It was a long shot, I’d known it. The Rigas had said as much. My Stoicheio were not welcome here.
But without feeding my Elements, I would grow weak. Maybe that was his plan.
A weak Aether is a desperate Aether. Without Earth, Fire and Air to sustain me, I’d be ripe for Water.
My knuckles cracked, I fisted them so hard.
“I cannot give you that which you seek,” Aquarius said. “But I am prepared to warm you.”
I shook my head automatically.
“You feed off passion,” he countered reasonably. “Feed off mine.”
I paused in my frantic head shaking, but not for the eager reasons Aquarius thought. He was right, I realised. If he was sent here as my Hataera, a Pallakae trained to do whatever I asked; then passion would be the likely outcome.
Pyrkagia feed off Fire. Passion. Lust. Hell, even anger can get Theo excited. Feeding my Stoicheio was not forbidden. But feeding it in certain forms obviously was.
A fire could be used to communicate. A lustful body could not.
It proved only one thing. The Rigas did not intend to starve me. But he most certainly intended to manipulate me.
Frustration gnawed a hole the size of my fist inside my gut. Anger at their manipulation mixed with my own self-doubt. It all festered inside and bubbled closer and closer to the surface. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to stop it.
Pyrkagia flared to life naturally; unbidden by me but definitely welcomed. Slowly, it consumed me. Fuelled me. Urging my anger ever onwards. I’d run out, I was sure. Soon, too, at this rate. I couldn’t replace what I already had, but I could use it. I should have been conserving it, though, but I couldn’t seem to stop the well of rage that grew within. Spurred on by irritation, laced with bitterness.
This was not me, but what I had become, I realised. What they had made me. Moulded in a way I had no control of. And now the Nero intended to mould me to suit their needs.
No!
I grabbed fistfuls of hair and bent over, trying to assuage the pain I felt inside at the continual betrayal. But when tearing my hair out didn’t work, I just screamed.
The walls rattled, the ceiling shattered, drips of water began to seep in. Aquarius shouted something, but I couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. So much fury. So much passion. Somehow it fed itself.
The ground buckled, marble cracked, water breached the gap. Aquarius cried out in fear. Gold bathed the room in a surreal light, as the drip became a trickle and then a torrent.
How much more of this could I take? How much more of being directed by those who thought they had the right to? I was Aether! I was created by a god. I’d had enough.
The door crashed open behind me. I reached out with a flick of Fire and laughed. Someone screamed. I turned and faced the intruders. Burnished yellow coated everything I could see. The ground shook. Earth let out a wail of fury.
I reached up with clasped hands and then brought them down hard.
Atlantis quaked in fear of my temper.
“Stop this!” I heard the King yell. Enough! He shouted inside my mind. Aether, enough!
It wasn’t enough. They’d never listen. They were arrogant, too set in their ways. Too much like the spoiled children of a god.
“No,” I said simply. “It’s time for you to stop.”
Ice-blue blazed back at me; the force of the Rigas’ will so strong. I called on Earth. Just there, just beneath the Pyrgos of Atlantis. I forced the King back down. Gemini immediately joined him. Together they were strong, but Earth and Fire were angry.
I smiled. I had no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t pretty.
And then I called for Air.
It was harder than I’d expected. Fire was there for the taking. They’d acted as if it wasn’t. But I’d found it. Or it had found me. I’m not sure. But it was there. In their anger. In Aquarius’ lust. In my passion to stand up to these beings. It was just there.
Earth was one step removed, but I’d already located it. I knew where to look. How deep to go to find Gi. I touched it with my mind, and it sighed with relief.
The ocean trembled.
But Air was harder. So much harder, even if we were breathing oxygen. It struggled to reach me. Air should not exist under Water. But it was there. Reluctantly. Where a creature splashed above us. Where a fish sipped at the surface. Where humans manufactured it when they breathed.
It was there. But it took effort. And at the moment I dug deep, deeper than I had ever dug before, I was distracted.
And Aquarius joined his father and brother allowing Nero to devour me.
I’d fought. I’d raged. I’d been so much stronger than one person alone could be. But this was their domain. Earth was smothered. Fire was borrowed. And Air should not exist under the sea.
A scream tore from my lips as I fell to the ground, surrounded by a bubble of Water. I pressed against the sides, making it warp and shift, but not breach. I gurgled a sound of defiance, seeking my Elements, but touching nothing.
Nothing but Water.
Nothing but Nero.
Nothing but the sea.
The crustaceans clacked. The seaweed stroked. The fish danced. The mournful cry of a creature called to me.
Come dance, Aether, the Rigas said inside my head. Dance with me.
I have never felt so alone as I did right then. Nothing, no amount of torment or torture could have prepared me for this moment. For the moment I realised I was no longer me.
Because I didn’t think. I didn’t seek a more gentle solution. I didn’t stop to consider what I was about to do. What it would mean.
I reached out with what was left of my Stoicheio, and I screamed.
The bubble burst. Fire crackled. Earth shuddered. And Air whistled past in a poor imitation of the real thing.
And as the King and his sons approached, scorched, burned, their white robes nothing but ash, it all left me. Every ounce of Elemental power at my possession disappeared in an explosion of utter uncontrolled rage.
“Be at ease, Aether,” The Rigas said, his voice solemn, his face impassive. And then he hit me. Not with a fist. Not with a weapon, as such. But with a fine stream of Water.
That simply drowned me.
I am Athanatos; I can’t die.
But my body sure as hell liked to breathe.
Chapter Four
I’d Changed
“This changes things,” a voice, I should have recognised, said off to the side.
I struggled to lift my eyelids, but fatigue made the action impossible. My body weighed a thousand tonnes, my stomach felt scoured out and empty, my heart…oh, my heart. I was sure it had been cracked into a million pieces.
I needed Theo. I needed my Thisavros. The need was all consuming. For a moment, I didn’t hear more of what the speaker was saying.
Then one word registered.
“Aether.”
My fists clenched at my sides, my brow furrowed as heat coursed through my body.
“Had I realised she would react this way,” the same voice intoned, “I would have approached this differently.”
“Pateras, you were not to know she was so unstable.”
Pateras. Father. Theo called his that. The Pyrkagia Rigas who had imprisoned me in the Fire Elementals’ dungeon, and then had my body torn to pieces by a sadistic doctor.
The sheets beneath my unresponsive body smouldered with renewed heat.
“Perhaps she will stabilise?” the one called Pateras suggested.
“It is a possibility she was taken by surprise,” someone else replied.
“Then do your job, Aquarius. You must win her favour.”
“I fear the task is monumental, Rigas. She asked for a friend.”
“Then befriend her. I don’t care how you accomplish it, but we need her to side with Nero.”
A door sounded out as it closed, an echoing clang that spoke of high ceilings. In my mind’s eye, a monstrous creature stared down at me, eyes burning like coal fire.
My body shivered, and the smell of scorched linen subsided.
“I know you’re awake,” the voice belonging to Aquarius announced. This time so much closer.
I battled with unseen foes to rise to full consciousness, my body like lead, my chest aching, my head about to split down the middle. The frustration I felt only made something inside burn brighter, until with a blast of superheated air the sheets beneath my body ignited.
I screamed. My body was unceremoniously hauled off the bed. Then my face came into contact with marble. Cool. Hard. Unforgiving marble.
I sucked in air, hearing the roar of flames beside me, feeling their warmth, and offering up a sigh of thanks to Aetheros for the unexpected gift of Fire.
It fuelled me. It centred me. It inflamed the rage inside me.
And then I heard him. Theo. Distant. Faint. The hiss of the flames drowning out every other word. But it was him, I was sure.
“Casey!”
Water doused the bedsheets, destroyed the Fire that had engulfed them. Smothered me until I was a dripping, soaking, soggy mess. The marble felt so much cooler all of a sudden. But at least I could open my eyes.
“Damn you!” I ground out.
“Be at ease, Aether. We mean you no harm.”
“You lie!”
“Easy. Breathe easy.”
“Then stop dousing my Fire!”
“Atlantis breathes pure oxygen. Fire would burn uncontrolled if left for more than a second in this atmosphere.”
I stared at Aquarius and saw the truth in his words; realised the precarious nature of my Stoicheio in such an environment.
And then let out a scream full of gut-wrenching, soul-destroying, heart-twisting rage.
Aquarius only sighed, and then sank onto a wet chair. The water evaporated instantly, leaving behind a scorched but dry surface for him to perch upon. He played with a singed thread, but I was sure the act was contrived.
I scared them.
“If you keep doing this, he will have no choice but to confine you to an empty cell,” he pointed out mildly.
“Who will?”
“The Rigas. He means you no harm, Aether. But if you insist on attempting to destroy our home, he will imprison you completely.”
“And is this not an imprisonment?” I demanded.
“This?” Aquarius laughed, it didn’t sound overly amused. “This is a welcome. This is a peace offering. This is your chance to Awaken Nero.”
The rest meant nothing. All lies. But the last was real. Nero had not Awakened.
“I don’t trust you,” I said, each word hurled with a force I hadn’t been aware I possessed.
“I can’t argue with that. Because we don’t particularly trust you either.”
“Nothing you’ve said has been truthful.”
“I speak only the truth.”
“The truth as you see it, perhaps. But I can reach my Stoicheio here, and your brother said I couldn’t.”
“Gemini would have only been attempting to prevent you from causing a disaster.”
“By lying.”
Aquarius shook his head. “What is it you want, Aether?”
“My Thisavros.”
“Is he so essential to your wellbeing?”
“Yes.”
“Are you not capable of living without such a crutch?”
I arched my brow. “You don’t believe in a Thisavros connection?”
“The Nero have moved on from such base restrictions.”
I laughed. It sounded harsh and so unlike me.
“Bullshit. What could be more base than having a sex slave?”
“That is a time honoured tradition. Something the ancients created to honour those of us with a certain set of skills. Not all Pallakae become Hataera.”
How many times would he say that? It was becoming a chant. A phrase recited by rote. The more he said it, the less I believed it.
Not that I’d believed it to start with.
“And those that don’t?” I asked, watching him closely. “What do they become?”
He looked away. Then straightened his back and glared right at me.
“They learn from their position, and they continue to better themselves as much as their talents allow.”
“I’m sure it’s a very rewarding experience.” He winced, then tried to cover it with a scoffing sound. “How many Vasilissa have you served, Aquarius?”
His cool blue eyes met mine…and then they turned glacial.
I jerked where I stood, then suddenly found myself standing beside him. He looked up at me expectantly. A smirk gracing beautiful cupid bow lips. It only made me growl. My hands fisted. My breaths laboured. Perspiration trickled down my brow.
“I am a prize,” he said, self-righteously. “Vasilissa have fought over me for centuries. And you turn your nose up at such delights.”
“It’s sick,” I managed, the words pushed out past numb lips.
My body shook with the effort required to ignore his tantalising song. I tasted salt on my tongue. I tasted shellfish and Mediterranean spices. I tasted heaven where heaven should not be.
It only made me madder.
“And being tied to one person for life isn’t?” Aquarius demanded. “A Thisavros connection curbs progression of one’s path through life. How are we expected to stay with one person, when we live for millennia? It is cruel and unnatural.”
“And using someone for sex isn’t?”
“Argh!” he growled, swiping a hand between us and releasing me from his siren hold. I sucked in a full breath of air and staggered back several feet.
Silence descended and then I turned away from the Nero Hataera before my rage could flay him where he stood, and stared blankly at the far wall of my room. Details emerged through the haze of my suppressed anger. A watermark on the white marble showed the extent the Rigas and his sons had been forced to fight back. Charred streaks marred the once pristine surface. Ash had pooled into puddles; murky, dark, like my soul.
“You won't allow him to come here?” I asked one more time.
“The Rigas believes he is a distraction. He believes he’s the reason your Nero failed to Awaken. Your focus was divided. Your desire to return to your Thisavros overrode the Aether inside you. A powerful thing is a Thisavros connection. Without its distracting influence, you can concentrate instead on becoming what you need to be.”
Because that was the bottom line, wasn’t it? I needed to become Aether or the world would be lost.
Earth, I cried out inside my mind.
We are here, Aether, it whispered back as Atlantis shuddered.
“What are you doing?” Aquarius demanded.
“Nothing,” I said in utter defeat.
I had a choice to make. Throwing tantrums wasn’t getting me anywhere. Reaching for my Stoicheio and putting on a show of power would only destroy Atlantis and the Nero completely. Because I was capable of that, I knew that now. I was capable of genocide.
That’s why they were so scared.
But I didn’t trust them. Because I didn’t for a moment think having my Thisavros near would distract me. Something else was at play. Why Nero had not Awakened, I didn’t yet know. But Theo was not the reason. He couldn’t be.
So the choice I had to make was whether to continue to hold out for Theo or accept my fate. The sooner the Nero aided my Awakening, the sooner I could leave Atlantis. The sooner I could be with Theo. He would be frantic, I was certain.
Or he would be fighting his father for Pyrkagia.
Without me.
I blew out a slow breath of air, still staring at that wall and scorch mark. Still unable to commit to a course of action.
“Will you let us help you, Aether?” Aquarius asked softly from over my shoulder.
I needed Nero. The world needed Aether. The Aeras shaman had been correct.
“All right,” I said, my voice empty. “What do I have to do?”
Aquarius walked around to face me, an understanding of my agony reflecte
d back at me from deep blue eyes.
“Rest easy, Aether. We will help you. Nero always provides.”
He reached out and cupped my cheek, a smattering of the palest ice-blue entered his eyes. I didn’t feel the tantalising pull of his siren call, but I tasted the ocean. I heard the sea. I felt the seaweed dance against my side.
“Come dance with me, Aether,” he whispered, and I began to sway. “Dance.”
The sounds of crustaceans reached my ears. The deep mournful cry of a whale. Clicks and clacks, burbles and bubbles, the roar of waves. A dolphin cried out. Underwater lava spewed from the seabed. Fish swirled around and around making me dizzy.
I closed my eyes and felt the coolness of the sea. Felt Nero’s creatures welcome me. But something kept interrupting their call. Something blissful and sizzling. Something the creatures tried in vain to silence.
Aether, Aquarius called inside my head. Dance with me, he urged inside my mind.
I tried to reach for him, but only the frigid sensation of the deep sea met my fingers. I shuddered. Wrapping my arms around my body.
And then lava bubbled.
My eyes opened to the vibrant glow of molten magma, air bubbles bursting forth from tiny fissures. I watched as they lazily drifted up through sizzling water. Then reached out and touched Fire, Earth and Air.
My body jolted. A sigh escaped. The seabed groaned. Earth sang a joyful tune in my ears. Fire laughed and played. Air danced and ducked and dived around me. I smiled. The sea was forgotten, only my Stoicheio remained. Peace reigned for all of a minute.
And then Atlantis started to crumble.
I came to kneeling on the cold stone floor in Aquarius’ arms. He blinked, then the sound of cracking marble registered. Screams could be heard out in the hallway. A klaxon shrieked. Water burst through a crack in the wall. Sea creatures rushed in behind it. A roar sounded out overhead. The ceiling shattered. Red burning eyes peered back at us through superheated water. The sea churned. Nero cried out in fear.
And then Pisces pointed a finger right at my head.
“Go, brother!” he ordered Aquarius. “Call our sisters. Call our brothers. The intruder will pay!”
“No!” Aquarius shouted in reply, clinging to me tighter. “We need her. She cannot be slain!”
The Tantalising Taste Of Water (Elemental Awakening, Book 4) Page 4
