“Help! Help me! Oh, gods, don’t make me go back!”
Two of the guards were out of the room and down the hall almost immediately.
“Please! Help me! The spider bite…it’s so painful! It’s killing me!” Fossegrim shouted, pretending to writhe in agony.
“How did he get out?” one of the guards asked.
“Hey, you!” his partner shouted. “Hands on your head!”
“The tunnels…they collapsed and crushed the spider,” Fossegrim said. “I escaped, but she lashed out…she bit me…help me!”
Sera could see the third guard. He was busy loading a crossbow.
The plan would never work unless he followed the others. Go! she silently urged him.
As if he’d read her mind, Fossegrim started thrashing violently. He whacked one guard in the stomach with his tail fins and punched the other in the head. His strategy worked.
“Leo!” one of them yelled. “Get out here now! Bring the stinger!”
The third guard swore. He put his crossbow down and grabbed a barbed stingray’s tail, used for immobilizing unruly prisoners. As soon as he was out of the room, Sera swam in. She grabbed a sword scabbarded in a chain-mail belt and quickly buckled it around her waist, then picked up the guard’s crossbow. Next, she snatched a ring of keys off one wall, then raced back down the corridor to Fossegrim.
“On the ground! Now!” she shouted, as she came up behind the guards.
“What the—?” one guard said. He turned around, saw Sera, and rushed toward her.
She fired the crossbow. Her aim was true. The guard never knew what hit him.
“On the ground, I said! Hands on top of your heads!”
The remaining two guards quickly complied.
“Fossegrim, open that door,” Sera said, nodding to the cell on the merman’s left. She tossed him the ring of keys. He caught them with his gnarled hands, and a few seconds later, he was pushing on the door.
“Take your key rings off your belts, thrown them down, and swim into the cell,” Sera ordered.
The guards did as they were told. Fossegrim quickly pulled the door closed and, with some difficulty, locked it. He picked up the key rings.
The prisoners were more frightened than ever now. Their frantic calls echoed down the corridors.
“Prisoners, listen to me! This is Serafina di Merrovingia, your rightful regina!”
The shouting stopped.
“The noises you hear are the sounds of battle!” Sera shouted. “The Black Fins, my troops, are here. They’re fighting for the city! Join us!”
“No! Don’t go! Stay in your cells!” a frightened voice called out. “It’s a trick!”
“Vallerio wants to find out who’s loyal and who isn’t!” another yelled.
“Please don’t hurt us,” begged a third, miserably.
Sera pressed her hands to her cheeks. She was devastated. She’d expected a joyous reaction to the offer of freedom, to the chance to fight those who’d imprisoned them. But these merfolk had been so badly brutalized, they believed this was just another cruel ploy on her uncle’s part to extract information.
Summoning all her magic, Sera songcast the brightest, most beautiful illuminata she ever had. Its glow reached the dungeon’s darkest corners.
“Good people of Miromara, come to your doors!”
Sera heard groaning, shuffling, the sound of chains dragging over stone. Fingers, their nails black with grime, curled around bars. Frightened faces appeared.
“I am Serafina, your regina! This isn’t a trick!”
“Serafina! It’s Serafina! It’s her!” voices called out excitedly.
A few prisoners reached for her through the bars, but others shied away, pointing at her.
“Weapon…a death rider…kill us…” they whispered.
Sera realized she was still carrying a loaded crossbow. It was scaring some of the prisoners. She quickly put it on the floor.
“Sera…child, don’t!” Fossegrim warned. “They’re angry and afraid. They could lash out. Protect yourself!”
Sera shook her head, determined. “Citizens of Cerulea, hear me! I have laid my weapon down, and I’m going to unlock your cells. Do with me what you will. I would rather die at your hands than rule without your trust!” she declared.
As her words rang out, bouncing off the hard stone walls, Sera started opening doors. Fossegrim hesitated, then followed her lead, cursing at his broken fingers. One by one, the prisoners swam out, scared, unsteady, wincing at the bright light. Some were crying, others laughing. Some regarded Sera warily, others hugged her and kissed her hands.
She kept going, opening doors, releasing her mer. Fossegrim, his maimed hands hurting, gave the extra key ring he had to a mermaid, and she started freeing prisoners, too.
When all the cell doors had been opened, Sera turned to her merfolk. Will they be with me? she wondered. After all they’d been through, she wouldn’t blame them if they swam away and hid.
“Ceruleans, I need your help. We must defeat my uncle. Tonight. Your lives, my life, and the future of Miromara hang in the balance. Will you fight with me?”
A cheer rose. It grew louder and louder.
“We are with you, Serafina! Tell us what to do!” a mermaid cried.
The mermaid was little more than a skeleton. Her eyes were sunken. Her cheeks were hollow. Yet she spared no thought for herself. Sera’s eyes filled with tears. She quickly blinked them back.
“There are weapons in the guards’ room,” she said. “Arm yourselves and follow me. I am honored to have you by my side!”
Another cheer rose, and the prisoners mobbed the guards’ room. They scrambled for crossbows, spearguns, clubs, stingers, and anything else they could find. Sera saw one emerge with a paperweight in his hand. Another was brandishing a mug.
She felt a hand on her back. “Be careful,” Fossegrim said.
She hugged him tightly. “You, too, Magister. Find a safe place to hide until this is over.”
The old merman shook his head. “No hiding, not tonight. Tonight I have a score to settle. Traho destroyed my ostrokon. It’s time he paid his fine.”
Sera nodded and turned back to her merfolk. She quickly picked out ten strong mermen. “We have one more prisoner to free,” she informed them. “One who’s served a very long sentence. Will you help me?”
The mermen nodded. “How long has he been locked up?” one asked.
“She,” Sera said. “For four thousand years.”
MAHDI BLINKED SILT out of his eyes. His vision was blurry. Voices cried out around him in fear and pain.
He shook his head and sat up. Chunks of stone fell off him as he did. Blood dripped from his cheek. His tail throbbed. He heard shouts and commands in the distance, the sound of dragons roaring.
What happened? he wondered woozily. How did I end up on the floor?
His vision cleared. The pain in his tail intensified. He wanted to get up, to pull away from it, but he couldn’t. He twisted around and saw that a piece of masonry had fallen on his fins. He tried to push it off, but it was too heavy.
He could see a merman on the floor next to him. He was lying on his back, staring up into the water through sightless eyes. A rivulet of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. A mermaid lay a foot beyond him, her body broken.
In a blinding rush, it all came back. Mahdi heard Lucia ordering the guards to seize him, and saw Traho aiming a speargun at him. He heard the deafening roar and the screams. He remembered shouted words: warehouse, munitions. And then a shock wave had rocked the chapel, cracking walls, blowing out the windows, toppling statues.
Traho had fired at him, but the explosion had caused him to miss, and the deadly spear had lodged harmlessly in a wall. And then a section of the chapel’s ceiling had come crashing down, narrowly missing the altar and everyone floating just above it.
Where is he now? Mahdi wondered fearfully, looking around. He was pinned to the floor and helpless. If Traho took aim at him
again, he wouldn’t miss.
Lucia, too, had been knocked down. She sat up now, only a yard from Mahdi, and shook off the rubble covering her. Her dress was torn. She had cuts on her hands. She looked around the room, swaying slightly. Her eyes, empty and emotionless, traveled over the destruction and over the injured mer, some begging for help. They came to rest on Mahdi. As they did, the dazed look in them receded and hatred burned in their blue depths.
Mahdi had dropped his speargun when the stone fell on him. It had landed between him and Lucia. They both lunged for it.
Mahdi got to it first, twisting his body painfully to reach it. He pointed it at Lucia.
“Where is she?” he shouted.
Lucia laughed. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t save her.”
“Don’t make this any worse, Lucia. It’s over,” he said, training the gun on her. “Don’t you get that?”
Lucia smiled. “Yes, it is over,” she said. “For you.”
A searing pain tore through him. He dropped the gun and twisted around.
Portia was floating a few yards behind him. A spear from the gun she was holding had grazed him just below his rib cage.
Cursing, she bent down and tried to grab another spear from a dying death rider’s belt, but before she could, Vallerio grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door.
“Let me go, Vallerio! I want him dead!” Portia protested, struggling to break her husband’s grip.
But Vallerio held her firm. “The palace is under attack. We have to leave now!” he shouted. “Lucia, this way…hurry!”
Mahdi made a last desperate grab for Lucia. He caught her wrist. “Where is she?”
At that instant, another explosion rocked the palace. Mahdi was thrown onto his back again. New cracks opened up along the walls. Ominous groans came from what was left of the ceiling.
When he sat up again, Lucia and her parents were gone.
The explosion had shifted the rock that was pinning him down. Ignoring the wound in his side, Mahdi got his hands under the rock and pushed with all his might. It didn’t budge. He tried again, groaning with effort, and finally it moved just enough that he could pull his fins out from under it. They were ripped and bleeding, but he was free.
Pressing one hand to the wound in his side, he picked up his gun again and swam out of the chapel. Vallerio wouldn’t stay here to defend the palace. He would slink away to hide and regroup. Mahdi knew he had to catch up with them before that could happen.
While he still had a chance of saving Sera.
“BECCA, ABOVE YOU!” Yazeed shouted.
Her head shot up. She fired. The arrow pierced the death rider’s chest. He fell through the water screaming.
The Black Fins had pulled off their impossible plan. They’d cast their transparensea pearls and descended invisibly into the palace and the city. Before the death riders had any idea what was happening, the Black Fins had blown the munitions warehouse, making it impossible for their enemies to arm themselves. Those who were armed when the battle began couldn’t get more rounds. Already many of the Feuerkumpel mercenaries were deserting.
But inside the palace’s stateroom, the battle was still raging. The pearls were wearing off, and casualties on both sides were mounting.
Vallerio, Portia, and Lucia, defended by a dozen death riders, had tried to flee to their private apartments. There they could access the tunnels that ran under the palace and escape. Becca’s group of twenty fighters had cut them off, however, and had driven them into the stateroom.
Mahdi had joined them there. “Dude!” Yazeed had shouted, grinning. He’d almost gotten himself shot in the process. Together they’d managed to pin Vallerio, Portia, and Lucia behind the throne and keep them from reaching a doorway near it.
As the Black Fins continued to fire on the small group of soldiers defending the three, however, death rider reinforcements had come streaming in through the stateroom’s windows, forcing the Black Fins to fall back behind pillars and statues. They were still covering the exit that Vallerio, Portia, and Lucia wanted to reach, but only barely.
“If we don’t get some backup soon, they’re going to get away!” Becca shouted.
“Where are the rest of the Black Fins?” Mahdi yelled.
Before Yazeed could tell hm, a bloodcurdling roar ripped through the water, and then an immense claw ripped out a bank of windows.
“What the—” Yaz started to say.
“Blackclaws!” Neela shouted. “This is exactly what the death riders did last time! It’s how they took the palace.”
As Becca and her fellow fighters watched in horror, a massive dragon tore at the hole she’d made, widening it. She pushed her enormous snout in, then screeched in anger when she couldn’t fit her whole head through. She thumped her tail into the wall over and over again, until a large section caved in.
“We have no chance against that thing,” Neela said. “We’ve got to fall back.”
“We can’t! Lucia and her parents will get away!” Becca said.
Before anyone could venture a way to keep that from happening, there was another sound: a metallic shriek that sounded like a ship being torn in half on jagged rocks.
It came from the stateroom’s entry, and it was followed by clanking and pounding.
Becca swiveled her head, trying to see what was making the noises. Then she took a stroke backward, unable to believe her eyes.
Under the stateroom’s soaring stone arches crouched a giant bronze spider. Her black eyes glinted. Her long fangs were bared.
Seated atop the creature was a mermaid. She carried a crossbow. A sword hung from her hip. Her coppery hair, cut short, was angled over her forehead and cheekbones. Her green eyes blazed with fury.
“Holy silt! She’s alive!” Desiderio said.
“Thank the gods!” Neela said, and she turned bright blue.
“Yes!” Yaz let loose a loud, long victory cry.
Mahdi just shook his head, unable to speak.
“Go, Sera!” Becca shouted. “Take back your throne!”
THE BRONZE SPIDER REARED, shrieking a challenge at the dragon. Her rider stayed atop her, crossbow aimed.
The Blackclaw, who was inside the stateroom now, flattened her ears.
The spider shrieked again, slamming her front legs on the floor. She started toward the dragon. The Blackclaw hissed. She lowered her head and charged. The walls shook. A glass chandelier crashed down. The dragon was larger than Alítheia, and it looked as if she would crush the spider.
Mahdi found his voice. “Sera, watch out!”
But Alítheia was only feinting. Her eight eyes were glued to the dragon. As the beast closed in, the spider crouched lower, and then, when the Blackclaw was only yards away, Alítheia shot a line of filament up into the water. It hit the ceiling and stuck fast, and as it did, the spider sprang, swinging herself to the right of the dragon in a tight arc, then dropping down on her back.
Sera got off two shots immediately, killing both death riders seated in the howdah on the dragon’s back.
The dragon roared and shook herself violently, but Alítheia clung on. Using her dagger-sharp claws, she climbed up the dragon’s spine, searching for a chink in her armor. She found one where the chain mail ended and the frills around the creature’s neck began. With another shriek, she sank her fangs into the Blackclaw’s flesh.
The dragon reared, roaring. She twisted around in a frenzy, clawing at her neck, trying to get the spider off. But Alítheia had already jumped down. As the venom did its work, the dragon’s struggles slowed. With a cry, she collapsed to the floor. Alítheia, meanwhile, was headed for the throne. The death riders’ arrows bounced off her bronze body. Sera ducked down, sheltering in the dip between the spider’s thorax and abdomen where nothing could reach her.
With feet and fangs, Alítheia battled her way through, a shrieking, slashing battle machine. The Black Fins followed her.
“Get them!” Mahdi shouted, racing to the back of the throne, his
speargun raised. Yazeed and Becca were hot on his tail.
But they were too late. Lucia and her parents were nowhere to be found.
“How did they escape?” Becca asked.
Yazeed swore a blue streak. “They must’ve made it to the door near the throne when Alítheia was fighting the Blackclaw.”
“We’ll find them,” Sera said.
She swam down from Alítheia’s back. Mahdi gathered her in his arms, crushing her in an embrace.
“I thought you were dead. Lucia…she said she’d killed you,” he said, his voice raw with emotion.
“We found your dagger and jacket in the Darktide Shallows. We were sure Vallerio had kidnapped you,” Neela said, hugging the two of them. Desiderio, Becca, Yazeed, and Ling joined in. The other Black Fin fighters cheered.
Sera, wiping tears off her cheeks, laughed and said, “Vallerio didn’t kidnap me; Lucia did. I’m so happy to see you all, and there’s nothing I want to do more than hug you forever, but we’ve got to find her, and her parents.”
A dragon’s roar carried through the water.
Sera grimaced. “More Blackclaws,” she said, turning to the spider. “Alítheia, can you take care of them?”
The spider nodded, then scuttled across the stateroom and disappeared through the hole the first dragon had ripped in the wall.
“Sera, how did you—” Neela started to ask.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we’re done. Everyone armed and ready?”
Her friends raised their weapons.
“Come on,” Sera said, heading for the exit. “Let’s finish this.”
THE BLACK FINS swam out of the stateroom and down a wide corridor, weapons at the ready.
They turned a corner and were fired upon immediately. A spear grazed Sera’s arm. Her blood swirled through the water. She ducked another spear, hit the floor, and returned fire, aiming at a black uniform.
“Fall back! Guard the commander!” a harsh voice shouted.
Sera knew that voice. It was Traho’s.
“Fall back, I said—uhh!”