Chapter 4
Sitting back in his chair, Carver contemplated the woman across from him. They’d barely been awake for an hour, and Bel had already made him both fume and laugh more times than he could count. Why was that combination so addicting? He felt like a glutton for punishment, and yet he couldn’t tear himself away. The fact that he was even in Atlantis proved it. The highs were too high. But the lows were damn low. And now there was an added complication. Sometimes, when she walked across their living room in her bare feet and nightgown, his mind actually tricked itself into thinking wife .
Heat spread through Carver’s middle. He cleared his throat.
Bel shot him a wary look. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
His pulse gave one quick surge. Roughly, he said, “Like what?”
“It’s hard to describe.” Her eyes narrowing, she cocked her head. “It’s different.”
“Try.” He wanted to know what she was thinking. It usually wasn’t what he expected, which was half the fun. He reached for an apricot from the platter between them and took a bite as he waited for her to spit out whatever was in her head.
Finally, she said, “Like you wish I could magically produce lamb stew instead of flames.”
A laugh burst from him along with some apricot juice. It dribbled down his chin. “I would kill for lamb stew right now. I’m losing my appetite for fish.”
Bel tossed a cloth at him. “Didn’t anyone teach you manners?” She grabbed a piece of bread and chewed with her mouth open.
Carver gave her an arch look, sure she was doing it on purpose. Wiping his face, he said, “You eat louder than a dragon crunching on human bones.”
White teeth flashed as she ripped into her bread. Around another big mouthful, she garbled out, “Did you know that dragons don’t actually like human meat? They say it tastes like poor choices and complaints.”
“And you’ve had how many conversations with dragons?”
She shrugged. “Enough.”
Carver’s lips twitched. “I’ll put that on your gravestone when a dragon eats you. She had one conversation, and it was enough. ”
Bel’s worlds-famous glare bored into him from across the table. She had trouble holding her scowl. “Who says you’ll survive?”
“Oh, the dragon won’t want me. I’ll taste like poor choices and complaints.”
She tried not to laugh. She really did. “Lamb stew might be hard to come by in the fish capital of the cosmos, but why don’t you at least grow some vegetables for us?” she suddenly asked. “You’re the farmer here.” She looked around, as if sizing up the living room for a place to dump a cartload of dirt. Knowing her, she would.
Carver reached for a second apricot, wishing he could buy a plot of land and do just that. He’d been a farmer’s son for a lot longer than he’d been a king’s brother, and he’d never forget how to hoe a field or plant a seed, just like he’d never forget how to pick up a sword or run someone through. Right now, he needed to worm his way into Eryx’s throne room and help Bel take Atlantis from that sorry excuse for a king. After, maybe he could opt for a simpler life. Buy a farm. Get some sheep. Then, there might be less tension snapping through him. Less worry. Less…whatever it was that made his chest so tight.
“I’ll buy some seeds,” he told her, his smirk firmly in place. “We’ll see how long it takes for your acid tongue to wilt the blooms.”
Her eyes snapped to his, a shot of magic sizzling through their blue-green depths. “Don’t worry. I keep all my venom for you.”
“Lucky me,” he murmured, the sarcasm he’d meant to inject into his voice getting lost somewhere in his throat.
Bel looked at him suspiciously again. After a silence that felt more awkward by the second, she finally slid her empty breakfast plate aside and picked up her amulet. She held the bronze disk up to the morning light, a little frown forming between her copper-brown brows as she studied the medallion. Carver watched the different expressions flit across her face. Frustration. Irritation. Concern. Her freckles crinkled, then smoothed out.
He looked away. He shouldn’t watch her so carefully. It made him feel…vulnerable.
“Any new thoughts?” She’d know he meant the medallion, the missing jewel, the mission, magic, the gods…all of it.
She made a sound in the negative, shaking her head.
Bel’s focus stayed on the amulet. They were quiet again, but this time the silence turned more companionable than awkward. Carver finished his breakfast in peace, then moved his plate and the fruit dish aside, leaving the table clear between them. Relaxing, he sprawled in his chair and scratched his jaw.
Her gaze flicked up. “That’s annoying.”
He sighed. He should’ve known it wouldn’t last. “What is?”
“That noise your fingers make on your face. Stop it. Or go shave.”
He scratched harder, calluses rasping over stubble. Bel always brought out the best in him.
She raised a brow. “I didn’t realize I was living with a child. Did you just turn five?”
“I defy you to find a five-year-old who needs to shave.”
She huffed a reluctant laugh, and damn if he didn’t like that even more than annoying her.
Actually, he liked both.
His hand dropped to his lap. “It’s our day off together. What should we do?”
She held up the amulet, giving it the stink eye now instead of him. “Burn this?”
He chuckled. “As satisfying as that sounds, we’re supposed to repair it, not destroy it.”
“Hmmm. The Shard of Olympus.” She went back to studying the medallion, smoothing her finger over the little engravings on the sides as if trying to read them with her touch.
Carver’s skin tightened. “We could go north.” Anything related to Mount Olympus was more likely to be there than anywhere else.
“And nearly get ripped to shreds by angry centaurs again? No thanks.”
“We only have a day. We won’t get anywhere near the border.” Or the herd of bloodthirsty centaurs living on the land around Mount Olympus. They’d ventured into magical creature territory just once and had barely escaped with their lives.
“Then what’s the point? We’ve already searched Atlantapol from top to bottom. Before we had jobs, we searched everywhere else. The closest we came to answers was in the conspirator’s cave, and we both know how that turned out.”
Interestingly, to say the least—and with several fresh bruises now coloring his ribs. “How’s the new magic?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Different than what I’m used to. It’s not a burst of flame I can clearly see and shape and aim. It’s bright light. Pure heat. It’s harder to direct and contain.”
“Is it controllable?”
“It’s always controllable. I just need practice.”
“Not on me, I hope.”
She smiled a little evilly. “Only if you start scratching your face again.”
He supposed he deserved that. He sat back, this time lacing his hands behind his head as he balanced on the back legs of his chair. He both dreaded and looked forward to their days off together. Bel entertained him. She also made him feel like fire ants were gnawing at him until he wanted to scream.
Their days off were also the only times they could concentrate on their mission without Atlantis getting in the way. It still did, but at least it was the Atlantis they were supposed to do something about and not the Atlantis everyone here simply accepted. It seemed unfair that the island was so beautiful when all you had to do was turn over a stone to find the rot.
An itchy sort of disgust rose inside him, always quick to bubble up these days. Ritual murders. Inequality. A cruel and abusive king more focused on magic he didn’t even have than on a people he did.
And now kidnappings. Families torn to shreds.
“What are you brooding about now?” Bel eyed him over her amulet.
He eyed the necklace Persephone put around Bel’s neck the day she sent her off to Atlantis with the vague instructions to bring back magic. “Just because I haven’t said anything for a while doesn’t mean I’m brooding.”
Looking dubious, she ran her fingertip up and down the empty groove in the center of the palm-sized bronze circle. “It doesn’t mean you’re not, and my money’s on brooding.”
Fine, she was right. But then, when wasn’t he brooding?
“Cleito,” he rumbled darkly. Since they hadn’t found the missing piece of the medallion—this Shard of Olympus—their best option now was trying to get clues or instructions out of Eryx’s oracle, Cleito. The most inaccessible person on the island.
“You’ll get there,” she said. “Soon, I think.”
Bel’s apparent faith in him just frustrated him more, and Carver let the front legs of his chair come down with a thwack . One of the ten children in the household below theirs immediately started howling. Wincing, he mouthed an apology toward the floor and especially toward the family’s overworked mother, Dione.
Bel looked at him with the kind of annoyance no one else could duplicate. “Perfect. Now Dione knows we’re here, and she’s going to try to hand off at least four of those kids to us by lunchtime.”
Carver groaned. “Watching them is like trying to herd butterflies. They all flit off in different directions and have no concept of danger.” His gaze immediately honed in on their stash of weapons, both his swords, Bel’s little-used blade, and several knives. “We’ll have to hide those.”
Bel shrugged, not making any move to conceal all the dangerous objects that were closer to her than to him. “Kids like playing with knives. I did.”
“Of course you did.”
She glanced up sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean? You were practically born with a sword in your hand. Why couldn’t I have knives?”
“First of all, I wasn’t playing with a sword. I was defending lives. Second, you had magic. You didn’t need knives.”
“You know as well as I do that magic doesn’t manifest until the early teens. You were defending lives? Well, I was defending myself. Someone had to.” She looked away, sunlight splashing across the top of her head like a fiery crown. “Not everyone has the luxury of sane and loving families, you know.”
Carver didn’t respond and regretted his offhand comment now. As the fourth child out of five, Bel hadn’t been close enough to the throne to be an immediate threat to her parents or to her older siblings, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been used, abused, and traumatized in countless ways. He knew she’d stepped in to defend her weaker sisters when she could, but he didn’t know much else. The details would probably consume him with rage.
Bel suddenly set the amulet on the table and pitched forward, glaring at him. “If Dione drops off even one of those kids, you’d better not leave me here by myself. You know I’m terrible with children. They always stare at me like I’m a three-headed beast.”
“That’s because you fascinate them.”
She looked taken aback. “You’re ridiculous.”
He spread his hands. “It’s true.”
“That you’re ridiculous? I know.”
“That you fascinate them,” he said smoothly back.
Bel seemed curious—probably against her will. “Why?”
“Because you don’t lie to them or sugarcoat the truth. If they don’t know what’s real, how can they navigate life?” Making decisions for themselves was priceless to kids, and Bel never tried to control what they said or did.
She hmphed. “But you’ll stay with me, right?”
Dione would expect Bel to stay. No one would expect him to do a thing.
Carver lounged back in his chair again, a grin spreading across his face. “But I have so much gambling, boasting, and blathering to do up at the agora. I’ll probably be broke and tired by the time I come home, so get ready to rub my feet and hand-feed me whatever fish you’ll have lovingly prepared this afternoon.”
Her nostrils pinched. “ Rotten fish.”
His grin widened. “Now remember, you’re a woman of Atlantis, which means you serve me.”
“Oh, I’ll serve you all right. I’ll serve you some of the arsenikon I’ve been saving up.”
Carver chuckled, mostly sure she was joking. “So now you’re dabbling in poison?”
“Flames bursting from my hands isn’t exactly subtle. I’m exploring other options for inflicting pain and suffering on my enemies.”
“Am I your enemy?” Carver’s tone said he teased, but something inside him tensed.
“You’re the bane of my existence.” She shoved the amulet toward him. “I’m sick of staring at these symbols. It’s your turn to stew and be clueless.”
Carver reached for the bronze disk. He’d take bane of my existence over enemy . After all, it was reciprocal and truly heartfelt most days. “I’ll admit to stewing. To clueless—never.”
“Then what do you make of that?” she asked.
“Probably nothing more than all the other times I’ve looked at it.” He still studied the engravings again. A thunderbolt. A trident. A helmet. The gifts from the Elder Cyclopes to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Those three powerful gifts forged from primordial magic gave the brothers the advantage in the first War of Gods. They’d overthrown their Titan ancestors and established their kingdom on Mount Olympus with Zeus on the high throne.
Carver touched the empty, oblong space in the middle, his finger drawn to it just like Bel’s. At this point, they were certain the Shard of Olympus belonged there, but it was nowhere to be found.
“Maybe Zeus’ll finally take an active role in all this and crack your thick head open with a lightning bolt. I mean,” she paused, “with inspiration.”
“You meant with a lightning bolt,” he grumbled.
His tone made her smile. “Do you think the key—the Shard of Olympus—amplifies magic?” She leaned forward, filling the space between them with the scent of her almond-milk skin cream.
Carver leaned back, leaving the amulet on the table. “Probably. But it seems like more than that. It won’t just amplify your magic, right? It’ll unlock magic that’s been locked away in everyone else, no?”
“That seems impossible. Like something only a god can do.”
“Or someone with a god’s tool.” They both looked at the medallion again.
“Or gods .” Bel touched the symbols. “Three are represented here.”
“We need more information. I need access to Cleito. It was so much easier before.” Frustrated, Carver swiped a hand through his hair. After six months in Atlantis, it needed a trim, but he didn’t dare ask Bel. She was as likely to give him a normal haircut as she was to do something truly awful to his head.
“Before? You mean when you were a prince and had access to everything?” Her hard little smile cut across the table. “A snap of the fingers and prophecies galore.” She lifted her hand and snapped, of course.
Carver scowled. Her sarcasm always made him feel like an ass. “Prophecies might not come that easily, but Eryx is really on to something now. Rumors from the throne room yesterday say he’s trying to force Cleito to describe an arcane, magic-igniting ritual.”
Frowning, she said, “Force Cleito how? A seer just sees . It’s not on command. It’s about as sure as trying to catch a stray dandelion puff on the wind.”
Carver shook his head. “All I know is that anyone who sees her says she’s in bad shape. Worse than before.”
Fire licked through Bel’s hair. “Eryx is torturing her? More? ”
“That’s what it sounds like.” Anger pulsed through him for a woman he didn’t even know. “Apparently, he thinks pain brings on her visions. Maybe fear, too.”
Bel’s pale features mottled with rage, each freckle popping out like a tiny orange flame. “I’ll kill him. Appoline…” Her voice trailed off. More quietly, she said, “Sometimes, Galen would do the same.”
The seer sister she’d lost. The cruel brother who’d killed that sister before Bel’s eyes.
His gut twisted, but Carver just nodded. Appoline’s death marked the moment Bel finally stood up to her murderous older brother, the King of Tarva and an absolute sociopath. And she didn’t just stand up to him. She grabbed the bastard around the neck and killed him on the spot, leaving only a pile of ash. The Tarvan throne was rightfully Bel’s in that moment, but she handed her kingdom over to Cat and then battled alongside them to reunite the realms.
“We’ll get him.” Carver resisted the urge to reach across the table and squeeze Bel’s hand. She’d probably burn him anyway. “I don’t know when or how, but we’ll kill Eryx, and you’ll take his throne.”
She took a moment to nod back. “That’s the plan. Except the gods have made things as clear as mud.”
Carver sighed. “Outcomes up in the air and lives on the line, as usual.” They were no strangers to the gods’ twisted interweaving of free will and destiny. But he’d rather have some control over his fate than none at all. And if Zeus didn’t get the result he wanted, he’d start over with a new set of pawns.
“I’m sick of staring at this. It’s not even pretty.” Bel got up and put the amulet back under the floorboard they’d loosened to hide it from prying eyes. Lilika had come over several times, sometimes with Dimitri or her parents. So had his two friends from the king’s guard. Then there were Dione and her brood. They were always popping in and out, sometimes for hours. The kids never wanted to go home.
Once the floor looked seamless again, Bel leaned against the window frame, her long red hair stirring on the breeze. “I have a problem. Or…I think I might.”
Carver’s brows slowly rose. “The great Bellanca Tarva? Admitting to a problem? What are the worlds coming to?”
Her death glare was fabulous. “I’m serious,” she ground out.
Then he was, too. “I’m all ears.”
She hesitated, biting her lip. “We were told to back Zeus with an army of Atlantians and Magoi but”—she lowered her voice, whispering as she moved away from the open window—“what if Zeus isn’t the right choice?”
Just as quietly, Carver said, “You think they won’t back him? Because of Punishment?”
Grimacing, she rummaged for a stray scroll. Setting quill to ink and then to parchment, she wrote, What if a different god should rule the mountaintop? One who’s not so focused on control and punishment? One who might answer instead of just ask?
Nervous tension gripped Carver’s middle in a tight fist. Zeus had smote humans for less than this.
Half fearing a god bolt would tear through their roof, he wrote, Who? The god who cursed Cat? And sent Pan to terrorize Thalyria? And the Gorgons to stop us from finding a cure for Cat’s curse? That’s who Zeus is up against . He underlined That’s three times and shoved the scroll back at her, shaking his head. Zeus was a heavy-handed, cock-led, choleric control freak, but he’d protected Thalyria and set events into motion that eventually allowed Cat and Griffin to replace selfish, brutal rulers who could no longer be trusted with his favored world. He’d protected Carver’s family, and that was enough for Carver to protect him back.
Bel’s mouth thinned. She turned and put the parchment onto the remaining cooking embers. They watched their dangerous words burn, and he hoped to Olympus that Zeus only listened in on conversations whenever he felt like it and didn’t bother to read.
She sat across from him again. “Maybe there are no good options.”
“Maybe we stick to the mostly-absent-and-sometimes-worrisome one we know.”
She laughed without humor. “Ambitious, aren’t we?”
“Let’s be ambitious about what we can reasonably control.”
She stared at him for a moment, her head tilted to one side. “I like that. At least I think I do.”
Carver’s chest pinched. Had he said the right thing for once? It shouldn’t be this hard.
Bel still looked thoughtful. “We can reasonably control what happens to Eryx.”
“And to the kingdom.” He nodded. “After we give magic back to the island, and he gets it, too, we’ll fight him. And win.”
“If I’m challenging him for his throne, it has to be Magoi against Magoi. You know that, especially for a clear succession of power.”
“Then you’ll fight him and win. And then do you know what you’ll serve your husband for dinner?” Carver couldn’t help his grin. “Eryx’s head on a platter. You can add some lemon slices and those cute little rosemary sprigs if you want.”
Snorting, Bel flicked a spark at him. “Wonderful. We’ll add cannibalism to your long list of flaws.”