The half-breed didn't even stir as Marius carried him out the room and onto the balcony. It never failed to surprise him how someone hosting the most powerful entity in the sea could be so pitifully clueless. It was tragic.
Marius peered down at the sleeping face arranged serenely and stared for a few moments. Well, at least he wasn't protesting and being difficult. He was quite vocal and vicious when he was forced to do something he did not want to do. He'd witnessed firsthand the astounding lengths he'd go to just so that he'd spite Marius or give him the finger.
A high morning wind swept past them, blowing the half-breed's hair that was sticking out of the covers. Under the sun, his mane was impossibly red. So red that his head looked on fire. As red as the blood gushing out of his slit arteries in the amphitheater.
His hands started itching. He frowned; why did he feel like touching the hair?
A seagull hawked as it glided past the balcony, snapping him to attention.
The two mermen were closer now, less than a minute away. Marius briefly wondered what they meant to accomplish when he'd already sensed him and would simply teleport back to the security of his empire. From the balcony, he'd teleport them back to Nostraza, and his mermen would teleport back into the home to resume their guard duties.
His eyebrows knitted as a suspicion tickled his nape, like an afterthought.
He willed a portal to open before them.
It wouldn't open.
"My, my indeed," he muttered, amused. Erasmus the Fabled was already proving to be quite entertaining, and he hadn't even made an appearance yet.
Erasmus hadn't been concerned about being detected because he'd cast a magic dome over the cliff, preventing the use of teleportation magic. Marius knew the magic used here; it was ancient and complex, requiring continuous casting to prevent the invisible dome from shattering. Marvelous. And it was yet another testament to Erasmus' magical strength that he'd been able to cast it from far away.
He was willing to bet that if he attempted to walk out of the property, a barrier would prevent him from doing so -at least momentarily.
He was slightly impressed. More than impressed, he was curious to meet the mage who could hold two demanding magic spells simultaneously. Not many of his people could do so, and even fewer could cast them so seamlessly without Marius ever realizing he was being trapped until it was too late.
It seemed like he was going to get his wish after all.
Smirking, he settled the half-breed prince back in his bed. The half-breed smacked his dry lips, put a hand under his hand and curled on his side, still oblivious. Marius tossed the covers over him, covering him completely.
****
Kai sensed something while he slept. It woke him. He cracked one eye open, craned his neck up and scanned his semi-dark room. It was empty. The balcony however was not. He immediately spotted Marius' back through the glass door. He was standing on the balcony, staring out to sea. If Kai didn't know for a fact that he didn't have a soul or a heart, he'd say the heartless, soulless king was admiring the sunset.
Just how many sunsets did this immortal witness? Hundreds, at least.
Kai had climbed up to his room after the dinner with the intention to rest his eyes a little before being dragged back to the bottom of the ocean, and had ended up falling asleep all night. The quick had turned into a good night's sleep.
The thing was, Marius had let him. He'd let it happen.
The Marius he'd experienced -because Marius the Conqueror was someone you experienced with a fistful of powerful emotions to the face rather than someone you encountered- would not have permitted such lenience. It risked being confused with kindness, and Marius couldn't allow such weakness, now could he? He'd already shown him enough kindness by cooking for him and his mother.
Or was this all part of the upgrade from slave to 'partner'? Too bad he was still a prisoner, with a golden chain that could rip him out of his mother's womb and everything.
Still, this unexpected leniency wasn't what had roused him from a comfortable sleep.
It was something else, something he hadn't felt before. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. The feeling was sort of familiar, but it was different enough to warrant being called by a different name.
Was this... magic? It felt magical, not that he was an expert on the subject matter.
But it was certainly different from Marius' magic, even different from his own 'power'.
If he had to put words to the feeling, he'd say that it felt like being trapped inside a glass bowl, like when he trapped a spider with one of his mother's glass baking bowls so he could take it outside and set it free. It was making him claustrophobic.
Except his room looked no different than how it had looked when he'd gone to sleep. Past Marius, he couldn't see any glass walls surrounding the house.
He started to question if he was still asleep. A pinch removed any doubts on that matter.
Marius moved.
For whatever reason, he pretended to be asleep.
****
Erasmus felt sick to his stomach. "This is King Marius' doing?" he hissed.
A fearsome aura surrounded the glass house atop the cliff just as much as his magic spells did, daring them to step foot into the house. It was like a black miasma, acidic, dangerous, crippling.
Whether Erasmus liked it or not, Marius the Conqueror was a paragon of their race. The rumors were true; he was an excellent magic-wielder, judging by the malice he was purposefully radiating in waves. He meant to scare them off. Or give them a taste of what was to come.
Pure, unadulterated hatred stiffened Erasmus' spine and curled his hands into fists. He barely reined his temper, holding himself from charging the glass house and bringing it down on the bastard's head.
After all these years, he was finally going to come face to face with Kareus' killer.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Abyssal has concluded on my Patreon and I'm now preparing for book 2! If you want to read the next 20+ chapters of Abyssal, you'll find them on my Patreon in addition to exclusive NSFW content from all my stories, including Abyssal of course! ;)
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Abyssal (ManxMan)
RomanceThe day that Kai learns that he's half-human, half-merman and that he's the key to ending a 100-year-old war, is also the day that the entire ocean learns of his existence. For twenty-seven years his family had kept him hidden from the world, but no...
