18. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter 18
A small, half-hidden wooden door opened in front of Dante, forcing him to stoop as he walked through. Yellow crystals, above his head, lit up the narrow tunnel. He waited as they grew bright enough, until the minute details of the faded murals carved into the stone were illuminated.
The door shut silently behind him; the immortals would continue to guard the room. Any Atlantean foolish enough to force an entry would learn firsthand how deadly the warriors were, and that history had not exaggerated their level of viciousness or cruelty.
Instead, he focused on where he was going. The only sound was his breathing and the echo of his shoes on the stone floor. He didn’t bother to mask his movements.
The entrance of the ancient war room was hidden under the archway. It was rumored to be one of the few rooms left from the original Arx that had been built thousands of years ago. Only a handful of Atlanteans knew it still existed. Even fewer knew that a war room had been built underneath the fortress. The Houses had never publicly gone to war, choosing instead to set up proxy human wars, and had transitioned to economic coercion and company mergers in recent decades.
The tunnel finally opened into a large, empty, windowless room. Except for the circular table that was carved out of the same stone as the walls. Its pale golden color was a beacon in the darkness. He pulled out a chair and sat. Left alone, his thoughts wandered back to Rieka. His ability to be six to seven steps ahead of his peers and rivals had allowed him to create his empire, but it required him to maintain his edge. Rieka threatened the status quo. His friends and foes would view a misstep as an exploitable weakness.
Most people, human or Atlantean, he could control, bend to his will. Something about Rieka whispered to him that she would not adhere to his rules or be coerced easily. Ever since she’d walked into his office, he had known she was the key he had been looking for—the link to finding Vandana’s tomb. But he wanted something more from Rieka. He wanted her.
The soft swoosh of material punctuated the silence.
“You remind me of your father.”
The words were barely above a whisper, but they echoed loudly, as if they had been shouted instead of softly spoken.
Dante stood. “Aadya. It is good to see you.”
“Child, I hope you lie better to your enemies than to your grandmother,” Aadya said sternly as she walked through the door. Aadya’s once bright emerald eyes had dimmed with age to a pale translucent color. Her skin appeared fragile; the faint outline of blood vessels shimmered underneath her dark olive skin. She was still a handsome woman. There was no denying they were related; he’d inherited his coloring from her. Dante would be a fool to think Aadya was as vulnerable as she appeared. Time may no longer be her friend, but the edges of her mind had grown sharper over the millennia. As one of the oldest living Atlanteans, Aadya had seen things over her four thousand years he could scarcely imagine.
“Fath’at,” Dante replied, the term almost foreign on his tongue. He rarely called her by her familial title.
Aadya walked into the light, her once midnight black hair was streaked silver—braided, it fell over her shoulder and down to her waist. Her gold dress shimmered. Even after two thousand years, Aadya still wore the color of mourning. “It has been over a century since you have deemed to grace me with your presence,” Aadya chided. “Your twin has visited.”
Dante did not miss the annoyance in her tone, but he ignored it. It would not be the first time his grandmother had attempted to use his sister against him. Aldora and he may be fraternal twins, but they were as different as day and night. “Aldora’s visit would have been enough for both of us. She would have regaled you with stories about her work.”
Aadya chuckled. “It was an interesting visit. She has inherited your mother’s tenacity and single-mindedness, like you.”
Dante snorted. It was no secret that Aadya and his mother hated each other with such an intensity he was surprised they had never declared outright war. But then, war by proxy was much easier to control and resource. And he and Aldora had been the ultimate prize. He sometimes wondered how different their upbringing would have been if Talal had played an active role rather than obsessing over the past. He discarded the thought; what-ifs were a waste of time. “You played a pivotal role in my parents’ marriage,” Dante not so gently reminded Aadya. “You were the dominant force behind it.”
Aadya waved him off. The gold of her dress caught the light, glittering until it made her appear otherworldly. It likely was why she still wore the color. “Your parents were never suited to each other.”
“Then why?” To this day, Dante had never understood what possessed Aadya to pair Talal, his scholar father, with Dion Delacroix, the warrior matriarch of the House Mneseus. Aadya’s second born, his uncle Anhur, would have been better suited to the match.
“Why indeed? The bloodlines needed to merge. Your mother and Anhur would have destroyed each other.” Aadya moved to stand next to him. “Emotions should never be involved with politics. It is a lesson you should have learned by now.”
Indeed. One that he’d learned with blood and still bore the visible and invisible scars on his body and mind. Dante said nothing, choosing to instead watch Aadya. Every move was prescribed, created to send a message to him. A lesson he’d learned the hard way. “Is there a reason for the meeting request?”
“Child, I am not one of your people. I am intrigued by your guest. Only a Delacroix would dare bring a hybrid to the Jimourt.”
“Rieka is under my protection.” Dante forced himself not to react. Aadya may be his grandmother, but she survived centuries based on a cunningness that was paralleled by no other. Dante also knew better than most that Aadya did not just see with her eyes. “What is the O’hurani?”
Aadya tilted her head. Her translucent gaze grew paler, as if she was looking straight through him. “Where have you heard that name from?”
Dante wasn’t in the mood to play the normal political games he had to endure. There were only the two of them in the room, and Aadya would give him the answers he was looking for. “My father left a gift. Anhur was instructed to give it to me at the Jimourt.”
“What was the gift?”
“A bracelet and a note.”
Aadya nodded. “Is Anhur aware of the note?”
“No.”
Aadya walked across the room, her head held high, her shoulders tense. For a moment, she showed the weariness she hid. He could feel it in the air. Aadya seemed to almost age in front of him. “Some things should stay in the past.”
“And if they won’t?”
“Sit,” Aadya ordered.
Dante was tempted to stand, but he knew better than to ignore Aadya. His grandmother could be a formidable foe. She’d built the foundation of an empire that was still thriving four thousand years later. There was still much he could learn from her.
“It translates to King-Father. It is the highest honor bestowed upon the Anki,” Aadya began, her voice barely above a whisper. “They were the first.”
Aadya folded her hands in front of her. “The Anki were truly godlike and immortal.” Aadya paused as she looked around. “Our gifts come from their bloodline.”
It was as if she was staring back into the past, and Dante was just a speck on the wall. He didn’t dare move, lest he break the spell she was under.
Aadya opened her palms; small sparks jumped from her fingers. He’d known Aadya was gifted, but never the full extent of her power. It had been centuries since she had manifested any objects or stories. And in his presence, it had always been fleeting.
A beach appeared out of nothing. Pure-white sand stretched to the horizon. The water was deathlike in its stillness. The blues of the sky were almost violet without a cloud in sight, and a bloodred sun burned through the sky. A shadow appeared in the distance. Humanoid. But larger than he was expecting.
“They were the first. And will be the last,” Aadya whispered. She spoke a few more words, but he didn’t understand the dialect. “We worshipped them as gods.”
The shadow moved across the beach, like liquid silver as it walked toward the water. Large bumps protruded from its shoulders.
“What does the O’hurani have to do with Vandana?”
Silence greeted his question. Aadya didn’t move as she sighed. The sound was far more articulate than any words she could have used. She was tired.
“The O’hurani married Vandana. As the Atlantean heir, her marriage to him reinforced our allegiance to the gods and strengthened our bloodlines.” Aadya frowned.
The image changed. A red sky replaced the violet hues. Once-white sand turned to scarlet as waves crashed against the beach. Metal armor glittered among the rocks as weapons lay scattered between the prone, mutilated figures. It looked like a bloodbath. “The truce lasted five hundred years before the war began.”
Dante stared at the scene. Everything he thought he had known about their history was a lie. How did their ancestors rewrite their origin story?
History is written by the victors.
Aadya closed her palm, and the image vanished. “Vandana was said to have led the armies that stood against the O’hurani. For centuries, Atlanteans and the Anki slaughtered anyone who shared their bloodline as a precaution, lest they chose the wrong side. Men, women, and children. No one was saved from their fate.” Aadya swallowed. “The slaughter almost decimated the Houses.”
“How did it stop?”
“Vandana stopped the king,” Aadya said. “It ended the senseless deaths. The price was the destruction of House Atlas and Atlantis. Without the head of the snake, it forced the Anki deep underground, where they have slept for the last eleven thousand years. And we were forced to leave our home.”
The light flickered on the wall, casting them in darkness before it brightened. The glint of Aadya’s dress was almost blinding. Dante didn’t move. “How do you kill an immortal?”
A faint grimace crossed Aadya’s features. “You cannot. Not without slaughtering all those Atlanteans and humans who carry a drop of Anki blood. It is an automatic death sentence. Vandana ensured there were no records of the war, and the O’hurani and Anki were wiped from our living and written record. Until they no longer existed even as a myth among our people. It is her greatest legacy.”
Dante let Aadya’s words wash over him. There was so much he did not understand. The snippets of stories from his father were threading together and adding color to the anecdote Aadya had just told him. “Did my father know the legend?”
“He discovered the story when he was but a boy—swore that it had been told to him by Vandana’s descendant. A beautiful woman with eyes so pale blue they appeared white.” Aadya stood up, the swoosh of her skirt echoing loudly. “I laughed at his foolishness.” There was a hint of regret in Aadya’s tone.
“And now?”
“There are ramblings of sightings of creatures that should no longer exist. Whispers on the wind of Atlantean factions who have returned to the worship of the old gods with macabre rituals that haven’t been practiced since the destruction of our home,” Aadya sighed. “Talal was adamant that finding Vandana’s tomb was the key to stopping them from rising again. I thought he was following a foolish idea. But I am unsure now.”
Dante leaned against the chair, letting the silence grow between them.
“What does the seer dream of?”
Sypha only told him snippets of their visions, but the dark circles under their eyes and the way their hands shook after sleepless nights told him far more than any words could. “Death.”
“And the role of your guest?”
The urge to protect Rieka was violent as it surged through him. “She may play a pivotal part in finding the tomb.”
The light flickered behind them again as the silence grew between them.
“What do you know of your hybrid?”
Fiercely loyal. Intelligent. Mine.
The thought slammed into him and stole his breath away at the sheer magnitude of the realization. It had been just an inkling beneath the surface of his skin before now. Something he’d ignored because he was so focused on finding the tomb. But the need to protect Rieka came from instinct, the same instinct that he had always trusted, and he wasn’t about to stop. He just hadn’t put the two together.
Aadya opened her palm. It sparkled like fireworks as an image appeared. Rose-gold armor appeared as the figure of a woman materialized. The statue of Vandana, made of flesh and blood. Dark red hair, the color of dried arterial blood, blew in the wind. Black streaks marred her darkly tanned skin.
Dante stood transfixed. The almost-forgotten whispers had been true.
Flame-colored eyes looked through him, burning with the intensity of a flame.
Rieka’s eyes.