by Deva Fagan
“There,” called Nerine, pointing ahead.
I could see them now. Hundreds of merfolk, bobbing in the glimmering waters. They floated in a sort of half circle, all attention turned toward a single figure at their center.
Queen Thalassa’s voice rang out across the water, singing into my ear. Some of it was magespeak, mixed with a wordless melody. Thalassa didn’t have the same range or depth as Nerine, but it was likely that wouldn’t make a difference if she completed the spell.
I leaned closer to Nerine as she guided the Ravager toward the gathering. “She’s already begun the ritual! We have to stop her!”
Nerine rapped the side of the great shark’s head lightly, and the creature surged forward. The flash of its teeth still made me flinch, tame or not, but I had bigger worries now. I angled my head, trying to make out the words of the ritual.
“What’s she saying?” Moppe called from her perch on the other side of the Ravager’s fin.
I frowned, recognizing some of the magespeak interspersed into Thalassa’s song. Power. Wave. Imbue.
“I think she’s almost done,” I said. “We need to stop her before—”
“Thalassa!” shouted Nerine, as the Ravager’s enormous body knifed into the crowd, sending merfolk scattering and screaming. “I challenge you! I have endured the Trial of the Sea and conquered the Ravager!”
The screams became a buzz of interest, even a few whoops of excitement. Singsong voices called out. Nerine The withertail has tamed the Ravager!
Nerine tugged on the reins of her shark, holding it back even as it snapped and snarled. “People of the Sea,” she called out. “I come before you to lead. I come to offer another path. Unleashing the Devastation will only lead to ruin. It will bring war and bloody seas. But there is a better way.”
Thalassa scoffed, “There is no better way. The drylanders are our enemies, and we must crush them once and for all.”
Nerine didn’t bother addressing Thalassa. Instead she turned to the crowd of other merfolk drifting in the dark waters. “You know better than this, my people. You see the proof here before you.” She gestured to the Ravager. “This terrible beast might also be called our enemy. And yet she has consented to join me, to carry me, to become my partner. Not everything that we fear must be our enemy. But if we send the Devastation against the drylanders, we will turn them into a beast more dangerous than any duskshark. We will kill many, but more will come, with their weapons of smoke and metal.”
A murmur of agreement went through the merfolk.
“Then we will fight them!” snarled Thalassa. “We will tear them to bloody pieces. The ocean will boil crimson, if it must!”
“Is that the future you wish?” Nerine called to the merfolk. “Do you wish to raise your children in seas choked with blood? Do you wish them to learn to carry a trident before they learn to laugh and sport in the waves? Because that is the future Thalassa will give you.”
The murmurs and mutterings grew angrier. “She’s good at this,” whispered Moppe, who had been following the debate with an intense expression, almost as if she were memorizing the words.
“I just hope it’s enough,” I whispered back, my own attention fixed on Thalassa. Even if Nerine swayed the crowd, I didn’t trust the vicious queen to simply give up.
Nerine went on, her powerful voice flung out across the dark sea, brave and bold as a festival pennant. “As your queen, I will make common cause with the drylanders. We will work with them to restore balance to the seas. It will not be easy. But it will be better than war and ruin. Are you with me?”
The cheers were ragged at first. Then louder, as a chant began to spread of “Queen Nerine! Queen Nerine!”
Even the mermaids I’d seen with Thalassa earlier had begun to drift away from their former queen.
“Do you think they’re cheering because they don’t want war?” I whispered to Moppe. “Or because they don’t want to get eaten by the Ravager?”
Moppe snorted. “Probably a little of both. But it’s the right choice. Once we have the crown, I’ll stop the overharvesting of the spiny-snails. We’ll set things to rights.”
I hoped she was right. But surely Mother would listen to us, if I brought her the crown. I would make her listen. I had faced my nightmare. I could face her, especially if it was for the good of all Medasia.
“The people have decided,” said Nerine, giving her new subjects a fang-fringed smile. “Thalassa, give me the drylander crown. It is time for the promise to be fulfilled.”
Thalassa beat her tail slowly in the dark waters. She did not look like a woman defeated. She looked… dangerous.
I could feel a buzz of magic in the air, a hum of power waiting to snap into place. The ritual to call the Devastation was nearly complete. I didn’t know the word for silence. But there must be some way to stop her!
“Thalassa,” I called, as the former queen opened her mouth. “Hiccup!”
“Tail!” she sang.
Magic snapped like a jolt of lightning. I couldn’t tell if it was her spell or mine. Or both.
“What happened?” Moppe demanded. “What did she do?”
“Too—hic—late!” Thalassa tore the crown from her brow and held it high. “You will never—hic—have the crown,” she cried, “and you cannot stop the Devastation!”
With that, she flung the crown away, out across the waves.
Then she slapped her tail down, cracking her flukes against the water with a crash like thunder.
I yelped, my body tensing even as the pearly crown slipped under the roll of the sea. “Quick, Moppe! Transfigure me! I can still get it!”
But her gaze was elsewhere. “Look!” She jabbed a finger out into the open ocean, to the north. Far off in the distance, a great mountain was rising. The sea swayed and pulsed, swelling higher and higher. “We have to stop it!”
“But the crown—”
Moppe cut me off. “It’s going to destroy the shore villages!”
I blinked at the empty, frothing waters where the crown had vanished. Our chance to free Master Betrys. For me to prove myself. With every second that hope slid down, down, down into darkness. We might never find the crown if we didn’t go after it now. Right now.
But I couldn’t do it. Not with the terrible crushing fury of the Devastation swelling and building, preparing to thunder down upon the shores of Port Meda. If there was even a chance we could stop the wave, we had to try.
“I have an idea,” I said, then recited the long string of magespeak I’d been working out while serving as human bait earlier. Unsurprisingly, it had barely any effect when I spoke it.
Moppe’s mouth hung open. “What was that?”
“A spell.”
“More like an entire grimoire.”
“You try it,” I said, and repeated the spell again. The great wave had begun to curl toward the shore. It spread as fast as breath, growing wide as a frigate, then five frigates, then a dozen. The merfolk murmured and wailed from the sea around us, captivated by the unfolding horror. But there would be nothing to see, surely. Moppe could do this. She had to!
She started off well enough—the basic calming incantation—but she completely flubbed the facsimile clause.
“No, you need to emphasize the third and seventh syllables of replicate,” I told her. “Try again.”
But she was starting to panic now. I could see the fear in her eyes, how she kept looking past me to the wave. “This isn’t working! You have to do it, Antonia!”
“I can’t!” I grabbed her shoulders, giving her a tiny shake. “I don’t have enough power.”
Her expression crumpled. “I can’t hold that many words in my head. I’m not like you!”
If only I could give Moppe my knowledge. Or if she could give me her power. Or if we could combine them, somehow…
Wait! Maybe that was it. We’d done it before, to grow and shape the salt pine along the broken path to the Cave of Echoes. Moppe had made the tree grow, and I had shaped it
. Master Betrys had even complimented us on it. Joint casting like that is rare. It requires a particular harmony between the casters, something not just anyone can attain.
I’d thought it was only luck, back then. But maybe it wasn’t. And maybe we could do it again.
“We need to work together!” I shouted over the thunder of the wave. “I’ll say the first part of the spell, and you finish it with me. You can do that, right?” I repeated the last three words.
Moppe’s brows drew together, but she nodded. Nerine’s dark eyes watched us, wide and expectant. In the rippling sea around us, the other merfolk pointed and cried out as the wave thundered toward shore.
I had no idea if it would work, but I had to try something. Port Meda was depending on us. People would die if we couldn’t stop the Devastation. I took a long breath, then spoke the first part of the spell. With each syllable I felt a buzzing pressure building inside me. As I prepared to speak the final triggering phrase, I reached out to Moppe, linking my hand with hers. A shiver shot through me.
Moppe’s fingers spasmed, clenching so tight I thought my bones might break as she spoke the final words of the spell along with me. The magic rang through us, pure and powerful as the tolling of a mighty bell.
Dozens of small furrows whipped across the water from where we floated. Merfolk shouted, diving out of the way of the tiny, swift waves carrying our calming spell toward the Devastation. I held my breath, my eyes stinging as I fought not to blink so that I could follow the movements. Please, let it work!
My heartbeat thudded loud in my ears, as the terrible thunder swept away. Silence gripped us, broken only by the slosh of waves, as we waited to see what we had wrought. The great tower of water plunged onward toward the shore. Implacable. Unstoppable.
And then, the slightest wobble.
I blinked, squinting. Had I only imagined it?
No! The great surge had begun to waver. Just as the Devastation reached the breakwater, the watery peak crumpled, collapsing. The enormous mountain of water broke apart into dozens of smaller waves. Another heartbeat, and even those subsided. Moon-silvered foam spread in a tattered veil across the sea as it returned to lulling rolls.
I let out my breath in a long sigh of relief.
“You did it,” Nerine said, sounding impressed. “You stopped the Devastation.”
I slid a sidelong look at Moppe and found her casting her own cheeky grin in return. She squeezed my hand, her fingers warm. I could still feel the shiver of our magic. Because that’s what it was. Our magic. We’d cast the spell together. It wasn’t just luck. In spite of all that we’d been through together—or maybe because of it—Moppe and I had created a harmony between us more powerful than the might of the sea. A connection that still hummed deep in my heart.
“We make a good team,” she said.
I squeezed back and matched her grin. “Yes,” I said. “I guess we do.”
* * *
It was dawn when Nerine and the Ravager towed Moppe and me—in a coracle that appeared to have been carved out of an enormous clamshell—south to a rocky spit where we could find a road back to Port Meda, according to Moppe. We had managed to catch a few hours of sleep in the shell-boat, lulled by the waves, while Nerine sent her scouts to search for the lost crown. But they had not found it.
As our coracle scraped up against the sand, I turned to look out across the sea. The crown was out there, somewhere, but there was little chance we could find it now.
“Do you regret it?”
I turned to find Moppe watching me warily.
“No,” I said. “I’m glad we stopped the wave. And maybe it’s for the best. I’m not sure anyone should have that sort of power.”
“I thought you wanted the crown for the glory of the empire,” said Moppe, her voice strangely flat. “So they could use the Black Drake to wipe out the Liberation once and for all. Isn’t that what your mother wants?”
“Probably. But that doesn’t mean I want it. I think”—I hesitated, still trying to shape my fragile new thoughts into words—“I think maybe Medasia is more complicated than I thought. I mean, the Liberation did murder my brother. But it’s not as if the council has been fair either if they send people to prison ships just for trying to feed their families.”
Moppe chewed her lip. She leapt up lightly onto the shore, feet digging into the sand. I had the impression she was avoiding my gaze.
“I just wish we’d found something to clear Master Betrys’s name,” I said, as I followed. “Maybe we can track down the wizard who sent those statues. He’s the real villain.”
“Yes,” called Nerine, from her perch along the Ravager’s back. “Beware the drylander. Doubtless he will seek to steal it from you.”
“Steal what?” I asked.
“The crown,” she answered, tossing an object through the air toward us. I lifted my hands instinctively as something round and gleaming and cool smacked into them.
It was the crown. The crown of Medasia. Not lost at the bottom of the sea. But here. In my hands.
“But… how did you find it?” Moppe demanded even as she gaped at the pearly circlet in my hands. “You said none of the scouts could find it!”
“None of the scouts can track like Rava,” said Nerine, patting the skull of her enormous shark.
The creature nosed up out of the water to give me a toothy grimace, as if to demonstrate she was more than willing to take the crown back, along with my arm and maybe a bit of my shoulder as well. I backed up the sandy shore a few steps.
“I can visit the everdark now,” the mermaid went on with a fangy smile. “If she carries me down. It was a simple enough matter to find the trinket.”
“Thank you!” I sputtered, still not quite believing the silky weight of the circlet in my hands. “Thank you, Nerine!”
The mermaid tossed back her shimmering black hair, giving us a fierce smile. “Be well, drylanders. I am in your debt. If you ever have need of me, speak my name to the sea, and I will come.”
Then she gave a sharp trill, and the Ravager sliced off into the sea, carrying her away.
I should have been achingly tired, but the buzz of triumph ran through my bones, making me feel as if I could run all the way to the peak of Mount Turnip and back. I spun around to face Moppe, bouncing up on the balls of my feet. “We did it! We did it!”
I don’t know which of us moved first. All I know is that suddenly her arms were tight around me, and my arms were hugging her, as we nearly danced with the delight of our victory.
“I can’t believe it’s almost over,” I said, my words muffled by Moppe’s curly hair. The possibilities danced before my eyes, bright and beckoning. “Now that we have the crown, we can make the council listen to us. Fix the laws, free your father, make proper peace with Nerine’s people. We can change everything!”
But I felt Moppe jerk slightly at my words. Her hands suddenly went loose around my shoulders. She backed away from me, clasping her hands across her chest.
There was a strange, terrible look in her eyes.
It was the look of someone about to say something horrible. I knew that look. It had been in my mother’s eyes when she came to tell me about my brother.
“Don’t,” I whispered, though I had no idea what I was protesting. I just knew I didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m sorry, Antonia,” said Moppe. She took a step back from me, then another. Her gaze slipped over to someone behind me. I started to turn, just as heavy hands gripped my shoulders. I caught only a fragmented shattering of images. A tall, sturdy man with a wind-tanned face. A rowboat, drawn up into one of the farther coves. Then an enveloping mass of cloth, falling over my head and blocking my view entirely. I breathed in a sharp, sweet smell, and darkness took me.
16
THIS TIME, MY PRISON WAS wood and iron. I woke in a dim chamber that creaked softly and smelled of salt and fish. There was no lamp, but my ever-present glow provided enough light to make sense of my surroundings. Wooden fl
oors and wooden walls that sloped just slightly outward. An iron cage of the sort used to transport animals. And a gently rocking floor that was already giving my poor stomach the heaves.
I was on a boat.
I dragged myself upright using the iron bars. There was nothing in my cage except for a single flask of water and what looked like a chamber pot. Lovely.
But it was easier to think of chamber pots and seasickness than of Moppe. The look in her eyes just before everything went black. The strange mix of sorrow and guilt and triumph.
Behind me, someone coughed. I spun around. It was a mistake, setting my belly heaving. Instead of confronting my captor, I had to scramble for the chamber pot.
When there was nothing left in my stomach, I stood. My legs trembled, but I forced my back straight.
“I could bring you some ginger tea,” said Moppe softly. “Sometimes that helps.”
“What, you mean it makes betrayal hurt less? So instead of feeling like you stabbed a dagger through my chest, it will feel more like you just chopped off a finger or two?”
She was wearing different clothes: black breeches and a white shirt, and a vest dyed rich Medasian purple. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want it to happen like this. But we had to make sure the crown didn’t fall into Regian hands. We need it to free Medasia.”
“You sound like a Liberationist,” I said.
“That’s because I am.”
The air thumped out of my chest as if I’d been punched. I gripped the bars of my prison. I’d suspected her of favoring the Liberation. But I hadn’t thought she was actually one of them. One of the villains who murdered my brother!
I opened my mouth to speak the most terrible curse I could think of, but Moppe was quicker. “Antonia. Hiccup.”
