Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

glistening in a tub of scented bubbles.
     
    He clenched his eyes shut and groaned.
     
    Ven's eyes narrowed. "What is it? The threat?"
     
    Conlan's eyes snapped open, and he saw Ven and the rest of the Seven crouch into battle readiness, blades at the ready. Alaric threw his arms into the air as if to command power, the ocean waves instantly responding with a crashing symphony of percussion against the shore.
     
    Conlan held up one hand. "No, it's okay. There is no threat."
     
    He grinned. "Or, to be more accurate, the threat is going to take a bubble bath."

Chapter 9
    "What is it, Lord Reisen?"
     
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    Reisen sliced his hand through the air, commanding his warrior to desist. Stop making noise while Reisen opened his mind and senses to any disturbance in the elements.
     
    For a minute, he'd almost thought—
     
    But, no. Conlan was long dead. The royal house in chaos. Nobody willing to step up and admit that Anubisa had murdered the heir to the Seven Isles.
     
    Until now.
     
    Reisen glanced down at the long shape wrapped in scarlet velvet on the table. The Trident. He almost couldn't believe that he'd actually taken it. That it now lay on a table in one of his safe houses, right under the noses of the sleeping landwalkers in the buildings around him.
     
    Snatched out from under Alaric's nose.
     
    The thought of that last gave him a great deal of satisfaction. Arrogant prick. Their final confrontation, nine days ago, flashed into his mind.
     
    "You know he's not coining back, Alaric," Reisen said, pacing the marble floor of the priest's private receiving chamber. "It's been seven years. Even if he does come back, he won't be Conlan."
     
    He stopped, fixing the priest with his gaze. "He'll be—wrong."
     
    Alaric folded his arms across his chest, looking more like a street thug than Poseidon's chosen, until you saw the power burning in his eyes. "Conlan is stronger than any of the rest of you. Stronger than any warrior in Atlantean history. Poseidon has given me no indication that he is dead. Or changed."
     
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    Alaric's eyes narrowed. "Do you tell me that you doubt the sea god?"
     
    Reisen smacked his fist into his palm. "I have never blasphemed, and I'm not starting now, so don't go there, priest. I merely wonder if you're really hearing what Poseidon is telling you. Or are you just channeling your own hopes for your boyhood friend?"
     
    "Never dare to challenge me, Reisen. The house of Mycenae will regret it." Alaric didn't raise his voice, but the walls of the temple shuddered.
     
    Reisen never blinked. "Perhaps it is you who will regret this day, Alaric."
     
    Then he strode from the temple, never looking back.
     
    Already formulating his plan.
     
    Reisen reached out to touch the folds of velvet covering the Trident. He'd been more than half prepared to be killed for the sacrilege of touching it. Poseidon's Trident. The vehicle of ascension for Atlantean kings for millennia.
     
    Yet, when he'd grasped it that day in the temple, it had remained quiescent. Inanimate.
    Merely a pretty artifact, melded gold, silver, and orichalcum shaped in the same design he wore branded into his chest.
     
    But with seven open spaces that showed where its seven jewels had nestled before the Cataclysm.
     
    Before they were scattered to the surface lands for protection and safekeeping.
     
    "My lord—" the warrior began again. Pulled from his musings, Reisen glanced at him.
    Micah, first of his Seven.
     
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    "We need to move on. They will surely be after us soon," Micah said, hands fisted on the handles of his daggers.
     
    Brother warriors of Poseidon. Further bonded by the enormity of the act they committed now.
     
    "Is it justice, Micah?" Reisen wondered aloud. "Is it justice that we do for our homeland?
    Or is it treason, as Alaric will surely name it?"
     
    Micah's eyes shone with the fervor of their cause. "It is justice to seek the jewels that have been lost. To restore Atlantis to its former glory, my lord. After more than eleven thousand years, it is surely time."
     
    Reisen nodded slowly. "Yes, it is time. We were tasked to serve as first warning on the eve of humanity's destruction," he said, quoting the ancient words.
     
    "The brazenness of the denizens of the night is surely more than a first warning," Micah growled.
     
    A