The Sea King

by C. L. Wilson

  The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, it took Summer a full second to realize what was happening, and by the time she gathered her wits enough to cry out against Calivan’s muffling hand and struggle to free herself, he had already drained her so deeply she had no strength to fight.

  “My goddess!” Calivan breathed. “Such strength!” His voice was awed. And then, brutal with Command as he shouted in a Voice filled with stolen power, “Kill her guards!”

  The four queen’s guards converged on Biross and Tarrant so quickly Dilys’s men didn’t have time to clear their swords from their scabbards before they were impaled on the sharp points of the queen’s guards’ tridents. Their bodies crumpled, blood pouring from the holes in their chests.

  “Quickly, throw the bodies into the chamber.” The four queen’s guards gathered up the fallen warriors and carried them the short distance to the spherical testing chamber, tossing their bodies inside like so much garbage. Outrage and horror clashed inside her. She tried twisting free, but Calivan only tightened his grip, crushing her arms against her ribs, making it hard for her to breathe. Without releasing his grip, he reached into the pouch at his side and extracted one of the polished, egg-shaped crystals. It began to glow brightly as he began feeding it the magic he was extracting from her.

  “You should have returned home to Wintercraig instead of marrying Dilys and coming to Calberna,” he chided, his tone surprisingly void of wrath. “Balat had what he wanted, the Winter King would have made sure Minush Oroto rued the day he ever dreamed of owning a Season of Summerlea, and Dilys could not have continued to pursue you once you publicly refused to claim him. If you had just gone home, everything would have been fine. I never wished harm to you or your sisters. I just couldn’t have any of you marrying my nephew.”

  Summer stiffened as the meaning behind Calivan’s words sank in. Sweet Helos. Calivan Merimydion was behind her kidnapping! He’d helped Mur Balat abduct Summer and her sisters!

  “Alys vowed from the Sea Throne that any daughter of Dilys’s union with a Season of Summerlea would be born imlani, with gifts worthy of a Calbernan queen,” Calivan continued. “I couldn’t run the risk of losing her. My whole life has been devoted to keeping her strong and safe and happy. And then not only did you come back and make Dilys your husband, but you’re a Siren! You don’t need Alys’s gifts to make your daughter imlani, but you’ll still kill her all the same. You’ll take her throne, and leave her nothing. She’ll drain herself to give you her queen’s gifts, drain herself so deeply that even the elixir I’ve been using to keep her alive will not stop her Fade.”

  Calivan shuddered, as if beset by some great and terrible emotion. Then he bent close to Summer’s ear and hissed, “I won’t let my sister Fade. I don’t care what I have to do to prevent that.”

  There was a tone in that hissing voice. A note of wild ferocity she’d heard before. An obsession just like the twisted seed that had born such dreadful fruit inside her father. Anger flickered inside her, bringing a surge of fresh, wild magic.

  The first crystal egg was shining so brightly it was blinding, like looking directly into the sun. Calivan exchanged it for a second. This one filled even faster than the first.

  It wasn’t just his hand in the kidnapping of Summer and her sisters that outraged her. It was his obsessive love for his sister that eclipsed his ability to consider anyone or anything but his own fear and grief. Even his own family.

  Family should never hurt family.

  Lily’s father should never have beat his daughter until she felt driven to risk her life and that of her unborn child to escape him.

  Nemuan Merimynos should never have let his anguish over the murders of his mother and sister drive him to murder his own innocent cousins in revenge.

  Verdan Coruscate should have found the strength to survive his wife’s death without letting grief and guilt drive him to madness and destruction. His kingdom conquered. His son disinherited and banished. One daughter sold into marriage to end a war. The other three scattered to the winds—two dead, one about to die. Every loss and tragedy utterly avoidable, had Verdan loved his family enough to put them first, as Alysaldria had done for Dilys. She had not set out on a reckless course of revenge. She had not driven herself mad over the loss of her husband and unborn child. She’d made herself stay strong for the child she had left.

  And now Alysaldria’s brother—her twin—would do to her son what a band of murderous thieves had done to her. Slaughter his mate. And if Dilys didn’t follow her to the grave, he would torment himself every moment for the rest of his life. The brave, magnificent, larger-than-life warrior she had married would perceive her death as yet another personal failure, proof of his inability to keep his loved ones safe.

  “Good goddess, is there no end to your magic?” Calivan replaced a second sun-bright crystal with not one but two more, and Gabriella sagged in his arms as the drain on her magic increased commensurately.

  “CALIVAN!”

  Calivan started in surprise as a familiar voice roared the Lord Chancellor’s name.

  “RELEASE MY MATE, YOU TRAITOROUS KRILLO!”

  Dilys! The sound of her mate’s voice caused a fresh surge of magic to well up inside Gabriella. His nearness, the knowledge that he’d come for her, that he would always come for her, brought the bonds of their union singing to life, acting like a catalyst on the source of her power.

  Calivan cursed as the magic gathering inside her swiftly outpaced his ability to drain it from her. “You four!” he Commanded the queen’s guards. “The Calbernan out there is trying to kill the Myerial! Get out there and stop him. Kill him if you have to!”

  What? This vile man . . . this queen killer . . . would murder his own nephew? His own flesh and blood? He thought to kill Dilys? Gabriella’s mate?

  Over her dead body.

  The wellspring of power renewed by Dilys’s nearness became a roaring fountain geysering up inside her. Fierce and ferocious and murderously protective.

  “My goddess! How much farking magic do you have?” This time, Calivan’s voice revealed dawning fear, as the flood of her magic threatened to overwhelm him. Another crystal filled, then another, and still her magic continued to surge.

  She tried to draw a breath—just one was all she needed. The ocean of power pounded against her, needing an outlet—needing her Voice to free it. Like the scream that had sunk Trinipor, the Shout building inside her was a guttural cry of rage and retribution, but also a ferocious need to protect her mate from the murderous madman who shared his blood. All her Shout needed was a breath—just one—to set it free.

  But the hand clamped over her nose and mouth denied her that. She clawed at Calivan’s forearm, her nails digging so deep they drew blood. Her fingertips burned and throbbed from the ferocity of her grip.

  “Die!” Calivan Shouted, using her own stolen magic against her. “Die now!”

  The Command slammed into her with such force, it felt like every bone in her body shattered. What little breath remained in her lungs wheezed out in a strangled cry. Her heart slammed against her chest, then began to stutter, the rhythm faltering as the magic erupting inside her grappled with the powerful Command pressing down upon her.

  Still holding her fast against him with the hand clamped hard over her mouth, Calivan freed his other arm, drew the dagger from the jeweled scabbard at his waist and slammed it into her chest.

  Pain exploded inside her, scattering her wits and robbing her limbs of strength. Darkness swept in from the periphery of her vision, eclipsing her sight. Her body sagged against his.

  Dimly, she was aware of Calivan dragging her back to his testing chamber and tossing her inside atop the bodies of Biross and Tarrant.

  “Siren you may be,” he said, “but you’re no true daughter of Numahao. Even if you somehow survive my Command and my blade, you can still drown like the oulani you are!”

  He turned a large valve in the corridor outside the chamber and seawater began pouring
in through two large grates in the testing room’s ceiling.

  The door slammed shut, and Gabriella heard the sound of the steel bolts sliding home, sealing her and the bodies of Biross and Tarrant inside as the room rapidly filled with water.

  Dilys dropped to his knees and slid under the sharp, glistening points of one of the guard’s jabbing trident. He leapt back to his feet a split second later to deliver a driving blow to the guard’s solar plexus. The guard gave a wheezing gasp as all the air in his lungs whooshed out, then dropped to the ground when Dilys followed up with a knockout punch to the bespelled male’s jaw.

  “Get him out of here,” Dilys barked to one of Ryll’s men. “Lock him up somewhere where he can’t hurt anyone until we can free him from whatever spell he’s under.”

  Around the room, Ryll and two dozen other warriors were subduing the remaining three ensorcelled queen’s guards. Dilys would have killed them if he’d had to. Thankfully, Ryll had come with enough men to make bloodshed unnecessary.

  The same wasn’t going to be true for Calivan.

  The minute four of his mother’s most trusted guards had run into the room with weapons drawn and murder on their mind, Dilys’s suspicions about his uncle had been confirmed.

  Calivan Merimydion had betrayed his people.

  He’d inked loyal, honorable men with the same controlling spell the Shark had used on Ari. The same spell the Shark had used to drown Fyerin and the other Calbernan’s he’d murdered in his quest for vengeance against House Merimydion.

  Calivan had inked them with a spell they could not resist and sent them to murder his sister’s son.

  Worse, he’d sent them to murder the claimed mate of the first Siren born in twenty-five hundred years. He knew exactly what Dillon Merimydion’s death had done to his mate, Alysaldria—and Alysaldria wasn’t a Siren. With the strength of her gifts—the strength of the ties that now bound them—Gabriella wouldn’t be able to survive Dilys’s death, any more than Dilys would be able to survive hers.

  And for the harm Calivan intended towards Gabriella, Dilys would show his uncle no mercy.

  With a savage snarl, Dilys raced across his uncle’s laboratory, heading for the door at the back of the room. Half of Ryll’s men departed, escorting the ensorcelled queen’s guards out of the vicinity. The rest followed Dilys.

  “Moa Myerielua, wait!” Three of Ryll’s men put on a burst of speed, catching up to Dilys and blocking his path to the door. “It could be a trap, my lord. Let us go first.”

  “Ono. That’s my mate in there.”

  “And our Sirena, our future Myerial, the hope for all of us. Who will not survive if you are slain.”

  Dilys tried to shove them aside, but three more grabbed his arms from behind while three more ran around them to throw open the door.

  The instant they did, blinding light flashed and a powerful explosion rocked the room. Glass vessels shattered. Magical artifacts went flying. Dilys and his men were flung backwards by the force of the blast. When Dilys got to his feet, four men—those who had been closest to the door at the time of the blast—lay dead or dying, their skin bubbling and melting off their bones.

  The sight drove Dilys’s anger even higher, and not just because of the men murdered before his eyes. That explosion had been meant for him. Which meant Calivan hadn’t even intended to give him a warrior’s death.

  “CALIVAN!” he bellowed. “You traitorous coward! Leave off your sorceror’s tricks, release my mate, and come out and face me like a farking Calbernan worth his salt!”

  “I don’t want to kill you, Dilys,” Calivan called out. “I didn’t want to kill her either. But I can’t let her take the Sea Throne! Alys will Fade!”

  Dilys walked closer, careful to keep clear of the corridor opening in case his uncle had more unpleasant magical surprises in store for him. He gestured Ryll over to the opposite side. “It’s over, Calivan. Nima knows what you’ve done. She knows you were involved in the deaths of Myerial Siavaluana and Sianna. Of Nyamialine. Even if you succeed in killing me, your life is forfeit. And without both you and me, Nima will Fade anyway. Is that what you want? To be responsible for your own sister’s—your own twin’s—death?”

  “I won’t be! I’ve seen to that. I found a way to keep her Fade at bay. Between an elixir to hold her to life and the power I’ve gathered in these stones, she’ll have strength enough to live for decades—maybe even centuries!”

  “And do you think that’s what she wants? To live at the price of all the blood on your hands? Do you even know your sister at all?”

  “You don’t understand!” Calivan cried.

  “I understand enough. Now, release Gabriella and come out to face me, Uncle. I will give you a warrior’s death. A fight, just the two of us. Fang and claw only.”

  “You think you could take me fang and claw?” Calivan’s voice was sharp. “You think because I was forbidden a warrior’s life that I am easy prey?”

  “Ono, Uncle. I know you are not. I merely thought to offer you the honor denied Fyerin and the others who died at Nemuan’s hands because of you.”

  “I am not to blame for Nemuan’s actions!”

  “Are you not? You murdered his family. You destroyed his House. The loss drove him as mad as the fear of loss has driven you.”

  One of Ryll’s men darted across the room. A blast of magic erupted from the hallway. Ryll’s man barely managed to dive to safety. The table behind him, however, did not fare so well. The spell—whatever it was—scorched the wood and shattered several sealed glass jars, liquefying their contents and spilling smoking, bubbling goo across the floor. Several of his men began to cough and wave at the noxious smoke.

  “Be careful, Nephew. What’s in my lab doesn’t tend to react well when mixed together without care. I suggest you take your men and leave.”

  Ryll’s man reached Dilys’s side. “It’s just him in the hall, moa Myerielua. The Sirena isn’t with him. The hall is about twenty yards long, with a closed door at the other end. She must be behind it. There’s nowhere to hide that I could see.”

  Dilys glared at the smoking mess on the laboratory floor. Enough was enough. “You want to kill me? Here’s your chance. Because I’m coming to get Gabriella. The only way to stop me is to kill me. Then you can explain to Nima how you murdered her only child.”

  “I’m not going to murder you. There’s no need. You’re already dead. You just don’t know it yet.”

  Dilys’s blood turned to ice. Calivan’s smug certainty could only mean one thing.

  “What have you done to her? What have you done to my mate?”

  Mindless of the threat of his uncle’s magic, Dilys lunged through the doorway and ran towards his uncle. Just as Ryll’s man had reported, Calivan was alone in the corridor. The door behind him—the only other way in or out of the corridor—was closed.

  Dilys’s battle fangs descended and his claws came out, but neither were needed. Calivan stepped aside without protest as Dilys shoved past. When Ryll and the rest of their men would have raced in as well, however, Calivan sent them careening backwards with a power Word and threw a vial after them, shouting, “Ignetha!” He slammed the hallway door shut against the resulting fiery blast and locked it tight.

  “A Calbernan deserves the right to die by his mate’s side,” Calivan said. “That much I can offer you. Ryllian Ocea and your men, however, either leave my lab or die.”

  Dilys ignored him. He’d reached the door at the end of the hall and was straining to open it. The circular steel locking mechanism refused to budge.

  “It’s no use,” Calivan said. “She’ll be gone long before anyone manages to get through.”

  Now seemed a perfect time for fang and claw.

  Dilys whirled, grabbing his uncle by the throat. “Open it! Open it now!”

  Calivan regarded him with an almost pitying expression. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. The door is bolted shut with three-inch steel bars driven half a foot into solid rock, and I des
troyed the mechanism to retract the bars.”

  “Then melt the bars!”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Nephew. Besides, even if I could, your liana would be dead long before I finished. The room should be entirely flooded by now. Gabriella Coruscate may possess a Siren’s gifts, but she doesn’t possess a Calbernan’s gills.”

  Dilys squeezed his hand around his uncle’s throat until runnels of blood seeped out beneath his claws. “Gabriella Merimydion, Uncle. A daughter of my nima’s House.”

  “A usurper. A threat to my sister’s life.” Calivan tilted his chin, his expression proudly defiant and tinged with triumph. “Go ahead and kill me, Nephew. The usurper will still be dead.”

  There was a screech of protesting metal, and the door to the laboratory flew off its hinges. Dilys and Calivan both spun towards it in surprise. Alysaldria stepped across the threshold, flanked by an ash-blackened Ryll and followed by a small army of grim-eyed warriors, many of them sons of Houses Merimydion, Ocea, and Calmyria.

  “He’s not going to kill you, Cal,” Alysaldria said. “You’re going to stand before a Gathering, confess your crimes, and accept the Crown’s judgment for the murder of Myerial Siavaluana, Myerialuanna Sianna, Nyamialine Calmyria, Fyerin Merimydion, and every other life brought to an end by your treasonous actions, and for the attempted murder of my son and his liana, the Siren and soon-to-be-Myerial, Gabriella Merimydion. And then, Cal, you’re going to be executed. Noran”—she turned to one of the warriors behind her—“I want you to oversee the destruction of everything in this laboratory. That means every magical artifact, book, vial, jar, and implement, including whatever items the former Lord Chancellor has on his person.”

  “Alys, ono!” For the first time, genuine fear entered Calivan’s eyes—but not for himself, and not for the execution awaiting him. He clutched the pouch at his side. “You’ll die!”

  “Then I will be free to join my akua, as I have longed to do all these many years since his death.” Her eyes were cold, her face drawn and tight, but she didn’t waver. “Take him into custody. And get that door open!”