by Jade Kerrion
Bad decision-making apparently runs in our blood.
“You know nothing about the choices I’ve made.”
As you know nothing about mine. Attacking humans, Zamir? We turned our back on human civilization centuries ago.
“But you reopened that door. Why? How could a mere man mean that much to you, that you would give up everything—your tail, your voice, your kingdom, your people, even me?” He waved his hand to encompass the land, now reclaimed by water. “What do these weak beings offer that the Beltiamatu do not?”
Weak?
Ashe thought of Varun—his passion for protecting the oceans, his courage in the face of powers greater than he. Of course, he was no match for a Beltiamatu in the ocean, just as a Beltiamatu on land would be no match for him. But that was not weakness. That was just living beings thriving in places where they had adapted.
And she, a Daughter of Air, moved across them all—from water, to land, to air, and back to the water.
Recall your forces, Zamir. These humans have done nothing to deserve your vengeance.
“Haven’t they? They are the descendants, aren’t they, of the prince who stole your heart?”
He stole nothing from me.
“I shouldn’t have to be the only one to live with loss.”
Their loss will not make yours any more palatable.
“I should never have lost!” He pounded his fist against his chest. His eyes fixed on hers. “You said you would return. You never did! I endured their pity. The poor little prince who had everything, except the person who gave him life, the mother who swore to protect and love him with everything in her. You should have been with me. You know the ways of the Beltiamatu royal family. Our sole parent anchors our way of life. We revere them, and you took mine from me.”
Zamir, I was…
What could she say? I was trying to get you a soul? As if he was somehow imperfect without one? The truth was even more painful than the lie. Zamir, recall your forces. This isn’t about the people of Kalymnos.
“No, it’s about one person. Him.” Zamir pulled his upper lip back, baring pointed incisors. He raised his voice and roared a command. “Activate the Dirga Tiamatu.”
Chapter 23
No! Ashe’s grip tightened around Helen until the little girl squirmed. Are you mad? You can’t turn on the Dirga Tiamatu.
Zamir’s smile was a thin, flat line. “These humans, unnamed and unrecognized, will all perish in a disaster that will forever be compared to the mythical destruction of Atlantis and the terror of Krakatoa. Kalymnos will enter the annals of history in flames of death.”
The low rumble of the ground beneath her feet told her that the Dirga Tiamatu had activated. The countdown had begun.
Ashe summoned air. It swirled around her, lifting her up, carrying her high above the waves.
Varun stood on the cliff, staring down at the blue-green water that covered what had been beaches and grasslands mere moments before. He was drenched, as was the panic-stricken woman standing beside him. Her eyes locked on the child in Ashe’s arms. “Helen!” she screamed.
“Mama!” The girl waved her doll. “Look, I found Helen.”
The woman’s admonitions were incoherent beneath her choking sobs as she threw her arms around her daughter and pressed kisses to her face.
Varun strode up to Ashe. “Something’s wrong.”
How did you guess?
“You didn’t show up right away.” He glanced over the cliff face. “Is Zamir down there?”
He activated the Dirga Tiamatu. It’ll wipe out Kalymnos and everything within ten miles.
“We have to turn it off.”
The controls are at the Oceans Court, but I don’t know if we have time to fight our way down there. Zamir, though, could call it off in an instant.
“You’re his mother. Can’t you influence him?”
I gave up that right hundreds of years ago, when I left him.
“We have to stop the Dirga Tiamatu. I’m not going to let Zamir wipe out Kalymnos.”
The ocean roared, and a wall of water rose up. Zamir rode on the crest of the wave, with his Beltiamatu warriors, including his grandson, beside him. He stared at Varun and Ashe. His eyes narrowed, but Ashe saw within them an infinite expanse of quiet hurt. “All I want is what you left me for. If it cost you everything, it had to mean everything.”
Ashe shook her head, but her thoughts were in too much of a tangle to speak.
A soul…
If she gave Zamir a soul—a good one—she could save Kalymnos from Atlantis’s fate.
All the more if the soul he received actually cared about Kalymnos.
Varun stood beside her. In fact, he stood slightly in front of her as if to protect her.
The idea was laughable.
She was a Daughter of Air. Her human body could evaporate into untouchable air. She was as invulnerable as she chose to be.
The Lord of the Beltiamatu Zamir commanded the waves and possessed weapons that dealt destruction far exceeding everything even the warmongering humans had.
Varun was just…Varun. One man.
Perfectly aware of his limitations, he still chose to stand between two warring elements in defense of his home and his people.
A man with courage and compassion.
A man with the soul I would have wanted for Zamir.
Her thoughts stuttered on the conclusion.
A man who could stop Zamir, just not the way he imagined.
Zamir raised his trident. Technology flogged nature into obedience. The waves reared behind him as if he actually controlled the water.
Varun did not budge. He did not step back. He did not retreat.
His eyes did narrow, but he looked far more irritated than anxious.
Irritation she understood. It had been her core emotion for the longest time.
The Earth continued to rumble. The Dirga Tiamatu was agitating the Earth’s core, transforming heat into potential energy. It was not yet ready, but when it was, it would shatter Kalymnos and the surrounding islands into memory.
She slid a sideways glance at Varun. The words she had uttered to him came back to her. It would depend on the soul… She still had time to save the people of Kalymnos, the people who mattered to Varun. It would balance out, wouldn’t it?
Zamir swung his trident; its glittering tips pointed to the top of the cliff, and the waves rushed toward Ashe and Varun. Ashe flung up a wall of air. The first wave splattered against it, dissolving into water droplets. The second went the same way of the first. Ashe rolled her eyes. How long would it take her son to figure out that they were almost perfectly matched?
A shriek behind her spun her around. Villagers huddled on the ground as a wave rose on the other side of the cliff. Ashe flung her arm out. The barrier of air swept across the cliff, shuddering into place an instant before the wave hit. The villagers ducked, but the wave shattered harmlessly over their heads.
Water enveloped her.
One moment, she was standing on dry land. The next, she was caught in a receding wave that had hit her and Varun while she had been protecting the villagers. Panic surged through her. Where was he—?
“Ashe!” His voice was a strangled cry.
She caught a glimpse of Varun, several feet from her. The waves were pulling him away even faster. He was trying to swim toward her, but the Beltiamatu would reach him first.
Their poison-laced spears guaranteed his fate, if he did not drown first.
Their eyes met. The confidence, the certainty, in them shattered her.
Varun was counting on her to do the right thing.
Whatever it was…
Ashe relaxed her astral energies, and her human body returned to air. The column of air that shot out of the water was untouchable and unstoppable. It lanced through the air and into Varun’s home, sliding invisibly past the huddled crowd of villagers taking shelter in the kitchen. It twisted around the corridors and into the silent library.
&nb
sp; Unseen, Ashe reformed her body. Her feet scarcely touched the wooden floor, worn smooth with age. She pressed her hand against the glass cover of the display case. A single thought shimmied a thin layer of air against the lock and popped it.
The tightness clenching her heart could not possibly be fear.
She grasped the plain handle of the dagger. The blade, etched with runes from a long-lost culture, curved subtly in a way that made it seem more ornamental than useful, but it had been forged in a demon’s heart from the core of a fallen star.
Isriq Genii.
It did not just spill blood. It did not just reap life.
It stole the soul.
And it was bound, by a sea witch’s unbreakable spell, to deliver its next soul to Zamir.
Ashe clasped the dagger close to her heart then thinned her astral powers. Her human body became insubstantial, but not invisible. The wind came at her call, lifting her up. She soared high, then at the top of the arc, twisted in midair and dived down. Still more air than human, she cut through the water without a splash.
The army of Beltiamatu beneath the waves stared at her.
Transfixed by her translucent form, they did not move.
She was more tangible than a ghost, but less substantial than a human. Her astral powers shimmered in her body, dancing like a universe of stars.
Varun stared too. He had never seen her quite like this—a true Daughter of Air instead of masquerading as a human. He sagged in the grip of Zamir’s grandson, his hands bound behind his back. Zamir stood on Varun’s other side. Surely, Varun had to be running out of air. Even his deep-diving skills could only sustain him so far.
If she did not reach him before he died, it would all be for nothing.
Her right hand tightened around the dagger as she swam toward Varun. Her astral energy reshaped her legs into a mermaid’s tail, extending her talons and incisors until she was once again Asherah, Beltiamatu crown princess.
Varun stared at her as if he scarcely recognized her.
His ancestor, the prince, had once looked at her the same way—not recognizing the wonder of the creature he was looking at.
Almost the same way.
Varun was staring at her as if trying to find the woman he knew in the insubstantial memory of who she had been.
As if he could not believe the past was still the future she wanted.
Varun’s thoughts flashed toward her. Ashe. Come back to me. Please… His eyes glazed. His chest heaved. The occasional bubble escaping from between his lips became even scarcer.
He was running out of air.
Her astral powers tightened as her body solidified. She swam up to him, her mermaid’s tail swaying sinuously. Her sapphire-emerald-tinted hair streamed out behind her. Sunlight spilling in from the surface glinted against her silvery scales. Her right fist tightened around her dagger as she wound her left hand around the back of Varun’s neck. His hair tickled softly against her fingers.
His lips parted almost involuntarily. His eyes closed as he sank into her embrace.
She poured herself into the kiss, poured air into his lungs.
Her right hand moved. The tip of the dagger aimed at Varun’s back, at his heart.
Zamir alone could stop the calamity that would strike Kalymnos, but it would depend on the soul he possessed.
Varun had a destiny to fulfill.
Was this Varun’s destiny—to be her son’s soul?
Did Zamir deserve Varun’s soul?
Ashe’s wrist twisted the angle of the blade. Her will, and her love, drove it down.
Chapter 24
Varun’s eyes flared wide as the kelp that bound his wrists snapped, sliced by a blade honed for less-mundane purposes. His lungs filled with air. He stared at Ashe’s eyes—the swirling blend of sapphire and emerald, flecked with the gold of royal blood. They were filled with both regret and new purpose.
Whatever she had done, it possessed all the power of a life-shattering choice.
She had chosen not to kill.
She had chosen not to steal his soul for her son.
Zamir roared, his anguish vibrating through the salt tears of the Earth. He lunged at Varun, but Ashe swirled into a column of air and swept Varun away from the Beltiamatu. Go, get out of the water.
His mind stuttered an objection, But the Dirga Tiamatu…
I’ll handle it. Everything that is happening here stemmed from my compulsion to give Zamir a soul. I seeded the hatred in him. I will end it.
Varun’s gaze flicked to the dagger as it drifted, apparently unnoticed by anyone, to the bottom of the sea. He blinked as Ashe created a bubble around his nose and mouth to supply him with oxygen.
Go!
She sounded supremely irritated, and he knew, by now, not to get in the way of an annoyed Daughter of Air. Elementals who could command the power of a storm, even in water, were to be avoided.
He swam toward the surface. Sunlight beckoned, but something, deep in him, twisted him around in the water for one last glimpse of her.
Ashe once again wore her human form, and she stood alone against an army of Beltiamatu.
But if Zamir’s army was out here battling Ashe, then the Oceans Court had been left unprotected. Zamir was accompanied by a disproportionately high percentage of healthy Beltiamatu, which meant that most of the infected ones were still back at Shulim.
The muscles around Varun’s jaw tightened. Zamir was Ashe’s problem, but keeping Kalymnos safe was his. Human problems demand human solutions.
Besides, it wasn’t Varun’s style to depend on air elementals to solve human problems.
Even if she started it.
He spared one last glance up at the sunlight breaking upon the surface of the water. The air Ashe had supplied him, combined with his own deep-diving skills, would allow him to reach the Oceans Court.
He did not think it would last the return trip.
Best not waste what I have, then.
Varun turned and swam down, past the riptides and along the sheer rock wall. He paused at the edge of the granite overhang and stared at the underwater city of Shulim, all sleek curves and glowing lights. At its center, the Oceans Court soared over the height of Beltiamatu culture.
Most of the merfolk had left to attack Kalymnos, but there were still many of them around, especially infected ones. Fortunately, none of them paid attention to what happened on the ocean floor. Threats to the Lords of the Ocean usually came from those that swam quickly, not from the creatures creeping on the seabed.
Varun inched along dark recesses of large rocks as he made his way to the palace courtyard. A flicker of motion in his peripheral vision spun him around, but he saw nothing. Varun ground his teeth. He could not shake the feeling that something was following him.
His heartbeat raced, stuttering irregularly. How much of it was due to his shrinking oxygen supply versus raw nerves, he didn’t know. He did know, however, that he was running out of time. At some point, he would have to cross the open courtyard.
His jaw tightened. Why not now?
Varun darted across open water. Hollow, aching cries rippled toward him. He had been seen. He twisted around in the water and launched himself at a Beltiamatu. Up close and personal. It was the only way to fight a creature far more adapted for ocean life than he was. He wrapped his legs around the merman’s waist, rendering one of its most effective weapons—its powerful tail—helpless, unable to curve in upon itself enough to strike Varun.
Unfortunately, it brought Varun in close with the Beltiamatu’s claws. He grabbed the merman’s spear. Like two ancient Roman gladiators, they wrestled over it. Varun twisted sharply, the motion almost wrenching his shoulder from its socket, but he gained control of the spear. Can’t shed its blood. Can’t let it bleed out into the ocean. He grabbed the sonic gun from his belt and jammed it against the Beltiamatu’s side. The weapon fizzed, its power amped up by water, and the merman went limp. No blood. Just a blackened scar on its stomach.
Varu
n kicked away from the Beltiamatu and watched its body sink. He could not tell if it was alive or dead, but he had squeaked out a win.
The sudden change in the water current spun him around. Varun swung the spear out. The charging Beltiamatu snarled and twisted out of the way of the blade before attacking again. Varun grabbed his sonic gun, but a swipe of the merman’s tail knocked it out of his hand.
The device drifted beyond Varun’s grip. He lunged forward. His fingers brushed against it, but pain ripped along the length of his leg. Blood wafted through the water. Damn. Ashe hadn’t said if the Beltiamatu talons were poisoned.
He would find out, he supposed, sooner or later. Varun kicked away from the merman and grabbed the sonic gun. He twisted around in the water to find the Beltiamatu directly before him, talons extended, fangs bared. He thrust the sonic gun at the Beltiamatu warrior, but the merman grabbed his wrist, and they tussled over the weapon.
The Beltiamatu was stronger than the last. Its greater strength allowed it to twist the sonic gun toward Varun’s face. The edge of the weapon brushed against Varun’s check.
If the merman fired the sonic gun, the pulse of energy would not just stun Varun. It would blind him.
The Beltiamatu’s vicious snarl turned malicious. It was stronger, and it was not running out of air.
Varun’s oxygen bubbled out of him, accelerated by his physical struggle with the Beltiamatu. His vision frayed yellow on the edges.
Ashe was up there, dealing with hundreds of pissed off Beltiamatu.
And he couldn’t even handle two.
Well, hell, he would!
He punched the Beltiamatu in the stomach.
The merman reeled, shocked.
Guess they didn’t have street brawling in the ocean.
Varun jammed the sonic gun into the Beltiamatu’s chest and pulled the trigger. The merman crumpled backward and floated away, unconscious. Varun stared at it for a dazed moment. Almost out of air. Must get to the Dirga Tiamatu…
He swam into the Oceans Court and along the passages he had once traveled with Ashe, down into the chamber that contained the Dirga Tiamatu. The liquid-filled columns were empty. Their contents had been pumped down into the Earth’s core. The ground trembled as the wounded Earth convulsed. Within moments, the planet would rear in fury, striking out, but not at the ones who had injured it.