Kerrigan's Race (The Syreni Book 1)

by C. M. Michaels

  It only took a few minutes for him to remove everything he could with the ruby encrusted scissors he was efficiently wielding. Each strand of my hair was placed with reverence into the pocket of his robe. When there was nothing left of my burgundy locks but inch-long stubble, Johnna lathered my head in a creamier version of shealing oil and used a straight razor to shave it bald.

  Not wanting me to be surprised, he showed me the large conch shell he’d taken out of his other pocket—containing what I assumed was diluted talcium paste—before he began to apply it to my scalp. This will ensure that the signs of our gods inscribed upon your skin remain visible for a time. You will be required to visit our cathedral at least once a week, praying to Neptune at dawn and Poseidon at dusk. In-between sessions, you will practice our teachings with me. I will have all of the tablets outlining our core tenants delivered to your home so you may study them without risking crossing the open sea. I know how upset you are about what happened to Commander Sennika. If you commit to your studies and freely pledge yourself to our gods, I’m confident we can connect your mind with your spirit and give you control of your soulcras within a month.

  The grey cream tingled as it slowly dissolved my hair follicles. After a couple minutes he washed my head clean and gathered several quills from a small metal vanity in the corner. The first of the seven symbols of the gods and goddesses we worship is that of Poseidon’s trident, crafted by the three Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes and Arges.

  He set to work tattooing the symbol onto the side of my head without waiting for any sort of response. It hurt. A lot. When Armiele had done my permanent makeup I’d been drugged out of my mind. Suddenly I wished I was still hooked on sherifan cream. Unaware of or indifferent to my thoughts, Johnna continued to jab the sharp quill underneath my skin at a steady pace. I remembered what Aristos had told me about Pulchra praying during her purification ceremony. At the time I figured it was just a sign of her deep spirituality. Maybe it had provided her an escape of sorts as well. Since embracing our gods was the whole reason I was doing this, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

  Neptune and Poseidon, my gods, let me start by saying I have no idea how to pray properly, so if I say something that offends you please forgive me. I don’t know if it’s okay to pray to you both at the same time, or to pray to you before I’ve visited your temples. Actually, I don’t know much of anything about the Syreni faith. But I can say now without a doubt that I believe in you both. Thank you for embracing Naome and Serienne. Knowing that they will live as long as I do—and being able to speak with them again—means the world to me. I’m not ready to say I’m happy I ended up here—I miss my family like crazy—but I’m grateful you chose me to become the Syreni queen after I was taken, and that I’m going to be bound to a man I think I could love in time. The life I had as Kerrigan Everett is over. I am the Syreni female, Camithia, now, your daughter by birth and by choice. I look forward to meeting you both and pledging myself into servitude at your feet.

  Poseidon’s unmistakable voice resonated inside my head. Well spoken, my daughter. And here we were beginning to wonder if you’d washed your hands of us completely.

  To say I was startled to receive a response to my uncertain prayer would be the understatement of the year. My body violently jerked like I’d just awoken from a horrific dream and was still running from whatever had been chasing me, earning me a sharp reprimand from Johnna of some kind that I couldn’t understand in my altered state. Thank you for responding to me, mighty Poseidon. I apologize for not reaching out to you sooner. It took me some time to… come to terms with what I’d become.

  Certainly understandable, given the circumstances, Neptune commented. His dispassionate, conversational tone undermined the significance of communing with a god. My daughter, Naome, owes you her life. Twice, actually. Waiting three days to make your acquaintance is a small concession to pay for such a precious gift. I look forward to welcoming you to my hallowed throne and accepting your vow of servitude, my child.

  My brain froze as I tried to think of a different adjective to use to address him while still conveying the same level of respect I’d shown Poseidon. That’s all I’d need was for them to think I was favoring one over the other. Or that I had the vocabulary of a six year old, if I just kept saying mighty all the time. My admittedly minor crisis in etiquette just highlighted how unqualified I was to be speaking with gods. Thank you, my father, the glorious Neptune. Naome is totally devoted to you. I’ve never seen her so focused.

  I’m afraid we must cut short the pleasantries, Poseidon announced, the command in his voice leaving no room for any argument or rebuttal. I could have kissed him for bringing an end to our first conversation before I made an even bigger ass out of myself. I didn’t realize until he continued to speak that I’d misinterpreted his comment. Only the pleasant part of the conversation was over.

  We’d prefer you learn the story of creation—and the reasons for keeping it secret—after mastering your faith, like Syreni females and priests have done for millennia, but potentially catastrophic events may soon be set into motion related to the origin of the Syreni that you will be required to play a key role in preventing.

  The myth General Lanipas shared with you during your crowning ceremony is not entirely accurate. Snow Elves are not the descendants of humans who were cast out from the hollowed southern lands for refusing to face the trials as he claims. They are what evolved from those who crossed over into our world without permission and refused to worship Neptune and myself. Their ancestors survived life in the unforgiving mountains by manipulating the laden magic around them in perverse ways that led them to become entirely different creatures over time. As for the Water Fae, they are the abomination that resulted from the first Syreni females using their soulcras to reanimate their loved ones after they died in the ascension trials, their grief leading them to unintentionally create a race of beings who can only survive by absorbing the life-force from others.

  The Moirai—or The Fates, as you would be more likely to know them—are the three beings who control all destiny. They are not yet certain when the disastrous chain of events will be initiated—it could be as early as today or several decades from now—but the act that creates the cataclysmic rift in fate is known. A radical band of Snow Elves will assassinate the Elvin king and place the leader of their sect on the throne. Members of their group will then allow the Water Fae to consume their entire essence—their very souls—and absorb their magical abilities. The combined magic within the enhanced Fae will enable them to enslave the Syreni with their thoughts alone and convert them with a simple kiss, adding to their ranks like a plague until there is none of your kind left. Once the Fae have conquered the oceans, they will repay the Snow Elves by sacrificing a few of their own swollen ranks in order to transfer their powers into the Elvin leaders. With their acquired knowledge of the portals, the Fae will then open a pathway to earth, enabling the Elves to convert all of humanity into their brethren.

  Heed the visions our Goddess Athena shares with you, child, for they will reveal when these events will occur, and what you must do to prevent them. Even when it appears you are being asked to betray your own kind, you must not falter. The lives of everyone you care about—in both of our worlds—rest in your hands.

  I was speechless. Wasn’t it enough to ask me to adapt to a whole new life on a foreign world, accept my role as queen, and bear young in order to keep the Syreni from going extinct? Not to mention risking almost certain death every god-knows-how-many months by giving birth on the surface, when the griffins were as determined as ever to wipe out our entire race. Now I was being asked to fight the Water Fae and Snow Elves, too? Last I checked, I didn’t have a fucking unitard on with a big S on the chest and gaudy orange boots. I knew better than to question the gods, but I was too pissed off to care, and not far enough removed from my agnostic upbringing to accept getting royally fucked over on blind faith alone. If they’re such a threat, why don’t you just wave
your hands and wipe the Snow Elves and Water Fae out of existence rather than pinning the fate of two worlds on me? Come to think of it, why didn’t you just do that to begin with a gazillion years ago? And if you created this world as some kind of utopia for your loyal followers, why would you add creatures like the griffin and cutterfish that are determined to kill us? Is it all just some kind of sick game to you?

  You’d think something as metaphysical as having your soul ripped from your body wouldn’t be capable of causing pain. You’d be wrong. In a microsecond, my spiritual essence was careening through space in a dizzying blur of ethereal light that reminded me of the aurora borealis. Austin and I had gazed in awe for hours during our trip to Alaska, as if we were peering into heaven itself, in spite of knowing that the strange phenomenon was just the result of electrons colliding with the upper reaches of earth’s atmosphere.

  When I once again had physical form, I was naked and back in my human body as Naome had described, but I wasn’t in a tub getting bathed by some nubile young priestess. I was on my knees on a white marble floor, with my wrists and ankles shackled behind me, and a large sword at my throat. In front of me, golden staircases on three sides led up to a white marble dais with an ornately carved golden throne in the center. Sculpted tidal waves of metal arched almost twenty feet about the massive chair on either side, forming a dramatic backdrop behind it. The God, Poseidon, sat staring at me, his defined chest and muscular arms bare, with a robe draped over one shoulder that was tied around his waist. His right hand held a trident over eight feet tall with three lethal foot-long spears affixed at the top. Poseidon’s mature, rather harsh looking face was only partially visible behind the tufts of his thick beard and full mustache. I wanted to bow down to him, but the blade cutting into my skin, wielded by a bronze-armored forearm that belonged to a soldier standing off to my right, didn’t make that a very viable option. “I’m sorry, father. I was upset and I lashed out like a child. I deserve whatever you do to me.”

  It sounded weird to hear my voice again. Since I was being prevented from demonstrating my subservience, I decided to hold eye contact with him, exhibiting a different form of respect.

  To my surprise, there was boundless compassion in his expressive green eyes rather than anger. He gave me one of those slow, what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you headshakes that all parents seem to master by the time their kids become teenagers. “The traits that make you an ideal queen in almost every regard, given the difficult times that lie ahead, are the very ones that make you an abysmal servant, and may ultimately lead you to fail. You’re headstrong, a born skeptic, unconventional, self-sufficient to a fault, averse to being led by others, and confident enough to look a god in the eyes without quivering, even while chained with a sword at your throat. I’m at a loss to think of an appropriate punishment for your wanton insolence that wouldn’t extinguish the faint spark of faith you were just beginning to embrace, pushing you even further from the path of servitude you must follow as a Syreni female.

  “It appears Neptune was right. Reincarnating your soul inside the child that will soon take seed within Naome’s womb will preserve the best aspects of your spirit while allowing you to grow up in the Syreni society and embrace our culture, worshipping both of us from the moment you are born. By the time eighteen years have passed, and Princess Camithia is re-crowned as queen, it may well be too late to save the Syreni from their fate of joining the Water Fae, but that is a risk we will have to take. May the knowledge that Naome will be your mother in your next life—and that she will be aware that your soul belonged to her friend—give you some comfort. I promise you will not feel a moment of pain. Just nod when you are ready.”

  He was going to kill me. For the first time since I’d arrived my composure crumbled. My lower lip began to tremble as tears pooled in my eyes, finally breaking free from the corners to streak down my cheeks. Numbly I thought how it would be nice in a surreal sort of way to have Naome raise me, knowing the entire time that I used to be her best friend, even if I wouldn’t recall ever having lived before. When I nodded—grimly acknowledging to myself that this really wasn’t up for debate—the warrior leaned me back until I was lying on top of my bound ankles and wrists, the awkward position causing my breasts to arch upward and my knees to spread apart, leaving my entire body on display for Poseidon. The tears were coming too fast for me to see anything clearly, but I could feel the soldier’s fingers take hold of my dark chocolate, shoulder-length hair—the hair I’d last had when I was human—and gently tilt my head back to further expose my throat. He rested the two foot, recurved blade against my skin to check the angle before drawing it back high above his shoulder so he could generate enough force to decapitate me in a single blow.

  Even as I watched his biceps flex, I remained determined to die with dignity, fearing that if I revealed myself to be a coward, Poseidon might change his mind about reincarnating my soul and cast it into whatever version of hell they believed in instead. But the thought of Aristos, Naome and Serienne being converted into Fae—not to mention the Snow Elves killing or taking control of my family and Austin if they succeeded in reaching earth—just because I’d been too stubborn to fully embrace my destiny as a servant to the gods, was more than I could accept. If I died, it would be trying to defend them until my last breath.

  Either Poseidon had been planning to allow me a few last words, or he’d decided to after listening to my thoughts, as the drawn back sword held high above my head didn’t fall. “I deserve to die for how I spoke to you earlier. I’m not disputing that. But look at how much I’ve already changed since being brought to Teresolee. I prayed today, speaking freely from my heart and accepting you both as my gods. Me, a lifelong atheist. I volunteered for the purification ceremony hoping it would deepen my faith even further. In a matter of days, I’ve accepted an entirely new life in an alien body, and my role as a queen in a society I don’t even understand yet. And if I was being completely honest with myself, I’m already looking forward to having children with Aristos, even if I’m not ready to admit that to him yet. I swear to you and to Neptune on my human parent’s lives that I will become a faithful servant to you both, regardless of how hard it is for me to assume a submissive role, and that I will never question your will again. You can whip me until there’s no skin left on my back, chain me to a wall until it scars over, and repeat the process over and over again until you feel I’ve been justly punished, just please let me die defending the people I care about rather than like this.”

  “Unchain her and bring her before me.”

  My panic-stricken brain was still trying to comprehend his words when I was thrust to my feet. Now that I got a better look at him, the male soldier bore a striking resemblance to Russell Crowe in Gladiator, decked out in his Roman-style armor. Maximus—I’d decided to call him, since I doubted he planned to introduce himself anytime soon—steadied me by looping an arm around my back while two females wearing simple white sheaths came forward and unfastened the heavy iron shackles. As soon as I was freed, Maximus walked me none-to-gently up the steps, keeping hold of the back of my arm the entire time. When we reached the top step I was lowered to my knees, directly in front of Poseidon.

  I quickly bowed down the rest of the way, placing my forehead against the cool white marble between my outstretched arms. I was tempted to thank him for sparing my life—assuming he planned to at this point, since I’d been freed—but resisted the urge to seize control of our conversation. He hadn’t asked me to speak.

  “A truly submissive act. At least now we’ve established you understand the definition of the word. You will complete your week of service and fasting here, in your human form, as a chambermaid to our priestesses. You will care for their every need without question or complaint. After the week is up, if you have proven yourself capable of assuming a properly submissive role, you will be allowed to take your vows of servitude and will be returned to Teresolee to attempt to fulfill your destiny. But I swear child, if you so m
uch as grumble a complaint under your breath during this trial period, when you next come before me, I will rip the life from you with my own trident and harvest your soul. Now go. Ghertrude and Deannie will show you to your chambers and introduce you to the rest of the females in your care. Ladies, please accept a week of being cared for by a queen as a small token of my gratitude for your service. Her name is Camithia, and she is your servant now. I expect you to demand as much of her as me and my fellow gods’ do of you. Do not disappoint me.”

  After climbing to my feet I dropped into a curtsey, placing the toes of my right foot behind my left ankle and letting my butt sink straight down about eighteen inches toward the floor, careful to keep my eyes averted the entire time. I’m sure the gesture would’ve been considered clumsy at best by the standards of a god, even if I’d been wearing a debutante gown like the women I’d seen in the movies, but with me being naked, my clenched hands made it look like I was fanning out an invisible dress. I could only hope it didn’t look as stupid as I felt.

  I trailed behind Ghertrude and Deannie—one had striking hair in a variety of colors like fallen autumn leaves, while the other sported more traditional burnt chestnut locks, although I had no idea which one was which—as we exited Poseidon’s sprawling palace, emerging into a beautiful sunlit courtyard filled with more stone statue fountains than I could count. All seven of the white marble palaces were centered around a statue of Neptune and Poseidon captured in the throes of battle, slaying some kind of kraken looking thing, standing in front of an eighty foot cascading waterfall. There were no trees or grass. No birds, insects or animals of any kind. Only the clip-clop of sandals against marble broke up the utter silence. Several of the people I could see moving about took notice of a woman walking completely naked through a public courtyard, but none made any attempt to approach me. They were all dressed in white, be it toga style robes with golden trim or simple sheaths. If it wasn’t for the vibrant blue water, nothing would have broken up the monochrome appearance. We hadn’t made it a quarter of the way across the stadium-sized courtyard yet and I was already going into sensory deprivation.