Sea Spell (Waterfire Saga #4)(21)

“We sit here day after day, getting by on conger eel, barely, and all the while, the death riders are coming closer,” Sn?fte said. “We need to ambush them. Kill them all and put their heads on stakes. Right outside the camp’s gates.”

“Too right,” Salvatore said, spitting a gob of chewing seaweed into the waterfire. “Serafina will never do it, though. She’s too weak. Too inexperienced. She’s nothing more than a pawn in her uncle’s game.”

Sera felt like she’d been slapped. Instinctively, she spoke up for herself. “Serafina’s not all bad,” she protested, unable to keep a twinge of defensiveness out of her voice. “I hear she loves her subjects very much.”

Salvatore snorted. His bushy eyebrows shot up. “Love? Who cares about love? I’m hungry. I’m cold. I need food and arrows, not love,” he said contemptuously. “Love means nothing to me.”

Enzo, who hadn’t spoken one word the entire time, looked up from his carving. “It means something to me,” he said quietly. “It’s the reason I’m here.”

Salvatore flapped a hand at him and spat another gob of seaweed into the fire.

Enzo turned to Sera. “I come from Cerulea, too. From the fabra.”

Sera nodded. She knew the district well. It was where the city’s artisans lived.

“My family, we’re woodworkers,” Enzo continued, giving her a smile both proud and sad. “We salvage beams from shipwrecks, comb the shores for driftwood. We carve it into beautiful things—statues, tables, frames.” His smile faded. “We don’t make beautiful things anymore, though. Now we make stocks for crossbows and handles for daggers. My grandfather, my father…they don’t want to do this work, but they don’t have a choice: Vallerio commands it. My uncle refused…” Enzo paused for a few seconds, overcome by emotion, then continued, “…and they took him away.”

“I’m sorry, Enzo,” Sera said, her heart hurting for him. “I’m guessing you’re here because you didn’t want to do Vallerio’s bidding, either.”

“No, I didn’t,” Enzo said, defiance in his voice. “I snuck out of the city gates one night when a guard’s back was turned. My grandfather and father cannot fight. They’re too old. My little sons are too young. But I can. And I will. That’s why I’m here. Because I’d rather die fighting for them than live and watch them suffer.”

Salvatore crossed his arms over his chest. He stared into the waterfire. “Maybe there are some things worth dying for,” he said gruffly.

“No, Salvatore,” Enzo said. “Not some things. One thing: family.”

As the words left Enzo’s lips, the pain finally stopped—the pain in Sera’s head, and her heart.

Earlier, she’d asked her brother, and her friends, to tell her how to send her people into battle. How can I give the command? Will somebody tell me? she’d begged.

Now somebody had.

Thank you, she said silently to the woodcarver. I owe you more than you’ll ever know.

She rose, ready for a rest, ready to start again tomorrow. She was just about to bid the others good night when a wailing blare rose over the camp. It dipped, then rose again.

Sn?fte swore. “The alarm siren!” she shouted, jumping to her feet.

Enzo leapt up and jammed his knife into the sheath on his hip.

No, Sera thought. It can’t be.

“Grab your weapons, kids,” Salvatore said grimly. “It looks like we’re under attack.”





SERA SWAM FASTER than she ever had in her life.

Back through the boulders and scrubgrass she raced, back to the center of camp. Salvatore, Enzo, and Sn?fte were right on her tail.

As Sera swam, she undid her illusio spell.

“Is that—” she heard Salvatore call out.

“Yeah!” Sn?fte shouted back to him. “It is! It’s her, Serafina!”

At the edges of camp, a lethal chaos reigned, and the death riders used it. Mer and goblin soldiers rushed out from under the thorn thicket, searching the darkness for foes. As they did, arrows sliced through the water from above. Frightened civilians, their tails thrashing, were hurrying for the safety of the thorns. Sera heard the screams of terrified mothers, the wails of children. The lights from illuminatas, hastily cast, flashed all around her—to her left, her right, and sometimes directly in her face, blinding her. She swooped down low, blinking the light out of her eyes, dodging rocks, tents, other Black Fins. She needed a weapon; she was useless without one.

“Get everyone under the Devil’s Tail! Hurry!” a voice shouted.

“Civilians into the caves!” another yelled. “Songcasters to the gates!”

“Medics to the south court! We’ve got fighters down!”

“Des, Yaz…where are you?” Sera shouted. “Neela! Ling! Becca!” But none of them answered her.

An arrow buried itself in the chest of a Black Fin next to her. He was dead before he hit the seafloor.

Sera dove down to the body. There would be time to honor the fighter later. Right now, she needed a weapon. She tugged the ammo belt free of his waist, buckled it around her own, then took the crossbow from his lifeless hands.

The attackers are shooting from above, and from the camp’s perimeter. They’re everywhere! she thought. Panic threatened to overwhelm her.