Harley Merlin 16: Finch Merlin and the Blood Tie Page 10

  Faustus jumped in. “Anyway, you should be pleased with this development. Separating the queen and her consort, and annulling the marriage, will allow you to have your friend back. The love spell can be dissolved. Everyone will have what they desire.”

  Except Kaya, Huntress pointed out.

  “Except Kaya,” I parroted. “And, y’know… the surface world.”

  Faustus smirked. “The surface world will come to realize it is for their benefit. As for Kaya, she will as well.” He adjusted his hood. “Even when she did not choose me, I did not lose heart. I never intended to give up my pursuit.”

  Talk about a sore loser. People should know when to let go. Huntress glared up at him with an icy blue stare.

  “You two will clamber over anyone and everyone to get what you want, won’t you?” Someone needed to say it. Faustus had proven himself as much of a snake as Ovid, and that made him dangerous. Even more so because Kaya didn’t know that she and her people had a traitor in their midst.

  Nash, look! Huntress nudged me.

  What? I discreetly scanned the alleyway, but I couldn’t see what she was getting at.

  We’re at a crossroads. There’s only Ovid and Faustus ahead of us, and the guards are behind. If we make a run for the alley to our right, it should lead us back to the palace. And they won’t be able to cut us off—there shouldn’t be any more forks in the road between here and there. They’d never catch up! Huntress’s tongue lolled out her mouth, giving an impression of innocence.

  See, this is why I love you. I hid the grin I wanted to show.

  Ah, let’s not get mushy until after we’ve escaped. She nudged me again. Her sign of affection.

  “It is not a matter of clambering over others,” Ovid said. “It is a matter of taking what belongs to you and doing what is best for one’s nation.”

  I smiled. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  Ready? Huntress urged.

  Ready. The two of us shot forward. Without magic, brute force would have to do. I rammed into Ovid as hard as I could while Huntress swerved around Faustus’s legs. I didn’t stay to watch the king fall to the ground, though part of me wanted to. Fortunately, Faustus was too preoccupied with getting his precious overlord off the floor to strike out at us. And the two of them were in the way of the guards, preventing them from chucking any magic after us.

  We barreled down the alley. Shouts went up behind us, but I focused on tearing forward, making sure to zigzag in case any Chaos did follow us.

  I was done being an ingredient. I was done being a prisoner. And I was done with Atlantis. But a soldier didn’t go AWOL. Kaya needed to hear about this, even if I didn’t care for her plans, either. When faced with two evils, you had to pick the lesser. And I knew where to put my vote: with the one who might still be reasoned with.

  Twelve

  Nash

  I was too old for this crap. My breath came in ragged bursts. Everything hurt. Sweat dripped down my face in buckets. Huntress, on the other hand, hadn’t broken her stride. This was easy for her.

  I’d run from the enemy plenty of times before, but every time felt like one too many. With each turn I made to lose the guards giving chase, it got a whole lot clearer—I was tired of running away. For once, I wouldn’t have minded running toward something.

  A Sanguine only rests when they’re dead, remember? The thought lingered in my head. But death wasn’t the answer to this question. I’d been there, done that, and it hadn’t worked out great. Maybe there was another answer to the Sanguine problem, one I’d ignored all these years. What if I didn’t have to be one anymore? I kept my thoughts private from Huntress. She’d have told me to pull myself together. Ordinarily, she’d have been right. But I was done with this crap. Always hunted. Always used. Always part of someone’s plot. And people used Huntress to make me obey. Ovid—case in point.

  Enough is enough. There had to be a way I could just… give up my ability. All of them, if that was what it took. Back at the cabin, it wasn’t like I’d used them much anyway. It wasn’t much of a stretch to go from that to becoming a normal, non-magical human, was it? I hadn’t gotten away from Erebus and Davin just to end up serving Ovid and Faustus’s schemes, and having Davin get what he wanted on top of that. That was a major hell no. But how did a guy go about giving up Chaos? And could I really do it, if it meant losing what I had with Huntress? When I briefly lost my Chaos during Katherine’s reign of terror, our connection had remained. But would it stay if I lost Chaos permanently?

  I didn’t know, but I’d made a promise. We’d bound ourselves together. If breaking away from Chaos meant breaking away from her, too… I didn’t have that in me. Thinking about her hurting because our souls had been severed was enough to push the thoughts away. For now.

  Nash, watch out! Huntress shouted in my head.

  I skidded to a halt in time to stop myself from crashing into a figure coming from the opposite direction: a skinny guy with the Atlantean brand of silver hair and a terrified look in his gray eyes. He staggered to a standstill in front of me, panting harder than I was. He’d been running, too. But from what?

  “Easy there. You’ll knock someone out.” I tried to sound friendly. The guards were far enough behind us now. I didn’t want to risk attracting attention from another source.

  He clutched his knees as he bent double. Poor guy looked ready to retch up his guts. “I… am sorry. I… wasn’t… watching where I was… going. I just need to… catch my breath.”

  “You had quite the sprint on you, there. What are you running from?” I eyed him curiously.

  “Aren’t you… running from the… same thing?” he wheezed, eyeing the Cuff around my neck. Clearly, he didn’t know who I was. That worked in my favor. With my silver hair and Atlantean look, I might’ve fooled him into thinking that I was one of them. He hadn’t even glanced at Huntress, so maybe he didn’t think she was weird.

  “Guards?” I kept it vague.

  He nodded. “They are hounding… me.”

  “Did you steal something?” I pressed, aware of Huntress nudging me.

  We need to go! Why are you talking to this guy? she asked.

  People don’t run like that for no reason. He needs help. And, let’s face it, we’re lost—he might be able to get us out of this maze. We’d been so sure we were on the right track, but things had gotten a little mixed up after a crossroads that had come out of nowhere. Huntress had gotten things slightly wrong, and it hadn’t been the straight path that we’d expected. Nothing looked familiar anymore, and I had no clue whether we were even going toward the palace.

  The guy shook his head. “No, it is the guards who are trying to steal something from me.” He recovered slightly. “And they’ll be trying to steal it from you next.”

  “Steal what, exactly?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t know?”

  “I’ve been in the Trench, so I’ve got no idea what’s been happening around here,” I lied. I didn’t tell fibs very often—only when the occasion called for it.

  He nodded like he understood. “Then you’re in for a nasty surprise.” He took a deep breath. “The guards have been knocking on doors, demanding a drop of blood from all Atlanteans. The queen ordered it so she can raise the city to the surface. And the guards don’t like being told no. Why were you running?”

  “I got into a fight for buying a Purge beast. They want to charge me for possessing contraband. They managed to slap these Cuffs on us before we got away from them.” I gestured at Huntress. “I should’ve listened when they said you can’t trust anyone in the Trench.”

  “Ah, don’t get me started on those charlatans. I bought a ring a year ago from one of the pawnshops there. Next thing I know, I’ve got Atlantean guards hammering on my door, then ransacking the place because the pawnshop owner told them I’d stolen it.” The guy straightened, having gotten his breath back. “You need a place to hide for a while? If they’ve Cuffed you, I’m going to go with yes.�
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  I shrugged. “It’d beat running like a headless chicken for the next hour. Have you got a place in mind?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. Watch the surface slang if you’re pretending to be one of them, I admonished myself. Luckily, he went on.

  “There’s a house I know on the edge of Atlantis, deep in the Mariana district. We’ll be safe there for a while. At least until the guards come knocking there, too.” He stuck out his hand. “My name’s Hector, by the way.”

  “Orion.” I shook the offered hand. I figured giving him a fake name was safest, in case he had heard of me in passing. “Should we get moving? You’ll have to lead the way.”

  He sighed and took another deep breath. “Follow me.”

  We hurtled through the endless network of alleyways, turning this corner and that until I didn’t know which way was up. While running, we passed a couple more fugitives from the blood drive, but Hector didn’t stop for them. The guards had folks running scared. And it didn’t sound like the voluntary contribution I would’ve expected of a decree from Kaya. She pretended to be noble and benevolent, but her true colors were showing through. Like her dad, she was doing whatever it took to get what she wanted.

  Are you sure it’s a good idea to trust this man? Huntress asked as we sprinted.

  I looked down at her. It doesn’t seem like he knows who I am. Even if he did, what beef could he have with me? He’s running for his own reasons. And if he’s not giving up his blood to Kaya, then he’s probably not feeling very loyal to his queen right now. We should be safe.

  Should? See, that’s the word that worries me. She growled in the back of her throat.

  The minute either of us gets a bad feeling, we run. Until then, I say we follow him. As it stands, we’ve got no other options. Not unless you want to run around for hours, only to wind up back in Ovid’s hands.

  She gave a soft whine of displeasure. I’m just saying we should be careful.

  We will be, I promised. I just hoped my creaky legs lasted to this safehouse. I’d always made it a point to stay in shape, but I hadn’t expected to run a marathon today. And it showed. There wouldn’t be a dry patch left on this shirt by the time I got to wherever we were going.

  Eventually, the alleyways branched out into civilization again. The houses here were little more than shacks, with a few sea glass beads here and there to echo the mansions in the fancier districts. Roofs had gaping holes in them, and most of the houses didn’t even have windows. I guessed there wasn’t much need for them, since the weather never changed.

  Raggedly clothed kids sat on the curb, and harried mothers tried to shoo them away so they could hang laundry. A few grizzled-looking men sat on rickety benches, sipping from brown bottles. I doubted they were drinking lemonade. The divide between these people and what I’d gotten used to at the palace suddenly made me angry. If you were going to have a utopian society, you needed to share the wealth. But the wealth definitely hadn’t reached this far out. Frankly, it kept getting clearer that Atlantis was no better than the surface. Only here, as we’d learned from Kaya after seeing the ruins beyond the bubble, being poor could get you drowned, for the sake of the rich being able to lead comfortable lives.

  Hector led Huntress and me down a cramped street and stopped in front of an innocuous door. White paint peeled from the wood; the whole place looked abandoned. He unlocked the door before ushering us inside, slamming the door behind us as if the guards were already outside.

  “Is this place yours?” I scoured the interior. It looked about as abandoned as the exterior. Hardly any furniture to speak of, except for a few wrecked chairs. Mold on the walls. Broken floorboards, and planks covering the windowless windows. It seemed too derelict to need a lock and key.

  Hector sank onto a busted stool. “It used to be my home, before I moved elsewhere. I always intended to rent it, but I never got around to it. It’s been closed up ever since.”

  “You got out, then?”

  He frowned. “Of this house?”

  “No, of this neighborhood.” I pointed to the door.

  Hector’s shoulders sagged. “Not many of us do, but I managed, thanks to one of Queen Verity’s programs for the underprivileged. I suppose I should have known that it would come back to bite me one of these days. With privilege comes certain expectations.”

  “Like giving up blood so the queen can have her way?” I segued into the topic I needed more info on.

  “Precisely.” He sighed. “You should have heard her decree, Orion. I am baffled that anyone would willingly agree to it.”

  I perched on the edge of an armchair that had seen better days. “You don’t want Atlantis to rise, even if it’ll save the city?”

  “It’s not just about raising Atlantis to the surface, though,” he insisted. “We are likely to die down here, but if our survival comes at such a steep cost, then perhaps that is for the best.”

  “You need to tell me more about this decree, or I’m not going to understand a word you’re saying.” I scratched the spot between Huntress’s ears, noting that they were pricked and alert.

  Hector ran an anxious hand through the unbraided part of his silver hair. “The queen wants to raise Atlantis in order to save our nation from imminent destruction—which I understand. But she also wants us to rule the surface world and unite the magicals therein, while showing our superiority over the non-magical inhabitants.” He stared up at me, as though doubting whether he should continue. But he did. “Some people might be okay with that, but I’d wager those people have never struggled a day in their lives. Those are the people who feel superior already. But the rest of us—ordinary people who live out here, in the poorer districts—we don’t want to subjugate the surface. We don’t think we have any right to rule anybody else. Nor do we want a war for the sake of some foolish belief that we don’t agree with.”

  “I’m with you on that.” I gave a hard laugh. “I never liked the whole idea of ‘purity’ because you happened to be born to a certain lineage. And when war’s on the table, you can always count me out.”

  “Exactly! It’s a ridiculous notion, and the queen’s decree is only proving that we are in no way superior to other magicals, or non-magicals, for that matter. Wanting to rule the entire globe is nothing short of tyranny, and it’s a shame, because I liked Kaya. Before she was a queen, I mean. And I thought she had the right idea when she married that surface dweller—it showed that she didn’t have any ideologies about supremacy. But then she just went and unraveled all that, in one act.”

  “But there’ll be people who’ll go along with it,” I said. “They might not want global domination, but they’ll agree because they’re scared to die. The Bestiary is failing, and it can’t sustain life anymore, or so I heard. So who wouldn’t be terrified? Who wouldn’t agree, when it’s Kaya’s way or drowning to death?”

  The Atlantean got up and paced the floor, kicking up dust. “I see your point, but Ganymede created this place for us because we were persecuted up there on the surface. And now she wants us to return and do the same to others?”

  This guy knows his onions. I glanced at Huntress, who gave a discreet nod.

  Why don’t they have people like him in charge, instead of an unelected royal? she replied. I’m not saying it would stop all the nonsense, but at least it wouldn’t be just one person making all the decisions.

  I smiled at her. You’re preaching to the choir here.

  “We don’t need to conquer the surface world. We could raise Atlantis and keep to ourselves, or integrate peaceably,” Hector went on. “We could even ask for help—for energy sources that we don’t have access to, or an influx of Purge beasts to expand the Bestiary. Besides, if we have the energy to expend on rising, then the deficit can’t be as great as the queen says. Either that, or she is willing to risk our lives, and the very integrity of this bubble, to achieve her goal.”

  I rubbed my chin in thought. “That’s not a bad point. How is she even going to raise Atlantis?
It’s all in that legend, I guess.”

  “You would think that, but my mother used to tell me the legend of the Luminary when I was a child, and there are no details.” Hector shook his head violently. “It suggests that raising Atlantis will be difficult. But I’d bet my life that it’s far more than difficult. If my assumptions are right about the energy expenditure required, it could prove devastating. We might not even make it to the surface, but she hasn’t put that in her decree, has she? Ganymede forbid that a royal should be honest.”

  He clearly had a chip on his shoulder about royals. But the guy spoke a lot of sense, and he’d ignited a few new concerns for me that hadn’t been there before. What if raising Atlantis tore the city apart before it reached the surface?

  “What would you do instead?” I was genuinely curious.

  “Well, there are ways of getting out of the city, if you can Teleport. It’s a sort of open secret, as we all know she sends Purge beast hunters into the oceans to capture monsters. And if they can get into the ocean, there’s no reason they couldn’t reach the surface.” He glanced nervously around the room. “All she’d have to do is send one ambassador to the surface world and ask for help.”

  “But she won’t.” I filled in the blanks.

  He leaned against the far wall. “No, of course not. She would rather take the whole queendom up there and destroy the world… because she will destroy it, if this happens. Nobody in their right mind would just bow down to a strange queen from a world that has been off the map for centuries.”

  “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” I agreed. It would be like an alien landing and demanding humanity’s surrender. “Neither the magicals nor the non-magicals will submit. They’ll just hit her with everything they’ve got, and Atlantis will retaliate, until no one’s left standing.”