"Right all of the time?" he repeated. "You knew I was alive?"

"I knew," Alaric confirmed, hard lines etched in his face. He folded his arms and leaned back against a white marble column.

Conlan's gaze was drawn to the veins of coppery orichalcum twining around its carved shapes. Dolphins leaping, Nereids laughing at their mermaid play. The scent of delicate green and blue lava-tulips permeated the air.

The images and scents of home he'd been refused for seven damn years.

He wrenched his gaze back to Alaric. "Yet you left me to rot?" Betrayal flared, warring with common sense. Alaric would have had duties to the Temple. To the people.

To Atlantis.

Alaric straightened and slowly unfolded his arms, his restraint only underscoring the enormous power leashed within him, his icy green eyes flashing with fury. "I searched for you. Every day for the past seven years. Even this day, before you arrived, I was preparing to join your brother, who was waiting above for yet another hopeless trip to find and rescue you from wherever they'd imprisoned you."

Conlan clenched his jaw, remembering Anubisa's parting shot, then nodded. "She shielded us. She's more powerful than we ever suspected, then."

Alaric's face hardened, if planes and sculpted lines that already appeared to be cast in marble could be said to harden. "Anubisa," he said flatly. It wasn't a question. "It is unsurprising that the goddess of night can project the void of death to mask her… activities."

The word torture hung, twisting and pulsing, in the air between them. At least the priest had the decency not to speak it.

Conlan nodded, reaching for the scar at the base of his throat before he realized what he was doing. Forcing his hand down when he did. "She kept me from water. Far away from any water, but for the barest minimum to drink to keep me alive. I had no chance to channel any power-no chance at all."