Gloom was long gone, miraculously cured the moment the Vircilien reacted to Astraia’s blood in the aquagarden. Vitalis
had another theory. He thought Astraia had released them herself from the sickness. “I swear, you are bigger every time I see you.”
“Eeeee!” Atalanta squirmed and giggled, then caught Kai’s face between her chubby-fingered hands and kissed her back.
The underwater realm changed a year ago. Kai liked to believe it was all improvements, but at times like now, as she wandered across sleek marble floors, she remembered the sorrows.
It would have been nice to wander the restored palace with her uncle and listen to his tales of her parents and their rule in the palace. She had not seen him in many months.
Yet she hadn’t stopped missing him. Gods, she wanted to. She wanted to forget that he existed. Many of the other captured traitors had attempted to protest the charges against them, but Aegaeon had quietly accepted every accusation, including a century-long sentence of imprisonment in a remote colony, followed by exile from Atlantis altogether.
She couldn’t bring herself to order his execution.
The few sects of mers who stood against her lost most of their momentum in the wake of Thalia’s defection and the tale of what happened to her. Kai knew a few of the deceased merwoman’s peers doubted the veracity of their story, but she also didn’t care.
Democrates had kept his word that the Loyalists’ love for Atlantis would keep them in check. When a sweeping vote had placed him on the newly established Prytaneion, she’d been the first to congratulate him.
“All right. I have one surprise for you, before we go into the aquagarden,” Amerin said.
Kai twisted around. “Yeah?”
It wasn’t until the old healer gave Amerin his staff that Kai realized he’d joined their group. Amerin planted the staff on the floor between her bare feet and rose slowly, wobbling all the while as Cosmas tensed as if prepared to leap forward to grab her. Her right knee buckled, but no one moved, though Kai’s body instinctively tensed to dive forward and catch her friend.
“Amerin. Gods, oh gods, you’re standing. You’re standing!”
A double-handed, white-knuckled grip on the staff kept her upright, but she stood.
“She’s regained the sensation in her left leg and some control of the right,” Vitalis said proudly.
“I didn’t think you could—thank you, Vitalis.”
“Don’t thank me, Your Majesty. Thank your husband.”
Kai spun around to face Manu, staring. “You healed her?”
Manu tucked his head and grinned. “Wasn’t much of anything.”
“Liar.” Amerin smiled and nodded to Cosmas. He promptly stepped forward and assisted her back to the seat. “He worked and worked on me. Maybe one day he can do more, but right now, I’m happy with this. I’m happy to be alive with everyone I love.”
“I’m so happy for you, Amerin.”
Kai passed Atalanta back to Amerin, settling the girl on her mother’s lap.
She’d been remarkably normal, exhibiting minor talent for water magic and a little affinity for crustaceans, but otherwise, she seemed a healthy and normal little mer.
Vitalis felt confident that the Vircilien’s healing water had cured her, or that perhaps, in her final moments, her mother had set her free.
They would never know for sure.
It didn’t really matter.
Amerin moved to the front of the group to show them to the aquagarden. Of all the structures in the Palace District that day, the aquagarden had taken the least damage, perhaps in fact due to Astraia limiting the destruction. The disloyal Myrmidons who believed they had been working aside her had caused the most.
“The Vircilien continued to grow while you were away from the palace. I’ve been here tending to it almost every day. Look at her.”
Kai gasped when she saw it. Once, the mangroves had towered along the edge of the pond, but they were now overshadowed by the enormous fae tree emerging from the saline waters. Bioluminescence in soft blue-green slowed in the venation pattern of each silver leaf.
“The roots extend far beyond the city now. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Amerin said. “Did you ever ask King Andarien about that?”
“I did. He’s also at a loss. He told me their freshwater lake is where healers gather the base water component for their most potent healing tinctures.”
“So he doesn’t have any ideas either?”
“Only that by adapting it to Atlantis, he must have changed something fundamental about it. Wherever the roots reach, they cleanse the ocean of all traces of the Gloom.”
They remained together as a group for a while and moved their celebration to private quarters. Later, when Amerin took Atalanta to nap, the state of the tree remained on her mind.
Telling the other magical kingdoms about her dream met with mixed results. Only the fae believed her. The gargoyles and dwarves were stubborn folk and had never seen sight of such a disturbance in their lands.
“What’s wrong?” Manu asked, wrapping his arms around her as she stood on the balcony of Cosmas and Amerin’s private suite.
“I was thinking of how happy I am.”
“But?”
“But we’ve only driven the evil onto land. What can we do now?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Nothing. You warned them. And that is all you can do, angelfish. The sea is our domain. But if our allies ask for help, we will provide. As they did for us.” He took her hand in his and raised her fingers to his lips, kissing each individual knuckle and bringing a smile to her face despite his solemn words.
“Yes. I suppose you’re right. Here is where we belong.”
The End
Author’s Note: Thank you, thank you, thank you, for following my trilogy to completion. I’m so thrilled to finally end the Atlantic Saga! Kai and Manu’s story has ended, but the tale of the Gloom isn’t over yet. To find out what happens next, you’ll want to check out The Savage King to follow Andarien and Selindrys’s arc. Or follow me at my newsletter.
About the Author
Domino Taylor is one-half of the pen name Vivienne Savage. This is her debut as a solo author and her first complete, unassisted work. A video gamer by nature, she considers herself a horror movie aficionado and spends her evenings reading historical romance. She also enjoys the outdoors, jogging with her dog, riding horses, and going to renaissance fairs. Domino is a former correctional officer, registered nurse, and the mother of a brilliant son and daughter.
For more information
www.dominotaylor.com
[email protected]
Goddess of Sea and War: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 3) Page 25