Abyssal (ManxMan)

True Danger

No true danger? No true danger?! He'd been kidnapped, assaulted, molested by a giant, slimy, sea monster, publicly humiliated, and then probed against his will! He'd constantly been in true danger this past day!

The golden merman had waved his hand dismissively, clearly having read Kai's mind again. "But your life was not in danger. Your captor has no intention of taking your life."

"But he strangled me!" With growing dread, he'd recalled when Marius had wrapped his large hands around Kai's slender neck in the tunnel and had squeezed until Kai legitimately thought that he was going to die.

"As I said, he had no intention of taking your life."

Kai had contemplated the golden merman's words.

"So you will only lift a finger if I'm on the verge of death?" he'd asked, choosing his words carefully.

"Yes, my Prince."

He'd gone deathly silent upon that revelation.

Could it be? Had King Marius known this about the power and had, for a lack of better words, tried to coax the power to show itself to him? The more he thought about it, the more the notion seemed very likely.

Kai had accused King Marius of almost killing him, and the King's baffling response was: Yes, I almost did. Yet it did not work.

King Marius was undoubtedly the most calculating man- er, merman he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Finally, he'd broken the silence of the depths and had asked, "And what will you do to anyone who threatens my life?"

The golden merman's golden eyes had abruptly narrowed into slits, much like Marius' eyes, and the temperature of the water had dropped a good 20 degrees Celsius before he'd promised in a voice that was most definitely out of this world, "Rain down every pain and agony known in this plane of existence upon them."

Kai had woken feeling terribly cold.

He'd also realized two things from his dream; that his power was fearsome indeed, and that King Marius knew more about it than even Kai, its bearer.

He sat up against the cushions and aimlessly stared around him, waiting for the fatigue and coldness in his bones to wear off.

He glanced at his feet and his brows furrowed. He lifted and turned one foot to see that his cuts had indeed been healed away by none other than King Marius. He supposed that the mighty king had only healed him because he needed Kai's power.

His only consolation so far was that King Marius hadn't attempted to do what Kai feared he'd do.

Yet.

Marius had declared him the 'Royal Concubine', and if that position was anything like the traditional concubine, then he had to get out of this place and fast.

He spent the next few hours exploring Marius' room. He had no idea if it was night or day. He still wasn't even sure how long he'd been here. All the portaling had left him jetlagged.

There were no windows in the King's chambers; he supposed that that was probably a wise choice considering they were at the bottom of the ocean. Which brought him to his next question: How was the Palace not submerged in water? He would have thought that they'd taken him back to the surface if it weren't for the extraordinary waterfall in the Baths and the fact that he could somehow feel that he was underwater. Considering that he was now part of a world with portals and magic powers, perhaps it would not be a stretch to say that some form of sorcery or magic was involved in keeping water out of the Palace.

But for what purpose?

This was an underwater empire, the home of merfolk. Why would they choose to walk on two feet rather than retain their true form and swim freely?

This place was nothing if not confusing.

When he went to Marius' desk, the obelisk -or any part of it- was gone. His blood had also been wiped clean. He'd slumbered so heavily he hadn't sensed anyone come in to clean.

He walked past the desk and through an archway only to find himself in the biggest personal library he'd ever laid eyes on.

"Wow," he breathed an exclamation, genuinely stunned by the sight of hundreds of bookshelves lined with thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of books. It was truly a king's library, for the bookshelves appeared to be made of gold.

Disbelieving, he knocked on one of the bookshelves.

Yes, the bookshelves were made of stone-cold gold.

Kai was starting to think Nostraza was built on top of an underwater gold mine.

There were no dusty books or tomes in sight, and the cavernous room was lit with-

He gaped. Were those... blue-green bioluminescent jellyfish the size of massive chandeliers dangling from the ceiling and lighting the room? When one of them moved just the slightest bit, it confirmed his suspicions. But how were they surviving without water?

He counted sixteen of them spread out uniformly across the ceiling, all appearing to be of the same type.

A thought occurred to him. Would any of them suddenly detach from the room and fall on his head? Were they poisonous?

Surely not...

Another thought occurred to him. Would he find something about his power in this massive library?

Marius had to know about it from somewhere. He looked like the kind of... merman who would do extensive research and plan meticulously before attempting something as complicated and potentially messy as kidnap. So, it was not a stretch to assume that some information about his power could be within the pages of a book or few here.

It couldn't hurt to try, but he would have to do it quietly and quickly before Marius returned.

If his assholish golden guardian wouldn't just tell him, he'd find the information he needed to put himself on equal grounds with Marius himself.