Zamir huffed out his breath. “She seems like a selfish brat, and coming from someone who was—until he died—very much a selfish brat, that’s saying something.”
“Is there any way you can let Arman loose? I’d like to talk to him too.”
He turned to glare at her. “I don’t control them in that way.” His frown unexpectedly softened. “Do you miss Jackson?”
Ginny sighed, suddenly aware of the sharp ache in her chest. “Not as much as I think I should, and it makes me feel guilty. He should have been missed more, mourned more.”
Zamir said nothing, and Ginny was suddenly angry—with him and with herself—that she had expected him to. She glanced up at his face, then realized that his eyes were closed, his brow furrowed.
“The water,” he murmured. “The water’s not right.” Zamir hurried forward, and Ginny followed as the caves narrowed, seemingly to a dead end, but for a small opening in the wall. The manta drone hovered in the water; three tailed figures slumped beside it.
Ginny could make out Thaleia easily with her silvery tail, more slender, curved figure, and long hair, but in the darkness, she could not distinguish between Badur’s and Kai’s broad shoulders and lean torsos. In poor light, dull black and gleaming black looked like black. And—
Ginny went cold.
Kai was royalty, and everyone knew it because of his eyes—gold flecks upon swirling green and blue—a genetic stamp that passed through the royal bloodline.
But Badur was blind, and not just blind. His eyes had been gouged out.
If they ever were the eyes of royalty, no one would know now.
No one except Badur. And Thaleia.
Could it…? Ginny bit down on her lip. “Zamir…”
“What?” his voice snapped with impatience.
“What was your son’s name?”
Chapter 17
Ginny’s heartbeat stuttered as she waited for the answer that could change everything.
Zamir jerked to a stop and spun to look at Ginny. “What?”
Come on, Ginny girl. You’ve already asked the question. Now see it all the damn way through. She drew another deep breath. “What was Kai’s father’s name?”
“Bahari. Why?”
“And the mermaid he loved. Do you remember her name?”
Zamir scowled. “Taraneh.” He spit out the word like a curse, then turned his back on her and hurried down the passage toward his grandson.
Bahari and Taraneh.
Badur and Thaleia.
It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, could it?
Ginny rushed after Zamir, but he had already reached the other Beltiamatu. “What’s wrong?” Zamir’s harsh voice demanded.
“Acid pools in the cavern on the other side of the wall,” Kai said. Even in the poor light, he looked pale and was clearly struggling to breathe.
“How long is the cavern?”
“Can’t see the other end of it.” Kai grimaced. “It’s longer than I can hold my breath.”
“I’m going to check it out,” Zamir said. “Don’t come after me.”
Kai stiffened, his tail curling sharply beneath him. “What—?”
But Zamir was gone, squeezing through the small gap in the rock.
Kai snarled and slammed his fist on the rock wall. “How many more will I lose fighting my way to Atlantis?”
Thaleia looked up wearily and placed her hand on Kai’s shoulder. “It’s not your battle to fight alone.”
“No one else should have to die for the mistakes I made.”
Ginny said nothing, but her gaze shuttled among Badur, Thaleia, and Kai. If she imagined Badur and Thaleia flush with life instead of sunken by years of deprivation, she could easily see the stamp of their features upon Kai’s face. Kai’s defined arch of the brow, the shape of the eyes, and the straight line of the nose were Thaleia’s. The aristocratic slash of Kai’s cheekbones and arrogant jawline came from Badur. The best of their features had combined in Kai.
Did Zamir know? Did he even suspect?
Why would he? To him, his son had been dead all these years, and his mermaid lover with him.
Had Zamir even mourned his son?
Ginny didn’t think she knew the answer to that question.
Kai’s low growl snapped her back into the present. “I have to go after him. He could be in trouble.”
“He said not to go after him,” Thaleia reminded.
“I can’t do nothing and let him die. He’s…” Kai caught himself. “I cannot just wait.”
Ginny intervened. “Zee’s not Beltiamatu.” She emphasized his name to remind Kai of the secret they shared—the heavy burden of Zamir’s identity. “His body doesn’t work the same way yours does. Give it some time.”
“How much longer?” Kai demanded. “Every moment out there, he’s suffering. Dying.”
Oh, Kai.
Ginny’s heart ached for the mer-king and mer-prince—neither of whom was willing to admit to the powerful ties of family and love that bound them together—but whose actions, and even words, screamed it, especially when the other was not present.
How screwed up did a family have to be for love to be treated like a deep, dark, dirty secret?
A shadow approached the crack in the wall. Kai spun around and drew Zamir out. Zamir’s eyes were glazed, and he dropped onto his knees, drawing deep gulps of the cleaner water into his lungs. “I…”
“Don’t talk now. Just breathe,” Ginny coached.
Badur extended his hand toward the sway of currents swirling from the direction they had come. He snapped harshly. “We don’t have much time. The humans and the machines have followed us into the caves. We have mere minutes to go forward, or die here.”
“Did you make it across?” Kai asked Zamir.
“Barely. It was longer than I expected. The tunnel narrows and winds upward, and opens into the ancient grove.”
“What ancient grove?”
“The heart of Atlantis. I didn’t see the aether core, but I know it’s there. The entire place glows with the radiance of day. I suspect that half of the regulator shattered, which has kept the core from dissipating entirely, but it also means that it’s pulsing raw dark energy.”
Kai’s jaw squared. “I have to get to it.”
“You’ll die getting to it. The only way is across the acid chamber. Your lungs are much more efficient than mine, which means that the acid will rip it apart before you’re even halfway across.” Zamir glanced at Ginny. “The only way he’ll get across is if you transform the acid.”
Kai’s incredulous gaze flicked between Zamir and Ginny. “With aether? But…” He grimaced. “You’re right. There’s no other way. Do it.”
Do it?
Ginny blinked hard, repeatedly.
You mean…me?
But Zamir was already taking action. “Kai, get into the manta. Badur, Thaleia, turn it around so its mouth faces away from the acid chamber. It may protect him from direct exposure to aether.” He gave orders with the ease of the king he truly was. “Ginny, do you know what to do?”
Her heartbeat was still skittering like a nervous faun, and she had to fold in her fingers to contain the trembling of her hands. “Not really, but aether probably has a clue.” She swam toward the narrow opening.
“We’re all clueless here,” Zamir grumbled under his breath. “Watch your feet.”
She peeked in through the opening. At first, it all seemed like water, but her squinty-eyed stare confirmed that the lower half of the chamber possessed a different texture, even the hint of a different color. Acid. It had a different density than water, and reacted with it to release poisonous fumes.
“All right now.” She extended her hand above the acid pools. “Do something.”
Nothing happened.
“Ginny,” Zamir growled, his tone impatient.
“I’m trying.” She wriggled her fingers. Shook her wrist. Still nothing.
Behind her, the currents rippled so violently even s
he could feel it.
They were here.
The Atlanteans had caught up with them.
Ginny glanced over her shoulder as Kai darted out of the manta’s mouth. A powerful flick of his tail slammed one of the divers against the wall. With a slash of his talons, he ripped the diving mask off another, puncturing holes in the breathing tube.
Zamir, too, launched into the fight, yanking away the divers’ spear and shock guns, turning their weapons against them.
Thaleia grasped Badur’s arm and drew him away from the battle. “Why isn’t your aether working?” she demanded.
“I don’t…” Ginny drew a sharp breath. Chill raced into her extremities. “Because I’m not in trouble.”
Yet…
Quenching her sense of self-preservation was easier than she imagined it would be. What was one more lousy decision on top of all the lousy decisions that had gotten her to this point?
Ginny swam into the cavern. The seabed quavered, bubbles rising upward as if the acid were eating into the stone beneath. She extended her hand. Still nothing.
What the hell? Did she have to burn herself with acid before that damned aether did something?
“Ginny!” Zamir shouted. “There’s too many of them. Hurry!”
She snarled and punched the button on her weight belt. At least that damned thing—made on earth, by humans, thank God—did as it was told. She started sinking.
Where did the water end and the acid begin?
She didn’t know.
She fumbled with the weight belt, her fingers clumsy from panic and haste.
The knife tumbled off and plunged through the water. Five inches beneath her toes, it started sizzling, as if she had dropped it into boiling oil. Within moments, its form warped. Its edges melted. Ginny counted the heartbeats until she could not see it anymore.
It vanished too quickly.
So, it really was acid, not that she had doubted. Her lungs were already tightening against the fumes. She pointed her fingers down at the acid, but the glow of aether was conspicuously absent. No amount of shaking or wriggling made it appear.
Come on! What is wrong with you?
“Kai!” Thaleia’s panicked voice screamed. “He’s—Badur, no! Come back!”
They were dying.
Kai…
Zamir…
Her heart clenched so tightly it squeezed the breath from her lungs.
He would die trapped between the cultists and an acid pool.
She had to get back out there. Help him.
But she was down here, supposed to be helping them. And nothing was happening.
What if the aether was gone? What if she had used it up?
Could she stand by while the cultists killed Kai and Badur?
Would she do nothing when the Atlanteans wiped out the entire royal Beltiamatu bloodline in a fell swoop?
Chapter 18
And not just Badur and Kai, but—
Zamir?
No! With or without aether, she had to do something.
Ginny twisted around to swim up to the opening.
The tip of her flipper brushed against acid.
Molded plastic sizzled as acid burned up the length of the flipper. Damn it! Ginny tried to paddle away, but in that instant, a purple shimmer radiated from her toes and spread across the acid pool. The glow, radiating in all directions, filled the entire chamber.
Ginny stared in delight at the solid layer of—something—that covered the acid. She swam up to the opening. “This way! Come on!”
Kai wore a pained grimace, even though he did not have any visible wounds. The high concentration of aether was obviously affecting him. “Thaleia, take Badur. Go!” He wrenched a diver’s arm, forcing the man to drop the stun gun. A flick of Kai’s tail swept the gun toward him. He snatched it up and pressed its muzzle against the side of the diver’s head.
Within the mask, the man’s eyes widened with terror. His hands swung up in denial, in a plea.
Kai pulled the trigger. The side of the man’s diving hood instantly blackened; consciousness blanked out.
Ginny helped Thaleia maneuver Badur through the opening. “Go on!” Ginny pointed them to the exit on the far side of the cavern. Thaleia hurried Badur along the now safe path as Ginny, once more, peeked out of the narrow opening. “Kai! Zamir! Come on!”
“Go!” Kai shouted to Zamir.
“You first!” Zamir retorted.
“I’m faster than you. Go! And take Ginny with you.”
Everything Kai said was true—including what Kai hadn’t said, which was that, with or without a tail, he was a far better underwater warrior than Zamir—but Ginny could see in Zamir’s eyes how much he hated leaving his grandson behind. Zamir drove a spear through the diver’s oxygen tank and darted away from the suddenly panicked diver. He squeezed through the opening, then seized Ginny around the waist. “Come on.” He glanced down at the acid pool as they swam through the cavern. “Is that a yellow brick road?”
Ginny gulped back a giggle. It was completely inappropriate in the midst of battle, but the tickle in her stomach had welled up regardless. “Um…yes, it is.”
“Why did you turn acid into a yellow brick road?”
“Obscure childhood reference.” She shrugged it away. “You wouldn’t get it.” Ginny glanced over her shoulder. “He’s not coming.”
Zamir grimaced. “Kai!” he roared. Then, he said something she didn’t understand, not even in Sumerian.
Moments later, Kai appeared at the opening, and he darted into the passage.
But he stiffened, as if struck. His tail writhed spasmodically.
“He’s transforming.” Ginny tore herself out of Zamir’s arms and swam back toward Kai. Zamir beat her there. Together, they grabbed Kai around the waist and rushed him through the cavern.
She had never been this close to Kai as he transformed. Had never before held him through the spasms of anguish. Ginny had never been close enough before to see Kai’s eyes go blank with mind-blowing pain. Never been close enough before to actually feel the choking, strangled cries, each one fighting to get past the clenching muscles in his chest and his throat.
She had never known how wrenching it could be to hold the strong body of a warrior as it crumpled, crushed by unrelenting pain.
She had never known how terrifying it was to feel Kai’s scales, muscle, and flesh brush against her wet suit as it sloughed away from his body.
She had never imagined how shattering it was when Kai slumped, driven nearly to the edge of unconsciousness, in her arms.
Thaleia waited at the opposite end of the passage. Her eyes flared with distress as she took in Kai’s legs, instead of his tail. “The path slopes up, onto land, into a grove, but it’s in a cave still, not out in the open.”
“The heart of Atlantis,” Zamir confirmed. “Did you see the aether core over a pedestal?”
“Not from the edge of the water, but it’s a vast grove.”
“You and Badur keep watch. Warn us if the Atlanteans approach.” Zamir glanced at Ginny. “We’ll get Kai to the core.” He swam to the shallows, past Badur, whose face was marked with deep anxiety, then pulled Kai out of the water.
Kai tried to push to his feet, but he collapsed, staggered by fatigue and pain. “I’ve got you.” Zamir’s voice was so gentle that Ginny’s heart broke for them. For all of them. For Kai, who did not know that he still had parents. For Zamir, who carried his grandson. For Thaleia and Badur, who watched their precious son in the arms of a man they did not realize was Badur’s much-hated father.
Ginny raced beside Zamir through the vast grove. She had been here before, but she had come in through a different entrance with Ashe and Varun, and they had known the way. “Where is it?” Ginny demanded when Zamir paused. All around were trees—endless trees so tall, their trunks so thick, and so tightly packed that she could not see around them.
Zamir glanced down at Kai’s face as he turned in a slow half circle. “This way,” h
e said, his voice strong with absolute certainty.
“How do you know?” Ginny asked.
“He’s reacting to the aether core.”
Ginny’s stomach wrenched. “You’re navigating based on the pain on his face? You—”
You what? Monster?
How much of Zamir’s apparent cruelty was simply an insightful, practical man trying to make the best of a wretched situation? Trying to redeem it the only way he knew how?
She followed him through the maze of trees as it thinned out in a clearing, just as she had remembered.
A single golden-colored pedestal in the center.
The aether cloud hovered above the pedestal. It pulsed blackness, streaked with violet and indigo, like a living, beating heart.
Kai’s breathing quickened. His legs twitched and jerked uncontrollably. His stomach was so tightly clenched that his well-defined abdomen muscles stood out sharply. His hands curled into fists, his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands until they bled.
“Hurry,” Ginny breathed, even though she still wasn’t sure what they were hurrying toward. If Kai absorbed the aether, what would happen to him? He was already so sensitized to aether. Would it rip him apart and put him back together, then rip him apart again in an endless cycle of torment?
A single shot rang through the clearing, and Zamir stumbled to his knees. Kai tumbled off Zamir’s shoulders and hit the ground, too weak to even cry out in pain.
Ginny spun around.
Jacob kept his handgun aimed at Zamir’s back as he strode into the clearing, with Ondine beside him. Behind him, several cultists emerged. Many were armed with handguns and assault rifles. Six others dragged along three Beltiamatu—Badur, Thaleia, and Naia—battered and bleeding, their hands cuffed over their heads. The cultists pulled them by their wrists, dragging their tails along the ground, indifferent to how the rough ground ripped their scales.
“Thank you for showing us the way.” Jacob circled Zamir as Zamir slowly straightened, his hand pressed against the bleeding wound in his side. “You put up a good fight, considering how few of you there were.” His eyes narrowed. “I would not have liked to have taken on the Beltiamatu empire at its height, not without aether. But now…” His gaze flicked to the serenely hovering aether cloud above the pedestal. He extended his hand toward it.
Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Page 12
