Free The Curse of the King by Peter Lerangis

leaning his head against Aly’s shoulder. “I’m tired. And don’t say, ‘Hi, Tired. I’m Jack.’”
    â€œI’m tired, too,” Aly said. “We’re twins.”
    â€œYou guys get some sleep,” I said. “I’ll keep a lookout.”
    â€œHow do we know you won’t sleep, too?” Aly asked.
    I grabbed the Loculus. “Popeye had spinach. Superman had the power of Krypton. I, Jack, have the Loculus of Strength.”
    Cass’s eyes fluttered shut. A few seconds later, Aly’s did, too. I was worried about both of them. I wasn’t Popeye and I wasn’t Superman. I needed them both, and I could feel them pulling away.
    Overhead another military plane zoomed by, but neither of them stirred. I held tight to the Loculus and cast a wide glance over the barren countryside from left to right and back again.
    And again.
    By the fourth time, my eyes were heavy, too. There would be no fifth time until daybreak.
    The “Strength” in the Loculus of Strength did not include staying awake.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
T HE D REAM C ONTINUED
    H E HAS FOUND me.
    Again.
    I thought I’d lost him in Halicarnassus. But here he is in Olympia, standing before me in the shop. Standing before a great, massive lump of marble that has traveled here by the work of twenty slaves over three months.
    He has that look in his eyes. The Betrayed Commander. The look that caused troops to quake in their sandals. The look that made me cry when I was a coddled little princeling. But now, after all I’ve been through—after all my land has been through—he annoys me.
    â€œYou would do this to your own flesh and blood, Massarym?” are his first words. “This trickery? This disloyalty?”
    I look deeply into his gray, stern eyes, trying to find the man I once adored and respected. “I would ask the same of you,” I say. “As the king, your people are as your own flesh and blood. And you have allowed them to die. The ultimate disloyalty.”
    â€œThe queen is at fault,” he shouts, “and you, ungrateful wretch—”
    â€œYou cast a blind eye to Mother’s actions then—but now you protest,” I say. “You did not protest while she disturbed the balance of Atlantean energy. While she dissected and analyzed the power like some curious experiment. When she trapped it away from the earth itself into seven spheres—”
    â€œStealing those spheres is what caused the destruction!” he bellows. “Playing with them! Showing off!”
    I am tired of this argument. I have work to do.
    â€œOf that last part I am indeed guilty,” I say. “But I realized early on that I was wrong. I returned them. If you are correct, everything should have been perfect again. Was it?”
    The king is silent.
    â€œWhy the earthquakes, my king?” I say. “Why the monsters?”
    He turns away.
    â€œMother’s actions—not mine—depleted the energy,” I say. “She doomed Atlantis. Had we left the Loculi in place, they would have sunk away with the rest of the continent. Only by taking them and making them safe—stealing, as you say—could we have any hope for rebuilding. Minds of the future, minds greater than ours, will figure out what to do. I am not seekingglory; I am not foolish. I want to house the Loculi for future generations, in the most magnificent forms imaginable.” I gesture toward the block of marble. “Behold Zeus, Father! Does he not look like a living man?”
    It looks nothing like a man. One can discern only the back of a giant throne—and the outline of what will one day become, according to plan, a likeness of the mighty god. The architects would have liked Zeus to be standing tall, but no temple could have been built high enough to do justice to this vision. So he will sit on a regal throne, his feet planted firmly. His staff has been separately