Goddess of Sea and War: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 3)

by Vivienne Savage

  Sea slugs had aided them.

  If they could save her once, Amerin was willing to believe they could again.

  Please, Amerin pleaded with her legs. If ever she had needed results from months of torture, it was now. Pins and needles stabbed her soles. Her legs were dead and frail, too weak to do more than slap one against the ground and push off with it. It was difficult, painstaking work, every few inches a triumph as the pressed her toes against the ground for purchase.

  The palace could tumble down around them while they hid in the safety of the pool, but another option loomed before her. Few members of palace staff knew clean water filtered from beyond the dome through an access tunnel beneath the gardens.

  If I can remove the grate, we can get through.

  Then where would they go?

  Amerin glanced at the pool where another grouping of slugs entered the water. An idea coalesced in her thoughts. If the red slugs could guide her rescuers to her, couldn’t they guide her to safety? She followed them.

  We only need to hide until help arrives.

  In darkness, they hid at the bottom of the palace aquagarden while the sounds of battle drew nearer, cowering together tucked to the side of the corals despite the infant’s persistent fussiness. With only a pearl-handled knife for protection, she waited for a true friend to come to her aid.

  What came was something different.

  The smoking body of a palace guard struck the cobbled walking path that sloped down to the pond while alarms calling for evacuation of the palace blared overhead, screaming from every direction.

  Amerin thought when death came for her, the Gloom-ridden nymph would tower as ten feet of drooling monster covered in rotting tissue and mutated limbs. Instead, from the waist up, the nymph had retained much of her beauty, her limbs slender, neck delicate, and breasts full. Her natural waist nipped into an hourglass silhouette before curving outward into bountiful proportions expected of a creature designed to tantalize merwomen and mermen alike. A cluster of the same red slugs clung to her glistening skin.

  What drew Amerin’s prompt attention—what captured it and wouldn’t let go—was the distended belly, evidence of a recent birth leaving an empty, sagging pouch.

  Atalanta quieted.

  Amerin had nowhere else to hide. It struck her as silly that she had tried at all and doubted Jason’s word that the mother had come for her child.

  “Come,” the Gloombeast said, beckoning. “I will not harm you.”

  Lies.

  “You’re Astraia.”

  “I am,” the daughter of Calypso confirmed with a sad smile on her diseased face. The closer she came, the easier it was for Amerin to see the imperfections in her features, the discoloration of the tissue, and the flaws that were somehow not present in her child. “And she is mine. Was mine.”

  “You left her for the king and queen to find.”

  “Was our plan so transparent?” She chuckled thickly, the sound rattling in her throat and lacking its initial seductive quality. “Narkissa believed we could use her, you see. The latent Gloom lurking in her blood was to quietly infect those closest to her.”

  “I’m infected?”

  “Yes.” Astraia leaned down with one dark hand extended. Amerin drifted back in the water instinctively, removing the baby from the nymph’s reach. “Ah…”

  To Amerin’s surprise, the demigoddess withdrew her hand. Scared speechless, she trembled, floating in the water with her arms around a precious child at that very moment contaminating her with the world’s most dangerous disease.

  She felt like a fool.

  It’s already done. I’m already dead.

  “I loved her,” Astraia said quietly. “From the moment I saw her, but this was Mother and Narkissa’s plan. My dear sister and her harbored grudge.”

  “But you left her on the volcano.”

  “So the queen would take her in. We know Kailani is immune to our sickness. Why, we do not know. But you and so many others are susceptible. We knew she would bear this illness to her caretakers, and it would spread as a plague through Atlantis. I have watched this city for years, spectating all through the eyes of my little friends. I’ve watched the queen make change. I’ve watched her loved ones betray her. I have watched it all.”

  “Why?” All her life, Amerin never thought she would have the opportunity to ask one of the semi-divine sisters the motivation behind their actions. “Why slaughter millions? What do you have to gain by tearing down Atlantis?”

  “Nothing.” Astraia tucked her chin and laughed again. “So much senseless loss. I spent a lifetime in the dark, and for a while, there was light. I had the love of my sisters. I had a mother.” She blinked a few times and gazed past Amerin at the shimmering lights of the Vircilien. “I miss sunlight on my skin.”

  Amerin wondered if creatures of the Gloom could still cry.

  Steps neared, the sound of Myrmidons moving in formation. Their feet thundered against stone, and voices called out orders she recognized from observing a thousand training scenarios.

  They had located Astraia and followed the trail of death to the gardens. Soon, they would be there.

  “My mother cared for vengeance more than me. She invoked the old gods. She summoned them and pledged us to do their bidding, all to take vengeance against a god who did not want us.” Astraia sighed and closed her eyes. “Do you love her?”

  The answer came to the tip of Amerin’s tongue without hesitation. “More than myself.”

  “Keep her safe, always, the way I cannot. I tire of war. I tire of this half-life. I only wanted to see her one last time, to know that someone cares for her. Give her the opportunities that my mother did not grant me.”

  When the Myrmidons came for her, Astraia did not fight them. The rapid discharge of their weapons tore through unguarded flesh, and her dark blood spilled into the pool.

  Behind Amerin, the light from the Vircilien shone warm against the back of her shoulders.

  33

  Heaven and Sea

  The panicked hammering of her heart continued with each step, gaining speed and intensity as she ascended a flight of stone stairs. When she dared to glance back over her shoulder, she saw nothing behind her at all but a deep, fathomless darkness, and no discernible stairway. A song without words called to her, the trickling of water and the roar of the surf against sand.

  Is this real?

  Her mind returned to the Elysian Waves and the series of fever dreams she’d experienced while under the spell of Berenice’s potion during the Trial of Spirit. Both times, she had been asleep and potentially at the brink of death, close to the veil between worlds.

  I could be asleep.

  I could have dreamed my escape from the spider hole.

  Waves continued to crash in the distance, drawing her down a familiar corridor seen only once in the moments prior to an assassin attempting to carve the heart from her chest. Slabs of black marble slid behind her, the blocks rumbling and repositioning with each step and sealing the way behind her.

  The path forward ended abruptly, emptying into a windowless shrine illuminated by twin torches and many candles. Kai knew the room and its single altar, as much as she knew the merwoman slumped over it.

  Thalia’s desiccated corpse had been entirely drained of life, the flesh sunken and wrinkled, her fingers skeletal. She could have been dead for centuries. The tips of her fingers remained outstretched, as if they had been in contact with an item no longer present during her final moments.

  Whatever had killed Thalia, it had not been pleasant. Her mouth was distended, yawning open in a frozen shriek. Neither box from the dream was present.

  “Do not weep, little one. I am here,” a voice whispered at the fringes of her hearing, almost too soft to detect.

  Kai twisted around and searched the depths of the small cell with little success. The exit had vanished, leaving her in an enclosed room. “Thalassa?”

  “Yes. What remains of the great goddess of the o
ceans is here. Grant me a moment… I am weary. So very tired. Much time has passed since I assumed a form.”

  Water trickled down the walls in gleaming rivulets that gathered into a glittering puddle near Kai’s feet, rapidly gaining mass as each second passed until it rose as tall as Kai. The being before her lacked a solid form, composed of water currents and bioluminescent plankton molded into a feminine shape. Her legs were long and hips wide, her figure that of a fertile woman with flowing hair.

  Despite the translucence of her features, Kai saw only compassion in a beautiful face she’d imagined time after time.

  “You’re real. You’re real and you’re really here.”

  “I am. But did you ever doubt my existence?”

  Kai turned her thoughts inwards and considered all that had occurred since the evening she parted from her parents for the last time, carried desperately by a warrior who protected her charge with her dying breath. “No. Not once. Never. I knew—I just—I can’t believe you’re here now. That I—we—found you at last.”

  Lips composed of water curved into a serene smile. “Yes, you both did. I feel your love for him, child, and I feel the devotion you both share. He is a good man. He will be a good king.”

  “Why did you only speak to him?”

  “I could speak to no one else. My bond with my husband…it was my only connection left with this world. What was magical and divine in my beloved now lives on in Manu. In dreams, I reached out to him. But dreams are fragile things, easily forgotten by mortals and gods alike.”

  “Is…” Kai wanted to ask a thousand things while in the presence of her people’s creator, their mother goddess, and her own ancestor, but all seemed trite when faced with a weakening divine.

  “You may ask whatever you like of me, dear granddaughter, but hurry. My time is short, and the dark ones will not wait. At this very moment, Narkissa works to open a portal between the worlds.”

  “Between what worlds?”

  “The Lost Realm. The Shadow Plane. Hell. Perdition. Tartarus. It has many faces and is known by many names.” The shimmering water apparition shifted to the side and gestured. “Keto and Phorcys used her. Now, her soul will power the gateway to bind the Lost Realm to this world.”

  “But why? Why let her in? You’re goddesses. You could have kept her out?”

  “With what power?” Thalassa whispered. “Our gifts are fragile. Fleeting. Getting you here was more important than keeping her out.”

  “Why?”

  “You will understand in time. Do you remember what Nyx showed you?”

  Forget until it’s time to remember. “Yes.”

  “Then you understand what is at stake. My sister Nyx traded much of her life to save me and to share that message with you. Do not let it be in vain.” Thalassa reached for her with both hands.

  Kai hesitated. “How will I know what to do? What if I mess up?”

  “Listen to your heart, Kailani. Try your best, no matter the endeavor. That is all anyone can ask of you. Always do what is right. Always do what you know in your heart is necessary for the ocean. With the last of her power, Nyx will spirit you to safety.”

  As Kai extended both hands to the goddess, Thalassa disintegrated into millions of particles, each one glowing a soft blue-green hue that swirled together before her and rippled in the underwater current. She almost screamed—should—have screamed, but a strange sense of calm fell over her.

  The sea sparkles converged and swarmed over Kai. She was alive with color transitioning through the spectrum of light, from serene turquoise to blue and violet, becoming a gilded glow that warmed her entire body from head to toe.

  Light pulsed to the beat of Kai’s heart. Seconds later, the light became part of her, no longer living starlight upon her skin but absorbed within it and alight inside her.

  34

  The Time to Remember

  Manu was ready to tear the temple apart slab by slab. The door had shut behind her and promptly vanished, leaving him in a desolate corridor with only the sound of rushing water.

  Indecision reigned, tearing Manu between waiting for Kai or searching for her. He’d never forgive himself if she needed him and he wasn’t there. On the other hand, he had to trust that she knew what was best.

  His protection wasn’t what she needed. She needed his faith and belief in her, even if Thalassa’s song no longer resonated in his mind.

  Manu waited, and would have remained there until the end of time if he hadn’t heard Narkissa’s voice echoing down the vacant corridor. He cocked his head and spun to peer down the intersecting corridor. Unable to shake the feeling of something wrong, he ventured closer and passed through a barrier into an environment of dry stone. A torch ignited with enchanted fire at the end of the hall, and the flickering flames revealed Narkissa’s twisted shadow. A fine trickle of water sprayed from between two marble bricks, and a low rumble vibrated beneath his boots.

  Odd.

  “Poor little merman,” she whispered in a voice as slick as oil and dripping with malevolence. “You think you have a chance of stopping us now. You don’t. We have everything that we need to claim this world for our own. You cannot stop us, she cannot stop us, and no decrepit primordial god can stop us.”

  He loped toward her at a dead sprint. The torch light vanished, but the grotesque smell of her rotting body lingered in the damp air. Rivulets trickled down walls that had previously been dry and gleamed on the marble. He slipped, regained his balance by grasping at the stone, and slid into the next turn.

  “You’re too late. I have what I came for. Keto and Phorcys will rise again to swim these waters.”

  He took off after her at a dash. Her laughter came from one corridor and traveled to another. Each hallway resonated with the sound of her voice. No matter how far and fast he ran, each path stretched without end.

  The structure trembled around him and the rumbling groan of stone moving on stone told him the temple that had endured for centuries wouldn’t last much longer. The entire thing was coming down.

  “Come out and fight me, Narkissa!”

  “And why would I want to do that, when I have you precisely where I want you? All of that power from my father, and you don’t know the first thing about using it.” She laughed. “You’re a joke. I don’t need to win this battle, young godling. I merely need to keep you here to perish in the rubble.”

  Her presence left, as did the hint of blue light that had guided him. Darkness swooped in from all sides and left him in a void so bleak, he could perceive nothing.

  He didn’t rip down the stone or hasten its destruction. He stood still, and he listened. Beyond the temple and its incredible magical enchantments, he felt the stirrings of war. Thousands of Gloombeasts had come to her aid in a horde unlike any they had ever battled before, but he sensed another disturbance in the water. The foul creatures weren’t alone. Hundreds more of Cosmas’s cavalry riders battled with them at the outskirts of the hidden grotto, beyond their sight. The pulse of coral skippers launching their harpoons told him more weren’t far off.

  Instead of following Narkissa, he followed the whisper of the ocean waters and the low clamor of all its creatures. Key among them was a voice he’d heard once before.

  I know you are without reason to trust me, but I need your help. I need you, so that the one who caused me to hurt you will harm no one else. Show me the way.

  When the Watcher of the old temple crawled from a chute above him, he trusted her, as she had trusted him.

  They emerged as the rapidly deteriorating temple truly lost the last of the enchantment binding its many levels, and a chain reaction sent out ominous ripples over the uninhabited waste leading up to the ziggurat. The force carried Manu and the sea spider out onto the sand, but she regained balance with her remaining legs buried in the sand bed.

  Twin towers of black stone jutted from the center of the ruined temple. Narkissa stood before both, her arms raised with a presented offering upon her hands.

/>   Manu climbed down from the spider’s back and placed one hand on a long, spindly leg. “Thank you. Go now and hide before this battle takes you.”

  Another rumble shook the area, and the beast lingered seconds longer than necessary, staring at Manu with its black-marble eyes. Then it burrowed into the sand bed and was gone.

  Kai is coming, Manu thought, not because he needed it to be true, but because he knew she wouldn’t let him down.

  Thalassa’s divinity provided a clarity Kai had lacked before.

  The old gods had nothing else to give. Now she was on her own, searching through the darkness for the way back to her husband.

  He shone like a beacon on a shadowed night.

  Her next step took her from the void into a world of water and dazzling light where Manu stood at her side. He whirled to face her, eyes large with surprise. Shock battled relief, but the latter won before he swept her close against him.

  His kiss, and their mutual joy, was quite short-lived. Less than a hundred meters away, two obelisks of ebony stone jutted from the rubble. Bolts of energy lanced back and forth between them and the epicenter of the corruption pulsed with unholy light.

  Narkissa stood before it with Pandora’s box.

  Manu produced the divine trident and lined up the shot. It flew in a majestic arc destined to spear Narkissa in her exposed spine, but seconds before it struck its mark, the Gloom-ridden nymph screamed in agony.

  Her pained bellow echoed up and down the chamber and filled a space both vast and too small for the tremendous, earth-shaking roar. Her unholy shriek penetrated Kai’s eardrums despite the cushion of water around them.

  “Something happened,” Kai breathed.

  “My sister!” Narkissa howled. Without concern for the trident now impaling her, she flung open the box’s lid. “They have taken my sister! Murderers! Murderers!”

  “Oh no,” Kai breathed.

  “Dark Ones, I dedicate this sacrifice and my own death to release you! Avenge me!”