I’m smiling to myself wildly as I feel the images begin to ingrain into memory, like they’re my own. I turn to begin my journey, not knowing the path I’m taking will even lead me where I want to go. Rising from the ocean floor I begin to undulate against the waves once more, in search of sunken ships and a crevasse to abyss. I hear the voice calling to me in an eerie whisper.
You’re welcome.
Once I know where I’m headed it doesn’t take long before I start to find more and more traces of Psiren behaviour. Scattered along the dusty ocean floor are remnants of human sailors and transportation that have met a grisly end. I swim, more cautiously than I have before in these new and continually shadowy waters as I keep myself parallel to the sloping sand. As I pass a ship that is half buried in sand and consumed with crustaceans and algae I notice a hammerhead shark, teeth bared with its odd shaped head moving from left to right. I move away from it, feeling anxious as the hairs on the back of my neck rise, wondering why I hadn’t thought to bring a weapon of some kind or at least some armour.
Because you were pissed and careless, that’s why! I remind myself, wondering what it is about my whole relationship with Orion that made it almost impossible for me to think clearly. I mean, isn’t that what had gotten me into this mess? Falling in love with a man I’d known a matter of days, knew nothing about, and who I couldn’t stay away from? As I move over the increasingly sparse sea-life, consisting of bottom feeding plecos and sharks, I wonder what my life would be like now if I hadn’t given Orion the time of day, if I hadn’t returned to the beach as we’d agreed. Would I be happier? Would I be watching Kayla grow up and fixing my relationship with my mom? I push these thoughts aside as I come to what I’ve been seeking.
It lies next to a sunken submarine, one that looks as though it’s left over from one of the world wars. The sub has been severed in half by whatever sunk it and is stuck out of the sand like some kind of statement about the killing nature of these waters. The sub though, with its water filled bow and jagged, metal protrusions, is not what I have been looking for. What I’ve been looking for is the crevasse, which it teeters next to.
I move forward, no longer worried about the hammerhead that, I can see now, has turned back on itself and is going back the way it came.
Huh. I think, guess it must be bad down there if even a shark’s swimming away scared.
I hover above the edge of the fissure in the seabed and can see the monstrosity of its size. It is around a hundred metres across, and a mile long. I wonder how deep it goes, floating above the almost impenetrable darkness that hangs, as I continue to push myself through the water, directly beneath me. I let myself be suspended for a few minutes, looking up at the sun, which is high in the sky above the surface. Even from this depth its rays struggle to reach, so I wonder what it’ll be like down inside the fissure. I look down into the blackness and the blackness looks back into me, I feel a chill run through me and I gulp, trying to calm myself. I wonder momentarily about turning back, but I can’t quite bring myself, after everything I’ve been through and with the rage still burning in my chest, to go swimming home to Orion. I take one final look up above, at the silvery undulations of the water’s surface tension, refracting the light from the human world above and I turn myself so I’m facing downward, away from the brightness and the day. I grit my teeth and squeeze my hands into fists, ready to lash out at anyone or thing that may try to take advantage of me in the dark and slowly but surely, begin my descent into the shadows.
As I begin to swim downward through the crack in the earth I feel eyes on me, but from where they originate I don’t know. As I delve deeper I feel my ribs struggling to expand and my lungs becoming constricted. My ears pop with the increasing pressure, leaving me with an ache in my jaw that only increases my irritability. The darkness is making me anxious too, and I keep staring back up from where I came, trying to make out anything that could possibly be out to bite me, or worse, against the dying light of the surface. It isn’t long before I notice other changes in the water too, like a slight smell of rotten egg, a taste of ash and metal in the normally tasteless water and a chill that is seeping into my bones.
Among the darkness further down, not all light is lost as a pyrotechnic display of sudden and fleeting flashes are created by wildlife trying to lure in their next meal. After around twenty minutes I begin to see a glow from beneath me and I move toward it, perhaps just as helpless as the tiny pulsating fish being lured in by local anglers.
As I get closer I realise it’s too large to be a single animal.
Maybe I’m finally finding the bottom, I think to myself, relieved for a moment before realising that if I am near the bottom, then what next? Where is this supposed hidden city?
I begin to panic as I feel something brush up beside me and turn, catching a glimmer of some kind of huge shark with brown velvety skin and a large black eye before it moves away into the darkness again. I continue to move toward the light, my skin crawling, sure that if I can get some visibility I may be able to calm myself. Instead find myself repulsed as I move even closer, discovering that the glow is coming from large clusters of deep sea, bioluminescent jellyfish, crammed into a thin crack at the base of the crevasse.
I move backward, panicking as I have always been slightly disgusted and scared of jellyfish. These jellyfish in particular look rather predatory, as I watch fish become tangled in their absurdly long tentacle nets, helpless and doomed.
I float for a moment, suspended above the crack of natural light, wondering what to do. I can move into the darkness to my right or I can return upward and try to scan the sides of the trench for caves and possible entrances to the city, but neither of these options seem very appealing. After all, I don’t really fancy groping around in the dark if this really is close to the Psiren city.
Well, you can’t just float here. I think to myself angrily.
Then it catches my eye, something scoured into the wall in front of me, only just illuminated by the momentum of the jellyfish beneath. It’s an arrow, carved into the rock primitively and it’s pointing downwards. I look down into the tangled mass of jellies.
Oh that is so not happening. I think to myself, feeling my stomach turn.
I know that the ocean is supposed to be beautiful and majestic, but there’s just something about jellyfish that makes me want to hurl. Whether it’s their ability to make you have to pee on yourself to cure their stings, or the fact they’re immortal and see-through, I just can’t bring myself to appreciate them.
Then I remember something, a memory which stings far worse than any jellyfish. His voice travels through the recesses of time and into the forefront of my memory, rolling out like all too familiar silk sheets.
They kind of tickle actually. Orion’s voice, reaches me and my heart falls through my chest.
I still miss him. I still need him.
No you don’t! My subconscious snaps at me angrily.
I sigh again and look at the arrow and then the cloud of jellies beneath.
Oh for craps sake. I think to myself before reluctantly turning so I am once again facing downward into their white, pale glow. I close my eyes, trying to banish my melancholy at the thought of Orion’s absence, wanting so badly to forget about him that I grit my teeth and plunge myself, head first into the dense clouds of jellyfish.
I fall, tumbling through the web of bioluminescent, charged tentacles and into the unknown below. The cloud isn’t as thick as is looks from above and as Orion once told me, the brushing of the translucent, unseemly limbs does tickle ever so slightly. I keep my eyes wide as I come out the other side of the mass of light and below me see the outline of shapes I can’t quite make out. It appears I’ve come into a cave, but I can’t see anything as the floor is too deep beneath me.
Oh for craps sake! How the hell am I supposed to see anything down here? I cuss internally, angry that I’ve dived head first into a cluster of electrically charged tentacles for nothing, even if they did no
thing more than tickle they still creep me out.
Let me shed some light on the subject.
The voice moves in and out of the forefront of my psyche like a wisp of smoke, having come and gone in a matter of seconds, untraceable and fleeting. I blink for a moment, unsure of what to expect, of whether I’m crazy or not. As I open my lids again it’s like someone has placed contact lenses in front of my pupils, giving me some kind of night vision I wasn’t aware I was capable of. I don’t have time to be shocked by the immense relief I feel at being able to see again, because what I can see as I look down makes my heart stop.
Below me, over a hundred black pupils stare up at me.
Well, I sigh internally, I guess I found the city.
SOLUSTUS
I tilt my head upward at the sudden break in the light that pours down on my city. I feel myself surprised at the scene in front of me. The girl, the vessel, hovering high above, still and suspended, looking confused. Without warning, the subjects I’m talking through basic hand to hand with, fly upward without so much as a command from me and encircle her. Irritation rises, anger welling like a storm.
How dare they move without my command.
“STOP,” I bark and they turn back, looking surprised as I rise above the ring within seconds. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask them, purposefully ignoring the blonde twiglet. I will tend to her when I’m ready. They look at me, half man, half monstrosity, black pupils blinking in confusion and slight fear, young and stupid. “Did I command you to go after her?” One of them pipes up.
“No, Sir!” I look daggers at him, asserting my masculinity.
“Then why do you ingrates insist on using your brains? Do you think you should be leading? Do you think you can do a better job than I?” I ask them, circling their assembly like a shark. They look horrified.
“No, Sir!” I hear them mumble.
“I want you to remember this lesson, remember whom you serve. It is not your job to lead, but to follow without question. Should I ask you to kill your mother, you do it, and you do it with a smile on your face,” I pause… “As it is, your quick actions have cornered this here intruder, you should be proud, but know that it should have been on my order. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir!” They respond, a mass of writhing tails and tentacles.
I turn finally, resting my eyes on the girl. Her face shocks me, the blackness in her pupils surprising to say the least.
“Solustus,” she says, straightening herself, trying to appear less than the meek, infantile creature that she is.
“Callie,” I reply, trying to give nothing away and hating the way her sickly sweet nomenclature feels rolling off my literate tongue.
I look at her, brushing away my nausea at the purity of the way she looks. There is something different this time though. Her eyes, for a start, hold the black pupils that the rest of the Psiren possess and her mouth is set into a hard line that before I hadn’t noticed. She looks serious.
“I wish to speak with you,” she says, conviction in her voice, as though she thinks she has some kind of authority here.
“Go ahead,” I offer her this kindness, curious as to her intent. I wonder momentarily why I’m not killing her, but then remember she might be useful. If nothing else, she’s the crowned ruler’s soulmate. I’m not letting her leave here alive if I can help it.
“I was thinking somewhere more private,” she looks irritable and my patience flits away as quickly as it came.
“I was thinking you talk to me here or I kill you,” I cross my arms, ready to draw Scarlette and make an example of her in front of my fodder, slice her up real nice and watch her bleed.
“You’re forgetting that I took down your predecessor with just these,” she holds out her hands and I smirk. Young and stupid. What a mix.
“You’re forgetting I don’t have any powers for you to steal. My speed and cunning aren’t something that you can get from any bitch Goddess,” I snarl and I feel the young Psirens smirking at my smart mouth. My heart lifts slightly, shrivelled as it may be in my chest, yearning for their undying loyalty. Her face falls slightly, realising the fault in her tenuous logic.
“Got yourself in too deep, Princess?” I snarl at her, flicking my tailfin and lurching so I’m behind her in a matter of seconds. She puts out her hands and I feel her fingers catch me in mid stroke, clutching around my neck. Then, something I hadn’t felt in a while possesses me. Agonising pain, the kind you only get from someone manipulating the electric currents in your body.
I writhe, feeling the eyes of Alyssa’s children on me, unimpressed. The blonde twiglet looks shocked as she takes her hands off me, letting me fall slightly through the water before I can regain my composure and snap my tailfin back into rhythm quickly. I rise to her eye level.
“Your argument is compelling. Maybe we should take this into the Necrocazar,” I don’t want to appear weak, but I don’t want to continue the conversation with this girl, who suddenly has the power to incapacitate me, in front of them either.
I shake off the pain that clutched at my nervous system, brushing it away like I do with my emotions.
“Two of you! Escort The vessel to the Necrocazar,” I bark and they move to touch her. Her eyes narrow.
“I can swim myself. Lead on,” she flutters a hand forward, waving each of her individual fingers in succession and holding my eye contact.
“As you wish,” I glare at the soldiers as they hover there, looking dumbstruck.
I really need to start giving Alyssa stricter guidelines about who she makes into her children, I muse.
I am sick of them being so stupid, so young. I want educated, cunning, subservient warriors. Not this gaggle of clueless, teenage angst.
“Go find Regus, he will give you something to do,” I wave them away and they pivot, looking afraid under my scorching contempt for each and every one of them.
Callie looks to me and I move forward, silent as she follows, pitiful with each un-practiced stroke from her hideously bright tailfin. That aquamarine is so gaudy.
We travel together, mercifully, in silence. I am around twenty metres in front of the girl for the majority of the journey. I can tell she’s struggling to keep up but, I wonder how she’s even coping with the depth of the city at all as it’s something any normal mer would be succumbing to like an asthmatic snail.
I reach the throne room at the height of the Necrocazar, my palace built into the immense dead vents, quickly and I realise she’s still keeping pace.
Within the dark recesses and red lighting of the room I move forward, deciding I want to look regal. I drape myself leisurely across the bone construct of the throne as Callie enters behind me a few moments later. I watch her, curious, as she takes a few slow moments to take in her surroundings like a bewildered animal in a trap.
“So, what brings you to my little Kingdom?” I question her as she folds her arms defensively over her breast scales.
“I want to find my father. You implied, the last time we met, that you know where he is,” she looks me directly in the eye and I wonder when she got so bold.
The last time I’d met her she’d been desperately in love with Orion, offering her own life to save his, a pathetic act in itself, yet here she is again risking her life for her father who had abandoned her. I wonder instantly if this girl has some kind of a death wish.
“No. I implied I knew what he looked like, if you can recall. Also, you misunderstand my question. How did you find this place?” I ask her pointedly. No mer before her had ever come here of their own will, they’d only ever been down here after being kidnapped, and even then they were unconscious.
“What do you mean?”
“No mer before you have ever found the Cryptopolis. How, I ask, did you? You don’t seem particularly intelligent…” I pause with a smile, allowing my lips to pull back over my razor sharp teeth. She frowns.
“You have a whole graveyard of ships around the entrance to the city. It didn’t take
a lot to deduce that was a Psiren’s doing. Besides, you’re evil, mythical creatures, I just thought of the darkest, dankest place for a city and BAM. I mean, could you guys be anymore cliché?” She cocks her head and purses her lips. I ascend with a tiny minute flick of my tailfin, feeling the spines on my tail rise against the base of my back. Who does she think she’s talking to?
“I would remind you, Miss Pierce, that you aren’t among friends any longer. You aren’t royalty here. You’re just a poor, lonely, lost girl, far from home and in too deep,” I annunciate clearly and move around the back of her stilled form. I watch her long, blonde locks stir with my presence. I brush them back from her shoulder and whisper in her ear. “You don’t belong here, Callie,” I do it to unnerve her, but as I move around to face her, I can tell I have hit a nerve that runs far deeper. Her black eyes get round and her mouth falls into a grim line.
“That’s why I need to find my father,” she relinquishes the information, a mistake, as it enables me to realise she’s emotionally vulnerable. Her eyes shift and I watch as she becomes transfixed by something behind me. I follow her gaze to the weapon against the wall. She raises her hand and the scythe jumps through the water and lands solidly in her palm. She smiles knowingly and I wonder what she’s feeling, is it a kind of power she alone can wield?
Something inside me shifts as I watch her. I wonder if perhaps she could be the key to unlocking it. I need to keep her around for longer and I wonder if perhaps this darkness within her can be used, manipulated. I watch her silently and play with the possibility of locking her up in the dungeon below, but rather than subduing her by force, which Titus once attempted to do and failed, I decide against it, instead using my real power; my cunning.
“I suppose I could look into finding your father’s location. One does not become as old as I without amassing a certain amount of power.” She looks hopeful at these words, before I continue. “But… I’d need you to stay here while I obtain the location. I’m not gallivanting after you.” She looks uncertain as to my obliging her request with such ease.
The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) Page 13