by N. R. Larry
“There.” I cracked my neck and curled my fingers around the shaft of my weapon. “That’s better.”
I took my time going back downstairs, forcing myself to feel the way I always felt back home. Like a powerful witch. Like one of the greatest and most terrible forces in the seven seas. There was a sharp intake of breath. I shifted my gaze and it landed on Jett.
With a shiver, he lowered himself to the ground. Conway nodded at me, and then did the same. I went and stood in front of each of them. “I take it you’re staying, then?”
“There was never any question, my priestess,” Jett said in a thick voice before the two of them stood.
“Good.” I nodded my head toward Orson, who was still riding the wave of a siren slumber. “Wake him.”
Conway made a strange noise in his throat. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I smiled, but not in amusement. “I will have no more questioning my orders today.” I tapped the end of my trident against the floor. “Wake. Him.”
He pressed his lips together, and then placed his hands behind his back before trudging over to Orson and staring at him. Leaning down, he waved a hand over the human’s forehead. A chill hit the room. I shivered, and then pulled my trident closer.
Seconds later, Orson stirred. He let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a snort, before wiping his mouth. His eyelids fluttered, and Conway stood, waving me forward. He squinted up at the ceiling, and I inched forward, coming to a stop in his line of sight.
He opened and shut his eyes several more times, sniffling, and turning his head this way, and that, obviously trying to get his bearings. Finally, his gaze landed on me and his angular jaw tensed. It wasn’t until then that I noticed he was handsome, which was saying something, because I had yet to come across a surface male that could compare to an Atlantean.
His violet gaze focused on me. “You,” he snarled.
“Me.” I smacked the end of my weapon against his leg. “Get up.” Without waiting for a response, I turned around and started for the door.
“Excuse me? What the—” His clothes hushed together as he stirred and regained his feet. “Where the hell am I?”
“In my home.” I opened the door, and then stared down at the beach. It was perfect. The sun was dipping behind the horizon, leaving splashes of pink and peach in the sky.
“Zarya,” Conway muttered. “What is this?”
With my gaze still on the sky, I said, “You know what this is.”
“You.” Orson scoffed and stumbled toward me. I could feel the warmth of his body pulsing at my back before I turned around. His eyes were full of hatred as he scanned me up and down. “You actually kidnapped me.” He snorted. “You people are shit.”
I lifted my chin. “I killed your mother.”
He went still, as if he weren’t expecting my honesty.
“And even though I was forced to, I owe you a debt. A debt which we will cleared through combat.”
He blinked several more times. “Combat?” With a snort, he added, “Wait, you want to fight?”
I looked to Jett and nodded at him. “Let him borrow your trident.”
Jett smiled, and then launched himself up the stairs.
“I believe you said you would… humiliate me?” I toyed with the prongs of my weapon. “Well, this is your chance.”
He laughed over the sound of Jett’s feet beating toward us. “I’m not stupid. I know who you are. I know what you can do.”
“No magic,” I said. “You win, you get my life. And the debt is considered paid. I win, you stay here, because I have a lot of questions for you.”
“Wait.” Jett smacked his onyx trident with the jagged teeth into Orson’s hand. “Forgiveness of a blood debt through combat is blood for blood. He kills you, or you kill him.” He stretched out those last words.
“Yes, I remember the rules.” I flipped my hair back and it settled against my ankles. “But, I’ve never willingly taken a human life, and I don’t plan on starting now.” Ignoring Jett’s glower, I focused on Orson. “Do we have a deal?”
He stared at me for several moments, and then turned and ran a finger up and down the smooth material of Jett’s trident. “Deal.”
I nodded at Jett, and then Conway. “You will be our judges.” Turning from them, I ducked out the door and headed to the shoreline as the rest of the sun settled out of the sky, leaving the world to rest in darkness.
We clashed our tridents together and a wave washed up on the shore, leaving the ground at our feet wet. I backed into a fighting stance. Orson sniffled, flicked at his nose, and then tossed Jett’s trident toward the sea.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Can’t use it. Don’t need it. I just know you have to enter into combat like this with a weapon of Atlantis.” Placing his fists in the air, he obscured part of his face. “Well, I’m entered.”
Conway sighed from where he was parked next to Jett at the water’s edge. Although he didn’t say anything, I agreed with his sentiment. This was pointless. A stunt to get Orson to trust me. To get answers out of him. As such, I would make it quick.
Crouched down, I inched to my left and tossed my trident in the air, catching it in the same hand. He moved in the opposite direction, a smirk on his face. My hair blew into the space between us, forcing him to back up. Righting himself, and ducking back down, he waved me forward with one hand.
“Ladies first,” he said in a gruff voice.
Bored already, I echoed Conway’s sigh. Lunging forward, I slid in the sand on my knees, and knocked the staff of my weapon into his shins. He grunted and flopped onto his face. I spun around, regained my feet and then whistled. My hair shrieked, and then raced out on the wind, wrapping around his ankles and wrists.
He started thrashing, but my hair only wrapped tighter the more he struggled. With the trident behind my back, I sauntered over and stared down at him. “Well, it seems as if I have won—”
“Fuck.” Pulling against my hair, he tried to cross his arms, only to have them snapped back and pinned down.
I clicked my tongue. “The more you struggle, the more—”
“You!” He pulled against my hair again, only this time, he broke out of the hold. My hair split where it had held him, and he shook the strands off into the sand.
My mouth fell open. “You shouldn’t have the strength to do that,” I muttered as he finished freeing himself and launched to his feet.
“Zarya!” Jett screamed. “What are you—”
Orson drove a blow into the side of my face and I stumbled back. Red splotches bleed into my vision. Another hit swept me under the chin. I drove my trident in the ground and leaned against it to keep upright. In the distance, Conway was holding Jett back—good, it would go against everything I stood for to have him interfere. I tried to draw breath when there was a dark laugh at my ear.
“It looks like you claimed the victory too soon, sea witch.” He dealt me a blow in the side, followed by another swift one to the side of my face. I crumbled into the sand, my mind swimming circles around itself.
“Zarya!” Jett called. “Do something.”
I squinted up at him as he placed a booted foot on my chest. Wrestling my trident out of my hand, he smiled, and then started to drive it between my eyes. An explosion of green light stole my vision. Orson cried out something I couldn’t hear.
Then, I wasn’t on the beach anymore.
I was in Dottie’s past.
She waited by the shoreline, gazing up at the full moon as a man, dressed in the same garb as I was, only in gold, stepped out of the water’s depths, making his way toward her. He blinked droplets from bright, blue eyes. Unmistakable eyes. Eyes that were trained on the lump in her stomach.
A much younger Dottie giggled, turned in a small circle, and then curtsied. “My king.”
King Titus gave a gruff laugh, and then stuck his trident in the surf before closing the rest of the gap between them. He stepped behin
d her, and then rested both hands on her stomach. “My prince.” He laid a trail of kisses down the side of her neck. “My queen.”
I gasped, and the vision stuttered away. The points of my trident were aimed before my eyes, but above me, Orson was frozen, and green light swirled around his face. Scooting back, I stood, and Jett and Conway came pounding up the beach to flank me.
Finally, Orson blinked, and then batted the light away. It hovered, before zipping back toward the house. “What the… who the fuck was that?” His gaze shot up and burned into me. “You really didn’t. You really didn’t know what you were doing? Then who’s been…”
“My priestess,” Jett growled, taking one step forward. “Allow me to send this surface dweller to his mother.”
I held up a hand and stared as Orson tried to work out the confusion that had to be circling through his thoughts as sure as they were circling through mine. “No, he’s not going anywhere. He stays with us until I can make sense of… something.”
Jett hissed, and I could tell he was about to argue when Orson grunted and growled, “What the fuck is that?”
There was a crack of thunder. I followed his gaze to the water.
“Seven seas,” Conway muttered.
A wave broke and sent their bodies toward the shore. Rain plopped down in the sand, and even though I wasn’t cold, I shivered. There were dozens of them. Bodies. Their eyes burned with a green light that reminded me of Dottie.
“Kappa,” Jett muttered.
“Yes.” I snatched my trident away from Orson and drew a like in the sand. “They have possessed bodies.”
“Looks like Atlantis has taken its first stand against the surface,” Conway said in an even voice.
I gazed at the water and called my magic forward. A bolt of blue split the sky, driving down into the water, spraying white foam everywhere. I laughed as the possessed humans scattered this way and that. “Do not hurt them!” I screamed over the chaos. “We drive the Kappa out of these innocent bodies! We hold them here.” I sent a burst of magic into the person nearest me. “Atlantis will invade the surface when I am cold and dead.”
Epilogue
Marlowe
As they like to say so often on the surface… Fuck. Every. Little. Bit. Of. That.
When I tied myself to Zarya with magic, that was for life. Sure, she severed it and banished me, but I seemed to be suffering from a case of still being alive, which meant that I still owed my service to her. I debated on whether I should resurface and take shelter on some other piece of land or go to another underwater kingdom for sanctuary.
Then, it occurred to me that both options were senseless bullshit. Neither of them would help take down the mad king. So, I called an old friend. And I told him to come alone.
Diving forward, I landed on a nearby barrier reef and let the darkness sink in around me. I swallowed back the last of my reef wine and let it swim around in my head. In the distance, someone stirred the water.
I didn’t look up.
I told him to come alone.
I knew he wouldn’t.
Something like fear tightened in my gut, but I told myself this was just another day at the lab. Science was nothing more than starting with a desired outcome and then doing whatever needed to be done to get the end result.
A bobbing, golden light lit up the murky depths. I turned my head.
“Marlowe? Is that really you?”
I smiled and counted the many places in my immediate area the water had been ever so slightly disturbed. There were at least twenty of them, which was a compliment. It means, they considered me a threat. “Chaton. I told you to come alone.”
He swam into my line of vision. His hair was an inky eel in the dark. “You know I couldn’t, brother.”
I made myself appear angry. Twenty of them. I stomped down the fear and reminded myself that it was simply science. I didn’t have to win the first time, I just had to get one more thing that I needed.
“You really think I’ll leave here with you, without a fight?” I scoffed, pushing myself off the bed or coral and swimming toward him. “How could you do this to me?”
He looked down, and there was actual shame in his eyes. The captain of the guard still had a soft place for me in his heart. “You might be my brother,” he hissed. “But I follow the orders of the king. And the king has questions for you.”
With a snarl, I backed away from him. Metal sliced through the water all around me, kicking up bubbles. Then, everything went silent.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Chaton growled, leveling his trident at my throat.
His men swam in from the corners of my vision.
I swallowed.
This is just science.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I reached out, grabbed his weapon by the prongs, twisted to my left, and rammed the end into his nose. Blood flowered out around his face. The rest of them started toward me. I curled into a ball, and then started weaving through them, slicing into the back of their heels, moving too fast for them to grab at me. When they bent over I rammed every other one of them in the back of the head, before rushing forward, and taking my brother by the neck.
He swore at me. “You idiot.”
I took what I need from his pocket while his anger and embarrassment clouded his judgement. With a laugh, I placed a spike against the pulsing vein in his neck. “Tell them to back off, brother.”
“Marlowe.” He held up his hands. “Stop this. You know you can’t win.”
I don’t need to.
“So, the king is more precious to you than your own blood,” I hissed into his ear. “I see some things never change.”
He snarled, pressed his skin against the prongs of the trident, and then turned on me, claiming his weapon again, and pointing it back at my neck. “You’re right, little brother.” He snapped, and a school of guards fluttered forward to take me into custody. “Some things never change.”
One of his men jerked my arms behind my back and clamped heavy, Atlantean steel over my wrists.
“Why are you smiling?” Chan hissed, closing in on me.
“Am I?” I wiggled the muscles in my face, and then set a stony expression on him. “Better?”
The man behind me tightened his grip. “I know this chum is your blood, but let me lay his insides here among the coral. Better that than to let a traitor back through the gates of Atlantis.”
My brother stared at me in a way that I knew he was actually considering it. I snorted. “If mother could see us now.”
He waved me off. “On the king’s orders. This traitor is to be taken alive.” When he snapped his fingers, our convoy moved forward. “And then, maybe I’ll auction off the right to spill his blood.”
Just science.
And where I wanted to be unfortunately began with being locked in the cage of a mad king.
I was going to rip his plans apart from the inside.
About the Author
N.R. Larry is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Night and Darwin’s Children. She is a mother and DC comics fan girl who loves writing multicultural paranormal fantasy that everyone can relate to.
Visit her author page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natashalarrybooks/ , and be sure to check out The Night https://www.facebook.com/thenightebook/ . She also hangs out on Twitter at https://twitter.com/natashalarry .