Captain Markus Traho, commander of the death riders and a merman who served both Vallerio and the terragogg Rafe Mfeme, had killed Mahdi’s parents—on her father’s orders—and had imprisoned Mahdi. Her father hadn’t trusted him. Mahdi’s parents had been staunchly loyal to Isabella, and Mahdi himself was rumored to be a serious partyboy and loyal to no one. Vallerio wanted someone better for his daughter. But Lucia, besotted, had begged for his life and her father had relented.
“I can’t say no to you, Lucia,” Vallerio had said. “I’ll spare his life, but before any Promising ceremony occurs, Mahdi must prove his loyalty.”
And he had. By raiding rebel safe houses. By rounding up those unloyal to her. By finding an invaluable object for Traho—a necklace with a blue, tear-shaped diamond in it that Traho had immediately delivered to Mfeme. Why Mfeme wanted it, Lucia didn’t know. Nor did she care. All that mattered to her was that Mahdi convinced her father. And eventually, he had.
“I was wrong, Lucia. And, for once, I’m glad about it,” Vallerio had said a few weeks ago. “My opinion of the boy has changed considerably.”
Lucia had been pleased to hear that—she’d needed her father’s consent for the Promising—but even with it, and even with the Promising behind her, there was still an obstacle to her happiness. There was one whose opinion was far more important to her than her father’s, her mother’s, or any friend’s. This one had helped her snare Mahdi—with songspells, potions, and enchantments. And this one was still skeptical.
“Be careful, child,” she’d warned. “The boy professed to be in love with the last principessa, and now he says he’s in love with you. It seems he sells his heart to the highest bidder. You may have to pay a very high price for it.”
Those words had tortured Lucia. She told herself they weren’t true. They couldn’t be. Mahdi had Promised himself to her, hadn’t he? He gave her expensive gifts. He threw parties celebrating their betrothal. His whispered words made her catch her breath—and his kisses took it away completely.
And yet, she was never entirely sure.
Is he only pretending? she wondered now, her eyes darkening as quickly as her mood had. Or does he really love me?
“Mahdi…” she said as he returned to their table and sat down next to her.
“What is it, Luce? You look upset. Didn’t you like the lightworks?”
“I loved them. I really did.”
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked, taking her hand.
“Let’s move our wedding day up. I don’t want to wait anymore,” Lucia said in a rush.
Mahdi looked surprised. “There’s nothing I’d like more, but we can’t.”
Lucia’s eyes flashed. “Why not?” she demanded.
Mahdi cupped her face with his hands. “I don’t want to begin our life together until our realms are secure. It’s too dangerous. You remember the invasion of Cerulea, and how its people suffered. We all do.”
Lucia nodded. She remembered it well. Her father had ordered his assassins to kill Regina Isabella, Principe Bastiaan, and many more. But that was a secret, and it had to stay that way.
“Isabella was killed because she was Miromara’s regina. Now you’re the regina, and it would kill me if anything ever happened to you. You know that, don’t you?” Mahdi asked, his beautiful brown eyes searching hers.
Lucia’s angry expression softened. He’s always so protective of me, she thought. Like a true love would be.
“Our day will come. Soon,” he said, his hands still cradling her face. “Your father, Traho, me…we’re getting closer to the Black Fins all the time. We’ll find them soon and put them down like the dogfish they are. Then we’ll be married, Luce, and no one will be happier or prouder on that day than me.”
He kissed her then, and the words that the other one had spoken, the words that tormented Lucia, faded from her mind. Mahdi was hers and hers alone. She saw that in his eyes, heard it in his words, and felt it in his touch.
“Excuse me, Your Graces,” a voice said, low and harsh.
Lucia knew who it belonged to—Traho. She turned away from Mahdi and saw that he was at her father’s side. He’d swum into the Grand Hall quietly. A compactly built merman with closely cropped brown hair and a cruel face, he was not known for attending parties. Lucia sensed that his sudden appearance at this one did not bode well.
“What is it?” Vallerio asked tersely.
“There’s been a break-in. The treasury vaults were breached,” Traho replied, bending low so that only Vallerio, Portia, Lucia, and Mahdi could hear him.
“What?” Vallerio said, crashing his fist down on the table. “How did this happen?”
“An old valve was opened. Lava was released. It destroyed one of the vault’s walls. We’re trying to contain the intruders right now, but they’re fighting hard.”
“How much treasure was taken?” Portia demanded.
“A substantial amount.”
Vallerio cursed. “Black Fins?” he asked.
“We think so, sir.”
“It’s her, damn her. Serafina,” Vallerio growled.
Lucia’s eyes widened. “Serafina? But how?”
“Yes, Vallerio, how?” Portia asked, her voice a cool contrast to her husband’s angry one. “Serafina’s dead. She fled the palace after Cerulea was invaded and hasn’t been seen since. There’s no way she could have survived in the open waters for this long.”
“Of course she’s dead,” Vallerio said quickly. “I misspoke in my anger. Traho, follow me to the vaults. Portia, Lucia, Mahdi…stay here. Smile. Dance. Act as if nothing’s happened. I don’t want the guests to find out about this. If word spreads, the Black Fins will use it to their advantage.”
Lucia barely heard her father’s instructions. Doubt had crept into her mind, as chilling as a sea fog. Her parents always maintained that Serafina was killed in the attack on Cerulea. Neither had ever publicly voiced any suspicion that she might still be alive. Had they been lying to her? The mere thought made her furious.
If it were true, if Sera was alive and leading the resistance, she was a threat. The mer had loved her. They would fight to the death for her. Lucia had everything she ever wanted now, but Serafina could take it all—Mahdi, her crown, her life.
It can’t be true, she quickly told herself. Sera had to be dead. There had been no word of her for months. She was weak. She had no survival skills—not a guppy like her, always swimming around with a conch glued to her ear, listening to some dull account of this battle or that treaty.
Lucia took a deep breath. She tried to calm down. Instinctively, she glanced at Mahdi for reassurance.
But Mahdi didn’t offer any. He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes followed Vallerio and Traho as they disappeared through a stone archway. There was a look in them that Lucia had never seen before. Raw, naked fear.
Then Bianca called Mahdi’s name and started fawning over him, and he was laughing and the look was gone.
But Lucia knew she would always remember it.
Who is he afraid for? she wondered. Is it me?
Or Serafina?
THE STEEL SPEAR hit the wall only inches above Yazeed’s head.
Shrapnel sprayed through the water. One piece tore a gash in Yaz’s cheek; another clipped a Black Fin named Sophia, carving a stripe across her forearm.
“Time to make wake, Sera!” Yaz yelled. “Can’t hold them much longer!”
He and Sophia were still inside the Traitors’ Gate tunnel. They were shooting at the death riders who were trying to storm through it as Sera attached a huge sailcloth sack filled with treasure to a giant manta ray.
“Sargo’s Canyon,” she told the manta in RaySay, as she cinched the sack. “Hurry!”
This was the last load. The sack was heavy with gold and jewels, but the ray was young and strong. Sera was thankful for that. He would have to swim fast to avoid capture. The creature flapped his huge wings, picked up speed, and veered north. He swam low, blending in with the seaflo
or, invisible to anything swimming above him. Fifty more of his kind were already on their way. Neela was leading them.
“Get out of here,” Sera ordered the six remaining Black Fins fanned out above her. “Cast your pebbles and haul tail.”
The transparensea pebbles she’d issued to her fighters were poor quality—weak and unreliable—but they were better than nothing. The fighters cast them, shimmered, and disappeared. They would follow the ray to Sargo’s Canyon, where the treasure would be safely stashed in an abandoned farm house. Sera prayed to the gods that they’d make it.
The heist had been a success. The Black Fins had hauled out twice as much treasure as they’d expected. But they’d been discovered just as the last loads were being carried out through the lava chamber.
A battle had ensued, and three Black Fins had died, including Luca and Franco, along with at least ten enemies. Yaz and Sophia had been able to hold the death riders back at a bend in the tunnel, about ten yards from the Traitors’ Gate, while the rest of the Black Fins escaped. Sera didn’t allow herself to think about the fighters they’d lost. She would mourn them later, when the mission was over.
“You ready, Sera?” Yaz shouted now.
“All set!” Sera yelled back.
A few seconds later she heard an explosion, and she knew that Yaz and Sophia had set off an ink bomb—a large conch shell packed with squid ink and explosives. It would turn the water in the tunnel as black as night and keep it that way for a good thirty seconds.
“I’ll cover you both. Go!” Yazeed shouted at Serafina as he and Sophia came hurtling toward her.
As Yaz flattened himself on the seafloor, Sera grabbed her crossbow and streaked away, with Sophia hot on her tail. She put distance between herself and the Traitors’ Gate, then pulled her transparensea pebble out of her pocket, ready to cast it. But as she did, a pain—white and blinding—tore through her body. She screamed as she went tumbling through the water. She dropped her bow. The pebble fell out of her hand.
Sera slammed into the seafloor face-first. She righted herself, dazed, and spit out silt. Blood swirled around her. She frantically searched to see where she’d been hit.
Her eyes widened when they found the wound.
“No!” she cried.
A spear was buried in her tail.
TERROR FLOODED THROUGH SERA.
It wasn’t the sight of her own blood that scared her, or the cruel silver spear sunk into her flesh. It was the thin white line trailing from the spear—and the death rider at the other end of it. He grinned evilly, then began to reel in the line.
The pain was excruciating. Sera screamed and thrashed against it, which sank the barbed spearhead even deeper into her flesh.
“Sera, listen to me!” a voice hissed in her ear. “Stop thrashing. Pretend you’re surrendering.”
Sera whipped her head around. It was Sophia’s voice, but there was no Sophia in sight. She must’ve cast her pebble, Sera thought.
“Move closer to him,” Sophia hissed. “I need slack in the line so he can’t feel me cutting it.”
Sera put her hands up and let herself drift. The death rider stopped pulling on the line and started swimming toward her. With his eyes fixed on Sera, he didn’t see a loop form in the line, or see that loop go taut.
“I’ve got one!” he yelled. Two more soldiers rushed toward him.
“Hurry, Soph…oh, gods, hurry,” Sera groaned.
“Trying…it’s thick…wait…Got it!”
Death swims on a fast fin, Tavia, Sera’s nursemaid, used to say. It swam so fast to the soldiers, they never saw it coming.
As the two ends of cut line sank to the seafloor, Sophia’s knife whizzed through the water and buried itself in the chest of the death rider who’d shot Serafina. Sera dove for her dropped crossbow, grabbed it, and fired twice. She’d become an excellent shot; the other two death riders were dead before their bodies hit the silt.
“Let’s go. Before their friends come looking for them,” she said to Sophia.
“You can’t swim with the spear in you.”
Sera knew what Sophia was saying. “Do it,” she said, her voice ragged with pain.
“I’ll be quick, I swear. I’ll—”
“Just do it, Soph.”
Sophia cut the line again, as close to the spear’s shaft as she could. Then she grabbed Sera’s tail with one hand and the shaft with the other. Sera bit back a shriek as Sophia forced the spearhead all the way through her tail and out the other side. The pain bent her double. More blood plumed from the wound. Sophia grabbed Sera’s jacket—tied around Sera’s waist—and wrapped it around her tail.
“You still with me?” she said.
“Barely,” Sera rasped.
“We’ve got to get away from here. They’re pouring out of the Traitors’ Gate. They’ll fan out to search the grounds.”
Sera was aware of voices now, and the glow of lava torches.
“Go, Soph. They can’t see you. Swim back to the hills.”
“Forget it. I’m not leaving you.”
“That’s an ord—”
With a sickening thuk, a spearhead sank into the silt only inches from Serafina.
Invisible hands grabbed her. “Come on!” Sophia yelled.
Before the death rider could shoot again, Sera and Sophia were streaking for cover. They sped over coral and seaweed, zigzagging to confuse him. Spears ricocheted off rocks around them, or buried themselves in kelp. The shooter had been joined by others.
“Follow me!” Sera shouted.
The reggia, Merrow’s ancient palace, was just ahead. Merrow, the first ruler of the merfolk, had built the reggia four thousand years ago. Sera loved the ancient ruins and had often stolen away from her court to explore them. She was hoping to draw the death riders into the ruins after her, lose them in the maze-like interior, then bolt out again.
The shouts behind them grew louder. The spears kept coming. Sera plunged down through the water, shot under a crumbling stone arch, and swam through a passageway.
“Sophia?” she called as loudly as she dared. “Are you there?”
“Right behind you,” came the answer.
Sophia was shimmering. Her transparensea pebble was wearing off. Sera sang a quick illuminata and gathered some moon rays into a ball. She grabbed Sophia’s hand and pulled her down a long hallway just as the death riders swam through the arch.
The two mermaids sped from room to room, through tunnels, and across courts. After five minutes of swimming flat-out, they’d lost their pursuers. Sera stopped, panting, to catch her breath.
“Where are we?” Sophia asked, fully visible now.
“Merrow’s private wing,” Sera replied. “We’ve just come through her apartments. They connect to the stables and an indoor ring that backs onto the kelp forest.”
Merrow had loved to ride, and had gone hunting in the forest almost every morning. The ancient kelp stalks, lovingly tended through the centuries, covered a large swath of seafloor.
“If we can just get into the forest, the kelp will give us cover,” Sera continued. “We’ll be well north of the city by the time we swim out of it.”
“How’s your tail?” Sophia asked.
Sera looked at it, grimacing. The makeshift bandage was soaked with blood.
“It hurts, but I’ll make it,” she said. “Let’s keep moving.”
No matter how much agony she was in, Sera knew she couldn’t allow herself to be caught, not with so much at stake. Hoping that the other Black Fins and the manta rays had made it to safety, she pushed the pain down and started swimming again.
She and Sophia moved warily through the stables. Empty stalls loomed eerily in the weak glow of Sera’s illuminata. She was glad when they reached the other side and emerged in the indoor ring.
Its floor was pitted and cracked, its walls colonized by anemones and tube worms. The ring was immense. It was not only wide, but its ceiling was very high, as mer swooped up and down on their mounts when t
hey rode.
“Ugh. Do you smell something?” Sophia suddenly asked, wrinkling her nose. “Something really bad?”
“Something really dead,” Sera said, her fins prickling.
She held the illuminata at arm’s length and turned in a slow, wary circle. Its light glinted off a metallic object in the middle of the ring. It appeared to be a large and deep trough, stabilized with four short metal legs. The two mermaids swam toward it and peered over its edge.
“Whoa!” Sophia said, recoiling. “That is so nasty!”
The smell, up close, was sickening. The sight was even worse.
The trough was full of bones. Sera saw the skulls of large fish, the spines and ribs of smaller ones, and a few terragogg legs—some with shoes still on them. Chunks of flesh and guts, all in various stages of decay, had been mixed with the bones.
“It looks like some kind of feeding trough,” Sera said when she could speak again. “Though I’d hate to see what it fed.”
“Sera…oh, my gods, Sera…” Sophia said. She wasn’t looking at the trough anymore.
“What is it?” Sera asked, turning to her.
“Do. Not. Move,” Sophia said, her voice cracking with fear.
“Okay. I’m not moving,” Sera said.
“Look up. Very, very slowly.”
Sera did. And gasped.
Clinging to the ceiling, like demons in a nightmare, were three massive Blackclaw dragons.
SERA’S HEART WAS beating so hard, she thought it would crack her ribs.
Enormous and powerful, with lethal teeth and talons, Blackclaws were one of the fiercest breeds of dragon known to mer.
“The death riders must be stabling them here,” Sera said, anger replacing her fear. She’d had no idea the fragile ruins were being used to house such destructive creatures.
As she and Sophia watched, one of the dragons—the biggest one, a female—scented the water. Her head swayed slowly from side to side. Her yellow eyes narrowed to slits. The spiked frill on her neck stood up.