by D. K. Combs
“She can’t be serious…” one of the men whispered.
“I think she is.”
“I’m right here.”
“We’ll—”
“Just get it out!”
Another rush of tears started, and the mens’ face blanched completely. The one in the very back took one look at her and then shot down the hall, leaving the other two to her devastated wrath.
Mari was about to open her mouth to scream again when she felt the squirming, wiggling thing split into four little lines, forming a web-like covering. Before she could pass out at the sight, it speared into the bloody indentions that her teeth had made and, right before her eyes, bound itself to her arm completely.
No pain.
No blood.
No wiggling worms sticking out of her arm.
“What the fu—”
“Mari?” Ambrose shot into the room, shoving past all of the men and grabbing her shoulders. “You screamed—”
She shoved a pointy, enraged finger at his chest and he immediately let go. Fury flashed in her narrowed eyes as she held up her arm for him to view. “You infected me.”
“I what?”
“You.” She stabbed his chest. “Infected.” Again. “Me.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked quietly, waving out the men who gratefully, and as fast as the speed of light, shot out of the room.
Mari’s chest pumped frantically as the terror turned to a similar form of hysteria. “I bit my arm and then this—”
“Why were you biting your arm?”
“Worm was just wiggling it’s way through my skin, like a noodle finger or something, and then those guys! They just stood there, and now it’s traveling through my body and it’s going to eat my intestines and then I’m done for.”
“Done? For what? Mari—why in the reef would you bite yourself?” He grabbed her shoulders when she began to swam, tail going as limp as her shoulders.
“I needed to know,” she said, leaning into his hands. All of the fight drained out of her, and all she could do was close her eyes. “But now I have a worm living inside of me and I don’t know if you have medicine to kill it...”
“Did you bleed? When you bit yourself?” he clarified, taking her chin in his hand and making her look at him.
Mari nodded sadly, sighing. “And then the worm-web invaded my skin.”
Ambrose was silent for so long that she glanced up at him, beginning to frown. That is, until she saw the look of barely concealed humor in his eyes.
“You poor mortal,” he said, then burst out laughing. Mari stared up at him, confused.
“Don’t laugh about this!” she demanded, shoving her arm in his face. “I need to get this thing out of me before it does some serious damage!”
“Oh, sweet Atlantis. Do not bite yourself again, and that won’t happen, okay?”
“You know why the worm invaded me?” she asked.
“Well, besides being a fish underwater—creatures that are almost always infected with something—” he paused at her gasp, then nodded all-knowingly. “There’s also a parasite roaming the ocean. It’s been around for thousands of years. First, you have to eat something—like those mangos that Akrina got you. It enters your body that way.
“Then it just starts growing. Stress can cause it,” he said. Mari’s eyes widened to the point where they almost didn’t fit on her face. All of the blood drained to her fin. “It seems that you have caught the case really badly...”
Her stomach heaved. Going by all the crap she’d been through and seen the past day, she couldn’t doubt what Ambrose was saying.
“...or, you know, that’s just how Atlanteans heal themselves.”
She froze.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Ambrose burst into laughter, dropping her shoulders and holding his stomach. “No, I’m really not. A worm, Mari? In your skin, underwater? Out of all the things you could have thought of, that was your assumption?”
She stamped her fin against the ground, glaring at him. “It was wiggling like it had a mind of it’s own!”
He laughed harder, before seeing the look in her eyes. The one that said, “I wish I had a bonfire and a skew so I could cook some fish.”
Ambrose stopped laughing, straightening. “I’m sorry for upsetting you, Mari. Forgive me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, raising a brow at him.
He sighed.
“I bet I know how to make it up to you...” A slow, charming smile spread across his face, and her eyes narrowed.
“Highly doubt you could make that up to me. I made myself look stupid in front of those guys! And I cried! I sobbed, Ambrose,” she hissed, stamping her fin again.
“What if I said we could go to Atl—”
“We’re going to Atlantis?” she screamed, instantly tackling him. Finally! Something cool to see underwater!
Ambrose nodded, hesitantly wrapping his arms around her waist to catch her. “Yes, we are, but I need you to follow some rules while we are there—”
“Dude, fuck rules! This is going to be awesome!”
The whole time they were getting ready to leave, with help from his fellow Atlanteans, Mari wouldn’t stop talking. At first it was amusing, even laughable.
“Can you talk to fish there? Oh—what about the walls! Do you have like, sea-shell lined walls? What are the other fish’s tails like? Does anything glow? Do you have crystals in the ceilings? How do I go potty?”
Ambrose patiently answered each question as he paid the stablemen for the dolphins. He took the reins of one, handing it to Mari. “They won’t run off or hurt you, but be gentle with them. These dolphins are trained for riding but they don’t like being roughed up.”
Mari took the reign with wide, expressive eyes. Her mouth dropped open. “These things are actually rideable? As in, we just hang on to the fin and they go? Like a horse?”
He shrugged, leading them around the corner of the hotel. Peeking out from the window were the men who had witnessed her meltdown the day earlier. They were too scared to actually talk to “the goddess” but whenever he turned the corner, there was someone watching her.
Ambrose didn’t mind, as long as they kept their distance from her.
The funny thing was, though, that Mari didn’t even notice. She would go flapping her way down the hotel hallway, back and forth, lost deep in thought for hours, and every time she passed a window or an open door, someone would be there watching her.
She was completely oblivious.
And incredibly adorable.
Ambrose didn’t dare tell her that—he’d barely had a chance to get a word in otherwise. When she wasn’t swimming back and forth, her mind occupied, her mouth was running a mile an hour about Atlantis. How did their government work, did they have teachers, what was the family structure? Were babies born with a tail, were they born with legs, or were they hatched in a fish egg?
Her questions, although ridiculous enough to make even Ambrose laugh, came nonstop. Ambrose didn’t mind, though. At least she wasn’t hitting things with her tail and crying.
The thought had him grimacing.
“So dolphins are the equivalent to horses now?” she asked, poking him in the shoulder, drawing his attention.
“Whatever horses are,” he said, shrugging, wrapping his reigns around his wrist and palm, grasping the dorsal fin of the dolphin.
Mari vibrated excitedly beside him. Her tail began flapping and a flush stole over her cheeks. “Time for Dolphin 101!” she squealed, a grin spreading over her face.
Ambrose grabbed her arm right before she could shoot off. “First lesson: stay calm. The more excited you are, the less likely the dolphin will be able to keep up with you.”
Mari nodded her head, still vibrating. At least she had the sense to grab his hand.
“The reign hand is what you’re going to use to lead her. Holding onto her dorsal is just for you to hang off of. Don’t pull too hard on th
e reign—a gentle tug to get her started is enough and then she’ll be off. We’ll stop every couple of hours to give them a break, but we should be in Atlantis before tomorrow.”
Mari nodded again—then frowned. “Are we sleeping out in the open? Because if there’s a hotel around, I’d rather skip out on the fish-fight if it comes down to it.”
Ambrose shook his head. “There won’t be any hotels for miles, if my memory serves me correctly. This is the last one until you get to Atlantis.”
“I’m cool with that. Will I freeze my tail off? What are we going to eat? Where is the akrina?”
“No, mango, and resting,” he replied, letting go of her. “Wrap the reign around your wrist, tightly, with just a half-foot space. The dolphin will feel more comfortable if you’re touching her; she’s very responsive. You’ll also be close enough to encourage her and feel more secure against her back.”
Mari did as he said, and he watched, approving. She cast a skeptical glance at the dolphin, which squealed at her and flapped its tail, before winding the rope around her wrist, pressing against the excited creature.
“Don’t forget to give her praises,” he said, “even if you just stroke her nose. She’ll love it.”
“Okay. You’re sure she won’t chop my hand off?”
Ambrose chuckled. “No, she won’t. Do you need something to eat before we leave?” She’d eaten several peaches before they left. Soon enough, her stomach wouldn’t start feeling so hungry and she wouldn’t need to eat at all anymore.
Ambrose was beginning to compare her to a newborn. It had been thousands of years since a mortal had been turned into an Atlantean, but he remembered some of the basics. Like a babe, she needed passing meals to get some strength, she needed rest to adjust to her tail, and she had the temper of a pissed off Octopian.
She rubbed her stomach, shaking her head. “Nope, I’m full. So, are we going to Atlantis now? Can we go already?!”
Again, just like a newborn Atlantean.
Smiling and nodding, he urged the dolphin forward with a gentle flick of the wrist. They never needed much encouragement to start moving—it was the stopping that was the hard part. He felt Mari’s eyes on him, doing what he did, and decided that he should keep her closer to him. The dolphin was experienced at its job, but Mari wasn’t.
He began to reach for her reigns when her laugh stopped him. Through screaming, crying, moaning, and raging, he hadn’t yet heard her laugh and the way it chimed in the water, straight to the center of his chest…stopped him cold.
His eyes closed as she laughed again. The sound washed over him, consuming him. It was pure happiness, he thought. Something he had once felt. He couldn’t imagine being the same as he was before—seducing woman on a thought, going off and doing his own thing, making friends every two seconds.
Two thousand years wasn’t that much time for his people, but it was enough to change him. Would Mari be like him? he wondered, staring at her as she struggled to get the dolphin to follow him. Would he know her long enough to be able to see the change of time come over her?
She would have to learn about their culture, their ways. There was no possibility of her going back to the surface—Ambrose wouldn’t allow it. If she threatened to leave him to go there, he would force her to stay. She didn’t understand the dangers that could come with living on the land, just like his mother.
Even two hours out of the water after the change with no contact from the ocean, Mari would be done for. He’d seen it happen with his own eyes when his mother had left them to go to the surface.
Pain coursed through him at the memory. Intense, physical pain that had his eyes closing as it assailed him.
Gods, his parents. One of the worst accounts in Atlantean history, and he had been there to see it all, to live through having to take the bodies back, to live through the induction as king before he was ready.
Ambrose hadn’t been ready for the throne. He had only been two hundred and five, still experiencing the teenage life. Girls, learning, training, and drinking. His parents hadn’t put a reign on him, most likely thinking it was best he get it out of his system them. Yeah…because that had been wise.
When they’d died, he hadn’t been prepared in the least to take over the throne. And maybe that’s what made it so believable to the people of Atlantis, that after five hundred years of ruling them and working his grief over his parents into the willing bodies of the females that surrounded him, he would self-destruct…and take them down with him.
A threat. A monster. A reviled piece of eel that wasn’t meant to be around the elders in society. There were so many names that he had been called at the Council meeting, so many things he would never forget hearing from the people that he had strived to save even though he’d had no control.
He was the reason his parents were killed, they said. And because he’d killed them, he had to take care of the rest of the people.
No one had bothered to hear his side of the story when Ceto had accused him. No one had wanted to. The only people to cry over his banishment were Maxroy and Aixya, two of his best friends since the day they’d been born.
They hadn’t believed Ceto, had tried everything to get him out of the trial and be let free with an investigation that Ambrose knew would never take place. Mari, when she had asked him about his government, had explained the mortals’ Justice System.
And it had been eye-opening. There were so many things that the Atlanteans didn’t have instilled, so many valuable lessons that were being missed out on. But to carry them out, with no understanding of how they worked?
Ambrose knew Atlantis would prosper—Ceto had come back often enough, bragging about the decline of his once great city, telling him that the walls were crumbling around them and there was nothing he, or they, could do.
But with Mari at his side? The thought had his heart quickening. With her at his side, they could do so much. She had told him how the women gaining power in political stances was helping their nation, giving it a more understanding and compassionate side while the men kept the government as strong as they could.
It was the women, she had boasted, that had set their nation apart from the others. Dictatorships were causing countries to go into ruin, starvation and death reaping the lands at one of the fastest rates ever seen.
Ambrose understood, on a basic level, what she was trying to say to him. She had been so straight-forward when teaching him, even though her hands waved in front of her. He almost smiled at the thought.
His mother had been like that, talking with her hands, always poking people to get their attention. Mari’s laugh reminded him a lot of his mother’s. The way her eyes lit up, the shimmer in her tail when she was excited, her gentle demeanor yet her anger issues…
The Octopians had ripped that all away from his family.
His mother, Braix’c, had been one of the first to try to live on land. After a fight with their father, she had swam off—and not returned for days. Finally, word came of where she had gone.
Ambrose had gone with his father to get her, thinking that maybe the voice of her son would convince the woman to come back. He could still remember how excited he’d been to go and see her, to bring her back to their people.
A rush of pain so intense crashed through him as he remembered his father screaming at him to leave, to get his mother before it was too late.
Too late.
He was always too late.
Too late to save his mother. Too late to save his father. Too late to figure out Ceto’s hatred. Too late to save his city.
Too late for everything.
But now, he was being “invited” back to the castle, at the request of the new king, for his brother. Was that a chance for him to take back his throne? Did he even want it? He swallowed thickly, jaw clenching.
Mari. Her government. Her ideas and her laughter. For her, he would. But only for that. He had no obligations to the people that had sent him to thousands years of torture. But he did
have an obligation to the woman riding beside him, for all of the help she had given him.
If he could replace her surface with Atlantis, he would. It might seem irrational, it might result in another banishment if he lost the battle, but…if he had the chance to give Mari an easier adjustment to the rest of her life in the ocean?
He would fight.
For her.
D’Rai glided away from the dais, trailing her hand over the ancient inscriptions, watching with impassive eyes as they glowed bright red.
“The sea has been awaiting him,” she intoned, looking at her sister.
D’Marci nodded, stick-straight hair sliding over her shoulder. “It has. Our brothers are foolish to have waited this long for his return.”
“Yes, they were. But they must have known, otherwise they wouldn’t have sunk the ship that the mortal was on.”
D’Marci followed after her sister, also trailing her fingers along the black marble. The path was hot from her sister’s hand, but a sign that she was speaking with the earth. Atlantis was the heart of the world, the heart of every living thing. Without it, everything would be no more.
No humans.
No animals.
No substance.
And most importantly, no gods.
“Was that not too much, though? All of the humans on that ship died except Mari.”
“It was what was planned, sister. We do not question our brothers, and they do not question us. It is the way of our pantheon and you would do wise to remember that.”
D’Marci focused on her sister, touching her shoulder. D’Rai stopped moving and turned to look at the blonde god.
They were twins, two of the same stone, and one of the same soul. They were bound together by fate, guided by simplicity, and driven with a cunning instinct. There had not been a time in history when they weren’t together, which was the same for their brothers.
D’Marci had the same long, straight, blonde hair that D’Rai had. She had the same blood-red eyes, the same thin stature, the same elegant gate, and the same impassive voice. The only way to tell them a part was by their gestures and actions. D’Rai was stern, her sister was compassionate.