Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

to Poseidon.
     
    The bitch is going down.
     
    "Interesting timing."
     
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 12 of 351
    Conlan tensed, fingers twitching to reach for the hundredth—thousandth—time for the sword that Anubisa had stolen from him. Then the familiarity of the voice penetrated the lethargy of the healing process.
     
    "Alaric," he said, relaxing back down against the pillows.
     
    Poseidon's high priest stared down at him, the suggestion of a smile quirking up the side of his mouth. "It's a little tiresome to be right all of the time. Welcome back, Conlan.
    Long vacation?"
     
    Conlan sat up on the healers' marble-and-gold table, stretching, staring at flesh knitted whole. Bones unbroken and reset.
     
    Scars that would never heal.
     
    The need to scorch her face clear off her body with a big fucking energy ball consumed him. Ate at his gut. He shook it off and focused on the priest again.
     
    "Right all of the time?" he repeated. "You knew I was alive?"
     
    "I knew," Alaric confirmed, hard lines etched in his face. He folded his arms and leaned back against a white marble column.
     
    Conlan's gaze was drawn to the veins of coppery orichalcum twining around its carved shapes. Dolphins leaping, Nereids laughing at their mermaid play. The scent of delicate green and blue lava-tulips permeated the air.
     
    The images and scents of home he'd been refused for seven damn years.
     
    He wrenched his gaze back to Alaric. "Yet you left me to rot?" Betrayal flared, warring with common sense. Alaric would have had duties to the Temple. To the people.
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 13 of 351
     
    To Atlantis.
     
    Alaric straightened and slowly unfolded his arms, his restraint only underscoring the enormous power leashed within him, his icy green eyes flashing with fury. "I searched for you. Every day for the past seven years. Even this day, before you arrived, I was preparing to join your brother, who was waiting above for yet another hopeless trip to find and rescue you from wherever they'd imprisoned you."
     
    Conlan clenched his jaw, remembering Anubisa's parting shot, then nodded. "She shielded us. She's more powerful than we ever suspected, then."
     
    Alaric's face hardened, if planes and sculpted lines that already appeared to be cast in marble could be said to harden. "Anubisa," he said flatly. It wasn't a question. "It is unsurprising that the goddess of night can project the void of death to mask her…
    activities."
     
    The word torture hung, twisting and pulsing, in the air between them. At least the priest had the decency not to speak it.
     
    Conlan nodded, reaching for the scar at the base of his throat before he realized what he was doing. Forcing his hand down when he did. "She kept me from water. Far away from any water, but for the barest minimum to drink to keep me alive. I had no chance to channel any power—no chance at all."
     
    When he could bear to meet Alaric's eyes, Conlan flinched at the depth of the sorrow and fury there.
     
    "Never once. Never the slightest resonance of your existence," Alaric said, gripping the jade handle of his dagger. He held it out to Conlan, blade down. "If you doubt my loyalty, cousin, end my life now. I deserve it for my failure."
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 14 of 351
     
    Conlan noted the reference to their family connection in the cynical corner of his mind that calculated the niceties of Atlantean politics. Alaric never spoke a single word that didn't carry at least two meanings. Often polemic, at times pedagogical. Never purposeless.
     
    Conlan accepted the dagger and turned it over in his hands, then flipped it back to its owner. "If you failed in your appointed role, priest, Poseidon's justice would be the one kicking your ass. You've no need of mine."
     
    Alaric shook his black hair behind his shoulders, eyes narrowing at the emphasis on his title. Then he nodded once and slid the dagger into its emerald-jeweled sheath. "As you say. We face other problems, prince. You have finally returned, only hours after the vehicle of your ascension is lost."
     
    "Tell me," Conlan said, fury scalding the shreds of his self-control.
     
    "Reisen. He killed two of my acolytes." Alaric spat the words out, clenching his fists.
    "Conlan, he took it. He took the Trident. He's gone above. If the undead get their hands on it…"
     
    Alaric's words trailed off. Both of them knew the cost of misused