Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Read online

  Cursed Throne

  Lord of the Ocean #2

  Jade Kerrion

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books By Jade Kerrion

  Copyright © 2019 by Jade Kerrion

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cursed Throne / Jade Kerrion—1st ed.

  Cover Design by Rebecca Frank

  Chapter 1

  The pulse of the ocean current thudded like a war drum, its quickening rhythm accelerating heartbeats. It swept across the seabed, around the coral clusters, and through the ropy vines of seaweed hanging over cave entrances. The seaweed swayed, giving way to greater force. The illusion of privacy vanished.

  As did all hope for peace.

  The few surviving Beltiamatu—merfolk, as they were known to humans—vanished into the sanctuary of the caves, their glimmering tails and gossamer fins leaving trails of bubbles.

  Only five remained in open water, prepared to defend the colony.

  And two of them were not even Beltiamatu, Zamir reflected, his wryness tinged with bitterness.

  Ginny Waters, her wispy blond hair tugged into a ponytail, wore a wet suit, but was not encumbered by heavy oxygen tanks. She breathed underwater, thanks to the transformative power of aether—a dark energy vortex. The aether core shimmered at her fingertips, like a black cloud seared with purple slashes of lightning. She was entirely out of place—an ancient civilizations professor whose definition of the great outdoors was once limited to picnic lunches on the university quad—but she had gotten by thus far on beginner’s luck and raw, often misplaced, courage.

  Zamir did not know how much further luck and courage would take her, but neither would help her find an instructor or a mentor. He knew the most about aether, and his knowledge skimmed fractionally above knowing nothing at all, his three distinct personas notwithstanding.

  Of the three, he—Zamir, once the king of the Beltiamatu—was dominant. The clearest memories and motivations were his own. His identity, however, he kept secret from all but Ginny and his grandson, Kai.

  His soul was the First Commander’s—the pilot of the starship that carried the deposed royal family of An and their servants from Aldebaran to Earth millennia ago, long before the recording of time and human history.

  His body had once been Henry Jackson’s—the first mate of the marine research vessel, Veritas—but had been since remolded by aether into the genetic and physical likeness of the First Commander. Jackson’s formidable military skills, however, survived the transformation unscathed and embedded into Zamir’s subconscious.

  When Zamir looked at Ginny, though, he wondered if more than just Jackson’s skills had survived death and the subsequent transformation.

  Did attraction survive too?

  Grimacing, he shook the stray thought away. Three-in-one. On a practical level, it guaranteed that Zamir had a solution for almost every problem.

  In reality, he had never been in this situation, his massive army of elite mer-warriors reduced to—

  Three.

  His gaze flicked over the three merfolk who remained outside the cave, who had not retreated from the threat of battle. Two were leaders of the rural mer-colony—Badur, a blind merman, and Thaleia, his silver-haired mate.

  The third, Zamir’s grandson Kai, prince of the Beltiamatu and the rightful heir to the now empty throne, was the only warrior in the group. His black scales gleamed with iridescent hues, as lustrous as pearls. His dark blue hair, cut short as the warriors preferred, skimmed the base of his neck, and his body bore many scars—not just of battle, but of torture.

  The Temple of Ishtar, the heirs of Atlantis, once held him captive, and they had reveled in making him bleed.

  Now, the Atlanteans’ underwater drones and machines were closing in on the few surviving mer-colonies, their engines churning the water, scattering the fish, attracting the sharks.

  “I’ll handle this.” Kai’s grip tightened on his platinum spear. His voice carried over the water in deep, melodic tones, more haunting than the song of the whales.

  Kai spoke in Beltiamatu, but Zamir knew Ginny understood enough ancient Sumerian to make an educated guess as to what he was saying. She squinted up; sunlight skittered off the three metallic hulls chugging through the water. Propellers churned cascades of bubbles, further breaking up the light until only scattered pools appeared on the ocean floor. “There’s too many of them,” Ginny said. Aether churned in her hand, making her words audible. “I’ll help you.”

  Zamir shook his head. “Stay with Badur and Thaleia. If the Atlanteans get past us, the colony will need you to protect them.”

  There was another reason to leave Ginny behind, Zamir reflected grimly as he seized a spear and swam after Kai. The aether Ginny wielded wreaked havoc on Kai’s body, triggering agonizing spasms. Higher aether concentrations and flashier displays would have transformed Kai’s tail into human legs, turning the ocean crimson with his blood.

  “Are you all right?” Zamir asked Kai as the mer-colony faded into the dark blue of deep water.

  “For now,” was Kai’s noncommittal reply. The muscle twitching in his smooth cheek said otherwise, as did the blood vessels cording on his biceps. He glanced at Zamir. “Take out the propellers?”

  Zamir nodded. It was the cleanest, fastest way to disable the light submarines headed their way. Fortunately, all were commercial vessels designed for deep-sea enthusiasts. A military submarine, outfitted for war, would have been far harder to disable.

  “I’ll do it. I’m faster.” Kai’s tail flexed and contracted in a smooth, undulating motion that allowed him to dart through the waters. Zamir had no trouble recalling the movements that would allow him to cut through the water more swiftly than a sailfish, but his human legs could not match the power of a Beltiamatu tail.

  Kai was a shadow in the distance, barely visible amid the bulky hulls of the light submarines speeding toward the mer-colony. Side panels on the three submarines slid back, and six missiles launched into the water. Zamir’s first instinct was to swim away from the torpedoes, until he realized that the missiles were slow and moved with oddly erratic purposefulness instead of straight, unwavering focus.

  Drones.

  If even one of them found and transmitted the location of the mer-colony, the battle—and the war—would be lost. The remains of the Beltiamatu empire would never survive an organized assault from the now rising power of Atlantis.

  Z
amir kicked hard, propelling himself directly in front of a drone’s eye. A red light gleamed from behind a reinforced viewing glass, its metallic glow both impersonal and ominous. The drone turned to follow Zamir as he darted in front of a second drone.

  It, too, turned to follow.

  Easily, he raced through the water, weaving around the light submarines, and luring the other four drones into a chase.

  Now, to hold their attention and lead them astray—

  Medea’s cave.

  He swam to the ocean floor, and headed east toward the Greek island of Kalymnos, before veering sharply south. Rocks pockmarked the sandy seabed, clustering until they rose into a coral-encrusted sea wall. Light blue ribs, purple fans, green brain corals, yellow bulbs, and red pillars clung precariously to the rocks. Scattered rays of filtered sunlight struck the sea wall, turning the array of corals into flashy colors.

  The drones did not slow down to admire the view. Instead, they followed Zamir as he twisted past the coral clusters and into a dark, natural tunnel partly concealed by the spreading orange branches of a massive elk horn coral.

  The faint slivers of sunlight vanished, and the cave interior began to glow. Phosphorescent lichen cast its silver-tinged light upon the cave, accentuating the ridges on the walls and darkening the furthest edges of the cave.

  The water, which should have been crystal clear, was cloudy.

  It reeked of decay and death.

  Zamir had no fear of meeting the sea witch, Medea. After all, he was among the few who knew who she really was.

  She no longer held court in these caves; she no longer led young merfolk astray with enigmatic prophecies and unanswerable questions.

  But that did not mean the caves, among the deepest in the Levantine Sea, were without danger.

  The cave had once been the biggest threat of all. The evenly spaced ridges were long and curved, like ribs. The walls had once been flesh, petrified by age. The skin, once harder than stone, was slowly flaking off, the minute particles polluting the water.

  The creature once had a name. Loosely translated into English, it was called Big Thing. Its whirlwind suction had spawned later mythologies of Charybdis. It was dead now, a victim of the disease that had swept across the oceans, before leaping onto land. Its slowly rotting carcass was a reminder that death brought low even the greatest predators in the ocean.

  Sleek shapes slithered in Zamir’s peripheral motion.

  And death spawned life.

  At least five, perhaps six, eel-like shapes slinked through the water. As long as full-grown reef sharks, they were faster than their ungainly, bulbous heads should have allowed them to be.

  Big Thing’s offspring.

  He had not even known that the monster could breed.

  One darted toward him. Its jaws yawned apart, revealing rows of serrated teeth. Water churned and twisted into its maw, and Zamir had to kick back to avoid being sucked forward. The little thing was but a minnow. Fully grown, it would rip anchors from the seabed and tug battleships into the ocean’s depths, but even now, small as it was, it was a challenge for a solitary warrior.

  Zamir brandished his spear, but at the last moment, struck the attacking creature aside with the staff instead. His jaw tightened. There has been enough death.

  Save the killing for those who truly deserve it.

  Like the Atlanteans.

  He swam along the wall, dragging his spear through the petrifying flesh, bumping across the ridges. Particles of rotting meat tore off the carcass, revealing calcified ribs, and turning the water into a storm of white and gray flakes.

  The drones swiveled, lost amid the frenzied churning of the water. Their eyes glowed like beacons. The minnows swarmed toward the drones, batting against the metallic shells with their sleek, powerful bodies. Teeth flashed as jaws yawned apart. It was only a matter of time before their uncoordinated attacks ripped apart the six drones.

  The cave mouth swirled with too much motion for Zamir to make his way past the drones and monsters unscathed, but there were many other exits from Medea’s warren of caves. The water turned clear and cool the deeper he swam. The tunnels twisted and turned, tiny corridors leading into dead ends, but Zamir knew the way. He had traversed it, not once but twice, to find the sea witch.

  And both times, she had led him astray—answering his questions, without telling him that he was asking the wrong question.

  Damn sea witch.

  He knew her now as Inanna, one of the Illojim, revered by the ancient Sumerians as the queen of heaven and earth. She was also patron goddess of Atlantis, although he did not know how much affection she still harbored for the Atlanteans.

  Probably best not to test that. In fact, it’s probably best not to do anything to test Inanna or the rest of the Illojim. Including Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld and patron goddess of the Beltiamatu. The world had suffered enough from the ancient resentments and feuds of immortal aliens masquerading as gods.

  Zamir ducked into what seemed like a narrow alcove. The small space concealed a tunnel behind a rock shelf. It wound downward before opening into a grotto filled with light. The hues—violet, silver, aqua, and teal—radiated from stalagmite-like crystals, casting their multi-hued glow upon the curve of a giant oyster shell.

  Medea’s throne was empty.

  Who knew where the goddess was now, or what trouble she was up to?

  Resentment weighed against his chest, tightening his breath. It was time for the world to break away from the heavy-handed influence of these so-called gods. It was time to make their own future, instead of one dictated by aliens.

  He was about to turn away when a sharp gleam behind the curve of the throne caught his eye.

  Kneeling, he ran his fingers along the lower ridges of the throne and eased out a small chest—no longer, wider, or thicker than his forearm. Its top was clear glass, but the chest’s sides and bottom were smooth and sleek, the color of gold but far less malleable. Orichalcum, he realized. The lock on the chest was a black, reflective oval, without a keyhole.

  The contents of the chest, tumbled carelessly together, made his breath catch.

  A necklace—his mother’s necklace—with a black scale pendant, made from his scale.

  A dagger with a curved blade and a plain hilt. The Isriq Genii. The soul-stealer.

  The last time he had seen the dagger was on the Dalkhu Libru, the Illojim starship. What was it doing here now?

  Were these Inanna’s treasures? Her trophies?

  Zamir’s mother had been wearing that necklace when she vanished after that final battle with Nergal. What did it mean that the necklace was here in this box? Was his mother alive?

  The sharp, sudden ache in his chest—he did not know what it meant, and he did not have time to understand it—but he wasn’t leaving the box behind.

  Tucking it into his belt pouch, he swam through the tunnels as they curved up to the surface. Glowing crystals gave way to phosphorescent lichen before dimming into the natural glow of distant sunlight, scattering in erratic patterns upon the sandy seabed. He glanced up. Two of the light submarines were plunging slowly toward the ocean floor. Smoke and oil, spilling from gaping holes near the propeller, melded into the seawater. Divers—at least twenty—swarmed around Kai, but, laden with heavy gear, they were no match for a trained Beltiamatu warrior.

  Kai’s tail, powerful enough to stun a full-grown orca, slammed into a diver’s stomach. The inside of the diver’s mask splattered with blood expelled from his nose and mouth. Twisting with unmatched speed and grace, Kai drove his weapon into another diver’s chest, then ripped the breathing apparatus from the face of a third diver. His long talons punctured the hoses, disabling the equipment.

  With a flick of his tail, he launched up through the water. The spears from the divers’ spear guns raced harmlessly through the water where Kai had been, before sinking, not as harmlessly, into other divers. The weapons pierced their wet suits. Crimson trails leaked into the water, rivulets of
red against blue.

  The sun glistened off Kai’s black scales. His diaphanous fins spread in the water, as translucent as a black veil hemmed with silver thread.

  If there were more like him, the battle, and the war, would never be in doubt.

  Shafts of sunlight from the surface splattered into shifting, quavering pools of light on the sandy seabed. Three more light submarines surged overheard. Zamir’s eyes narrowed. These were his responsibility.

  He darted up to a submarine. His spear, shoved into the propeller, stopped the spinning motion. The engines ground, harder and harder, forcing the propeller against the spear, steel against platinum, until the propeller snapped.

  Shards of steel floated away in the water. The submarine hovered, unmoving in the water. The current shifted around him. Zamir twisted around as something surged out of the side panel on the second submarine.

  Not a drone—

  A torpedo.

  He launched himself up. The torpedo surged beneath him and struck the first submarine.

  The shockwaves threw him back.

  His head reeling from the near concussion, Zamir righted himself. Disbelief fixed his gaze on the first submarine as it plunged toward the ocean floor. Fumes blended into seawater, darkening it. Bodies—skin blackened, burned—floated from the torn belly of the underwater craft.

  Zamir wrenched his attention back to the second submarine, and the third. Their panels had been retrofitted for torpedoes instead of drones—for war, not exploration.

  The panel on the other side of the submarine opened, and a second torpedo launched out.