“Look out, Astrid!” Rylka shouted, her eyes on the vial.
Astrid followed her gaze and saw that what she thought was a vial was actually a poisonous sea krait writhing in her fist. It bared its fangs. Instinctively, Astrid dropped the venomous creature before it could strike.
She realized too late that it was only an illusio spell. Rylka had enchanted the vial so it would look like a deadly snake to anyone who snatched it from her. Astrid lunged for the vial, taking her attention off Tauno for a split second. Which was all he needed.
A seasoned fighter, Tauno twisted his powerful tail around and slammed it into Astrid’s back, knocking the sword out of her hand. Before she’d even recovered from the blow he’d grabbed her arms. She tried to break free, but Tauno shook her so hard, he dazed her.
“Good work, Tauno!” Rylka said. “Keep her there. I’m going to fetch a guard.”
“But she’ll tell them what she heard!” Tauno protested. “She’ll tell them you poisoned Kolfinn.”
“She won’t get the chance. She just said she was with her father. I’ll tell the guards that we saw her come out of his room with something in her hand. We were suspicious, so we followed her and asked what it was. She refused to show it to us. She tried to put it in her satchel, but dropped it instead. I grabbed it and knew immediately that it was poison.”
“No!” Astrid shouted, trying to shake Tauno off.
Rylka smiled her cold killer’s smile. “I’ll have to admit I was wrong. How I hate that,” she said. “It wasn’t a Miromaran assassin who poisoned Kolfinn. It was his own daughter. She fed him the Medusa venom weeks ago, but didn’t give him enough to kill him. So tonight she tried to finish the job.”
Rylka picked up the vial. As she started down the hall, bellowing for Kolfinn’s guards, Astrid once again tried to break free.
“Stop it or I’ll break your arms,” Tauno threatened.
Astrid knew she had to escape. She had to get to her father. If Rylka succeeded with her lie, the guards would lock Astrid up. And then Rylka would be free to administer the fatal dose. But Tauno’s grip was brutal. Astrid felt like she was caught in a polar bear’s jaws.
A polar bear.
Astrid heard her father’s voice in her head. She was a child again and he was soothing her after he’d rescued her from the mother bear.
If a bear ever gets hold of you, don’t struggle, Astrid. Go limp in its jaws. Make it think you’re dead. It’ll stop shaking you and relax its grip. When it does, you’ve got a weapon: surprise. Use it.
If surprise works on a polar bear, it’ll work on Tauno, Astrid thought. He’s ten times stupider.
Astrid went limp. She hung her head and pretended to cry. Tauno, used to bullying mer into submission, must’ve figured she’d given up. He relaxed his grip.
An instant later, using Tauno’s arms for leverage, Astrid pushed off the floor with her strong tail, flipped up and over in the water, and brought her tail fins crashing down on his head.
Tauno gave a surprised grunt of pain. He let go of her. Astrid shot off down the hallway.
He bellowed for Rylka. After a few seconds, she rejoined him and they both chased after Astrid. Within moments, they’d gained on her.
“Tackle her, Tauno, and make sure she doesn’t get up again!” Rylka shouted.
Astrid put on a desperate burst of speed. Up ahead, only about ten yards away, the hallway split into three. The center part continued on to her family’s apartments. The tunnel to the left led to the Hall of Justice, and the one on the right led to the dungeons. Two soldiers were stationed at the fork.
“Guards! Stop her!” Rylka shouted. “She tried to murder the admiral! Stop her!”
The guards snapped into action. They blocked the center passage, obviously thinking Astrid would make for home. She knew she had only one chance to evade capture. She feinted left. Both guards moved to intercept her. A split second later, she swerved sharply to the right and swam down the passageway to the dungeons, her black-and-white tail a blur in the water. Astrid, fit and swift from her trip to the River Olt, spiraled through the hallway at a dizzying speed, putting distance between herself and her pursuers.
Her heart was pounding. Her muscles were straining. Her lungs were working to pull water in and push it out again, giving her the oxygen she needed to keep moving.
She didn’t know what she would do when she got to the dungeons. All she knew was that she was swimming.
For her life.
And her father’s.
THE PASSAGEWAY to Ondalina’s dungeons plunged deep into the base of the Citadel.
The waters grew colder. The ice became dark and opaque. There were few lava globes to light Astrid’s way; they were too costly to be squandered on prisoners.
Astrid hoped to lose her pursuers in the dungeons’ mazelike tunnels. She and Ragnar used to swim down here on dares when they were little. They never got farther than the gate—the guard wouldn’t let them through it. She’d looked through the bars, though, and knew that the single passageway split just beyond them. She’d been told that countless smaller corridors—all lined with cells—snaked off the main passageways and there was an exit at the other end of the dungeons. With any luck, she could reach it before Rylka and Tauno caught up to her.
But first she had to get past the guard.
She saw him now as she rounded a curve. He was sitting in a small office to the left of the gate, listening to a conch. He rose at Astrid’s approach and swam out to meet her.
Astrid said the first thing that popped into her frantic mind. “I’m here to inspect the dungeons. On my father’s—Admiral Kolfinn’s—orders. I’ve just come from his bedside. Rumors of a breakout are circling through the Citadel. One of the prisoners has threatened the admiral’s life.”
The urgency in her voice was real, even if her words were a lie. The guard heard it, but he was uncertain about Astrid’s request. She could see it in his face.
“I haven’t heard any rumors,” he said.
“You need to open the gate and let me in,” Astrid said calmly. “Right now.”
Voices echoed down the passageway. Terror clutched at Astrid’s heart. She kept it hidden.
“That’s the commodora,” she said. “She’s right behind me. Perhaps you’d like to explain to her your refusal to follow the admiral’s orders?”
The guard blanched, clearly unwilling to cross Rylka. He fumbled for the large iron ring dangling from his belt, then inserted a long skeleton key into the gate’s lock.
Astrid’s heart was beating so hard now, she could barely breathe. She heard fins beating the water, and then Tauno came hurtling around the curve with Rylka right behind him.
“You there, stop her! That’s an order!” Rylka shouted.
They were only yards away. Astrid had a heartbeat in which to get her next move right.
As the guard pulled the key out of the lock, she struck. Whipping her powerful tail around, she caught him broadside. The impact sent him sprawling into the wall. He hit it hard, then sank to the floor with a groan, dropping the key ring.
Astrid snatched it up and was through the doorway in a flash. “I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled the gate closed. She jammed the key into the lock and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge. A whimper of fear escaped her. “Come on…come on…” she pleaded.
She wriggled the key and tried again, and this time it turned. Just as the lock’s bolt shot home, Tauno slammed into the gate. He thrust an arm through the bars.
He can’t get the key ring! Astrid yanked the key out of the lock with her right hand and tossed it behind her. Tauno swore and grabbed her left arm, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“I’ve got her, Rylka! Find another key!” he bellowed.
Rylka swam into the guards’ office and proceeded to ransack it.
Tauno thrust his other arm through the bars, trying to get a better grip on her. His body was pressed up against the bars. His face was jammed between two
of them.
Astrid saw her chance and took it. She cocked her arm, then drove the heel of her hand though the gap in the bars, straight into Tauno’s nose. He let go of her and fell backward, blood gushing from his nostrils.
Astrid grabbed the key ring and swam flat out. Dead ahead, the tunnel split into three, as the one in the Hall of Elders did. Speeding down the middle passage, she barely registered that there were cell doors on either side of her or that there were prisoners behind them. She was focused on one thing only: getting out.
The tunnel got smaller. It veered left, then right. Astrid swam with arms over her head, palms together, to reduce drag. She rounded bend after bend, hoping each time that the exit would appear in front of her, but it didn’t. Her breath was coming harder; she was tiring. A sharp hairpin turn loomed in front of her. She rounded it, then stopped short, skidding through the water.
A guard—an elderly merman, stooped and shuffling—was a few yards ahead of her, pushing a cart that held a large black pot and two stacks of bowls. Luckily, his back was to her. Beyond him, maybe twenty yards away, was another gate, much like the one at the dungeons’ entrance. The exit, she was sure. One of the keys might open it. If only she could get there! But she feared there wasn’t enough room in the cramped tunnel to allow her to get past the guard. She would have to wait until he went inside a cell, then swoop by.
The guard unlocked a door now and pushed it open.
“Prisoner up!” he shouted.
Astrid heard a chain dragging. The guard slowly ladled slop into a bowl.
Come on! Hurry up! she silently urged him, nervously glancing back the way she’d come. She didn’t dare retrace her strokes—what if she swam straight into Rylka and Tauno? She flattened herself against the ceiling, ready to inch by the guard. Why was he taking so long?
Finally he put his ladle down. “Hands on your—” he started to yell. The rest of his command was drowned out by shouting. It was Rylka.
“Come out, Astrid Kolfinnsdottir! I have prison guards searching every tunnel!”
Astrid moved along the ceiling toward the gate as fast as she dared.
The guard turned and squinted down the tunnel. “What in the gods’ names is going on?” he asked cantankerously. He banged the bowl on his cart, then passed right underneath Astrid, missing her by only a scale’s breadth.
Astrid was about to try for the gate when Rylka shouted again, from much closer, just on the other side of the bend. Astrid was hopeful that one of the keys on the ring would open it, but which one? And how long would it take to try them all?
She didn’t have time to find out. If she allowed herself to be captured, her father would die. Moving swiftly, she ripped a walrus-tooth button off her vest, threw it down the hallway, and ducked into the open cell. Chest heaving, she swam up above the doorway and pressed herself against the wall.
A prisoner, his hands on his head, an iron collar around his neck, floated in the center of the cell. He looked at Astrid, surprise on his face. She held a finger to her lips, then mouthed one word: Please.
The prisoner dropped his gaze and looked straight ahead.
“You there!” Astrid heard Rylka call. “Have you seen the admiral’s daughter?”
“The admiral’s daughter?” the guard echoed, in a tone that suggested Rylka might be crazy. “Here in the dungeons? There’s no one down here but me and the prisoners!”
“She’s wanted for poisoning her father,” Rylka said, swimming into the cell. “If you see her, apprehend her immediately.”
My gods, if she looks up…Astrid thought, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Ah, it’s you,” Rylka said.
Despair engulfed Astrid. She opened her eyes. It was over. Her father would pay the price.
But as she looked down, she saw that Rylka was speaking to the prisoner, not her.
“You have no right to keep me here,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I have a right to counsel. To a trial. I have—”
Rylka cut him off. “There won’t be any trial. Not in your lifetime.”
She glanced at the bowl of food on the cart. “Don’t waste food on this one,” she told the elderly guard. “We don’t need him anymore, and Miromara doesn’t want him. There’s no reason to keep him alive.”
Another prison guard was floating near the doorway. “Commodora!” he said, holding something out to her. “We found this on the floor a few feet down the hallway.”
The walrus-tooth button.
Rylka scowled. “It’s hers,” she said. “She must have let herself out. Tauno, swim to the hospital in case she tries to get to her father. I’ll go through the gate and try to catch up with her. Out of my way, you stupid old fool,” she added, shoving the elderly guard.
The cell door slammed shut. The key turned in the lock. The guard moved off, pushing his food cart.
Astrid’s entire body was trembling. She sank through the dusky water until she was sitting on the floor, still clutching the key ring. The prisoner remained where he was.
The two looked at each other. Astrid took in the merman’s copper-colored hair, his emerald-green eyes. She’d never seen his face before, yet she knew it. It was the spitting image of his sister’s. But thinner and marked with bruises.
Neither Astrid nor the prisoner said a word until the guard had finished his rounds, wheeled his cart past the cell door, and made his way back down the winding corridor. When they could no longer hear him grumbling, the prisoner spoke.
“Quite a place, this Ondalina,” he said. “You must be Astrid. I’m Desiderio. Pleasure to meet you.”
LUCIA CAST A GLANCE around the VIP room of the Depth Charge, a nightclub in the heart of the Lagoon, near the terragogg city of Venice. It was empty except for herself and Mahdi. And that was exactly what she wanted.
Music blared from the next room. Throughout the club, bioluminescents—tiny shrimps, squids, and frilly jellies—filled the darkness with a bewitching blue light. Neon angelfish darted between the glowing creatures, their scales flashing pink, green, and orange.
Lucia, dressed in a clingy, low-cut purple gown, was perched on a long banquette made of three giant clams. The creatures inside the open shells, mottled bright blue and yellow, were so soft to sit on. Or sleep on. As Mahdi was doing now.
He was stretched out across the banquette, his head in Lucia’s lap, his tail fins hanging off the edge. Lucia stroked his lustrous black hair.
Most of the club kids had already left. Lucia’s courtiers remained, as did her personal guards. They would have to leave soon, too, before the waters lightened. It was much easier to sneak out of the palace—and back in again—with her mother en route to Ondalina and her father and Traho occupied with constant closed-door meetings. Still, Lucia didn’t want to be spotted by some gossipy minister or tattling noble.
The Lagoon was forbidden because it was full of spies, informants, and criminals, but the danger didn’t worry Lucia; that’s what guards were for. Her concern was privacy. The Depth Charge’s VIP room offered it and the palace did not. Lucia needed to be away from prying eyes tonight.
She gazed at Mahdi while he slept, tracing the outline of his jaw with a crimson-tipped finger. A fierce possessiveness gripped her. She wanted him to love her as much as she loved him. She needed him to. She would not suffer her mother’s fate—being denied the merman she loved, becoming a figure of pity and scorn.
Most of the time Lucia believed that Mahdi did love her, but sometimes she would catch him staring off into the distance, unaware that she was watching him, with an expression of such deep longing on his face that it made her catch her breath.
She had to know if he still cared for Serafina, and there was only one way to find out. Being careful not to wake him, she lifted Mahdi’s head off her lap and slid to the edge of the banquette. He stirred and rolled onto his back but didn’t wake. She rose and was about to swim to the door to lock it, when it opened.
“Hey, Luce, you coming out to dance?” Bian
ca asked loudly, swimming inside in a swirl of orange sea silk. She spotted Mahdi asleep on the banquette. “Oops! Sorry!” she whispered. “Wow, how can he be asleep? It’s sooo noisy in here. Being emperor must be really tiring!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Lucia said. “No one could fall asleep in here. I drugged him. I poured a somna potion into his drink.”
Bianca’s eyes widened. “Where did you get it?”
Lucia smiled.
“Her?” Bianca said, shocked. She lowered her voice. “Luce, you said you were done with her. It’s canta malus. If anyone finds out you’re using darksong—”
“No one will. Unless you tell them.”
Bianca was quick to reassure her. “I won’t. Of course I won’t. But why do you want Mahdi to be asleep? Aren’t we heading back to the palace soon?”
“Lock the door,” Lucia ordered.
Bianca did as she was told. Lucia swam over to the banquette and sat down next to Mahdi. Bianca cast a regretful glance at the door, as if wishing she was still on the other side. Then she joined her friend. As she did, Lucia began to songcast.
“A stealing songspell?” Bianca asked, with a nervous giggle. “What are you going to do? Boost Mahdi’s wallet?”
Klepo, thief god, hear my plea,
A robber’s skills I ask of thee.
Grant me cover, grant me stealth,
Not for gain, or goods, or wealth,
But for secrets the heart does keep,
Buried in bloodsong, dark and deep.
Love, false or true, I must reveal,
It’s the truth I wish to steal.
Bianca’s silly chatter stopped abruptly as she saw Lucia press her hand to Mahdi’s chest, then violently yank it back. Skeins of blood were entwined in her fingers. He groaned in pain. His eyes fluttered open.
Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel Page 13