Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Page 14

  “What about you? Are you sure you’re all right?” Ginny asked.

  “The aether I absorbed seems to have stabilized the transformations.”

  “Are you stuck with legs, or can you switch back to a tail?”

  Kai’s cheek twitched. “I don’t know—and at this point, I can’t contemplate another transformation. Maybe later. I expect we’ll find out when I take the aether out.”

  “Take it out?”

  “It’s no good just being in me. It’s an energy source for the Beltiamatu. It needs to be doing what we need it to do. We’ll need a regulator.”

  “I have one,” Zamir said. He tugged the damaged regulator out of his pouch. “I got it off the manta drone. The coils are crooked, but they can be fixed.”

  Kai nodded. “Hold on to it. I’ll take a closer look at it when I return.” Without another word, he dived off the Endling and vanished beneath the tossing waves.

  Corey grunted, clearing his throat. “You need help with that?” He pointed to the injury in Zamir’s side.

  Zamir nodded. “There’s a bullet in there. Can you cut it out?”

  “Yeah, and I’ll stitch you back up, although it looks like you’re doing a nice enough job healing on your own. You discover any more about what you are exactly?”

  Zamir’s thoughts flashed to the gold-colored man who had emerged from the pedestal. “Yes…and no.”

  Corey rolled his eyes. “Which is it?”

  “Yes, I’ve discovered more, but no, I don’t think I understand it any better.”

  Ginny bit down on her lower lip. “Did something happen back there? Besides defying absurd odds and escaping nearly certain death?”

  Zamir nodded. “You all need to hear it, and I’d rather tell the story only once.” He glanced toward the collapsed island of Atlantis. Because I fear the balance has once again tipped, and not in our favor.

  * * *

  Marduk was once again surrounded by water instead of the unrelenting, cold pressure of adamantine. Time had passed—he was certain of that much.

  How long since he had lost the battle against her?

  How long since Inanna had plunged him—alive and screaming—into liquid adamantine?

  He had curled into a fetal position, but there was no protection from the metal. Infused with pure dark energy that answered only to her, adamantine seeped through his skin, pouring in through his nose and his throat, drowning him.

  He opened his mouth to scream her name. The last thing he had seen before the adamantine glazed over his eyes, stripping him of his vision, was her face. Her long, dark hair and her eyes, violet shards of cold, vengeful fury.

  No one could do revenge better than Inanna, princess of the Illojim, the younger daughter of An, the disposed lord of Aldebaran.

  In fact, he had not even hurt her.

  But he had killed him.

  Him. Arman, the First Commander of the Illojim starships that fled from Aldebaran, carrying the royal family into exile, together with their precious, priceless aether cores.

  And yet, he had just seen him.

  How was that possible?

  Marduk bit back bitter laughter. Anything was possible, technically, to Inanna who wielded aether with the flawlessness of the consummate master. The dark energy cores that obeyed no one else, danced to her whim.

  Indeed, anything was possible to someone like Inanna, who had never been challenged and defeated, who—in her unbroken arrogance—had never learned that “why” was the more important question than “how.”

  Where was she?

  He did not sense her, but he sensed something else. The presence of another Illojim pulsed weakly, like a broken heartbeat. He followed it into the cracks, through the tunnels deep in the earth’s crust, winding toward the mantle.

  And found it.

  Or rather, a pitiful semblance of it, a mere fraction of its former self, entwined within a human coil—a woman.

  But he recognized it. “Nergal.”

  The woman’s eyes opened, bright green, in stark contrast to her pale skin and red hair. She tilted her head. “It’s been a while, Marduk. You’d vanished. I thought she killed you. She’s done much worse to those who hurt her sister.”

  He hadn’t attacked Ereshkigal, Inanna’s elder sister, but he supposed it was beside the point. His actions—murdering Arman—had hurt Ereshkigal nonetheless.

  “He’s back,” he said.

  “Arman?” She nodded. “Yes, he is. Ereshkigal finally decided to stop hoarding his soul, and she released it—to a Beltiamatu king.”

  “But Arman wore his body, not a Beltiamatu tail.”

  “It’s complicated, as all things usually are when aether is involved. There are four shards of consciousness residing in that one body. Zamir, former king of the Beltiamatu, is the only fully intact personality. The others are mere shards, including Arman, a human man Jackson, and me.”

  His eyes flared wide. “You?”

  “I was killed by the Isriq Genii, and my soul—whatever was left of it—stolen by Inanna’s accursed dagger and given to Zamir.”

  “He knows this?”

  “He refuses to accept it, and because his control over that body and mind is nearly absolute, he has been able to ignore it.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want myself,” she said simply. “Back together. How can that be too much to ask?”

  He chuckled. “With Inanna, you never know.”

  She rose with unnatural grace. “And what do you want?”

  “What I’ve always wanted. Justice for a dying planet, for Aldebaran, for my home, robbed by its supposed protectors of its ability to survive.” His eyes were bleak. “Even now, it may be too late.”

  She shook her head. “Almost too late, but not yet. Time passes differently here—this planet moves much too quickly around its star—but in terms that we understand, we are closing in on the tenth day of our arrival on this planet. Aldebaran may yet survive, if you can return the aether to them before the planet darkens forever.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Not much. Scarcely enough.”

  “There was an aether core here. I can sense the remnants of its power still.”

  “The Beltiamatu prince took it. He is returning it to his people.”

  He straightened his shoulders. “Then I will take it back.”

  She smiled. “You are easily a match for a Beltiamatu, but Arman? You defeated him only through deceit—backstabbing treachery—and I doubt he’ll fall for that trick again. You will need allies.”

  “Allies? These frail humans?” He waved his hand at the bodies floating around them. “They were nothing when we arrived on this planet. They’re even less now.”

  “Not all of them.” She swam across the cracked ocean bed. Amid the debris, she found a man. He seemed dead, but his eyes flashed open when they approached. One was utterly white, but the other was dark, rimmed with gold. “He is Atlantean—the offspring of a Beltiamatu and a human. Long-lived and water-breathing, he is not quite a match for his Beltiamatu forebears, but he commands vast human resources.”

  The human stared at him. His face, young as it was, was lined with frustration and anger born of constant defeat, but he had not yet given up. “I am Jacob.”

  Allies?

  With these half-bloods? These weaklings?

  Perhaps for a time…until he no longer needed them.

  Biting back the sneer in his tone, he inclined his head. “I am Marduk.”

  Chapter 21

  The minutes passed slowly.

  Too damn slowly.

  Ginny glanced at her watch. Scarcely more than an hour had elapsed since the Endling began the return journey to the Levantine Sea, and she alone kept watch on the deck. Zamir, Meifeng, and Corey were on the bridge, looking over nautical maps, and debating routes and fuel stops. Kai had not yet returned to the ship.

  What was taking him so long?

  Maybe Zamir, with his irregul
ar sense of time, didn’t need frequent updates from his grandson, but she got nervous when she didn’t hear from Kai. Maybe if Kai didn’t show such a propensity for getting into trouble—

  For God’s sake, Ginny, she chided herself. He’s a hundred years old. He can take care of himself.

  Especially now that he had aether in him.

  Ginny tugged her towel more tightly around her shoulders and peered over the edge of the Endling, trying to make sense of the swift movements beneath the water.

  Unable to help herself, she leaned over and splashed the water, hoping that Kai would notice the signal.

  But it was Thaleia who broke the surface, her thin face somber.

  “Is everything all right?” Ginny demanded.

  “Naia is resting beneath the ship. We’ve done everything we can for her, but the irukandji stings caused severe nerve damage. I think she will be in much pain for the rest of her life. And…” Her voice trailed. “The wounds will heal in time, but they will leave scars.”

  “How badly is she hurt?”

  “She has lost the use of her left arm. Her body looks as if she’s been flayed—which she was—and her face…” Thaleia sighed. “She won’t let Kai look at her.”

  “He’s already seen her. He carried her to the water.”

  “Her blood concealed the worst of her injuries. The full extent of the damage wasn’t revealed until I cleaned her injuries.”

  “Do you have doctors—healers—back at the colony?” Ginny asked.

  “Some know a little about tending the injured—I probably know more than most, and I don’t know enough,” Thaleia said bitterly. “So much was lost in the destruction of Shulim.”

  “It was the only way.”

  Thaleia’s head snapped up. “Was it?”

  “Kai did not do what he did for glory. He did it because it was the only way to save the ocean, and in the end, saving the ocean was more important than saving the pride of the Beltiamatu empire. Do you doubt your son’s decision?”

  “He did what he felt was right, but I…” Thaleia paled suddenly. Her gaze, stricken with terror, flashed to Ginny.

  Ginny glanced over her shoulder to confirm that Zamir was on the bridge with Corey and Meifeng, before speaking. “He is your son, isn’t he? Badur is Bahari, prince of the Beltiamatu, and you are Taraneh, the mermaid he loved and the mother of his only son—Kai.”

  “How did you know?”

  “The resemblance between Badur and Kai is impossible to miss if you look beyond Badur’s worn, exhausted state. Kai looks like you—both of you—and Badur’s eyes, I’m sure, would have looked like Kai’s eyes, if they hadn’t been gouged out.”

  “It was the price of survival,” Thaleia said, her voice aching, yet undergirded with bitterness. “The captain of the king’s elite guards was Badur’s best friend. He could not bring himself to kill him, yet he could not return to Shulim with the threat of Badur still out there. So we struck a deal. Badur would never return to reclaim the throne, and he would never have another child.” Her lips twisted. “So, instead of killing him, they mutilated him. They gouged out his eyes and cut off his…sexual organs.”

  Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, but nothing blocked out the pain in Thaleia’s voice.

  “They ripped from him his ability to have any kind of sexual intimacy or pleasure.” Thaleia’s voice shook with anger. “Not a day has passed without Badur asking aloud if he’d be better off dead, or why I haven’t yet left him. But since Kai returned, he has said nothing of the sort. His only focus is on ensuring that his son lives.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “He will not make himself known to Kai.”

  Ginny frowned. “Why is that?”

  “Perhaps he fears rejection.”

  Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Do you?”

  Thaleia looked away, her gaze drifting over the gentle waves. “When I was young, I thought that love could overcome anything.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “Love only makes failure harder to bear. I look at Kai, and I see Badur, as he used to be. Proud and strong, convinced that he was doing the right thing when he defied his father, his people, and the rules that bound him to the throne. Badur regrets it; I know he does. He wonders, for my sake and his, if he made the right choice. I know he believes he made the wrong one.”

  Ginny placed her hand lightly over Thaleia’s. “He loves you.”

  “Sometimes, love isn’t enough to make up for all the wrongs you’ve done, or that have been done to you.”

  Ginny swallowed with some difficulty through the tightness in her throat. “How does Badur feel about his father?”

  “The mer-king?” Thaleia’s upper lip curled. “He was an indifferent father. He didn’t know how to love.”

  “Maybe he just didn’t know how to show it.”

  “How hard can it be to learn if you were even trying?”

  Ginny shrugged. Thaleia had a point.

  “The mer-king was convinced something was wrong with him,” Thaleia continued. “That there was a lack in him nothing could fill.”

  “Because his mother left him?”

  Thaleia shrugged. “He was not the only child abandoned by a mother, but he thought it made him different, as if it gave him an excuse to be a pathetic excuse for a father.”

  “Was he a good king?”

  “I don’t think I can give you a fair accounting of the mer-king.” Thaleia’s mouth tugged into a wry smile. “Why don’t you ask Kai?”

  “I don’t think Kai can give a fair accounting either,” Ginny said.

  “No, you’re right. He can’t. He worships his grandfather.”

  “Really?”

  “The mer-king made the decisions that drove Kai into destroying Shulim, yet Kai refused to ascribe the blame where it belonged. He’s chosen to bear the responsibility for his decisions and the mer-king’s. If nothing else, the mer-king—or at least the nurses and tutors charged with Kai’s upbringing—raised a prince with the courage to accept the burden that comes with the cursed throne,” Thaleia said.

  “The cursed throne?”

  “The war with Atlantis was the turning point in our fortunes. We survived; they didn’t, but we lost too. After the mer-queen, Medea, killed her mother and the rest of her father’s consorts, and set in place the decree that all consorts would be killed upon the birth of the child, the throne—the bloodline—was cursed.”

  “Cursed…by someone?”

  “Destiny? Fate? Bad luck?” Thaleia shrugged. “Call it whatever you will, but the throne has been plagued by loss and pain, not just of its own making, but beyond it. Ashe’s father, the mer-king, lost his daughter and heir when she chose the land over the sea. She, in turn, lost access to her son, Zamir, who lost his mother. Then, Badur chose me and lost…everything. And Kai…Kai rejected the mermaid he loved to save her life. He has endured unendurable pain—physically and emotionally.” Thaleia’s voice trembled.

  Ginny squeezed Thaleia’s hand. “Ashe once said that bad decision-making ran in her family.”

  Thaleia laughed weakly. “It’s true. Either that, or the curse is true.”

  Ginny shook her head. “The odds are stacked against good decision-making. That tradition—killing the king’s mate—is a terrible one. That kind of loss scars so deeply that there’s no way clear of the emotional damage. It is hard to make good decisions, decisions that aren’t somehow skewed by one’s reaction to that event. You see how it cascades through generations—driving decisions into extremes.”

  Thaleia nodded. “Kai’s father chose to die for love, and Kai, having been raised without his parents, chooses to do without it instead.”

  “Where’s Kai now?”

  “Hunting with Badur. Kai knows Naia’s favorite foods.”

  “Can Badur hunt?”

  “No.” Thaleia shook her head. “But Kai invited him anyway.” Her smile was wistful. “I know Badur yearns for more than to be led by his hand. He pushes me awa
y often—too often. Says I coddle him.”

  “He’s a grumpy bastard.”

  “He hates being perceived as weak, incapable.” The smile on Thaleia’s lips wobbled. “It’s a good thing he can’t see Kai’s transformations. It would shatter him to see his son in so much pain.” Her head snapped up. “What is that?”

  Ginny straightened. “What’s what?”

  “The air. It’s vibrating.”

  Was it? Ginny couldn’t feel anything. After a moment though, something small appeared on the horizon—right where Atlantis had been. She squinted at it until the dark shape separated into smaller, more distinct shapes. “It’s a bunch of frigates. Just like the ones the cultists used.” She dashed toward the radio. “Meifeng. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, I do.” He sounded tense. “Six frigates. And they’ve probably got their underwater subs too. They hailed us. Told us to stop.”

  “Seriously? And they expected you to listen?”

  “They didn’t account for free will, I suppose.”

  “Where’s Za…Zee?”

  “I’m here.” Zamir’s deep voice joined in the conversation. “Can we outrun them?”

  “All the way back to the Levantine Sea?” Meifeng asked. “I…don’t know. We’re faster, that’s for sure, and we’ve got a nice head start, but we’ll have to stop for fuel along the way.”

  “So will they. Let’s—”

  Another voice sounded across the radio, deep and resonant even though it was conveyed twice through the airwaves. “Arman…” The words continued in a language that sounded almost like, but was not, Sumerian. Ginny caught a few words, enough to stiffen. Thaleia, seated on the rail beside her, apparently understood as much, if not more.

  Brother.

  Death.

  Honor.

  Choice.

  Extinction.

  Their eyes met, and Ginny saw in Thaleia’s eyes as much fear as she knew reflected in her own.

  Whose extinction?

  Chapter 22

  “You are Arman?” Thaleia demanded of Zamir, her voice rising as much with shock as anger. The mermaid and Badur perched on the rail of the Endling as the pirate hunter raced across the ocean, trying to shake off the pursuing frigates. Corey and Meifeng, mercifully, were on the bridge, but Zamir had no doubt that they were eavesdropping on the conversation.