Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A (19 page)

It would
not
happen again.

“T
HE METAL from this one hull alone will give us
thousands
of spearheads,” Desiderio yelled excitedly, patting a barnacle-covered chunk of a sunken ship. “And there’s still a trawler to cut up!”

“We’ll churn out
tens
of thousands!” Yazeed shouted. “With the forge up and running now, the goblins are going day and night.”

“But is that enough? Will we make it in time?” Sera bellowed. The Black Fins were due to start for the Southern Sea in two weeks. Their supply wagons needed to be full of arrows and spears by then.

Yazeed answered. “No problem! We’ll have all the ammo we need!”

Even though both mermen were shouting, Sera could hardly hear them for all the noise. Behind them, lava bubbled, steam hissed, the forge roared, and the goblins busily sawed through thick plates of steel.

She’d come to check on the progress the goblins were making, and though the noise was deafening, and the commotion dizzying, Sera couldn’t have been happier. Right after Styg and his crew found the lava seam, she’d given orders to construct the forge near the lava seam and start casting ammo.

The lava seam was such a gift. The lava and the steel from the ships cost nothing. Sera no longer needed to deal with the Näkki or risk her troops being ambushed.

The three friends left the forge and headed back to headquarters. They were still talking a fathom a minute about provisions and didn’t notice Mulmig waving at them until she was right in their faces.

“Did you
hear
?” she asked excitedly, before Sera could even greet her.

“Hear what?” Sera asked, her fins prickling. She didn’t like surprises.

“Ling solved the puzzle ball!”

“No way!” Yazeed said.

“Yes way!” Mulmig replied. “The news is moving through camp like a tsunami!”

“Where is she?” Sera asked, rigid with anticipation. Did this mean the spy would soon be outed?

“She shut herself up in the headquarters cave so she can figure out the Arrow of Judgment.”

“Have you seen it?” Des asked.

“Not yet. No one has. But Ling says it’s like a compass. Only instead of pointing to directions, the arrow points to crimes. Where the word
north
would be on a compass is the word
innocent
. Other points correspond to words like
robber
or
murderer
. Ling says—”

But Sera didn’t wait to hear the rest. She was off like a shot. Des and Yazeed were right on her tail. There was one word she desperately hoped was on that compass:
spy
.

When the three reached the cave, they found Ling seated at the table, busy writing on a piece of kelp parchment. Members of Sera’s inner circle were with her. Becca and Neela were watching her. They’d been going over the next day’s work schedule. Sophia was there, too. She’d been reviewing the weapons inventory. Little Coco had been counting doubloons into stacks, preparing a payment to Meerteufel traders, her shark Abelard nearby. They all turned their heads expectantly toward Sera.

“Ling, did you really—” she breathlessly started to ask.

“Crack the puzzle? Yeah, I did.
Finally!
” Ling exclaimed. “I tested the Arrow of Judgment out a few times, then I put the puzzle ball away for safekeeping until you got back. Everyone’s
so
excited about it, Sera. You won’t believe it when you see it.”

“Tested it out? How?” asked Sera.

“I found out who started the brawl in the mess hall last night, and who’s been stealing from the food stores. And both of them confessed. Isn’t that
amazing
? All you have to do is hold the puzzle ball in front of someone and ask it if that someone is innocent or guilty. The arrow does the rest.”

“Ling, do you know what this means?” Yazeed asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes. We can finally root out the spy. I’m figuring out a plan now. I’m so glad you’re all here. I want to get everyone’s input. I thought we could start at the west side of the camp and work our way across. Eventually the arrow will point to the traitor. It’s just a matter of time until—”

An anguished cry interrupted her. It had come from the other end of the table.

Sera, startled, turned to see that it was Sophia. As Sera watched, Sophia rose from the table, took a few faltering strokes toward her, then crumpled.

“Soph, what is it? Are you hurt?” Sera asked, rushing to her.

Sophia didn’t answer. She just sat on the silty cave floor, her head bowed, her hair falling into her eyes.

“Sophia, what’s going on?” Sera pressed, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s me,” Sophia whispered. She raised her face. It was deathly pale. “It’s
me
,” she said again. “
I’m
the spy.”

Sera backed away. She felt as if Sophia had just reached inside her and crushed her heart. The others were all looking at the two of them, too shocked to speak.

“Soph,
no
,” Sera said. “Not you. It
can’t
be you.”

“It’s been tearing me apart. I want to confess.
Now
,” she said. “I don’t want to be shown for what I really am by a puzzle ball.”

Sophia had been with the Black Fins since their earliest days. Sera had chosen her to go on the raid of the Miromaran treasury vaults, and she was alive only because of Sophia. A death rider had shot her with a speargun as the Black Fins were escaping. Sophia had cut the line, killed the death rider, and gotten Sera to safety.

Afterward, they’d hidden in the ruins of Merrow’s reggia, and Sera had confided in her there. She’d told her about the Iele, the talismans, Abbadon—everything. Sophia had even defended the Näkki’s arms shipment from the death riders’ ambush. Sera had trusted her with her life, and the lives of their fellow Black Fins.

“Sophia…
why
?” she asked now, stunned.

“A merman, his name was Baco Goga, approached me one night, when I was on patrol outside of our old headquarters in the Blue Hills,” Sophia explained haltingly. “He told me he wanted me to spy on the resistance for him. I told him where he could go. He handed me something—two wedding rings. They belonged to my parents. My mother and father had been taken away when Cerulea was invaded. Baco said his next gift to me would be their fingers. Then their hands. He said he’d kill them piece by piece if I refused to cooperate.”

A searing mixture of grief and anger had filled Sera upon learning of Sophia’s betrayal, but another emotion pushed those aside now: fear.

She cast her mind back to the night the death riders attacked the camp, when Sera had decided to tell her fighters that they’d be heading to Cerulea, while she was really planning to go to the Southern Sea. Sophia hadn’t been there, thank the gods, when she’d announced that ploy to her inner circle. But had she somehow found out the real plan?

“What does my uncle know?” Sera asked her now. “What did you tell Baco?”

“As little as I could. I tried my best to protect you, Sera. I—”

Sera bent down to Sophia. She grabbed her chin roughly. “What did you
tell
him?” she shouted.

“The size of your army, the timing of the weapons shipments, the fact that you didn’t have a lava seam, the number of refugees that came to the Kargjord and…and Ava’s whereabouts.”

Sera swore. “Did you tell him about Cerulea?”

Sophia nodded miserably.

Thank the gods,
Sera thought. Vallerio would think they were headed for the city; he’d have no clue about their actual strategy. But there was one more question—and it filled Sera with such terror, she could hardly bear to ask it.

“Did you tell Baco about Mahdi?”

Sophia shook her head. “No. I didn’t, Sera. I swear to the gods.”

Sera’s entire body sagged with relief. She let go of Sophia’s chin. As she rose, Sophia grabbed her hand.

“I’m sorry, Sera. So sorry,” she sobbed. “
Please
forgive me. I had no choice. You understand, don’t you? What could I do? Baco has my
parents
!”

Sera looked down at Sophia’s hand, clutching her own so tightly. And then, her heart breaking, she shook her off.

“Sera?” Sophia said in a choked voice. “Sera, no…
please
.”

“Death riders killed
my
parents,” Sera said. “Right in front of me. They’ve killed thousands of Miromaran parents. Yet none of us orphaned by them have betrayed our sisters and brothers.”

She turned to the two goblin soldiers guarding the doorway. “Take her to the prison,” she said. “She’s to be court-martialed, and if found guilty—”

“No!”
Sophia screamed.

Sera swallowed hard, almost choking on the words she had to say. “If found guilty, she’s to be executed. And so it will be for
anyone
who betrays the resistance.”

“Sera, please! I’m sorry! Don’t do this…
please
!” Sophia shrieked.

Sera forced herself to watch as the guards dragged her friend away. She forced herself to look at the tears in Coco’s eyes. Only cowards turned away from the hard things.

It was quiet in the cave afterward. Sera was the first to break the silence.

“Leave me,” she said.

One by one, her friends filed out. Coco, wide-eyed and trembling, was the first to go. Ling was the last. She swam up to Sera on her way and handed her the puzzle ball.

“Put it away with the others,” Ling said quietly. “Keep it safe. We may need it again.”

Sera held the talisman up and peered through the holes—now perfectly aligned—and into the sphere’s center. There was no arrow, no words. Just a tiny, beautiful carving of a phoenix.

Sera lowered the talisman and looked at Ling, full of admiration for her cleverness. “You made it all up,” she said.

Ling nodded. “Sophia was in a lot of pain, and that pain needed to speak.”

“When did you realize it was her?”

“I didn’t. I thought it might be Becca, as you know. After you made sure it wasn’t, I knew I had to take a gamble. In two weeks, our troops will learn that we’re going to the Southern Sea, not Cerulea. I needed to catch the spy before that happened. If I didn’t, I knew he—or she, as it turned out—would tell Vallerio about your bluff.”

“So you claimed that you’d solved the puzzle,” said Sera.

Ling nodded. “All I knew for certain was that the spy was someone close to you. So I got the inner circle together, and said that the Arrow of Judgment was working. I hoped that would be enough to scare the spy into confessing. And it was.”

“You broke through another silence, Ling. A very dangerous one. Thank you. You saved many lives.”

“And condemned one.”

Ling rested her head against Sera’s, and Sera took comfort knowing that someone else shared her burden. A moment later, Ling squeezed Sera’s arm, then left.

Sera swam to the niche in the cave’s wall where the talismans were kept and stowed the puzzle ball safely away.

Sera had done the right thing; she knew she had—even if it was also a hard thing.

Squaring her shoulders, she started for the cave’s opening, determined to get some work done. What had just happened was horrible, but it was time to move on. A regina could not afford to be idle, not when there was a battle to plan.

Sera took a stroke toward the cave’s doorway, and then another, and then she sat down in the silt, covered her face with her hands, and wept.

A
STRID WAS GONE, lost in the music. Her head was tilted back, her eyes were closed, her arms outstretched. She was songcasting.

As she sang, water swirled together into a column in the center of the conservatory, directly under the amethyst dome. Her voice rose, full and strong, as she finished the spell.

The pillar of water shot upward and parted, curving away from the dome in two graceful, flowing arcs. Astrid held the notes and opened her eyes, watching the water fountain down to the floor, feeling proud, happy, and powerful.