Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

your mother—”
    He whirled around. “Did you say my mother?”
    She almost retreated when she saw his eyes. They‟d turned a fiery blue-green color again, nearly feral. Burning.
    “What do you know about our mother?” He sprang across the floor toward her and this time she did take a step back. He was all warrior now, the gentleness she‟d seen earlier gone as if it had been a mirage. “Tell us. Tell us everything.”
    He was back to the plural self-reference again. She considered options, and then finally went with the simplest. The truth. “Yes, I saw your mother. I tried to help her, but he . . . he—”
    She shuddered to a halt, shaking her head in denial.
    This wasn‟t a story she wanted to tell him. Not now, not ever. Especially not when Justice was “they” again. She wondered who the second personality was and where it had originated.
    She wondered if it were something he could ever heal.
    It wasn‟t anger, but rather wonder tinged with awe that crossed his face as he fell to his knees on the floor in front of her. “Tell us,” he repeated. But this time it was a plea, not a demand.
    “Please tell us.”
    She couldn‟t resist him. Couldn‟t resist the naked pleading on his face. Couldn‟t resist the sound of the lost little boy in his voice.
    She knelt down next to him, took his hands in hers, and she told him everything, heedless of the tears pouring down her face.
     
    Justice listened to Keely with a growing sense of sorrow. Of loss. He‟d kept a tight leash on his pain and wrath all of his life. Ever since his older brother, son by birth of the man and woman Justice had thought were his parents, had told him the truth in a fit of pique. That he‟d been adopted. That his real parents hadn‟t wanted him.
    That nobody wanted him.
    But his brother had been punished for lies, and Justice had been hushed and comforted by the woman he‟d begun to suspect was no blood kin to himself. In spite of her reassurances, he‟d been old enough to realize that none of them had looked anything like him. Although, to be fair, he‟d never met another Atlantean with blue hair, and he‟d spent most of his first decade of life searching. He‟d quit wondering about it after his tenth birthday, of course. Shaved his head in a rage.
    Blue stubble had been worse. He‟d nearly sustained broken ribs in the three or four schoolyard fights over that one.
    When the king himself had confronted him with the truth of his birth, it was almost a relief.
    Bittersweet, to be sure, and filled with confusion and pain, but still a relief. He wasn‟t crazy.
    He did fit in, somewhere. Belonged to someone.
    He was the son of the king. The king of all Atlantis! But his relief and joy burned to ashes in his mouth almost before it had a chance to be born. The king told him of Poseidon‟s command, and of the geas . Justice could never reveal the truth, or he‟d be driven to murder anyone who‟d heard the story of his birth and heritage.
    Worst of all, the king—his father by blood—had never wanted him. Justice‟s own father had cast him aside. Had told him his mother had never wanted him, either, confirming Justice‟s most secret, darkest fear: that he was unworthy of even a parent‟s love.
    It had been a relief to be ordered to the warrior training academy. Constant physical exertion was a civilized way to release the fury that rode him so hard. He‟d snarled and spat his defiance at his trainers and fellow students like a wild blue-haired animal, pushing himself to the limits of his endurance and then beyond. Far beyond. The healers all grew to despise the sight of him.
    But then, one perfectly ordinary day, everything had changed. He‟d met Ven and Conlan.
    Liked them. Admired them, even, though he‟d hated them for having what he would never have—a true family who loved them. A place to belong.
    Now this woman, this object reader, this human who‟d come to represent his soul‟s salvation, told him that he hadn‟t been unwanted. His mother had wanted him. He whispered her name.
    “Éibhleann.”
    The Nereid, who‟d fallen silent, echoed the liquid syllables of their mother‟s name in their mind. “Éibhleann.”
    Anguish pounded through them. Éibhleann was an ancient Nereid name meaning beloved of the goddess. What foul irony lay in that?
    Keely‟s voice fell silent. She‟d finished her recounting of the visions she‟d seen, visions she‟d lived . Visions of his life.
    “Justice? Are you . . .