by Apryl Baker
He heard shuffling, and arms came for him. He knocked them aside as best he could in the dark, but he felt the pinprick of a needle hit him, and within a few seconds, true darkness overcame him as his mind floated away.
At least he wouldn’t have to face his death and the knowledge that he’d failed his charge.
Chapter Four
Tobias woke from his supposed death ready to accept the consequences due him from the previous life. After all, being a traitor to your own bloodline didn’t give one much hope for a pleasant afterlife.
To his surprise, Tobias awoke to a world very much like the one he assumed he’d left. A room not much larger than the cell he was kept inside until the time of his public execution. He was sprawled out on an old bed. The mattress protested with a loud squeak every time he shifted. One small window and door were the only things to break up the walls flaking with old paint. A privy sat in the corner, the only other piece of furniture in the room.
All things considered, if this was his atonement in the afterlife, Tobias should consider himself lucky. Perhaps there had been a mix-up and some other poor soul had been given his sentence.
The door opened, and in walked Valeria.
Tobias sat bolt upright in his bed. Another ear-piercing squeal from the bed sent a bolt of thunderous pain to his skull. Tobias lifted a hand to his head, trying to deal with the pain and the idea of seeing Valeria. If she was here, that meant she was dead as well, and that was something he was not ready to deal with yet, ever.
“Calm yourself, old man.” Valeria walked to his bedside but did not offer a hand of comfort. “You’re not dead, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“What?” Tobias winced past the pain. “I saw the poison enter my arm. I felt the life leave my body.”
“Ileana had one of her inside operatives replace the poison with a substitute designed to give all the symptoms of death. You were unconscious for a few hours. To the blind eye, you were dead to the world. We extracted you minutes after you were given the injection and revived you here in one of the Guild’s safe houses.”
Tobias finally lowered the hand he’d raised to his head. The excruciating pain in his cranium was now bearable. He rose to unsteady feet, examining the puncture wound the needle made when entering his skin.
Valeria did not offer a steadying hand, neither did Tobias expect her to. She was a Dendali, and they stood strong without sympathy or need of help.
The one thing his mind was grappling with the most wasn’t his near-death experience, but the emotion he felt when Valeria first walked in, and he thought for a moment she might be dead as well. It was a hollow feeling, an emptiness he thought himself impervious to.
“Ileana says Kronos and Atlantis march on DeCadia.” Valeria crossed the room and leaned close to the window, her gaze a hundred miles away. “He’s tricked the Atlantians into thinking they are gods. Even if they can win, and they probably will with the use of magic on their side, the losses on both sides will be in the millions.”
“And?” Tobias recognized the callous edge in his voice and went on anyway. “What are they to us? They follow a false king, led like sheep. I say let the sheep be slaughtered. My allegiance to the Atlantian people died along with my brother.”
“How can you say that?” Val turned from the window, her eyes dancing with righteous indignation. “These are your people. Even if you hold no allegiance to Atlantis, then what of DeCadia? It’s been your home since you ran away. If you aren’t going to stop this war from happening, then no one will.”
“I know what you want.” Tobias was already shaking his head. “I will not be their king. I’ve seen what happens to those in power. You’re either overthrown or corrupted as you sit on the throne. The last good ruler died with my brother, and it was my fault.”
“Ileana thinks the Atlantis people would rally behind a Dendali once again if he were to make himself known.” Valeria wasn’t pleading. Tobias never thought she would plead, but there was no denying the urgency in her eyes.
“Or herself known.” Tobias’s mind was made up as he headed for the door to exit the room. “They would follow a queen just as well as a king.”
Valeria’s silence was enough for Tobias to know she was the right person to wear the crown. She didn’t want it any more than he did. The difference was there was still good in Valeria, and despite her unwillingness to reign, she would try if it meant saving lives.
Without another word, Tobias was through the door, leaving the heir to the Atlantian throne to think on her next move.
Tobias traveled down a hall, unsure where he was going. The dryness in his throat convinced him he needed water, but where he was to find any was beyond him. The building seemed to be a series of units connected to one another instead of one single house.
Motion caught his eye. Lukas turned a corner, coming down the hall in his direction. He was carrying a pitcher and cups as if he had read Tobias’s mind.
“How did you know?” Tobias nodded to the mugs.
“I was going to find Val, actually.” Lukas frowned as Tobias helped himself to the pitcher and cups. “She’s still regaining her strength from being imprisoned.”
“I’d give her a few moments to herself right about now.” Tobias poured himself a glass of crystal clear water and drained it with a loud sigh of contentment.
“And why should I do that?” Lukas’s eyebrow raised. “What have you done to her?”
“I have done nothing.” Tobias handed back the pitcher and cup. “But whether Valeria knows it or not, a queen is being born.”
Chapter Five
The howls of agony echoed so loudly off the throne room walls they vibrated inside Kronos’s chest. Hera pinned the captain responsible for overseeing the executions to the stone floor with magic. Red streams pulsated from her hands as they pierced both hands and feet of her prey.
Hera enjoyed her work a little too much, in Kronos’s eyes. Yes, he was furious. Of course, the man responsible for the escape of the prisoner had to be dealt with. The line was crossed when one took pleasure in the torture.
Kronos looked on the act as something that had to be done. Hera looked forward to the act. Beyond the screaming captain stood rows of Atlantian officers. They needed to be reminded of what happened when orders were not carried out.
With her right hand, Hera held her victim down, and with her left, she extracted his very life. Red magic from her left hand gripped at his soul and tore without regard. Visually, it was appalling. The captain who failed in his duties was screaming as he aged year by year. In front of their eyes, Hera was plucking away at his decades of remaining life. Where once a young and handsome officer stood, now a screaming old man remained.
“Enough,” Kronos commanded, not to spare the man any pain but to be done with the punishment and on to hunting down those responsible. “Let him live out his few remaining years to remember his shame.”
Begrudgingly, Hera stopped the magic flow from her hands. The yelling had now downgraded to a rough coughing as the elderly man on the ground struggled to breathe.
“Take him away.” Kronos motioned two guards forward. He turned to the ranks of waiting officers. They stood at attention, frightened and ready to obey, no matter what the cost. “Let this be a lesson to all of you. The Atlantian military will have order. We will be just and specific in our quest for perfection. You are dismissed.”
The ranks of officers bowed and filed out of the room. As was planned, they marched off in the wake of the now old man being carried out. The best lessons were those imprinted in one’s mind. These officers would not fail.
“Ajax, Hera.” Kronos stood from his seat, and his square pupils that destined him for greatness narrowed in on his two most trusted generals. “I would have a word with you.”
The two couldn’t be more different. Ajax, built like a tank, loyal to a fault, and bold. Hera, thin but still muscular, scheming, and willing to bend the rules when necessary. They were the perfect c
ombination, in Kronos’s eyes. He would need their abilities in the coming days if the war with DeCadia was to be won.
“Ajax, I want your men to sweep the city and surrounding ports. The entire island is to be scoured for those responsible. It seems Tobias and the shifter are dead, but looks can be deceiving.” Kronos moved his attention to Hera. “Hera, I want your agents digging for information. Someone somewhere knows something.”
“As you wish.” Hera displayed her signature bow, the one Kronos could never tell was authentic or not. “I’ll make sure my people come through, unlike—well, no need to bring up the recent fault in the military.”
Ajax’s face reddened. Every muscle under his pristine uniform bulged with rage. “Any time you’re ready to stop hiding behind that shield of magic, witch, I’m ready.”
“Enough.” Kronos lifted a hand to silence the squabbling. Competition was a useful tool, but too much could topple empires from within. “Go now, and do not fail me.”
Both officer and sorceress left the room, with enough space so they would not have to converse with one another.
Kronos watched them go, wondering if there were any chance his plan could not come to fruition. There was not. With the people behind him and the military already preparing to invade, the wheels were set in motion. Tobias was most likely dead, and even if by some miracle he was not, the people would not rally behind a known traitor.
Kronos sat in his throne room alone, until the fires in the braziers ran low. This was his time to reign, and no man would topple what he had built.
***
Ryder groaned and rolled over, but the simplest of movements brought agonizing pain with it. Had the ancestors decided to curse her in the afterlife for disobeying her family and running away? Was she destined to feel an eternity of pain for her disobedience? It would be just like the ancestors to condemn her. They were that spiteful.
“Easy.” A cool, wet cloth was swiped across her face. The relief was instant and all too brief. “You’re still healing.”
Healing? Then she wasn’t dead? She’d been spared? But how? She’d felt the pain of death, felt the life leave her. How was she not dead?
“She’s awake?”
That voice, she knew. The blasted captain who blamed her for the deaths of his crew. She hadn’t been the one to char them into oblivion. That honor belonged to the other Dragons on her island. Well, she admitted deep down that it was partly her fault. They’d come for her, and the humans who stood in the way of retrieving her had only been collateral damage.
Ryder was sorry for the loss of life. She hadn’t understood loss and pain and perseverance until she’d met these humans. Their emotions were getting to the human half of her. It awoke more and more every day, while her shifter side became more and more dormant. She needed to change before her body forgot how. Before she became too human.
Or maybe she was in the afterlife, and the captain was salt added into the wounds of her punishment. Either way, Stephen was the last person she wanted to see.
“It is difficult to know.” Another pass of the cool cloth against the burns embedded into her flesh. “Her wounds are more difficult to heal as they are magic induced. Her body may simply be reacting to the stimulus of the cloth, or she could be waking up. There is no way to tell unless she opens her eyes.”
Facing the captain and all his hated blame wasn’t something Ryder relished. He’d only laugh at her pain, gloat in the fact she was hurting.
“How are the wounds healing?” His voice came closer, and a shadow darkened over her closed eyelids. He had to be standing over her.
“Slowly, sir. If she could shift, her wounds would heal faster, but that isn’t an option right now.”
“Perhaps we can sneak her back to the ship? She could shift and stay hidden behind Tobias’s wards.”
“You should speak with Ileana, sir. If there’s a way to do it, she’ll be able to arrange it for you.”
Dare she suspect the captain sounded concerned? For her?
What kind of twisted afterlife had the ancestors thrown her into?
“If shifting is the only way she can heal these wounds, then I will make sure she’s able to.”
A rustle sounded, and more footsteps came toward her. “How is she?”
Ah, the captain of The Emerald Queen. The reason they were all here now. She wanted to feel some sort of anger toward the woman, but found she couldn’t. Emerald had only ever wanted to find somewhere she belonged, much as Ryder had. She’d fled her home looking for a sense of belonging. She couldn’t fault Emerald for doing the same.
“She’s not healing well, my lady.”
“Just Emerald, please.”
Ryder wanted to snort at the irritation in Emerald’s voice. She was a princess here in Atlantis, and people were treating her as such. The woman wasn’t used to that kind of reverence.
“As you wish, my lady Emerald.”
“Trevian, could you leave us for a few moments, please?” the wretched captain asked quietly. “I need to speak with Emerald privately.”
“Of course, sir. My lady Emerald.”
“I swear to the gods, if I hear ‘my lady’ one more time…”
“Calm down, Valeria.” A short laugh slipped out of the captain, but Ryder focused on the name he’d called Emerald. “They are only following Ileana’s lead, and she and Tobias both want you to assume the role of rightful heir to the throne of Atlantis.”
“I want no such responsibility.” The irritation had bled to outright hostility. “I just wanted to find a place to call home, not to lead a rebellion.”
“I know, Rhee.” Stephen’s voice was close to Ryder’s ear, so she knew it was he who now bathed her face. “Sometimes fate has other plans for us. I thought I’d be chasing pirates through the skies, not signing up to follow one. We can’t control our choices at all times, so we just have to make do with the hand we’re dealt.”
“But Tobias is the next heir. He’s not dead.”
“But he can abdicate his throne and name you as his heir. You are his granddaughter.”
“Stephen, stop making so much sense!” Her boot heels clacked as she paced. “I want no part of this. Why won’t anyone listen to me?”
“And what of our home? What of DeCadia?”
“What of it?” Her tone had gone all surly. “They never cared a whit about me. Why should I care what happens to them?”
A long, slow sigh left the captain. He didn’t speak for several minutes, just continued to bathe Ryder’s face and neck with the coolness of the cloth. “I know you had a hard upbringing, Rhee. You haven’t said that much to me about it, but I can tell it tortures you. What I want you to consider is all the children of DeCadia. Those who are innocent, who have no protectors. What do you imagine will happen to them? The ones who run homeless in the streets? What of them? Can you really condemn them to a fate worse than your own?”
“I can’t deal with this right now. What of the Dragon? She does not look to be healing. Her burns are still as bad as they were when they brought her here.”
Emerald sounded so distraught, Ryder almost found herself reaching out to her. Which was odd. It was not in her nature to comfort anyone. Being in her human form was doing things to her, and the sooner she shifted, the better.
“The healer said the only way for her to heal is to shift.”
“And she can’t do that here,” Emerald finished for him.
“No. If we can get her back to Tobias’s warded cove, she can shift and heal. The healer suggested Ileana could arrange safe passage.”
“I’ll speak with her immediately and arrange to have someone take her…”
“No,” the captain interrupted. “I’ll take her.”
There was a long pause before Emerald spoke again. “Stephen, you don’t have to. I know how you feel about her.”
“She’s my charge, mine to protect, and I failed her. This is the least I can do for her.”
“You always did take that
pledge of honor to heart, didn’t you?” A small, short laugh followed Emerald’s statement. “As you wish, Stephen, but I want you both back here as soon as she is able to travel.”
“Of course,” he murmured.
“I’ll go talk to Ileana now. Be ready to move as soon as she gives the go-ahead.”
Ryder heard Emerald’s boots move away, and then the door opening and closing. Relief invaded her senses. She’d be able to shift soon, and then these dreadful emotions would go away.
“Be easy, Ryderoux. I will see you well again.” The words were barely a whisper, but she caught them. “I swear it.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d think the good captain cared.
But she did know better.
The sooner she shifted, the better.
Chapter Six
“We’ll need the support of the people if this is going to have any chance of working.” Tobias paced Ileana’s office, not for the first time thinking how small the leader of the Thieves Guild’s quarters really were. “We’ll need supplies as well.”
“You’ll have them.” Ileana was hunched over her desk, a mountain of reports to go through before the day’s end. The papers were stacked like a leaning mountain, ready to topple at any moment. “Ask me what you really want to know, and let’s stop pretending, here, sorcerer.”
Tobias stopped pacing, giving Ileana his full attention. There was a brief moment where neither said anything. Anger at being called out in such a direct way touched Tobias, but only for an instant. If this plan was going to work, there would be no room for anger or grudges. Tobias held Ileana’s gaze for a second more before he asked the question eating him away from the inside out.
“Does she have a chance?” Tobias forced out the words as if every syllable caused him pain. It was a question to which he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the answer. “She’s what these people need, but I won’t put her at risk if there is no chance to be had.”