Atlantis Rising

scanning for any of the living or undead nearby. Then he sent out a mental casting to touch Riley again, gritting his teeth at the realization that even their brief separation was making him tense.

Edgy.

Damnit. Who was she? More, what was she?

She didn't even realize that he'd stayed in her mind, unnoticed, as she'd driven the short distance to her small home. He'd broken the connection during the discussion with his warriors and Alaric.

He sent out a gentle touch. I'm here, Riley. Are you safe?

He sensed her startled gasp and could almost see her. Her touch returned to him, her emotions fluttering like tiny sea anemones in his mind.

Conlan? You can still talk to me? But I'm almost ten miles from the beach and— somehow I know you're still there.

I can feel you, aknasha. I'm going to protect you, too. You have great value to… my people.

She sent a slight hint of amusement—that, and an overwhelming sense of her exhaustion. That is a very pretty thought, but I'm not very valuable to anyone. I just need to take a bubble bath and go to sleep now. Good-bye.

With that, the feel of mental doors crashing down snapped off his connection to her. He flinched back from the sensation, mouth dry, fighting to keep his body from hardening anew at the idea of her naked body 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?'

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 land-walkers 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.'

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.

'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 smile fleetingly crossed Reisen's face. The denizens of the night. The archaic language reminded him that Micah hadn't spent much time out of Atlantis. And yet, it was chillingly accurate.

'To Atlantis, then, Micah,' he said, holding his own dagger high in the air. 'To restoring the glory and supremacy of Atlantis.'

The rest of his warriors, who'd entered the room as he and Micah spoke, raised their daggers above their heads in unison.

'To Atlantis!' they shouted in unison. 'To Mycenae!'

Reisen smiled. Yes, to Atlantis and Mycenae. And to his own ascension to the throne of a newly restored Atlantis.

'To Mycenae,' he roared.

Then he glanced yet again at the bundle on the table, struck by a glimpse of motion and flickering light.

'I must have imagined it,' he muttered, words drowned out by his warriors' thundering shouts.

Because, just for a split second, the velvet had seemed to glow.

'Are you out of your royal mind?' Taking a break from pacing and swearing viciously in ancient Atlantean, Latin, and a little-used dialect once heard near Constantinople, Ven stopped in front of his brother, hands fisted on his hips.

Conlan sighed, not knowing whether to award his brother battle medals for creativity, or order Justice to arrest the King's Vengeance for treason.

I could flip a coin…

Conlan stepped in close to Ven, invading the nine hells out of what Ven liked to call his personal space. 'I did