This—all this—is home now, the water demon replied. She extended her hand to the two smoky tendrils weaving around her. And these are my sisters in misery, in death.
How…why are you here?
First, he attacked me. Forced his child into my belly. She caressed her stomach, and as if responding to her touch, her stomach swelled with the memory of her pregnancy. Then, he refused to pay the bride price. Instead, he lured me to the water’s edge. Her expression distant, she smiled faintly. The sun was setting upon the lake. I stared at it. I did not know it was my last sunset viewed through human eyes. I was still looking at it when he pushed me into the water and held me down until my soul slipped from my body.
The rusalka’s gaze returned to Ginny’s face. I tried to hold on, as long as I could, for myself, for my child… Her face twisted with anguish. But I grew too tired, too weak, and when I let go, I lost myself and the child I carried. I stood on the shore, looking down at my body sinking into the water, watching him walk away, not looking back. For a moment, she fell silent before speaking again. And when my child’s soul departed to rejoin the universe, mine lingered. I found others like me—forever bound to each other in a sisterhood of pain and loss.
Ginny studied the rusalka, careful not to look into her face—her pain-filled eyes—for too long. Why do you attack only human men?
Not only human men. We are drawn to all forms of love rejected.
Ginny frowned. That’s why you homed in on Kai?
Our only power is to take on the form of the one whom he has rejected. What happens after that is entirely a matter of chance, of fate. The rusalka glanced toward Zamir, whose attention was focused on the hole through which Kai had swum.
Something in the water demon’s expression made Ginny ask. Why haven’t you gone after Zamir? Surely, in all those years, he’s rejected at least one person.
The rusalka shrugged. Only one matters right now, and it is pointless to take on her form when she stands beside him.
Beside him… Ginny’s thoughts stuttered. Me?
The demon’s eyebrows arched. You did not know? The rusalka’s eyes narrowed. Welcome then, my sister, to pain and loss.
Ginny glowered at the water demon. It doesn’t always end in pain and loss.
If it means something, anything at all, it will.
Zamir suddenly stiffened. “The current’s changed. Something’s wrong.”
Chapter 9
As mer-prince, Kai had explored the breadth and depth of Shulim, but not beneath the ocean floor. Not the tunnels that channeled the wrath of the Earth’s core. The walls of rock and packed dirt were smooth and charred, an inky black as flawless as silk beneath his fingertips. That instant of contact, as the Dirga Tiamatu forced molten rock and lava through the earth, had burned through everything in its way and cauterized the wound.
Kai’s fingertips glided against the natural tunnel wall as it angled sharply downward. Direct contact guided his path into the pitch black of the earth. The path remained a constant four feet across. The spread of his tail fin brushed against the walls. If would be a tight squeeze if he ever had to turn around.
But there was nothing else in the caves. No fish. No living things.
And no adamantine regulator.
The angle of the tunnel was acute enough that the regulator could have fallen through until it struck the bottom of the tunnel.
Where it would be, he didn’t know. The tunnel showed no signs of coming to an end. It extended deeper and deeper into the earth, but instead of cooling, the water warmed, imperceptibly but steadily. It thickened too, as if polluted by dense particles.
With little warning, the tunnel ended, the walls swelling into a vast space filled with brackish water. Kai had heard of underground reservoirs, in total containing more water than existed on the surface of the earth, but this was the first time he had seen it. If there were boundaries to the underground ocean, he did not see it. There was no land either, no pockets of air. The water, a blue so deep it was almost black, reached all the way to the ceiling of the cave.
The current, stronger than a riptide, but less persistent, brushed past him.
Then a massive underwater ripple—the kind that could swell into a tsunami—swayed the water far beneath him.
Something alive—
And massive.
Kai gritted his teeth. If the regulator had tumbled down the shaft, all the way into the underground ocean, it would sink all the way to the bottom—wherever that was—while buffeted by strong currents.
He had no way of predicting where it would land.
No choice but to start searching the bottom—wherever it was—in pitch blackness.
Turning back wasn’t an option. His people needed a functioning aether regulator if they were to tap into its power to rebuild the Beltiamatu empire. He needed a functioning aether regulator if he were ever to get the aether out of him without passing out from the pain of repeated and uncontrolled transformations.
Kai dived, his body undulating through the dark, and allowed the currents to sway his direction as they might have swayed a falling piece of adamantine. The chances of him diving along the exact route as the regulator was close to zero, but he would have a place to begin his search.
Time blurred, moments blending into minutes. Without a destination, without any landmarks, he only had his intuitive sense of direction, perfectly aligned to the magnetic poles, to confirm that he was still headed down. Finding his way back, even with a perfect sense of direction, was going to be difficult.
It was then, in the silence of the dark and the deep, that he felt the pulse from inside of him. Somewhere between his chest and his stomach, nestled in the base of his rib cage. It strengthened as he swam deeper, but then weakened until he adjusted his direction away from the tug of the current. He turned in the water until the pulse seemed strongest, then dived, adjusting his direction to align with the strongest possible pulse. It strengthened until it felt like blows inside of him.
Kai had to clench his teeth against the pain, against the rattling that seemed to jar every bone in his body. His fingers, always outstretched, searching, touched something.
Jagged stone.
He had found the bottom.
He swam along the cave floor, following the pulse until his fingers brushed against a cool, smooth surface. He traced its familiar shape.
The regulator.
No cracks in its surface that he could tell. Its filaments were intact. The regulator had survived the Dirga Tiamatu, although perhaps he should not have been surprised. Something powerful enough to contain and channel dark energy had to be strong enough to survive mere heat from the center of the Earth.
He sagged over his prize, his head reeling and chest aching from constant thumps of the aether core within him, as if it were trying to reattach to the regulator. The pounding against his chest intensified with the regulator held against his skin. It had not felt like this back at the mer-colony, but that regulator was damaged, and perhaps the aether core knew it.
But not this regulator.
If he could get the aether core out of him and onto the regulator, perhaps the thumping pain would cease enough for him to swim out of the underground water reservoir. He would have to be quick though. He had to minimize the amount of time when the aether was neither in him nor on the regulator. His body had made it clear enough, on multiple occasions, that it would not tolerate even a fractional wisp of stray aether.
Kai touched his fingertips to the center of his chest. They tingled as the aether core emerged, a roiling, living black vortex of dark energy. Purple arcs of lightning sizzled from its restless heart. He held the regulator close as the last of the aether emerged. It leaped from his fingertips and fixed itself to the center of the regulator, lighting it with an ethereal violet hue.
The regulator was intact, and it was working.
Kai relaxed into a smile, but the motion had barely begun, when he stiffened against the ripple of pain that be
gin at the tip of his fins.
He was transforming again—unwillingly, unwittingly—but how? The aether hovered on a functioning regulator large enough to contain its energy. He was safe from it—wasn’t he?
Pain arcing along the length of his tail, from his fin, up to his waist, made a lie of his belief. His hand tightened around the regulator, until his knuckles were white. His scales dissolved, as if the water had turned into acid. He thrashed as flesh peeled from his body, thin red strips floating away like bait. And when his bones ripped into half, down the center, spilling marrow, he could not scream, could not even breathe, through the pain.
Each time he transformed, he wondered if he would survive it.
This was the first time Kai was certain he would not.
Chapter 10
Zamir dove, headfirst, into the tunnel carved smooth by the Dirga Tiamatu. The muddled currents behind him told him that Ginny had followed, paddling in her slow, graceless way. “What’s wrong?” Ginny’s voice rolled through the tunnel, resonating off the narrow walls until they were almost unintelligible.
“The water popped.” The words left his mouth before he realized how inadequate of an explanation it was. “Something’s moving down there. Something large enough to cause a current to push through hard enough to pop at the top of the tunnel.”
Ginny inhaled sharply. “How large? Titan-sized?”
“I don’t know, but the tunnel almost certainly opens into a much larger space. When it does, I want you to stay in the tunnel.”
“But what if Kai needs help?”
“Then I’ll find him.”
“But I can help, too.”
Zamir bit back a snarl. “Ginny, you can hardly swim, and you can barely tell up from down. If the space is as large as I imagine…if I lose you in there, I may never be able to find you. Just do me a favor and listen. For once.”
“I always listen,” Ginny retorted indignantly. She paused. With a faint chuckle in her voice, she admitted, “But I don’t always do what you say.”
“You’ll stay in the tunnel?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Maybe.”
It galled him to know that it was the most realistic promise he could expect from her. All the more reason to get Kai out of trouble before Ginny could dive headlong, literally, into it.
His fingers traced the walls to an edge. The currents tugged with even greater strength. “The tunnel ends here, Ginny. I want you to stay in here.”
She sighed and glared at him. “Be quick, or I’ll go after you.”
Zamir emerged from the tunnel and raised his face to the swirling madness of the currents. Something massive, but worse something fast.
A purple glow trembled far below.
The aether core!
He dived toward it, only to realize that it was rising toward him, but not in a straight line. It jerked and twisted erratically, as if trying to evade something. Zamir kicked harder to close the distance. The currents accelerated, brushing the scent of blood past his nose.
Damn it! Kai had gotten hurt. Why the hell had he allowed Kai to head off on his own into unknown spaces?
The current turned again, and he suddenly found himself in a flurry of small, streamlined bodies. Fins and tails slapped against him, each blow minuscule, but in combination, they stunned him.
Not a single huge creature.
Not a slow ponderous titan, but a massive shoal of small fish, each one no longer than the length of his lower arm.
Some extraordinary sense kept the fish from the running headlong into him, but even the brief, swiping contact—like a hundred, thousand cuts—forced him to curl in to a defensive ball. The assault stretched out until he lost track of time, but finally, it passed. He could feel it though—a living current, winding down and around the bobbing purple glow.
Icy realization pierced Zamir. The violet light was falling, not rising. It no longer twisted, no longer jerked, and moved only because of the currents punching it.
“Kai!” Zamir dived with the current created by the massive shoal of fish, as if he were one of them. As he neared the purple glow, the scent of blood grew stronger, so strong that not even the steady rush of water could push it away. Kai shuddered in the water, the aether in its regulator, clutched against his chest. His legs—not his tail—were pulled up beneath him.
The water around him was murky with blood and shreds of flesh. The fish darted against him as they dashed past, picking flesh from the water. The kelp bandages around his chest and back hung loose, exposing the raw flesh of his still-healing injuries to the sharp teeth of tiny predators.
He could not protect himself and the aether core at the same time.
And he left no doubt as to what he tried to protect.
“Kai!” Zamir shouted again.
Kai raised his head, his eyes glazed almost uncomprehending with pain. The rush of the shoal carried Zamir to Kai’s side. He grabbed the aether regulator from Kai, and with his other arm wrapped around Kai’s waist, tried to swim them out of the shoal.
The small fish bodies pounding against Zamir’s side, and the horrifically strong current they created made it impossible to cut across the shoal. He had to go with it, and somehow guide the shoal toward the tunnel where Ginny waited. The current swayed around him, veering toward the regulator. Perfect, he thought grimly. If he couldn’t shake the shoal, perhaps then he could make it work for him.
The shoal suddenly twisted into a frenzy, breaking apart as a large, lean shape cut through their formation, before weaving back together. Like a shark—but different. The newcomer had the distended jaw of a basking shark, but instead of baleen-like teeth, it had sharp jaws. The long nose protuberance was as flat as it was long, giving it the appearance of an uglier goblin shark. And—like all the dwellers of the deep—it had no eyes, yet it swam with unerring accuracy on the fringes of the shoal, snapping at it and snagging a few victims before the shoal twisted away from it.
Its hideous head swung toward Zamir and Kai. Had it picked up on movement that heralded larger, more satisfying prey?
Its actions intensified and became much more focused on breaking through the shoal. Two larger sharks emerged from the blackness of the underwater sea and encircled the shoal of fish. They herded the small fish, forcing them to twist away, momentarily opening the way to Zamir and Kai, before the small gap closed again.
Not for much longer.
Zamir’s grip tightened on Kai’s side. “We’re running out of time and options.”
“Take the aether, the regulator, and go,” Kai said; his firm statement, however, could not conceal the tremor of pain and of weakness. “I’ll lead the sharks away.”
Zamir stared at Kai. Was he insane? “We are getting out of this together, or not at all.”
“Our people need the aether and the regulator. Ginny needs you to find her way out of here.” Kai met Zamir’s eyes. “Whatever is happening to me…” He drew a deep breath. “It’s killing me. I’m not going to make it.”
Kai’s simple, factual statement and his quiet acceptance shattered Zamir.
Kai had finally given voice to the greatest fear lodged in the deepest, darkest corner of Zamir’s heart.
Zamir’s grip on the regulator tightened until his knuckles turned white. “You will. This time. I’m not leaving you. Swim hard.”
Together, they managed to push through the shoal, almost to its head. The small fish darted and swerved around Zamir and Kai, following aether’s light, while evading the sharks’ attacks. The pale purple glow lit the distant dark circle of the tunnel and Ginny’s anxious face peering out of it. “Almost there.”
Kai nodded, then suddenly stiffened.
Zamir’s thoughts spun into panic. No…not now. Not here.
Kai threw his head back and screamed as skin and flesh tore off his legs. The white of bone gleamed for an instant before dissolving into a foam-like substance and remolding into the extended bone structure of a Beltiamatu tail. Flesh and muscle pushed
outward to cover the bone, appearing as if from nowhere, and gleaming scales replaced skin, but the water around Kai remained a cesspool of blood and flesh.
The scent threw the shoal and sharks into a frenzy. The smaller fish darted erratically, swimming loops around the shredded pieces of Kai’s body, nipping at the tendrils of blood and bits of flesh. Aether lost its attractiveness as a lure, but the tunnel was still two hundred feet away, and Kai was scarcely conscious.
The shoal veered and twisted around Zamir and Kai as the sharks pounded against the outer edges. How long could it hold?
The largest shark lunged, and the shoal peeled apart, clearing the way to Zamir and Kai.
Zamir did not even have time to curse as he darted away, carrying the aether regulator and Kai’s dead weight.
Ginny eased out of the tunnel, her arms extended to help.
“No!” Zamir shouted. “Get back!”
But she swam past Zamir and Kai, placing herself between them and the sharks as the sharks cut through the swirling shoal. “Get Kai into the tunnel!”
Damn it! Why the hell would she never listen to him?
He shoved Kai into the tunnel, an instant before the sudden churn of the current swung him around. The huge jaws of a shark yawned apart directly in front of him.
Zamir smashed the regulator against the shark’s mouth.
The impact flung its head back.
The frenzied shoal rushed toward Zamir. “Ginny?” he shouted, but there was no sign of her in the swirling, silvery madness of the shoal. He surged into the tunnel as the shark lunged again, its attack slamming through where Zamir had been. An instant later, the shoal punched into the shark’s side.
The shark stiffened, struck by a thousand…perhaps a million blows.
The shoal passed under the edge of the tunnel in an endless rush of water, the current stronger than each individual shark; far stronger than even all three sharks combined.
And certainly stronger than Ginny.
Zamir tried to break out of the tunnel to look for her, but the shoal of fish was so dense that the wall of small, sleek bodies was utterly impregnable. He counted instead the seconds, and then the minutes, as the shoal, in its entirety, passed under the tunnel opening. His heart racing, his head spinning, he pulled himself down to the edge, bracing himself for what he would find.
Cursed Legacy: Lord of the Ocean #3 Page 6