Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel (9 page)

BOOK: Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel
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Then suddenly she did.

Oh, wow,
she thought.
That explains everything! Astrid’s unwillingness to songcast…her interest when I talked about my magic growing stronger…her
defensiveness…They’re all part of the same problem.

Becca reached for her traveling case and started to dig through it, pretending that she was looking for something. She was pretty certain she’d figured out the reason behind Astrid’s
eccentricity, but she wanted to confirm her suspicions before confronting her.

“I, uh, I just remembered I have some, um…candied mussels in my bag. They’d make a nice dessert, don’t you think? Could you cast an illuminata for me?” she asked
lightly. “The one I cast earlier isn’t strong enough to light up
this
mess.”

“An illuminata? Um, well, I really shouldn’t,” Astrid said. “I’ve got a cold and my voice is raspy. It would go
way
wrong.”

But Astrid’s voice wasn’t raspy. And Becca hadn’t heard her sniffle once.

I
am
right,
she thought. She closed her case and put it aside. “Astrid…” she said gently.

Astrid quickly looked away, but not before Becca glimpsed the desperation in her eyes, and the fear. Becca recognized those emotions. She knew them well. She reached for Astrid’s hand.

“What, Becca? For gods’ sake,
what
?” Astrid said, knotting her hand into a fist.

“You don’t really have a cold, do you?” Becca asked.

Astrid didn’t reply, but her eyes filled with tears.

This was bad. Very bad. This was about the worst.

“Oh, Astrid,” she said, her heart aching for this tough, sad, misunderstood mermaid. “You can’t sing.”

A
STRID QUICKLY BLINKED away her tears and tried to recover her cool.

“Of
course
I can sing,” she said.

Becca shook her head. “No, you can’t. That’s why you left us. Because you wanted to keep it a secret and were afraid we’d find out. Afraid we wouldn’t accept
you.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Spare me the amateur psych session, would you?” She rose and started stuffing the leftover food into her backpack.

“What are you doing?” asked Becca.

“Packing up. I’ve got to get going. I’ve wasted enough time here already.”

Becca was stung by the insult, but she didn’t give up. “So I’m a waste of time, huh? Nice, Astrid. Is that how you cope? By pushing mer away when they come too close? By
swimming off when you get scared?”

Astrid snorted. “I’m not scared of much, Becca. Certainly not of you,” she said.

“You’re scared of the truth, though.”

Astrid finished packing. She cinched her backpack. “It’s been real,” she said, turning to swim away. “Happy travels.”

Becca tried one last time. “Hey, Astrid? This isn’t an attack, okay?” she said. “It’s me being a friend. Or trying to.”

Astrid stopped. Her shoulders sagged. She looked like a puffer fish that had suddenly deflated.

“I understand. I really do,” Becca said softly.

Astrid whirled around. “No, you
don’t
,” she said hotly. “How could you? You’re normal, Becca. Your whole life is normal. You have parents who aren’t
disappointed in you. You go to school and no one makes fun of you. No one talks behind your back. No one thinks you’re a joke.”

“Yep,” Becca said brightly. “That’s me, little Miss Normal.”

“How did you know, anyway?” Astrid asked.

“Well, the fact that you never songcast kind of gave me a clue. And…”

“And what?”

“And I always know when someone’s hiding something,” Becca said.

“Yeah? How?” Astrid asked skeptically.

“Because I usually
am
that someone,” Becca replied.


You?
What are you hiding? A to-do conch? An ebb-and-flow chart?” Astrid joked, poking fun at Becca’s tendency to be hyperorganized.

Becca didn’t laugh. “I haven’t been straight with you, either,” she admitted, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. “Or with the others. I’m not in school. I
left a year ago to get a job. And I’m not heading home to a nice house with two doting parents.”

“I don’t understand,” Astrid said, setting her backpack down. “At the Iele’s you said—”

“I told you a story. About the happy life I
wish
I had,” Becca confessed, forcing herself to meet Astrid’s searching gaze. “I’m an orphan. My father died
of mercury poisoning when I was four. The waters where he grew up were full of it. His health was always bad, and it got worse as he got older. A year after I lost him, I lost my mother to longline
hooks. Her body was recovered before the lines were reeled in. That’s something, I guess.”

“Becca, I had no idea. I’m so sorry,” Astrid said, sitting back down.

“I didn’t have any relatives able to take me in, so I was put in a foster home. It was pretty chaotic. Bigger merkids stole my food, and my stuff. Nobody really cared how I did in
school, or if I even went.” She laughed sadly. “I think that’s why I’m so off-the-charts organized. I always had to have a plan—a plan to get to the table first so
I’d get
something
to eat. A plan for avoiding barracudas. A plan for getting myself to school on time. I
do
work at Baudel’s as a spellbinder—that much is true.
The owners are good to me; they let me live in an apartment over the shop. It’s small but it’s all mine. It has a bedroom, a sitting room, and the tiniest kitchen you’ve ever
seen. But I love it for what it doesn’t have…barracudas.”

Astrid nodded. Barracudas were killer fish with sharp teeth, but the word was also mer slang for what the terragoggs called bullies. “I know what you mean,” she said.
“Barracudas don’t steal my lunch—they wouldn’t dare, me being the admiral’s daughter—but they still have their weapons: the jokes, the whispers, the snide
remarks.”

“At least you have a family,” Becca said wistfully. “It must be nice to have parents to turn to.”

Astrid shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. My parents are ashamed of me,” she said miserably. “No one in the admiral’s family is supposed to be anything less than
perfect. My parents have tried to keep my problem a secret. Most Ondalinians don’t know, but some inside the Citadel do.”

“The what?”

“The Citadel,” Astrid replied. “That’s where Ondalina’s admirals live. With their families and the top members of government.”

Becca tilted her head. “How did it happen?” she asked.

A mermaid who couldn’t sing was rare; she’d never met one before.

“I don’t know,” Astrid replied. “I had a singing voice when I was little, but I lost it. It was right after Månenhonnør—Ondalina’s moon festival.
I was having such a good time—dancing and singing, and eating too many slices of Månenkager. It’s a cake made of pressed krill and iced with ground mother-of-pearl. It shines like
the moon.”

Becca nodded. She’d heard of Månenkager and knew that right before the cake went into the lava ovens, the baker dropped a silver drupe into the batter. Whoever got the coin in her
piece would have good luck for the coming year.

“A few days after the festival, I started losing my ability to sing. Two months later, it was gone completely. My father called in the best doctors in Ondalina. None of them could figure
out what had happened, but they all said I was lucky not to have lost my speaking voice, too.” Astrid went silent for a bit, then said, “I don’t
feel
lucky. What good is
a mermaid without magic?”

“A
lot
of good,” Becca said fiercely. “Who saved us from Abbadon, hmm? Wait, I’ll give you a hint—it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Sera, Ling, Ava, or
Neela, either. It was
you
. You took it straight to that monster.”

Becca vividly remembered when Vr
ă
ja had given them a glimpse of the horrible monster Abbadon. It was so strong and vicious that it had broken through
Vr
ă
ja’s ochi spell—even through waterfire—and attacked them. Astrid had rushed straight at the creature with her sword and had cut off one of its hands,
forcing it to retreat.

“Thanks, Becca. That’s a nice thing to say. I did help you, but I also left you. Because I was afraid my secret would make me a liability. Like I was today in the market hall,”
Astrid said. “You need more than a good swordsmer to fight Abbadon. You need a sixth songcaster with some seriously strong magic. I don’t have any to give you, and nothing can be done
about it.”

How Becca hated those words:
nothing can be done about it
. She’d heard them her entire life.

You’re an orphan now, Rebecca, and nothing can be done about it.

It’s too bad your doll was stolen, but it’s gone. Nothing can be done about it.

I’m sorry you don’t have money to go to the kolegio, but you can’t go unless you do. That’s just the way it is. Nothing can be done about it.

Astrid sat, shoulders slumped, drawing in the silt with her finger. Becca’s green eyes narrowed as she watched her. Astrid had magic inside her—dormant, maybe—but it was there.
Becca was sure of it. She could see it sparking in the merl’s intense ice-blue eyes. She could feel it in her sure, powerful movements. The question was how to get it out of her.

Becca immediately went into problem-solving mode, as she always did when confronted with a challenge. An idea started to form in her mind. Becca was an expert at coming up with strategies. Life
was often messy and unpredictable, but a good plan could make it neat and orderly. She would need a few things to carry out this particular plan: a length of bamboo or some sort of water reed.
Better yet, whalebone. Some pretty shells, too.

Becca was not only good at making things, she was good at making things better. Life in foster homes had taught her that if she waited for someone else to make things better, she’d be
waiting a very long time.

“Hey, we’d better get going,” Becca said. “Sitting here all day isn’t going to get us home.”

Astrid raised an eyebrow. “That was sudden,” she said.

“Yeah, well. I, um, just realized…that we probably shouldn’t hang out here all day,” Becca said. “You know, death riders and all.”

She rose and grabbed her travel case. Astrid slung her backpack over her shoulder. As they swam out of the cave, Becca spotted something glinting from the seafloor, half in and half out of the
silt. She bent down to pick it up.

“What is it?” Astrid asked.

“A piece of sea glass,” Becca replied, showing her her find. It was cobalt blue, polished by sand and surf to a milky opaqueness. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Dreaming up a new shade for your Whirlpearl Glitterbombs?” Astrid teased, referring to the line of songpearl cosmetics Becca had mentioned on their way to the Iele’s
caves.

“No, I just like bright, shiny things,” Becca said airily. “They inspire me, you know? You never know where your next big idea will come from.”

“For an eyeshadow,” Astrid said. “Or a lipstick.”

“Or something that just might save the world,” Becca said, pocketing the sea glass.

Astrid laughed.

Becca didn’t.

“G
ET UP!” the death rider shouted, slapping an elderly merman with his powerful tail fins.

A dozen soldiers—spearguns drawn—had swum into the
Bedrieër
’s hold. They were herding frightened prisoners out of the ship’s containment area and into the
water lock.

Ling rose in the water, straining against her chain, trying to see what was happening. She glimpsed a large cage. Prisoners were being forced into it. When the cage was full, a hatch was opened
and the cage was lowered into a chamber underneath the ship’s hull.

Ling knew that there was another hatch in the chamber. She was certain that the death riders would open it, and then the cage would plummet through the water…but why? Where were the prisoners
going?

She also knew that the death riders would have to detach the chain that tethered her to the hold’s wall if they wanted to put her in that cage. When they did, she might be able to break
away.

If she could slip out of the water lock into the death riders’ quarters, or the hold’s kitchens—someplace,
anyplace
, where she could hide until the rest of the
prisoners were gone—she might be able to steal to the water lock and let herself out.

BOOK: Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel
3.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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