Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A (2 page)

Manon’s ancient eyes had narrowed. The swamp mer were given to telling tall tales. Decades of listening to them had made her a skeptical soul. “A
monster
?” she’d said. “Why would a mage make a monster?”

Ava had told Manon about Orfeo, the talismans, and Abbadon, and how Ava and five other mermaids had been chosen to defeat that monster. She told her about Vallerio, that he was kidnapping and imprisoning merfolk, and forcing them to search for the talismans. By the time Ava had finished her story, Manon was so shaken, she’d had to call for her smelling salts.

Rumors had come to Manon’s ears, carried on the river. Rumors of powerful objects and labor camps. Rumors of soldiers in black uniforms moving through her swamp, and of a shadowy man with no eyes. She’d thought they were only more wild stories. Ava’s arrival at her cave, and Traho’s, had convinced her otherwise.

“You need to find that talisman, child. No two ways about it,” Manon had said as soon as she’d recovered. “I’ll do what I can to help you.”

She’d fed Ava a spicy, filling stew made of crawdads, salamanders, and river peppers, and had given her medicine to break her fever. Then she’d made her a gris-gris—maybe the strongest one she’d
ever
made—and hadn’t taken so much as a cowrie for it. Lafitte, Esmé, and Sally had all looked at Manon as if she’d lost her mind.

As she’d hung the gris-gris around Ava’s neck, Manon had told Ava that the Okwa lived in the Spiderlair swamp and instructed her on how to get there. She’d tried to convince Ava to spend the night in her cave and rest close to the waterfire, but Ava had politely refused the offer. “There are soldiers on my tail,” she’d explained. Then she’d thanked Manon and left.

“You keep that child safe, you hear me?” Manon had whispered to the spirits as she’d watched Ava swim away. She cared for that mermaid, though she didn’t want to. Caring was risky in the swamps. The Spiderlair, a four days’ journey from Manon’s cave, was named for the large, vicious arachnids that hunted on its banks. It was the other creatures that lived in those dark waters that worried Manon, though—most of them far too clever to be glimpsed with an occula. The seeing stone showed evidence of them, nonetheless—in the bones and skulls half-buried in the swamp mud.

Manon picked up her tarot cards again now. They’d been cut from the shells of giant washboard clams, polished flat, then etched with tarot symbols. She drew one from the deck and laid it down. When she saw what it was—a tall, upright tower with waterfire coming out of its windows—she caught her breath.

“The Tower means danger. Not good,” Lafitte said, clucking his tongue. “Not good at all.”

Manon glanced at the seeing stone again. Inside it, the image of Ava was fading. The mermaid had swum deeper into the Spiderlair, too deep for the seeing stone to follow. Another image took its place: the brutal Captain Traho riding with his troops.

They were headed the wrong way; that was something. And even if they found out that the Okwa were in the Spiderlair and not the Blackwater, Ava still had a good head start on them. Then again, they were on hippokamps and she was on fin. They were strong and she was weak. They numbered two hundred and she was only one.

Fear, an emotion Manon Laveau was not accustomed to, wrapped its cold, thin fingers around her heart.

“Please,
cher
,” she whispered.
“Hurry.”

S
ERAFINA SWAM TO the mouth of the cave, high in the side of a lonely, current-swept bluff, and peered into the black water. “They’re not coming,” she said.

“They
are
,” Desiderio countered. “They probably took a back current to throw off any trackers. It’s dangerous for the Näkki as well as us.”

Sera nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. While she continued to search the water for movement, the others floated around a waterfire, trying to warm themselves. She’d cast the fire small and weak. The last thing she wanted was to advertise their presence.

Sera, Desiderio, Yazeed, and Ling were in no-mer’s-waters, just over the border of the Meerteufel goblins’ realm. They would have preferred to hold this meeting at their stronghold in the Kargjord, but Guldemar, the Meerteufel chieftain, hated the Näkki—a tribe of arms dealers—and forbade them to enter his realm. Any found in his waters, he’d decreed, were to be shot on sight.

Sera didn’t like the Näkki either and wished she didn’t have to deal with them, but she had no choice. The death riders had just intercepted two weapons shipments. Under an agreement Sera had made with Guldemar, the Meerteufel were to supply the Black Fins with arms. The stolen shipments were the last two that Guldemar owed the resistance, and he’d refused to replace them. The death riders were not his problem, he’d said. He’d met his obligation.

Desperate, Sera had made plans to meet the Näkki here, in the lonely borderwaters of the North Sea. But would they come?

The loss of valuable armaments was bad, but far more troubling to Sera was the fact that the death riders had known when the weapons would be shipped and along what route. It confirmed what she’d suspected—that the Black Fin resistance had a spy in its midst. This traitor had done a great deal of damage to the resistance and was poised to do more. Sera had shared her plan to meet with the Näkki with her inner circle only, hoping to keep it a secret from the spy.

Play the board, not the piece
, her mother, Regina Isabella, had advised, comparing the art of ruling to a chess game. Ever since Sera had learned that her uncle Vallerio was the one behind the invasion of Cerulea and her mother’s assassination, she’d been desperately trying to keep herself, and her Black Fins, out of checkmate.

Where are the
Näkki?
she wondered now, still gazing out at the dark waters.
Did something spook them?

“Five more minutes, then we’re out of here,” she announced, returning to the group.

At that moment, the temperature in the cave plummeted and the waterfire burned low. Sera heard a noise behind her. She spun around, her hand on the dagger at her hip, her fighters at her back.

Three figures floated in the cave’s entrance. Their faces were hidden in the silt-covered folds of their hoods. They had long, powerful tails and looked like mer, but Sera knew they weren’t.

“Näkki,”
she said silently, releasing her dagger.
Shapeshifters
. Wary and elusive, they could blend in with a crowd of mer, a school of fish, or a rock face within seconds.

A sickly sweet smell wafted from them, one that made Sera’s stomach clench—the smell of death. It took her back to the invasion of Cerulea and the rotting bodies of her merfolk lying in the ruins.

Instinctively, she touched the ring on her right hand. Mahdi had carved it from a shell for her, as an expression of his love. Thinking of him gave her courage.

“Welcome,” she said, nodding to her visitors.

The Näkki removed their hoods. Under them were mermen’s faces, handsome and fine. Their leader, dark-skinned and amber-eyed, his black hair worn long and loose, extended his hand. Sera took it. His grip was hard. His companions were amber-eyed, too. Their skin was pale. Long blond braids trailed down their backs.

“I’m Serafina, regina di Miromara. I’m grateful to you for coming. I know your journey was a dangerous one.”

“Kova,” the Näkki leader said. He nodded at the others. “Julma and Petos.”

As he spoke, Sera saw that his tongue was black and split at the tip like a snake’s. It unnerved her, but she kept her feelings hidden.

“Sit with us,” she said, gesturing toward the waterfire.

Something glinted darkly on the underside of her hand as she did. She glanced at it, and bit back a gasp. Her palm was streaked with blood. She must’ve cut herself without noticing, but how? On her dagger’s hilt? Hastily, she wiped the blood off on her jacket, hoping no one noticed, then joined the Näkki and the Black Fins around the fire.

Kova settled himself, flanked by Julma and Petos. Ling passed around a box of barnacles and a basket of keel worms. As the Näkki helped themselves, Kova brusquely asked, “What do you need?”

“Crossbows and spearguns,” Des replied.

“Quantities?”

“Five thousand of each. Plus rounds.”

“When?”

“Yesterday,” said Yazeed.

Kova nodded, frowning. “It won’t be easy, but I can do it. Give me a week.”

“Quality. No garbage,” Des said.

“The crossbows are goblin-made. The spearguns come from a gogg trader. Best in the world,” Kova said. He smiled grimly. “If there’s one thing the goggs are good at, it’s killing.”

“What about the rounds?” asked Yazeed.

“Spears are stainless steel. Gogg-made. Arrows are Kobold steel with barbed heads. Hit someone with one of those, he’s not getting up.”

“How much?” Sera asked.

“Seventy thousand trocii.”

She shook her head. “We haven’t got mer currensea, only doubloons.”

Kova chuckled. “Stolen from Vallerio’s vaults, I hear.”

“Not stolen, regained,” Sera retorted. “From
my
vaults.”

The Black Fins’ only form of barter was the treasure they’d taken from chambers deep inside Cerulea’s royal palace: goggish doubloons, gemstones, silver goblets, gold jewelry.

“Fifty thousand doubloons, then,” said Kova.

“Thirty.”

Kova didn’t reply. He worked a piece of food from his teeth with his thumbnail. “Forty-five,” he said at length. “Final offer.”

Sera thought about the price he was demanding. Her treasure was dwindling fast. Paying for food and weapons for her troops, purchasing thorny Devil’s Tail vines and other materials to strengthen her camps’ defenses—it all cost a great deal. So did the lava globes she had to buy, for the Kargjord didn’t appear to have a lava seam under it. And this was only the preparation stage. The battle to take back Cerulea from Vallerio, the fight against Abbadon—these were still to come.

Forty-five thousand doubloons, she finally decided, was a price she was prepared to pay. But there was another, even higher price for these weapons, one she couldn’t bear to pay: lives.

For a moment, Sera was no longer in the cave with the Näkki; she was back in Cerulea during the attack. She saw her father’s body sinking through the water. Saw the arrow go into her mother’s chest. Heard the screams of innocent mer as they were slaughtered.

“Sera…” That was Desiderio. She barely heard him.

Her gaze came to rest on Kova. His palm lay flat against a rock; a thin line of crimson oozed from it. She raised her eyes and saw smears of blood on the box of barnacles Ling had passed around, and more on the basket of worms.

I didn’t cut myself,
she realized.
The Näkki have blood on their hands and they leave it on everything they touch
.

“Sera, we need an answer.” That was Yazeed.

But she couldn’t make the words come. She was immobilized by fear—fear for her people, for the suffering and destruction to come. How could any ruler make the decision to go to war? Even for a just cause? How could she send thousands to their deaths?

And then she heard another voice—Vrăja’s. Sera was certain that the river witch had been killed by death riders, but she lived on in Sera’s heart.

Instead of shunning your fear, you must let it speak,
Vrăja had told her.
It will give you good counsel.

Sera listened.

The Näkki peddle death,
her fear said.
But you must learn to sit with death, and his merchants, if you want to defeat your uncle and destroy the evil in the Southern Sea. How many more will die if you take no action?

Sera raised her eyes to Kova’s and, in a voice heavy with dread, said, “We have a deal.”

Kova nodded. “My terms are half up front.”

Sera’s fins flared. She did not take orders from arms-dealing sea scum. “
My
terms are
nothing
up front,” she shot back. “When I get my weapons, you get your gold.”

Kova gave her a long look. “How will you get the goods to the Karg? They’ll be in crates roped to hippokamps.
My
hippokamps. They aren’t part of the deal.”

“That’s my worry,” Sera replied.

Kova snorted. “Yes, it is. That and much more,” he said, rising. Julma and Petos followed his lead. “Give me five days,” he said, thrusting his hand at Sera to seal the deal.

Sera rose, too, and shook it, her eyes locked on his, her grip firm. Kova released her hand and then the three Näkki pulled their hoods over their heads. Seconds later, they were gone.

Sera looked down at her palm, knowing what she would see.

She felt a hand on her back. It was Ling. “It washes off,” she said.

Sera shook her head. “No, Ling,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”