Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel (6 page)

“We know
where
they are. I discovered where Merrow hid them thanks to a conch in the Ostrokon. And now we know
what
they are—
all
of them.
We
know,
and Rafe Mfeme
doesn’t
!” Sera said, still staring at Sycorax.

“Um, okay. Which means?” Sophia prompted.

Sera turned to Sophia, her eyes triumphant. “Which means that maybe, just maybe, we actually can
do
this!”

“W
HAT
EXACTLY
ARE you talking about?” Sophia said, her patience with Seraphina’s cryptic comments wearing thin.
“Would you
please
tell me?”

Sera struggled with herself. Only a handful of mer knew the enormity of the battle they were fighting. It was safer that way. Spies were everywhere.

“You can trust me. With your life. You know that,” Sophia said, as if sensing the reason behind Sera’s hesitation.

It was true. Sophia had proven herself worthy of Sera’s trust outside the Traitors’ Gate. Also, Sera realized, as regina and leader of the Black Fins, she was currently in a
compromised position—badly wounded and a long way from safety. There was still a good chance she’d be captured. If that happened, how would she get the information she’d just
learned to Neela, Yaz, and the others? She
had
to rely on Sophia.

Taking a deep breath, Sera started to talk. “Our fight…it’s bigger than Miromara. It’s as big as all the waters of the world and every creature in them,” she said.

While Sophia listened, wide-eyed, Sera explained that the mage Orfeo had created a monster called Abbadon and had used it to destroy Atlantis. Then she told her that she and five
others—Neela, Ava, Astrid, Becca, and Ling—had been summoned by Baba Vr
ă
ja, the leader of the Iele, a coven of river witches, and had been given the task of
destroying the monster.

“Why you?” Sophia asked.

“Because each of us is a descendant of one of the Six Who Ruled,” Sera explained. “We have their magic inside us and it gets stronger when we’re together.
Vr
ă
ja hoped it would be strong enough to defeat Abbadon.”

“But why did Orfeo create that thing in the first place? Why did he let it destroy Atlantis?”

“Because he was angry. And sad. And out of his mind,” Sera said. “His wife, Alma, died, and he couldn’t accept her death. He decided to march on the underworld and take
her back, but he needed help, so he went to Morsa, the death goddess. He sacrificed people to her.”

“He did
what
?” Sophia said, appalled. “We never learned that in school!”

“No, we didn’t,” Sera said ruefully. “Merrow didn’t want anyone to know the truth; she kept it secret. She thought the mer would be safer that way. I can almost see
why. I found the temple where the sacrifices were made. I touched the blood, heard the victims’ voices. It was horrible.” She shuddered at the memory.

“Why didn’t anyone stop him?” asked Sophia.

“By the time his fellow Atlanteans found out, it was too late. Morsa, the death goddess, had given Orfeo a talisman—a black pearl—that made him very powerful. Ling and I
learned this from a vitrina we met in the ruins of Atlantis. She said that Orfeo beseeched Morsa to share the secrets of immortality with him, and that he somehow used them to create Abbadon. The
monster was incredibly powerful. All the other mages could do was kill Orfeo, imprison Abbadon, and then sink it in the Southern Sea.”

“
Imprison
Abbadon? Not kill it? You mean it’s—”

“—still alive? Yes. But locked away forever. Or so Merrow thought. The prison can only be opened or closed by fitting a certain six talismans into its lock,” Sera said,
gesturing at the walls. “The objects that the mages are holding in these mosaics
are
those talismans. Merrow hid them in different waters to make sure no one could ever use them to
free Abbadon. But someone else has been trying to find them. We don’t know who, but we’re trying to stay ahead of him. So far, we’ve found two of the talismans—a blue
diamond that belonged to Merrow and a moonstone that Navi owned. When we have them all, we can open the prison and try to kill Abbadon.”

“Hold on, Sera…you’re going to try to kill a monster that the most powerful mages ever couldn’t kill? That’s insane!”

Sera nodded solemnly. “Yeah, it probably is.”

“And just
how
are you going to do that?”

Sera sighed. “I wish I knew. But, according to the Iele, we have to. Before the shadowy
someone
frees it.”

Sophia was quiet when Sera finished. She looked like she was in shock. “That
is
a big fight,” she finally said. “The biggest. I mean, as if trying to defeat your uncle
and take back Miromara wasn’t enough.”

Sera was about to agree when a bolt of pain shot up her tail. Wincing, she bit back a cry. The excitement of finding Merrow’s secret rooms and the mosaics they contained had dulled the
pain, but now it was coming back with a vengeance.

“What’s wrong?” Sophia asked, worried.

“My tail…” Sera said.

Sophia took her arm. “Sit down, Sera. You need to rest.”

Sera spun away. “No, we’ve got to get going.”

Sophia started to argue, but Sera cut her off. She turned around and looked deeply into her friend’s eyes.

“Soph, I’m still bleeding and the death riders are still out there,” she said. “I told you about the talismans because I trust you, but for another reason, too: if you
make it back to HQ and I don’t, you need to tell Neela what we saw here. Promise me. The information can’t die with me.”

Sophia shook her head. “You’re going to tell her yourself, Sera, because you’re going to make it back. I’m going to
make
you make it,” she said.

“Sophia, listen to me…”

“No, Sera,
you
listen. They don’t get to do this—Vallerio, Portia, Lucia, Mfeme. They don’t—” Her voice broke. She struggled to regain her composure.
“I never told you why I joined the Black Fins. The death riders came to my house. They took my parents. I managed to grab my little brother and hide in our garden. He’s safe now, with
friends. But my parents are missing. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again.”

Sera’s heart ached. “I’m so sorry, Sophia,” she said. She knew the mermaid’s pain all too well. She’d lost her own parents to Vallerio and his death riders.
Her brother, Desiderio, was missing.

“They don’t get to hurt mer and tear families apart all for power and gold,” Sophia continued, her expression grim and determined. “I’m a Black Fin because I want
to do everything I can to stop them. Which means getting
you
back to HQ. There’s got to be a way out besides the crack we swam through. Merrow got in and out of here, after all. I
know she was powerful, but even she couldn’t swim through stone.”

Sera nodded wearily. “Let’s start looking for it.”

“No,
I’m
going to look for it.
You
are going to
sit down
, close your eyes, and gather your strength.”

Sera protested, but Sophia was firm, so she sat and rested her throbbing tail. Across the room, Merrow’s image gazed down at her, and Sera had the unshakable feeling that her ancestor was
helping her.

“Thanks for this,” Sera whispered. “Thanks for the Black Fins and the manta rays. Thanks for getting us into the vaults. And for saving us from the dragons.”

Before she closed her eyes, she thanked her ancestor for one more thing—for the fighter by her side who was brave, loyal, and strong.

For an ally and a friend.

For Sophia.

W
ITHOUT ANY WARNING, the trawler’s engines stopped. Their deep thrum had been a constant for the past three weeks, and the sudden silence
hung ominously in the water.

“Why are we stopping? What’s happening?” a mermaid cried out.

Ling, who’d been sitting down, her tail stretched out in front of her, her back against the cold steel of the ship’s hull, was instantly alert.
We’re here
.
Wherever here is,
she thought with a sense of dread.
You’ve got one last chance. It’s now or never.

The mermaid who’d cried out spoke again.
“Please,”
she said, her voice trembling with fear. “Where are they taking us?”

Ling saw that the mermaid was very close by. Two small children clung to her.

“Shut up, will you? You’re making it worse!” a merman yelled.

“Don’t shout at her. She’s scared,” Ling said.

“We’re
all
scared!” the merman shot back.

“But we’re not all acting like jerks,” said Ling.

The merman lunged at her, but a chain brought him up short.

“Momma, I’m
hungry
,” one of the mermaid’s children said. “Why did the noise stop? I don’t like this!”

“Shh, it’s okay,” the mermaid soothed. “They’ll bring us some food soon. It’ll be all right.”

But it wouldn’t be. In fact, Ling was sure things were about to go from bad to worse. She needed to escape before that happened. She
had
to find a way to tell Sera and the others
what she’d learned aboard this ship.

There was only one way out, though—through the door that separated the prisoners’ containment area from the rest of the hold. Beyond the door was a water lock. The death riders used
it to enter and exit the ship. Ling had watched them operate it when they brought her aboard; she had tried to memorize which buttons they pushed on the control panel. If she could get to it, she
might be able to let herself out. But she was shackled to the ship’s hull and the guards had the keys. They wore them on rings secured to their belts with a loop and toggle, right next to
their speargun holsters.

She’d tried to steal the keys before. Once by pretending to collapse and fall against a guard. Another time by tugging on a guard’s arm as she begged for food. The guards were wary
of prisoners’ tricks, though, and all she ever managed to get for her trouble was a slap.

But now the ship had stopped. Something was going on; she could sense it. Maybe that something would give her the chance she needed.

Ling, together with about three hundred other mer, was imprisoned aboard the
Bedrieër
, an immense trawler. The vessel’s hold was filled with salt water, but there were so
many mer packed into it that the water had become murky and hard to breathe. The prisoners all had iron collars around their necks to prevent them from songcasting. Some—the ones the death
riders thought troublesome—were chained to the wall. Ling’s time aboard the ship had taken its toll. Her left eye was badly bruised. Her hair was matted. The cast on her arm was dirty,
and the once-bright orange patches on her ivory tail were dull.

The
Bedrieër
belonged to a brutal terragogg named Rafe Iaoro Mfeme. Or so Ling had thought when she’d first been hauled aboard it. She’d entered the waters of Qin and
had been making her way home when death riders had surrounded her. After interrogating her on the whereabouts of the talismans—and getting nothing out of her—Mfeme had revealed his true
identity.

He was Orfeo, the most powerful mage who’d ever lived.

He’d removed the sunglasses he constantly wore, revealing eyes that were empty, black voids. Ling’s blood had run cold at the sight of them. She’d realized that she’d
seen him before—in a mirror in Atlantis. He’d tried to crawl out of it, to come after her and Sera, but Sera had broken the mirror before he could.

“You
can’t
be Orfeo. It’s impossible,” Ling had whispered. “You’re dead. You’ve
been
dead for four thousand years!”

Orfeo had laughed. “Anything is possible, Ling, if you want it badly enough.”

“I don’t believe you,” Ling had said.

But as he’d spoken, the rays of the setting sun had glinted off the black pearl he wore around his neck.

The pearl!
Ling had thought, remembering that Orfeo’s talisman was a black pearl given to him by Morsa. Had he somehow used it to keep himself alive? That was the moment when Ling
had
believed him, with all her heart, and terror had gripped her—not for herself, but for her friends. They had no idea who Mfeme really was. Desperate to tell them, she’d
tried to cast a convoca, but Orfeo had clamped an iron collar around her neck before she’d sung two words of the spell.