When he could bear to meet Alaric's eyes, Conlan flinched at the depth of the sorrow and fury there.

"Never once. Never the slightest resonance of your existence," Alaric said, gripping the jade handle of his dagger. He held it out to Conlan, blade down. "If you doubt my loyalty, cousin, end my life now. I deserve it for my failure."

Conlan noted the reference to their family connection in the cynical corner of his mind that calculated the niceties of Atlantean politics. Alaric never spoke a single word that didn't carry at least two meanings. Often polemic, at times pedagogical. Never purposeless.

Conlan accepted the dagger and turned it over in his hands, then flipped it back to its owner. "If you failed in your appointed role, priest, Poseidon's justice would be the one kicking your ass. You've no need of mine."

Alaric shook his black hair behind his shoulders, eyes narrowing at the emphasis on his title. Then he nodded once and slid the dagger into its emerald-jeweled sheath. "As you say. We face other problems, prince. You have finally returned, only hours after the vehicle of your ascension is lost."

"Tell me," Conlan said, fury scalding the shreds of his self-control.

"Reisen. He killed two of my acolytes." Alaric spat the words out, clenching his fists. "Conlan, he took it. He took the Trident. He's gone above. If the undead get their hands on it…"

Alaric's words trailed off. Both of them knew the cost of misused power. Poseidon's former high priest lay rotting in the black abyss of the temple oubliette for overstepping his powers.

Poseidon served deadly reminders to those who betrayed him.

Conlan inhaled sharply, the hairs on his arms standing up in response to the nearly invisible currents of elemental energy Alaric crackled through the room. For his power to leak out like that, the priest must be damn near the edge of his self-control. Or else seven years had seen one hell of a surge in his power.