Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel (20 page)

Lucia ignored her. She knew that pulling someone else’s bloodsongs was wrong, that it was a heinous violation of both body and soul, but she didn’t care.

She swirled her hand through the blood now, avidly watching the images coalesce. She saw Mahdi riding his hippokamp. Talking with Traho. Commanding death riders. None of those memories was what
she wanted. Impatiently, she waved the blood away and pulled more.

“Lucia, be careful,” Bianca warned. “You’ll
hurt
him.”

Lucia paid her no heed. She pulled another skein of blood, and then another. Mahdi’s face turned a pale, sickly shade, but she kept on drawing out his memories until finally she saw what
she was after.

She watched Mahdi kiss Sera in a safe house.

She watched him take Sera’s hand in a room in a farmhouse.

She watched him Promise himself to Sera in an official ceremony in the farmhouse’s garden.

And then she could watch no more.

She rose, her hands clenched, her eyes dark with malice. Jealousy shriveled her heart. Rage turned it black. Mahdi was a traitor. He had betrayed Miromara and Matali. Worse, he had betrayed
her.

She picked up an empty glass and hurled it against a wall, shattering it. She toppled a table. And then another. Then she remembered the dagger hidden in a pocket of her dress. She pulled it
out, trembling with fury, and advanced on the defenseless Mahdi.

Bianca, wide-eyed, swam in front of her. “Lucia, no!
Wait!
” she frantically pleaded.

Lucia glared at her. “For
what
?” she asked venomously.

“What if this is all a mistake? What if this
isn’t
Mahdi? The real Mahdi, I mean.

Lucia’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Sera must’ve enchanted him somehow. So she could use him to advance the Black Fins’ cause.”

Lucia thought about this, then slowly nodded. “You’re right. That’s exactly what happened. That explains everything. Mahdi would
never
prefer Sera to me.”

“Of course he wouldn’t. How could he?” Bianca said soothingly.

“She used darksong on him to make him
believe
that he loves her. To make him spy for her. She’ll stop at nothing to take my throne,” Lucia said.

Bianca glanced nervously at the blade Lucia was still clutching. “Put that away,” she said. “You don’t want to cut yourself.”

Lucia looked at the dagger as if she had no idea how it had gotten there. She put it in her pocket, then turned back to Mahdi. “I have to break the songspell,” she said. “I
have to free him.”

“How?” Bianca asked. “It’s super hard to undo someone else’s songspell. You have to figure out exactly which spell was used, then invent a counter-melody
and—”

“There’s another way,” Lucia said impatiently. “It’s much quicker.”

“What is it?”

Lucia remembered Baco Goga’s report about the location of the Black Fins, and their leader. Her father said he would attack them. He was gathering intelligence. He was making a plan.

He was taking too long.

“Lucia, what’s the other way?” Bianca asked again.

Lucia smiled. “Kill the songcaster.”

A
STRID, HER EYES on Desiderio, flattened herself against the cell door.

His face darkened. “Oh, right, I forgot. I’m an assassin. Don’t worry, I won’t murder
you
,” he said caustically. “I can’t. See?”

As he started toward her, the heavy chain attached to his collar pulled taut and stopped him. Droplets of blood fell onto his bare chest. The iron collar—designed to prevent both escape
and songspells—was biting into his skin.

Astrid’s mind raced. Her parents had told her that Desiderio was a spy, that he’d tried to kill Kolfinn, and that he’d been arrested with his troops near Ondalina. She knew now
who was really trying to kill her father, but that didn’t mean that Desiderio wasn’t a spy, and that he wasn’t here on Vallerio’s orders. She would have to proceed
cautiously.

“You’re
accused
of being an assassin,” she said.

“From what I just heard, so are you,” Desiderio shot back. “Something tells me there’s no truth to
that
claim, either.”

He swam unsteadily to a narrow cot pushed against the far wall. He sat down, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Another drop of blood fell onto his chest.

He’s seriously hungry,
Astrid thought.
And probably in pain, too. Torture? Starvation? This is not how Ondalina treats its prisoners.
She put down the key ring, took off
her pack, and started digging through it. “What happened with you and your troops outside the Citadel?” she asked.

“Does it matter?” Desiderio replied wearily.

“Yeah, it does.”

She found what she was after—a packet wrapped in kelp leaves. It was a little crushed, but she doubted Desiderio would mind. She was about to toss it to him when they heard the sound of
tapping, iron on ice.

Desiderio’s eyes flew open. “The guards,” he whispered. “They swim by every hour until midnight and tap their nightsticks on the doors. You have to show yourself. Get
back up above the door.
Hurry!
”

Astrid scrambled up. She got herself to the ceiling just as the guard tapped on Desiderio’s door. He rose to attention. The guard peered in through the barred window, then moved on.

Astrid sank back down to the floor. He could have turned her in just then. Or earlier, when Rylka was in his cell. Many prisoners would have, to gain favor.

“Here,” she said, tossing him the packet.

Desiderio caught it and looked at her.

“Squid eggs.” She’d bought them a few leagues outside of Ondalina.

“Thank you,” Desiderio said, tearing the packet open.

Its contents were gone in seconds. When he finished eating, he folded the kelp-leaf wrapper and tucked it under his mattress.

A soldier’s trick,
Astrid thought admiringly. Kelp leaves weren’t the tastiest things—they were used mostly for parchment and wrapping material—but they were
edible in a pinch.

Desiderio had a bit more energy now. “You wanted my story,” he said. “So here it is: I was sent with four regiments to defend Miromara’s western border. This was months
ago. My mother and uncle were worried about an attack. With good cause, it turned out. We were ambushed a week after we arrived.”

“By whom?”

“Ondalinians.”

Anger flared in Astrid again at learning that Rylka was using her father’s soldiers to attack without cause.

“They came at night,” Desiderio continued. “It was wholesale slaughter. I lost two-thirds of my troops. The survivors were rounded up. Our hippokamps and weapons were
confiscated and we were forced to swim north. More soldiers died along the way. As we neared the Citadel, Rylka rode out to meet us. She accused me of conspiring to attack the Citadel and of trying
to assassinate Kolfinn. I said I’d done no such thing, that we—my soldiers and I—had been attacked. A merman came at me then…with three orca teeth on his
uniform—”

“Tauno,” Astrid said.

“He hit me in the face with the butt of his crossbow. I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in here.”

Astrid studied his face, looking for a twitch, listening for a false note in his voice, anything that might indicate that he was lying. She saw nothing.

Desiderio studied hers in return. “I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “I’ll prove it.”

He rose from his cot, touched his fingers to the place over his heart, and drew a bloodsong. Blood was impervious to magic; it could not be altered. He could pull bloodsongs even though he wore
an iron collar.

Desiderio winced in pain as the crimson skeins plumed through the water. Old memories were the easiest to pull. Ripened by time, they could be plucked like heavy fruit. New memories were more
resistant. Their sharp edges snagged.

Astrid watched as sounds and images coalesced inside the bloodsong. She saw Desiderio’s border encampment with its tents and lava fires burning brightly in the darkness. Then she heard the
sound of hippokamps charging. There were shouts and screams. And later, as the rays of the morning sun penetrated the waters, there were bodies. So many of them. She watched the rest of the
bloodsong with a mixture of sorrow and anger. It was all exactly as Desiderio had said.

“I’m sorry,” Astrid said as the bloodsong faded. “Sorry that this happened. Sorry for being suspicious of you.”

“Why did she do it?” he asked, his voice ragged. Pulling bloodsongs had weakened him even more. “Why did she accuse me of plotting to attack Ondalina, when Ondalinian soldiers
attacked me?”

“She’s trying to stir up fear of Miromara in my father and brother. So she can convince them to accept Portia Volnero’s deal.”

“Portia Volnero?” Desiderio echoed, confused. “Why is
she
brokering a deal with Ondalina?”

“Because she and Vallerio are bent on world domination,” Astrid said acidly. “Now that Lucia’s the regina—”

Desiderio stopped her. “Wait…
what
did you say? Lucia’s not Miromara’s regina, my mother is.”

“No,
Lucia
is. Ever since Cerulea was attacked and…” Astrid’s words fell away as Desiderio’s confusion deepened. Understanding dawned on her. “Oh, gods.
You don’t know,” she said. “No one told you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“
Tell me
, Astrid, please,” Desiderio said, his eyes huge in his face, his voice barely a whisper.

“I will,” Astrid said. Her heart ached for him, and for all the pain she was about to cause him. “But I think you’d better sit down first.”

“S
TOP IT, DESIDERIO.
Stop
it!” Astrid begged.

He was pulling against his chain, trying to free himself. Twisting and flailing with all his might.

“Stop.
Please
.”

If Desiderio heard her, he gave no sign of it.

Astrid had told him everything. He’d crumpled when he learned of his parents’ deaths. His grief had turned to fury when he found out how they died, and that fury only increased when
Astrid told him what had happened to Sera, and how she was now leading the resistance.

When Astrid finished talking, Desiderio had started tugging desperately at his chain, trying to rip it out of the wall. He didn’t seem to know her anymore, or himself.

Astrid watched him, looking for her chance. Every few seconds, he would stop thrashing and be still, his chest working to draw breath. She tensed. When he stopped again, she sprang. “Look
at me, Desiderio…
look at me
!” she hissed, grabbing his arms and holding them fast.

His eyes were wild. She could feel him straining to break her grip.

“Desiderio…” She took his face between her hands now. “I
said
, look. At.
Me
.”

Their faces were only inches apart now. He raised his eyes to hers. The anguish in their depths was terrible to see.

“I’m not going to tell you it’ll be all right. Because it won’t be,” Astrid said. “Not for a long time. Maybe not ever. But choking yourself to death in a
dungeon cell won’t bring your parents back. It won’t help Sera. It won’t stop Vallerio or Rylka. Do you understand?”

Desiderio slowly nodded. The crazed look in his eyes receded.

“Okay. Good,” Astrid said, releasing him. “What we have to do now is get ourselves out of here and get to my father. I have to protect him from Rylka. And he has to protect
you
from Rylka.”

Desiderio shook his head as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Get ourselves out of here?”
he repeated. “Have you somehow missed the fact that I’m chained
to the
wall
of a
cell
in a
dungeon
?”

Astrid picked up the iron key ring she’d placed on the cell’s floor earlier. “I bet one of these will open your collar,” she said, swimming back to him.

She tried one key after another in the collar’s lock. On her fifth try, it opened. She pulled it off and tossed it aside, wincing at how it had rubbed his skin raw.

“Now one of these other keys will open the gate at the far end of this corridor. I’m sure of it. If we can just get to there, we’re free. I’m betting another key will
open the door to this cell.”