The Captive King_A Royal States Novel

by Susan Copperfield

  “I accept your ultimatums on the condition we have a minimum of three children.”

  I could live with his counter ultimatum, but I’d never admit I liked the idea. “Three is a reasonable number we can discuss. Seventeen is not a reasonable number of children.”

  “Then we’re agreed. Seventeen is definitely not a reasonable number of children.”

  “Three at once isn’t reasonable, either.”

  “I’m relieved we’re on the same page on this issue. I’ve heard one child is enough to drive parents to the brink of insanity. I’m not sure I can handle three babies at once.”

  “We might not have time,” I confessed, hating myself for ruining his hope—our hope.

  “I know. But believe me, Summer. For however long we have, I want to spend it with you as my wife. You’re worth fighting for, and I look forward to when we’ve beaten this magic. If I have to kidnap every single royal to find the one with the talent capable of helping you, I will. And when our first child is born, you’ll just have to tell me I was right. I’ll enjoy it.”

  Until him, I’d never known my heart could hurt so much. “You would. Be realistic, Landen. I can’t promise you we’ll have long.”

  “I know. I’ll take what time you can give me, however short. Be it only today, I’d rather have that instead of nothing at all.”

  I wondered if speaking my fears would help. There was only one way to find out. “What’ll happen after I’m gone?”

  “I prefer to think we’re meant to be, we’ll beat the magic that’s hurting you, and we’ll live long, happy lives like Peter and Edith. We’ll take it one day at a time.”

  Today was the only day I could give him, and I’d do what I could to show him the better side of my magic, the side of it that didn’t trap people in stone when I was threatened, the side that unveiled lost wonders. “Do you want to see my talent?”

  “Of course.”

  I crawled on my knees, marking the altar beneath us. “I’ll clear here first.”

  “Why here? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  It startled me he wanted to help. “I’m not sure you can help. Really, I just need you to stand with me while I work. The rest of the area won’t be safe. My talent can be unpredictable sometimes.”

  “Just like you.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him. “Once I expose the stone here, stand with me. I meant it. Nowhere else will be safe.”

  “All right.”

  I crawled away from the altar and pointed to where I wanted Landen to stand. The mud cooperated, shifting aside at the lightest brush of my talent, as though the ground itself was eager to expose the secrets it had hidden for so long. Within several breaths, I’d shunted aside the soil covering the altar.

  Blood could, in high enough quantity and left long enough, work into the porous limestone and stain it. I saw no evidence of sacrifice on the rock. I dropped into the hole and crouched, touching the stone.

  I found no taint of lost life on the rough surface.

  Landen joined me in the hole, and he sat on the stone, poking at the mud defying gravity and forming a wall. “Seeing is believing, and this is incredible. I have no idea how someone convinced you this is a mid-grade talent. This is spectacular.”

  “I was rated as a mid-grade talent in New York, and my university sustained my rating.”

  “How old were you when you were rated?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Your talent developed as you used it. That’s common, especially in stronger talents. If a strong talent erupted to full strength at adolescence, most wouldn’t survive to learn how to control their magic. It’s gradual. You should have been reevaluated.”

  “What’s done is done. For some reason, I don’t think I’ll be getting my doctorate anymore.”

  “You can still get your doctorate. Being my queen doesn’t mean you can’t also pursue your career. It just means you’ll have to juggle it creatively. It’ll be trivial to arrange for you to visit sites during political trips, too. It’ll work wonders for the archaeological community, too. Trust me on this one. You don’t have to give up your dreams just because you married me. It’ll just become a little more challenging.”

  “It wasn’t challenging enough?” I blurted.

  He laughed, leaned over, and kissed me. “Trust me.”

  “I’m not responsible if it starts raining mud.”

  “Anything else I should be aware of?”

  “I might have a bad habit.”

  “A bad habit? Just one?”

  I scowled at him. “If I flare, which often happens at new dig sites, I fall over. I don’t want to fall off a tall temple. Falling off small temples hurts. Falling off tall ones would not be good.”

  “Should you faint, I’ll happily catch you. That said, is there a reason you can’t just sit on my lap? That way, when you faint, I’m already holding you. I’ll enjoy my work. We both win.”

  Cuddling while I worked had never been an option. Cuddling with Landen, however, usually led to other things and wouldn’t excavate anything.

  I’d enjoy it a lot, though.

  “We can try that.” Who cared if it took several tries to reveal any part of the temple? We were alone, and if I was going to desecrate a temple, there was no one else I’d want to desecrate one with. I waited until he looked comfortable to invade his lap, and I snuggled close to him, resting my cheek on his shoulder. “If I do it right, I won’t flare, and it’ll be gradual. The idea is to shift away the debris from the temple and relocate it for removal. Since the site is so large, I’ll also be reinforcing the dug-out sections. It’ll probably be boring.”

  “Nothing’s boring when you’re around. Do flares hurt you?”

  “I wouldn’t say they hurt, I just collapse afterwards and need some rest.”

  “Anything I should watch out for?”

  “Not in particular, no. If I faint, just give me a few minutes. If I don’t come to on my own, slap me around a few times. That’ll work.”

  “I have better ways of waking you up,” he murmured.

  “Is it bad of me I want to flare now?”

  He laughed. “You’re insatiable.”

  “It’s your fault.”

  “Work your magic, Summer. If you’re lucky and a really good girl, I’ll work mine.”

  As that sounded wonderful to me, I giggled and redirected my concentration to the buried city. The old buildings sang against my senses, as though eager to see the sun after so long buried in suffocating darkness. If all went to plan, I’d shunt aside the stone powder to reveal the work stoned beneath.

  In reality, almost anything could happen.

  I couldn’t tell how wide the city was, so I decided it didn’t matter where the powder went, as long as I didn’t toss it in the air and suffocate us both with it. I’d have to deal with it later, which had become the story of my life.

  I had so much stuff to do later I’d never have time for it all.

  Magic worked in mysterious ways; if it had reason, logic, and existed within a set flow, something easily measured, it wouldn’t be magic. My talent worked without me, seeping into the ground before sweeping through the city in a torrent, washing away everything in its path.

  Landen sucked in a breath, wrapped his arms around me, and held me close.

  I closed my eyes and let my magic do its work.

  Defying the ravages of time and my talent, the bones remained where they’d fallen while I chased the powdered stone away.

  The ground rocked beneath us, as gentle as a mother soothing a newborn child, as though the Earth comforted the city while I worked. Listening had never been a part of my magic; I felt everything as an extension of my body, the ground becoming part of me.

  The city sang an ancient song, and old magic stroked my skin, reaching deep within me and warming me with its touch. The blend of Nahuatl and Mayan challenged history—rewrote history—and the cadence of the melded languages suggested the two languages had been
destined for linguistic marriage from the start.

  Teotl, the city whispered.

  Some believed teotl meant the gods or divinity as a whole, but I’d come to believe the word meant more. Anything beyond the scope of human understanding, to be held in reverence, might be named teotl.

  I preferred to think teotzin better fit the old gods and their brutal ways.

  The city quieted, and my magic drained out of me, leaving me shaking in Landen’s arms. I panted to catch my breath.

  Landen pressed his lips to the top of my head without care I had stubble instead of hair. “You’re incredible. Did you faint?”

  “Not yet,” I whispered between gasps.

  “I just have one question.”

  “What?”

  “Did you mean to uncover the entire city all at once? Because seriously, that’s ridiculous. You didn’t have to do it all at once. Peter might be able to level mountains, but I’m pretty sure he’d be challenged fortifying an entire city against a siege.”

  What was he talking about? I cracked open an eye to find out.

  In the glory days of Tenochtitlan, they’d built walls and dams to protect their city from floods. They’d even built chinampas to feed their people, making the most out of the marshes and lake surrounding their home.

  Most of those walls and dams were long gone, nothing more than historic references on rare writings.

  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the Nahua building something so imposing as the wall I’d built with my talent using the powdered stone filling the buildings and streets. I hadn’t detected cinnabar nearby, even from our distance, but the stone gleamed red from its presence. While I couldn’t read them—or make out any details at all—a single brush of my talent confirmed the walls were etched with writings, a priceless treasure waiting to be studied.

  “A mid-grade earthweaving talent my pasty white ass,” Landen murmured with laughter in his voice. He dug his phone out of his shirt pocket and took a few pictures. Then he shucked off his jacket, dropping it to the dais beneath the altar. After dislodging me from his lap, his shirt followed moments later.

  “Landen! What are you doing?” It was well enough the altar was far larger than normal, giving us both plenty of space.

  “I’m preparing to reward you for a job well done. According to the text I received a few minutes ago, while you were busy playing with the dirt and building a very impressive wall, we have an hour before the cavalry arrives. I believe we should make the most of every minute, which means our clothes are no longer necessary.”

  “Your reaction to me using my talent is unexpected. Will I have to be careful about how I use my magic in the castle? It’d be unfortunate if you started stripping in the hallways because I used my talent on someone again.”

  “Not quite. I admit, my talent’s to blame in part.”

  “Explain.”

  Landen pointed at the altar. “The city’s rulers—or priests? I’m not sure—would lay down a bed of furs here as a sign of their blessings to a new marriage. At sunset, everyone would leave and the couple would be left alone to consummate their union. While you were building your walls, I tested my talent to see if there was a strong enough imprint I could read. There was. No humans were ever sacrificed on this altar, but plenty of children were born on it.”

  I widened my eyes and sucked in a breath. “You’re a seer?”

  “I have a mutated talent. The only things I can see are strong imprints of past events. If you give me an object, I can usually see what last happened to it. I can see who wielded a gun when it was last fired. Sometimes, if the shooter’s emotions were strong enough, I can see the target, too.”

  “You see that?”

  “Yes. It’s usually flashes of insight, feelings as much as pictures, but that’s my talent. I see pieces of the past. My talent is often requested for unsolved mysteries. Investigators will bring objects from crime scenes to me along with their suspect list. That’s why my assemblies with my advisors are in the evenings. My mornings are usually spent fulfilling investigation requests. My talent works when the victims can’t speak and no one knows who committed the crime.”

  His talent explained so much. How many horrors had he witnessed using his magic?

  “I was curious. I was expecting human sacrifice, not…”

  “Sex and childbirth?”

  “I’d be happy with just one child,” he admitted. “Just one. I’m not sure I could ask you to go through that more than once. I’m okay with one, really.”

  I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh at him, and when the impulse faded, I asked, “Does this happen everything time you touch something?”

  “Fortunately, I have to use my talent intentionally. It’s tiring and often disturbing.”

  “I threatened to cut out someone’s heart at a dig site once, and he told me I’d be desecrating a temple if I did that. I told him it’s not desecration if you’re using the temple for its original intent. I have one condition.”

  “What?”

  “We better not get caught.”

  He pounced, and I swore the man giggled.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Exhaustion reduced us to giggling lunatics, but at least we had the presence of mind to put our clothes back on before we fell prey to helpless laughter.

  “We’re perverts,” I informed Landen.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “We actually desecrated a temple.”

  “You’re the one who said it wasn’t desecration if it’s being used for its original purpose. Also, I was right. I need to marry you while you wear that necklace. It’s beautiful on you. I’m also interested in seeing you wear only that necklace for four days. That’s the next step, right? We spend the next four days keeping each other intimate company?”

  I wasn’t surprised—and I was game. We could have a proper ceremony in the future sometime. Maybe I’d even play by the Maya rulebook and suggest we get married on the shortest, darkest day of the year. “We’ll see.”

  “About which part?”

  “Wearing the necklace for four days.”

  “I’m willing to negotiate.”

  The thought of negotiating about something so absurd induced another giggling fit. Landen kissed me to shut me up, which was how we were discovered by a SAR helicopter. Thanks to my creative relocation of the stone dust and building of a massive wall, the helicopter didn’t have a place to land. A temple-to-helicopter transfer frightened me, but Landen hopped in without any sign of fear, turning around to help me inside.

  I took hold of his hands, and the stomach-churning lurch of teleportation slammed through me. Instead of being lifted up and into the helicopter, I smacked into the ground hard.

  Someone yelped.

  “Summer? What the hell happened to your hair?”

  Sebastian.

  Damn it all to some wretched hell. Spitting mud, I lifted my hand and waved. “Hello, Sebastian. Mexico?”

  “Not quite. I cracked the code. You’re really here. The code’s real.”

  Code? What code? Groaning at my close introduction to the ground for the second time in a day, I lurched to my hands and knees and lifted my head.

  Staring down the barrel of a gun wasn’t my idea of a nice greeting. Sebastian grinned at me, holding the weapon steady. “Cooperate, and you won’t come to much harm.”

  “The much part is a concern,” I admitted.

  “I need your blood for this to work. You survived the other stages of ascension. All I need is your blood, then I will become a god.”

  One of us had gone mad, and I wasn’t the one who sounded crazy for a change. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was written on the walls at Los Horcones. We found the chamber after you disappeared. We deciphered the code. We learned what the discs are for. I don’t know how you got past the fourth challenge, but it doesn’t matter. You’re here.”

  “What fourth challenge?”

  Sebastian pointed
at the obsidian bracelets still circling my wrists. “The first challenge was to show your wisdom and learning to the gods, appeasing Quetzalcoatl’s desire for knowledge. Only the learned, who could read all three languages, are worthy. You were taken to the second challenge. The second challenge is to be found worthy in the eyes of a god. You survived. That’s the temple in Nevada, which is dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. Once you overcame that challenge, and the full moon rose in a sunlit sky, you were teleported to the next temple, which is dedicated to Mictlāntēcutli. You survived that, too.”

  I sucked in a breath at the mention of the Nahua god of the dead, ruler of the deepest and northernmost section of the underworld.

  Alaska definitely counted as northern.

  Sebastian kept his gun pointed in my face. “The writings gave clues on the temple’s location, but this is the most important temple of all. This is Tamoanchan. This is where men become gods. This is where you’ll make me a god. It took me weeks to learn this is where you’ll make me a god. But it was all there. They had the coordinates. We found proof, Summer. The Nahua weren’t just a nomadic tribe. They were explorers. With this proof, I can travel the world, just like I wanted. They traveled the seas, Summer. We have proof. They were seafarers, just like the Europeans.”

  I had few hard and fast rules in my life, but I’d discovered a new one: don’t piss off the crazy guy holding a gun in my face. There was only one way I could think of to appease him until I figured out how best to deal with him.

  I wouldn’t dispute the Nahua had done some seafaring; walking to Alaska would have taken a tribe a lifetime. But then again, maybe it had. The spirits of the dead haunting the site explained a lot.

  If the temple in Alaska belonged to Mictlāntēcutli, I didn’t want to be the one to excavate it. I’d seen enough ghosts already.

  Damn it, I wanted to punch Sebastian in the mouth for putting me in such a shitty position. Maybe he’d pissed me off many times in the past, but I didn’t want to have to kill him. Crazy could be cured.