“Sounds like a damn good reason to put a cork in Jacob’s cruelty,” Corey said. “Unless you want to dip his legs in lime and see if we can melt off enough skin and flesh to shape them into a tail.”
Ginny’s jaw dropped. “Corey! You’re a medic!”
“I’ve seen Kai transform. You have too. Anyone who has seen him transform even once would know how much agony he endures. But to force him to transform three times to torture him? That’s beyond sick, Ginny. That kind of sickness has no place in this world.”
Zamir glanced at the Beltiamatu seated along the rail and said something that caused all of them to dive off the rail. Within moments, the Endling started moving, faster than it could on an engine. On the bridge, Meifeng gasped and gripped the ship’s wheel. “Where are we going?” he shouted to Zamir.
“They’re following the scouts who are pursuing the submersibles.” Zamir turned back to Corey. “Fix Jacob up. Enough so that he can talk, but not enough that he can make good an escape. He has answers, and we need them from him.”
Corey frowned but got to work on Jacob.
Ginny walked over to Zamir. She slipped her hand into his, as she always had, but when their fingers touched, he stiffened. The motion was so subtle, she might have dismissed it as her imagination, if he hadn’t pulled his hand from hers, before folding his arms across his chest.
Shock blanked her thoughts. She stared at Zamir wordlessly, searching his face for answers. Why was he suddenly blocking her off?
“Can you and Meifeng repair the engines?” Zamir asked, without looking at her. “The Beltiamatu might not always be able to propel the ship where we need to go.”
She contemplated retreating. It was the easiest thing, the safest thing. Don’t push a man. The world, in general, had taught her not do that.
But with Zamir, she had learned that if a man was strong enough, he could be pushed, because he was, on his own, strong enough not to be pushed beyond anger into violence. And heck, Zamir was always angry. But he had never hurt her. “What’s wrong, Zamir?” She tilted her head. “What made you decide that we could never work?”
His head snapped up. He stared at her, jaw slack.
Ginny followed on up her advantage and his silence. “I know you don’t want a repeat of Atlantis, but you should at least notice that we’re people, Zamir—you and I. We’re not nations. The only thing at stake between us, personally, is happiness. Nothing more.”
“It’s never as simple as you make it out to be,” Zamir retorted.
“It’s not as complicated as you want it to be,” Ginny shot back. “At any rate, you don’t get to walk back on being friends because you’ve decided you don’t want to be more than that.”
“I didn’t…we’re not….”
“We’re not friends?” Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Really?” She bared her teeth at him in a not-quite smile. “Grow up, Zamir. Do the thing both your son and grandson have had the courage to do: face up to your feelings.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt. You know what happened—”
“Then change the damn rules, Zamir. You’re the king, or aren’t you?”
Chapter 21
Yes, he was the mer-king.
But, no. Not really.
Zamir never intended to return as king, but Kai’s injuries and Badur’s treason had forced him to step forward to lead his people. Revealing his identity skipped past the tediousness of proving himself and winning their trust. But it also locked him into the expectations and burdens of his past.
There was no place in his past for a human mate.
Yet, in his future—
Zamir shook his head sharply.
The future was a right he had not yet earned.
Not until Kai was dead or safely on the throne.
Not until the aether core was retrieved. Not until the threat of Atlantis was eliminated, once and for all.
Not until he expelled Nergal’s soul.
Not until he figured out his ancient connection with Marduk.
One man had the answers he needed. Jacob.
“Is he ready to talk?” Zamir demanded, staring at Jacob’s face over Corey’s shoulder. Zamir had waited long enough. Ginny had stalked off the bridge after her damning challenge, leaving him with only the cacophony of his thoughts. The minutes had dragged, and his patience—never abundant—had worn down to nothing.
“Possibly,” Corey conceded. “As far as I can tell, the spear punctured a lung, but it’s miraculously holding up. His wheezes are much less pronounced than they were an hour ago. I’d even venture to say that he’s getting better.”
Zamir’s gaze flicked to the cuffs that bound Jacob’s hands to a steel ring embedded on the deck. Jacob’s wrists were already chafing—Zamir’s chest tightened—not all that different from Kai’s raw, bloodied wrists.
Kai rested on the other side of the deck, immersed in an inflatable lifeboat filled with sea water. They had already had to change out the water once when Kai shuddered through a transformation, turning the water bloody.
The mer-prince hadn’t even fully regained consciousness, as if pain trapped him in a coma so deep he could only rouse himself enough to grip the sides of the raft, as an anchor against the ocean of agony. The spontaneous transformations were taking place two hours apart, even without any aether in the vicinity.
Kai would die if he didn’t have an aether core within him, stabilizing him, yet it seemed utterly impossible to bring him anywhere near aether without killing him.
If there was a way out of the dilemma, Zamir couldn’t yet see it.
Zamir tapped Corey’s shoulder, and the man stepped out of the way. His gaze flicked to Zamir’s face, and he cleared his throat. “I’ll…just go help Meifeng with the engines.”
Jacob chuckled, a low sound that gurgled in his throat, as if mixed with fluids. A trickle of blood leaked out the side of his mouth. “What will you do to me without any witnesses present?”
“Where is Marduk taking Badur?” Zamir asked.
“Marduk? Maybe I convinced that blind merman of my greater needs, of his greater future with Atlantis rising,” Jacob sneered.
Zamir chuckled, the sound without humor. “Badur’s not that much of a fool. And Ginny’s convinced Badur took the aether core away to save Kai’s life. If she’s right—and she’s rarely wrong—then the last thing Badur would do is hand the aether core over to Kai’s enemies. He would, however, make a deal to get rid of it—giving it to someone who intends to take it off-planet. Like Marduk.”
Jacob shrugged, the slow motion nevertheless graceful. “I don’t know where Marduk is going. And even if I did, why would I tell you?”
“Because if he leaves the planet with the aether core, you’ll never get it either.”
The Atlantean sneered. “There’s another one in Ginny Waters. I’m surprised you haven’t yet killed her and dug it out of her corpse.”
“There are right ways and wrong ways to do things.”
“And you’re enamored with the right way of doing things?” Jacob challenged. “It’s not about what’s right, is it? It’s about what serves your goals in that moment.” His upper lip tugged into a sneer. “Don’t pretend to be heroic—a king come out of hiding, out of retirement, to save his people. Where were you when they were depending on you in the first place to not screw up? Oh wait, you were on the throne then, screwing up—”
Zamir clenched his fist into Jacob’s shirt, pulling him off the ground until the cuff yanked at Jacob’s wrists, preventing further movement, short of wrenching Jacob’s arms out of his sockets.
Like Kai’s arms had been wrenched out of his sockets.
Zamir’s stomach pitched at the much-too-recent memory of Corey slamming Kai’s shoulders back into place. Kai’s eyes had gone blank, as if the enormous, staggering pain had wiped out all his thoughts. His mouth opened in a soundless scream. Every muscle in his body had clenched. Contorted.
Ginny had buried her face in her hands. Even Co
rey looked pale and stricken. “I don’t have to fix your other shoulder yet, Kai. Not until you’re ready.”
A long, silent moment passed, then Kai’s voice, too weak even to be called a whisper, breathed, “Do it.”
Zamir had turned away before Corey worked on Kai’s other shoulder.
He could not watch.
He could not watch Kai gripped by the claws of such vicious agony.
Zamir’s anger, which had not fully come to rest, swelled into titanic proportions—a monstrous, swelling wave, cresting over the oceans. His free hand curled into a fist, and he drew it back—
“Grandfather,” Kai breathed out the word in Beltiamatu, his voice scarcely audible. “No…”
“Kai—”
“There has been enough death. Enough pain.”
“He tortured you. They tortured you.”
“He tortured me.” Kai had raised himself into a sitting position in the water-filled life raft. His shoulders sagged from weariness, but his eyes were clear and focused. “The humans watched…and said no. They cut me down. They saved my life. They were trying to help me when the Beltiamatu arrived—and killed them.” Kai shook his head. “There has been enough death. The humans don’t deserve to be trapped in this war, in the middle of this madness that the Beltiamatu and Atlanteans brought upon themselves. If we can’t end this fighting without hurting humans, then it’s not a war worth winning.”
“People get hurt in war, Kai.”
“It’s not their war. We overstepped, Grandfather. We overstepped when we created the monster that became Atlantis. We overstepped when we tried to destroy the monster we spawned.”
“We will have failed to do our duty if allow Atlantis to take over the Earth.”
Kai shook his head. “Atlantis is more human—far more human than we are. The only thing that makes Jacob Atlantean is his ability to breathe underwater and the unusual color of his eyes. In every other way, he is human. Atlantis is no more. The sole surviving Atlantean is Atlantean in name only. To human eyes, he’s merely a mutant, an oddity.”
Jacob roared. “I am Atlantean! You cannot take my heritage, my blood, my pride from me.”
“You’re not Atlantean.” Kai met Jacob’s eyes. “You are human, with a thin trace of Beltiamatu blood. Royal Beltiamatu blood.” The mer-prince smiled faintly, but the humor did not reach his eyes. “We are almost brothers.”
Jacob’s jaw dropped. “We are not brothers!”
“I would have been the first person to agree with you, but the more I see of you, the more I realize that the Beltiamatu line does breed true, however diluted by human blood. It was in my great-grandmother, Ashe; in my grandfather, my father, and in me. It’s in you, too, Jacob—the absolute, almost fanatical devotion to your beliefs, and the willingness to do anything to accomplish it.”
Zamir chuckled softly, the sound without humor. “Don’t forget the history of bad decision-making that accompanies those beliefs.”
“How could I?” Kai laughed. “If anything defines our family, it is this.”
Zamir drew a deep breath, shaken by the unexpected, blessed glimpse of Kai’s smile, too long absent, scourged by pain. He dropped Jacob onto the deck of the ship.
Only then did he catch a glimpse of Ginny, lingering by the door of the bridge, watching him.
And Zamir was oddly relieved that he had done nothing more than threaten Jacob.
Kai had, once again, saved Zamir from the worst of himself.
The mer-prince sat straight in the lifeboat, his tail extended, shimmering opalescent black in the sunlight. “I overheard the sailors’ conversations on board their ship. They were headed to Portland.”
“Portland, Oregon?” Ginny echoed. “What’s in—?” She paled. “The Tree of Life. It’s in the Blue Mountains of Oregon!”
“What…Tree of Life?” Jacob asked.
“It’s a huge mushroom—fungi—colony spreading over thousands of acres, and connected to other colonies around the world, across oceans through a massive root network that no one fully understands.” Ginny bit her lower lip. “Except that they’re not really mushrooms. They’re…aether.”
“What? All that aether, just sitting out there?”
“Not quite sitting out there. They’re bound, in some way, to the mushrooms, to the Earth. It won’t come loose. Believe me, I’ve tried,” Ginny said. “It’s of no use to us. Neither is it of any use to Marduk, unless he thinks he can get it out, somehow.” She glanced up at Zamir. “There’s so much we don’t know, but you probably do. Or at least Arman does.”
Zamir scowled at her. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t come when called.”
“But if we…” Ginny straightened and looked at Jacob. “You know hypnotism. I know you hypnotized me, trying to get answers out of me when I helped Varun find his way to the underworld. If you hypnotize Zamir, it might allow Arman’s personality to surface and—”
“No!” Zamir snarled. “I will not allow that man—or anyone—to have that kind of power over me.”
“We’ll be listening the whole time. We’ll protect you—”
“No!” Zamir turned to stalk away, but Ginny intercepted him.
“What if it’s the only way?” she asked quietly.
“The only way to do what?” Zamir demanded.
“Save the Earth.” Her eyes met his. “Marduk is trying to leave the planet. No one gets into space without unleashing a ton of energy to get past Earth’s gravitational field. Where the hell is Marduk supposed to find that kind of energy without hitching a ride on a rocket? But he’s not trying to get to Cape Canaveral or break into NASA. He’s going into the mountains. To a field full of dark energy vortexes masquerading as fungi. Didn’t you tell me that dark energy is the most powerful form of energy in the universe?”
Zamir nodded, his thoughts already reeling from the direction in which Ginny was leading him.
“Didn’t you tell me not to get blown up because the aether core I carry could very well explode and leave a big hole in the Earth?”
He nodded again, breathless, defenseless against the devastating stab of Ginny’s too-precise mind.
“There is something out there in those mountains that will allow Marduk to leave the Earth and return to Aldebaran. And what the hell do you think will happen when the energy he expels to do so ignites against thousands of acres of aether?”
Chapter 22
Kai squeezed his eyes against the assault of his memories, but the darkness of his mind roared with flame. Liquid metal and molten rock consumed Shulim. Heat boiled water; the massive surge of steam dropped passing birds from the sky, their flesh cooking in an instant.
All that…a million times more, if thousands of acres of aether ignite.
“Kai?”
He opened his eyes.
Ginny sat beside the life raft. She gripped his shoulder lightly. “Are you all right?”
“Can anybody be all right at a time like this?”
She chuckled, the sound ironic. “I absolutely adore your family’s sunshiny nature.”
“Are you making fun of us? I don’t think—” His breath caught as the tips of his toes tingled.
All he had was that instant of warning.
It was not enough.
Agony tore him apart, drowning him in a riptide without borders.
Kai’s thoughts frayed. Scattered.
He couldn’t find his way back, until Ginny’s low, calm voice finally reached him where he tossed, adrift. Her words didn’t connect, didn’t make sense.
Something about his grandfather.
Something about Nergal.
Something about severing a soul.
He understood none of it, but it was enough to not be alone in his anguish.
Ginny’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. Her cheek pressed against his.
Her tears trailed down his skin.
Kai stirred slowly, finally moving of his own volition instead of spasming through the aftershocks that had torn his b
ody apart.
Ginny’s embrace tightened. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not you.” His breath whispered out in a sigh. “I did this to myself. Destroying Shulim—”
She shook her head, her denial fierce and immediate. “No, Kai. You chose to save the ocean, to save all life on Earth, at a terrible cost to your people, and to yourself. What’s happening to you…?” Ginny drew a deep, shaky breath. “I just wish we could have found a way to save you too.”
“You’ll stay with my grandfather, won’t you?”
In the quiet intimacy of the moment, Kai finally asked the question he had long concealed in the silence of his heart; the question he had not dared voice, for fear of driving Ginny away.
She stiffened against him. “What are you saying, Kai?”
“My grandfather needs you. He won’t ever admit it, but you’ve changed him more than I thought anyone could. And in every way for the better.”
Ginny said nothing for so long that Kai turned his head to look at her.
Her gaze fixed, unseeing, on a distant point, but she must have sensed his focus on her. She nestled her cheek against his. A faint smile tugged her lips into a curve. “We’ll figure it out,” she promised him. “Now, hang in there. I’m going to get Corey, so we can change out the water in your raft.”
Within ten minutes, Kai was resettled in clean water. The last few rays of sunlight glistened off his gleaming black scales. “Thank you,” he murmured.
Corey nodded. “Just call if you need anything else,” he said gruffly before heading toward the bridge.
“You should rest,” Kai told Ginny. “I’ll be all right out here.”
She rose and dusted off her pants. “I’ll go check on Jacob. Make sure Zamir hasn’t killed him.”
Her footsteps faded, leaving him alone on the deck. Alone with his thoughts.
Alone with an unsolvable crisis—the ever more-likely prospect of a planet-wide apocalypse
Cursed Legacy: Lord of the Ocean #3 Page 12