She smoothed his pajama top and fastened an open button. “At least, I hope we are.” She paused, then said, “Back when we were with the Iele, Vrăja asked me to help the others believe in themselves. She said that’s what a good leader does. Ling, Neela, and Becca have changed. They do believe in themselves now. I think Astrid does, too. Getting her magic back has given her the confidence she needed. But I haven’t succeeded with Ava. Help Ava believe the gods did know what they were doing. That’s what Vrăja said. But Traho took Nyx’s ring from her, and he killed Baby, and I think she’s lost faith. In the gods, and in herself. And nothing I say or do makes any difference. I wish I knew how to help her.”
She gently lifted Mahdi’s head and fluffed the anemones underneath it.
“Desiderio’s staying here. He’ll be in charge in my absence, with Fossegrim as his advisor,” she continued. “I’m glad I’m leaving the realm in such good hands. Yaz is coming with us. Astrid’s meeting us there with two of the talismans. I hope.”
She took Mahdi’s hand in hers. “They’re so brave, all of them, so tough, so smart. But this thing—Abbadon—it’s made of immortal souls. How are we supposed to destroy what the gods have made immortal? Vrăja gave us this task; she believes we can carry it out…but how? Am I leading one hundred thousand soldiers into a justified battle, or straight to their destruction?” She smiled sadly. “I wish you could tell me.”
Sera sat for quite some time, saying nothing, just holding Mahdi’s hand and gazing at his face. “I have to go,” she finally said. “We leave at dawn. I have no idea how I’m going to sleep tonight, but I guess I should try. Before I go, I have to tell you something. I—I don’t know if I’m coming back. I don’t know if you’ll be here if I do. All I know is that I love you, Mahdi, with all my heart. You were ready to give your life for mine. Maybe you already have. But you are my life. Remember when we Promised ourselves to each other? Maria said something, right before the ceremony.” She leaned over and kissed his lips. “I believed her then. I still do. Love is the strongest magic.”
She touched her forehead to his, then quickly left.
She didn’t look back. It was easier that way.
If she had, she would have seen it.
A single silver tear rolling down Mahdi’s cheek.
CLIO TOSSED HER HEAD and thrashed her long serpent’s tail. She didn’t like canyons.
“Easy, girl,” Sera said. She’d been reunited with her hippokamp after the Black Fin invasion. A death rider captain had taken a liking to her, and had taken good care of her.
Krill Canyon, in the Haakon Basin, rose steeply on both sides. At its far end, a sheer bluff soared high into the water. Rocks and boulders obscured its base. Anything could be hiding in them.
Sera and her troops had been traveling to the Southern Sea for five weeks now and not making the kind of progress she’d hoped for. They’d been battling the cold, which stiffened joints, snapped harnesses, jammed weapons, and sickened soldiers. A few had succumbed and had been buried along the way. They were also going through food stores faster than they’d planned, which meant that part of every day was spent foraging and hunting instead of swimming or marching.
There were other threats to be dealt with as well. They’d encountered a clan of Fryst on the Scotia Ridge, who’d menaced them at first, but then decided to join them when Sera told their leader where they were headed and why. They’d also run into several EisGeists. The creatures had regarded them hungrily, but had moved off, obviously intimidated by their numbers. As Becca had predicted, skavveners trailed them constantly.
As dangerous as all those creatures were, Sera was much more worried about Orfeo and Lucia. Orfeo knew where she was headed. And Lucia could have easily found out. Either could be waiting in ambush.
The decision to go through Krill Canyon had been made to save time. It was a direct route out of the Haakon Basin and into the Weddell Plain. Like Clio, Sera didn’t relish swimming through it. Normally, she swam over canyons, but a large chunk of her army was goblin, and goblins walked. They could swim, but weren’t much better at it than the goggs were.
“Whoa, Clio,” Sera said now, halting the hippokamp. She raised a hand to stop the long column of troops behind her.
Turning to Ava, who was riding next to her on a gentle, biddable mount, she said, “Aves, do you feel anything?”
Ava concentrated. She was about to shake her head, but stopped.
“What is it?” Sera asked, her fins prickling.
Ava frowned. “Nothing, I think. A shoal, maybe. And a pod of whales.”
“Any mer?” Sera asked.
“I—I can’t tell. The whales are jamming me,” Ava said.
Sera knew that whales could enhance mer magic, and could make a mess of it, too.
“The sooner we get out of this canyon and past that bluff, the better,” Sera muttered. She was about to nudge Clio on when a figure appeared on the eastern rise.
It was a mermaid. She was carrying a staff.
“Weapons raised!” Sera shouted. Instantly, crossbows and spearguns were aimed.
The mermaid cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, you jackwrasses! Put those weapons down! You’re scaring the kitties!”
A hundred giant catfish swam up to the edge of the rise, fanning out along it. They wore chain mail made of flattened soda cans and helmets fashioned from shiny silver hubcaps.
“No way,” Neela said.
Sera grinned. “Lena!” she shouted back at the mermaid. “Is that you?”
“Who else would it be?” the mermaid shouted back. “Didn’t want to come. Can’t stand you, to be honest. But I didn’t see much of a choice. Word’s traveling about the thing under the ice. Seems to me like you need all the help you can get. As I recall, you couldn’t even swim down a river without bringing a world of trouble with you. Not sure I’ve ever met three bigger fools.”
Lena, Sera recalled, was not exactly a diplomat.
“Wow, she hasn’t changed a bit,” Ling said. “Still as charming as ever.”
“Lena, come down! We definitely need all the help we can get!” Sera shouted.
Lena, a freshwater mermaid from the Dunarea River, had hidden Sera, Neela, and Ling from Traho and the death riders when the merls were on their way to the Iele’s cave. She’d saved their lives. She swooped down into the canyon now, followed by her catfish. Sera saw that the staff she was carrying was a hockey stick—the same one she’d threatened them with when they tried to cross her patch of river. Her bright red hair was just visible under her horseshoe crab helmet, and she wore the same soda can chain mail as her catfish.
“It’s so good to see you,” Sera said, embracing the prickly mermaid. “Thank you for joining us.
Lena winced and thumped Sera on the back. Ling and Neela hugged her, too. Then Sera introduced her to Becca, Ava, Yazeed, Garstig, and Rök, all of whom rode at the front of the troops.
“We should get going,” Yazeed said when the introductions were over. “This canyon is not a good place to hang out.”
“Well, you might want to wait a minute,” Lena cautioned.
“Why?” Sera asked.
“There’s a crew coming up behind me. Been following the same current I was on, but they veered farther west. Probably come out up there,” Lena said, pointing at the bluff. “I hid the kitties in a trench one night and doubled back to spy on them. Fierce-looking bunch. Numbering about a thousand, I’d say. Got about twenty whales with them, too.”
“Friend or foe?” Sera asked, alarmed.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Lena said. “Their leader, though? She looks like she’d eat you for breakfast.”
“I’m still not getting anything. It’s got to be the whales,” said Ava, who’d been trying to use her inner vision to see who might be approaching. “I can’t see who it is.”
“I have a feeling I know who it is,” Ling said darkly. “Lucia.”
“WE CAN DEFEAT HER,” Becca said. “She’s got one thou
sand; we’ve got a hundred thousand.”
“She doesn’t want to engage us. She wants Sera,” Yazeed said grimly. “She’s probably waiting by the bluff with snipers, hoping to get a clean shot. I’m going to send two scouts ahead. I’ll have them cast transparensea pearls. They can tell us where she’s positioned.”
He was just about to summon the scouts when the waters overhead darkened. It was as if the day had suddenly turned to night.
Humpback whales, each as big as a fishing boat, had clustered overhead. They were singing.
“She didn’t wait for us to reach the bluffs,” Becca said. “She’s going to attack from above.”
Yazeed called for weapons to be readied again. “Sera, get down off Clio,” he ordered. “Take cover behind Alítheia.”
Sera remembered how brave her mother had been during the invasion of Cerulea, even after she’d been shot. She’d ripped the arrow out of her side, and then dared her attacker to finish his work.
“No, Yaz, I won’t turn tail,” Sera said. “Lucia’s nothing but a cowardly assassin, just like her father. I’ll fight, together with everyone else.”
The whalesong grew louder and more urgent. And then a new sound rose above their music, a war cry, shrill and bloodcurdling.
“Take aim!” Yazeed ordered.
“No, Yazeed! Wait!” Neela cried. “Don’t shoot!”
And then to everyone’s surprise, Neela answered the war cry with one of her own.
A chorus of victory whoops floated down to the Black Fins. And then a figure, strong and regal, swam down under the whales. Her fins spiked out around her like a lionfish’s. She was surrounded by a cadre of warriors, their powerful bodies decorated with coral armbands and beaded breastplates.
“Kora!” Neela shouted. She raced up to meet the warrior princess. “Salamu kubwa, Malkia!” she called out in Kandinian mer. Greetings, great queen!
The two mermaids embraced. Then Kora put Neela in a headlock—a Kandinian sign of affection. Neela greeted Kora’s guard—the Askari—and then escorted them down to meet Sera and the others.
“Serafina, Regina di Miromara, may I present Kora, the Malkia of Kandina,” she said.
The two queens bowed to each other. “I, my Askari, and warriors from across my realm have come to fight with our sister Askara,” Kora said, nodding at Neela. “She helped free my people from a terrible prison camp. We will now put an end to the one behind such an evil, and his monster, too. We will swim with you to the Carceron.”
Ling elbowed Neela. “Sister Askara, huh?” she said, under her breath. “Whoa.”
“Neels, you’re a badwrasse!” Becca whispered. “Who knew?”
“Everybody but you two, apparently,” Neela replied airily.
“Malkia Kora, the Black Fins and I are honored to have you and your fighters at our side. Thank you for joining us,” said Sera.
“Ceto Rorqual, a mighty humpback, and his clan will join you, too,” Kora said.
“Humpbacks? Will they be all right in Antarctic waters?” Sera asked, concerned.
“The Rorqual have very strong magic. They can insulate themselves against the cold.”
Sera called a greeting and a thank-you to Ceto. He acknowledged her with a swipe of his mighty tail.
“There are more, Regina,” Kora said.
“More whales?” Sera asked, confused.
“More fighters.”
“From Kandina…” Sera said.
Kora shook her head, smiling. “From everywhere. We saw a cloud of silt rising behind us. Two Askari swam back to investigate. The cloud was raised by a horde of mer, goblins, seaweed trolls, and sand trolls. They’re all coming to fight with you. To save their home from Abbadon.”
A lump rose in Sera’s throat. When she could speak again, she said, “We’d better get out of this canyon, then. So we can make camp for the night and give the newcomers something to eat.”
Sera gave the signal, and the Black Fins started moving again. Kora and her fighters fell in with them. She and Yazeed started to talk. Lena swam alongside, shy and awkward, but fiercely loyal, too.
Sera looked at them, deeply touched that Lena and Kora had joined the Black Fins, and that more fighters were on the way. The knowledge heartened her, but it also deepened the dread gnawing at her.
Ling picked up on it. “Hey, Sera, what’s wrong?” she asked, pulling next to her on her own hippokamp.
“We’re going to reach the Carceron soon, and I still have no idea how to defeat Abbadon.”
Ling frowned. “You know, you had a serious confidence issue when I first met you. On our way to the River Olt. I thought you’d gotten over it, but maybe not.”
“Confidence issue?” Sera sputtered. “Ling, Abbadon isn’t, like, a self-esteem problem. It’s a big, bad, vicious, bloodthirsty monster with twenty hands!”
“Vrăja summoned us for a reason. She believed we’d find a way to do this. Together,” Ling said. “You have to believe that, too, Sera. It’s not all on you to defeat Abbadon. It’s on us.”
Sera nodded. She took Ling’s hand and squeezed it. There had to be a way to defeat the monster. To spare Ling, and all these brave, trusting fighters from certain death. Sera desperately hoped they could figure it out.
Before it was too late.
THE STORM THAT RAGED across the Weddell Plain was like a vengeful spirit. Swirling deepwater vortexes, caused by warring warm and cold currents, howled down savagely on the Black Fins, threatening to throw them off course. Sediment whirled in the water, making it hard to see.
Sera, a scarf wrapped around her head, led a frightened Clio by her reins. It was impossible to ride in this weather. She squinted into the churning waters, trying to see more than a few yards ahead.
“Yaz!” she shouted. “How much farther?”
He was right next to her, cupping his compass with both hands. “We should be there by now!” he shouted back.
Another monster vortex rolled over them then, shrieking so loudly it drowned out all other sounds. Clio reared, and it was all Sera could do to hold on to the terrified creature. Just when she thought Clio would yank her arms out of their sockets, the vortex passed. As it did, the waters behind it settled a bit. Sera heard Yaz yelling her name.
“Look!” He was pointing ahead.
Sera turned her head and saw a steep, craggy black mountain looming in the distance.
“Bleak Mount! Two leagues away! Come on!” Yazeed shouted, right before another vortex slammed down on them.
The Black Fins struggled on for another hour before the storm let up. When the waters finally calmed, they found they were on flat ground, and at the base of Bleak Mount.
Sera wiped the silt out her eyes and peered ahead through the murky sea. Looming up at them was a forbidding prison of stone and ice—the Carceron.
“We’re here,” Sera said, her voice ragged. “At last.”
Before Yazeed could say anything, Garstig caught up with them. “We’ve got to make camp now,” he said. “The troops are exhausted. We lost animals in the storms. If we don’t shelter, and fast, we’ll lose soldiers.”
Sera gave the order to put up the tents, but she insisted that they be pitched well back from the Carceron. As her troops got busy unpacking, she started toward the prison. Becca, Neela, Ling, and Ava went with her.
Sera pulled her seal fur parka tightly around her as she swam. Her face was gaunt; there were dark circles under eyes. Hunger had been the Black Fins’ constant companion on the trek to the Southern Sea. It had taken them nine weeks to reach the prison, much longer than she’d anticipated. Now that they’d arrived, she didn’t know whether it was smarter to order her troops to make camp or to tell them to turn around and swim for their lives.
The mere sight of the place raised the scales on the back of her tail, and the thought of what was inside it made her stomach tighten with fear.
Ice had crusted over the Carceron’s heavy stones centuries ago. They gleamed a dull, pearly gray in the hal
f-light. It glazed the iron bars of its soaring gate and encased its massive lock.
Ten yards from the gates, the mermaids stopped. Neela cast an illuminata. Its glow was weak. Little light reached the Southern Sea’s depths.
“It’s quiet. Too quiet. I wonder if it knows we’re here,” Ling said.
“I’m going to call it,” Sera said, drawing her sword. “I want to lay eyes on it again. See if we can find any weaknesses.”
Becca, Ling, and Neela drew their swords, ready to rush to her defense.
“Abbadon!” Sera called out, as she approached the gate. “Abbadon, come out!”
She tensed, adrenaline racing through her body, ready for the monster to throw itself against the bars. It would growl and shriek. It would reach through the bars with its terrible hands. It would try to kill her.
Except it didn’t.
Cautiously, Sera swam up to the gate and peered through. From her studies of ancient Atlantean history she knew that there was open space between the prison’s dizzingly high outer wall and its inner wall, which enclosed the cellblocks. She fully expected the monster to be lurking in it.
But it wasn’t.
Sera swung the flat of her sword against the gate’s bars. Ice cracked and fell away, the sound echoing through the water. She did it again and again until almost all the ice was off.
“Sera, be careful!” Neela shouted. “It could be a trap. Abbadon might be trying to lure you close.”
“Ava, what do you see?” Sera called out.
Ava lowered her head, as if concentrating. If anyone could sense where the monster was, and what it was doing, it would be her.
After a moment, Ava raised her head. With Ling’s help, she swam over to Sera. Neela and Becca were right behind them.
“It’s not a trap,” she said. “The monster’s not here.”
“Not here? You mean, not in the prison?” Becca said, incredulous.
“No, not by the gates,” Ava replied. “It’s in the prison, all right. Deep inside. Hiding. Waiting. It knows we’re here, but for some reason, it doesn’t want to fight us,” she said. “Not yet, at least.”
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