To Kill a God by C.S. Wilde

Chapter 16

Muffled blasts thundered outside.Boom, boom, boom everywhere, sprouting across Atlantea.

The floating orbs that illuminated the dark dungeons flickered when some of the attacks hit the palace, until suddenly, the rumbling stopped. Dim explosions still rang from a distance, but they sounded smaller, more scattered.

Mera pulled out her phaser. The whirring sound of her weapon loading echoed across the space.

The queen stared at her with a gut-wrenching sadness. It looked foreign in her bitter face, a face where hate and malice fit like a glove. “Run, Daughter.” She pointed to the glass elevator shaft, which was somehow still standing. The only way in and out of the dungeons. “He might be weakened, but you will lose if you face him.”

Mera wanted to go. She really did, but she’d never run from a fight before, and she wouldn’t start now.

“We’ll see about that,” she countered, hating that she couldn’t check on Belinda, Uncle Barrimond, and Professor Currenter.

She could only hope they were okay.

As if on cue, Belinda’s voice came through the comm in her ear, her words broken by interference. “Mer… you copy?”

“Yes!” A relieved sigh escaped her gills. “I’m in the dungeons. Are you all right?”

Static came from the other side, stretching time itself as she waited.

“Fine. Intercepted… lackeys.” A long pause followed, one in which Mera could only hear the sounds of blasts, waterbreaking, and orders to advance.

“Bel?”

“I’m here,” she panted. “Lost… enhancer… somewhere.”

Belinda had been heading to a secret location in Atlantea to hide the device. Losing it wasn’t bad news, though. If they struggled to find it, so would Azinor.

Static sparkled once more. “Get out. He’ll be coming for…”

Silence.

He’ll be coming for the queen.

“I’ll be fine.” Mera swallowed, centering herself. “Did you hear from the professor or my uncle? The palace was under attack.”

Belinda shouted orders to someone next to her, her voice cracked by interference. “Cursed the… Sending reinforcements.”

Mera’s attention shifted to the elevator shaft, the only way in or out of there. “All right. Stay safe.”

With that, she ended the connection.

Leaning against the rocky walls, she tried to make sense of it all. Azinor’s lackeys must be spreading hell throughout Atlantea. Their bombs had gone off everywhere around town, and if they’d disabled the dome, then the prick could waltz in anytime he wanted.

A deep, cold silence hung heavy across the space, making the water flowing through it thicker. Mera’s grasp on her phaser tightened.

“You always expected me to love you,” the queen blurted out of nowhere. “But love isn’t something to be owed. It has to be earned.”

“You love Azinor. After everything he did to you, you still…” Mera shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “No, I won’t start this again.”

“I thought I loved him. I was wrong.” She pointed to the back wall of her cell, toward the city they couldn’t quite see from there. “I might have been hard on you, but I was preparing you to lead, child. To survive.”

“Bullshit. You enjoyed making me suffer.”

“I did. Still, you can’t deny I succeeded in my task. After all, you killed me twice.” She turned away as if in deep thought. “And yet, back at the beach, I had a glimpse of what might have been between you and me, had I not…”

Rage burned in Mera’s veins, and she pointed at the bitch, holding down the urge to blow off her head with the phaser. “You’re a bug. A vermin, Mother. Ruth was the fucking stars, and you took her from me.” Anger coursed through her, making her body shake. “Bold of you to grow a consciousness now.”

“Ruth—”

“Don’t say her name!” Mera barked, fully aware of how badly she was losing it.

A loud rumble came from outside, followed by another. Mera raised her weapon and turned to the elevator shaft, waiting, since it was the only access point to the queen.

Everything went quiet. The next moment, a deafening boom filled her ears, and the back of Mother’s cell crumbled. The force of the explosion sent the queen hurling against the bars, and Mera crashed against the hallway wall.

The large hole on the cell showed the city in the distance.

The queen shot Mera a panicked glare, right before Azinor rose from beyond the gap. Half of his gray-skinned face was missing, the other half under construction. His left eye dangled from its socket, and a big gap on his left cheek showed Mera the bones in his jaw, the red tendons fresh and new.

Crap!She’d expected the asshole to use the elevator shaft, not blow a hole in the dungeons’ façade.

Grinning, or at least trying to, the monster raised his fist to show her a necklace with a dark-silver pendant shaped like a hexagon. It had an emerald encrusted in its middle.

Fuck!He’d found the enhancer.

Mera raised her gun, aiming through the cell’s bars. “Drop it.”

“Your friend vaporized my head, yet here I stand.” His voice didn’t come from his mouth—or whatever remained of it—but from the water around him. Like Azinor was and wasn’t there; his presence a part of two different realms, if that made any sense. He nudged his halved chin toward her hands. “You cannot stop me with that pitiful weapon.”

Mera pressed the trigger, hoping to prove him wrong. Scorching blue comets zinged at him, but they burst into nothing when they hit the magic shield around the prick.

Azinor merely stared at her through his drooping green eye, clearly unfazed. “Your friend lost the enhancer to help her fellows.” He chuckled to himself. “She never noticed my presence. Oh, how easily I could have twisted her frail little neck… Rest assured, I’ll savor her death when I’m fully formed.”

“You won’t touch a hair on Belinda’s head!”

“Always making promises you can’t keep.” Giving Ariella his hand, he motioned for her to come closer. “I’d hoped our offspring would be smarter.”

The queen stared at Mera, and maybe she was losing her mind, but she saw doubt in her bitter face.

It only lasted a second, though. A sneer filled with all the malice in the world swiftly captured Ariella’s face, ever the hateful bitch that birthed her. “I’ve stopped expecting greatness from our child, my lord.”

Her words stung. Mera hated admitting it, but they did.

Whispers suddenly washed over her ears, and though she couldn’t understand what they said, she somehow knew what to do. The tingling of inky inscriptions bloomed on her skin, dancing under her bodysuit.

An invisible surge suddenly lunged from her core, piercing through Azinor’s shield and slamming into him. The power trapped the dickwart where he was, and although he fought against her magic, he couldn’t move.

Ariella stared in awe, a small grin hooking up her left cheek. She tapped her temple, then her heart.

Azinor’s horrid, barely-there face twisted in anger, his focus on Mera. “The sheer audacity!”

The enhancer he held shone bright green. With a violent pulse, he broke free of her magic, sending her slamming against the stone wall near the elevator.

Mera’s mind spun, her ears ringing. Blinking, she tried to center herself.

The asshole pointed a finger at her from inside the cell, his other hand wrapped around the queen’s wrist. “You will suffer for this.” His gaze lifted toward the surface. “I’ll kill what empowers you.”

With that, he dashed into the deep blue, taking Ariella with him. Mera boosted toward them, bellowing an angry cry, but she couldn’t break through the cell’s silver bars. So she zinged back, building a whirlpool of rushing water that rammed into the elevator’s shaft.

Boosting up, she followed the elevator’s stem, racing past halls and corridors. Rubble peppered the palace’s rooms, but the damage wasn’t as extensive as she’d imagined. She didn’t take time to assess it, though—she was already breaking through the glass ceiling.

Hovering above the silver castle, she watched the city below her. To the left, she spotted the professor and the king giving out orders to officers. Mera let out a relieved breath through her gills.

Concentrating, she listened to the ocean, trying to track Azinor’s presence. Alarms wailed everywhere while waterbreakers and vehicles rushed around town. Giant buildings stood with missing chunks, as if a leviathan had gnawed at them. The shining orb above the city flickered, but it kept burning at a steady pace, even though cracks spread along its surface. In the distance, the dome flashed with blue light, blinking in and out of existence.

She would never find the prick amid the madness.

“Mera!” Belinda rushed closer, her gun in hand.

A group of officers followed after her, all in rough shape. A deep cut slashed the upper side of her friend’s forehead, and a purpling bruise decorated her left cheek, but other than that, Belinda seemed fine.

“He has the queen,” Mera grumbled. “And the enhancer.”

Her friend paled. “I never saw him!”

“Well, he saw you.” And she was lucky to be alive. “It was a rescue mission disguised as an attack.”

Belinda gulped, turning to the damage throughout Atlantea. “If this wasn’t a proper attack… we better be ready next time. We have to reconvene with the commissioner.”

Mera nodded, trying to ignore the bitter taste of defeat. The image of Azinor, looking up to the surface suddenly flashed in her memory.

“I’ll kill what empowers you.”

A gasp escaped her, her heart beating loudly in her ears. Surely the bastard couldn’t mean…

“Mer?”

“Bast,” she croaked, panic rising inside her. “He’s going after Bast.”