Sera’s face took on a stony look. “Never,” she said. “Not her. No way.”
“She’s suffered, Sera. A lot. All because she can’t sing. It’s going to be a battle of wills between her and Orfeo, and I’m scared he’ll win.”
“He won’t. You know her, Des. You know how strong she is.”
“But Orfeo can give her something no one else can.”
“Her magic?”
“Her pride,” Des said. “Astrid doesn’t believe in herself. She doesn’t believe she’s worth anything. For most of her life, she wanted her father’s approval and never got it. She still doesn’t realize that there’s only one person’s approval she needs: her own.”
“She won’t turn, Des. She’ll get the pearl, and then she’ll get it to us. I know she will.”
The two mer stopped swimming. They’d arrived where the current split in two directions. One led to the barracks for male goblin and mer fighters, the other to the barracks for females.
“I hope you’re right,” Des said.
“Of course I am. I’m always right.”
Des rolled his eyes. “You sound just like Mom.” He kissed his sister’s forehead. “Get some sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
Sera kissed him back and headed for her barracks. She was looking forward to her bed. Becca and Ling had turned in hours ago.
Just before she swam into the cave, she heard something—a small, chittering voice.
“Regina Serafina,” it said.
Sera turned around, but no one was there.
“Over here.”
The voice was coming from a shadowy hollow to the left of the cave. Serafina peered in its direction, but still saw nothing. Instinctively, her hand went to the dagger at her hip.
As she was about to pull the blade from its sheath, a large black sea scorpion crawled out of the shadows. He looked around fearfully, then raised one of his claws. Sera saw that he was holding a small conch. “For you, Regina. A message.”
“Who sent it?” Sera asked warily.
“One who cares a great deal for you. There is much trouble.”
Sera’s heart lurched. “Mah—” she started to say.
The scorpion shook its head. It held its other claw to its mouth, then said, “No names! The sea has many ears. For you alone. No one else can know. It’s too dangerous.”
“How do I know that this is safe?” Sera asked. “That it’s not some kind of a trick?”
The scorpion poked one of his slender legs into the shell, to show that it wasn’t booby-trapped.
Sera looked at the barracks. She thought about getting Ling or Becca. It would be safer to deal with the scorpion, and his message, when accompanied by another Black Fin. But they were all asleep and she hated to wake them.
As if reading her mind, the scorpion said, “Only for you. I am to crush the shell if another tries to listen.”
“Just my friend. For safety…” Sera ventured.
“I will crush it,” the creature insisted, tightening his grip on the conch.
Sera bent down. She couldn’t take the chance of not hearing the message Mahdi had sent. She held out her hand, and the scorpion placed the shell on her palm. Hesitantly, she brought it up to her ear. Mahdi started speaking immediately. It was his voice; there was no doubt about it. And the fear Sera heard in it raised the scales on the back of her tail.
Sera, it’s Mahdi. I’m near the Karg, in the Darktide Shallows. I couldn’t send this news with Allegra. We’ve got big trouble. Vallerio’s heading for the Karg. He’s got twenty thousand soldiers with him. He’s going to attack. There’s more to tell you, but I can’t come into the camp. There’s a spy in your midst, and I don’t want to be seen. Come to the Shallows alone. Hurry, Sera. Please.
Sera lowered the conch, her heart racing. Vallerio had made a countermove. He wasn’t waiting for her to attack Cerulea; he was going to attack first. How close was he? Did she have time to get everyone out of camp and elude the death riders? They could do it; they were already provisioned and packed for the Southern Sea. If need be, they could take a different route than the one they’d planned in order to escape Vallerio. Or was it better to stay here and fight? The fortified camp offered them a defensible position. In the open water, they’d be vulnerable.
Mahdi had asked her to come to him—alone. That was risky. He knew that, but he’d asked anyway. That told her there was trouble, real trouble. He didn’t know that there was no longer a traitor in the Black Fins’ camp. A conch had been sent to him telling him the spy had been caught…but if he’d been traveling to the Karg all this time, he wouldn’t have received it.
Vallerio’s forces must be close, she thought. Mahdi will know how close.
“I’m going to him. Right now,” Sera said to the scorpion, as she pocketed the conch. “Can you show me the way?”
The scorpion nodded.
Sera shot off toward the cave that housed the hippokamps. It was a fair distance to the Darktide Shallows and would take her half a day to swim it. She would ride a hippokamp there instead, and speed the animal along with a velo spell.
The scorpion could not keep up. When Sera realized she’d left him far behind, she doubled back.
“Climb up,” she said, holding out her arm. The creature latched on to her, then crawled to her shoulder, steadying himself with his tail. “You good?” she asked.
He nodded and she took off again.
To her relief, the hippokamps had been bedded down for the night. No grooms were around.
Sera cast an illuminata. An accomplished equestrienne, she picked out a strong white mare, put the animal on crossties, and tacked her up. When she was finished, she scrawled a hasty note.
I’ve gone to see a friend. Back by morning.
Serafina
Then she unclipped the crossties, led the hippokamp out of the cave, and climbed on. The scorpion settled itself in front of her so he could point the way.
Sera spurred her mount and cast a velo. A split second later, she and the scorpion were racing out of camp, a white blur in the dark water.
SERA DIDN’T LOOK BACK as the camp fell away behind her.
She and the scorpion rode for hours without stopping, her illuminata lighting their way. Pointing with his claw, the scorpion led Sera across the Kargjord, over the Devil’s Trench, through shimmering shoals of mackerel and cod, and then down into the weedy shallows themselves.
“Over there!” he chittered now, pointing ahead.
Sera looked past his pincers and spotted Mahdi floating in a hollow. He was turned away from her, but she could see his black jacket, his long hair pulled back into a hippokamp’s tail, and the side of his handsome face. He was holding something; it looked like a Black Fin jacket.
He was here for the wrong reason. He was here because he was in grave danger. And she was, too. And so was everyone and everything they cared about.
But still, Sera was wildly happy to see him.
“Mahdi!” she called out. She was off her hippokamp in an instant, speeding to him.
He turned around. Sera caught his beautiful face in her hands and kissed him, but his lips were cold.
“Mahdi?”
He smiled at her. But instead of warming her, it chilled her. It was a lunatic’s grin—too wide, too bright.
He dropped the jacket. His hands closed on her arm with a tight grip. Scared now, Sera tried to pull away, but his fingers curled painfully into her flesh, and she knew she’d made a terrible mistake.
“Who are you?” she cried, whipping her dagger out of her belt. “Let me go!”
The maligno knocked the weapon away. She fought hard, slapping at the creature with her free hand, slamming it with her tail. In the struggle, her pocket tore, and the message conch fell out. She heard her hippokamp whinny in fear; then the creature bolted.
The scorpion, meanwhile, had circled behind her. He swam toward her now, his tail raised, its sharp tip glistening with poison.
When th
e strike came, the pain was unlike anything Sera had ever known.
The scorpion’s barb sank deep into her back, just missing her spine. A heartbeat later, the venom was in her bloodstream. It felt like lava moving through her veins.
She tried to scream, but no sound came out. The venom had paralyzed her. Her breathing slowed. Her heart rate dropped.
All she could do was watch in terror, eyes frozen open, as the thing that wasn’t Mahdi picked her up and dragged her away.
“ANY SIGN OF HER?” Becca called out anxiously, her heart heavy with dread.
“Nothing yet,” Ling shouted back.
The two mermaids, together with Neela, Desiderio, Yazeed, Coco, and Coco’s shark, Abelard, had been searching for Sera in the Darktide Shallows for over three hours. They’d ridden out of camp before dawn, after it was discovered that Serafina was nowhere to be found.
Neela, busy with Sera’s uniform, had continued to work for several hours the previous night. When she finally went to the barracks to sleep, she saw that Sera’s bunk was empty. She went to look for Des, thinking maybe they’d never gone to sleep and were sitting by a waterfire somewhere, but he was in his barracks.
Worried, she and Des had raised the alarm. Word of Sera’s disappearance spread quickly through the camp. A goblin named Regelbrott had hurried to headquarters just after the news broke.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said, “so I left my barracks and went for a walk around camp. Someone streaked by on a white hippokamp. I saw a tail, so it was a mer, not a goblin, but I didn’t see the rider’s face.”
“Where was she heading?” Des asked.
“Toward the Darktide Shallows,” Regelbrott replied. “Do you think it was Serafina?”
“Why would she leave camp at night?” Neela asked. “She’s knows it’s dangerous in the open water.”
Just then, a breathless groom arrived at the HQ cave. He was holding Sera’s note. Minutes later, Desiderio and the others, plus twenty armed goblins, were speeding toward the Shallows on hippokamps.
Along the way, Ling had stopped to ask other sea creatures if they’d seen Sera. Shoals of cod and mackerel confirmed that a mermaid with short copper-colored hair had been spotted heading away from the camp. When the group arrived at the Shallows, two pipefish said that they’d glimpsed a mermaid riding toward a place called Cuttlefish Hollow. The search party had hurried there, and ever since they’d been peering into every cave and thicket.
“Hey! Abbie found something!” Coco called out now.
The others sped to the merl’s side. She was lifting something from the silty seabed—a dagger. They all recognized it as Sera’s. Next to it was her old Black Fin jacket.
“What’s that doing here?” Yazeed asked.
“Maybe someone used it to track her,” Ling suggested.
Becca’s heart sank. Her eyes swept over the seafloor, hoping for another clue that could tell them who had taken Sera, and where. They fastened on an object near where the dagger had lain. She stooped to pick it up.
“It’s a conch. They’re not native to these waters,” she said. She held it up to her ear and listened to it. Her face was pale by the time she lowered her hand again.
Desiderio took the conch from her. He cast an amplio spell so they could all hear it.
“That’s not Mahdi,” Ling said when the message ended. “It only sounds like him. He never would have asked Sera to meet him alone in a place like this. It’s a trick.”
“I wonder if Lucia’s behind this,” Neela said.
Desiderio shook his head. “No way. She’s too busy looking in every mirror she swims past. Vallerio’s responsible, I just know it. He wanted Sera dead. He found a way to do it without risking his troops—or Guldemar’s anger. And Sera fell for it. How could she be so stupid?” Des shouted, slapping his tail fins against a rock.
Neela, glowing bright blue with emotion, leapt to Sera’s defense. “Because the message made her think Mahdi was in danger,” she said. “That’s why she came here. Out of love. And whoever sent the conch knew she would. Because that’s who she is.”
“Love’s nothing but a loaded weapon. It got Sera killed,” Des said bitterly.
“Don’t say that!” Neela shouted. “Don’t even think it! Sera’s not dead. We’d feel it if she was, Ling and Becca and me. We’re bloodbound. If she was gone, a piece of us would be gone, too!”
Becca, who’d been quiet all this time, finally spoke. She’d thought through everything that had happened, sifting it for meaning, just like her ancestor Pyrrha, a brilliant strategist, would have. “I think Neela’s right,” she said. “Sera’s not dead.”
“How do you know that? You don’t!” Des yelled. “You’re just going to give everyone false hope!”
“Stop it, Des. Right now,” Ling ordered. “I know you’re upset; Sera’s your sister. We’re all upset, but we can’t come apart. We have to work together to figure out the next step, okay?” She looked at the others, each in turn. They all nodded. “Good. Let’s hear Becca out.”
“If Vallerio did this,” Becca ventured, “it’s because Sera’s more valuable to him alive than dead.”
“No, she’s not,” Des countered. “He wants her dead. She’s a threat to Lucia. Portia was about to order Sophia to kill her.”
“Then where’s the body?” Becca asked. “Why isn’t it here?”
Desiderio didn’t have an answer.
“Why would Vallerio have an assassin kill Sera here, then drag the body back to Cerulea and risk discovery?” Becca continued. “He’s always said he placed his daughter on the throne only because Sera was killed during the invasion of Cerulea. If the Miromarans were to find out differently, there would be protests, maybe uprisings. He doesn’t want that.”
“Okay, say Vallerio didn’t kill Sera,” Yazeed allowed. “Why did he take her?”
“Because our fake-out worked too well,” Becca said ruefully. “Vallerio believes we’re going to attack Cerulea. He wants to stop us.”
“He’s using her as a shield,” Yazeed said.
Becca nodded. “I think so,” she said. “I bet he contacts us soon to tell us he’s got Sera and he’ll kill her if we attack.”
“How do we get her back?” Neela asked.
“By attacking Cerulea,” Becca declared.
“What?” Neela exclaimed. “You just said Vallerio would kill Sera if we did that!”
“Only if he sees us coming. What if we launched a surprise attack?” said Becca.
“Becca, dude, have you, like, lost your mind?” Yazeed asked. “There’s no way to spring a surprise attack on Cerulea. The city’s high up, and we’d be moving thousands of soldiers toward it. Vallerio’s scouts will see us coming days before we get there, and—”
Becca cut him off. “What if the scouts couldn’t see us? Until it’s too late. It happened once before. At the invasion of Cerulea.”
Becca’s words hung in the water. She knew her idea was bold and daring, and almost impossible to pull off. What would the others think? The friends all looked at one another, their eyes asking the same question: Can we actually do this?
“It’s genius, Becs,” Ling said decisively. “We’ll use Vallerio’s own move on him.”
“We could surprise him the same way he surprised my mother—by using terragogg ships,” added Des, his voice eager now, instead of angry.
“Our troops are ready to go to Cerulea,” Ling said, with a mirthless smile. “Sera planned to tell them it was all a fake-out. Guess it’s not anymore.”
“Wait! What about Mahdi?” Neela asked. “If we attack while he’s there, he could get hurt in the fighting.”
“We could get word to him of our plans,” Ling said.
“Can we get a courier there in time?” asked Neela.
“We don’t need to,” Des said. “We’ll attack the day of his wedding. That’s the day he’s supposed to escape from Cerulea. The plan is for him to have a big bull shark party the night before, for
all his merman friends. He’s going to pretend to overdo it, and then say he’s really sick the following morning. While everyone thinks he’s sleeping it off, he’ll cast his transparensea pearl and haul tail. We attack later that day, while everyone else is in the palace getting ready for the wedding, and capture the whole rotten bunch.”
“Mer? You’re forgetting one pretty major thing,” Yazeed said. “We don’t have Rafe Mfeme, or Orfeo, or whatever he calls himself, helping us. We don’t have his access to gogg ships.”
Becca had been quiet while the others deliberated her idea. She’d been arguing, too—with herself. She looked at her fellow Black Fins now and said, “Maybe we do.”
“WAKE UP,” a voice commanded.
It was cold, the voice. As cold as a blizzard wind.
Sera forced her eyelids open, groaning in pain. The heat of the sea scorpion’s venom still burned inside her. It was agony to move, to breathe.
She remembered things…Mahdi’s voice, his face…a long journey…the scorpion forcing her to eat…
Little by little, her vision cleared. She realized she was sitting in a chair. In a room. Her room. She recognized the mica panels, the furniture, the anemones on the walls.
I’m hallucinating, she thought. It’s the venom. She closed her eyes again.
“I said, wake up!”
This time the command was followed by a hard, stinging slap.
Sera gasped. Her eyes flew open. Her hand rose tremblingly to her cheek.
Lucia Volnero was right in front of her, leaning on the arms of the chair. Her hair, long and loose, plumed around her head. Her face was only inches away. Sera could see her sapphire eyes gleaming with malice.
Lucia smiled. “That’s better,” she said, straightening. “So, you met my maligno,” she added, pointing at the creature floating motionlessly in a corner. “Isn’t he a perfect likeness? It took him quite a long time to do his job. I was worried you’d die on the way back and spoil my fun, so I cast a velo to speed his return.”
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