Chapter 10 - The In-Between

Grunting, Marius was forced to squeeze his eyes shut against the searing light that singed his eyelashes and threatened to rob him of his vision. The smell of burning hair wafted into his nostrils. He was aware of the 'scene' around him rapidly shifting; that the sea was disappearing from around him, that he was no longer in the underwater cave, and that his body was being magically transported elsewhere. But this was no ordinary teleportation spell. 

This was punishment. 

The ocean roared like a wrathful beast of vengeance in his ears, a deafening, thunderous boom that ruptured one of his eardrums. Amidst the roaring, he thought he heard a beautiful male voice laughing mockingly. Immense pressure threatened to cave his lungs and crush his body. Mind-numbing pain seized him and wouldn't let go. It tightened around his neck like a hangman's noose, nearly phasing out all rational thought. Beads of sweat materialized on his forehead. 

His magic was sealed away. He would have cast a spell to slip out of the teleportation, but his magic had all but left him, at least momentarily. He was at the mercy of the foreign forces acting on his body, and they apparently had none for him.

His sword strapped to his back began to shimmer out of existence. Marius reached for it but gripped air. 

A roar of outrage ripped out of his throat, but the ocean swallowed it. 

He was suspended in a state of limbo for hours. He was neither here nor there, like a book that had fallen behind its bookcase, forgotten. But he obviously wasn't forgotten; he was purposely being dangled in the in-between to tire him, the ocean still roaring in his ears and his body subjected to crushing pressure. It was just him, alone in the black void. 

It was infernal. And meticulously planned. An exquisite punishment. 

A lesser merman would have caved already. 

But King Marius Amaris Galil the First was no lesser merman. Pain was not something he was unfamiliar with. Far from it. 

In an effort to subdue the pain twisting his nerves, he latched onto the first thought that sprang to mind. He closed his eyes, reined in his fury and waited, biding his time and willing his spirit to endure. 

****

Marius couldn't see Kai, but Kai could see him just fine. A mystical barrier made of powerful winds and gales encased him so that he was suspended in the air a few feet off the ground. Finally, Kai had caught him off guard in a trap. 

To the prince's surprise, the king closed his eyes and didn't open them again. Did he lose consciousness? Kai rather doubted it. 

He still couldn't believe the plan had actually worked. They'd meticulously planned down to every last detail for months and months, knowing full-well that Marius would sooner or later find their hideout, but there was no way of predicting how long they had until they were discovered. So he spent every waking moment making the most of the time he had, practicing this very spell over and over and over until he was sure it would succeed, and most importantly, ensnare someone of Marius's caliber. 

The Spirit called it the Calypso spell. 

Behind him, Erasmus exhaled the breath he'd been holding. 

Kai resisted the urge to look over his shoulder and wag his eyebrows at him. Erasmus had avidly protested against this plan -or rather the use of Blood Magic as he called it, but here they were. Victorious. 

Blood Magic. All magic was the same to Kai, be it Blood Magic or 'normal' magic. That was just it; all magic wasn't normal, at least to him. So what difference did it make if he practiced one type instead of the other? But his mentor in the arts of the arcane seemed to think otherwise, pestering him about it practically every day. 

"How long do you plan on keeping the spell up? It's already been six hours. We've got a perfectly fine cage waiting for him." 

With his back still to his mentor, he taunted, "Don't tell me you're feeling sorry for the tyrannical King of Nostraza?" 

He frowned as he stared at the resting face of his most hated enemy, eyes still closed. Marius should have been experiencing excruciating pain, enough to make him cry out constantly, but the only sign that Marius was feeling anything was the expression of slight discomfort that crossed his face every little bit. Kai looked like that when he was being tickled!

I said I wanted him to hurt. 

He does, my prince. 

Then why does he not show it?!

"Don't be ridiculous. My concern is you; the spell will drain magic from you as long as it's still active." Kai smirked at the annoyance he heard in Erasmus's voice. He rather enjoyed getting on the ancient merman's nerves. 

"I've got the power of the ocean in me, remember? I'm keeping him there until I get bored."

"But-" 

"He stays." 

Erasmus sighed. "As you wish, Your Highness."