He took her face in his hands and kissed her so passionately, with such longing, that it made her tail fins curl. Then he held her close, his forehead touching hers.
“I can’t stay long,” he whispered. “There’s a party going on, and I was able to sneak away, but I have to get back before I’m missed.”
“How did you get out of the palace?” she asked.
“A transparensea pearl and a window. I’ve got another pearl to get me back in. Listen, Sera, before I go, there are things I need to tell you,” he said. “Something’s afin. Something big.”
“What is it?” Sera asked, breaking their embrace.
“I wish I knew,” Mahdi replied. “But Vallerio and Traho are spending a lot of time behind closed doors with a merman named Baco Goga. They’re plotting something, I’m sure of it.”
Sera’s fins prickled. “Baco’s bad news. He’s the one who sold us—Neela and me—to Traho.”
“I think he’s a spy. But I don’t know who he’s spying on.”
“Not us. We would have seen him.”
Mahdi looked unconvinced. “Keep your eyes peeled for him. Tell the others to do the same.”
“I will,” Sera said.
“There’s more. Portia Volnero’s about to leave for Ondalina. It’s Vallerio’s next target. And then there’s Lucia. I pay one of her ladies-in-waiting to keep an eye out for me. She told me Lucia’s been sneaking out of the palace at night, but she doesn’t know where she goes.”
“It can’t be good,” Sera said grimly.
“I’ll pass on any info that I learn,” Mahdi said.
“How?” Sera asked. “Your groom won’t be able to get to us anymore. We’ll be too far away from each other.”
“There’s a farmer. Her name’s Allegra. She delivers produce to the palace kitchens. She has a network of family between Miromara and the North Sea. They’re willing to pass conchs back and forth between us.”
Sera took his hand and squeezed it. “That’s good news,” she said, pleased at the thought of being able to stay in touch with him somehow. She hated that they never had time to talk about all the silly things two mer in love talked about, but the exchange of information crucial to the resistance was what mattered—not the way the moonglow glinted in his amazing eyes or how the dark waters seemed to deepen the blue of his tail. Maybe one day, when all of this was behind them, there would be time for that.
As Mahdi took her other hand, Sera thought of something else she needed to know.
“Have you heard anything from Duca Armando’s son?” she asked. “The palazzo’s empty. And no one can find him.”
“No, I don’t know where he is. The Praedatori have scattered. Vallerio has branded them traitors; he wants their heads.”
“Make sure my uncle doesn’t brand you a traitor, Mahdi. I worry about you so much. Be careful. Promise me you will.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. You’re in a lot more danger than I am.”
Sera shook her head. “I’m surrounded by friends and fellow fighters,” she said. “You’re surrounded by cold-blooded killers. If they ever find out where your loyalties really lie…”
“They won’t,” Mahdi said. “I’ve won them over.”
“You do have irresistible charm,” Sera teased, smiling.
He pulled her close and kissed her one last time. “I’ve got to go,” he whispered.
Sera nodded and released him. “Good-bye, Mahdi,” she said. Tears blurred her vision. She hastily wiped them away. Reginas didn’t cry. Not for themselves.
“Good-bye, Sera. Please stay safe,” he said. “You have my heart and my soul. You are my heart and soul. Never forget that.”
Sera watched him swim back into the orchard and fade into the trees. And then he was gone.
“Will I ever see him again?” she whispered to the ancient trees. “Will I ever return to Miromara?”
She took a deep breath, pulling the waters of home deep into her lungs, imprinting the scent of water apples, the glow of the moon, and the warmth of Mahdi’s touch in her heart, where she would keep them always. No matter what happened.
Then she turned away and began the long journey north.
MASSIVE IRON GATES, twenty feet high and encrusted with ice, protected the passages that led to the Citadel’s interior.
Astrid, swimming fast, approached the entrance now. In the glow of the large lava globe that hung above it, she could see two creatures, both nearly as tall as the gates. They looked like ice come to life. Their bodies and limbs were as solid as a glacier. Their long hair and the beards on their broad faces were like the spikes of an icefall. Pale blue light glowed in their eyes.
They were members of the Fryst, a clan of giant ice trolls. Their kind had protected the Citadel ever since it was built.
As Astrid neared them, the Fryst advanced menacingly. One raised a club made of a boulder lashed to ship’s timbers. Then he recognized Astrid and called out a greeting. The trolls’ language was all groans and creaks—the sound pack ice makes as it moves over the sea. Astrid called back and the Fryst waved her through.
She continued on, speeding through labyrinthine passageways, past the modest dwellings of the Citadel’s poorer citizens, the graceful mansions of its more prosperous ones, and the palaces of the military elite until she finally arrived at the towering admiral’s palace.
Soldiers nodded solemnly to her as she entered the palace and sped to the west wing, which contained offices on its top level, dungeons in the bottom, and a private hospital. When she reached the hospital’s spacious foyer, she spotted Kolfinn’s doctor. Together they swam to Kolfinn’s room.
“Your father is not the merman he once was,” the doctor cautioned as he led her through the hospital corridors. “The poison has ravaged his system.”
“Why haven’t you stopped it?” Astrid asked angrily.
“We’ve tried. We’ve given him every antidote we know, but nothing’s worked. The poison may be a new formulation. Or he may be unusually susceptible to it.”
The doctor stopped at a chamber flanked by guards. He put his hand on the knob.
“Prepare yourself, Astrid,” he said as he opened the door.
Astrid thought she had, but nothing could have readied her for the sight that greeted her. Kolfinn’s body was wasted, his face now just thin, sallow skin stretched over a skull. His hair was stringy and dull.
Where was her strong father, with his powerful black-and-white tail; his riveting ice-blue eyes; his long, thick locks, the color of the winter sun? Where was Ondalina’s fierce admiral with his black tattoos—the mark of his rank—circling his thickly muscled arms?
He was dying, Eyvör said. But he couldn’t be. He was the admiral. He’d kept Ondalina safe for two decades. He’d kept her safe. It was hard enough being a mermaid who couldn’t sing with a powerful father to protect her. What would her life be like without him?
Kolfinn was propped up in his bed, his eyes closed. As Astrid’s gaze swept over him, it came to rest on three jagged stripes across his chest. Scars inflicted by a mother polar bear.
Astrid remembered all too well how he got them. As a child, she had once strayed too close to a pair of cubs on an ice floe. She could still hear the mother’s roar, see her bared teeth, as the animal charged straight at her. Having no magic to call on, Astrid hadn’t been able to defend herself. She couldn’t cast so much as a camo spell.
Then there had been a black-and-white blur in the water, and Kolfinn emerged, spear in his hands. When he put himself between Astrid and the bear, the creature swiped her mark into his flesh with her claws. Kolfinn didn’t kill her, though he could have. She was a mother protecting her young, like he was doing. He’d just driven her off and scooped up a sobbing Astrid.
He still protected her now. From whispers and glances. Laughter. Cruel remarks. It was how he showed his love. Astrid loved him, too, though she sometimes feared him and often disappointed him.
The doctor left, to give
them privacy, and closed the door behind him. Astrid leaned against it, hands behind her back, afraid to move or speak, afraid to make the specter she saw before her real.
Kolfinn opened his eyes. “Astrid?” he said weakly. “Come closer.” He patted the edge of his bed. She put down her pack and sword and swam over to him. “I’m glad you’re home,” Kolfinn said. “We need to talk. I haven’t got much longer.”
Sorrow, as swift and lethal as a spear, pierced Astrid’s heart. “Kolfinn, no. You’ll get better,” she said, her voice breaking.
Displeasure surfaced in her father’s eyes like an orca’s fin knifing through water. “I expect better of you, Astrid,” he admonished. “Soft displays are for our southern cousins. We of the northern seas have no use for such foolishness.”
Astrid nodded. She swallowed her tears.
“When I die, Ragnar will become admiral, as you know. Rylka, whom I’ve appointed acting admiral, will oversee the transition.”
Ragnar was Astrid’s brother. He was twenty, older than Astrid by three years. Rylka, the realm’s commodora, was officially in charge of the realm’s military. Unofficially, she was Ondalina’s spymaster. Nothing happened anywhere in the realm without Rylka getting word of it.
“Why does Ragnar need Rylka? He’s strong,” Astrid said. “He’ll make a good admiral.”
“He is strong, but he’s inexperienced. Rylka will guide him,” Kolfinn said. “I’m fearful both for Ragnar’s ascension and for the security of the realm. We’re on the verge of war with Miromara.”
Astrid’s stomach lurched at that. “War? Why?”
“The Miromarans have been trying to kill me. Shortly, they’ll succeed,” he said wryly. “What’s more, Vallerio has accused Ondalina of invading Cerulea and killing Isabella, Bastiaan, and Serafina. He’s wrong, of course, but we can’t convince him otherwise. He’s taken over Matali and he’ll have that realm’s military might behind him if he attacks us. We can’t hope to fight off a force of that size.”
It’s time to tell him where I’ve been and what I’ve learned, Astrid thought, shoring up her nerve. She took a deep breath, then plunged in.
“Kolfinn, you’ll never convince Vallerio. Because he’s not wrong, he’s lying. Serafina’s not dead. Isabella and Bastiaan are, and he’s the one who killed them.”
Kolfinn paled, obviously alarmed by this news. “How do you know that?”
“Serafina told me.”
Kolfinn’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been with Serafina? I thought you went hunting.”
Astrid nodded guiltily. “I did. Sort of. But, um, for answers instead of animals.”
She told him everything that had happened—from the first time Vrăja had summoned her, to fighting Abbadon in the Iele’s caves, to her trip through Atlantica with Becca.
When she finished, Kolfinn, who’d sat forward so he could hear her every word, flopped back against his pillow, stunned.
“Astrid, I find all this almost impossible to believe,” he said.
“I don’t blame you,” she said. Then she touched her fingers to her chest, to the place over her heart, and pulled a bloodsong. It showed her and the five other mermaids fighting Abbadon. She pulled another that showed Sera during the convoca, telling Astrid and Becca about Vallerio’s treachery.
As the blood faded into the water, Kolfinn’s expression hardened. “Vallerio murdered his own sister,” he said. “The danger we face is even greater than I thought. A merman capable of such an act is capable of anything.”
“Kolfinn, the Iele summoned me to help fight Abbadon,” Astrid said. “Sera and the others have asked me to join them.” She hesitated, working up her courage, then said, “I want to go.”
Kolfinn shook his head. “Absolutely not. It’s far too dangerous. I forbid it.”
“But they need my help! They can’t fight Abbadon without me!”
“A monster in a cage on the other side of the world troubles me less than the monster in Miromara,” Kolfinn said. “And what good would you be to those other mermaids? You can’t songcast.”
His blunt words cut her, but Astrid pressed on. “There’s something else I need to tell you….I can make magic again.”
Kolfinn’s eyes widened. “You can? How? When did this happen?”
Astrid didn’t reply. Instead, she pulled the whalebone pipe out of her backpack. Taking a deep breath, she played a canta prax spell and mottled the room in shades of purple.
“See?” she said excitedly, expecting her father to be pleased.
But he wasn’t. Far from it. Scorn thinned his lips.
“A pipe?” he said. “Pipes are for children. No admiral’s daughter is going to be seen casting songspells with a pipe.”
Astrid shrank under his disdainful tone. She tried to protest, but he spoke over her.
“Do you understand what’s at stake? Nothing less than the survival of our realm. An envoy is en route from Miromara to Ondalina as we speak, led by Portia Volnero. Miromara calls us aggressors and demands our surrender. Portia will offer us terms. If we refuse, she’ll declare war. All we have for a bargaining chip is Desiderio and his soldiers. They were captured—”
“Eyvör told me,” Astrid said, to save him the explanation.
“Rylka wanted to execute him, but I stopped her,” he continued. “He’s only valuable to us alive.”
He tried to sit forward again. Astrid could see that he was racked by pain. How did it happen? she wondered for the hundredth time. How did an assassin get close enough to him to poison his food?
“Lie still, Kolfinn,” she said anxiously. “You’re using up your strength.”
“I can’t lie still!” Kolfinn shouted.
Astrid heard the desperate anger of a dying merman in his voice and it terrified her.
“I have to put things in order,” he insisted. “I have to keep you and Ragnar safe. I doubt I’ll be alive to meet with Portia. Ragnar will be the one to do it. I must ensure his success. You need to do your part, too. There will be challenges to your brother’s authority from outside Ondalina. There can be no challenges within it.”
Astrid understood what her father was saying. “You mean my secret can’t get out,” she said bitterly.
“If our enemies learn that you can’t songcast, they may think your disability was inherited and that Ragnar’s magic is also compromised. I’ve instructed Rylka to punish any who speak of it. I wish to the gods you had not told that mermaid—Becca—your secret. She may tell others.”
“Are you that ashamed of me?” Astrid asked, her head bowed, her voice barely a whisper.
Kolfinn winced. Pain filled his eyes. “I’m that afraid for you, Astrid,” he replied. “Your disability is a sign of weakness, and weakness can’t be tolerated—not in a member of the ruling family. You know how precarious our lives are. Never more so than now, with Miromara circling. Survival is what matters. And in Ondalina, only the strong survive.”
A heavy silence descended. Astrid, her jaw clenched, rose from the bed and swam across the room to the window. She was hurt and angry, but another emotion was rising in her, too—defiance.
He only sees what I’m not, not what I am, she thought. I’m not weak, I’m strong. Stronger than he knows. And the future of this realm might depend on me in ways he doesn’t know.
Kolfinn was the first to speak. In a conciliatory tone, he said, “You’ll be safe after I’m gone. I’ve made sure of it. Commodora Rylka, always loyal to me, has offered her son Tauno in marriage.”
Astrid, lost in her thoughts, didn’t take in his meaning. She turned back to him and asked, “Why? To form an alliance with another realm? Who’d Rylka find to marry that lumpsucker? Some poor fool from Atlantica?”
Kolfinn’s eyes darkened. They locked once more on his daughter’s.
“No, Astrid. You.”
ASTRID WAS SPEECHLESS. She tried to talk, but had no breath. It was as if she’d had the water knocked out of her.
Kolfinn took her silence for acq
uiescence.
“There will be an official Promising tomorrow, and then the marriage contract will be signed. I want everything taken care of before I die.”
Astrid’s breath came rushing back. “No!” she shouted. “I won’t do it!”
“Astrid—”
“I’m only seventeen! I don’t want to get married to anyone! Especially not to Tauno!”
“Why not? He’s a good leader. A strong merman. He’ll protect you.”
“He’s a barracuda! He beats his hippokamps. I’ve seen him! And…and…”
Kolfinn raised an eyebrow. “And what?”
“He’s stupid! He never paid attention in class. He sat in the back with his dumb friends and shot iceballs at everyone,” said Astrid.
“That was years ago,” said Kolfinn dismissively. “I’m sure he’s grown up since then.”
“I won’t do it,” Astrid declared. “Better udstødt than married to Tauno.”
Udstødt were Ondalina’s outcast. Their numbers were made up of criminals and loners. They lived in the southernmost part of the realm, in broken off pieces of icebergs.
“It’s your duty to marry. You know that,” Kolfinn said. “If something happened to your brother, or the sons he’ll someday have, your future sons would rule Ondalina.” He shook his head. “You’ve spent too much time in southern waters. That explains your ridiculous behavior. Värme gör oss dumma,” he said, in Ondalinian mer.
Astrid knew the expression. All Ondalinians did. Heat makes us stupid.
“I’m not marrying Tauno,” Astrid insisted. “You can’t—”
Kolfinn cut her off. “Good gods, child! Are you actually going to make me say it?” he thundered.
“Say what?” Astrid thundered back.
“You have no choice! Tauno’s the only one who wants you!”
Astrid felt as if she’d been slapped. She floated perfectly still, utterly humiliated.
“Who wants a mermaid without magic?” Kolfinn continued. “Who, in these waters, would risk having children who couldn’t songcast? How would such children defend themselves? How would they contribute to our society?”
“You’re wrong, Kolfinn,” Astrid said defiantly, thinking of Becca and Sera. “My friends want me.”
Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel Page 11