Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A (21 page)

“I’ll swim you to the barracks, Sera,” Desiderio said. “I need some shut-eye myself.” He put his cleaning materials back into their seagrass pouch and hoisted his weapon. “Let’s go,” he said.

Brother and sister swam side by side through the camp, just the two of them. With the spy finally caught, Sera had dismissed her bodyguards. She hated being followed around, and she felt they’d be far more useful by helping with preparations for the journey to the Southern Sea.

“I know you’re worried about Mahdi, but if he survived this long around Vallerio and Lucia, he can last for a few more days.”

“You’re right, Des. It’s just that I can’t stop worrying. I can’t shake this feeling that something’s going to happen. It’s like a shadow I can’t get out from under.”

“It’s just nerves. All this planning and plotting and waiting leaves too much time for dwelling on everything that can go wrong,” Des said. “You’ll feel better tomorrow when we actually get going.” He gave his sister a sidelong glance. “Mahdi means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he does,” Sera said softly. “He means everything, Des.”

“I never thought you’d fall for him. You couldn’t stand him when you first met him.”

Sera laughed at the memory. “I thought he was a total goby. He hardly said two words to me. All he wanted to do was play Galleons and Gorgons with
you
.”

“Yeah, but the whole time we were playing, all he did was ask about
you
.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” Sera said, pleased. But her happiness was short-lived. Thinking about Mahdi, talking about him…all it did was bring back all her fears for him. She decided to change the subject.

“How’s
your
love life?” she asked her brother.

“What love life?” he asked, trying to sound innocent. “I don’t have one.”

“Really, Des?” she teased. “Is that why you’re blushing?”

“I am
not
,” Des scoffed.

“Now you’re blushing even
more
,” Sera said, nudging him with her tail. “I saw how she looked at you. And how you looked at her. The night you both arrived here.”

“Who?”

“Ha. So funny,” Sera said, rolling her eyes. “Like there are a
hundred
mermaids in love with you?”

“At least.”

“Oh,
please
.”

Des smiled. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“To me. But I know you pretty well.”

Des’s smile dimmed. “I wish she’d send a message, Sera. A little conch shell,
something
.” He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “What if she’s gone over?”

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.

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.

S
ERA 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 the 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.

“A
NY 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?”