Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Sera pressed for more. “I also need a place to billet and train the troops you’ve just given me. I need a safe haven,” she said.

  “Take the Kargjord,” Guldermar said.

  “Please,” drawled Stickstoff, to more laughter from the court.

  Sera’s heart sank. The Kargjord was a hilly, desolate barrens at the northernmost reaches of the Meerteufel’s realm. The rocks surrounding it were full of iron ore, which wreaked havoc with magic. It was cold, too. Little grew there, so finding food would be difficult. Supplies would have to be bought from the Meerteufel, and Sera knew they’d charge her dearly for them. She also knew it was the Kargjord or nothing.

  Curtseying once again, she said, “I thank you, Guldemar, for the generosity and loyalty you have shown Miromara.”

  Guldemar clapped loudly. Instantly, servants appeared carrying jugs and platters. As was goblin custom, the negotiations were concluded by pouring räkä, a thick, frothy drink made from fermented snail slime, and passing goblin delicacies: sej, pickled squid eyes; smagfuld, blackened cod tongues; and sprøde, the wrinkled toes of drowned terragoggs.

  Guldemar enlivened the celebrations by grabbing several pieces of jewelry out of a chest and making his courtiers fight for them. He thought it great fun to pit soldiers, ministers, even his wife and her ladies against each other.

  Sera had no taste for bloodsport. She took her leave and motioned for her fighters to follow. Guldemar barely noticed. He was too busy applauding Nok, who’d just beaten Pelf’s wife silly over an emerald ring.

  As the stateroom doors slammed behind them, Sera’s shoulders sagged with relief. She’d secured the troops and weapons she so desperately needed, and a safe haven, too. She would send word to her fighters who were still in Miromara to head for the Kargjord right away.

  Today’s success marked a new phase in the resistance. With the goblin allies they would no longer be guerilla fighters, sabotaging the death riders’ barracks, raiding the treasury at night. They’d be a full-on military force.

  “Nice work,” Yaz whispered to her, as they swam down the hallway to the palace rooms where they were staying. “You got what you wanted.”

  Sera laughed joylessly. “Did I?” she said. “We’ve got twenty thousand troops now. And I have no idea how to feed them, or where to house them in that godsforsaken Kargjord.” She shook her head, wondering why every time she met one challenge, a bigger one took its place. “I don’t know how to do this, Yaz.”

  Yazeed patted her on the back. “What else is new, Sera? You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

  “I’d better,” Sera said tiredly. She shook her head. “Did I get enough troops? Enough weapons?” she wondered out loud. “My mother would have demanded more. She would have known how to handle Guldemar better. My mother—”

  “—would be very proud of you,” Yazeed finished.

  Sera nodded, a lump in her throat. “Thanks, Yaz,” she said, when she could speak again.

  “Come on, merl. No time for tears,” Yaz said. “You’ve got to get out of that dress. And we’ve got to get out of this ugly-wrasse palace. It’s time to head to the Kargjord. We’ve got a war to win.”

  LUCIA VOLNERO REGARDED herself in a mirror in her mother’s sitting room. A vitrina flitted into view within the mirror’s silvery depths. Lucia waved it away.

  “I leave for Ondalina tomorrow,” Portia said, tucking a sheaf of kelp parchments into her bag. “The signs are fortuitous, Lucia. The gods are favoring us. My spies tell me that Kolfinn and his advisors are angry about Vallerio’s claim that Ondalina attacked Miromara—and worried. They fear we’ll attack in retaliation. Which is exactly what we want them to think.”

  Lucia barely heard her. Foreign relations, espionage, military strategy—these were her parents’ concerns. She was fighting a different kind of battle—a battle for Mahdi’s heart. And beauty was the weapon she would use to win it.

  She shook her head now, watching with satisfaction as her long, silky hair moved fetchingly about her shoulders. Her brows were perfectly arched. The shimmering gray shadow she’d chosen for her eyes emphasized their indigo depths. Her lips sparkled silver thanks to a dusting of ground mother-of-pearl. The dress she was wearing, also a deep gray, showed off her slender figure. A crown of diamonds graced her head. More diamonds sparkled at her ears and neck.

  Lucia knew she would turn every head in the palace at dinner tonight. Just as she always did. So why was she nervous? Why was she worried? Why did the same agonizing doubts always crowd in upon her?

  “Lucia? Are you listening? This is important. Pay attention,” Portia scolded. “Our accusation that Ondalina was behind the attacks on Cerulea is utter nonsense, of course, but Kolfinn doesn’t know that,” she continued. “We’ve put him on the defensive and made him eager for an alliance. Rylka, his own commodora, has seen to that for us. Hand me that bracelet, will you please? Lucia? Lucia!” Portia said impatiently. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

  Lucia tore her eyes from her reflection and fetched her mother the ruby bracelet she was pointing at.

  Portia frowned as she took it. “You’re worrying about something. Stop it. It’s making lines on your forehead. What’s bothering you?”

  “The fact that I haven’t seen Serafina’s dead body,” Lucia replied.

  “You don’t need to,” Portia reassured her. “She was so incompetent she could barely survive inside the palace. I’m sure she didn’t last long outside of it.”

  “She escaped from Traho, though,” Lucia countered. “She made it to the Iele’s caves. He said so.”

  She shuddered now to think of that he—the terragogg Rafe Mfeme. She’d met him months ago. He’d taken her hand and kissed it. His lips were like ice on her skin. The cold spread throughout her body like a sea mist, seeping into her bones, chilling her insides.

  He’d smiled at her and, in a voice so low only she could hear him, said, “Beauty and ruthlessness in equal measure. You’ll go far, my dear. Very far.”

  Mfeme had somehow found out where Sera and her friends had gone. Neela, Mahdi’s treacherous cousin, was among them. So was Admiral Kolfinn’s daughter, Astrid. And three other mermaids from foreign realms who were of no rank or importance. Why these six had traveled to the Iele’s caves together, Lucia didn’t know, but whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good. Mfeme had told Vallerio where the six were, and Vallerio had sent Traho after them. They’d come so close to catching them.

  “Yes, Serafina did escape from the Iele’s caves,” Portia allowed now, “but she hasn’t been seen since. Do stop fretting about her, Lucia. She’s dead, and soon the rest of the Black Fins will be, too. Would you fetch me the necklace that matches the bracelet, please? It’s in the vault in my bedroom.”

  Lucia swam to the bedroom, hoping her mother was right about the merls. She hated Serafina. Just as she’d hated Isabella, and Isabella’s mother, Artemesia.

  Because of Artemesia, Lucia had grown up without her father, without a proper family. Because of Artemesia, she and her mother had been mocked and shamed.

  The Volneros have traitors in their family, Artemesia had said when her son, Vallerio, had asked her permission to marry Portia. Their line is tainted.

  A union between a member of the royal family and a Volnero was out of the question, she’d decreed. Vallerio could father no Volnero children.

  What Artemesia hadn’t known, though, is that there was already a Volnero child on the way when she’d made her decree—Lucia.

  Breaking a regina’s decree was treason and punishable by death, and both Vallerio and Portia knew it. Heartbroken and desperate, Portia had quickly married another man, one who looked like Vallerio, in order to keep her secret safe. When he’d committed suicide by drinking poison, there had been whispers of foul play, but nothing had ever been proved.

  After her husband had died, Portia had left Cerulea to live at her country estate twenty leagues outside of the city. Vallerio had visited whenever he coul
d. Lucia hadn’t known who he was, not at first. She’d thought he was just a friend of her mother’s.

  Then, when she’d turned thirteen, Lucia had been summoned by Isabella to attend the principessa and learn the ways of the court, as a future duchessa must. Vallerio had sat down with Lucia before she left for the palace. He’d revealed that he was her real father, and stressed that she must never, ever tell a soul.

  “One day, we will swim together as a family,” he’d promised. “One day all the water realms, and everyone in them, will know that you are my daughter. Until then, keep our secret safe. No one must guess the truth. Our lives depend upon it.”

  Lucia had gone to court as planned. She’d become one of Serafina’s ladies-in-waiting. She’d shown due respect to the regina, and she’d treated her father with the same distant deference everyone else showed him. She’d curtseyed and smiled, but all the while hatred had burned inside her.

  Poor Lucia, merfolk said. Such a pretty little thing. How sad for her to have no father.

  It was all she could do not to shout out, “I do have a father! He’s Vallerio, the high commander, the most powerful merman in the realm!”

  Instead, she’d bit her tongue until it bled, and she’d smiled. She’d smiled as she watched Serafina ride hippokamps with her father, Principe Bastiaan. She’d smiled when she’d seen the dresses and jewels Bastiaan had given her. She’d smiled as she’d watched him twirl Serafina across the dance floor at state dinners.

  As she’d gotten older, Lucia had heard the whispers. From behind a painted sea fan. Or a heavily jeweled hand. Confided over a cup of sargasso tea.

  There goes the widowed duchessa. Pity she never remarried. Her first husband was a total nobody. Then again, she was lucky she found anyone to marry her. Tainted blood, don’t you know. Lucia will have to marry beneath her, too. These things aren’t forgotten.

  And they weren’t. The words varied, but their meaning was always the same: her mother’s Volnero blood, the same blood that flowed in Lucia’s veins, wasn’t good enough for the royal family. Or any noble family.

  Now, thanks to her father and his soldiers, those who’d mocked and denied her were dead. Now her tainted blood was good enough—good enough to put her on the throne of Miromara. Good enough, even, to make her an empress. She and Mahdi would have children one day, and those children would rule not only Miromara and Matali, but all the waters of the world.

  Her father had already given her Miromara and Matali. Ondalina was next. The three other realms—Atlantica, Qin, and the Freshwaters—would fall, too. No one would stop Vallerio from taking them, and no one would stop her from taking Mahdi…as long as Serafina was dead.

  But was she?

  After the treasury vaults were robbed, Lucia had worried anew that Serafina might still be alive. In the fighting that had followed the break-in, three Black Fin mermen had been killed. Another—a mermaid—had been wounded, but had managed to escape. The death riders who’d pursued her reported that she had short black hair and was a highly skilled fighter. That certainly didn’t describe Serafina.

  But still, Lucia worried. She wanted a corpse. Nothing less would make her happy.

  Lucia removed the ruby necklace from her mother’s safe and returned to the sitting room. As she handed it to Portia, they both heard a knock from behind the lavaplace.

  The sound startled Lucia, but Portia was unperturbed. She swam to the mantel—a solid piece of lapis lazuli, beautifully carved with sea nymphs and fishes—and pressed a stone dolphin. An instant later, a mica-covered panel to the left of the lavaplace silently swung open. Lucia was intrigued. She hadn’t known there was a secret entry to her mother’s rooms and wondered if there were other passageways in the palace.

  Before she could ask, an eel-like merman swam into the room. He wore a black sharkskin jacket. His hands were covered with silver rings. A large moray was draped across his shoulders like a shawl. It rested its fearsome head on his raised forearm.

  “Your Grace,” he said, bowing first to Lucia, then to Portia.

  “You have news?” Portia asked briskly.

  The man gave her an oily smile. “Indeed I do,” he said.

  “Come in,” Portia said impatiently. She turned to Lucia, and adopted a formal tone. “Your Highness, I present your loyal subject, Baco Goga. Captain Traho hasn’t been able to turn a member of the resistance,” she explained. “Without a spy in their midst we have no hope of defeating them. I hired Baco in the hopes that he would succeed where Traho failed.” She gave the merman a barracuda’s smile. “I hope he has not disappointed me.”

  “Baco Goga never disappoints,” the merman said, in his strange singsong voice. “I turned a Black Fin. One who is highly placed.”

  “How?” Portia asked.

  Baco flapped a hand dismissively. “There are always ways,” he said.

  “What did he say?” Lucia demanded.

  “How do you know it’s a he?” asked Baco, raising an eyebrow.

  Lucia felt that he was teasing her, playing with her. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like him.

  “She, then,” Lucia said, wishing he would tell them what he knew and leave. Quickly.

  Baco laughed. “This…mer tells me that the Black Fins were headquartered in the Azzuros until very recently,” he said.

  Portia’s expression darkened. “I don’t care where they were. Tell me where they are!” she insisted. “Why else am I paying you?”

  The moray eel’s long dorsal fin flared at her tone. The creature lifted its head off Baco’s arm.

  “Easy, my Tiberius,” Baco soothed. “We’re in the palace now. We must remember our manners.”

  The eel put its head back down, but eyed Portia sullenly. Baco’s eyes were still on Lucia.

  “Baco is happy to oblige,” he continued. “Baco is always happy to oblige the beautiful regina.”

  Lucia forced herself not to look away from his creeping gaze.

  “The Black Fins are in the North Sea, Your Graces. In the Kargjord,” Baco said.

  Portia went rigid. “They’re in Kobold waters?”

  Baco nodded. “They’ve made an alliance with Guldemar, the Meerteufel chieftain. He gave them troops, weapons, and safe haven in exchange for treasure. Ten chests, with twenty more to come.”

  Portia’s cheeks flushed with fury. She swam back and forth in the room, her hands clenched into fists. Then she whirled around and smashed a table with her tail fins.

  “Treasure stolen from the regina’s vaults!” she hissed. “I’ll send troops. I’ll annihilate the Black Fins, and the goblins, too!”

  “Be careful, Your Grace,” Baco cautioned. “Guldemar’s waters are well defended, the Kargjord included, and there’s nothing he loves more than a fight. Think hard before you send your troops there.”

  Portia’s eyes narrowed. “I pay you for information, not instruction,” she said. “Get out!”

  The moray unwound itself from Baco’s shoulders and circled him protectively.

  “As you wish, Your Grace,” Baco said slyly. “But what a shame it would be for me to leave before I’ve shared the rest of my information.”

  “Tell us. Now,” Lucia ordered.

  Baco smiled. “I’ve learned the identity of the Black Fins’ leader,” he said, drawing out his words.

  He’s enjoying this, she thought. Why? And then she realized, with a sickening certainty, that she knew why. She knew exactly what he was going to say.

  “It’s the prin—Ah! Forgive me, my regina, I meant the former principessa. Serafina. You thought she was dead, I believe? I’m so sorry to disappoint you, but she’s very much alive.”

  ASTRID LIFTED HER face to the sky and smiled as the snow kissed her cheeks.

  Her eyes drank in the colors of home—the soft gray of an arctic gull’s wing. The clear blue heart of an ice floe. The crystalline white of a million snowflakes. To Astrid, these shades of pale were the most beautiful colors in the world.

  She’d surfa
ced a moment ago, eager to hear a guillemot’s cry, a seal’s bark, the silence of snowflakes falling on water, before descending to the Citadel.

  In the distance, she could see icebergs drifting, secret and mute. To the goggs, they were places where no one and nothing lived—which is just as the Ondalinians wanted it. But under the surface, there was movement and life, color and sound. The massive bergs, weighing millions of tons, contained floating mer cities.

  Ondalina was the northernmost realm, and most mer found it forbidding, but Astrid loved it. The cold made her heart beat faster. It cleared her mind. She could think straight among the glaciers, the pack ice, the snow.

  And she desperately needed to think. She and Becca had parted company a week ago, when they reached the current that Becca would follow south to Cape Horn.

  “Becca, I can’t—” Astrid had begun. She meant to finish by saying “thank you enough for the whalebone pipe,” but Becca, misunderstanding, had cut her off.

  “You’re not allowed to say no, remember?” she’d scolded. Then she’d hugged Astrid tightly. “I’ll miss you,” she’d added. “And I’m still hoping that you’ll join us. Think about it, Astrid. Please. We need you.”

  Becca wants me with them, even though she knows I can’t sing, Astrid thought now, still unable to fathom it. Becca actually believed Astrid could make the group stronger. Here, in Ondalina, a mermaid who couldn’t sing would be shunned as a weakling.

  Sera wants me with them, too, Astrid thought. But she doesn’t know the truth about me. If she did, she might change her mind.

  All the way home, Astrid had asked herself, “What do you want?”

  She still didn’t know the answer.

  Part of her wanted to join her new friends. She wanted to help them fight Abbadon. But part of her was scared. If she joined them, she’d have to tell them the truth about herself, and that went against everything Astrid had been taught.

  Openess wasn’t the Ondalinian way. Life was harsh in the Arctic. Bitter cold stalked the mer constantly. Food was scarce. Predators were everywhere. Ondalinians prized toughness, hunting prowess, and the ability to hide—to hide yourself, your home, and, above all, your weaknesses.