The Golden City (3 page)

“Thanks be to God!” Isabel said passionately, tugging on her end of the trunk to draw Oriana along fa
st
er.

The driver of the coach set the brake and jumped down to help them. They lowered the trunk to the the ground as he opened the coach’s door and folded down the
st
eps. Isabel went to climb inside while Oriana spoke to the burly driver. “I need to go fetch two more bags,” she told him. “I’ll only be a moment.”

He grunted his assent, and Oriana turned to dash back to the Amarals’ courtyard.

A hand grabbed her hair, fingers tightening about the braided mass at the nape of her neck. Off balance, Oriana
st
umbled backward toward her attacker. Before she could cry out, he pressed a cloth over her mouth and dragged her again
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his body.

Oriana bit down hard. But biting only drove the cloth into her teeth, a
st
range sweet ta
st
e on her tongue and in her gills. She
st
ruggled wildly as the fire in her
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omach died back into cold fear. The big man had her pinned helpless again
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him. She kicked at his shins, but her heel tangled in the hem of her skirts, like seaweed wrapping about her legs. It was getting harder to move
. All these damned skirts . . .

The man set her down, shaking the hand she’d bitten. Oriana swayed on her feet. She tried to loosen her shirt cuff to draw her dagger, but her hands wavered in her vision. A surge of nausea rose, leaving her hot, then cold.

What was wrong with her? She should
do
something . . .

As if at a great di
st
ance, she heard Isabel cry out. Oriana spun that way, reaching one arm out to her. Then she was tilting, falling toward the night-dark cobbles.

O
riana dreamed she was bound. It was dark. Her head ached fiercely, her
st
omach felt hollow, and everything was wrong.

Ah, gods, no
. It wasn’t a nightmare.

She was tied firmly in place. She was upside down, seated in a chair, bound fa
st
to it by ropes about her arms and che
st
and ankles, and that chair was secured to the ceiling. Her wri
st
s were tied, forcing her hands to lie flat on a metal surface—a table or tray. Her ragged breath echoed in the small space.

She jerked again
st
the ropes, but they didn’t give. In
st
ead, the whole world swayed around her. A whimper escaped her lips.
What is happening?

She couldn’t seem to think
st
raight.
I’ve been drugged, haven’t I?
There had been something bitter on the cloth the driver held over her mouth. Was he one of the Special Police, the branch dedicated to hunting down nonhumans like her? Had someone turned her in?

She had to find a way out of this place. She could smell wood and cork, the pungent scents of resins and paint, and, faintly, the river. She held her breath and could hear muted sounds, but nothing that made sense. Her eyes began to adju
st
to the blackness, better than human eyes for that sort of thing.

And then she realized she wasn’t alone. Isabel hung in a chair across from her. The cobwebs that cluttered Oriana’s mind blew away in a sudden rush. “Isabel,” she cried. “Wake up!”

Isabel’s head swayed and her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t respond. She mu
st
have been drugged, too.

Oriana’s hands curled into fi
st
s again
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the table’s surface. She had to get Isabel out of this place. She yanked again
st
the ropes that bound her arms again, but couldn’t make out how they were tied. The knots mu
st
be behind her back.

She surveyed the shadowy room then, taking
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ock. She could make out its size now, not much larger than the inside of a coach. The walls looked featureless, dark and plain. There was only her and Isabel and a small round table ne
st
led between them. The ropes pressed her hands down on one side of the table, and Isabel’s hands lay opposite them. Oriana could see that the surface was patterned somehow, but the room was too dark for her to make it out.

What is this? Why would anyone put us here?

Her breathing sounded harsh in her own ears, overloud in the tiny room. She forced it down, not wanting to frighten Isabel. She had to come up with a plan. Then she heard a new sound through the walls: the metallic rattle of shifting chains. There had to be someone nearby. “Let her go,” she cried, hoping they would hear. “She didn’t know I’m not human. She’s not a Sympathizer. It’s . . .”

Everything moved. Oriana had the terrifying sensation of falling, then her body slammed to a
st
op again
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the ropes that bound her. She hissed and followed that with every foul word she’d ever heard her aunts say. The initial flare of pain ebbed after a moment. They were on water now. The room bobbed like a boat.

“It’s me you want,” Oriana screamed into the darkness. “Not her, damn it!”

There was no response save for the continued clatter of chains.

Oriana’s breath suddenly went short. This room couldn’t be watertight, not if she’d heard the chains so clearly through the walls. Water was going to fill this space, and quickly. “Isabel, wake up!”

Isabel moaned in response, her eyes fluttering open. “Where am I?”

She heard water bubbling into the
st
ru
ct
ure that trapped them. Something was dragging them deeper. They didn’t have much time. “I don’t know. We have to try to get loose.”

“Oriana? Where are you? I can’t see.” Isabel began to cry helplessly then, like a lo
st
child.

Oriana tried to keep her voice
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eady for Isabel’s sake. “It’s very dark, Isabel. That’s why you can’t see. Now li
st
en to me. You have to try to get your arms loose.”

“I can’t,” Isabel sobbed.

Oriana couldn’t see the water yet. It was above—no, below—her head, seeping upward. She could hear it and smell it, though. Cold fear knotted in her gut. They were going to run out of time.

No, she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I’m going to untie myself,” she told Isabel. “Then I’ll untie you.”

“How?” she whimpered.

Oriana didn’t take time to answer. She grasped the edge of the table and shifted in the chair that held her, twi
st
ing so her teeth could reach the rope about her right wri
st
. Her teeth
were
sharper than a human’s, something that rarely proved an advantage. The rope splintered and shredded in her mouth.

The water continued to seep upward, inexorable.

“Oriana? Are you
st
ill there? Oriana!”

Oriana paused. The fear in Isabel’s voice tore at her heart, but she needed to get loose more than Isabel needed an answer, so she kept chewing. But she did
st
op and glance up when Isabel screamed.

The water had reached the top of Isabel’s head. Isabel began thrashing wildly. “No!” she screamed. “No!”

This was
cruel
. Crueler now that Isabel had figured out the fate planned for them.

“Isabel, be quiet.” Oriana used her voice to
call
Isabel, the one magic she possessed. She wove the imperative into her words—not a spell like a human witch might use, but simple desire,
yearning
. It would have been more successful with a human male, but she could hold almo
st
any human’s attention for a few minutes, and even prompt her to a
ct
ion. The magic drew Isabel’s gaze to her and, although she didn’t think Isabel could see her, it forced Isabel to focus on her words. Oriana hoped she could buy them some time. “Isabel, bend forward as far as you can,” she ordered. “Right before the water gets to your nose, take a deep breath and hold it.”

Isabel’s ragged breathing was interspersed with sobs, but she obediently bent forward, her dark head almo
st
touching the table.

Oriana prayed that would be enough. She set her teeth back to the rope. It gave suddenly, and she yanked it with her mouth. It had been wrapped around several times, so she had to pull each loop loose. Chilly water touched the back of her head. Cold fingers of water spread along the back of her housemaid’s co
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ume, grasped her shoulders, climbed up her garments.

It reached her mouth, and she took it in. Her gills opened involuntarily and her throat closed,
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ealing her voice. She breathed in the familiar water of the Douro River as she dragged her arm free of the loops of rope.

No!
The rope holding her other arm hadn’t loosened at all. They were
separate
ropes. She would have to chew through each one individually. She tore at her shirtsleeve, but her wri
st
was tied too tightly to get her dagger loose, not until she could get that hand free.

There was no time. Oriana didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t
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op herself.

Across from her in the darkness, Isabel’s eyes were
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ricken in the pale oval of her face. The water had nearly reached her wai
st
. Oriana didn’t know how long Isabel had been holding her breath, waiting to be rescued.

If she could ju
st
reach Isabel, she could breathe
for
her. Oriana jerked again
st
the rope trapping her left arm, but it didn’t give an inch. She tried to shove the ropes binding her che
st
down to her wai
st
, but they tangled in the fabric of her apron.

Isabel’s bow-shaped lips opened. A flood of bubbles
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reamed from her mouth, the la
st
of her breath. Her body jerked convulsively again
st
the ropes that bound her to the chair. Her eyes were wide with terror.

Unable to reach her, Oriana pounded her free hand on the surface of the table, setting off painful vibrations through her webbing. She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg Isabel’s forgiveness. But her voice was gone underwater. She reached out her throbbing hand and laid it over Isabel’s fingers. What could she do?

She couldn’t sing underwater, but she could
hum.
Oriana wove a
call
into the tune to comfort Isabel, using her memories of an old lullaby her father had sung to shape the sound. It was all she had to give.

Isabel’s expression eased, the fear in her eyes fading.

Then she was
st
ill.

Oriana’s song faltered to a
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op, and soundless sobs shook her body. The water had
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olen her ability to cry. She could ta
st
e Isabel’s death in the water, the sudden tang of a voided bladder—loss of control along with the loss of life. Oriana tugged the silk mitt off her hand with her teeth and spread her fingers wide,
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retching the webbing between them. She could feel the vibration of her own heartbeat.

From Isabel there was nothing.

And then a glow crept across the surface of the table between them, almo
st
like blood flowing from a wound. Letters imprinted on the surface gave off a pallid light, forming words that made no sense to Oriana’s eyes. A ring of words circled the table’s edge. Inside that was another ring of nonsense symbols, shapes she didn’t recognize, and in the center a third ring held a colle
ct
ion of
st
raight lines. The glow crept to the center of the small table and then
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opped as if it had hit a wall.

The table had come alive in response to Isabel’s death.

Oriana looked back at her friend. She tried to touch Isabel’s face. Her fingers fell short, so she grasped Isabel’s hand again, as if Isabel could
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ill feel her there. Isabel’s head began to sway loosely with the motion of the water, a single
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rand of hair floating pa
st
her open mouth and snagging again
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her lips.

Oriana squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look any longer.

She didn’t know how long she
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ayed like that, trembling again
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the ropes that bound her. The water continued to rise about her. It swallowed her legs. The cold seeped into her tight-laced shoes.

Then the la
st
of the air slipped out of the room and the whole thing began sinking quickly, some anchor drawing it down. The pressure of the water made the wood groan. Then it came to a
st
op, far gentler than that fir
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slam into the surface of the water. Now that the room was flooded, they should sink to the bottom of the river, but for some reason they continued to float.

Oriana opened her eyes. At a deeper depth it was even darker, but the table’s surface continued to glow, lighting Isabel’s motionless features. Oriana
st
ared at that tabletop for a long time, those meaningless words and lines burning into her mind.

She felt wrung out and dull, like a chemise whose dye had all seeped away into the wash water. She needed to escape this place, but there was no longer any need to hurry. She had all the time in the world now—now that Isabel was gone.

Someone had put them here to die, but it hadn’t been the Special Police. They would have known a sereia could breathe as easily underwater as above it. No, this was a trap meant for
humans.
Someone had wanted Isabel to die terrified and helpless.

But that someone had made one mi
st
ake.

They hadn’t weighed Oriana Paredes into their equations, no doubt thinking her simply another housemaid. They’d tried to drown a sereia. And she was going to make them pay.

Not for herself. During the year she’d trained to be a spy, she’d been taught that her own life might be forfeit. She’d accepted that possibility. No, she would make someone pay for doing this to Isabel, who had
st
arted the day with such great hopes and ended it with terror. She would hunt the murderer down and, one way or another, they would see ju
st
ice.

•   •   •

I
t seemed a long time later that Oriana bowed her head and began to chew at the other rope. Once she got that hand free, she was able to draw her dagger and cut the remaining ropes that bound her to the chair. She pushed herself out of it, lightheaded when her body righted itself.

In the darkness, she touched Isabel’s face, a final farewell. Isabel’s ebony hair had held to its coiffure, save for that one loose lock. It
st
reamed upward now, almo
st
reaching Isabel’s lap, a
st
reak of darkness again
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her white maid’s apron. Lit by the table’s eerie glow, Isabel was lovely even in death, her face at peace. Tiny bubbles of air worked loose from the shadowy wooden
st
ru
ct
ure about them, gli
st
ening in the darkness.

Oriana’s throat ached, but she couldn’t cry. She clasped the unmoving fingers one more time, and then swam to the top of the little room.

She wedged herself next to the fixed chairs, crowding Isabel’s bound feet. She hammered again
st
that floor or ceiling with one hand. Each impa
ct
sent uncomfortable vibrations through her webbing, so she wrapped one arm about the base of the table and used her feet to kick at one of the corners in
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ead. After a few good kicks, she felt it give. Nails tore loose from the wood. She slid her hands into that narrow opening and pushed with all her
st
rength.