Chapter 2
Bellanca rose from her chair at the table and stretched, regretting it when the bruise on her rib cage woke up with a nasty pinch. Ugh. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be sore and exhausted—more magic depletion than actual tiredness, though she hadn’t slept well.
Closing her eyes last night had proved even less restful than keeping them open. It meant seeing Carver, pinned down, that satyr choking the life out of him. Or Pan with his cruel sneer and huge erection. And ash—everywhere. She kept wanting to spit it out even though there’d never been any in her mouth to begin with. The smell of roasting skin and burning hair still coated her nostrils. She couldn’t get rid of it.
“You done?” She reached for Carver’s breakfast plate and stacked it on top of hers without waiting for his answer. His appetite seemed as lacking as hers this morning.
He grunted in response without looking up—confirmation that another day in Atlantis was dawning pretty much like all the rest. Aside from his torso being scraped up and bruised and the puckered red line slashing across his shoulder, Carver was his usual self—shirtless and sullen—and it was a sad situation for humanity when she was the sunny one.
Bellanca dropped the plates into the washbasin with a clatter. Carver could do the dishes.
Leaving him scowling at the table, she moved toward the open window to finish getting ready for work. Nothing else had changed here, either. The constant sea breeze, the pervasive smell of brine and fishing nets, the hot sun beating down, the unrelenting terror of being the day’s “chosen.” Today was only different in that they’d just seen their first battle in months, and her muscles ached from sudden action, her throat stung from swallowing salt water, and she had a painful lump on the back of her head.
She gingerly touched the sore spot, her lips thinning. Her plain brown shawl sat on the windowsill, and she wrapped it around her head and neck, covering her bright-red hair with the dullest thing possible. She’d already tied her hair back in a tight, functional knot to keep any wisps from sneaking out and sizzling with magic. Being discreet had never been her strong suit, but when survival was on the line, looking drab and unassuming had a way of becoming more appealing.
If only her parents could see her now, especially her mother. Bellanca had gone from Thalyrian princess to Atlantian serving wench. Hopefully, the vicious bitch was spinning in her grave like a rat stuck in a butter churner.
Fiendish delight suffused her chest at the mental image. She was a strong proponent of terrible people getting the terrible endings they deserved.
Squinting against the sun, she pinned her shawl in place and carefully tucked away any stray hairs. The morning rays warmed her face as she took in the view from their rented rooms. Atlantapol’s huge main port spread out below, the heart of the city and the castle rising on the left and the exit to the harbor narrowing on the right, closer to home. Turquoise water slapped at the city’s sandstone wall directly below the window, and fishing boats peppered the surrounding sea with their colorful sails and bright, painted hulls.
She breathed deeply, drawing the salt air into her lungs. Atlantis was pretty. It was also a prison.
She watched one of the larger fishing vessels glide past their building and head out into the great basin. Zeus really did a number on the island. Everyone knew his punishments were epic, and the retribution he doled out to Atlantians several generations ago was no exception. Not only did he sink the whole island into this gigantic trough at the bottom of the ocean, but he stripped the Magoi of their magic. Less than a quarter of the population had started to imagine itself as powerful and glorious as the gods on their Olympian mountaintop, and Zeus penalized the entire island for it. Now, not only was she supposed to figure out how to restore magic to Atlantian Magoi, but she was supposed to make them want to take Zeus’s side in a looming War of Gods.
She nearly groaned aloud. Talk about an uphill battle.
Carver’s chair scraped against the wooden floor. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him move toward the washbasin.
This uphill battle was hers, not Carver’s, but he’d crossed over from Thalyria with her. He’d said they were a team, and that was that. He walked away from home and family to help her with this unexpected mission from Persephone, and Bellanca was just waiting for the day he’d finally come out and say what a colossal mistake he’d made. Then they’d argue more than ever.
Sighing, she turned back to the window. Guilt squirmed inside her, and the heavy feeling just added to the constant strain of having to hide her true nature and what she was capable of. Magic relentlessly wanted to flare out of her, and holding it back was like telling the wind to stop blowing over the stormy ocean.
At least with Carver, she didn’t have to hide who she was. He already knew her better than anyone. She knew him, too. His bad moods, his lost love, his possible death wish, and his willingness to step into any fight if it meant protecting someone he cared about or sticking up for the underdog. Bellanca was never the underdog, so she figured he cared about her. Good. She would never admit it, but she cared about him, too.
How was it possible to regret he’d come with her, losing everything he’d known and worked for, and at the same time be relieved and grateful he was here? The opposing feelings warred inside her and soured what little breakfast she’d eaten. Frowning, she flicked a beetle off the windowsill, waiting to see if it would open wings and fly or plummet to the waves below. In the end, she couldn’t tell.
She looked left, over the harbor and toward the castle rising on the hill, and then right over the open basin, the great wall of water just a hint of hazy blue. The huge barrier hemming them in was magical, but she couldn’t even feel its vibration from here. All she could feel was her own power, longing to break free when she had to ruthlessly reel it in.
Carver was Hoi Polloi—one of the many without magic. It was almost a given he’d fit in. He was excellent with a sword, quick with a joke—even if it was only for show most of the time—and blended in like a chameleon. He’d instantly found a position in the king’s army while she’d just concentrated on avoiding any accidental flare-ups that would mark her as different. He could be himself while she had to pretend. It helped that men weren’t targeted for ritual sacrifice here.
At first, they’d thought they’d find the key in a matter of days, restore magic to the island, and Bellanca wouldn’t have to hide anymore. Delivering an army to Zeus also meant having an army. If King Eryx had been a decent person, they might’ve tried to work with him to complete her mission. Since he was a gods-awful son of a Cyclops who needed dethroning anyway, she’d decided to take his soldiers and his crown. But issuing a challenge for a throne had rules, at least where she came from, and even in the depraved royal household she grew up in. Magoi fought Magoi in a Power Bid, and Eryx wouldn’t have magic until she gave it to him, so she was forced to wait. Unfortunately, months after a world-hopping trip through a one-way portal, they were still no closer to finding the missing piece of her amulet, rekindling magic in Atlantis, or delivering an Atlantian army to Zeus.
The Shard of Olympus.
She huffed an almost silent breath. And Pan had thought they knew something? Wouldn’t that be nice.
“You look like you’re about to jump,” Carver said, startling her.
Turning, Bellanca leaned a shoulder against the window frame. He was still shirtless, but now he’d dunked his head in a bucket of water, and every muscle seemed to pop out at her as he lifted his hands and slicked his wet hair back.
A little ember burst inside her, aggravating her from the inside out. “I’m not entirely certain going to work is the better option.”
“Don’t look so put out. You’re in the center of the agora, hearing everything.” Water dripped down his shoulders and pectorals and ran in rivulets over his abdomen, bumping over each ridge and making the smattering of dark hair glisten. The low-slung waistline of his trousers turned from light tan to dark as the wetness reached it and seeped in.
Her eyes flicked over him, and that strange little twist in her belly struck again. At first, she’d thought it was indigestion. Now, she feared it was a healthy appreciation for the chest Carver put on display most mornings. “Not hearing enough to help us,” she murmured.
He shrugged. “There’s no better place to gather information than a taverna.”
“Except for the king’s guard.” She pushed off from the stone wall, the sun warming her back—her clothed back—as it splashed through the window. Maybe she should start parading around half-naked and see how well he ignored her chest. “And now, you’re right in the castle.”
“I’m not in the throne room, which is where I need to be,” Carver grumbled.
Rolling her eyes, she grabbed a drying cloth from the pile of fresh laundry and tossed it at him. The necklace she’d given him to ward off the evil eye was the only thing he consistently wore, and she didn’t consider that clothing. “It’ll come.” Nothing ever satisfied him, and he never thought he was good enough. In only six months, he’d already moved up the ranks from nothing soldier at a random fishing port to patrolling the inner walls of the castle with one of King Eryx’s highest-ranking units. “Besides, you have a knack for being in the middle of everything.”
He shot her a dark look. “Somehow, that doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
She threw a clean tunic at him next, hoping he’d take the hint. She wasn’t trying to stare, but he made it difficult. “You’re a mess, by the way. You look like you got attacked by a bunch of goats. You definitely lost.”
His lips twitched. He pulled the tunic on and added a sword belt and boots. “At least you didn’t have to sew anything up. Magoi healers don’t exist here, and I know for a fact you’re terrible with a needle.”
“A needle?” She scoffed. “To the Underworld with that. I’d go straight to cauterization.”
“I’m sure you would.” She didn’t like his tone and shot a spark at him. Carver swatted it out of the air, glowering. “You know these are wooden floors, right?”
“Well then, we should really move into the castle. Marble everywhere.”
“I’m working on it, princess.” The look Carver gave her was just as sour as his words. “In the meantime, try not to burn down the city and do not pour fish soup into anyone’s lap today. It doesn’t help.”
“Sure it does. Patrons don’t try to grab my backside anymore.”
A muscle feathered in his jaw, his steely gray eyes still on her as he reached for his sword. “You need to control your temper. Someone here sees one spark come off you, and they know . Is that what you want?”
Of course not. Why did he think she was wearing an atrocious brown shawl and had her hair wound up so tightly it would give her a headache within the hour? Bellanca stared back at him, letting her lips curve into a smile as rock-hard as his glare. “Maybe I’ll be revered. Atlantis’s one and only Magoi. Firebringer .” Her hands blazed to life. Wooden floors or not, she needed to let out some flames before she left home or the day would turn into a nightmare.
Her magic left a sweet, appetizing scent in the room, and Bellanca’s stomach rumbled, making her suddenly regret throwing half her breakfast away. There was no guarantee she’d have a chance to eat at Spiro’s before lunchtime.
Carver gave her the stink eye. His nostrils flared, almost quivering, and she could’ve sworn his muscles twitched all over, reminding her of a horse trying to shake off an annoyance.
That was her—the annoyance of Carver’s existence.
She pulled her magic back inside and lifted her chin. “Then finally I’ll get to live in a castle again instead of this hovel.”
“This is no hovel. Your mother’s jewels paid for this for a full year when we could’ve bought a lesser place for life with those rubies and pearls.”
Well, this might not be a hovel, and there was quite a view, but it was certainly no marble palace, and Bellanca sincerely hoped Mommy Dearest was tearing her hair out in the Underworld knowing her precious Tarvan royal gems had landed in the hands of a Hoi Polloi Atlantian for— gasp (and why not throw in a rage murder for fun?)—mere rented rooms.
She arched her brows. “You’d want to live with me for life?” They were lucky to have separate bedrooms across a whole living area and with heavy doors to shut between them. Otherwise, there was a good chance they might accidentally/on purpose kill each other while sleepwalking.
Or while awake.
Carver’s gaze turned flinty. “We’re supposed to be married. Or did you forget?”
It was hard to forget when he kept reminding her. “Ah, well, couples drift apart.”
Silence stretched between them. Her heart thumped in a way she didn’t appreciate. There was no good reason for it.
“I’m making decent wages,” he finally said. “I can move out.”
Her chest squeezed tight, her whole body turning icy-hot. Life with Carver was all thorns and teeth, but life without him? She cut off the thought. “Do whatever you want.”
“I will, princess.” Carver threw on his leather breastplate bearing King Eryx’s coat of arms and buckled the side straps without asking for her help. His clothing covered the evidence of yesterday’s battle, leaving only a few raw knuckles for anyone to wonder about. The upper body armor had yet to see a fight, although that might change considering all the recent kidnappings and violent attacks around Atlantis. “See you tonight—unless someone here figures out what a flaming harpy you are and nominates you for sacrifice.”
“Har, har,” Bellanca fake laughed. Sparks of unease still sizzled in her hair, heating her scalp. Every day, they saw an innocent woman get dragged through the streets of Atlantapol and tossed over the city wall at its highest point—an offering to the gods to try to get them to raise the island and restore its magic.
As if that would work.
And every day, she had to murmur the island’s disgusting greeting to hundreds of customers knowing it really meant “let’s kill someone and see if it helps.” It hadn’t so far, and if she’d wanted to be a mother, she’d have been terrified of producing girls. Atlantians were generally prolific in their reproduction efforts, but women still had their choice of men, since after generations of sacrifice, there were fewer of them. It was pretty much the only thing women had the upper hand in here, and it came from being ritualistically murdered and living in daily fear. Children weren’t safe, either, though taking them was rare. And moving out of the main part of the city didn’t even help. Atlantapol and its outlying districts sprawled over a good portion of the island to begin with, and the king’s soldiers had no problem striking out even farther into the rural farmlands to the south and west to sometimes bring back several future sacrifices at once and keep them on hand.
She shuddered. It was almost safer to be in the densely populated city center. A woman stood out less with more people around.
And all this in a vain attempt to end Punishment.
No one here knew what it was like to have magic coursing through their veins, to navigate at sea level, or to look at the true horizon instead of at a huge barrier circling them in. At best, someone really old remembered someone really old telling them about it, and yet it was all anyone could talk about. Killing tens of thousands of women over the years hadn’t changed a thing, and Bellanca couldn’t understand why no one said stop .
But maybe that was her role.
Tightly, she said, “May Atlantis rise again.” She gave Carver a mock salute and turned her back on him, reaching for the sandals she’d left on the deep-set window frame to air out. She had a gods-awful job to get to.
Well, only parts of it were bad. It wasn’t worse than Carver going from a prince and army commander to a do-what-you’re-told soldier in King Eryx’s guard. At least she didn’t have to serve that sadistic bastard and his mean-spirited courtiers all day long. She knew what rotten royalty looked like, and while Eryx didn’t top her parents, and definitely not her brother, he was a vile piece of work. With magic, he’d be even worse.
Which was why she’d oust him the second he got his ancestral powers back. She could do it now, but that would be murder instead of conquest—and not the way she wanted to start her reign.
Bellanca strapped on her sandals with more force than necessary while she waited for Carver to leave. He never said, “Why in the Underworld did I follow you here?” but he had to be thinking it day in and day out, and all that did was drive a bigger wedge between them than if they’d been in two separate worlds.
The door shut behind him. He didn’t even slam it. She almost wished he had.
Bellanca squeezed her eyes shut. “I can do better than this.” Behind closed lids, she saw people she missed. Her sister, Lystra. Cat and Griffin. Jocasta and Flynn. Prometheus. She opened her eyes again.
She would’ve missed Carver the most. They always had each other’s backs—when they weren’t at each other’s throats. Why could they only get along when they were fighting someone else?
But she didn’t have to miss him. He was here—and a prickly bear of a housemate who never seemed capable of putting on more than half his clothes.
She seriously considered a new strategy of singeing off his chest hairs one by one until he learned to stay dressed as she locked the door behind her and headed down the stairs. She did her best to ignore the sounds and smells coming from the lodgings below theirs. Fried fish and wailing babies. She shuddered, not fond of either of those.
Outside, she turned toward the city center and headed for the huge agora below the castle. The central marketplace wasn’t far—another perk of having paid the steep price for the large set of top-floor rooms right on the southern edge of the main harbor. The focal point of the island for buying, selling, gambling, and gossiping, the agora bustled with people and activity all day, every day. She and Carver could’ve walked to work together, weaving through the already busy streets of Atlantapol, but they’d stopped doing that lately.
She’d wondered after yesterday’s teamwork if they might start again. But then this morning, they’d argued.
She bit her lip. How could her best friend, the one person she could always count on, also be the one person she had no idea how to talk to?
Fighting was easier. They did that instead, and they’d always been good at it. Besides, she’d rather watch anger shooting like lightning bolts through his storm-gray eyes than see regret for everything he’d left behind or the reminder that she owed him a debt so big she could never repay it.