Waterfire Saga, Book One: Deep Blue (A Waterfire Saga Novel) (8 page)

Q
UIA MERROW DECRIVIT.

But how?
Serafina wondered desperately. How could she have done this? How could she have forced all those who came after her to endure this?

Looking up at the massive creature, its bronze body blackened by time, Serafina was certain she would collapse from terror.

“You fear me! As you ssssshould. I will have your blood, imposssster. I will have your bonessss….”

Alítheia scuttled toward her, her body low to the ground, her horrible black eyes glittering.

Serafina stifled a cry. In her head, she heard Tavia’s voice, telling her the story of a treacherous contessa who’d lived hundreds of years ago. The contessa had stolen the real principessa when she was newly born, and put her own infant daughter—enchanted to look like the principessa—in her place. The young mermaid herself, the regina, and everyone else in Miromara believed she was the true principessa—everyone but Alítheia. She’d sunk her fangs into the mermaid’s neck and dragged the poor imposter into her den. Her body was never recovered.

“We never know who we are, child, until we’re tested,” Tavia had said.

What if I’m not who I think I am?
Serafina asked herself. She imagined Alítheia’s fangs sinking into her own neck, and being dragged off, half alive, to the creature’s den.

The spider skittered over the stones. She was only yards away now.

“No heiresssss are you….Usssssurper are you….Death to all pretendersssss….”

She circled, coming closer and closer, then lowered her head until her terrible fangs were only inches from Serafina’s face. Another drop of venom fell on the stones.

“Who are you, imposssster?”

Serafina felt her courage falter. She backed away from the creature, turning her eyes from its awful face. As she did, her gaze fell upon the mer seated in the amphitheater—thousands and thousands of them. She was their principessa, her mother’s only daughter. If she failed them, if she swam away like a coward, who would lead them when her mother’s time was done? Who would protect them as fiercely as Isabella had?

And suddenly she knew the answer to the creature’s question. And the knowledge filled her with new courage and with strength. Bravely, Serafina faced the spider. “I am
theirs
,
Alítheia
,” she said. “I am my people’s. That’s who I am.”

She raised the scimitar the Mehterabaşi had given her and drew its blade across her palm. It bit into her flesh. Blood plumed from the wound. She raised her bleeding hand, palm up. The spider advanced.

“I am Serafina, daughter of Isabella, a princess of the blood. Declare me so.”

Alítheia hissed. She pressed her bristly palps against the wound and tasted Serafina’s blood. And then she reared up, screaming in rage. She spun away from Serafina and slammed her legs down, cracking the stones beneath her. “No flesshhhh for Alítheia! No bonesss for Alítheia!” she howled.

She scuttled around the amphitheater, menacing her keepers, trying to crawl over them and get at the Miromarans. The merpeople screamed and rushed from their seats, but the keepers held her back by brandishing lava globes. The white, molten rock, hot enough to melt bronze, was the only thing in the world the spider feared.

“Alítheia!” a voice called out loudly. It was Isabella. “Alítheia, hear me!”

The spider sullenly turned to her.

“What is your decree?”

Not a sound was heard. It was as if the sea itself was holding its breath. The spider crawled to the royal enclosure and took Merrow’s crown in her fangs. She returned to Serafina and placed it upon her head. Then she bent her front legs in a bow, and said, “Hail, Sssssserafina, daughter of Merrow, princesssss of the blood, rightful heiressssss to the throne of Miromara.”

Serafina made a deep curtsy to her mother. The cheer that went up was deafening. After a moment, she rose, carefully balancing Merrow’s crown. It was heavier than she’d expected. Her heart was still hammering from her encounter with Alítheia, and her palm was throbbing, but she felt proud and exhilarated.

All around the amphitheater, the merfolk rose, still cheering. In the royal enclosure, Isabella and Bilaal rose, and the rest of the royal party followed their example. A bright flash of blue caught Serafina’s eye.

It was Mahdi. He was wearing a turquoise silk jacket and a red turban. It killed her to admit it, but he was so handsome. She’d seen his face in her dreams for the last two years. It was different from what she’d remembered. Older. More angular. He caught her eye and smiled. It was beautiful, his smile. But it was a little bit awkward, too. A little bit goby. In that smile, Serafina saw the Mahdi she’d once known.

It made her heart ache to see that Mahdi. Where had he gone?

She didn’t have long to dwell on that question, or the sadness it made her feel. The boru players blew a fanfare. The Mehterabaşi swam to her with her mantle and helped her back into it. Then he wrapped a bandage around her wounded hand.

The blooding was over. She knew what came next—the second of her tests, the casting. Her stomach squeezed with apprehension. This was the moment she’d worked so hard for, the moment when talent, study, and practice came together.

Or didn’t.

N
OW
S
ERAFINA
cleared
her mind, of everyone and everything except for music and magic.

Magic depended on so many things—the depth of one’s gift, experience, dedication, the position of the moon, the rhythm of the tides, the proximity of whales. It didn’t settle until one was fully grown; Serafina knew that. But she needed it to be with her now, and she prayed to the gods that it would be.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled on everything strong and sure inside of her, and started to sing. Her voice was high and clear and carried beautifully through the water. She sang a simple, charming welcome to the Matalis, telling them how happy Miromara was to receive them. When she finished, she bent to the ground, scooped up a handful of silt, and threw it above her head.
Nihil ex nihil.
That was the first rule of sea magic:
Nothing comes from nothing.
Magic needed matter.

Serafina’s voice caught the silt as it rose in the water, molded it, and then embellished it with color and light, until it took on the appearance of a lush island with bustling ports, palaces, and temples. She enlarged the image until it filled the amphitheater. Next, she summoned a shoal of small, silver fish. These she transformed into the island’s inhabitants and as she did, her image became a living tableau.

The island, she told her listeners, was the ancient empire of Atlantis, nestled in the Aegean Sea. Its people were the ancestors of the mer. It was their story she sang now. Her voice was not the most beautiful in the realm, nor the most polished, but it was pure and true, and it held her listeners spellbound.

Using her magic, she showed how humans from all over the world: artists, scholars, doctors, scientists—the best and brightest of their day—had come to Atlantis. She showed farmers in their fields, sailors on their ships, merchants in their storehouses—all prosperous and peaceful. She sang of the island’s powerful mages—the Six Who Ruled: Orfeo, Merrow, Navi, Pyrra, Sycorax, and Nyx. She sang of its glory and its might.

And then she sang of the catastrophe.

Heavy with emotion, her voice swooped into a minor key, telling how Atlantis was destroyed by a violent earthquake. Pulling light from above, pushing and bending water, conjuring images, she portrayed the island’s destruction—the earth cracking apart, the lava pouring from its wounds, the shrieks of its people.

She sang of Merrow, and how she saved the Atlanteans by calling them into the water and beseeching Neria to help them. As the dying island sank beneath the waves, the goddess transformed its terrified people and gave them sea magic. They fought her at first, struggling to keep their heads above water, to breathe air, screaming as their legs knit together and their flesh sprouted fins. As the sea pulled them under, they tried to breathe water. It was agony. Some could do it. Others could not, and the waves carried their bodies away.

Serafina let the images of a ruined Atlantis fall through the water and fade. Then she tossed another handful of silt up, and conjured a new image—of Miromara.

Show them your heart,
Thalassa had told her. She would. Miromara
was
her heart.

With joy, she sang of those who survived and how they made Merrow their ruler. She sang of Miromara and how it became the first realm of the merfolk. Her voice soared, gliding up octaves, hitting each note perfectly. She was conjuring images of the mer, showing them in all their beauty—some with the sleek, silver scales of a mackerel, some with the legs of crabs or the armored bodies of lobsters, others with the tails of sea horses or the tentacles of squids. She sang of Neria’s gifts: canta mirus and canta prax.

She showed how the merfolk of Miromara spread out into all the waters of the world, salt and fresh. Some—longing for the places they’d left when still human to journey to Atlantis—returned to the shores of their native lands and founded new realms: Atlantica; Qin in the Pacific Ocean; the rivers, lakes, and ponds of the Freshwaters; Ondalina in the Arctic waters; and the Indian Ocean empire of Matali.

Then Serafina pulled rays of sun through the water, rolled them into a sphere, and tossed it onto the seafloor. When the sunsphere landed, it exploded upward into a golden blaze of light. As the glittering pieces of light descended, she depicted Matali, and told its history, showing it from its beginnings as a small outpost off the Seychelle Islands to an empire that encompassed the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal.

She sang of the friendship between Miromara and Matali and conjured dazzling images of the emperor and empress, praising them for their just and enlightened rule. Then, though it pained her deeply, she showed herself and Mahdi, floating together in ceremonial robes, as they would be shortly to exchange their betrothal vows, and expressed her hope that they would rule both realms as wisely as their parents had, putting the happiness and well-being of their people above all else.

The images faded and fell, like the embers of fireworks in a night sky. Serafina remained still as they did, her chest rising and falling, and then she finished her songspell as she had begun it—with no images, no effects, just her voice asking the gods to ensure that the friendship between the two waters endured forever. Finally, she bent her head, as a sign of respect to all assembled, to the memory of Merrow, and to the sea itself—the endless, eternal deep blue.

It was so quiet as Serafina bowed that one could’ve heard a barnacle cough.

Too quiet,
she thought, her heart sinking.
Oh, no.
They hated it!

She lifted her head, and as she did, a great, roiling sound rose. A joyous noise. Her people were cheering her, even more loudly than they had after the blooding. They’d abandoned all decorum and were tossing up their hats and helmets. Serafina looked for her mother. Isabella was applauding too. She was smiling. Her eyes were shining. There was no disappointment on her face, only pride.

She remembered her mother’s words to her uncle in the presence chamber.
Serafina won’t let Miromara down….

As the mer continued to cheer for her, Serafina’s heart felt so full she thought it would burst. She felt as if she could float along, buoyed up by the love of her people, forever.

She would remember that moment for a long time, that golden, shining, moment. The moment before everything changed.

Before the arrow, sleek and black, came hurtling through the water and lodged in her mother’s chest.

S
ERAFINA WAS FROZEN IN PLACE.

Her mother’s chest was heaving; the arrow was moving with every breath she took. It had shattered her breastplate and pierced her left side. Isabella touched her fingers to the wound. They came away crimson. The sight of blood—on her mother’s hand, dripping down her skirt—broke Serafina’s trance.

“Mom!”
she screamed, lurching toward her, but it was too late. Janiçari had already encircled her. They were shielding Serafina from harm, but also preventing her from getting to her mother. “Let me go!” she cried, trying to fight her way through them.

She heard the shouts of merpeople, felt bodies thrashing in the water. The spectators were in a frenzy of fear—swimming into one another, pushing and shoving. Children, separated from their parents, were screaming in terror. A little girl was knocked down. A boy was battered by a lashing tail.

Unable to break through the Janiçari, Serafina pressed her face between two of them and glimpsed her mother. Isabella was still staring down at the arrow in her side. The Janiçari were trying to surround her as they had Serafina, but she angrily ordered them to leave her and go to the Matalis. With a swift, merciless motion, she pulled the arrow out of her body and threw it down. Blood pulsed from her wound, but there was no fear on her face—only a terrible fury.

“Coward!” she shouted, her fierce voice rising above the cries of the crowd. “Show yourself!”

She swam above the royal enclosure, whirling in a circle, her eyes searching the Kolisseo for the sniper. “Come out, bottom-feeder! Finish your work!
Here
is my heart!” she cried, pounding her chest.

Serafina was frantic, expecting another arrow to come for her mother at any second.

“I am Isabella, ruler of Miromara! And I will
never
be frightened by sea scum who strike from the shadows!”

“Isabella, take cover!” someone shouted. Serafina knew that voice; it was her father’s. She spotted him. He was looking straight up.
“No!”
he shouted.

He shot out of the royal enclosure, a coppery blur. A split second later, he was swimming up over the amphitheater—between his wife and the merman in black above her who was holding a loaded crossbow.

The assassin, barely visible in the darker waters, fired. The arrow buried itself in Bastiaan’s chest. He was dead by the time his body hit the seafloor.

Serafina felt as if someone had just reached inside her and tore out her heart. “Dad!” she screamed. She clawed at the Janiçari, trying to get to her father, but they held her fast.

More Janiçari, led by Vallerio, surrounded Isabella. The Mehterabaşi had ordered another group to the royal enclosure, where they’d encircled the Matalis and the court.

“Bakmak! Bakmak!”
the Mehterabaşi shouted.
Look up!

Out of the night waters descended more mermen in black, hundreds of them, riding hippokamps and carrying crossbows. They fired on the royal enclosure and on the people. Janiçari raced through the water to fight them off, but they were no match for their crossbows.

“To the palace!”
Vallerio shouted. “Get everyone inside!
Go!
”

Two guards took Serafina by her arms and swam her out of the Kolisseo at breakneck speed. Two more swam above them, shielding her. In only seconds, they were back inside the city walls and safely under the thicket of Devil’s Tail. They continued on to the palace. When they reached the Regina’s Courtyard, the guards broke formation and hurried her inside.

Conte Orsino, the minister of defense, was waiting for her. “This way, Principessa. Hurry,” he said. “Your mother’s been taken to her stateroom. Your uncle wants you there too. It’s the centermost room of the palace and the most defensible.”

“Sera!” a voice cried out. It was Neela. She’d just swum inside the palace. She was upset and glowing a deep, dark blue.

Sera threw her arms around her and buried her face in her shoulder. “Oh, Neela,” she said, her voice breaking. “My father…he’s
dead
! My mother…”

“I’m sorry, Principessa, but we must go. It’s not safe here,” Orsino said.

Neela took Serafina’s hand. Orsino led the way.

As they swam, Serafina realized Neela was alone. “Where’s Yazeed?” she asked.

Neela shook her head. “I don’t know. He and Mahdi…they swam away. I’m not sure where they are.”

They swam
away
?
Sera thought, stunned. While her mother, bleeding and in pain, was daring her attacker to come forward? And her father was sacrificing his life?

“Bilaal and Ahadi? Are they safe?” she asked.

“I haven’t seen them,” Neela said. “Everything happened so fast.”

The wide coral hallways of the palace, the long, narrow tunnels between floors—they had never seemed so endless to Serafina. She swam through them quickly as she could, dodging dazed and wounded courtiers. As she neared the stateroom, she heard screams coming from it.

“Mom!”
she cried. Pushing her way savagely through the crowd, she streaked to the far end of the hall. A horrible sight greeted her there. Isabella lay on the floor by her throne, thrashing her tail wildly. Her eyes had rolled back in her head and red froth flecked her lips. She didn’t recognize Vallerio, or her ladies, and was clawing at her doctor as he tried to stanch her bleeding. Serafina knelt by her mother, but her uncle pulled her away.

“You can’t help her. Stay back. Let the doctor do his work,” he said.

“Uncle Vallerio, what’s wrong?” Serafina cried. “What’s happening to her?”

Vallerio shook his head. “The arrow—”

“But she pulled it out! I don’t understand…”

“It’s too late, Sera,” Vallerio said. “The arrow was poisoned.”