“You can. Go get her. I’ll be on the upper veranda.”
They touched knuckles then parted ways, Cosmas heading to the rear gardens where Amerin had been dispensing TLC to her corals in the wake of Manu’s training session. He still couldn’t believe she’d allowed them to risk its health with a jag.
By the time Manu reached the veranda, Cosmas had already entered the aquagarden. Amerin perched at the edge with her motionless legs submerged in the water. A bin of corals, each in a dazzling shade of gold or green, sometimes dotted with brilliant pink blossoms, occupied the space to her right beside the small vessel containing the elvish gift. Unaware of the approaching commander, she placed both hands on the rim beneath her and pushed off, sliding into the pool. Her arms did the work for her uncooperative legs. Underwater, Amerin became grace incarnate. She vanished deep below surface with the Vircilien seedling and tenderly anchored its delicate root system amidst the coral-speckled rocks.
She prayed. Manu wondered what Amerin prayed to, fae gods or those of the ocean, as she remained there beneath the water with her head bowed in reverence.
And he wondered if it even mattered, as long as her voice was heard.
At night, Manu also prayed, though he wondered if his pleas to Thalassa were heard at all. She dominated his dreams, and sometimes, he thought he heard her voice, a distant whisper calling him for aid.
Then he’d always stir, awakening at the same moment from a dream that took him to another sunken temple. The evening of Pontus’s demise had been forever branded in his mind.
He’d watched a god die that night. No wonder he struggled to rest.
Oblivious to the patient commander lurking by the pondside, Amerin remained bowed in prayer. Cosmas didn’t interrupt her. He wavered, as if he were going to back down and walk away to grant her the private moment, but when she finished and raised her head.
“You’ve got this,” Manu said quietly into the comm.
Cosmas straightened. “Good day, Lady Amerin.” When she jerked around, he held up both hands and uttered a hasty, “my apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Amerin surfaced and gripped the edge of the garden pool. “It’s all right. Is there something that you need?”
Manu read the hesitation on his friend’s face from fifty yards away. “Come on, come on,” he whispered under his breath.
“There is, in fact, something I need that only you can provide.” He crouched beside the water and offered his hand. Amerin waved it away then pulled herself onto the rocky shore. Her arms were fit, lean with muscle, more than capable of maneuvering the dead weight of her lower half. Manu had never paid much mind to it before, accustomed to doing all that he could to avoid gazing upon the former servant with pity in his eyes.
Now he realized how wrong pitying her would be, observing as she slid with care from the uneven rocks onto the smooth shoreline. Her arms were all she needed to reach her chair, and he realized how far she had come in the months since her assault.
“I can…” Cosmas stopped. He watched, slow dawning realization over his face that Manu understood, because he felt the same thing.
Any time Amerin meets a challenge, she overcomes it on her own. His greatest obstacle has been overcoming his desire to help her whether she wants it or not.
As Cosmas sucked air between his teeth and watched, Amerin drew the wheelchair closer, re-engaged the brake, and gathered her legs beneath her. They were already losing muscle tone, something which El and Vitalis had warned them would happen over the months since she was neither able to walk or swim with them any longer and regularly exercise through daily activity.
Using both arms, Amerin pushed up and into the chair, dragging herself from the ground into the seat. She made it appear easy. Manu doubted he would have been off the ground yet.
Cosmas said nothing. In lieu lifting her from the ground, he crouched before her and murmured in a quiet voice, “May I dry you?”
Amerin nodded.
Magic gathered at his fingertips that Manu had never seen before, like sparks of life and mana shimmering before converging within each individual drop of water. It drew from Amerin’s clothing and hair in a glittering ribbon Cosmas gathered with his aquamancy before pouring it back into the pool. Every passing day unveiled a new mystery, another discovery of the strange gift Pontus bestowed upon the moment of his death.
Marveling over his gift, over the beauty of the magic, and the scene unfolding before him, Manu watched. Elpis stepped into place at his left and bumped him with one hip.
“He’s finally doing it, huh?”
“I think so.”
“I’m going to be so disappointed if he chokes.”
“He won’t choke. He gets it now.”
It was the very thing Manu had come to realize about Kai. She didn’t need him to swim in to her rescue. What she wanted, what any merwoman wanted, was the promise that if she did need her mate, he would be there. She wanted the opportunity to fix her own problems.
Amerin must have known what was coming next because her mouth fell open, lending her the resemblance of a nocturnal fish blinded by coral skipper headlamps long before Cosmas removed the black silk pouch from the satchel fastened to his belt. Her mouth gaped and her eyes stared, dazzled.
“I realize now that you’re stronger than I ever thought, Amerin. Seeing you leave the water on your own. Watching you carry on with your duties. It makes me proud of you. I came to tell you that I love you, but those words feel inadequate. As do these.” He poured a strand of pearls into his open hand and held it out to her palm up. “These pearls belonged to my mum, a gift from my father long ago to her when they were children first betrothed to each other. Their marriage isn’t perfect, but what union is? So, I cannot make the promise to you to be without flaw.”
“Yesssss,” Elpis hissed.
“I…but I told you we can’t…if we were to be wed, your father will disown you from the family and strip you of your title. I’m a mere commoner in their eyes. I’ll always be a commoner no matter what titles of esteem Kai gives me.”
“Fuck the titles, Amerin,” Cosmas said rawly, taking her hands, pearls dangling from his fingers. “There isn’t a fucking common thing about you. I don’t care what my family wants or threatens. There’s nothing that I have that they can take away from me that matters more than my love for you. I need you. I have always wanted you. And to deny me now is to give in to the fear they’ve tried to sow. I won’t allow that again. I should have done this years ago, but I was a coward.”
Amerin’s shoulders sagged. “How can you want me now that I’m… I can’t walk alongside you. I can barely swim.”
“You’re absolutely beautiful in the water. Your legs are not all of you. They are but part of the whole that I love with all my heart. Please. Allow me the chance to prove that I can learn and change. If you must reject me, do so because you no longer want me.”
An eternity passed that Manu watched the two down below. He heard El’s whispered prayer to Aphrodite and Hera seconds before Amerin removed her fair hands from Cosmas’s grip. Just as his heart sank, she gathered her hair in both hands and began to braid it, pausing a few seconds into weaving the plait to claim the pearls and twine them through her pink strands.
“He didn’t need us,” Manu said, leaning into El’s side. “He already knew what to say.”
El’s smile widened. “He’s always known. Just needed a kick in the ass to get it straight in his own head again.”
When Amerin entered the room, Kai expected her to be alone. To her immense surprise, Cosmas arrived behind the the mermaid and guided the chair into the office. Contrasting her earlier appearance, color filled her cheeks with a radiant glow Kai hadn’t seen in weeks. Amerin’s gaze practically shone with happiness and no sign of lingering irritation from their earlier disagreement.
“Evening, Kai. Hope you don’t mind me popping by to say hello.”
“Mind you? Nope. Never. You’re always welcome to come see me at the
palace.” In fact, she was overjoyed to see him, so much it required all her restraint to remain neutral instead of flying across the desk to hug the man. After he had all but fallen out of the public eye to wallow in his own heartbreak, she wanted to hug him just to prove he had substantial form and wasn’t a figment of her own imagination. “I’m really surprised to, uh, see you two together, though.”
“Things change,” Cosmas said lightly, mischief dancing in his bright eyes.
Things change? Wondering what in Tartarus had changed in the course of a day, Kai studied her friends from the short distance and quirked her brows. Both were smiling, and a radiant, rosy glow filled Amerin’s cheeks. She scrutinized everything, from the warm but bashful grin on Cosmas’s face to the glittering pearls woven through Amerin’s pink hair, each one gleaming like starlight against a dusk-painted sky.
Betrothal pearls.
Amerin was wearing Cosmas’s betrothal pearls. She aimed a shy smile up at Kai and nodded.
“You’re…gods, you finally did it. Congratulations, Cosmas. I’m so happy for you both!” Kai surrendered her effort to remain behind the desk and rushed them both, throwing herself into Amerin’s arms first and hugging her tight, half in the chair with her. “Congratulations. Oh, I love you. What happened? How did we go from…” Kai gestured with a hand. “You know. Pity parties and doubt to this? You know this means I get to be the one planning your wedding this month.”
Amerin covered her face, but Cosmas only laughed. It would be such poetic justice to throw her best friend a stunning ceremony that would be the talk of the city. As much as Kai would always treasure her wedding day—the portion that went as planned—she’d have taken no issue with scaling it down in size.
“I had a compelling argument,” Cosmas quipped, “which she claims worked in no small part thanks to you, Kai. Just wanted to bring her here myself to express my appreciation for all you’ve done while I sulked. Thank you. Ah, and Manu, El, and Heracles may have also lent a supportive hand.”
“I smelled Manu’s involvement from a mile away,” Amerin said ruefully.
Kai snickered. “So did I.”
Once Kai had embraced Cosmas too and he was out of the room, she shut the door with a distinct click and activated the magical privacy charms embedded in the walls and door. Willing to leave nothing to chance, she checked the window curtains as well and turned to find herself under Amerin’s quiet scrutiny, a concerned wrinkle creasing the other merwoman’s brow.
“What happened, Kai?”
“Too much.” Kai perched on the edge of her desk and fingered the small conch shell in her hand. That something so little and delicate could hold secrets to ruin dozens of lives intimidated her more than fighting corrupted nymphs and battling traitors to the crown. Handling council lords wouldn’t be as black and white as defeating Calypso.
“All right then. Begin at the start.”
“It feels wrong to say a word after you’ve shared the good news with me. We should be popping open a bottle of bubbly and getting giggly drunk on pomegranate wine. This stuff? This is…” Depressing. Awful. Kai had only scratched the surface of the shit mountain Democrates presented to her, and it would take many more dedicated hours to unravel even more.
“I don’t mind. Nothing can ruin this day. What is it? What’s wrong? Kai,” Amerin said, wheeling close enough to take both of Kai’s hands in her grip, “tell me what I can do to help you.”
Kai paced the room and bit her lower lip. “You believe Heracles can be trusted, yes?” Heracles seemed an appropriate choice, as did Amerin, both of them proven through blood and sacrifice that they had both her and Atlantis’s best interests at heart. Aside from Cosmas and Elpis, she didn’t believe anyone else could be as genuine and loyal.
“He died for you both. There is no greater show of devotion and dedication. Now you’re scaring me, guppy. What is it?”
Who’s involved?
“Let me summon Heracles. I’d prefer not to repeat this more often than necessary.”
The Royal Guard commander arrived in record time and then Kai secured the room against eavesdropping a second time. Beginning with the basics, by sharing the documents shared between the keepers, was enough to stun both speechless.
“I can’t believe it,” Heracles said. “Keepers participating in it?”
“Why should that be any surprise when Myrmidons fought on Calypso’s side at the sunken temple?” Amerin asked.
“Point. What did Democrates want in exchange for this intel?”
“Yes. I wish to know the same,” Amerin said.
“This. Before anyone else knows, I felt you both deserved to read this first as it affects both of you.” Kai handed Amerin the decree once and watched the transition of her expression, features shifting from concerned and fretting to glowing with happiness. When Heracles read it, he merely shrugged.
“I’ll always be a warrior, not because I was born one, but because it’s my first love and what I’ll do until the day I die. This changes nothing for me, and for true warriors, for those with the spirit of battle, it will change nothing for them. You have my full support, Kai.”
“Thank you. Now, on to the difficult part.”
Despite the hours she’d spent reading through dry reports, watching surveillance, and poring through digital banking records, Kai was able to sum up the meeting with Democrates and the result of it in mere minutes. Neither Amerin nor Heracles interrupted once, though at the end the latter sank back in his seat and stared. Contrasting Amerin’s surprise, his features burned with indignation.
“What do you both think? What do I do now that I have this knowledge?”
“We report it to Demetrius,” Amerin said at once.
“Agreed. He can be trusted. Never met a keeper with greater integrity than that mer. He’ll want to know key members of the Council of Lords are paying some of his men to look the other way at the import stations for their smuggled goods. Mother of Mercury, I never imagined Lady Thalia was smuggling in the firebomb potions. There are so many criminal elements in Atlantis I’d have expected it to be any one of those.”
Amerin scoffed. “Thalia is a warrior hiding in noble’s clothing. You’d think she would be among the first to salute you and praise your upcoming decree, but she’ll loathe it, Kai. She’s arming herself for war.”
“Against who?” Kai asked. “She’s arming herself for a war, yet some of those potions found their way into Loyalist hands. Funny coincidence, don’t you think?”
“There’s nothing coincidental at all about this, Kai. You didn’t play into her hands. When she couldn’t eliminate you the day we went into the city, she attempted to manipulate you into doing her bidding through friendship instead. And she continues even now to sway you to her side. She is a brilliant strategist. Creating unrest among the citizens of Atlantis is precisely what anyone with a lick of sense would do. What if this is what she’s doing in the trench? What if it isn’t an excavation into the past for ancient relics at all, and is instead some training ground?”
The longer that Amerin spoke, the more insidious it all appeared to Kai. Thalia continued to lean on her, calling every so often under the pretense of wanting to have her for tea again, to discuss their findings in the pursuit of discovering Nyx’s lost temple, or brunch with other members of the council. Kai always begged off whenever she could come up with a valid excuse to avoid sitting around with the ancient blowfish, because she knew precisely what they wanted from her and that it had nothing to do with genuinely getting to know her or catching up. They wanted things from her. They wanted decrees to serve their individual purposes, and they desired promises from the crown she had no plans to fulfill.
“It makes complete sense to me as well,” Heracles said carefully. “I do believe Democrates when he said the majority of Loyalists are peaceful. By turning this over, he’s helping himself as much as he’s helping you. If this carries on, you’ll need to conscript more Myrmidons to put it down. More keepers. M
ore law and military.”
“Mers deprived of their rights,” Amerin said.
Kai raised two fingers to each of her temples and sighed. “I feel like a fool. I trusted these people. I believed Atlantis was better than the surface, but it isn’t. All the same issues exist.”
“To tell you the truth, my queen, I’m not surprised. Money laundering, embezzlement, all of this is merely a symptom of a greater sickness in Atlantis.”
“And what is that sickness?”
“The absence of a good leader for far too long.”
13
Lost and Foundling
Despite attempting for an hour to read more than one page of her novel, Kai could not focus. The serenity of the aquagarden didn’t help, and she retired to her bedroom for a nap, only for Amerin to intercept her along the way and insist on a change of clothing.
As if clothing could lessen her anxiety.
As expected, Kai’s recent edict put Atlantis into a state of turmoil. The Council of Lords demanded an explanation for her decision and criticized her in numerous publications.
Each caste stepped forward with its own dissenters, even among the servants who claimed stripping them of their caste entirely was to strip away from them a vital part of who they were. Kai wondered if they did not understand they could continue the same work, and that she had merely freed them to explore life beyond cleaning floors and tidying kitchen shelves.
Warriors claimed the fighting spirit was in their blood, and that she would cripple the Myrmidon forces and Atlantian Keeper Corps if she allowed anyone to join.
Despite the nobility already participating in both.
Thankfully, these people were in the minority, a small fraction of the greater whole.
To her surprise, a great number of priests came out in support of the change, promising that Kai’s decree had opened doors for new devotees to pledge themselves to the temples. Serving the priesthood was about more than a magical connection to the gods. It was a calling that transcended bloodlines. Of course, some despised it. Some claimed they would never bend.
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