Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Page 13

  A purple streak of lightning flashed from Ginny’s fingertips. It struck Jacob, and he recoiled.

  Kai screamed, writhing as skin and flesh melted and bled off his legs.

  Ginny gritted her teeth. If aether magic was the only way to keep Jacob from reaching the core, then so be it.

  Whatever it costs Kai.

  The air filled with arcs of brilliant purple light that sizzled down to strike handguns and rifles, melting deadly metal parts into solid, unusable wholes. The Beltiamatu, sensing the sudden panic, struck out with rapid swings of their tail, knocking the cultists to the ground. Although wounded, Zamir tackled Jacob, wrestling him to the ground.

  Ginny glared at Ondine. “You are becoming a pain. Why won’t you just die properly, and stay dead?”

  “I died a long time ago as a child tossed overboard into an unforgiving sea.” Ondine’s smile was cold, her voice calculating. “But the gods would not let me die.”

  “Gods? You mean the selfish alien juvenile delinquents masquerading as ancient gods?” Ginny flung out a blast of aether energy. It enveloped Ondine in a shroud of purple. “That revelation was a hell of a way to kill an entire branch of serious academic study. Your gods have turned it into a joke. You all turned my life’s work into a joke, and the entire Earth into your damned playground.”

  Specks of green appeared in the purple shroud, then intensified like a knife tearing through the edges of fragile cloth. In a single blast, green ripped purple apart. “How is what we do any different from what you humans do? The battle has always belonged to the strongest, and it’s a pity that humans are only just learning that they’re not the strongest—that they are, in fact, the weakest. Below the Illojim, below the Beltiamatu, and even below the Atlanteans.” Ondine blasted green rays from her hands.

  Ginny flung out her arm; aether molded into a shield. Ondine’s light spread out against her defenses, gleaming green against shimmering purple. “You know what the problem is, Ondine? Or should I call you Nergal? The problem is that there isn’t a single damned adult in the room!”

  Ondine laughed. “And you pride yourself on being that adult? What have your decisions done except unleash untold, endless pain on the one person upon whom the survival of the Beltiamatu hinges?”

  Kai.

  Chapter 19

  Streaks of brilliant green and dazzling purple shot across Kai’s vision, obscuring all details. Movements blurred around him. Ginny battled Ondine—their aether magic sending endless tidal waves of pain crashing over him. On the other side of the pedestal, Jacob and Zamir wrestled, evenly matched only because Zamir was wounded. But the cultists kept coming, more and more of them. They piled into the battle, attacking Zamir. Jacob broke away and sprinted toward Atlantis’s aether core.

  No!

  Kai dragged himself over the ground, leaving a trail of blood as his legs melted into a tail, and then ripped apart into legs again. Agony wafted a red haze across his vision until he could hardly see. His heartbeat thudded loudly and erratically, transforming the sounds of battle into a muted buzz.

  He stared at the aether core. It shimmered in and out of focus. Jacob’s body was a blurry shadow as he climbed onto the pedestal.

  Kai gritted his teeth as his tail reshaped, for an instant, into legs. He shot to his feet and lunged at Jacob, tackling him to the ground. Agony blasted through his mind as his legs writhed into the shape of a tail. The scent of blood—his blood—was all around him. Jacob drove a fist into Kai’s stomach. The impact doubled him over, but he scarcely felt it on top of the pain already consuming him.

  Willpower alone drove him. Kai slashed out, blindly, his talons ripping Jacob’s face.

  Jacob fought back, for his life, for aether. His hands fumbled with something below his waist. Cold metal pressed against Kai’s chest, and a loud sound boomed around him. Kai was still reeling when Jacob pushed him away. His back hit the ground. Dazedly, he pressed his hand to his stomach. It came away, sticky with blood.

  Jacob sprinted toward the pedestal and scrambled onto it, reaching, unchallenged, for the aether core.

  Kai didn’t want the aether core for himself. He had never wanted the core.

  The first one had caused him endless pain.

  The second one could kill him.

  But he would be damned if he let it fall, unchallenged, into the hands of the Atlanteans.

  Jacob stretched toward the regulator, his fingers slipping against the smooth adamantine surface, within inches of touching—and claiming—the core.

  As Kai had done all those weeks ago in Shulim, as the chamber crumbled from the heat of the Dirga Tiamatu, he extended his hand.

  The aether core lifted off its damaged regulator. Shimmering, it darted over Jacob’s grasping fingers and toward Kai.

  Agony, beyond words, beyond description, melted his legs into a tail, then tore them apart again. The aether core brushed against Kai’s fingertips and settled into the palm of his hand like a small pet, coiling, purring, safe.

  “No!” Jacob shouted. He swung his handgun up; his finger squeezed the trigger.

  Kai held the aether core against his chest, and it lashed out, its tendrils inky black. The pain was as precise as pinpricks, so sharp that Kai felt it even above the agony washing through his body. Half-latched on to Kai, the aether core burst into bright light, shattering the bullet into harmless pieces before it struck Kai’s heart.

  Then, the aether core vanished.

  And in that instant, the pain—all of it—stopped.

  Aether magic—raw dark energy—with all its deadly, transforming power still arced through the air, purple and green light interlacing above and around him, but it no longer hurt. The bloodied, melted lower half of his body shaped into legs.

  The change, no longer frenzied, was not slow, but it was deliberate.

  And when it was complete, his legs did not transform back into a tail.

  Jacob’s scream was incoherent with rage. He aimed his handgun at Kai, but in that instant, the earth heaved, tumbling everyone off their feet. Cracks appeared at the eight compass points and converged on the pedestal in the center of the grove. With precise timing, they all struck the pedestal at the same exact moment.

  The sound cracked across the air, then sank into the earth, reaching deep.

  And with a groan, the earth tore apart along the precise fault lines. Screaming, Jacob tumbled into one of the cracks, the sound of his cries fading as he plunged into the earth.

  Ginny screamed as she slid into one of the cracks. Her fingers scrabbled to hold on to the ledge. Ondine, still crouched on solid ground, straightened slowly.

  “Help me, please,” Ginny pleaded.

  Ondine raised her foot to crush Ginny’s hand, but Kai lunged, knocking Ondine aside. She struck her head on the ground and rolled into one of the widening cracks. She fell soundlessly, her arm stretched out to the surface, as if in a final salute.

  Kai grabbed Ginny’s wrist. “I won’t let you go,” he promised. Grimacing as the earth tugged apart all around him, he pulled her up.

  Her chest heaving from her brush with death, Ginny stared at him. “You…you’re all right. The aether core?”

  “I have it. Let’s get out of here.” Kai glanced toward Zamir, who was still fighting off three divers while precariously balanced at the tip of one of the cracks in the earth, endless falls into the darkness on either side of him.

  “Get the others back to the water,” Zamir shouted. “I don’t need help.”

  “He never does,” Kai muttered under his breath, but he sprinted through the grove toward the water’s edge. The divers who had been battling the Beltiamatu were either already dead, or had fled from the heaving earth. The Beltiamatu, with their heavy tails, were not as swift. Ginny slung her arm around Thaleia’s shoulders and hauled her toward the water. Kai swept his arms around Naia, lifted her effortlessly off the ground, and carried her to the water. Their eyes met as he lowered her into the water, but neither said anything.
Then, he carried Thaleia to the water. “You go with them,” he told Ginny. “You need a head start. I’ll get Badur.”

  Ginny glowered at him, probably not thrilled at being reminded that she was the slow poke in the group, but she and the two mermaids dipped beneath the surface and vanished.

  “It’s me,” Kai said perfunctorily to announce himself before helping Badur. The merman was heavier than the mermaids, and Kai carried Badur across his back, Badur’s long tail draping off his shoulder.

  “You…you’re not hurt,” Badur wheezed.

  “I was. I’m not anymore. Not with the aether core in me.”

  “You have Atlantis’s core, then. Safe.”

  “Yes.”

  Relief flooded Badur’s voice. “It’s ours once more. As it should have always been.”

  Something about Badur’s voice struck Kai as odd, yet familiar, but he had no time to linger on it. Shoving the thought aside, he knelt slowly and eased Badur off his shoulders and into the water. Thaleia, who lingered a few feet away, immediately swam up to Badur and took his hand. Their fingers wound together with the familiarity of longtime companions. Thaleia looked up at Kai. “Come with us.”

  “Not yet. I have to get—”

  “He’s just a human,” Badur cut in harshly. “Why do you risk your life for a human?”

  Because he’s my only family. Kai bit back the words. “Get out of here. I’ll be right behind you.” He turned away. The grove, however, was no longer recognizable. Ancient trees had toppled, knocking others over before plunging into the earth. The ground yawned apart, swallowing the bodies of dead and unconscious cultists. Heat rose from the depths of the earth, condensing against the cool air to fill the vast space with hot steam, until Kai could see no more than a foot in front of his face.

  He dropped to his knees and crawled forward, feeling his way with his hands. “Grandfather!” he shouted.

  “Here!” Zamir called out. He sounded out of breath, his voice edged with pain.

  And just a hint of panic.

  Kai hurried forward, following Zamir’s voice, to a vast crevasse on the far side of the pedestal. The ground around it was riddled with cracks. There was no sign of Zamir—

  Wait…the fingers…knuckles…barely visible, clinging to the edge.

  The grip loosened, fingers slipping.

  Kai shot to his feet and sprinted, hurtling over cracks, large and small, then leaping over the pedestal. He slammed into the ground, the impact knocking the breath out of him.

  In the same instant that he saw Zamir’s fingers vanish.

  “No!” He threw himself headfirst into the crevasse. Zamir was falling fast, vanishing into the darkness, but their fingers brushed, and Kai managed to grab his grandfather’s hand.

  “What are you doing?” Zamir shouted, his eyes wide with shock and fury.

  “Gambling,” Kai shouted back, as they both fell.

  “On what?”

  “Aether saving my life.” Kai reached for the rock wall. Aether burst from his fingertips. Its purple light surged out like an exploding super nova, and the world twisted.

  Literally.

  Within their cocoon of light, gravity flipped.

  Instead of falling down into the earth, Kai and Zamir were flung upward into the air, as quickly as they had fallen, and in no more controlled a way.

  “How is this better?” Zamir snarled.

  “The pedestal!” Kai gasped as he was flung past it.

  Zamir grabbed on to the edge of the adamantine pedestal. His white-knuckled grip kept them from being flung into the air, but neither did it bring them down. “Now what?” he demanded.

  Kai grimaced as he slowly folded his fingers into a fist.

  Doing it slowly made no difference. The aether vanished in a blink, dropping them hard. They smashed into the pedestal, and rolled off, but Kai managed to grab onto the pedestal too.

  For a few moments, Kai and Zamir stared at each other across the pedestal. Then, a slow smile spread over Zamir’s face. “Well done.”

  His grandfather’s praise settled like a benediction over him. Kai hadn’t realized how much he had craved it, how rarely he had heard it—if he ever had—until he finally did. “The others are back in the ocean.” His gaze searched the roof of the grove as cracks raced across the ceiling, so large that they were visible even from where they stood. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Zamir grimaced, looking over the patchwork of ground—small spots of brown and green, surrounded by the blackness of the abyss. The steam pouring out of the earth made distance nearly impossible to gauge. Zamir’s hand, pressed against his still-bleeding side, tightened. Crimson leaked from beneath his fingers.

  “How bad is it?” Kai asked.

  “It’s already healing. With the bullet still in it.” Zamir’s grimace deepened into a scowl. “I’ll have to ask Corey to cut it out. Let’s go.”

  He leaped off the pedestal, soaring through the air to land on a narrow patch of ground. Deep chasms of darkness surrounded him, but he moved with a certainty that left Kai in awe. Despite all its superficial similarities to humans, there was nothing human about the body Zamir now occupied, even if no one knew exactly what it was.

  Kai drew a deep breath, and followed his grandfather, moving as safely and as gracefully over the patches of solid ground, although without Zamir’s confident arrogance. The smoking earth rumbled beneath them. Zamir reached the water’s edge and turned, catching Kai’s outstretched arms as he landed on the edge of a chasm that had unexpectedly yawned wider beneath his feet. Their eyes met. “You’re all right,” Zamir promised.

  And for the first time in a long time, Kai believed it.

  The vast groaning sound from the center of the grove snapped their attention back to the pedestal. “It’s melting,” Kai breathed the words out. But how could it be? Adamantine remained solid when most metals melted into liquids. To actually melt…What kind of heat was emerging from the planet’s core?

  The golden hues of adamantine ran like liquid off the sides of the pedestal until it was nothing but a shapeless lump. Then something shifted—

  Kai frowned. “Wait—”

  “Atlantis is going to explode. Again. This time, through its core. We have to get some distance from this place.”

  “No. Look…”

  The golden lump smoothed. It narrowed in some places, broadened in others, until it resembled the sculpture of a man, tucked into a fetal ball.

  Zamir snarled. “If that’s Nergal…”

  Skin shimmering with the gleam of gold, the sculpture unfolded like a living statue, a man rising to stand tall where the pedestal had been. Its lean muscles were clearly defined; its bald head accentuated distinctive, angular facial features.

  Physically, the statue did not look unlike Zamir. They could have been the same race.

  Brothers, even…

  The statue turned to look at Kai and Zamir.

  Zamir’s inhalation was scarcely audible. “You…”

  Kai spun around. “You know him?”

  “I…” Zamir’s eyebrows drew together. “I…can’t remember, but…he’s familiar.”

  The statue stepped forward, walking over the chasms as if they were solid ground.

  Kai shook his head. “I don’t like where this is heading.”

  The man—clearly it was not a statue—strode toward Zamir, apparently oblivious to all obstacles in its way.

  Hairline cracks at Kai’s feet spread into thick, jagged lines. Kai shifted his weight to keep from plunging to his death. On the other side of the grove, more trees vanished as the ground crumbled into darkness. The man was several feet away and Zamir was still staring at him, transfixed.

  The man raised his hand. It could have been the beginning of a salute, or an attack, but Kai grabbed Zamir around the waist and pulled him into the water. “We’re getting out of here. Now.”

  The water splashed reality or awareness back onto the former mer-king. The stunned expres
sion in Zamir’s eyes—that Kai was certain belonged to one of the other entities in his grandfather’s body—vanished. Shrewdness returned, and with it the undulating grace of the Beltiamatu. Together, they swam across the cavern lined with a yellow brick road, then through the other sections of the cave, back into open water. The hull of the Endling was a dark, welcoming shadow overhead.

  Kai glanced over his shoulder.

  They were not followed.

  Yet the dread in the pit of his stomach dug talons into him.

  What terror had they—he—unleashed in the pits of Atlantis?

  Chapter 20

  Sunlight welcomed Zamir back to the surface, and the waves sloshed gently as he clambered onto the Endling. Kai followed, and Corey greeted them with a broad smile. “You’re definitely her great-grandson,” he told Kai. “Wherever she went, disaster followed.”

  Ginny, who had been already waiting on the deck, joined them in their silent vigil at the bow of the ship. The center island of Atlantis crumbled slowly into the sea, until there was nothing left of it above the surface of the water.

  Kai drew a trembling breath before turning to Ginny. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “I’m not hurt.”

  He glanced toward the ocean. “And…the others?”

  “A little banged up—the cultists weren’t gentle with them—and Naia worst of all. She was stung by the irukandji before she managed to hide among the submersibles. The cultists found her and dragged her along, hoping to use her as a bargaining chip. Corey examined them, but couldn’t do anything for them, so Naia and Badur are resting below the ship. Thaleia said she’d find something to help with their injuries.”

  “I’ll help her,” Kai said, turning toward the ship’s rail.