Part of Sera still felt like that child, and still longed for the strength and wisdom of her mother. But another, braver part realized that childhood was over and that she’d have to find her own way through this, just as she’d been finding her way ever since she’d fled Cerulea.
When everyone had finished eating, Ava fed the scraps to Baby. Serafina, Neela, and Becca cleared the dishes. Ling took out the letter tiles Lena had given her and started making words with them. Astrid pulled a caballabong ball out of her satchel, and started bouncing it against a wall, keeping up a steady thwak thwak thwak.
Neela cast a songspell to turn up the light in the dining room. Instead of brightening, though, the lava globes promptly dimmed.
“Oops,” she said, looking embarrassed.
“One who keeps the light!” Ling said, in a spooky voice.
“Descended from the great mage Navi!” Becca chimed in.
Serafina restored the light and everyone cracked up, including Neela. But the laughter was short-lived. Neela suddenly lowered her face into her hands, and said, “Oh, gods. It’s not funny. It’s so not. One who keeps the light? Please. What if we find the Carceron and instead of unleashing a frag on Abbadon, I dim the lights?”
“I know,” Ling said, rearranging her letter tiles with her good hand. “I’m worried about the same thing. I mean, how will my great powers of language help defeat the monster? What am I supposed to do? Reason with him?”
“Tell him to use his words,” Neela joked.
Ava, giggling at that, choked on her drink. Her noisy snarf made the others giggle too.
“You could tell him that bullying is totally unacceptable,” Becca suggested.
“Or that he needs to start making good choices,” Sera said.
“Tell Crabby Abby he’s going to sit on the naughty chair if he sinks one more island,” Astrid said, catching her ball.
The other five looked at her, astonished, then they all burst into loud, hysterical laughter and couldn’t stop. Becca laughed so hard, she snorted like a walrus. Serafina wheezed. Ava held her sides. Ling had tears in her eyes. Neela turned sky blue.
“Astrid, you’re funny,” Ling said when the laughter had subsided. “Who knew?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Astrid said, bouncing her ball again.
“Ah, gatinhas,” Ava said. “How do we do this? Where do we start?”
“Excellent questions,” Becca said.
“How do we find out what the talismans are? And where they are?” Neela asked.
“Before Traho does,” Serafina added.
“Who’s Traho?” Becca asked.
Serafina glanced at Astrid, searching her face for some telltale sign—a twitch, a widening of the eyes—that might betray her knowledge of this merman. But Astrid gave none. Either she truly didn’t know him or she was an excellent actress.
“Traho and the Ondalinians attacked Miromara,” Sera explained.
“I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” Astrid warned.
Sera ignored her. “They captured Neela and me and held us prisoner. Traho knows about the nightmare, the chant, and the Iele. He wanted the names of the other mermaids who’d been summoned. And he wanted to know if any of us had already found any talismans.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn’t know what he was talking about. Which didn’t go over well. He threatened to cut my fingers off, so I gave him fake names. Luckily, we escaped before he could check them out.”
“Does Traho know what the talismans are?”
“I think so. If he didn’t, he would have asked me. He only asked where they are.”
“But how could he know what they are? Not even the Iele know that,” Ling said, still concentrating on her letter tiles.
“Good point,” Sera conceded. “But he’s after them, so he must know.”
“Even if we were to find the talismans and get to the Southern Sea before this Traho does, we have no idea how to kill the monster,” Becca said.
“Because it can’t be killed. I’ll say it again: Merrow and her fellow mages couldn’t do it. What makes you think we can?” Astrid asked.
What’s she afraid of? Serafina wondered. She fought Abbadon like a tiger shark. How can someone that tough be afraid of anything?
“It’s not question of can we,” Ling said. “You saw what that thing did to Atlantis. It’ll do it again if it gets out. We have to stop asking ourselves ‘Can we do this?’ and ‘Should we do this?’ There’s only one question we need to ask…how.”
Becca nodded. “Ling’s right,” she said. She pulled out the piece of parchment she’d written notes on earlier and looked it over. “We can’t do anything until we find the talismans.”
“True,” Ava said.
“So we have to backtrack. We have to progress logically from the fall of Atlantis, when the talismans were last used…”
Progress. The word pushed at Serafina’s mind. Why? She turned the word over and over in her head, sensing that it was important somehow, but unable to grasp how it connected to Abbadon, the Carceron, or the talismans.
“…to the rise of Miromara, Merrow’s realm. Then we progress to…”
Progress…Merrow…
“Becca, that’s it!” Serafina shouted. “Her progress—Merrow’s Progress! You’re a genius!”
“I am?” Becca said, startled.
“Do you know what the talismans are, Sera? Or where Merrow hid them?” Ava asked.
“No, I don’t know the what or the where. I wish I did. But merls, I think I know the when.”
SERAFINA WAS SO EXCITED, she was talking a million words a minute.
“I’m working on a term conch on Merrow’s Progress,” she said. “I mean I was working on it. Before Cerulea was attacked. I’ve spent hours in the Ostrokon—”
“Wait, Sera, slow down!” Ling said. “What’s a progress?”
Serafina explained. “Ten years after Atlantis was destroyed, Merrow made a journey throughout the waters of the world. She said she was scouting out safe places for the merfolk to live. Her people were thriving and she knew they would need more space than Miromara could offer. She took a handful of her ministers with her and a few servants. It was the only time in her entire reign that she left Miromara.”
“You think she was really hiding the talismans?” said Ava.
“I do.”
“Why wouldn’t she hide them in Miromara?” Astrid asked.
“Too risky. There were always courtiers around. Someone would have seen her,” Serafina said. “As I was saying, Cerulea’s Ostrokon has a large collection of conchs on Merrow’s Progress. I’ve listened to about twenty so far, but there are way more than that. Maybe one of them can tell us exactly where she went. And the most dangerous places she visited. That’s where she would’ve hidden the talismans.”
Astrid gave her a skeptical look. “But Merrow could’ve hidden the talismans anywhere.”
“I know that, Astrid. But it’s something. It’s a start,” Serafina said.
“Merls! Here’s another one!” Ling said, pointing at her letter tiles. “Look!” She’d spelled out three separate words: shokoreth, apateón, and amăgitor.
“Look at what? It’s all nonsense,” Astrid said.
“That’s what I thought, too. But they’re real words—words that Abbadon said. I thought it was just making monster noises. But it’s not. It’s talking. The first word is Arabic, the second Greek, the third Romanian. They all mean the same thing—deceiver.”
“Why would it say the same word over and over again, and in different languages?” Becca asked.
“I don’t know. These words here”—she pointed to another row of tiles—“Daímonas tis Morsa—mean demon of Morsa.”
“Morsa’s an old goddess, right?” Ava said. “No one really talks about her.”
“She’s a seriously dark goddess,” Ling said. “The old myths say she was the scavenger goddess, and took the form of a jackal. It was the job of Horok, the ancien
t coelecanth god, to carry the souls of the dead to the underworld, and it was Morsa’s job to take away their bodies. But Morsa wanted more power, so she started practicing necromancy. She planned to make an army of the dead and overthrow Neria. Neria found out and was furious. She punished Morsa by giving her the face of death and the body of a serpent. Then she placed a crown of scorpions on her head and banished her.”
“Wow. That’s cold. Moral of the story? Never mess with Neria,” Neela said.
“There was a temple built to Morsa on Atlantis,” Serafina said.
“It might tell us more,” Becca offered. “If only we could get to it.”
“Fat chance. It’s surrounded by Opafago. They’d rip your head off before you got within five leagues of the place,” Astrid said.
“Why is that? I’ve always wondered. Why is it that a bunch of bloodthirsty cannibals was allowed to take over the ruins of Atlantis?” Neela asked.
“Because Merrow forced them into the Barrens of Thira, the waters around Atlantis,” Serafina explained. “The Opafago lived in Miromara and hunted mer. Merrow wanted that stopped, so she used her acqua guerrieri to encircle them and herd them into the Barrens.”
“Merrow didn’t think that one through, did she?” Neela mused. “It’s the most important archaeological site to the mer, but because of the Opafago, we can’t even set fin in it.”
“I thought that, too,” Serafina said. “I thought it was just another one of her unfathomable decrees. Until Vrăja told us how Atlantis was really destroyed. According to historians, Merrow said she put the Opafago in the waters around Atlantis because she needed somewhere to put them and the ruins were…well, ruins, and useless. But now I think she settled the Opafago there on purpose. To prevent anyone from ever exploring them.”
“In case they learned the truth,” Ava said.
“Exactly. There are clues we need in those ruins, I’m sure of it. If only we could get to them,” Serafina said.
“The Opafago eat their victims alive, you know,” said Astrid. “While their heart’s still beating and their blood’s still pumping. The flesh is juicier that way.”
“What a ray of light you are,” Ling said. She got up from the table. “We can’t get to Atlantis, but we can observe Abbadon. And I’m going to do just that. First thing tomorrow. Ava saw that it hates light. I need to find out if it has other weaknesses. I got something out of it today. Deceiver. It’s not much. It’s not a talisman. But like Sera said, it’s a start.”
She yawned and told the others she was turning in. Becca, Neela, and Ava were right behind her. Sera didn’t join them. She wasn’t tired. She was busy thinking.
Astrid had gone back to bouncing her caballabong ball. “How are you going to do all this, Serafina? How are you going to get into your Ostrokon to listen to conchs when Cerulea’s occupied? How are you going to get into Atlantis? How are you going to kill Abbadon?”
“I don’t know yet, but maybe I can get help. If I can find my uncle, and my brother, they may have ideas. If my mother’s still alive—”
Astrid cut her off. “If, if, if,” she said. “This isn’t a start. It’s an end. You’re going to get yourself killed.” She glanced in the direction of the bedroom. “And you’re going to get them killed too. This whole thing’s a joke.” She threw her ball harder. “And here’s another one…me being a descendant of Orfeo’s, the greatest mage who ever lived.”
Astrid said those last words to herself, but Serafina heard them. Why can’t she accept that Orfeo’s her ancestor? Is it because of what he did? Or is there more to it? she wondered.
“Hey, Astrid…Baba Vrăja’s right, you know. Magic is what you make it. Just because Orfeo was evil doesn’t mean you are. Evil isn’t inherited. Like eye color or something.”
Astrid stopped bouncing her ball. She looked at Serafina. “It’s not that. I mean, having Orfeo in your family coral branch is totally lowtide, but…”
“But what?”
Astrid shook her head.
“Astrid, what is it?”
“Nothing. Really. Forget it.”
“Okay. Forgotten.”
Serafina, frustrated by Astrid’s unwillingness to talk, scooped the tiles Ling had left on the table into their bag. She picked up the stray cups and put them on a tray.
Astrid bounced her ball harder.
“It wasn’t us,” she said suddenly. She whirled around to face Serafina. The ball went flying across the room. “I want you to know that. Ondalina didn’t invade Miromara. We didn’t attack Cerulea. We didn’t send an assassin. My father would never do such a thing. He would never hurt Isabella or Bastiaan or the Matalis. He values them, and the peace between our realms, too highly. His own sister lives in Miromara. In Tsarno, as you know. He wouldn’t risk her life.”
Serafina weighed Astrid’s words, then she said, “He broke the permutavi, though. It’s been honored by both kingdoms for a hundred years. You were supposed to come to Miromara and Desiderio was supposed to go to Ondalina. Just like your aunt Sigurlin and my uncle Ludovico did at the last permutavi. Why did he break it?”
Astrid sat down across from Serafina. “There are reasons,” she said. “If you knew…if I could tell you…” Her hands, resting on top of the table, knotted into fists. Her long blond hair, pale as moonlight, swirled around her shoulders. Her ice-blue eyes sought Serafina’s. In them, Serafina could see a yearning to talk, to share what was troubling her.
“Astrid, seriously, Abbadon’s the enemy, you know? Not me. Not Miromara,” Serafina said, surprised by her own sudden desire to talk to this difficult merl. “We didn’t send any assassins either. The last thing my mother wants is war. Not for her people, not for yours. You said there were reasons why Ondalina broke the permutavi—what are they? Tell me.”
Serafina held Astrid’s gaze. For a few seconds, she was certain Astrid would confide in her. But instead of talking, Astrid brusquely pushed back her chair and rose.
“I can’t,” she said helplessly. “I just can’t.” She swam toward the bedroom. When she got to the door, she turned back to Serafina. “I’m sorry,” she said. And then she was gone.
Serafina looked at the empty space of the doorway. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Me too.”
“SHE’S GONE,” Serafina said angrily.
She’d just swum into Vrăja’s study. It was early the next morning.
“Are you surprised?” Vrăja asked. She was sitting in her chair of bones and antlers, wearing a dress the color of oxblood. Its high neckline was trimmed with tiny bird skulls, its bodice beaded with hawk talons, wolves’ teeth, and polished bits of turtle shell.
“You knew?”
“I heard her leave early this morning.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“How? Should I have taken her prisoner? There was no stopping her,” Vrăja said. “She does not wish to be here. Sit down, child.”
Serafina sat in the chair opposite her. “We’re supposed to be the Six,” she said.
“It looks like you are now the Five,” Vrăja said.
“How can we destroy the monster without her?”
“I don’t know. But then again, I don’t know how you would have done it with her.”
“She’s scared,” Serafina said.
“You would have to be mad not to be scared of Abbadon.”
“I don’t think she’s scared of Abbadon. I mean, any more than the rest of us are. It’s something else that she’s swimming from. I don’t know what it is.”
“Is it Astrid you speak of, or yourself?” Vrăja asked shrewdly.
Serafina looked at her as if she hadn’t heard her correctly. “Um, Astrid,” she said. “Because she’s the one who’s swimming away.”
“So are you, child.”
“No, I’m not!” Serafina said. “I stayed, Baba Vrăja. Right here with the others. We’re making our plans. Trying to figure this all out. Ling’s on her way to listen to Abbadon, to try to decipher more of its words. Becca
’s asking the witch who brought our breakfast how to cast an ochi. Neela’s practicing her light bombs—”
Vrăja cut her off. “And you?”
“I’m plotting a route to the Kobolds’ waters. To see if the rumors are true and my uncle is there. And to find out whatever I can about my mother and brother. With their help, maybe I can get back to Cerulea. And the Ostrokon. So I can listen to conchs on Merrow’s Progress. We think she hid the talismans during that journey. The conchs might give us clues as to where.”
“Merrow’s Progress…excellent thinking,” Vrăja said. “But tell me, why go north first?”
“I did tell you. Because my uncle’s there.”
“And your people? Are they in the north? Or in Miromara?”
“In Miromara, but—”
Vrăja nodded. “Precisely. You are fleeing too, child. From that which scares you most.”
“That’s not true! Cerulea is occupied. I can’t go back to it without my uncle’s help.”
Vrăja gave her a long look. “You treat rumors as certainties. Your mother was badly wounded. Your uncle and brother are missing. Yet you speak of all three as if they are alive and well and just waiting for you to find them at any second. How will you face that which is Abbadon if you cannot first face your own truth?”
Serafina looked at the floor. Vrăja’s words angered her. But more than that, they cut her. Deeply. Because they were true.
“You fear you will fail at the very thing you were born for,” Vrăja said. “And your fear torments you, so you try to swim away from it. Instead of shunning your fear, you must let it speak and listen carefully to what it’s trying to tell you. It will give you good counsel.”
Serafina picked her head up. “But all I do is make mistakes, Baba Vrăja. I couldn’t help my father. I couldn’t save my mother. I trusted people I shouldn’t have. I went shoaling and got Ling caught in a trawler’s net. I couldn’t even convince Astrid to stay.” Serafina blinked back tears, then said, “My mother wouldn’t have made any of those mistakes. She’s better than that. I’m not like her. I’m not like you.”
Vrăja laughed. “Not like me? I should hope not! Let me tell you about me, child. About two hundred years ago, the old obârşie was dying. The elders came to fetch me so she could tell me all the things I needed to know. I was so scared it took the elders an hour to coax me out of my room. One is not born knowing how to lead; one learns.”
Waterfire Saga, Book One: Deep Blue (A Waterfire Saga Novel) Page 22
