Nash dropped back to walk with the rest of us while Ryann-Lux stayed a short distance ahead, keeping closer to Erebus and Davin. Meanwhile, only a couple of guards walked along the glass walls to our left and right, while the rest brought up the rear, and a pair strutted on either side of Kaya. It gave us enough distance from them, so we could have some room to breathe.
“What’s our play?” Nash whispered.
I shrugged. “We don’t have one.”
“Do you think you should give Erebus away?”
“What, at his and Kaya’s wedding?” I smirked at the thought.
He rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
I lowered my voice even further. “You think I should tell her that he’s weaker in a human body?” I decided to be serious, even if wisecracking was the only thing stopping me from losing my mind right now. Erebus had screwed us all by bringing us down here. We were cut off from everyone and everything, entirely dependent on the Atlanteans’ scant goodwill. No signal, no communications, no open lines to the outside world whatsoever.
Nash nodded. “It might be a way out.”
“Or a quicker way to get us all killed,” I replied.
“Why are you treating me this way, Kaya?” Erebus’s voice distracted my attention. It brought Kaya to a sudden halt, and the rest of us, too. “Don’t keep me at arm’s length, my love. I have gone through a great deal to reach you. There is no need for all this security. I have no intention of harming you; you must know that. I only want to be near you. Let us talk privately and put aside this unpleasantness.”
Kaya rounded on him. “You are not serious, Erebus. You stand here and talk about what you’ve endured, when you were the one who left me in the first place! If you expect to garner my sympathy, or inspire some sort of softness in me, you can forget it. You lost that a long time ago.”
Ooh, the plot doth thicken…
“My sweet, you know why I had to leave you. It was not my choice!” Erebus protested.
Kaya waggled her hand at him. “Don’t you give me that, Erebus. Do not pretend to be the victim in this.” She sighed in exasperation. “Why did you even bother to return? Truly, I wish you had not. More to the point, how did you get past the spell that expels Children of Chaos, which was created specifically to stop you from ever returning?! Did you not understand the hint, Erebus, that you are not welcome here anymore?”
Erebus turned into the picture of sadness. “You wound me, Kaya. Can’t you see how sincere I am? If I sought to defy that spell and succeeded, surely that is a sign I am serious? I will not leave you again. I didn’t want to leave you the first time.”
The cogs whirred in my mind. If the Atlanteans had custom built a spell to boot out Children of Chaos just for him, something massive must’ve gone down the last time he was here.
Kaya ignored him and stormed on ahead, leaving the rest of us to follow. I focused my gaze forward, gaining my first glimpse of the Atlantean population milling about at the end of this tunnel. Most of them had the same silvery locks. Some were closer to snowy white, some had a bluish tint, and others were gunmetal gray, but all the shades came from a very similar color palette. Not much in the way of diversity, that was for sure. That made sense, considering they’d all been trapped down here together for thousands of years with no new blood coming in.
“Hey, Nash—is this why you’ve got silver hair?” The realization came to me. I mean, he was in his late thirties at most, yet he had a full head of totally silver hair.
He frowned. “I guess so.”
“You never bothered to wonder why you’ve got the hair of a sixty-year-old?” I chuckled halfheartedly.
“I thought it was just a genetic thing with my immediate family.” Nash gazed out across the magnificent city. “How could I have known it was an Atlantean thing?”
“Fair enough. Still, you’d think these folks might’ve had a word to say about it. Then again, if your descendants were ‘deserters’ or something, maybe it’s beneath the princess to remark on it.”
Nash shrugged. “Or they don’t care enough to say anything.”
Maybe that was true. Kaya certainly had her hands full with other things. She and Erebus were still bickering up ahead, while Davin looked on with smug amusement. He was being uncharacteristically quiet. But there had to be something going on behind that silent façade. Observation, most likely, to get a better handle on his would-be prey. I hoped Kaya gave him hell.
A plan began to form in my mind. Erebus and Lux had found a loophole in the protection spell by inhabiting human bodies. If those bodies were destroyed, the Children of Chaos got a one-way ticket out of here. That meant I needed to come up with a way to destroy Erebus’s body. Obviously, that was a no-go for Lux, considering she was piggybacking on Ryann. But if I could figure out a way to force Lux out of Ryann’s body, then the protection spell would hoof her out of Atlantis without hesitation.
And then I’d have to face their wrath back on the surface. Or rather, if I got back to the surface. The Children wouldn’t forgive me if I managed to get them kicked out of Atlantis. Besides, as much as I hated to admit it, Lux was my biggest hope of freedom right now. If she could actually lock Erebus in the center of the earth, I might be freed of my contract by circumstance. After all, if Erebus couldn’t reach me, he couldn’t kill me or throw any more deadly missions at me.
If he was in there for a couple of centuries, that’d give me enough time to live my life, get all gray and old, and die in the usual way, huffing out my last breath surrounded by the people I loved. Maybe a kid or two. Maybe even grandkids.
I looked at Ryann, and I felt my heart aching. We’d been so close to kissing and taking a decisive step in our… relationship? Was that the right word? Were we in a relationship? I wasn’t sure we’d reached that point before Lux took over and ruined everything. But the potential still lingered in my mind, with the hope that we could pick up where we’d left off once Lux got the hell out of there.
I can’t say anything about Erebus, not until Lux has decided what to do with him. It pained me to wait, but I hoped it’d be worth it.
Besides, I sensed we were only being allowed to live because we were part of Erebus’s entourage. Or maybe I was making assumptions about these people. They seemed civilized, so maybe there’d be a trial, or a chance to explain, before execution got put on the table.
Whatever kind of people these were, the Atlanteans clearly feared Erebus, even in his human form, which offered some protection. Sure, they’d dared to arrest him, but he was the one holding the cards. He was playing along, making them think he was only behaving because he chose to. If we gave his weakness away, it could screw us all. We didn’t have enough power between us to fight our way out of Atlantis. Not with friggin’ Primus Anglicus wandering around.
“Why not be honest?” Kaya snapped, bringing my attention back to the sniping between her and Erebus. “Why must you always lie and deceive? Do you think that improves your case?”
“Kaya, I have not lied and deceived. I told you the truth and was punished for it,” Erebus replied.
Kaya scoffed. “You did not tell me the truth. You were found out. And if you do not tell me how you managed to gain entry, then I will find you out again.”