Waterfire Saga, Book One: Deep Blue (A Waterfire Saga Novel) (14 page)

“I
T
CAN’T
BE,”
Serafina said, stunned. “The terragoggs have
never
been able to find us, or our cities. We have spells to keep them away; we have sentries and soldiers.”

She was practically babbling with fear. She wouldn’t accept what the duca was saying.
Couldn’t
accept it. For millennia, only magic had protected the mer from marauding terragoggs. Humans couldn’t break the protective spells the mer cast, but other mer could. Is
that
what Kolfinn was doing?

“If the terragoggs can get to us, they’ll destroy us,” she continued. “Duca Armando, there’s no way that Ondalina would be in league with the terragoggs. Even Kolfinn couldn’t commit such a betrayal. No mer leader could.”

“
Think
, Principessa,” the duca urged her. “Where did the attackers come from?”

Serafina cast her mind back to the Kolisseo. She could see it all so clearly, as if it had happened only minutes ago. She saw her mother wounded. Her father killed. And thousands of troops descending on the city.

The answer hit her like a rogue wave. “From above,” she said. “Mfeme transported them. In the hold of a trawler.”

The duca nodded. “Three, to be exact. The
Bedrieër
, the
Sagi-shi
, and the
Svikari.
They were all sighted in Miromaran waters the day of the attack.”

“But that makes no sense,” Neela said. “
How
could he transport them? The attackers were mer. They can’t just walk up a gangplank.”

“We think he filled the holds of his trawlers with salt water, then lifted the troops aboard in enormous nets. Weaponry was loaded the same way. The sea dragons followed the ships.”

“What was his price?” Serafina asked bitterly. “Mfeme gave Kolfinn speed and stealth. What did Kolfinn give him?”

“Information, we believe,” the duca replied. “Most likely the whereabouts of tuna, cod, and swordfish shoals. Shark. Krill. Seal breeding grounds. Mfeme plunders the sea for any creature of value.”

“But Duca Armando,” Neela said, “
why
would Kolfinn want to attack Miromara?”

“Dissatisfaction with the terms of the peace treaty between the two realms. Ondalina still resents losing the War of Reykjanes Ridge.”

At that moment, a door opened and a small, stout woman walked in carrying a tray. Spooked, the mermaids dove again.

Armando calmed them when they resurfaced. “This is Filomena, my cook,” he explained.

Filomena set her tray down at the top of the steps. She looked at the mermaids, at Serafina in particular, then turned to the duca and spoke rapidly in Italian.

“Sì, sì,”
he said sadly.

“Ah, la povera piccina!”
she said, dabbing at her eyes with her apron.

Sera understood Italian, but Filomena spoke so fast, the duca had to translate.

“She asked me if you were Isabella’s daughter. She says you have her manner. Isabella is a great favorite of hers,” he explained.

“My mother comes here?” Serafina asked. “That can’t be. It’s forbidden.”

“Good leaders know when to follow rules and when to break them,” the duca said. “She comes to find out about the doings of the terragoggs and how they might affect her realm.”

Serafina couldn’t believe what he was telling her. Her mother broke the rules? That wasn’t possible. He was lying, trying to gain her trust. But then she recalled something she’d overheard when she was outside Isabella’s presence chamber. Conte Orsino had mentioned that the Praedatori had been sighted near a recently raided village, and Isabella had said:
The Praedatori take valuables, not people. They’re a small band of robbers. They don’t have the numbers to raid entire villages
.
At the time, Sera had wondered at her mother’s dimissive tone. Now she understood it: Isabella knew the Praedatori’s leader, and she knew he and his soldiers would never harm the mer.

The duca was telling the truth.

“Do you have any news of my mother?” Serafina asked, fearful of the answer. “My uncle? My brother?”

“Or my family?” Neela asked.

“There are rumors—and I stress they are only rumors—that your uncle escaped, Serafina. And that he’s heading north to Kobold waters.”

“To the goblins? Why?” Sera asked.

“To raise an army. The Kobold are fearsome fighters, and the mer’s only source of weaponry,” the duca said.

His reasoning made sense to Serafina. The mer depended on the goblin tribes to mine and forge metals for them. The goblins made mer weapons and tools, and cast their currency: gold trocus, silver drupe, and copper cowrie coins. Neria had forbidden the ability to shape metal to the merpeople, so as to prevent them from using magic to create wealth.

“We can at least hope these rumors are true,” the duca said. “Eat now. Please. You must both be famished.”

Serafina looked at Neela and saw her own thoughts mirrored in her friend’s eyes.
Can we trust him?
The food could be poisoned.

“I understand your concern,” the duca said, as if he had read their minds. He rose, crossed the room, and took an ivory conch from a shelf.

“If you listen, you will hear your mother’s voice,” he said, handing the shell to Serafina.

Sera held it to her ear.

Serafina, my darling daughter, if you are listening to this conch, it means you are in the Praesidio, and I am captured or dead. You must put your faith in the duca now. His family’s relationship with our kind goes back for thousands of years. I trust him with my life, Sera, and with yours. Let him help you. He is the only one who can. I love you, my child. Rule wisely and well….

Serafina lowered the conch, blinking back tears. It was hard to hear her mother’s voice, to know that these echoes in a shell might be all she had left of her.

Neela gently took the shell from her and listened to it, too. When she finished, she put it down on the edge of the pool. “Sera, if he wanted to kill us, he would have by now. I doubt the food is poisoned.”

“Quite true,” the duca said. “Poison is too slow. They”—he pointed to the back of the pool—“get the job done much faster.”

Neither mermaid had noticed, but half a dozen dorsal fins were sticking out of the water. The mako sharks to whom they were attached circled lazily at the far end of the pool. Sera knew that makos were keen predators.

The duca leaned down, stuck his hand in the water, and rapped three times against the side of the pool. The sharks immediately swam to him and raised their noses. He scratched the head of the largest one.

“The best possible alarm system,” he said. “Smart, quick, and able to sense the tiniest vibrations in the water.” The shark whose nose he was scratching butted his hand impatiently.
“Sì, piccolo. Sì, mio caro. Che è un bravo ragazzo?”
the duca crooned. He tossed them sardines from a bucket.

The tenderness that the duca, a human, showed the sharks dispelled Serafina’s last doubts.
Anyone who pets a mako and calls it “little one” and “my darling” and “good boy” is for real,
she thought.

Ravenous, she swam to the steps and hoisted herself up them. Neela followed her. There were all manner of delicacies on the tray Filomena had brought. Pickled limpets. Walrus milk cheese. A salad of chopped sea cucumber and water apple. Sliced sand melon.

Neela ate a piece of sand melon. And then another. She pressed a hand to her chest, closed her eyes and said, “Positively invincible.”

The duca looked puzzled. “Is that a good thing?” he asked.

“A very good thing,” Serafina said, smiling. “Thank you, Duca Armando,” she added, reaching for a limpet. It was all she could do not to bolt down the entire bowl.

“You are most welcome,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s nearly five a.m. You must be very tired. I have rooms prepared for you and I hope you will find them comfortable. Before you retire, I wonder if I might ask you one more question…one that is very much puzzling me. Why did the invaders allow you to live?”

“We were wondering the same thing,” Serafina said, helping herself to a piece of cheese.

“Were?”
the duca said. “Did something happen to give you answers?”

Serafina and Neela traded uncertain glances.

“Please. You must tell me. Anything and everything. No matter how minor it may seem.”

“It wasn’t minor. Not to Traho,” Serafina said.

The duca sat forward, suddenly alert. “What was it?”

“The Iele,” Serafina said.

The duca blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The Iele,” Neela repeated. “As in: scary river witches.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with them. The stuff of myth,” he said. “Simple stories our ancestors invented to explain what thunderstorms were, or comets. Traho obviously isn’t interested in make-believe witches. The word must be code for something, though it hasn’t come up in any intelligence.”

Serafina hesitated, then said, “It’s
not
code. We had a dream, Neela and I. A nightmare, actually. It was the same, though neither of us knew the other had had it until we were in Traho’s camp. The Iele were in the dream. They were chanting to us. And Traho knew about it. He knew the exact words to the chant. He wanted more information and thought we had it.”

The duca nodded knowingly.

“You are
so
not believing us,” Neela said.

“I believe that in times of duress, the brain—human or mer—does what it must to survive. You may
think
you had the same dream, because your violent and terrifying captor said you did and going along with him saved your lives. His suggestion became your reality. I’ve seen it happen before to Praedatori who’ve been taken.”

“Duca Armando, signorine bisogno di dormire!”
Filomena said sharply. She’d bustled back into the room to retrieve her tray.

“Sì, sì,”
the duca said to her. He turned to the mermaids. “Filomena is right. Young ladies
do
need their sleep. You’ve both suffered terribly. You must rest now. We shall talk more tomorrow. I shall call for Anna—she’s the housekeeper for the water quarters of the palazzo—to show you to your rooms.”

“Thank you again, Duca Armando,” Serafina said. “For the meal, for freeing us, and for giving us a place to stay. We’re very grateful to you.”

The duca waved away her thanks. “I shall see you both later in the day. While you’re resting, I’ll send messengers to the leaders of Atlantica, Qin, the Freshwaters—and to your father, Princess Neela, who rules Matali now in the absence of the emperor and crown prince—advising them of Kolfinn’s treachery. I know they’ll come to your aid. Sleep well, my children. Know that you are safe. The doors through which you entered have been locked and barred. The Praedatori are here to guard you. Your ordeal is over. Nothing can harm you here.”

“T
HIS WAY, PLEASE,
Your Graces,” Anna said, smiling.

Serafina and Neela followed her. They passed the canal-side doors through which they had entered the duca’s home and swam down a dimly lit hallway.

The underwater walls of the ancient palazzo were shaggy with algae. Fleshy orange starfish and spiky blue urchins—their bright colors a warning—clustered on the ceiling. Tube sponges dotted the floor, their bloated fingers brushing against the mermaids’ tails. Twining ribbon worms and tiny baglike salps, frightened by the bright light of Anna’s torch, wriggled into cracks and seams. Feather stars and sea whips—things with mouths but no eyes—strained toward the mermaids as they passed, drawn by their movements.

Serafina was so desperately tired, she could’ve slept on the floor. Her stomach was full, but her mind was foggy, and her body was bruised and sore. “Is the duca right?” she asked Neela as they swam. “Do we only
think
we had the same dream?”

“I don’t know, Sera. I’m so exhausted I can’t think at all. We’ll figure it out later. We’re safe. We’re alive. For now, that’s enough.”

“My quarters are just down the hall, should you need anything in the night,” Anna said, as she opened the door to Serafina’s room. “The Praedatori are also nearby. Sleep well. Princess Neela, your room is here. Just across the hallway.”

Serafina thanked Anna, then hugged Neela hard. Neela hugged her back. Neither mermaid let go of the other for quite some time. “Love you, merl,” she said. “Would never have made it here without you.”

“Love you, too,” said Neela.

Serafina entered her room, then closed the door. A canopied bed, carved from yellow amber and lined with blue anemones, greeted her. It looked so lush and inviting that it was all she could do not to flop down in it right away, but she didn’t. She wanted to find the grotto first and scrub herself clean. As she crossed the room, she glimpsed walls painted with colored squid inks, a gilt bamboo desk and chair, a tall looking glass in a corner, and a blue sea-silk dress hanging from a stand. A note on a table near the dress informed her that it was for her. She couldn’t believe how thoughtful the duca was.

The doorway to the grotto was on the far side of the room. Serafina swam through it. It was tiled in shimmering, ocean-hued mosaics. An ivory robe hung from a hook. On a marble table were glass jars filled with sand for scrubbing skin and scales. Serafina saw black sand from the shores of Hawaii, white from Bora Bora, and pink from the Seychelles. It seemed almost too much to ask for after all she’d been through—a good, long scrub and a soft robe to wear.

As she was about to undress, a movement in the grotto’s mirror caught her eye. She glanced at it and saw a figure looking back at her, wraithlike and haggard. A vitrina, she thought. But no. She swam closer and realized that she was looking at herself.

The left side of her face was mottled purple and black, thanks to Traho. Her hair was a tangled mess, her skin and scales filthy. Her once-beautiful gown was torn and bloodstained. As she stared at the blood, she started to shake. The images started coming at her, one after another. The arrow piercing her mother’s side. Her father’s body falling through the water. Dragons attacking the palace. Traho. The dying guard. Thalassa singing her last songspell. The refugee mother and her children.

She pulled off her gown and threw it on the floor. Naked and shivering, she grabbed a jar of black sand. She poured some into her hand, then scrubbed herself mercilessly until her skin was pink and her scales gleaming. Next, she took the robe from its hook and wrapped it around herself. Her body was stinging from the harsh scrubbing, but she didn’t care. She welcomed the pain. It kept the images at bay.

“Take a deep breath,” she told herself, swimming into the bedchamber. “It’s going to be okay.”

But it wasn’t.

A few strokes away from the bed, Serafina crumpled. With a cry of grief, she sank to the floor.

A second later, the door opened and Blu swam inside. “Serafina, what’s wrong? I heard a cry. Are you all right? Are you hurt?” he asked, kneeling by her.

“Yes,” she said through her sobs. She’d held herself together for so long, but she couldn’t do it anymore.

“Where? What happened? Show me,” Blu said, sitting her up.

“Here!” she said, pounding her hand against her heart. “Everything I loved is gone, my parents, my home, my city….” Her voice caught. The rest of her words were drowned in a torrent of tears.

Blu lifted her off the floor, pulled her to him, and held her silently. There was nothing he could say, nothing anyone could say, to make it better.

When there were no more tears left inside her, Serafina raised her head. “I’m sorry, Blu. I’m so, so sorry. Here I am crying and carrying on, and you lost your parents too.”

“It’s okay. You’re in shock. You’ve had no time to absorb what’s happened, and now it’s all hitting you,” Blu said. “You need to sleep. It’s the only way to get your strength back. Rest now. I’ll be right outside.”

Serafina clutched his hand. “No! Please don’t go. Talk to me. Tell me something. Anything.”

“If I do, will you get into bed?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You need to let go of my hand.”

“Okay,” Serafina said.

She climbed into the bed. The anemones caressed her weary body. Their touch was soft and lulling. She turned on her side, folding one arm under her head. Blu pulled a chair close to the bed. Having him near calmed her, but she was still desperate for distraction.

“Tell me the scariest thing that ever happened to you, Blu. Or the best thing. Or your favorite food. Do you have a sister?” she asked him.

“No,” Blu said.

“Do you have a merlfriend? Tell me about her.”

Blu hesitated.

“Oh, no. Oh gods, I’m sorry. I put my fin in my mouth, didn’t I? Please tell me she’s not dead.”

“No, she’s not dead. She’s not…well, she’s not my merlfriend anymore.”

“You split up?” Serafina asked.

“Yeah, I guess we did.”

“What happened?”

“Stuff.”

“Stuf
f
?”

Blu looked at the ceiling. “Being in the Praedatori is tough. It demands a lot from you. Family, friends, merlfriends, you can’t tell them about it and they don’t understand the sacrifices you have to make, the double life you lead.”

“Maybe you’ll get her back.”

He shook his head. “Not likely.”

“What’s she like?”

“Smart. Beautiful. Good.” He paused, then said, “And brave. Really brave.”

“Sounds like you’re still in love with her,” Serafina said.

“Um, yeah. Guess I am.”

There was an awkward silence. Then Serafina said, “Tell me why you joined the Praedatori.”

“Why I joined the Praedatori…” Blu said thoughtfully.

“For fun and adventure? To see exotic places?” Serafina joked, desperate to keep him talking.

He looked at her then, with an expression of such intensity and passion, it made her catch her breath. “I joined the Praedatori because I love the sea more than my own life,” he said. “Bad things are happening. Oceans are being destroyed by the goggs. Sea creatures are being hunted to extinction. Mer are attacking mer. The duca says some mer are even aligning with the goggs now. I want to do everything I can to stop it. All of it.”

His eyes held Serafina’s, just as they had outside the cave, when he’d bandaged her tail. And once again, she found herself unable to look away from them, caught by their depths like a swimmer in a riptide.
Who
are
you?
she wondered. She forced herself to break his gaze and said quickly, “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“Earlier, when you brought us here, I was certain you’d sold us to a terragogg. Now I see you would never do that. You’re a very upstanding outlaw, Blu. Thank you for rescuing us. We owe you our lives.”

Blu shook his head, embarrassed. “Anyone would have done it,” he said. “How about you? You have anyone?” he asked, obviously wanting to change the subject. “Wait…of course you do. You were about to be betrothed to the crown prince of Matali, weren’t you?”

“Before everything happened, yes,” Serafina said. “Before he disappeared.”

“I’m sure he’s trying to get back to you.”

Serafina smiled sadly. “He might be trying to get back to a nightclub. Or a siren. But not to me.”

“Why? What happened? Was he—”

“Just not that into me?”

“A beautiful princess? And kind of funny too? He’s totally into you. I’m sure of it,” Blu said.

“I
thought
he was. He made me believe he was. But he wasn’t. Parties, other merls…they all became more important to him. And now I just…I wish I knew
why
. The last time we talked…well, we
didn’t
talk, really. I swam off. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. I guess I’ll never know now.”

“You don’t know that he’s dead.”

“Chances are good, though, aren’t they?”

“Maybe we should change the subject again.”

“To a topic that’s cheerful and uplifting,” Serafina said. “Too bad there isn’t one.” She propped herself up on one elbow.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be going to sleep,” Blu said. “If the duca finds out I’m in here keeping you awake…”

“Keep talking.
Please
,” she said.

“I don’t know what to talk about.”

“Tell me a story, then.”

Blu snorted. “Do I look like a nursery shoal teacher?”

“Tell me one about Trykel and Spume. You must know one about them. Everyone does.”

Trykel and Spume were the gods of tides, twin brothers who were always fighting over the beautiful goddess Neria. One lived on the shore, the other in the water. Many stories were told of their schemes to win her.

“All right. But I have a condition. You stop talking. Not—”

“—another word,” Serafina said.

“Once upon a time,” Blu began, “the sea goddess, Neria, fell in love with Cassio, god of the skies. She made a plan to steal away from her palace and meet him on the horizon. Trykel found out and was jealous. He went to Fragor, the storm god, and asked him to fill the sky with clouds so he could hide in them, pretend to be Cassio, and steal a kiss…”

Blu’s voice, rising and falling, lulled Serafina. She felt so safe here, with him nearby.
He’s kind and brave and good. So different from Mahdi
, she thought wistfully.
The mermaid he loves is very lucky. I hope he gets her back someday.

Serafina continued to listen to Blu’s story and before she knew it, sleep was carrying her away like a gentle sea swell. Her eyes closed. Her breathing deepened. She was out.

Blu stayed where he was, remaining very still so as not to wake her. He gazed at her face for quite some time. When he was certain she was fast asleep, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.