The Captive King

by Susan Copperfield

He didn’t seem to expect my cooperation. Lines creased his forehead. “I need your blood.” He hesitated. “Not all of it. You’ll live. But you need to give it to me willingly.”

  If coerced into doing it at gunpoint, did it still count as willing? Damn it, negotiating was difficult when the other party had lost his mind. “Can I ask you a question without you shooting me?”

  “If I shoot you, I can’t become a god, but if you refuse to cooperate and I can’t become a god, I’ll shoot you.”

  Either way, I had a bad feeling I’d get shot unless I did something about it. My talent was all but fried from freeing an entire city from its grave.

  It’d be a while because I could deal with Sebastian or protect myself. I swallowed. “Why do you want to become a god?”

  “I’ll be free.”

  “From what?”

  “Everything. This damned job. Licking the boots of damned elite who think they know more about history than I do. The constant demands. All of it. Once I become a god, they’ll be licking my boots. I’ll be generous. I’ll spare the man who helped you pass the fourth challenge as my thanks for my divinity. I’ll spare your family, too. You never speak of them, but you have family, don’t you?”

  “I have family.”

  “Where?”

  “New York.” It was my turn to hesitate, as speaking of Landen’s kingdom meant accepting everything he was—and everything I would have to be. “Alaska.”

  “Alaska?” Landen snorted. “How ironic for you to be teleported to where your family is, then to be jerked away—to where the rest of your family is.”

  “We’re in New York?”

  “We’re not far from Scranton.”

  A chill swept through me. I wasn’t just in my home kingdom, I was home. When the United States had fallen, Scranton had been a major trade center of Pennsylvania, which had been absorbed by New York. A rogue royal unable to control his talent had combusted, taking tens of thousands out with him. An intense flash of heat and rippled through the city, killing everyone in the blast radius. Plastic and glass had melted. Metal had warped.

  I’d seen Scranton’s skyline once, and many of its historic buildings still stood, defying the destruction and the passage of time. I suspected some still lived within the city’s boundaries, hiding where the sane refused to go.

  I was thirty miles from where I’d grown up, and I’d never dreamed a Nahua temple might be lurking beneath my feet.

  “Why here? How did you find the spot?”

  While Sebastian kept the gun pointed at me, he crouched, picked up a stick, and began drawing in the mud. “It was on the wall. There was a map of North America with rough locations. It was hidden in the writing, and I only noticed when I was looking at a picture of the whole wall. Once I figured out it was a map of North America, I had the writing around the fifth location translated. The coordinates were there in code.”

  “In code? What sort of code?”

  “The writing was sequenced. You’re only supposed to read every fifth glyph, and which one you start with is determined by which challenge you’re on.”

  I had to give credit where credit was due; I hadn’t believed Sebastian smart or wise enough to crack any code. “Good work.”

  “I thought you’d appreciate it. Still, I’m surprised you passed the fourth challenge. You have no interest in men. The challenge requires the challenger submit to someone in their entirety. You should have failed.”

  What an asshole. “I met someone I like enough to marry. So what? Can’t I?”

  Sebastian’s expression turned cold. “You were supposed to want to marry me. With your talent, we’d become the top researchers in Egypt overnight. You wouldn’t even need your doctorate, although they’d give it to you anyway. All I’d have to do is hesitate because of your continued schooling.”

  “It wouldn’t work, Sebastian. You know it, I know it. You know what I need, and we know you won’t give it to me.”

  Sebastian scowled. “Loyalty again, Summer? You can’t tell me you’ve never cheated on anyone. Everyone’s cheated. It’s a way of life.”

  “I’ve never cheated, and I have no intention of doing so. Maybe I passed your mystical fourth challenge because once I give my word to someone, I mean it. I’ve given my word.”

  I’d done more than give Landen my word. I’d given him my future, how little or long of one I had.

  “He’s just going to cheat on you. That’s what men do. It’s your choice. Just don’t come crying to me when he does. I’m not going to have any pity on you.”

  “I don’t want your pity.”

  “You’ve always been too prideful. This is what’s going to happen, Summer. You’re going to dig down to the altar, and every morning until the dark moon rises, you will sacrifice your blood to me and the altar. You will do so without complaint. You will do so without running away. When you’re finished, I’ll let you go. If we need to try again next month, we will. That part of the code is unclear. I might need more than a month to become a god. No matter. I don’t care how many dark moons must rise, but I will become a god.”

  Damn it. When was the next new moon supposed to rise? I didn’t have any idea; I’d lost complete track of the moon’s cycles. Hell, I’d never paid much attention to them in the first place. “Let me use your phone to send a message.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “When I’ve gotten what I need, I’ll allow you to send one message.”

  “I’ll cooperate, but you need to let me send a message first. It’s important.”

  “What is it about?”

  “A rape case.”

  Sebastian frowned. “You were raped?”

  “I wasn’t the one raped.” Later, I’d feel terrible for concocting a lie using fact, but if the Nahua did possess magic capable of allowing a man to become a god, I couldn’t go down without a fight. I hoped Valerie would forgive me if she ever found out. I didn’t have any other tools at my disposal, but if I could get my hands on his phone, I had a chance of getting help—assuming I couldn’t free myself.

  Against a gun on the wrong side of a flare, I suspected it would be a while before my talent cooperated enough to compete against Sebastian’s waterweaving talent and his firearm.

  I slumped my shoulders and sighed. “It was a little girl.”

  “Someone raped a little girl.”

  The anger in Sebastian’s tone went a long way to making me think there might be a decent man hidden somewhere within him. “Yes. Please let me use your phone. I just need to fill out a form on Montana’s website. Your phone has satellite access, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s all you’re going to do?”

  “That’s all I’m going to do. You can watch me do it,” I promised.

  He just didn’t know the most important facts or who—and what—I’d become for the sake of the man I loved.

  I doubted I’d ever get used to admitting I loved a man, but Landen wasn’t just a man. One day, I might even admit that to him directly. Maybe.

  “All right. You’ve always had a soft spot for kids. If I don’t, you’ll fight me every step of the way, won’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll be watching,” he swore.

  Fortunately for me, Sebastian likely didn’t know how the form worked; if I submitted it as an anonymous request, the system would register his phone data as the contact. As long as I made it clear who was sending the message without Sebastian being wiser to it, it might reach William.

  If my cryptic message reached William, he would tell Landen.

  I couldn’t do much against a gun until my talent recovered, but I could rescue myself all the same. I’d just make someone else do the majority of the work.

  I filed an anonymous request into the Montana abuse system, flagged Alaska as the originating kingdom, and mentioned Valerie’s case, suggesting that the file be reevaluated, and that the woman who had aided with the initial interview be brought in for additional questioning.

  I tapped
out the message, aware of Sebastian pressing the gun’s barrel to my side, his finger ready to squeeze the trigger should he catch onto my game.

  To offer one final clue who was sending the message, I added that the woman they wanted to bring in had last been seen taking a helicopter flight before disappearing.

  “You’ve been busy, I see. You would’ve been good at law enforcement. You don’t take shit from anyone. What sort of scum attacks a child?”

  “You’re happy with the message?”

  “You can send it,” he confirmed.

  I sent the message before he changed his mind, breathing a relieved sigh when the form submitted, confirmed reception of my request, and gave me a confirmation number. Taking the phone from me, Sebastian tapped the screen for a few minutes before putting it away. “I saved the confirmation number for you if you need it later. I hope it helps.”

  I hoped it did, too. Otherwise, I had no idea how I’d rescue myself until I could use my magic again and catch Sebastian off guard.

  Sebastian had come prepared, and while I’d given my word, my word wasn’t good enough for him. In a battle of strength, I had no hope of matching him, and the scuffle between us lasted a few minutes before he pinned me down and snapped a pair of cuffs around my wrists. Long after winning, he held me down, one hand squeezing the back of my neck, his knee jammed against my spine.

  “I acquired those from a prison. If you behave, I won’t link them together during the day, but you’ll be restrained at night. I’ve put too much on the line for there to be any accidents. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I’m leaving nothing to chance.”

  In his shoes, I would’ve done the same. In his shoes, however, I wouldn’t have resorted to kidnapping and coercion. In his shoes, I wouldn’t attempt to become a god. I would’ve run the other way and found somewhere to hide.

  I knew far more than I wanted about how a man might become a god, and it involved one of us dying, most likely me. I had no idea what it meant for me in the future to have cinnabar and mercury wrapped around my heart, and it was only a matter of time before mercury poisoning set in.

  If someone in Montana didn’t decipher my message and get it to William, I’d be the one in trouble.

  After I figured out what the cuffs did, I’d find a way to rescue myself—if I could. “What do they do?”

  “You’ll get a rather unpleasant jolt when you use your talent. The stronger the working, the stronger the jolt. This one is tuned to earthweaving, and it’s on high sensitivity.” Sebastian shoved a black remote in my face. “It’s non-lethal, but you won’t be able to do any earthweaving without my consent.”

  “Please tell me that remote isn’t the only way to get these damned things off.”

  “You could go to a prison to have them removed. If the remote’s damaged, you have options—after I’m finished with you. I’m a jackass, but I’m not that much of a jackass. I know how important your talent is to you.”

  Sebastian was that much of a jackass, but I wasn’t going to argue with him about it. “If you get me killed with this stunt, I’m going to haunt your ass for all eternity, and I’ll forge alliances with every other damned ghost I can find and make certain you spend your entire immortal life in misery.”

  “If ghosts were real, that’d be a pretty potent threat.” Sebastian chuckled, gave the back of my neck a final squeeze, and shifted his knee away from my spine. “No matter what Matt said, they’re not.”

  “Yet you believe you can become a god.”

  “We have proof gods existed.”

  That was a new one. “We do?”

  “It’s written on the walls,” he whispered, and something in his voice changed.

  I’d hold hope I’d find my way back to Landen, and when I did, I’d use Sebastian as proof curses were real. “Do you have a picture of the writings?”

  “Yes. Yes.” Sebastian released me, grabbed my elbow, and hauled me to my feet, pulling me through the trees, which were losing their leaves as the chill bite of autumn cut through the forest. “I’ll show you. Come.”

  As a child, my parents had driven me down the long, abandoned highway connecting our little town of Tunkhannock to Scranton. New York brought in crews every five or ten years to pave over it, giving the miners a job to do in the off season while clinging to the impossible hope of reviving Scranton from its grave. The work stopped ten miles outside of the city limits.

  Miners like my parents, who delved into the deepest crevices of the Earth, feared ghosts. After my one experiment with a rope and a hole, I hadn’t been ready to believe in ghosts, but I had been ready to believe something lurked deep beneath our feet.

  Once upon a time, I’d found the belief in the supernatural amusing.

  Now I believed, too. I had seen them, as had Landen. We had survived them, although I’d steer clear of Mictlāntēcutli’s temple. His brand of worshippers terrified me.

  They believed in consuming the flesh of people as a part of their rituals to appease their hungry god.

  Sebastian had come prepared, and he’d stolen an RV for his dirty work; the dealership tags were still on the vehicle, and I doubted someone of his rank, even with the prestige he had earned, could ever afford one so nice. It was the type an elite would bring to a dig site to avoid getting his polished shoes scuffed.

  “I thought you’d appreciate a little comfort for a change.”

  If he hadn’t taken complete leave of his senses, I might’ve appreciated the effort and consideration. “Someone got a pay raise.”

  “I will be a god. I will be owed this and so much more. I could have even you, if I want, but I will keep my word. My present to you, as I ascend, will be the protection of you, your family, and the man you would call your husband. Even your children will enjoy protection during my reign.”

  “Generous of you.”

  “I thought so. I will give you wealth and power as well, so you might enjoy the recognition you deserve.”

  Sebastian hauled me into the RV, and the interior was layered in thousands of photographs of the temple I’d unearthed at Joya de Ballesteros I recognized the altar dedicated for marriage, the carvings on the floor warning of disloyalty, and the floating golden man and the hundreds of obsidian discs scattered at his feet.

  “He was Quetzalcoatl before his ascension, sheathed in gold so he might watch over the world for an eternity, learning from those to come behind him. Only in his presence, reading the words of power in three different tongues, may someone ascend to divinity.” Sebastian yanked me through the RV to the bedroom, pointing at the pictures. “These are the writings.”

  Like the bracelets, the carvings were in an eclectic blend of Nahuatl, Mayan, and Ch’olti’. “Who translated them for you?”

  “Dougland Olheimer.”

  I’d met Dr. Olheimer a few times; he was to Mayan as I was to Nahuatl, with one important difference: he viewed the branch languages of the tribes as affronts to the purity of the Maya. His Mayan translations would be perfection, but I doubted he’d know how to read Ch’olti’ if someone beat him in the face with a translation guide.

  He believed dead dialects deserved to stay dead.

  If I suggested he’d gotten the wrong information from Dr. Olheimer, what would Sebastian do? Until I had time to read the writings myself, I could only speculate on what sort of magic Sebastian toyed with.

  It was much like the difference between teotl and teotzin; one defied understanding, venturing into the realm of the supernatural, while the other embodied the gods.

  If Dr. Olheimer had read teotl as I read teotzin, then it was likely Sebastian wouldn’t obtain the divinity he desired, but rather gain an understanding of matters beyond normal human comprehension.

  To some, gaining that knowledge was kin to becoming a god, but they weren’t the same. There could be a thousand different meanings of the writings Sebastian had found and unwisely trusted a closed-minded fool to translate for him.

  If I survived, if I escaped
Sebastian’s insanity, I’d give Dr. Olheimer a piece or two of my mind.

  There were too many ifs and not enough certainties. “How long did it take him to do the translations?”

  “A week. He flew in two days after you disappeared; we’d found the writings several hours after you were taken.”

  A week wasn’t nearly long enough to get a good reading of the writings photographed. If I worked every day without stop, I’d need at least a month.

  I wondered what Dr. Olheimer’s game was, and why he’d feed Sebastian a bucket of lies—or if Dr. Olheimer had found a similar wall at one of his pure Maya sites. If he had a similar wall serving as a guide, a rough translation might only take a week.

  One thing remained fact: Sebastian had found the fifth temple with unerring accuracy, which meant there was some form of truth to his words, but I feared it was the difference between teotl and teotzin.

  To Quetzalcoatl, knowledge was a power worthy of gods, embodying teotl in all its glory.

  Sebastian desired to become teotzin, a true god.

  Mesoamerican tribes worshipped many gods, and if Sebastian became like them, he would find himself disappointed when he learned they would not give up their domains easily, not to an interloper.

  If I believed what little I’d gleaned from the temple in Nevada, it wasn’t my blood he wanted, but my heart, encased in mercury and cinnabar.

  I wouldn’t tell him about that, and I would hope he wouldn’t recognize the symptoms of mercury poisoning when it hit. When it did, I could only hope he didn’t comprehend the significance of my illness.

  With luck, the ancient tribal magic killing me wouldn’t trigger the cuffs; I hadn’t been jolted yet, which I viewed as promising, but I had no idea how their powers worked. No one did.

  I’d have to wait and see.

  “Summer?”

  “You’ve found a true treasure,” I confessed.

  “I destroyed it after I took the photos so no one might follow in my footsteps. I destroyed the entire temple with my talent. I drowned it, burying it deep in the earth when I turned the soil to liquid and drained it away. No one knows what I’ve done. No one will stop me from becoming a god.”