“We held each other when the guards left, taking Kai with them. We heard his cries, each one like a stab to the heart. For days, weeks, even months, I didn’t know if Badur would live. His injuries alone would not have killed him, but something shattered in him the day he gave up his son, and it has never repaired. He gave up everything for love, knowing that love would never know him, never acknowledge him.”
Ginny spoke, “But Kai knows the truth now.”
“The truth is the entirety of the experience. Kai knows the facts, but not the love that compelled Badur’s decisions. Kai doesn’t know the truth. His view is tainted by Zamir, and of course it would be.” Thaleia’s voice took on a sharp edge. “Zamir is not just his grandfather. Zamir is also his father, his mother, his half-sister, his half-brother—the only family Kai has ever had; the family that Badur could not give him. When we saw Kai again, we refused to let ourselves hope, but when we saw how different he was from Zamir, how willing he was to defend what he believed was right, we wondered if perhaps we might have a chance at a reconciliation.” She shook her head. “But we were fools to imagine that we might ever have a second chance. Sometimes, it really is too late for forgiveness.”
“Whose forgiveness does Badur want?” Ginny asked. “Kai’s or Zamir’s?”
“Kai’s, of course!” Thaleia retorted immediately. “What has Zamir to do with any of this?”
“Everyone lost something priceless in this tragedy, not just you, Badur, and Kai. Zamir lost his son and heir.”
Thaleia snorted. “He was an indifferent father.”
“A truly indifferent father could not have raised a heroic son, or an equally heroic grandson. There is in the royal bloodline—at least starting with Ashe, then Zamir, Badur, and Kai—a railing against perceived injustice, and tendency to want to make it right, whatever the cost—however steep the personal cost. That kind of determination can lead to tyranny or heroism.” Ginny shrugged. “They’re just different sides of the same coin.”
“There was nothing heroic about Badur’s theft of the aether core,” Thaleia’s voice grated with sudden bitterness.
“Isn’t there?” Ginny mused. “Badur would have given up his life to save Kai from the titan they battled after our escape from Atlantis.”
“But that was before Zamir turned Kai’s heart against Badur. To have your son’s love almost within grasp, and then to have your own father snatch it away again—”
“I don’t think Kai’s heart is as easily swayed as you imagine. He’s got a long history of standing up to Zamir, especially where it matters most. You know Zamir didn’t turn Kai against Badur; it was Naia…”
Thaleia blanched. “We couldn’t also take her with us, but we couldn’t leave Kai in his grandfather’s hands.”
“His grandfather’s hands have gently tended to him all these years.” And Ginny had lost track of the number of times Zamir risked his life to save Kai. “One thing neither Zamir nor Badur has realized is that they both want what’s best for Kai.”
“Except that it’s not the same thing?”
“Their perspectives are probably very similar. It’s Kai’s opinion that’s different.”
Thaleia’s eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“Zamir and Badur would want nothing more than to set Kai on the throne, but I don’t think Kai believes he deserves it.”
“But he’s done everything, even risked his life, to retrieve the aether core—”
“Kai will do anything to rebuild the empire, but rule the Beltiamatu…?” Ginny’s shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “That’s different. He doesn’t think he’s ready.”
“Because of what he did to Shulim? Our people were doomed—by Zamir. The city’s destruction was inevitable.” Thaleia’s upper lip tugged into a sneer. “Kai should not have had to make the decision to destroy the city, but someone—someone with wisdom and courage—had to prevent our catastrophe from becoming the world’s catastrophe.” Her voice trembled as she shook her head, her silver hair swaying in the gentle current. “As the consequences…the lifelong burden of guilt should not have been Kai’s to bear.”
“There is nothing you can say that will change how Kai feels about his actions; Zamir already tried. Zamir and Kai have, by tacit consent, agreed not to dwell on it. So, if they never talk about the destruction of Shulim, it not because Zamir and Kai don’t each feel single-handedly responsible for destroying the city. It’s because they have a multitude of crises, right now, to focus on. And they’re running out of time. Kai’s running out of time.”
“Zamir feels responsible? But he’s so…”
“Cold? Arrogant?” Ginny nodded. “And acts as though he’s unfailingly correct?” She shrugged. “It’s mostly an act, but he’s awfully good at it. He’s practiced for almost three hundred years.”
“He is who he is.” Thaleia shook her head, her tone dismissive. “You just see him differently.”
Did she? Ginny mulled over the question as she followed Thaleia through a door in the upper reaches of the tower. She shook the niggling doubts aside—for now—and focused on her surroundings. “Security must get tricky around here, with all these entrances on multiple levels.”
“No more so than a building on earth with multiple doors on all sides.” Thaleia nodded her thanks to the guard, then swam over to what looked like a flat-screened monitor.
Ginny peered over Thaleia’s shoulder as the mermaid pressed her hand to the screen, lighting it up. “What are you looking for?” Thaleia asked.
“Is that really a touchscreen?” Ginny’s eyes widened. “It’s not powered by electricity, is it?”
“Aether.”
“But where are all the buttons?”
“What buttons?”
“The screen’s blank,” Ginny pointed out. “What are you supposed to touch?”
“I am already touching it,” Thaleia said, sounding perplexed.
“But where do you press—click—whatever, to begin your search?”
Thaleia tilted her head as if she couldn’t quite understand what Ginny was saying. “You think it.”
Ginny’s jaw dropped. “Really? You mean...can I try, please? I’ve just got to try it.”
“Of course.” Thaleia laughed and slipped to the side. “Just press your hand to the screen. Your thoughts possess unique neural patterns. The pattern created by the mental image of a bottlenose dolphin is different from that of an orca. The key is to be clear and focused in what you’re thinking, and allow the database to pick up on the pattern and deliver on the search, before trying something else.”
“Okay, okay. I got this.” Ginny drew a deep breath, and held one thought, one image, clearly in her mind.
The dimly lit screen exploded into a flurry of color and words, seemingly endless reams of it.
Thaleia peered over Ginny’s shoulder to survey the screen. She blinked hard. “Nergal?”
Chapter 15
Nergal…
Jacob Hayes knew what was in him.
He even knew why it was in him.
It gave vision to his ruined eye and had saved his life, not once, but time and time again, from the countless battles he had lost to that damned mer-prince Kai.
It evened the odds.
And it was well worth the visions that bordered on nightmares.
He didn’t have a name for the dark-haired woman who haunted his sleep. The gleam in her violet eyes matched the glow of aether dancing on her fingertips. The curve of her lips was more sneer than smile, but she was breathtaking.
A goddess, in every sense of the word.
And he hated her. Despised her.
Even though he didn’t know her name.
He wanted to hurt her. Crush her slender neck. Smash the mocking smirk from her face.
He wanted to hurt everything she loved.
Everything…
One thing…
One man…
His nightmare wavered as mists weaved around two figures
emerging from the distant darkness.
Both male.
Kai and Zamir—
No. Not Zamir.
It’s Arman.
As they approached him, the distance separating Arman from Kai closed until both men merged into a single figure. Their features blended until he could no longer tell the difference between Arman and Kai.
Dazzling streaks of green shot through the mists of Jacob’s nightmare, bathing the landscape in eerie light.
Flickering shadows slashed across the man’s features, and when they melted away, only Kai remained—Kai, whose unshakeable devotion to duty was guided by wisdom and compassion.
The mer-prince, ironically, was the truest reflection of Arman’s spirit.
Kai was everything she had loved about Arman.
Kai was everything he hated about Arman.
He…?
Me…?
His mind recoiled.
It can’t be. Not me.
Jacob jolted awake, rapidly blinking away the nightmare. Sweat drenched his pillowcase. His heart pounded. His mind ricocheted with images of Kai in the arms of that nameless goddess.
It didn’t make sense.
None of it made sense.
His life’s purpose was to end the tyranny of the Beltiamatu empire. He had to prevent them from ever again unleashing the Dirga Tiamatu. To accomplish those ends, he had to discover and destroy the mer-capital.
But this hate…
This irrational hate for Kai…
It came from her, from Ondine.
From the power she had bestowed on him.
It was her hate.
Not his.
Jacob buried his face in his trembling hands.
It was too much.
Almost too much to pay for victory.
He had to get a grip. Regain control of a crisis that had careened out of control. Stay focused.
He couldn’t allow Ondine’s hate to drive him past all reason.
A sickly green hue flicked on the edges of his vision.
Jacob rolled out of the narrow bed and staggered to the bathroom. He fisted his hands over his eyes, his teeth clenched against the roiling waves of raw emotion. The tiny bathroom was too cramped for someone clumsy with hate. His knee slammed against the toilet; his elbow rapped against the sink. The shock forced his eyes open.
His stomach pitched as he stared at himself in the mirror.
The white of his right eye—the one burned by Kai in their first underwater battle—appeared green, but surely, that was just the dim bathroom lighting and his fatigued mental state playing havoc on his perception.
Jacob inhaled deeply.
The war he waged on the Beltiamatu was for his people, his planet, his home.
His people—humans. Not Atlanteans.
There was no point in fighting a war on behalf of Atlantis, not when he was the last of that ancient race. He was fighting to safeguard the world from the Dirga Tiamatu.
It wasn’t about Kai.
It wasn’t personal.
He couldn’t make it personal.
Jacob stared, unblinking, at the mirror as the green tint faded from his eye.
The blind, unreasoning hatred of Kai faded too.
Ondine.
His upper lip curled into a silent snarl.
She’d done this to him. Twisted his emotions. Poisoned his thoughts.
She used him to further her ends.
As had Marduk.
Jacob grimaced at the sound of their voices, scarcely audible on the other side of the wood-paneled cabin wall.
He strode from his cabin, and without knocking, flung open the door to the mess hall. Four times the size of Jacob’s cabin, the mess hall was used by the crew at meal times, and the rest of the time by Marduk, who kept vigil by the small glass window on the far side of the hall. The window separated the mess hall from another small cabin where the merman, Badur, was imprisoned—in comfort, certainly, but a prisoner nonetheless.
Marduk and Ondine stood beside the window, and both looked over their shoulder as Jacob entered the room.
“And here’s the final member of our happy trio,” Ondine said with a mocking tone in her voice, but the smile on her lips faded, and her eyes narrowed as Jacob closed the distance. “Did you—what is that phrase?—get up on the wrong side of bed?”
Jacob ignored her question. “Has the Endling caught up with us?”
“It has us well within sights, but is maintaining a careful distance,” Ondine replied.
Jacob scowled. “It’s faster than we are. Why hasn’t it overtaken us?”
“They’re outnumbered,” Marduk spoke up.
“It’s never stopped Kai before. You said that if we saddled ourselves with this blind merman, Kai would come for his father.” Jacob glared at Marduk. “Where is the mer-prince?”
“Perhaps he cares less for his father than you imagined, Marduk,” Ondine teased.
“You underestimate how much influence Arman—or Zamir, as you call him—has over Kai,” Marduk said. “Zamir will not attack unless he is certain of victory. If he’s biding his time, it’s because he has a plan—”
“If Kai will not attack us—here and now—in the water where he rules, he will not do so on land, where he stands no chance of victory,” Jacob snapped. “I need the location of the mer-capital, and for that, I need to capture the mer-prince! That was our agreement, Marduk, the bargain you made for the aether core!”
“Or what?” Marduk finished the sentence, uttering the words Jacob had not spoken aloud.
“Or to hell with our race to reach the west coast of America. This ship is mine. These resources are all mine.” Jacob glared at Ondine. “You want the piece of your soul back from Zamir. And you, Marduk, want Badur—or at least what’s in him. I want the mer-prince, Kai. And unless I get what I want, I can make sure that nobody gets anything.”
Ondine’s green eyes gleamed. “It is unwise to threaten the one who gave you your power.”
Jacob laughed, the sound without humor. “The power that haunts my nightmares with visions of a woman without a name. A woman I don’t know, but I despise? The power that consumes me with absolute hate for Kai—hate I never felt until you gave me this aspect of Nergal? You’ve twisted something vital in me—”
“Why Kai…?” Marduk murmured, almost to himself. “Nergal hated Arman. Why is your hatred directed toward Kai instead of Zamir, who possesses Arman’s soul?”
“Because Zamir is in control,” Ondine replied before Jacob could. “His psyche is so powerful that it has subdued, unknowingly, all other facets within him—Jackson, Arman, and even Nergal. They make no decisions, yet silently serve his needs. But Kai…” Ondine smiled faintly. “He is very much like Arman in what he chooses to hold close to his heart, and what he is willing to sacrifice to protect it. After all, the Beltiamatu royal family breeds true, and Kai is the last of Arman’s line.”
The last…?
Jacob stiffened as Ondine leaned toward him. Her fingertips brushed against his cheek, her breath against his ear. “Kai is the key. When we capture him, wring from him the answers you seek. Then kill him. His death will shatter both Badur and Zamir. Then Marduk and I will claim our prize. Your prize—Kai—comes first. It has always come first.”
A greenish haze pricked the edge of his eye and rapidly spread across it. Quiescent emotions, deliberately forced into a corner of his heart and mind, exploded.
Jacob’s hands clenched into fists, the veins standing out in his arm. “You said…when.”
“Yes, when.” Ondine cast Marduk a sideway glance. “We were just talking about it. We have a plan to lure Kai in: a challenge—a direct threat—he cannot ignore.”
Chapter 16
“Your records overlap a great deal with our limited knowledge of Sumerian mythology.” Ginny hastened to keep up with Zamir as he swam through the corridors of the governor’s palace, the largest private residence in the Oceri colony. Mer-warriors accompanied him, keep
ing a respectful distance while watching with unabated curiosity the human woman who swam awkwardly beside the king, chattering endlessly. “They all state that Nergal was the god of fire and pestilence, but we know he lost his fire magic to Varun. The pestilence aspect of his powers ended when your mother killed him, so what was left of him?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
Ginny bristled at Zamir’s distracted tone, but persisted anyway. “He gave something of himself to Ondine—his ability to heal himself and his ability to control aether. That power awoke her from her coma and turned her into a pain-in-the-ass. Then, when he was killed, his soul—or at least some fragment of it—went into you.”
“Unfortunately, it was neither his self-healing ability nor his ability to control aether. Where are you going with this?”
“It’s the magic of logic. Just stick with me. Logic is going to save the world, I promise.” Ginny frowned. “Now, where was I…? Oh, then after Kai blinded and nearly killed Jacob, Ondine gave Jacob the self-healing aspect of Nergal’s power, keeping the aether for herself. So…what’s in you that Ondine wants so badly? It had to be the most private part of Nergal, the aspect he kept closest to himself. It would have to be the last thing he would have given up, and only then upon the moment of his death.”
Zamir frowned. “It sounds like you have bad news for me.”
“What drove Nergal?” Ginny asked simply.
“Revenge?”
“Yes,” Ginny continued, “but why?”
“Why? What do you mean why? Because he was a—what is that human term that my mother’s parrot was so fond of—a dumbass?”
“Asshole would be a better choice of word, but no, he loved Inanna.”
“So what?”
“Who loved Arman?”
Zamir jerked to a stop.
Finally. Ginny smirked. That got your attention.
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