Captain. Tharion still found the title ridiculous, and more than a little painful. The case that had earned him the recent promotion had been his sister’s murder. He’d have traded in the title in a heartbeat if it meant he could have Lesia back. Hear his younger sister’s boisterous laugh one more time. Catching and killing her murderer hadn’t eased that feeling.
“Based on the current, she should have landed around here,” Tharion said, letting his water magic drift to the bottom, cringing at the ocean’s viciousness. Not at all like the clear calm of the Istros. Granted, plenty of monsters dwelled within the Blue River, but the turquoise water sang to him, laughed with him, cried with him. This sea only bellowed and raged.
Tharion monitored the camera feed. “Rotate the camera to the west—and move the submersible ahead about ten yards.”
Through the glare of the firstlight beams atop the remote submersible, more fleshy white bits floated by. This was what the wraith Viktoria had been damned by Micah to endure. The former Archangel had shoved her essence into a magically sealed box while the wraith remained fully conscious despite having no corporeal form, and dropped her to the floor of the Melino? Trench.
That the trench’s bottom was another fifteen miles deeper than the seafloor before them sent a shiver along Tharion’s tiger-striped forearms. The wraith’s shoebox-sized Helhole had been bespelled against the pressure. And Viktoria, not needing food or water, would live forever. Trapped. Alone. No light, nothing but silence, not even the comfort of her own voice.
A fate worse than death. With Micah now sitting in a trash bag in some city dump, would anyone dare retrieve the wraith? Athalar had shown no signs of rebellion, and Bryce Quinlan, the last Tharion had heard, was content to return to a normal life.
Hel, after this spring, hadn’t everyone wanted to return to normal?
The River Queen didn’t seem to want to. She’d sent him hunting for a rebel spy’s remains. To retrieve her Very Fucking Important corpse.
Even if the mere fact that the River Queen was searching for the body of a rebel spy could damn her. Damn all of them.
And he’d be first in the line of fire. But he never dared to challenge her about the contradictions of it: she punished him for making her daughter cry, yet what would happen should he be killed or harmed during one of her punishments? Wouldn’t her daughter cry then?
Her daughter, as capricious as her mother—and as jealous. If she was a bit of a possessive monster, it was because her mother had taught her well.
He’d been a fool not to see it before he’d taken her maidenhead and sworn himself to her a decade ago. Before he’d ever made himself her betrothed. Beloved of the River Queen’s daughter. A prince-in-training.
A fucking nightmare.
Judging by the fact that he had kept his job these ten years, and even been promoted, her mother apparently still had no idea what to do with him. Unless her daughter had intervened on his behalf, to keep him safe. The thought of that alone—that he had to stay on her good side—had made him keep his hands to himself and his cock in his pants. Fins. Whatever.
And he’d accepted the punishments, however unfair and undeserved and dangerous, that were thrown his way.
“I’m not seeing anything.” The captain adjusted the control toggle on the dash.
“Keep moving. Do a complete scan within a one-mile perimeter.” He wouldn’t return to his queen empty-handed if he could help it.
“We’ll be here for hours,” the captain countered, frowning.
Tharion just settled into the chair, glancing to the first mate sheltering against the side of the vestibule.
They knew what they were getting into by coming here. Knew what kind of storms stalked these seas at this point in the year. If the shifter got tired of the wind and rain, he could jump beneath the waves.
Even if a shark in these waters was the least of the terrors.
Three and a half hours later, Tharion lifted a hand. “Go back to the right. No—yeah. There. Can you get closer?”
The remote submersible had floated past boiling-hot sea vents, past muck and rock and all manner of strange creatures. But there, tucked among a cluster of red-and-white tuber worms … a square rock.
Only Vanir or human hands could have made it.
“I’ll be damned,” the captain murmured, leaning toward the screen, the light illuminating her angular face. “Those are lead blocks.”
He suppressed a shiver. The River Queen had been right. Down to the last detail. “Circle them.”