The King's Gamma (#Wattys2024)

Ninety Seven

The King's laughter faded into a razor-edged smile as he addressed the court. "Now that we've settled our guest's status, let's discuss the real storm brewing." He snapped his fingers, and a servant unrolled a map across the obsidian floor. "Thalassar's leviathan fleet has been sighted near the Bone Shallows—close enough to taste our coastal waters."

A murmur of dread rippled through the admirals. Even CIS stiffened.

Brother Rorin stepped forward, his usual cheer gone. "Your Majesty, if their bio-frigates breach the Shallows—"

"—they'll slaughter our patrols and poison the spawning grounds," the King finished, tapping the map where inked tentacles coiled around Nautica's fishing routes. "Their 'ships' eat ours. You've seen the wreckage." His gaze slid to me. "Hal. You've fought Thalassar's hybrids before. Their beasts ignore cannon fire. Their hulls regenerate."

I nodded grimly. Ruistevia's northern outposts had been devoured by Thalassar's living warships last winter—chitin-clad horrors that dissolved oak into mulch and left sailors' bones picked clean by symbiotic eels.

Deimios' voice cut through the silence. "You want to send Hal into that?"

The King leaned back, examining me like a scalpel. "Berserkers are the only fighters who've survived close combat with Thalassar's monsters. Their toxins don't paralyze you. Their screams don't... unmake minds." He flicked a glance at the courtiers' ashen faces. "Yet."

A servant hurried forward with a glass tank holding a Thalassarian scout-beast—a fist-sized, pulsating orb of cartilage and teeth. The King prodded it with his dagger, and the thing shrieked, a sound like grinding coral. Half the court recoiled.

"Their reconnaissance," he said, as the creature's wounds sealed instantly. "Now imagine one the size of a galleon." He turned to me. "You'll sail with the fleet at dawn. Study their movements. Find a weakness." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Or die screaming like the rest."

As the court bowed in dismissal, he added lightly: "Oh, and Hal? Tea in my solar. I'd love to hear more about your abilities as a berserker."

It was clear to everyone around us that he implied he wanted a private discussion.

"The rest of you are dismissed." he stated as he stood, walking out the room.

"You better follow the King, Hal." Rorin said as he eyed the retreating back of the King with a frown. He, Deimios and the King had grown up together, and something told him the King knew something they did not.

I followed after the King quietly, my posture becoming more upright, my gaze sweeping around every now and again and memorizing the passaged.

We sat down in a private garden, and I stayed quiet as I watched the King take a sip of his tea.

"Harley Havenhell, in the flesh." He smiled with a much brighter expression than before, using my real name. "I hope you will excuse my earlier conduct. I have to keep up appearances in front of the court. Does Deimios know you're a woman? Or that he's your partner?"

"One of my partners." I respond and smile back. "Dual bloodline abilities mean two partners, it seems."

"Right, I forget that you have two bloodline abilities. But does he know?"

"I'm assessing. He is a Fleet Admiral, and a noble. It would be difficult to drag him off to Ruistevia to wed considering his position and mine as a Duchess of an enemy nation."

The King set down his teacup with deliberate calm, the porcelain clinking like a warning bell. "So Deimios doesn't know he's bound to Ruistevia's infamous Duchess Havenhell." Sunlight through the vine lattice painted tiger-stripes across his smirk. "Tell me, Harley—what stops you from doing what berserkers do best? Dragging him to the nearest altar by his collar?"