by Jaymin Eve
The babies were born today. The three of them, under the blood moon, at the strike of midnight on the day the countdown clock ceases. Three babes, two male, and the shining daughter of Lotus. The goddess that doomed us all.
“Breathe, Maddi,” Axl said, not looking up from the book, but somehow knowing I was about to hyperventilate. “This doesn’t mean it’s you. Or anything to do with you. All it means is that there were three god children born just before Atlantis sank.”
The next paragraphs were disjoined ramblings. Until finally…
We are attempting to escape. There are only minutes left, but my mate has a way, and we might possibly survive this. Turned out he was wrong, only Atlantis will be broken by this curse of children, because the gods’ power is weak now. Their offspring took from them in an unexpected way. The Original Mother would not abide by this abomination and she will take the power back.
The Hellbringers are locked in their cages. The gods are lost to the anger of their Mother.
Atlantis will sleep.
The pen stopped, and I leaned over, wondering what Axl was doing. “That’s all there is,” he said, flipping through the pages again, double-checking the earlier entries. “That’s where it cuts off.”
“What are Hellbringers?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “I’ve never heard that term before. We should try and find something in the library.”
He closed his eyes and murmured something, and not three seconds later, eight books flew toward us.
Axl flipped through the first one, and about halfway stopped on a page with one line of translated script. Hellbringer: Mythical creatures. Part of the end of days prophesy. Can kill the gods.
Axl slammed the book closed and we both stared at each other. This was not good.
21
I let Axl fill the others in on what we’d discovered; all the while I was having a minor panic attack. I couldn’t quite figure if I was supposed to be freaked out by this or not.
“So Atlantis was sunk by the mother of all gods,” Jesse said, running a hand through his hair, leaving the strands disheveled. “And it wasn’t because they discovered some sort of ‘fountain of eternal youth,’ but because her children had children in the bodies of mortals, which was forbidden.”
Axl nodded. “If this diary is to be believed, then yes, that is essentially what happened.”
All eyes turned to me. “Are you the Hellbringer?” Calen asked, a smirk playing about his lips, even though his eyes were filled with darker emotions.
I snorted. “The way my luck is going lately, probably.”
Mab settled on my shoulder, and I found her brief weight comforting. “Myth and legend,” she said simply. “It’s not always correct. Many things you thought you knew about Atlantis have already been disproved. If Maddi is the Hellbringer, she will disprove that prophecy as well.”
I would a hundred percent agree with her—I was not really keen on ending the world—but there had been a little something there about parents controlling us. Which was … worrying.
At this point I was reasonably drunk, Ilia was shit-faced, and Larissa was shaking her head at us both. “You know we have to leave in two hours,” she told us, her mom voice in full effect.
I groaned and waved her away. “Imma gonna be the ends of the world. If anyone should be drunk, it’s me.”
She swatted at me. “You don’t know you’re the end of the world. This is all thousands of years old, not to mention roughly translated text. It could mean anything.”
I snorted. “Yeah, tell that to Asher.”
My laughter cut off and that pressure was back in my chest, pushing down on me until I felt like my sternum and ribs were about to crack. I must have whimpered or something, because Jesse was there, wrapping himself around me, hauling me up and into his lap.
“Breathe, Mads,” he said softly, rubbing my back while I gulped for air. “Breathe, baby girl. Asher is not your fault. You did not get him killed. And trust me, if it had been you that died, we wouldn’t have Asher any longer. Not the one we all knew and loved. It’s better this way.”
My heart cracked then—I could have sworn I heard the break—and I was sobbing against his chest.
“I can’t live without him,” I said, so broken that speaking hurt. “I can’t do it.”
His hands never stopped stroking me. “You can and you will, Maddison James. You are important. To the world. To us.” Small pause. “To me.”
Rone leaned over, his icy energy washing down my side. “Give yourself time,” he murmured, and when I lifted my face, his thumbs brushed away my tears. “It won’t fix your pain, but you’ll learn how to live with it. You’ll function again. You’ll remember everything beautiful about what you and Asher had, and you’ll think on it fondly.”
The tears wouldn’t stop coming, and nothing eased the pain inside, so I just remained where I was. Cradled in Jesse’s lap, with Rone’s hands holding my face as he wiped the never-ending tears.
“Thank you,” I finally said.
No one asked what I was thanking them for; they all knew. If I didn’t have these guys, my friends and family around me at times like this….
They were holding me together the best they could, and hopefully one day soon I’d be able to hold myself together.
We were a silent, somewhat hungover group that boarded the private plane. Ilia had dark glasses on and a permanent frown. Whenever someone tried to talk to her, she held her hand up and shook her head.
“No talkie,” she snarled.
Larissa was in fits of laughter. “Told you so,” she said, crowing at her victory.
“I will punch you,” Ilia moaned. “Like, I don’t even care that I love you and you’re one of my best friends, if you say that one more time, I’m going to punch you.”
Larissa shut her mouth, but the broad grin remained. Meanwhile, I was sinking into my chair, remembering why I didn’t drink. The few times in my life I’d even remotely managed to get drunk—it was hard work—I’d woken the next morning wishing I was dead. The hangover never lasted long, but it hurt for that short time.
“We’re not really compatible with alcohol,” Jesse said, handing me some herbal concoction that was supposed to help. “Atlanteans don’t have the same make-up as other supes. Our power especially differs, and the water energy does not like alcohol.”
I groaned. “Something you could have told me yesterday.”
He sobered a little. “Would you have listened?”
I didn’t even need to think about that. I was in a dark place. People in dark places did stupid shit to try to find a sliver of light to cling to. Something to guide them out of the pit of hell. Apparently alcohol was my first attempt. It wouldn’t be my second.
We were the only ones on the plane; Princeps Jones left a few hours before us. “Did he say what was happening?” I asked Larissa as the engines got louder in preparation for takeoff. “Was there a reason he took off early?”
She shook her head. “No, it was a rather short and abrupt message saying he’d meet us there. I haven’t been able to get hold of him since.” She looked worried, but he was probably just flying and couldn’t be reached.
“We’ll be there soon,” Rone said, his version of reassuring her even though he was sitting as far away from her as he could. I’d been pretty out of it, but Larissa told me he’d been like that ever since Asher. Like he was afraid of Larissa … or punishing himself. Whatever he was doing, I was going to talk to him about it soon, because both of them were miserable. It was fucking obvious.
Asher…
Fuck, thinking his name burned. But I found I was actively saying it now. Like … I couldn’t suppress it any longer. Every time it crossed my mind the pain flared, making my hangover seem like a luxury massage.
Focus on Atlantis. Focus on what you have to do. If I repeated it enough, maybe it would help my mind compartmentalize so that I could breathe.
For most of the flight I slept, seat ti
pped right back, my head buried in my arms. The hangover was long gone, and at some point someone draped a blanket over me, so I was pretty cozy—you know, if you discounted the five or six nightmares that jerked me awake. At least I managed not to scream for most of them, and my friends thankfully pretended I wasn’t slowly losing my mind in the corner.
“Prepare the cabin for landing.”
The pilot’s voice barked through the speakers and the two supes who had been assisting us for this flight jumped to attention and started doing whatever they did to “prepare the cabin.”
I straightened my chair, folding the throw before draping it over the arm. We were on Asher’s plane, the school jet being used by Princeps Jones, and I let my eyes linger on the Locke insignia carved into multiple gleaming surfaces.
“What happens to all of Asher’s stuff now?” I asked, and it must have taken everyone by surprise, because there was a deafening sort of silence in the cabin.
Turning away from where I had been staring at a shelf with the fancy L crest, I looked at my friends. “What?”
No one was talking, and I started to wish Axl was here with his blunt, honest answers.
“Inheritance in the supe world works similarly to that of humans,” Calen finally said, sober. “There’s an order of inheritance, and it starts with your mate, followed by children, and then down the line to whatever family members you have left. You can of course leave a record of what you want, like a human will, which is lodged in a sacred tome that cannot be broken or manipulated. Whatever your wishes are, they will be carried out upon penalty of death.”
Whoa. “So, uh, I guess there’s no contesting a magical will then?”
Multiple heads shook, and I was sensing there was still something they weren’t telling me.
“So who is Asher’s next of kin to take the company? It would have to be one of you guys, right? You’re his family.”
Jesse leaned over, his long arms able to reach me across the aisle to take my hand.
“Mate is first,” he reminded me.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
They were waiting for me to catch up, and I had, but they were wrong.
“We never had an official mate bonding ceremony.”
Jesse’s eyes burned into me, and I was trembling again because he was about to break my heart—well, break whatever tiny crumbled slivers were left in my chest.
“Asher claimed you long ago,” he said. “He left his record with the tome as well, to confirm that there would be no mistake.”
Asher claimed you long ago.
The words burned. They fucking burned like I’d been doused in boiling water. “Asher left everything to me?”
They all nodded—I saw it even though I was staring straight at Jesse.
I shook my head. “No, I-I don’t want it. I don’t want to have this world without Asher.” His world.
Jesse shot me a sad smile. “You can’t argue with the tome, sweetheart. Asher was determined to ensure you would be taken care of in the event of his untimely death.”
I wanted to curse and scream. Money! Fucking money. It was not what I needed. All of this was just … superficial things. The one thing I really wanted … there was no amount of money in the world that could get me that.
We were landing now, and I was too tired to continue to argue about an inheritance I did not want.
It was time to focus on Atlantis. Hopefully that would distract me enough that for just a few hours the nightmares would stay away.
22
Ilia had recovered by the time the boat set sail—something she was eternally grateful for, because the rocking ocean did not mesh well with a hangover. For me, it was the first time I’d felt like I could breathe in days. Even though my soul hurt, part of me was content.
“You look excited,” I said, watching as Ilia lifted her face and sucked in some of the fresh salty air. I did the same thing, even though it was Asher’s scent—and fuck, I was doing it again.
Did everything have to remind me of him?
“Atlantis … it’s a myth … a fantasy in a world that is already considered fantasy,” Ilia said. “I know lots of people are afraid of what this might bring, but something tells me that this path was put in place long ago, and it’s not the end of our world. Or if it is, it’s only the end of the world as we know it, and the start of a new age of supes.”
I pondered that, finding a connection to her theory. “A new beginning,” I mused. “I like that.”
It would be a lie to say my spirits lifted then, because ever since Asher’s death there had been this pressing weight on me. Like … even in those brief seconds when I forgot what happened, the weight never abated; it constantly reminded me that I’d lost something. Reminded me that I’d lost him.
No—not lost—stolen. Asher was fucking stolen from me, and when I found out the god who did that, I was going to do my best to break them.
Calen was once again in control of our boat; this time it was not hired from the local people, but a prearranged transport from the Academy. It was much larger, more powerful, and black, a sleek, bullet-nosed vessel with three massive motors on the back.
“Hey,” Larissa shouted, her voice slightly muffled, “did you know there’s an actual bed down here?”
She’d ventured below to check it out, Rone following but keeping his distance, because he was an overprotective idiot who needed a smack in the back of the head.
“No time to check that out,” Calen called back. “We’re almost at the coordinates. This baby got us there twice as fast as the last one.”
I moved as far forward as I could, wondering what my first sight of it all would be. The energy in my body and blood started humming as the slightest tinge of something … anticipation maybe, started to erupt in my stomach.
“It’s calling me,” I whispered, having felt this the last time I was near the wall that surrounded the Atlantean city.
No one heard me over the rushing wind, and I was grateful that I didn’t have to explain the sensation. I could just feel it.
“Holy shit,” Ilia said, breaking me from my trance as she stepped to my side. Jesse stopped on my other side, the three of us taking up all the space available this far forward in the boat. “Are you all seeing that? They managed to get the barrier up fast.”
The magical barrier was clear, only visible when the sun hit it at the right angle, causing a rainbow effect; it looked very much like the bubble surrounding the Academy, a magical shield designed to keep humans out. From the outside, I could see no signs of Atlantis or supes or anything other than ocean. But once we crossed the barrier, we’d see the true sight, and I clenched my fists in anticipation.
Calen slowed right down as we neared the barrier, having no idea if we might hit something on the inside, and there was an eerie silence in the boat as we drifted through. Magic tingled across my skin, much stronger than at the Academy, and I tried to find some moisture in my suddenly dry mouth.
I was nervous.
Doing this without Asher was never in my life plan, but the future I envisioned was not to be, and that meant I had to adapt. I could be strong enough without Asher. I could survive.
I just didn’t want to. I’d never looked for a savior … I wanted a partner. An equal partner to share the burden of whatever this new world was going to dump on us. Now I would do it alone … I would do it for both of us.
I would be enough.
“Maddi!” Ilia whisper-yelled as she grabbed my arm. “It’s there, it’s actually rising. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…”
She started muttering under her breath, her hand clamped tightly to my arm.
I couldn’t speak.
The moment we cleared the barrier, an entire world blazed to life around us. The barrier space was massive, I couldn’t even calculate the size, but it was much bigger than the Academy. Maybe the size of a few towns I’d lived in before. There were fifty or more boats bobbing in the current, surrounding the tops of the ten stat
ues I could see.
“It’s the gods,” Jesse said reverently. “Our Atlantean gods, and some of the supe ones as well.”
He bowed his head, as did Ilia on my other side. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it all, because they were raised on these gods, but I had no idea who most of them were. And I was pretty sure one of the gods killed Asher. So, yeah, I wasn’t bowing my fucking head to those assholes.
“So the ten statues are all gods?” I asked, whispering for some reason even though there was plenty of noise coming from the other supes who had gotten here before us. So far no one was paying attention to us, used to the Academy boats coming and going from this area.
Jesse shook his head. “Man, I wish Axl was here … he would die to see this. He would explain it all better than me, because my memories are sketchy.”
I patted his arm. “You’ll be fine, I only need a brief idea. We can learn the rest as we go.”
Jesse nodded. “Right. So … the Atlanteans had their own set of gods that were very important to them. There are seven of them.”
“The other three statues are the royal families of Atlantis,” Calen said, sounding more somber than usual.
I nodded, my eyes locked on the tips of those giant statues I could see. There was only the smallest part emerged from the water, but it was enough for me to tell that the ten statues would each be as large as the Statue of Liberty in New York.
“The main Atlantean gods are Sonaris, god of the sea,” Rone said, having emerged from the bowels of the boat a few minutes ago, Larissa at his side. They were near the back of the boat, so I finally turned away from the water to see them all.
“Sonaris I know,” I said. “Who are the others?”
“Lotus, goddess of storms and weather,” Rone added, and my gut tightened.
“Draconis, the god of the underworld,” Jesse continued, holding his fingers up so they could tick them off. “He transported lost sea dwelling souls to their eternal rest.” He cleared his throat. “He was also the rumored consort to Lotus.”
