When Visola woke up, she was disappointed to find that she was not underwater. She always got a better night’s sleep when submerged in the sea. It was something to do with the breathing—it was more relaxing. She groaned as she came to, feeling a painful stiffness in her muscles, especially in her chest and back. There was also a sharp pain in her side, and a dull ache in her abdomen and thighs.
“Vachlan?” she mumbled. “Did I drink too much again last night?”
When there was no response, she cracked an eye open. She became suddenly aware of the fact that she was tied to a chair in the back of a moving, armored vehicle. There were members of the CIA sitting across from her and watching her carefully. “Oh,” she said in surprise. “Hi.”
One of the women stood up and backhanded Visola across the face. “Tell us what you know about Leviathan!” she shouted.
“Whoa,” Visola said, flexing her jaw. “That’s better than coffee in the morning.”
“Take it easy, Karen,” said another one of the agents. “Maybe we can get her to play nice. She’s already been roughed up a lot.” The male agent stood up and walked over to Visola. He placed his hands on either side of the chair that she was strapped to. “Are you ready to cough up the info we need?”
“Sure,” she told him, leaning forward. “I am the Leviathan. I have the tattoo to prove it. Didn’t you see when you guys undressed me?”
“We know that’s not true. There’s been Leviathan activity since you’ve been captured. Assassinations of prominent American and global officials that were supporters of the Anti-Sea Alliance. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Visola said. “I think you’ll find that I’m not the most sympathetic ear when it comes to hearing about your people getting assassinated. I’ll give you three guesses why.”
“You’re cheeky,” said the male agent, “but this is important. I need you to think really hard and tell me what you know about this organization.”
Visola lifted her eyebrows. “Wish I could help you, stud. I don’t even know what the Anti-Sea Alliance is.”
“The ASA is trying to re-write the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea so that fewer resources remain under the control of the sea-dwellers.”
“Ohhhh,” Visola responded. “So, you guys want our stuff.”
“Essentially,” he responded.
Visola looked up thoughtfully. “Wasn’t America one of the few countries not to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty?”
“That is correct.”
“Wow. We should have known something was wrong ages ago. You guys are jerks. You just want everything.” Visola was just talking to fill the space. She did not really care about the treaty anymore, but her mind did float to Aazuria. She wished she could give her friend all the information she was gaining. “So… how does Leviathan play into this? Is Leviathan actually… protecting sea-dweller rights?”
“Yes. But people are being killed.”
“How are they being killed?” Visola inquired.
The agent moved to retrieve a file, and displayed photographs to Visola. They were scenes of men washed up on beaches with the word “Leviathan” carved into their chest.
“Whoa,” Visola said. “Gruesome body art.”
“She displayed genuine surprise,” said one of the female agents. “She might actually not know anything about this.”
“Of course I don’t. And neither did my sister. That’s why you’re all going to die.” Visola tried to force a cheerful smile, because it was what her old self would have done, but it did not come out quite right.
“It looks like she’s being honest,” the female agent said again, with a frown. “She’s trying to conceal pain, betrayal, anger at injustice. She has no feelings of guilt.”
“Is she reading my face?” Visola asked in wonder. “Wow. She’s really good.”
“She did not turn her face away or try to conceal anything when she discovered my profession,” the face-reading woman said in surprise. She swallowed. “Agents, this woman is innocent. I haven’t seen too many innocent people being interrogated like this, so trust me—I know.”
“I’m hardly innocent,” Visola said jokingly. “Definitely not a virgin.”
“She’s hardly innocent,” agreed the male agent. “She killed dozens of people a few days ago in Miami.”
“Days?” Visola said in surprise. “How long was I out?”
“You were airlifted to a hospital, and once you were patched up enough for the road, we begun driving out west.”
Visola nodded, thankful for the information.
“No, you don’t understand,” the female agent said again. “Not innocent of that—but innocent of the events that led up to that. The situation with her sister. She feels a great injustice was done to her. Where did we get the intelligence that her sister was involved with Leviathan?”
“I don’t think we had any confirmation of that,” said another agent. “It was just a hunch—or a made up story to justify the doctor’s assassination.”
“Wow,” Visola said quietly to herself. “The mere fact that you would say something like that in front of me betrays how little you value your own life… and being able to grow anything on the soil of your country for the next fifty years.”
“Uh oh,” said the female agent. “She was being serious with that little wisecrack.”
“How do you know?” said the male agent skeptically.
“Well, she wasn’t being serious earlier when she called you a ‘stud,’ Lewis,” the female agent explained. “I can read her patterns after watching her say a few sentences.”
Lewis wrinkled his nose. “Thanks for the bullshit, but most of us don’t believe in your phony psychology mumbo-jumbo—we just take you along because the director requires it.”
The female agent lowered her eyes.
Visola frowned. “Hey, lady. What’s your name?”
“Joyce Dearborn,” the face-reader responded.
“Have you noticed how I’m the one tied up and being ‘tortured’ here, but they’re the ones giving me information?” Visola said with a grin.
Joyce nodded.
“Except for you,” Visola commented. “I like you. I’ve been tortured for months, and no one was ever able to get as much information out of me as you were from simply looking at my face. Mad respect. You work for me now.”
“Excuse me?” Joyce said in surprise.
“Well, not me, I suppose, since I left Adlivun,” Visola mused, “and I might get killed soon. But there’s a royal family and royal advisor in need of someone like you. They’re going to need a lot of help to fill my shoes. Just go to Adlivun, and tell my husband I recommended you. Show him what you can do, and he will be blown away. You don’t need to be disrespected by these losers anymore. You can choose your own salary—whatever you want, he can pay it. Make it double or triple what you’re earning now, or ten times more. He won’t care—just ask for whatever you feel you’re worth.”
Joyce seemed pleasantly surprised by this offer, but her colleagues were not.
“Did she just try to buy one of our own out from under us?” Lewis asked. “In front of us?”
Karen nodded. “Seems that way, sir.”
Lewis moved over to Visola and slammed his knee into her stomach. He did it once again, aiming a little higher and hitting her in the ribcage.
She gasped. Her armor had been removed, and she was wearing only a thin hospital gown. Her skin was already extremely bruised and sensitive from the bullets that had hit her in the chest earlier, and her muscles and bones felt quite sore as well. Still, it was not a particularly awful day.
“See?” Visola croaked to Joyce. “Typical jealous man. He mistreats you, fails to appreciate you, then gets all possessive when someone else wants you. Yeesh.”
Joyce smiled.
“I don’t think you can beat her up any more,” Karen told Lewis. “She might pass out or require hospitalization again. Look—the bullet wound in her
side has begun to bleed again.”
Visola looked down and noticed that the woman was right. Her hospital gown was becoming stained by dark red blood. She stared at it for a moment, feeling spellbound by the sight of her own vital fluid.
“Just use the truth serum,” Lewis told Karen. “They were right when they advised us that torturing her would be difficult.”
Karen nodded. She reached down to a small box at her side and prepared a needle for injection.
“Truth serum?” Visola said. “I thought the CIA stopped using those methods?”
“We were supposed to,” said Lewis, “but in light of recent events, and when dealing with terrorists like you… sometimes it’s necessary. We received specific permission to use narcoanalysis on you.”
Visola chewed on her lip as she examined the liquid in the syringe. “What is that… sodium thiopental? Or maybe scopolamine?”
“I can’t say,” Karen said, standing up with the needle. She moved forward, and shoved the needle into Visola’s body. She injected an unusually large dose. “Now,” Karen said. “Tell us what you know. About Leviathan.”
Visola’s head rolled back. Her vision became blurry, and the moving vehicle seemed to be going a lot faster than before. Every bump on the highway felt larger, like they were driving over a road covered in dead animals. Like the truck might be driving over small deer and raccoons, and possibly fallen trees.
A faraway voice spoke to Visola again. “Tell us what you know about Leviathan.”
“He doesn’t like being called that,” Visola whispered. “His dad chose that nickname. He’s actually a really sweet guy.”
“Leviathan is a man?” the voice asked.
“Mhmm,” Visola murmured.
“Just one man? We thought that ‘Leviathan’ was an entire terrorist organization…”
“He played the guitar,” Visola said dreamily, as her eyes fluttered closed. “I could listen to him for hours. He didn’t really love me. But I thought he did, when he sang to me…”
Chapter 9: He Played Guitar
Atlantis, 1582
“What are we going to do?” Taranis asked.
Lying on the moist, warm sand beside him, Visola sighed. He spoke in the refined Atlantean tongue that was meant for poetry and song. Even when he was not playing his guitar, his deep voice and foreign phonetics sounded musical. “What choice do we have?” she asked, rubbing her hand idly over his arm. “We must follow the instructions of our fathers.”
“I do not think I can do that,” Taranis admitted. “Knowing you… it has changed me. I can no longer imagine living my life without you.”
“We have our tattoos,” Visola said with a smile. She stretched out languidly on the sand, examining the glittering walls of the private lagoon. “You will always be my friend. Wherever I go in life, I will remember you and think fondly of all the trouble we got into together.”
“So that’s it?” he asked, looking down. The slender young boy strummed his fingers across the strings of the instrument he held on his lap. “That’s all.” Music poured forth, filling the cave with an enchanting sound. It was something he did whenever he felt upset and needed to lift his own spirits. “I barely got to know you,” he said, over the music, “and now you’re being ripped away from me.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I will be your wife’s bodyguard,” Visola reminded him. “We can still train together and see each other now and then.”
Taranis shook his head, strumming a few more notes. He looked up at the cave sadly. “I have never even met her. What’s the princess like?”
“She’s a spoiled brat. An annoying little snob,” Visola said. Then she flinched at the harshness of her own words. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to say that. We’ve been fighting lately. But I do love her dearly, and sometimes I think she’s the most amazing girl I’ve ever met,” Visola admitted.
“I hear that she’s just a child,” Taranis said nervously. “Why would they want me to marry a child?”
“Technically, she’s older than I am, even though she looks much younger.” Visola sighed again, looking down at her own body, which had matured to the equivalent of a 16-year-old land-dweller. “She has lived underwater for most of her life, so her body is preserved and aging slowly.”
“I see,” said Taranis. He played his guitar for a few more minutes, slowly sending music out to mix with the relaxing sound of the water against the rocks. He played the tune of a song he had composed for Visola a few days earlier. She had almost fallen asleep when he abruptly stopped. “I want to do the right thing. I want to make my family proud. But I’m terrified of a cold and loveless life. I want to be with you, Visola. I feel happier than I’ve ever felt when I’m with you.”
“Me too,” she said softly, “but you should not worry. You will grow to love Aazuria. I promise.”
“I am scared,” Taranis admitted. He put his guitar aside and looked at her gravely. “Father expects me to propose to her tomorrow at the banquet. In front of everyone. What am I going to do?”
Visola turned away from him, to conceal the tears in her eyes. “You should do whatever feels right.”
“It feels right to be here with you,” he said quietly. He placed his hand on her waist. “Will you sing to me?”
She shook her head. “I cannot sing very well.”
“Just try,” he urged her gently, pressing his lips against the back of her shoulder. “You have such a nice voice.”
Visola bit her lip to steel herself and keep the emotion out of her voice. “I am afraid that I have no talents,” she said softly. “I cannot sing. I cannot dance. I cannot paint. I cannot write.”
“But I have seen you fight,” he told her, brushing her radiant hair aside to kiss her neck. “You sing with your sword. You dance with your daggers. You paint with the blood of your enemies. You will write history with your ferocity.”
Turning over to scrutinize his face, she gazed at him through her tear-filled eyes. “Why do you say such things to me? Why do you waste your words when you know we cannot be?”
“Why can we not?” he demanded. “Why should we let others choose our lives? Why don’t we take control?”
“Prince Taranis, please do not toy with me,” she told him, reaching up to touch his cheek. She smiled up into his amber eyes. “We both know that family comes first.”
“Then maybe you should be my family,” he said, taking her hand. His face lit up with excitement. “Let’s run away together!”
“Run away?” she repeated. She was not sure if she understood the correct translation for the Atlantean words. She was almost sure that her ears were deceiving her.
“Yes. Forget them!” he declared violently. “They can all rot. My father and King Kyrosed Vellamo—how dare they manipulate me into doing their bidding? I want you as my bride.”
“Bride?” Visola said in surprise.
Taranis leaned forward to place a kiss on her lips. He was uncertain, and awkward, and somewhat shy—but temporarily emboldened by his burst of rebellion. “Will you be my bride, Visola? Will you marry me?”
She stared up at him, her mouth open in a perfectly round O-shape. “Silly me!” she finally said with a little laugh. “I don’t know your language that well, and I just thought you said something that you could not possibly have said…”
“Will you marry me?” Taranis repeated in Old Norse.
Her mouth resumed its previous shape of astonishment. “Oh!” she said, after a moment, laughing again. “You must not know my language very well! There’s no way you meant to say what I thought you just said. Well, this is embarrassing. Look at us, a pair of fools from different countries, perfectly incapable of basic communication…”
Taranis pulled away from her and sat on his knees. He lifted his hands to speak in the universal sign language, which was utterly unmistakable to anyone who had been born beneath the waves. “Lieutenant Visola Ramaris, will you please marry me? This is a difficult question to ask, so please
stop making me repeat it!” The poor boy’s cheeks were beet red. “I know a few more languages, but I might be running out of ones that we both know.”
Visola was frozen for several seconds. She lifted herself up onto her elbows and stared at him, cocking her head to the side. “But you’re a prince. I’m just a lowly warrior from the north. Your father would never allow it.”
“I will make him understand,” Taranis said, moving over to Visola and kissing her again. “I will go to him tonight and beg him to consider letting me marry you. And if he refuses, I will tell him that I agree to marry Aazuria; but instead, you and I can run away in the middle of the night. At midnight. I’ll find a way to send word to you, and we’ll meet back here. If you don’t get word from me, it means he agreed.”
“Taranis,” Visola whispered, reaching up to grasp giant handfuls of his shirt. “You would do this for me?”
“I would do anything for you,” he vowed, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her tightly.
Visola buried her face in his shirt. She breathed in his scent, and found that he was spicy and musky, like a fresh, quiet forest in the morning. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you!”
“Really?” he said, pulling away to study her green eyes.
“Of course,” she told him. “I just can’t believe you would choose me. That you would fight for me. You’re the loveliest boy I’ve ever met.”
“You’re the most amazing girl I’ve ever met,” he told her, caressing his hands over her hair. “I think we can do this. We can be free and happy.”
“But where will we go?” Visola asked. She gasped. “Oh, no. What about my sister? I can’t leave Sionna. And Zuri—she can’t fight. She needs me. She’s so tiny and weak.” Visola clamped a hand over her mouth in horror. “I’m an awful person! I intend to abandon those who need me for my own happiness.”
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