Chapter Four
TALIK
“Find Ninhursag.Stopthe O’hurani.Save the world,” Talik repeated to himself for the hundredth time in the two hours since he’d last seen Khalida.Around him, the late afternoon sun shone through the ceiling-to-floor French windows.The intensity of the bright light almost made him forget why he was there.
“Find Ninhursag.Stop the O’hurani.Save the world.Try not to get stabbed,” he added.
It was his new motto.Maybe he was cut out to be a hero and not the scoundrel he always played.Maybe he needed his head checked.He knew his place in the world, but every time he was around Khalida, he wanted to be more.But that never ended well.Perhaps he should stick to his job—he excelled in the high-tempo environment.
Bright natural light filtered through as he slowly walked toward the infirmary.If Sypha wasn’t awake, the least Talik could do was keep them company.Located six stories above the impenetrable barracks where the serpopard was kept, the floor overlooked the desert.Large rolling sand dunes surrounded the fortress.Below him, a handful of Atlanteans carried on with their daily lives.While some Atlanteans had chosen to move to the human cities, a substantial number still lived and worked within the Arx.In the last three millennia, the Atlanteans had created a satellite city entirely self-sufficient from both the human population and the neighboring Houses.It had stopped being his home centuries before.
In the silence, he counted the guards stationed every few feet and took note of the windows and exits.An old habit from his less than scrupulous youth.One that had served him well through the centuries, both professionally and in his personal life.
A message flashed across his watch from an unknown number.Tempted to ignore it, he thought better of it and opened the message.
Sypha is awake.
Quickly followed by another text.
Sypha is speaking in unknown dialect but beginning to sound coherent.
The message didn’t stop the slight chill running through him as other memories skirted around him.As an Atlantean, visits to hospitals and infirmaries were a rarity.His natural healing ability allowed him to recover from minor and moderate wounds without utilizing human technology.He also didn’t succumb to disease or infections like humans.He remembered his childhood, when he thought he’d been human...Watching family and friends succumb to sicknesses that he would never need to worry about.Watching his loved ones grow old, while he stopped aging by his early thirties.Watching his—No.Not that.He couldn’t bear to even think about that.It had been a harrowing gift, a genetic quirk of fate.One that wasn’t hereditary.
The immortal guarding Sypha’s door nodded at him as he drew closer.The guard’s light copper-red hair was in a neat braid, not a stray curl out of place.Her expression was neutral as she surveyed the corridor with predatory stillness, her eyes, the color of copper, and were the same shade as the freckles that dotted her golden-brown skin.Meraki.Khalida’s second-in-command and shadow.She was the guard Talik had mostly interacted with when he worked with House Azaes.Meraki coldly stared back at him, unflinching, a look he had often received from Khalida.The Atlantean wore the same attire as the other guards.Talik paused.He had never come across another Atlantean outside of Sypha who wore gloves.
Uncomfortably loud beeping echoed through the room, or perhaps he was hyper-fixating on it.He hadn’t been to this infirmary in more than five hundred years—it had been a different place, with none of the technology, a time he would have much preferred to have forgotten.He took a deep breath, remembering why he was there.
“Sypha has been asking for you and Khalida.”
Talik blinked.“And Khalida?”
Sypha and Khalida were merely acquaintances, as far as he was aware.Sypha was a seer.A powerful one.And despite that, or perhaps because of it, their visions were not always coherent, and sometimes, Sypha played on the ambiguity and used it to their advantage.An extremely annoying habit.
“Yes,” Meraki curtly answered.“I have recalled her.”
Talik nodded and strode into the room.The white walls and floors were disturbingly sterile.The scent of antiseptic was too much for his heightened senses.A wave of nausea threatened to rise up.He focused on the small figure on the bed.Sypha.
The seer had become one of his closest confidants and allies.Sypha had convinced Talik to move to New York and to work for Dante.It had been supposed to be a temporary job.One hundred and fifty years later, and he hadn’t left.They both technically belonged to House Mneseus, but their loyalty was to Dante first and foremost, not to the European-based House.
Seeing Sypha lying helpless was not how he wanted to picture them.To the outside world, Sypha was Dante’s personal secretary who oversaw Dante’s business dealings with military precision.Sypha was the heart of their little family, even if Dante and Kade didn’t realize they were in one.
Sypha lay quietly on the colorful cushions, a dark heavy blanket covering them up to their chin.They blinked, their wide, dual-colored eyes—often seen as an oddity by humans and an abomination by Atlanteans—one black and one pale blue, gazed back at him groggily.Clumps of dark mascara stuck to their eyelashes.Their skin had a dull sallow glow instead of being porcelain white, and their normally perfectly styled hair was in a messy bun, strawberry blonde strands sticking up in all directions with some stragglers falling past their shoulders.
Despite the horrible lighting and bruises marring their skin, there was no denying the unnatural beauty of them.Sypha had the type of allure humans believed could cause wars, and this was only exacerbated by their tendency to wear pure white, highly feminine clothing, at least in this century.Their manicured nails, normally shaped into sharp talons, were chipped, the pink color-tinged black in some areas.
At the edge of his senses, there was a small hint of pain that rolled off Sypha.He grasped the door handle tightly in response.Sypha prided themselves on how they appeared to the outside world.He, more than most, also understood the importance of using one’s appearance and the power of perception as a weapon.It was a currency in its own right and an armor they both willingly wore.
Talik walked to the nearest chest of drawers and started rummaging through them and the cupboards, stopping when he spotted the items he was searching for.Picking up the hairbrush and hairbands, he placed them in front of Sypha.They wouldn’t want to be seen in this state, by anyone.
He glanced back at the guards.Three more were stationed within thirty feet of the door, likely on some pretense that no one disturbed Sypha.
“Khalida is on her way.”Sypha sectioned off their tangled hair and began to brush the light-colored strands systematically.“Thank you.”
The mark on his wrist throbbed, the yellow glowing brighter.Sypha glanced down at the mark but didn’t say a word.
In the light, the wounds on Sypha’s arms were red, raw, and deep.Pus continued to seep out of them, as a faint antiseptic smell filtered through the stale air.Cuts ran up Sypha’s arms, disappearing beneath the shirt.Short sharp gouges continued along their neck, a large gash over their jugular vein.The wounds appeared self-inflicted, as if Sypha had used the sharpness of their talons as a knife.They should have healed by now, but they were still painstakingly, slowly knitting themselves together.Far slower than they should have been for an Atlantean of Sypha’s bloodline.The work of Ninhursag, no doubt.The bitch god seemed to like sacrifice and fresh blood as offerings.
Sypha sighed as they silently detangled their hair, ignoring everything else around them.
