“Invincible. If I could get the bill? I’m, like, way in a rush, you know?” Neela said, snapping her chewing sponge.
“Right away,” the clerk said, totaling her charges. “One room for one night, room service twice…”
As he continued, Neela glanced nervously at the shiny mica-covered wall behind him. In it she could see a group of Matalin guards. They were still in the street outside. How much longer before they came into the hotel?
“Here we are! It comes to six trocii, five drupes.”
Neela paid him. As she did, the guards came in. One was holding a piece of parchment. She knew her picture was on it. There was no time to swim to an upper floor or cast a transparensea pebble. She would have to front her way out of here. Praying the illusio spell she’d cast would hold, she turned around and sashayed toward the door. She’d changed her messenger bag into a flashy designer bag, her black hair blond again, her blue skin pink, and her nails a sparkly silver. Her black swashbuckler’s outfit was now a long, neon-blue, boyfriend-size caballabong jersey with GO GOA! across the front and the number 2 on the back. A pair of enormous round glasses was perched on her nose. Shiny gold hoops dangled from her ears. The guards were looking for a princess disguised as a swashbuckler. They wouldn’t look twice at a caballabong merl.
As the guards approached, she pretended to talk into a small message conch. “This is, like, totally woeful!” she said. “Could this thing maybe actually work for once in its shabby little life? Hello? Hel-lo? Okay, I think it’s recording now. Hey, merl! Hope you can hear this. Meet me in an hour at the Skinny Manatee for a bubble tea, yah? If you get there first, get me a water apple. Fat free. See you soon. Mwah!”
She swam out of the hotel in a leisurely fashion, as if she had all day. As soon as she turned the corner, though, she spat out her chewing sponge and tore down the current like a marlin. Twenty minutes later she was out of town and in the open water.
“Wow, that was close,” she said, stopping to open her bag and let Ooda out. “Scary. We’re only about half a day from Nzuri Bonde now. Let’s swim the backcurrent all the way. It’s a little bit longer, but safer, I think. We’ll have to push hard. You ready?”
Ooda nodded and they set off. Neela and her pet had spent four days on the currents, staying overnight in hotels, paying her bills with currensea she’d packed. So far, she’d avoided three separate search parties of palace guards, all of whom were sent—she was certain—by her parents to fetch her home.
It was hard staying one stroke ahead of the guards, but oddly, Neela found she was able to think on her fins like never before. She could see what was coming, like Ava could, and then see how to deal with it, like Sera. She remembered what Sera had said about the bloodbind in the conch she’d sent. Sera was certain the vow had given them all bits of each other’s magical abilities.
She must be right, Neela thought. It’s the only thing that explains how I’ve managed to not get myself captured.
She knew she couldn’t afford to get caught. She had to find Navi’s talisman. A few more leagues’ hard swimming and she’d be in Nzuri Bonde, Kandina’s royal village, and that much closer to the moonstone.
Or so she thought.
Eight hours later, the backcurrent they’d taken had weakened to nothing, and she and Ooda were totally lost in the middle of a flat, gray wasteland with scrubby vegetation and no signposts, only warning signs about dragons.
She knew that the Razormouths’ breeding grounds were near Nzuri Bonde, and she was certain she and Ooda had to be close to the village, but high above the water’s surface, the sun’s rays were already lengthening; it would be dark in only a few hours. Dragons hunted at night. If she and Ooda didn’t find the village soon, they’d be sleeping out here—lost, alone, and very visible.
Neela consulted a map she’d bought. As she did, she noticed that her hands were glowing. The soft, pale-blue light she often gave off had brightened.
“That’s weird,” she said.
Neela only lit up brightly when she was emotional or when other bioluminescents were around. Bios could sense each other, and when they did, their photocytes kicked in, causing them to glow.
She turned her attention back to the map. She was sure it showed the way to Nzuri Bonde from where they were, but she didn’t know where they were, and she wasn’t terribly good at reading maps anyway. She’d never had to. There had always been officials for that. She turned the map this way and that, and finally decided to head in the direction she thought was west.
She and Ooda swam for another fifteen minutes without coming across any sign whatsoever of the village. Just as she was getting really worried, Ooda nipped her arm and pointed ahead of them with her fin. As Neela rubbed the bite, she noticed that her skin had darkened to cobalt. “What is going on with me?”
Ooda nipped her again. “Ow! Stop it!” she scolded. “What is with you?” She looked ahead, squinting at the dusky water. And then she saw it—a large silt cloud rising in the distance. “Good girl!” she said. “Let’s go!”
Neela knew a cloud of that size was a sign of life. Many things could be stirring up the silt—caballabong players, a factory, farmers plowing. Maybe it was a sea-cow ranch. At this time of day, the ranchers would be herding their animals into barns to be milked, then bedding them down.
She hurried along, relieved to have found merpeople and hopefully a place where she and Ooda could shelter for the night. But as they drew closer, Neela slowed to a halt.
It was no sea-cow ranch or caballabong game that was raising the silt cloud.
It was an enormous prison.
Full of merfolk.
“MY GODS!” Neela whispered, stunned.
She swam a little closer, crouched down behind a rock, and peered out from behind it. She’d seen prisons before—every realm had them—but she’d never seen a prison like this.
Mermen and mermaids—thousands of them—were inside. They had the darker skin of the West Matalin mer, and they were digging. Neela could see them. She could see everything, because the fence surrounding the prison was made of dozens of sea whips, monstrous bioluminescent jellyfish that were almost entirely translucent. There were hundreds of them, each about twenty-five feet long and eight feet wide. They were floating in a tight circle. Their lethal tentacles formed the bars of the prison.
“That’s why I’m glowing!” she said to herself.
More sea whips, even bigger than the others, floated above, alert for any movement.
“Living guard towers,” Neela whispered.
As she watched the prisoners, one of them—an older mermaid—stopped to lean on her shovel, obviously exhausted. Immediately a death rider was on her. He yelled at her and hit her with a crop. She cried out, then quickly resumed digging. Nearby, a reed-thin merman, his clothing in rags, collapsed. More death riders dragged him away.
And then Neela saw something far worse—children. Hundreds of them. She couldn’t tell what they were doing from where she was, but they weren’t digging. Upset, she opened her bag, took out one of her two remaining transparensea pebbles, and cast it. She wanted to have a closer look.
“Stay here, Ooda,” she said, as soon as she was invisible. Careful to stay out of striking range of any tentacles, she swam to the fence. Sea whips were the most deadly jellyfish in the world. The pain of their sting was so excruciating it could stop a mermaid’s heart in minutes. The sea whips couldn’t see her, but they could still feel her movements in the water and would lash out if she got too close.
From her new vantage point, Neela could see a group of children clearly. They were shaking large rectangular sieves full of mud. Inside the sieves, crabs and lobsters scuttled back and forth, picking through pebbles and shells. The mud was brought to the children’s work area in carts pulled by thin, frightened-looking hippokamps. The children, too, were thin and fearful. Many were crying.
Neela swam the entire perimeter of the prison, seeing misery everywhere she looked. Barracks stood at t
he far side of the prison. They were little more than sheds. Behind them, two guards stood close to the sea whip fence, talking. She could hear what they were saying.
“We’ve dug up every damn inch of the mud in this gods-forsaken hellhole. Traho says these are the old breeding grounds, and it might be here, but I say different.”
“We have orders to move the whole prison five leagues north if we’ve found nothing by Moonday,” the second guard said.
“The farther we get from the dragon caves, the better. We’re only three leagues east of them now,” he said, hooking his thumb to his right. “It’s sheer bloody luck they haven’t discovered us yet.”
“Traho came yesterday. Did you see him?”
The first guard shook his head.
“He wasn’t happy. He wants the moonstone and he wants it now,” the second guard said. “He says the prisoners need to work harder. Smaller rations. Harsher punishments and—”
The guard stopped talking and looked up. A huge shadow passed overhead. “It’s him,” the guard said. “Mfeme. With more prisoners.”
“We better get moving,” said the second guard. “We’ll be needed to help herd them in.”
Neela followed their gaze. For a moment, she saw nothing but the silhouetted hull of an enormous ship. As she kept watching, though, she saw things dropping down through the water. They looked like big black squares. As they got closer, Neela saw that they were cages filled with merpeople.
The jellyfish floating over the prison parted, and the cages landed roughly on the seafloor inside it. Guards opened the cage doors, shouting at the prisoners, hitting them with crops, driving them to a central assembly area. As the guards herded the prisoners, they tore any remaining personal effects off of them—beaded armbands, head wraps, belts—and tossed them through the sea whips’ tentacles. An armband landed near Neela. She picked it up when the guards’ backs were turned and put it in her pocket. The prisoners, gaunt and sick-looking, were frightened. Once they’d all been crowded together, they were told they were here to dig for a valuable object, a large moonstone, and that whoever found it would be set free. They were all given shovels—old and young, strong and weak. A man protested that his wife was too ill to dig. He was promptly beaten.
Neela reeled back from the fence, sickened, and saw that her tail was shimmering. The transparensea pebbles were not as strong as transparensea pearls. The spell was wearing off. She swam back behind the rock where Ooda was waiting and sat down on the ground to collect herself.
“Sera was wrong, Ooda,” she said, her voice shaking. “Mfeme has the people from the raided villages on his ship, yes, but he’s not taking them to Ondalina. He’s taking them to prison camps. To dig for the talismans. I’ve got to send messages to the others, but we have to get out of here first, before we end up inside the prison, too. Or inside a dragon.”
Neela leaned back against the rock and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what to do and there was no one here to tell her. No Sera. No Ling. No subassistants with their forms. No grand vizier. No Suma to make everything better with a cup of tea and a plate of bing-bangs. She would have to figure it out herself. But how?
She opened her eyes, then opened her bag, and did what she always did when she was angry or scared—she hunted for a sweet.
There has to be one in here, she thought desperately. Her craving was terrible. She pushed aside makeup, her hairbrush, a little sack of currensea…and then she spotted a shiny green wrapper.
“A zee-zee! Oh, thank gods!” she said.
It was a bit squashed from being at the bottom of her bag, but it was still a zee-zee. Sweets made it all better. Sweets always made it better. She unwrapped the shiny candy with shaking hands and popped it into her mouth, waiting for it to make her feel calmer, happier…but it was so cloying, it made her feel sick instead.
She spat it out.
As she did, she heard a voice speaking from inside her head. Here, just for you. A kanjaywoohoo, it said. Swallow it, darling. Just like you swallow all your fears and frustrations. They leave such a bitter taste, don’t they?
It was Rorrim’s voice. He was right. That’s what she’d always done—swallowed her fears, with the help of a little candy to sweeten them.
She looked at the prison again, and the people in it, and realized that there was no better. Not from a bing-bang. If she wanted things to be better, she would have to make them so.
She got up, brushed the silt off her backside, and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Thanks to the sea-scum guards, we know which direction to swim in, at least,” she said to Ooda, remembering how one of them had hooked his thumb to his right. “If we’re lucky, we’ll make Nzuri Bonde by morning.”
“HI-YAAAAAH!”
The cry—high and terrifying—carried piercingly through the water.
“That’s Kora,” Neela said. “I’d know her voice anywhere. Come on, Ooda. We’re almost there.”
Neela and Ooda had been on the move all night, ever since they’d left the prison camp. Neela was dragging. She was desperately in need of a rest and a good meal, but hearing Kora’s voice gave her new energy.
The morning sun’s soft rays illuminated the waters of Nzuri Bonde. As Neela and Ooda approached it, they saw low houses made of stones mortared with a mixture of silt and crushed shell, and surrounded by lush vegetation. The doorways and windows were bordered by stark, geometric designs in red, white, and yellow. Simple and spare, they were in harmony with their remote, wild surroundings. Outbuildings made from the bones of whales collected from the seafloor held dugongs placidly waiting to be taken out to graze.
Neela thought about how you could see the shining domes and turrets of Matali City long before you were in it. Nzuri Bonde was just the opposite; you were practically in it before you saw it.
There was a large open arena on the outskirts of the village. Kora was there, drilling with the Askari, her personal guard. They lived apart from all others in the ngome ya jeshi, their own compound. They were practicing haraka now, a form of martial arts that was lightning fast. Tall bamboo poles were used for whacking the enemy across his body, or taking his tail out from under him. Neela watched the fighters as she approached the arena. The Askari were lean, fast, and lethal—and none more so than their leader.
Dark-skinned and regal, Kora had high cheekbones, a full mouth, and hazel eyes flecked with gold. Her powerful tail was striped brown and white, like a lionfish’s. Her pectoral fins fanned out at her sides when she was angry, rising in tall, barbed spikes. She wore a turban of red sea silk and a chest plate of cowrie shells and beads. Her armband, made of white coral, was notched for every sea dragon she’d killed.
“Mgeni anakuja!” one of the Askari cried out. They all stopped drilling and looked where she was pointing—at Neela. Ooda, frightened of them, zipped into Neela’s bag.
Neela, who spoke some Kandinian but not a lot, was surprised to find that she understood the guard. He’d just warned Kora that a stranger was approaching. It’s the bloodbind, she thought.
Kora spun around. Her eyes narrowed at first, then widened in recognition.
“Salamu kubwa, Malkia!” Neela called out, bowing her head. Greetings, Great Queen.
“Princess Neela? Can it be?” Kora said, speaking Mermish now. She swam over to her. A smile, broad and beautiful, spread across her face. She took Neela by her shoulders and kissed her cheeks.
“You have a new look! I was not aware that you followed Goa!”
Neela was still in her caballabong outfit.
“I don’t. Even though it looks that way,” Neela said. “I’ve been—”
Swimming all night she was going to say, but Kora cut her off. She playfully tugged one of Neela’s large hoop earrings.
“You are the only mermaid I know who would make such a dangerous trip so well-accessorized!” she said. “Had I known you were coming, I would have had my nails done.”
Kora, who had little interest in fashion, liked to tease Neela about
her passion for clothing and jewelry. Neela always played along good-naturedly, but not this time.
“Kora, this isn’t a social call. I’m here because I need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
A wave of exhaustion washed over Neela. She had no idea where to start. “Um, well, we need to save the world, basically,” she said.
“And the right accessories will aid you in that?” Kora asked, raising an eyebrow. The Askari laughed uproariously.
Neela glared. “The right accessories,” she said testily, “help with everything.” She needed Kora to help her, not mock her.
Kora wrapped an arm around her neck and put her into a headlock—a Kandinian sign of affection. “Do you remember the last time you came to Kandina? With the entire Matalin royal family? The entourage continued behind you for two leagues! Where are your trunks? Where are your retainers?”
“Oh, Kora, there are no retainers. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This visit isn’t like the last time. Not at all. There’s trouble, big trouble…” Neela said. Her voice broke on the last word. She was so upset by what she’d seen at the prison camp, so worn out from hours of swimming, that she was about to collapse.
Kora snapped into action. She led Neela to a shaded part of the arena, made her sit down in a cushioned chair, and called for food and drink. The Askari followed, and sat in a circle around their queen and her guest.
“Now, tell me,” Kora said.
Neela glanced at the guards.
“I trust them with my life,” Kora said, reading her thoughts. “We cannot help you if you cannot trust us. All of us.”
Neela nodded. And then she told them everything—about the dream, the attack on Cerulea, the duca, the death riders, the Iele, the Six Who Ruled, the monster, the talismans, and her escape from her own palace.
“I need you to help me find the moonstone. Sera and I believe it’s with the dragon queen. And there’s something else, too,” she said. She took a deep breath, readying herself to tell them about the prison camp, when she realized the Askari had gone dead quiet. They looked at one another, then at her. She recognized their expressions. She’d seen them very recently—on the faces of her mother and father.
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