So she ate them. One after another. More and more. Stuffing down her frustration and her anger. Distracting herself from her pain with shiny wrappers. Eating sweets so she could stay sweet. So she could keep smiling, keep nodding, keep glowing—just a bit, not too much.
Someone was always deciding. And it was never her.
With a wild cry, she broke free of Basra and swam back into the cave.
“Neela, stop!” Basra shouted.
But Neela didn’t listen. The talisman, heavy in her hands, was no longer pale. Neither was Neela. They were both cobalt blue and shining brightly. She raced toward the treasure pile. As she crested it, she saw Ikraan lying dazed on the ground near the nest. The dragon must have knocked her down. He was advancing on her now, lashing his tail, baring his horrible teeth.
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Neela held the moonstone out in front of her with one hand. Wisps of light emanated from it, curling like tendrils through the water. She wound the skeins of light together with her other hand until she had a large glowing ball. The dragon was standing over Ikraan now; he opened his mouth and hissed at her.
“Hey, tall, dark, and ugly! Over here!” Neela yelled.
The dragon looked up—and got a lightbomb straight to the face. He roared in pain and fell backward, clawing at his eyes.
Neela shoved the moonstone into her pocket, then raced to Ikraan. “Get up! Hurry!” she said, tugging her arm.
Ikraan rose woozily. Neela looped the Askara’s arm over her neck and they swam over the treasure pile. The dragon was blinded, but he could still use his sense of smell. He crawled up the pile, swiping at them, but missed. He lost his balance and fell backward, bringing a ton of treasure down on his head.
Neela and Ikraan hurried to the mouth of the cave. Basra and the others were waiting for them there. Basra was furious. She grabbed Ikraan with one hand and Neela with the other and swam, hard and fast, yelling at Neela the whole way.
Neela couldn’t have cared less. Ikraan was with them. Alive.
After a tense, breathless half hour, they were out of the breeding grounds. Basra stopped at a reef, and ushered them all under an overhang of coral, where they would be out of sight. Naasir immediately set to work cleaning and dressing Neela’s wounds. The Askari all carried small amounts of medicine and bandages on them, and they pooled their resources to tend to her back. Naasir tried to be gentle, but the slashes were deep and his ministrations hurt. Neela winced, but didn’t whimper. When he was done cleaning the wounds, he hunted for some kelp fronds to tie across her back to keep the dressing secure.
“I got the scratches pretty clean, but you’re going to have to see the healer as soon as we’re back at Nzuri Bonde. Dragon claws are filthy. We need to make sure the cuts don’t get infected,” he said.
“Merl, you’re going to have some serious scars,” Ikraan said.
Neela turned to look at her, struck by the admiring note in her voice. “You almost sound envious. I don’t know why,” she said. “I’ll never be able to wear a backless dress again.”
“I’m totally envious! Nothing’s hotter than dragon scars. Not to a Kandinian. Most mer who get that close to a dragon end up getting eaten. And you better wear backless dresses! I’m telling you, once those heal, every merboy in Nzuri Bonde will be after you. Right Naas?”
Naasir smiled bashfully. He finished with the kelp fronds. “That’s going to have to do for now. We have to get to the prison,” he said.
While Naasir was tending to Neela, Basra sat off by herself, at the edge of the overhang. She didn’t even come over to see if Neela was okay. Looking at her now, silent and stony-faced, Neela felt a flash of irritation. She’d risked her life, taken a hit from a dragon, and saved Ikraan. What else did she have to do to prove herself to this merl?
Fed up, she swam over to her. “I saved your friend, you know. She was about to become baby food,” she said. “The least you could do is say thanks.”
Basra, still looking straight ahead, shook her head. “No, Neela,” she said, “you saved my sister.”
She rose then, took her armlet off—the one made from coral, with all her dragon kills on it—and placed it on Neela’s arm. “It doesn’t match your outfit, but I hope you’ll take it anyway,” she said.
Neela looked at the armlet, then swallowed the lump in her throat. “Matching is soooo yesterday,” she said. “This season it’s all about contrast.”
Basra touched her forehead to Neela’s.
“Thank you,” Neela said. “I’ll always treasure this armband. It’s totally invincible.”
Basra smiled. “It is, yes,” she said. “Just like you.”
KORA, ARMS CROSSED over her chest, smiled broadly at the carnage before her.
If she was tired after her three-league race with Hagarla, she didn’t show it. She and her group had led the dragons to the prison. As soon as Hagarla had spotted the sea whips, she’d stopped chasing the mermaids, who were hard to catch, and attacked the jellyfish instead.
She and the other Razormouths were in a feeding frenzy now. The sea whips were fighting back, lashing out with their powerful tentacles, but the dragons barely felt the stings through their thick scales. The prison guards tried to make the sea whips hold their formation, but it was no use; the sea whips broke rank and the guards abandoned their posts. As they fled, Nadifa and four other Askari shot through what was remained of the fence and shepherded the terrified prisoners into the barracks.
“Now comes the hard part,” Kora said.
“Right,” Neela said. “The hard part. Because it’s all been a piece of spongecake so far.”
“Khaali, Leylo, and Ceto are in position and waiting for us just north of here,” said Kora. “Basra, wait until I’ve drawn off the dragons, then you, Neela, and Ikraan join Nadifa and help her get the prisoners out. The rest of you, divide up the treasure and get ready to swim.”
Naasir dumped out the bag of loot he’d taken from Hagarla’s cave. As Kora and several Askari picked up the shiny objects, the dragons finished what had become an out-and-out slaughter of the sea whips. The water was clouded with blood, gore, and wriggling tentacles.
“Let’s move,” said Kora, pointing at the barracks.
A handful of dragons was moving toward the buildings. One had already landed on a rooftop and was pounding it with her long spiked tail.
Neela watched as Kora and her team readied themselves.
“On your mark…” Kora said.
The Askari waited, heads down, looking as if they were about to swim the race of their lives. “…get set…”
Heads snapped up, bodies tensed, tails coiled.
“…go!”
The warriors exploded off the seafloor, thrusting themselves up into the water. They whooped and called as they swam, making a commotion that no one could ignore. Hearing it, the dragons turned toward them.
“Hey, Halitosis!” Kora shouted at Hagarla in Draca. “Look what we’ve got!” She held up a jewel-studded goblet. “We took it from your cave!”
Neela understood what Kora was saying. It was the bloodbind again; it had to be. She’d never studied a word of Draca in her life.
The other Askari, whooping and laughing, held up their plunder. “We took the dragon treasure! We took the dragon treasure!” they sang.
“Your cave is empty! The treasure is ours, Hagbutt!” Kora shouted.
Hagarla’s eyes widened. She roared loudly, insane with fury. Kora and her group tore off through the water, and the dragons followed—forgetting about the prisoners.
Basra signaled for her group to swim into the prison. They descended on the barracks, shouting that the sea dragons were gone, coaxing the prisoners to follow them to safety.
The prisoners were thin and weak. Parents were clutching their children to them as they swam, crying with joy at being reunited. The Askari moved them all along, kindly but firmly. If the dragons suddenly came back, they’d all be bait.
When they were a good dist
ance north of the prison, Basra nervously said, “Where are Khaali and Leylo and the Rorquals?”
Ikraan, listening hard, pointed. “Over there! I hear Ceto!” she replied. “This way! Come on!” she called to the column of prisoners.
Neela looked where Ikraan was pointing. She saw Khaali and Leylo and behind them, suspended in the water, what looked like several floating mountains. Two dozen humpbacked whales waited for them. When the whales saw Basra and the freed mer, they divided themselves into two lines, with a wide space between them.
“Hail, Ceto, honored leader of the Clan Rorqual!” Basra called out in Whalish, bowing to the largest humpback. “Malkia Kora sends her greetings and her deepest gratitude to you and your kin!”
Ceto dipped his magnificent head. “Greetings must wait, Askara. Get your people within. Make haste!”
Basra and the others led the freed prisoners into the whale-made enclosure while Ceto and the other humpbacks began to sing. Their song was beautiful, but they were not singing to delight their listeners. Whalesong, mysterious and powerful, had strong magic. The humpbacks were casting a protective songspell over the prisoners, putting up a sonic force field around them.
As soon as all the freed merpeople were positioned between the whales, Ceto took his place at the front, and another whale took hers at the back. Two more swam above and below the mer. At Ceto’s signal, they set off in formation. Khaali and Leylo, whaleriders, sat upon the two humpbacks flanking Ceto, scouting the waters for any sign of dragons.
They had smooth swimming, and encountered no dragons—until they were one league east of Nzuri Bonde.
“Trouble ahead!” Leylo shouted.
Seconds later, Hagarla, and six other dragons appeared. Hagarla’s ears were flat against her skull. Her tail lashed the water around her into a froth. She was looking for a fight.
“Leave, Hagarla. You are greatly outnumbered,” Ceto warned, in Draca.
“Our fight is not with you, Ceto Rorqual,” Hagarla hissed. “We want the mer. Give them to us and we will leave your kin in peace.”
“Be on your way. You have no business here. Not with my kind or the mer.”
“The mer stole from me! They invaded my home! Upset my children!”
“And gave you a good feed,” Ceto said. “You are very partial to sea whips. It is known throughout the seas. Go. I will not give you the mer. You must fight me for them and you will lose. Go, Hagarla.”
Hagarla’s eyes narrowed. “You will pay for this, Askari!” she growled. “One day soon, when Ceto Rorqual isn’t here to fight your battles!”
She let out an ear-splitting roar, then swam away. One of the other dragons made a rush at the whales, but was stopped by the force field. He joined the others in their retreat.
Shortly after their encounter with the dragons, Ceto and his charges arrived safely in Nzuri Bonde. Rescue workers had set up tents, canteens, and hospitals to feed and shelter the stolen mer. Kora moved among the former prisoners, talking to them, listening to them, embracing them. When they were all settled, she turned to Ceto. Bowing to him, she thanked him and his kin for rescuing her people.
“Your thanks are not required, Malkia,” Ceto said. “The Clan Rorqual remembers the harpoons your people have pulled out of us, the fishing nets cut from our children, the cruel hooks you have taken from our flesh. The Rorqual never forget.”
Kora swam up over the massive creature and touched her forehead to his. Ceto closed his eyes as she did, then took his leave. As he prepared to go, he glanced at Khaali and Leylo, who’d been hanging around him ever since they’d arrived back at Nzuri Bonde. They looked as if they wanted something, but couldn’t bring themselves to ask.
Ceto looked at them knowingly with his wise whale eyes. “All right,” he said. “But only once. I’m getting too old for these exertions.”
“Yes!” Khaali and Leylo shouted, tail-slapping each other.
Kora shook her head. “Those two never grow up,” she said. “Come on, let’s watch.”
“Watch what?” Neela asked. “Where are we going?”
“Topside,” Kora replied.
Khaali and Leylo each grabbed one of Ceto’s massive flippers. Ceto turned himself, and headed upward. He swam faster and faster. Kora, Neela, and the others had to swim hard to keep up. A few yards from the surface, Ceto gave a thrust of his enormous tail and all three were suddenly airborne in a spectacular breach. Khaali and Leylo launched themselves off his flippers and flung themselves up even higher, doing backflips into the air. Ceto crashed down, and Khaali and Leylo cannonballed after him, hooting and yelling and laughing themselves silly.
Ceto laughed too, a sound that was as ancient and deep as the sea itself, then he and his clan bade the mermaids farewell. Kora, Neela, and the Askari returned to the arena. Kora, noticing Neela’s bandaged back, took her directly to a hospital tent. A healer unwrapped the wounds. Kora let out a low whistle as the dressings fell away.
“Impressive,” she said. “What happened?”
As Neela explained, Kora listened intently, eyeing the armband Basra had given her.
When the healer finished, Neela bade Kora good night. She was aching and exhausted.
“I’m going to my room,” she said. “I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“No,” Kora said.
“No? Why not? Do you have another death-defying rescue planned for the evening?”
“You will sleep in a room in the ngome ya jeshi. It’s only fitting.”
Neela didn’t understand. “The ngome ya jeshi? But isn’t that—”
“Yes.”
“But, Kora, I’m not…”
Kora smiled. She touched her forehead to Neela’s. “You are now. Welcome home, Askara.”
NEELA WAS HUNGRY. She was starving. But not for a bing-bang.
She’d left Kandina four days ago, after a huge send-off. Kora had swum with her to the outskirts of Nzuri Bonde.
“Dark days are ahead, I fear,” she had said on the way.
Neela had nodded. “We liberated your people, but the death riders may strike again. And Abbadon will be freed if we can’t find a way to stop it.”
“We will build up fortifications against any further raids,” Kora had said, “and you and the others must call on us if you need help. We are always here for you.”
They said their good-byes, and then, as Neela swam away, she had heard Kora call out, “Kuweka mwanga, dada yangu.” Keep the light, my sister.
“Come on, Ooda,” Neela said now. “Let’s see if we can find some jellies. A bit of algae. Anything.”
It was evening, and the sea’s creatures were all rising to the warmer waters of the surface to feed. Neela joined them, scooping up handfuls of comb jellies and gulping them down.
She was hungry much of the time now. She had taxed her body greatly and it had changed over the last few weeks. The long swim to the River Olt, her journey through Vadus to Matali, and then the swim to Kandina had made her tail strong, her arms sinewy, her ample curves firm. She found herself craving leafy blues, slimy vegetables, and crunchy proteins—preferably with their heads still on—instead of sweets.
Above her, floating on the surface, were clumps of tasty-looking red algae. Cautiously, she poked her head up, peering around for any danger. There was a large ship close by, and many more off in the distance, but they were no cause for alarm. Their presence was nothing unusual, and a confuto would keep any gogg who saw her from telling another.
She ate her fill, then dove. Half an hour later, she and Ooda were at the outskirts of Matali City. She smiled as she spotted the shining domes and turrets of the palace. She’d never noticed how gracefully the sea grass swayed along the Royal Current. Or how the palace’s center dome turned from gold to silver in the late-day rays of sun. Her home looked more beautiful to her than it ever had before.
Maybe because I came so close to never seeing in again, she thought, remembering Hagarla’s cave. She was so happy to see her city, and so reli
eved to be in a safe place after days in the open water, but as she gazed at the palace, her smile faded. She sensed something. The way Ava sensed things.
Ooda gave her a What? look.
“I don’t know. Something’s different. Something’s wrong.”
Neela’s gaze drifted over the myriad of buildings, the turrets and spires, archways and porticos. She remembered the attack on Miromara. She’d seen the terrible destruction caused by the death riders. In only minutes, Blackclaw dragons had brought down huge sections of the city walls and flattened buildings. Nothing like that had happened here. Everything was intact. The flags were fluttering. And yet, she was uneasy.
Probably because my parents are going to kick my tail, she thought. Imagining the reception she was going to get when she swam into the Emperor’s Chamber was almost enough to make her head straight back to Kandina.
Her father and mother would be angry. They would want explanations. And she would provide them, but she would not stand for being told she was crazy. Not anymore. She’d taken the precaution of having Kora send her father a conch, telling him everything that had happened and asking him for troops to patrol her waters and prevent more raids.
Neela had done what she’d set out to do. She found the moonstone. And she’d found a new way of doing things—her way.
“It must be me, Ooda,” she finally said, shrugging off her uneasiness. “I’m the thing that’s different. Come on, let’s go.”
As she swam under a soaring archway that led to the main current and the palace, Neela rehearsed what she would say to her parents. As soon as she’d spoken with them, and had placed the moonstone safely in the royal vaults, she would send word to Serafina and the others that Navi’s talisman had been found.
It was weirdly quiet as she continued on, past shops and restaurants, embassies and government offices. Not many people were out. The current had picked up, and she could hear the flags snapping in it. There were so many of them flying tonight. Had she forgotten a holiday?
Neela was so preoccupied by her thoughts, she didn’t realize at first that Ooda was nipping at her hand. It was only when the little blowfish swam right in her face and threatened to nip her nose that Neela stopped short.