Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Read online

  Brace…for what? Ginny quickly got into position.

  “Now!” Thaleia snapped. Ginny kicked forward as Thaleia’s tail slammed—lightly—into Corey’s chest.

  Ginny knew it was light. She had seen Kai hurl divers and sharks through the water with a single powerful blow of his tail. Thaleia struck lightly, even gently, but it still smashed Corey and Ginny back.

  “Again!” Thaleia ordered. “Now!”

  The second blow of Thaleia’s tail slammed Ginny and Corey back again. Water spilled from Corey’s slack lips.

  Ginny pressed her fingertips against the side of Corey’s neck. Nothing. She met Thaleia’s gaze before casting a frantic glance at sinking ship. Meifeng stumbled from the bridge, his hand pressed against his forehead. Blood leaked out between his fingers. And he wasn’t wearing a life jacket either. He staggered, dazed, toward the stern. If no one was there to grab him—

  Ginny ground her teeth and tightened her grip around Corey. “Once more. Come on!”

  Thaleia drew her tail back and swung it forward. Ginny pulled in hard on Corey’s stomach in the same instant Thaleia struck the man. Ginny’s fingertips tingled, like a burst of static electricity.

  Aether!

  Corey jerked, then coughed out water and bile. His eyes were bleary, and his chest heaved unevenly on quick, jagged breaths.

  Ginny let go of Corey. “Stay with him,” she told Thaleia. “Stick close to the ship.”

  “The waters are too crowded with ghost ships driven by the riptides and currents. We cannot outswim them, cannot avoid them,” Thaleia said, her voice breathless with near-panic. “We might have had a chance on the Endling, but—” She grabbed Corey’s life jacket, and with Naia in her other arm, Thaleia darted out of the way of a frigate charging through the water, driven as much by the current as by its own engine.

  The frigate rammed into the Endling, hurling Meifeng into the water. The frigate’s gray hull smashed through the Endling’s wooden deck, as if it were made of matchsticks.

  Ginny paddled over to Meifeng. Salt water tossed around her, but not even the white spray could conceal the ethereal green glow surrounding Ondine, who stood on the frigate’s deck. The woman stared calmly into the chaos and panic of an Ancient’s wrath with as much smiling grace as if she were enjoying the opera. “Out of your depth, Ginny?” Ondine asked, her voice absent of malice, even though her words pierced with the accuracy of a hurled spear.

  Meifeng coughed up water and tried to pull Ginny out of the way of the frigate bearing down on them with the inevitability of a freight train.

  Ginny snarled and slowly enunciated each word. “Freaking. Hell. No.”

  The water around her, as gray as the overcast sky, churned into vivid violet and indigo hues, so piercingly bright they turned psychedelic. The color permeated the air, turning the sky a brilliant shade of purple. Waves rose high, carrying the shattered pieces of the Endling above the water. Lightning arced like electrical conduits connecting the broken ship, tugging the pieces together. Dark energy sliced across the hull, mending where it could, and creating where it could not mend. Bent shards of steel melted and reformed into smooth, polished metal. Unriveted. Seamless.

  Meifeng’s jaw dropped as the Endling settled gently on the crest of a wave and rode it down to the ocean. A few strong strokes carried him back to the ship, and he clambered on, before turning to pull Ginny onboard. “Get the others up here,” he told her. “I’ll see if the engine’s working.”

  “I…” Ginny’s thoughts stuttered. She hadn’t actually thought about the engine. Hell, she hadn’t thought of anything in particular, except that she wasn’t going to let Ondine get away with destroying the Endling. The aether core within her had done whatever it wanted; not that she was going to challenge its decision-making process or actions.

  The engine roared to life, and Meifeng turned the Endling through the riptide, looping around to where Corey, Naia, and Thaleia were carried by the currents. “Come on!” Ginny extended her hand down to the water. Corey still looked a little dazed, but he grabbed on to the rail and to her hand. She grunted and heaved Corey on board. Together, they leaned down for Naia.

  Unconscious, Naia was both heavy and bulky. Thaleia held Naia’s arms up. Her anxious gaze flicked to Ondine’s larger frigate that was once again bearing down on them. “Hurry.”

  “I can’t…reach.” Ginny sprawled on the deck then squeezed her head and arms through the lowest rail. She wrapped her arms around Naia’s body, holding her up so that Corey could get a better grip on Naia’s thin wrists. The frigate was so close that the spray of the water off its hull splashed onto Ginny as the ship cut through the ocean toward them. “Come on!”

  “Got her!” Corey shouted. He pulled Naia up, but her tail was barely out of the water when his grip slipped.

  Naia tumbled back into the ocean with a heavy splash.

  Thaleia extended Naia’s arms up once more. Grunting, Ginny and Corey grabbed Naia and pulled her, inch by inch over the top of the rail. The spray of the water from the frigate was almost blinding. Its gray hull filled Ginny’s peripheral vision. In three seconds—less—the frigate would smash alongside the Endling and kill all of them.

  Corey leaned over, wrapped his left arm around the lower half of Naia’s tail, and dropped backward onto the deck. Momentum pulled Naia over the rail, and she fell on top of him. Ginny yanked her arms and head under the railing as the frigate whooshed past. If she had so much as extended her pinky an inch beyond the rail, she would have touched the frigate’s hull.

  Panic squeezed the breath from her lungs. Thaleia!

  The spray of the frigate’s wake was a massive churn of white sea foam against the gray of the waves. Ginny blinked against the sting of salt water as she searched the ocean for the older mermaid.

  Nothing.

  Just fast-moving currents carrying along massive wrecks. There was no place in that swirling chaos for anything fragile—whose bones could be broken, whose body could bleed.

  “Everyone all right out there?” Meifeng shouted from the bridge.

  Ginny’s heart thudded, the beat quick and erratic. Corey stared down at the unconscious Naia, then met Ginny’s eyes. Neither of them said anything.

  Ginny drew in a deep, shuddering breath as she sat back on her heels. Her shoulders sagged on a choked sob. What would she tell Badur? What could she say to Kai?

  Sound slapped against the side of the hull.

  Ginny straightened. Corey scrambled to his feet. Together, they rushed to the rail to see Thaleia weakly straining to reach the ship’s rail.

  “We’ve got you,” Corey promised, leaning over to grab her hand. Ginny wriggled her upper body under the lowest rail and helped hold Thaleia against the ship until Corey could pull her onto the deck.

  The mermaid slumped, her body trembling. Blood trickled from several deep cuts on her tail.

  “You’re hurt,” Ginny murmured. “I thought…I thought we lost you.”

  “I managed to get under the Endling as the frigate brushed along its side, but it was closer than I realized.”

  Corey spoke up, “We have more of that gishtil you brought with you—”

  “I will not die from my injuries.” Thaleia shook her head. “Save it for Naia and the others who might need it more.”

  “Hold on to something!” Meifeng shouted from the bridge, his alarm carrying easily across the deck. “That frigate is circling around for a direct collision!”

  Corey carried Naia and Thaleia to the stern, cushioning them next to un-inflated lifeboats while Ginny dashed onto the bridge. She stared, as did Corey, at the frigate that had turned into the current and was now charging directly at them. Ondine stood on the bow, her arms extended like a priestess embracing the storm. The wind streamed through her red hair. Green glow shimmered on the palms of her hands.

  “Are they really going to ram us?” Ginny asked.

  “Looks like it,” Meifeng said, his voice tight and grim. “It’s got
the winds and currents on their side.”

  “Can you turn the ship? Can we outrun it?”

  “There isn’t enough time. I can swerve to avoid a direct impact, but we’ll have to do that at the last moment, or they’ll correct their course to hit us in the side instead. We’ll still take a glancing hit; there’s no way to avoid it.”

  “Will the Endling survive it?”

  “I don’t know,” Meifeng said. He looked at Ginny. “I don’t know how much about the Endling anymore. She’s different now. I can feel it. She even sounds different.” He shook his head. “But if the laws of physics still hold, then—the frigate’s much larger than the Endling.” His head swiveled as she darted out of the bridge and sprinted to the bow. “Ginny, what are you doing?” he shouted, his voice muffled by the glass and distance that now separated them.

  Trusting aether.

  Trusting myself.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the flotilla of derelict ships milling in the riptides behind the Endling, then turned her attention back to the frigate. “Meifeng, hold a steady course.”

  “Aye, captain,” he replied instinctively, immediately.

  On the deck of the frigate, Ondine smiled down at Ginny. The outcome of a collision could never be in doubt—not with Ondine propelling dark energy out before her like a battering ram.

  A collision, however, was optional. The purple glow of Ginny’s dark energy lashed out, like streaks of lightning pouring into the sea directly in front of the frigate. The water churned into a massive wave, lifting the frigate out of the ocean and carrying it over the Endling. The massive shadow passed over the Endling. Water cascaded down like an endless tropical rainfall, drenching the deck.

  “No!” Ondine’s scream was scarcely audible as the frigate arced down toward the cluster of ghost ships.

  Ginny shouted, “Hit the gas. Now!”

  The Endling’s sudden burst of speed carried it past the thunderous crash of Ondine’s frigate smashing into the derelict ships. Flaming heat spewed toward them. Behind them, the sea lit into flame. Somewhere, in there, was the frigate, but Ginny could not pick it out amid the burning masts of a dozen or more ships and the black smoke rising from the sea.

  Meifeng’s loud whoop of joy drew Ginny’s attention back to their narrow victory.

  But it was only half the battle. Or less.

  Her gaze flicked up to the massive titan that loomed taller than a mountain over the ocean. On the very top, on its shoulder, she could barely make out movement.

  Zamir, Badur, and Kai.

  The titan’s head coiled, its serpentine neck looping around.

  And it attacked.

  Chapter 27

  Bahari. Zamir’s thoughts whirled.

  My…son?

  Kai, too, stared at Badur. His gaze swept over the blind merman, from the tip of his dull black tail to his haggard features. Was he imagining, like Zamir was, what Badur might have looked like if he were not blind, not worn and weak from a difficult life?

  His blindness—the physical gouging out of his eyes—made perfect sense now. It stripped from him his only visible proof of royal blood. He would have been strong and in the prime of his life. Good-looking, with a smile instead of a perpetual sneer. His dark scales would have gleamed, like Kai’s.

  Badur’s seemingly instinctive leadership, his willingness to challenge authority, the defiance that bordered on arrogance—it all made sense now. He did not stop being a prince just because he had set aside his claim on the throne by choosing love over duty. That leadership, courage, arrogance was as ingrained in Badur as it had been into Zamir, and Kai.

  Zamir’s breath stuttered. My son is alive?

  Kai’s voice was a soft, incredulous whisper. “Father?” Wrenching his attention from Badur, he shot a desperate glance at Zamir, his gaze pleading.

  Zamir recoiled, physically and emotionally. What did Kai expect from him? Confirmation? Revelation? He shook his head. The words caught in his throat, lodged beneath a painful, tight ball of emotions he could not untangle.

  Not disbelief. He did not, for a moment, think that Badur was lying.

  He only wondered how he had not realized the truth before.

  Truth that all but screamed at him.

  Truth he had not seen because he had never looked for his dead son in a blind merman from a rural mer-colony.

  The ground shook violently beneath them. The Ancient’s three heads tossed with anger before twisting around to stare at Badur.

  So focused were they on the blind merman that they ignored Zamir when he grabbed Kai’s wrist and whispered in his ear, “Take Badur. Take your father, and go. Turn the titan away from the eastern seaboard and back to deep water.”

  “I can’t outswim it. You know I can’t. Not even if I had a tail.”

  “You’ll have enough of a lead. It’ll buy me enough time—”

  “To do what?” Kai demanded.

  “Stop it.”

  “How?”

  The area around them dimmed into shadow as the titan’s heads blocked out the light of the sun. Zamir’s heartbeat raced. They were out of time. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Just take your father, and go!”

  Kai and Zamir’s eyes met, and Zamir got the distinct impression that Kai would have said something more, but Kai shook his head sharply, as if checking himself. A muscle twitched in his cheek, and he lunged forward as one of the titan’s heads dipped toward Badur, its teeth bared, jaws agape.

  Badur yelped in surprise as Kai’s arms wrapped around him and yanked him over the edge of the titan’s shoulder. Together, they plunged toward the ocean.

  The titan’s snout slammed into its shoulder, where Badur had been standing

  The impact flung Zamir off his feet and rolled him off the edge. He grabbed on to the ridges, and held on as the titan’s massive body shook with rage. Earthquake, a part of his consciousness told him. The slow rolling of the earth, up and down, back and forth. Like an earthquake.

  He, Zamir, had never experienced an earthquake before.

  Jackson. It had to be Jackson.

  The truth—which he had been shying away from—struck him full in the face.

  He was going to need all of him—Zamir, Arman, Jackson, and even Nergal—if he were going to take on the titan.

  Zamir’s muscles bunched, cording across his back and into his biceps as he pulled himself onto the titan’s shoulder. His breath whooshed out of him, however, as the titan started to fall from its vertical position, back toward the sea. He sprinted across the titan’s shoulder, toward its back. Just a hill, he told himself.

  A steep, rocky hill.

  His breath puffed out of him in a steady rhythm.

  A steep, rocky hill that grows steeper by the second.

  Water swirled beneath him, waves smashing against the titan’s belly as it returned to the ocean. Zamir glanced up at the sheer rise above him. In two seconds, the titan would be back in the water, as would he if he didn’t manage to climb onto its back.

  Zamir lunged. His fingers gripped on to the edge of the cliff as the titan splashed down onto the ocean. Water drenched him. The waves rippling outward swelled into massive proportions, hurling the tossing ships away from its body.

  Was the Endling among them? For an instant, his thoughts strayed to Ginny, but if there was a purple flare of aether somewhere amid that swirling madness around the titan, he could not see it. Grunting, he pulled himself onto the titan’s back and lay on the rock-like ridges for a moment to catch his breath.

  Perched on the titan’s shoulder blade, Zamir was close, still too close to the titan’s three heads. Its breath huffed, louder than the roar of jet planes flying too low. Something swayed in the distance. Zamir squinted, trying to make out the details.

  Thicker than a cross-oceanic pipe and long, almost prehensile, it moved with the sinuousness of a snake. Its tip was sharply pointed.

  A scorpion’s tail.

  Three reptilian heads perched on long
necks. A long, hard-ridged body, not unlike a prehistoric crocodile, and a thick scorpion’s tail. It completed Zamir’s mental image of the titan.

  Whirlpool beneath. Riptides around.

  The only place from which he could battle the titan was on it.

  And the monster was turning, more swiftly than he had expected. That speck in the water, scarcely visible amid the white-capped waves, had to be Kai and Badur. From Zamir’s vantage point, it seemed as if they hardly moved, making no progress at all in their desperate attempt to escape the titan.

  A muscle twitched in Zamir’s cheek. If nothing else, he had to make sure they escaped, unscathed. Together, Kai and Badur—Bahari—could rebuild the Beltiamatu empire. Father and son.

  Bahari. My son.

  Zamir wasn’t prepared for the ache in his chest that struck him with all the force of a physical blow. It slammed the breath out of him, left him gasping. He could not draw air into his lungs deeply enough to dispel the buzzing sensation from his skull.

  How much does he hate me?

  Zamir knew the answer. The plain, unvarnished truth. Badur spoke of it often enough, frankly enough. He hated the mer-king. Utterly despised him.

  And for good reason.

  Zamir’s mother, Ashe, had seemingly abandoned him, having chosen love over duty.

  Reflexively, desperate to not repeat her mistakes, Zamir had chosen duty over love, and damned his son for choosing love over duty. And he had berated his grandson for doing the opposite.