Chapter 1
“Yield.”
Her voice echoed in his mind. The feeling of his own blade pressed against his throat lingered like a ghost as he gazed at the mural on the wall. Golden claws shone in still-drying paint as his hand slowly lowered to his lap. He remembers how they felt. On his back. On his face. The fading scars reminded him with every movement. His people had not spoken a word of them. At least, not to his face. He suspects that rumors may be circling about his defeat, but he doesn’t pay them any mind.
“Vengeance has consumed us.”
Her voice, like bubbling lava, flowed into his memories and left a scorching path in its wake. A soft smile crossed his face. She was right. He could see it in her eyes, the roiling fire of rage and revenge that had forged her into the Black Panther. It burned in him too, after all. Five hundred years of protecting his people, and the Wakandans had snuck in like thieves in the night and stolen that safety and peace out from under him. One of his children, dying in his arms to a wound unlike any that had ever harmed them before. A frown settled on his features as he remembered the terrified brown eyes that had stared up at him, pleading him for help. He had retaliated, anger coursing through his veins as he sent her his warning.
“You are queen now,” he had told her. Truly, he had not expected the Queen Mother to give her life for the scientist, but there was always the possibility. There was an honor in her death that commanded his respect, but he did not regret his actions. They had killed one of his own, he had merely shown them the error of their ways.
“Umama!”
His eyes closed for a moment. Her cries reminded him of the day he earned his name. The cries of his people on the surface as the slavers drove them in their cruelty had held the same pain and sorrow. Except, he remembers the look in her eyes as she spoke of her brother. It had seemed then that the loss of the King had torn everything from her, but instead that role had fallen to him. Back then, she hadn’t lost it all quite yet. A brother and a father, but not yet a mother. He knew that pain well, but at least he had been prepared for his own mother’s passing. She had not.
A twinge of regret coursed through him as he considered their lives. Though he had lived many lifetimes, he had never had many who he loved closely enough for their passing to hurt him. Her, on the other hand, she loved those around her as freely as the ocean breeze. Her sympathy had so easily solidified with him and his people that for a moment, he believed her to be a goddess incarnate. For only a goddess of love and beauty could so quickly take on his people, his duty, his resolve as her own.
That was before. Before his child was taken, and before her mother was taken. Before he had invaded her homeland, and her his. Before she had become the Black Panther who knew only violence and war. Yet even then, when given the chance to end him and exact her revenge, that unerring sympathy appeared in her once more. She had offered him something he never would have considered: a second chance in defeat.
To him, the idea was almost blasphemous. What was the point of such a vicious battle if not to end in death? But lying there on the hot sand, his back and wings a bloody mess, he’d been struck by the force of her will, and submitted. He opened his eyes once more to the mural in front of him and stared at the visage he’d created of her. Vicious and powerful, the Black Panther roared over the Feathered Serpent. He’d been beaten, and while licking his wounds he’d thought more about her and her nation than he’d ever thought he would.
He liked to think that they were even now. Ultimately, she had beaten him in combat and had even been the kinder spirit and offered him a way out to continue protecting his people. He knew that he was in her debt, but the anger that had fueled him before was washed away with the tides as he set aside his brush and paint. What was done was done, and he had a kingdom to attend to. Thoughts of the princess could wait until after he had addressed his council.
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Wakanda had kept their promise, it seemed. Talokan had yet to be mentioned anywhere in the world above, and for now no more ships entered his waters searching for Vibranium. The past few weeks had been tense as he had discussed border defenses with Attuma, battle strategies with Namora, and generally prepared for the worst-case scenario. He refused to believe that this conflict was over, but if the surface was going to act on the knowledge of their existence, they would have done it by now.
For now, he sat on a small ledge of rock on the outskirts of his city, watching as his people went about their daily lives. The water around him shifted in a slight current, some sounds from the houses below drifting up to his ears as he watched. Often, he came here to soothe his nerves. It was peaceful to simply sit on the ledge and let the ocean surround him, as though nothing in the world could ever go wrong. He could feel the connection that the water brought them, giving them life and shelter and freedom. Sounds and vibrations reached out to him from every inch of the city, and yet there was calm within him.
Not for the first time, he wished for a companion to share this with. This peace and beauty was ethereal but dulled by the solitude that came with it. Unbidden, the image of her in that white and jade dress flashed across his mind. She had seen Talokan. Not just with her eyes, but with her heart and her spirit. The look of wonder and awe on her face as he led her around the city softened his heart. Pride had welled up within him then, just as it did now. Even if only for a short time, he had gotten the chance to share the beauty of his nation and his pride for his people with someone else. Someone who had understood.
It made him all the more protective of everything they had built here. He shook his head to clear the dark eyed woman from his thoughts as he rose from his perch. His duties could not be avoided forever, and he could already picture the unimpressed look his cousin would give him as he swam to the war room.
That was when he felt it.
It was as though a shock of cold water or electricity had shot through his bones from a very specific direction somewhere behind him. He stopped in his path and spun around, not comprehending for a moment what he was sensing. Normally, that kind of sensation only ever occurred through the vibrations of the conch shells given to his scouts. But there were no scouts in that area of water that he knew of, and the shock was continuous.
Namora can wait, he thought, as he raced out of the safety of the caverns and into the greater Atlantic Ocean. Something about that feeling was familiar, and he could not place where he knew it from.
Almost as suddenly as it had appeared, the screaming feeling had stopped, and he was left floating in the ocean with only its last location to go off of. His mind reeled with the urgency that had seemingly possessed him, not knowing what he had felt or why. Somehow, he just knew that she had something to do with it. Perhaps it was the vibranium that ran through her blood just as it did through his own. Perhaps he was more in tune with her after his submission and promise to protect her people. Either way, the princess had something to do with this feeling that had overtaken him.
Did he dare? He was not concerned for the Panther’s wellbeing. She had proved herself a worthy ally in holding her own and defeating him. However, this awareness of her was new, and a blooming curiosity tugged him towards where he knew she’d been.
His wings were not yet healed, so the journey was slower than it would normally be, but eventually he found himself in the waters around the country known as Haiti. The sun had sunk beneath the western sky and the edges of the moon peaked up from the east. His head broke through the surface of the waves just enough to look towards the shore. Around the glowing light of a fire sat three figures, and his eyes snapped to the slight frame sat farthest to the left.
She appeared uninjured, and in fact she looked to be laughing with the small boy sat next to her. He was giggling, wrapped in a blanket that fluttered in the wind. The last figure sat with her arms around the boy, holding him close to her as she gazed at the princess. He could make out the hum of their voices, but thought it rude to listen in. Why did he even come? She was fine. She can take care of herself.
Still, he looked over her, taking in the soft curve of her lips and the deft play of her fingers as they drummed on the sand beneath her. She appeared the same as she had when last he saw her, though perhaps with less tension in her posture. They had not spoken since they had stopped their people mid-battle and gone their separate ways. He had wondered why she had not called to set the terms for his surrender. Had she decided to forgo negotiations? Why did he care? More importantly, why did he know exactly where and when she had entered the ocean? Even with his gifts, that had never before happened with any of his citizens.
Puzzled, he took one last glance at the soft smile she wore before dipping under the waves and beginning his swim back to Talokan.