Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Read online

  It took a fair bit of maneuvering to pull Badur, tail and all, over the rail, but when it was done, Zamir carried the merman over to Thaleia and laid him down with more care than Ginny had expected. She looked into Zamir’s eyes. That silent, stricken expression.

  He knew.

  And Badur didn’t.

  Ginny bit down on her lower lip. That secret wasn’t hers to tell even though she could not see how it could play out well the longer Zamir kept quiet about it. Her gaze flicked past Zamir’s shoulder as Kai climbed over the rail. He was injured and clearly in pain, but still moving. He walked past Ginny and Zamir to kneel before Thaleia.

  The mermaid’s eyes brimmed with tears. She sat silent, as if too afraid to move or to speak. She stared at Kai, unable to take her gaze off him.

  Kai bowed his head, the graceful gesture infused with so much humility and gratitude that tears stung Ginny’s eyes. She swiped them away with her back of her hand as Kai picked up Thaleia’s hand and touched his lips to her fingers before slowly, hesitantly bringing her hand to her cheek.

  Thaleia was smiling through the tears spilling from her eyes. She caressed Kai’s cheek, her face radiant with a mother’s undying love. When he leaned toward her, she embraced him and sobbed against his neck, her hands gentle against the bloodstained bandages on his back.

  From the far side of the deck, Ginny glanced at up Zamir. Keeping her voice low, she said, “You should be there with them.”

  He shook his head. “They’re family.”

  “So are you.”

  Zamir’s chest rose and fell in a sigh. “Not yet.”

  She glared at him. “You’re being ridiculous. Whatever Badur and Thaleia feel about you, you’re not responsible for Badur’s choices and actions.”

  “No, but I’m responsible for my actions—actions that killed them both.”

  “Thaleia said the leader of the king’s guard couldn’t bring himself to kill them, and let them live with the guarantee that Badur would never attempt to reclaim the throne.”

  He stared at her. “You knew?”

  “I guessed.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

  Zamir glared at Ginny. “And you didn’t think I had a right to know that my son was alive?”

  Ginny waved her hand at the family reunion on the other side of the ship. “If I thought you’d be in that happy little huddle, I would have told you immediately. Turns out, I was right.” You arrogant, angry prick.

  One day, she was going to forget to self-censor her rudeness, and really tell Zamir what she thought of him.

  That’s going to be hell to pay.

  Zamir’s gaze fixed on Badur’s empty eye sockets. When he spoke, his voice was filled with self-loathing. “The captain of my guard left my service almost immediately thereafter, together with all who had served on that mission with him. I thought it was because they were so appalled and ashamed by what I’d ordered them to do.” He chuckled softly, the sound without humor. “But perhaps it was only because they wanted to make sure I didn’t stumble upon the truth in my daily interactions with them.”

  “What would you have done, if you had?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  “You expected Badur to return, didn’t you?”

  Zamir drew a deep breath. “Yes. When they returned with only Kai, starving and screaming for his mother, I…” He expelled his breath in a sigh. “Until then, I hadn’t contemplated the possibility of losing my son. I thought that when faced with danger, with the possibility of his own death, Bahari…Badur would come to his senses.”

  Ginny rolled her eyes. “How much sense do you see in Kai?”

  Zamir shook his head. “Not much more than in Badur, I suppose.”

  “Or in you. Or your mother.” Ginny turned so that she could look at Zamir full in the face. “There’s one thing no one in your family is capable of doing—and that is turning away from the one thing they believe is the right thing to do. That’s what got all of us into this situation in the first place. That damned dogged tenacity—it’s in your blood. It passes through the generations.” Her voice gentled. “It’s why Kai hasn’t just rolled over and begged for death even though he’s endured more pain than anyone can possibly endure. It’s why Badur chose blindness and deprivation instead of the wealth and security of the throne. It’s why your mother risked everything in search of a soul for you. It’s why you’re here now—”

  “Trying to undo all the damage I did?” Zamir completed. “The only ass in here is me.” He stared at Kai as he was embraced by his mother and father. “That…picture…is not one that has happened in the royal family for millennia.”

  “Maybe it’s time for your customs to change.”

  “Kai will be king of the Beltiamatu. It is for him to change the customs.”

  Ginny scowled at Zamir. “You’re being deliberately obtuse, not to mention, evasive. You’re blinder than Badur if you haven’t noticed the influence you have over Kai.”

  “Kai challenges me all the time.”

  “Some of the time. Most of the time, he listens and defers to you. I’m a college professor; I’ve seen young people who rebel against society and conventions, just because. Trust me when I tell you, Kai is not one of those people. You raised him to be a king worthy of the Beltiamatu throne, and he is. Yet, even now, you have more influence over Kai than anyone else, than even his parents will ever have. That stupid custom is keeping him and Naia apart even though they both love each other. She’s willing to die to have his love—if only for a while—and bear his child. He won’t let her, and that’s the right thing to do.”

  Zamir looked astonished, perhaps at the vehemence in her tone. “We have to continue the royal bloodline.”

  “But not in such a stupidly barbaric way,” Ginny insisted. “Kai needs to be the first to step away from that custom, and it’s easier if he’s not fighting you—and himself—the entire way.”

  Kai eased himself out of his parents’ embrace and turned toward Naia.

  “How badly hurt is she?” Zamir asked quietly.

  Ginny glanced at Zamir. Was he reacting to the sudden tightness in Kai’s shoulders or the despair in Kai’s face? “The visible wounds—however hideous—are the least of it. Corey says she’s suffered a great deal of nerve damage from the irukandji attacks.”

  “How much nerve damage?”

  “Her arm is paralyzed, and unless we can get her back to the healers at the colony, the venom and the paralysis will spread. When it reaches her heart, it’ll paralyze her heart, and she’ll die.” Ginny drew a deep breath, but her voice still shook. “And Kai…what’s going to happen to him when he returns to the colony and removes the aether core that’s inside him?”

  “I…don’t know,” Zamir admitted, his voice bleak.

  “It’s the only thing stabilizing his uncontrolled transformations—the transformations that were killing him.” Ginny blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. “If he returns the aether core to the colony to power its expansion, will he die too? What good is an empire without a prince to lead it?”

  Epilogue

  The Endling skimmed over the waves, the sound of rushing water comforting against the dark spread of the night sky. Zamir paused at the doorway and took a deep breath of the salt-tinged breeze before striding across the deck to where Kai watched over Naia.

  Kai inclined his head in greeting, but said nothing.

  “Any improvement?” Zamir asked. He glanced around the deck, but it was empty except for Kai and Naia.

  “No,” Kai said.

  Naia curled, immersed, in a water-filled inflatable lifeboat. She scarcely seemed to be breathing.

  Kai, at least, seemed better; his bandages fresh and tightly wrapped around his injuries. His expression, however, was bleak, his shoulders slumped equally from exhaustion as from guilt.

  “Meifeng says we’ll be at the Levantine Sea in under twenty-four hours,” Zami
r told him.

  “I don’t know if she can make it.”

  “He’s going as fast as he can.”

  “I know,” Kai said.

  Zamir hesitated before asking. “Where are Badur and Thaleia?”

  “Resting beneath the ship.” Kai’s head snapped up at the sudden glow that rose from a single point to spread across the horizon. Bright golden light filled the sky. Its heart glowed lustrous green.

  “The colors of Atlantis—the gold of the heavens meets the green of the Earth,” Zamir murmured. “Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Marduk and Ondine’s power signatures.”

  “How bold and confident they are to tell us they are alive and coming for us. Do you think Jacob’s alive?”

  “I think Jacob’s the least of our enemies.”

  “Is he?” Kai asked. “He may not have dark energy dancing at his fingertips, but he commands the resources of nations. I know we have as much to fear from him as from the others.”

  “We’ll deal with them—all of them when they show up. For now, we simply have to get back to the Levantine Sea.”

  Kai nodded. The water rippled. He glanced over the ship rail, but no one surfaced. “Will you tell them?” he asked simply.

  “Not now,” Zamir demurred.

  “Ever?” Kai challenged, his voice soft. “They deserve to know that you’re alive.”

  “You underestimate the power of their hate.”

  “I don’t think they hate you. You were bound by custom. We all know it.”

  “If the Illojim, Beltiamatu, and Atlanteans were not driven by hate, you and I would not be here today, scrambling to undo the madness that was done millennia ago. The world churns on hate, far more than it does on love, or even forgiveness.” Zamir shook his head. “Our…your only goal is the survival of the Beltiamatu. Anything—any distraction—that gets in the way has no place in that future.”

  Kai’s eyes narrowed. “You’re our king, regardless of the body you wear. You’re the driving force behind the rebuilding of our empire. You bridge our past to our future.” He met his grandfather’s gaze. “I cannot do this alone. I need Badur and Thaleia because the colonies look to them as leaders. And I need you.” A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek and he spoke through gritted teeth. “How long do you expect me to keep lying to my parents?”

  Zamir remained silent. He had no answer for Kai.

  And none for himself.

  THE END

  Zamir faces his greatest challenge in CURSED LEGACY…

  Family is all he has left...

  What—or who—will he pay to save the Earth?

  Transformed by dark energy, the mer-king Zamir is a chimera—a seamless tapestry of skills...a mangled mess of memories.

  Yet through all the catastrophes he has witnessed—many of his own making—he has learned one thing.

  Family matters; especially the last of his bloodline, his grandson, Kai.

  A straightforward quest to rebuild his shattered empire and set his grandson upon the throne is thwarted by the soul shards in his chimeric personality.

  Zamir has enemies, far more than he imagined.

  And their hate is brutally raw.

  One of them, Marduk, possesses the power of a god, and in his attempt to right a perceived wrong, he will incinerate the Earth.

  To stop Marduk, Zamir must draw upon all facets of his fragmented personalities, even the one he despises and cannot trust.

  But nothing prepares Zamir for the devastating realization that sacrificing Kai may be the only way to stop Marduk’s apocalyptic plans...

  Read CURSED LEGACY now!

  If you enjoyed CURSED THRONE, please leave a review. Reviews are critical for a book’s success, and your review will help other readers decide if they’d enjoy the novel too. Thank you!

  Cursed Legacy

  Chapter One Sneak Peek!

  Family is all he has left...

  What—or who—will he pay to save the Earth?

  Transformed by dark energy, the mer-king Zamir is a chimera—a seamless tapestry of skills...a mangled mess of memories.

  Yet through all the catastrophes he has witnessed—many of his own making—he has learned one thing.

  Family matters; especially the last of his bloodline, his grandson, Kai.

  A straightforward quest to rebuild his shattered empire and set his grandson upon the throne is thwarted by the soul shards in his chimeric personality.

  Zamir has enemies, far more than he imagined.

  And their hate is brutally raw.

  One of them, Marduk, possesses the power of a god, and in his attempt to right a perceived wrong, he will incinerate the Earth.

  To stop Marduk, Zamir must draw upon all facets of his fragmented personalities, even the one he despises and cannot trust.

  But nothing prepares Zamir for the devastating realization that sacrificing Kai may be the only way to stop Marduk’s apocalyptic plans...

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sunlight flittered over the deep blue of the Atlantic Ocean, breaking into fractured shafts of light as it pierced the depths. Far beneath the surface, schools of silvery fish scattered into living geometric swirls, framing the torpedo as it streaked through the water.

  Bubbles and surface splashes did not follow in the wake of the torpedo; its propulsion systems were too advanced to make so telling a mistake. It was invisible to human eyes, and almost invisible to human technology.

  Its designers, however, had not accounted for the merfolk’s acute sensitivity to the shifting water currents.

  Several hundred meters south of the speeding torpedo, Kai, prince of the Beltiamatu—the lords of the ocean—twisted around in the water. His eyebrows drew together in the hint of a frown as he swam away from the ship, the Endling, to separate himself from the ripples created by the churning wake of its engines.

  His body undulated in the graceful way of the merfolk, although he had legs instead of a tail. The aether core he carried within him had stabilized his unrelenting and agonizing transformations between legs and a tail. He could, perhaps in theory, transform his legs back into a tail, but he could not work up an appetite for that kind of pain.

  Not yet.

  Perhaps never.

  Motion swirled beside him. Thaleia’s silvery hair and diaphanous tail fins swayed in the water. “How far is it?” she asked, her voice as melodic and haunting as the song of the whales.

  “Too close.” He glanced at her. His breath caught; his thoughts stuttered on the word, “Mother.” He couldn’t get the word past his lips even though he knew she was his mother. She was still Thaleia to him.

  The life-changing transition got lost somewhere between his head and his heart. A part of him craved the connection; the rest of him didn’t know what to do with it.

  Far easier to focus on the immediate crisis. “Warn the ship, then stay with—” His voice caught, too, on the word father. “—Badur. Keep him safe,” he finished.

  Thaleia nodded. The wry curve of her bittersweet smile told him that she was perfectly aware of his emotional struggle. “What are you going to do?”

  “The other torpedoes were motion-, not heat-seeking. I might be able to turn them.”

  Their eyes met. “Be careful,” Thaleia murmured, then darted into the shadow of the Endling.

  A muscle twitched in Kai’s smooth cheek. He had to keep the crew and passengers on the Endling safe; Naia was among them. His stomach tightened at the thought of the mermaid he loved—and did not deserve to have. She had risked her life to save him, and for that, she was dying, poisoned by and almost delirious from the pain of the irukandji stings.

  Her only hope of healing was at the Beltiamatu colony, but their journey from Atlantis to the Levantine Sea had been dogged by frigates, submarines, and their arsenals of missiles and torpedoes.

  His job was stopping those torpedoes.

  Kai swam against the quickening currents, acutely aware that he was less swift with legs tha
n a merman’s tail. He stared at the torpedo barreling toward him, taking in the details of its markings and its delicate corrections in the path it cut through the water.

  He had, by necessity, learned to recognize—and defeat—them.

  The American-made torpedo was motion-seeking.

  The perfect weapon for hunting merfolk.

  Kai’s eyes narrowed. Dying was not part of the plan, even if it was one of the two likely outcomes when trying to outswim a torpedo. He darted to the side, twisted into a U-turn, then swam hard, perpendicular to the torpedo’s path.

  His timing perfect—and a fraction of a second from being utterly wrong—he sped in front of the torpedo. It turned to follow him. He kicked hard, spending more energy and creating more motion than the speed and distance demanded. He had to keep the torpedo on him instead of allowing it to turn onto the stronger wake of the Endling.

  Kai tugged the torpedo into loops, arcing to the surface then diving low, twisting into spirals that would have shaken all but the most advanced military technology. The torpedo, however, stayed on him, so close he could almost feel its propulsion churning the currents that accelerated him—and the torpedo—forward.

  His muscles burned from the effort, as did his lungs. The Endling had to be far enough away by now. If he could draw the torpedo back to the submarine—

  His mind recoiled.

  No, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—do it.

  He had seen cities burn. He had—himself—destroyed Shulim, the mer-capital, to end the plague that the diseased merfolk spread through the oceans.

  There had been enough death, and he had been the cause of too much of it.

  He did not know where, or how, the war between the Beltiamatu and the heir of Atlantis would end.

  He knew only that he was sick of continuing it.