The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) (21 page)

“I went to the
coral reef to find Serena and Hazel and Moira, but it seems they are
still on their swim and have not arrived at the reef for lunch yet.
Or perhaps, they met up with some of the guards and learned of
Princess Cordelia’s disappearance and are back in the cauldron
room trying to help,” Casius said, talking fast so that she
would not interrupt him and waste time. “But upon my arrival
at the reef, I could have sworn I heard a child cry nearby.”
Athena gasped and her eyes sparked with joy. Casius held up a
tentacle before she could speak. “I searched high and low on
the reef; I even enlisted the help of the fish there, but we could
not find the child. I heard a child’s cry once more while we
were searching, but still I could not tell exactly where it came
from, and I could not find it. I don’t understand, but I’m
sure I heard the baby cry. I fear a sinister power is at work here,
my lady.”

Athena’s face
fell, but there was still hope in her eyes. She looked over her
shoulder towards Triton, but he was not in sight. She looked back at
Casius, the fear and hope and pain in her beautiful green eyes
stabbing his conscience.

“We go to the
reef,” she said, and took off towards the reef without another
word, heading away from Triton, away from safety, and into the
waiting arms of a vengeful, heartbroken sea witch who screamed for
her blood.

Serena peeked inside
the basket again, just barely cracking the flap with one finger.
Cordelia was still asleep with her thumb in her mouth. Serena closed
the basket quickly as a fish swam by her face. No one could see her
with the child, not even the reef fish. It was bad enough that they
would witness Athena’s death. But if everything went according
to plan, it would look as though Athena was killed by pirates. If
something went wrong, she would just have to deal with it when it
happened and rely on the fact that fish were not technically
citizens of Adamar and were very unlikely to be questioned. It also
helped that they had terrible memories.

No one but Casius had
been sent to the reef to search for the child, and naturally, he had
not shown up, so the reef was calm and beautiful as usual. Though it
was part of Adamar, it was not attached to it, and it was much
closer to the surface. The water was warmer up here closer to the
sun, and it was making Serena groggy as she floated on the south
side of the reef (the side farthest from the city). Casius would be
bringing Athena around the north side so that she would not see
Serena.

Serena checked the
placement of the sun overhead, a shimmering, mirage-like ball of
light shining through the surface. Surely, Casius and Athena would
be arriving soon. She flicked her tail and popped her head over the
top of the reef, above all of the brightly-colored and wildly-shaped
arms of coral and sea flowers and through the parade of fish towards
the north side of the reef. No sign of Casius and the tramp. She
knew Moira and the pirate ship were over there, though, disguised by
one of Moira’s more impressive spells. Serena squinted and
stared hard at the place she knew the ship was. She could just
barely make out the shape of the bottom when it bobbed in the water.
She could not see the rest of the ship or its crew at all through
the surface of the water no matter how hard she tried. Moira had
enchanted the ship, the crew, and herself to become like a mirror,
reflecting back the colors and textures surrounding them, and she
had done well. Athena, in her rush to find her child, wouldn’t
see a thing until it was too late.

Serena sank back down
behind the cover of the reef, thinking,
Where on earth is Hazel?

“Are they here
yet?” said Hazel, making Serena suck in a frightened gasp and
nearly drop the basket and Cordelia.

She whirled around to
face her sister, who was now trying to stifle a laugh with her hand,
and said, “Damn it, Hazel! When did you get so quiet? You
nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry,”
said Hazel, not looking as though she was.

“How did it go?”

“Seemed to go
fine, but I didn’t stick around. I left when they started
screaming, just like you said. They never saw me; I stayed below the
city’s edge. I didn’t stick around to see if Triton
showed up, but he was close by. I made sure of it.”

“Good,”
said Serena, squeezing Hazel’s shoulder affectionately. Hazel
smiled at the praise. “Now all we can do is wait.”

“What are we
going to do with…?” Hazel looked around at the fish and
pointed towards the basket.

Serena’s brow
scrunched up. “I still haven’t decided.”

Hazel let it go.

“Cordelia?”
came a shout on the other side of the reef. “Cordelia, it’s
Mommy. I’m here, baby.”

With the prospect that
her child was nearby, Athena forgot Triton’s admonitions about
calling for the babe. On the other side of the reef, out of sight,
Serena and Hazel both snapped to attention, listening hard, trying
to hear over the constant chatter of the fish.

“Where exactly
did you hear her, Casius?”

“Well, actually,
I was swimming right about here, approaching the reef, when I heard
it. But I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from.
Perhaps if you call again she will make another sound and we can try
to find her together.”

“Cordelia!”

Serena and Hazel had
not been able to catch anything Casius and Athena said to each
other, but they heard the second call.

“What’s
Mother waiting for?” said Hazel, fidgeting with her hands.
Athena’s desperate calls were making her throat feel tight.

“She must not be
in the right spot yet,” said Serena.

“Come on, you
useless cephalopod, get her to move ten feet to the right,”
said Moira under her breath as Athena called for Cordelia. “A
few feet closer to the surface wouldn’t hurt either. Great Sea
God in the Pacific, can’t he see where the boat is? Squint,
you idiot, squint.”

She was floating right
next to the boat, holding on to a rope attached to the deck. She
wanted to ride the ship, be a part of it, when the end came (though
she had been sure to stay on the side of the ship that was hidden to
the fish on the reef). Plus, she was so tired, she could hardly swim
of her own volition. The cloaking spell she was using was not the
sort of spell that she could speak once and have done with. Every
second that she, the ship, and Captain Kaidan’s crew were
disguised was a drain on her power, and the ship was massive. She
could feel her power waning. For a moment, she had looked down at
her hand and seen the color flickering back and forth from the
creamy white of her skin and the black of her tattoos to the blue of
the water.

She pulled herself up
the rope with the help of her tail and popped her head out of the
water.

“Captain,”
she called as loud as she dared.

“Aye,”
came a voice from nowhere.

“Hoist the sails
now. The spell is slipping. We need to get closer.” Even as
she said it, she caught a glimpse of the red feather in Kaidan’s
hat.

“Don’t
worry,” said Kaidan, his voice just above a whisper. “I
can see her down there. Her hair’s as red as you said. Draws
the eye like an X on a map. Hoist the sails, boys.”

The invisible sails
went up with the squeal of rigging and caught the wind with a
whoosh. Beneath the water, Athena’s eyes twitched in the
direction of the ship, drawn by the faint noise from the surface,
but it was not the sound she was waiting and praying for, and so she
ignored it.

“I’m going
to call one more time,” said Athena, the threat of tears in
her voice as terrible disappointment ate away at her newfound hope,
“and then if we don’t hear anything, we’ll just
have to go search the entire reef.”

Casius said nothing,
just floated calmly beside her.

“Cordelia!”

Instead of a baby’s
cry, there was a ripping noise as Moira’s spell broke. Athena
gasped in surprise as the hulking ship appeared from nowhere. She
started to backpedal, and Casius saw that Moira had taken the spell
off too soon. The ship was closing the distance, but it was slow
progress. It was a big ship, and the sails had just been opened. In
a second, Athena would get over her shock and take off at full speed
down into deeper water. He did the only thing he could think of. He
wrapped all eight of his tentacles around her and held her fast.
Stretched to his full extent, he was as long as a merman, and each
tentacle was as powerful as a merman’s arm, if not more.
Athena was encased from chest to tail in tentacles. He hugged her
tight to his body.

“Casius? Casius,
what are you doing?” Her voice went higher with every word. He
could feel her heart speed up as panic took hold. She began to
thrash in his arms. “Let me go!” She managed to pump her
tail once, sending them both moving through the water and away from
the oncoming ship, but Casius yanked her back. “Let me go! Let
me—”

Moira’s laugh
chilled Casius’ blood. Athena went rigid in his arms as she
locked eyes with Moira. She was riding along with the ship, pulled
by a rope. Her black hair was a roiling mass of snake-like strands.
Violet flames burned in place of her pupils. Her tattoos had come to
life—the Celtic knots twisting up and down her arms, the sea
flowers opening and closing their petals, the sea serpents coiling
up and opening their mouths to strike, the Atlantian Runes vibrating
hard enough to hurt the eyes. Her laugh was a scream of triumph and
bloodlust.

Athena thrashed harder
than ever as the ship brought Moira ever closer, and, to Casius’
horror, she began to cry.

“Oh God, oh
please, please no!” she said, wriggling wildly in his arms,
only now fully realizing she was fighting for her life. Her voice
shook with sobs. She screamed every word. “Casius please,
please don’t do this! Let me go! My baby, think about my
baby!”

Casius moaned, the
sound of a creature in terrible pain, but still he held on, telling
himself over and over,
It’s for Serena; it’s all for
Serena.
He wrenched Athena back in place every time she managed
to move him through the water. He ignored the pain of her nails
clawing into his flesh. His blood was swirling in the water, but he
did not see it. He could see nothing but the red of her hair; it was
all around him, sticking to him, blinding him, choking him. He did
not see the shadow of the boat loom over him. He did not hear the
pirates’ calls over the sound of her screams. But he did hear
Moira’s laugh, and now it was much too close. It was the sound
of evil. It made his skin crawl to hear it so close. He let go of
Athena just as the great fishing net splashed into the water. He
cried out and pumped his tentacles towards the reef, but the net was
big enough to ensnare a large shark. It was all around him. Athena’s
screams threatened to burst his eardrums. Her wails threatened to
break his heart and drive him mad. The net was made of strong,
tightly woven rope, and the holes were small. It would be hard for
even an octopus to squeeze through them, but he thought he could do
it. He went head first, compressing his skin and organs as only an
octopus could. He grunted with effort and discomfort as his eyeballs
were squished by the rope. And then his head was through and the
worst was over…or at least it should have been. Athena was
pulling at the net with her hands and whipping her tail wildly back
and forth trying to free herself, but in her crazed panic, all she
managed to do was wrap the net more tightly around herself, and
Casius along with her. The net twisted and ensnared one of Casius’
tentacles in a viciously tight knot. He cried out in pain and then
in fear as he realized that the pirates would not hold off their
attack simply because an octopus had gotten itself caught in the
net. Octopus was a delicacy in the human world. His death would be
an added bonus. He slipped his seven unhindered tentacles out of the
net through the same hole he’d squeezed his head through and
tried to keep his vital organs as far away from Athena’s
thrashing body as possible.

He felt himself tugged
up towards the surface as the pirates began hauling up the net, and
panic set in. He looked towards the reef and opened his beak to yell
for Serena only to find that she was already shooting through the
water towards him.

How had it gone so
wrong so quickly? The ship should not have appeared until it was
practically on top of Athena. Casius was never supposed to have to
latch onto her like that. The reef fish had seen. Then he’d
gotten stuck in the net. Serena had not hesitated, giving the
shocked and curious eyes of the reef fish only a second’s
thought. She would not watch her best friend die alongside her
enemy.

She grabbed onto the
net just as it started to approach the surface.

“Serena, what
are you doing?” said Moira, her voice an angry, birdlike
screech. “Get out of there. You’re ruining everything.”
She did not move to help even though she was only a few feet away.

“Serena! Thank
goodness,” said Casius, using his free tentacles to wrap her
in a hug. “My tentacle is stuck.”

“Serena! Thank
God!”

It was Athena.
She
actually thinks I’m here to save her
, thought Serena with
cold contempt. She began to sneer, but when her eyes locked with
Athena’s, it was wiped from her face. Athena’s bright
green eyes were wild, like a cornered animal, but there was such
relief and hope in the smile that had taken over her face at
Serena’s approach that Serena’s heart threatened to feel
the warmth of compassion. But then the almighty
Crack!
of the
locket breaking rang in her ears. She felt the pain of realizing
that all the years between her and Triton could be so easily
shattered by red hair and a girlish giggle. She felt the loss of
when he stopped giving her that special smile—the one that
said,
I can’t believe you’re mine
—and she
remembered all the lonely nights when Triton chose Athena’s
bedchamber over her own. Her eyes narrowed, and her upper lip
twitched in a disgusted grimace. Athena watched Serena’s face
change, and her own crumpled. Serena was startled by the look of
betrayal (
Did she honestly think we were friends? Does she really
not know what this is about?
), but she did not let it show. She
pointed her index finger and slashed it through the water like a
knife, as Moira had done to draw blood from Serena’s cheek so
many years ago. The knot of rope ensnaring Casius was sliced in
half, and he wriggled free of the net. His exclamation of relief
mingled with Athena’s wail of terror. Athena looked up towards
the surface and the pirates who were pulling her closer to their
harpoons and then back at Serena.

“Please don’t
do this!” she screamed through her sobs, thrusting her arm
through the small hole Serena had cut for Casius, grasping vainly at
freedom. “Why? Why are you doing this? Please, Serena, I don’t
want to die. I DON’T WANT TO DIE. OH GOD, PLEASE, SERENA,
PLEASE HAVE MERCY!”

Serena’s face
was stone; her eyes were ice. She turned without a word and swam as
fast as she could, with Casius at her side, towards Hazel who was
halfway between the reef and ship, the basket on her arm, fear in
the lines of her face. Moira went after them, slower, drained from
the cloaking spell. She flipped over on her back to watch.