Sea Spell (Waterfire Saga #4)(4)

“Crossbows and spearguns,” Des replied.

“Quantities?”

“Five thousand of each. Plus rounds.”

“When?”

“Yesterday,” said Yazeed.

Kova nodded, frowning. “It won’t be easy, but I can do it. Give me a week.”

“Quality. No garbage,” Des said.

“The crossbows are goblin-made. The spearguns come from a gogg trader. Best in the world,” Kova said. He smiled grimly. “If there’s one thing the goggs are good at, it’s killing.”

“What about the rounds?” asked Yazeed.

“Spears are stainless steel. Gogg-made. Arrows are Kobold steel with barbed heads. Hit someone with one of those, he’s not getting up.”

“How much?” Sera asked.

“Seventy thousand trocii.”

She shook her head. “We haven’t got mer currensea, only doubloons.”

Kova chuckled. “Stolen from Vallerio’s vaults, I hear.”

“Not stolen, regained,” Sera retorted. “From my vaults.”

The Black Fins’ only form of barter was the treasure they’d taken from chambers deep inside Cerulea’s royal palace: goggish doubloons, gemstones, silver goblets, gold jewelry.

“Fifty thousand doubloons, then,” said Kova.

“Thirty.”

Kova didn’t reply. He worked a piece of food from his teeth with his thumbnail. “Forty-five,” he said at length. “Final offer.”

Sera thought about the price he was demanding. Her treasure was dwindling fast. Paying for food and weapons for her troops, purchasing thorny Devil’s Tail vines and other materials to strengthen her camps’ defenses—it all cost a great deal. So did the lava globes she had to buy, for the Kargjord didn’t appear to have a lava seam under it. And this was only the preparation stage. The battle to take back Cerulea from Vallerio, the fight against Abbadon—these were still to come.

Forty-five thousand doubloons, she finally decided, was a price she was prepared to pay. But there was another, even higher price for these weapons, one she couldn’t bear to pay: lives.

For a moment, Sera was no longer in the cave with the N?kki; she was back in Cerulea during the attack. She saw her father’s body sinking through the water. Saw the arrow go into her mother’s chest. Heard the screams of innocent mer as they were slaughtered.

“Sera…” That was Desiderio. She barely heard him.

Her gaze came to rest on Kova. His palm lay flat against a rock; a thin line of crimson oozed from it. She raised her eyes and saw smears of blood on the box of barnacles Ling had passed around, and more on the basket of worms.

I didn’t cut myself, she realized. The N?kki have blood on their hands and they leave it on everything they touch.

“Sera, we need an answer.” That was Yazeed.

But she couldn’t make the words come. She was immobilized by fear—fear for her people, for the suffering and destruction to come. How could any ruler make the decision to go to war? Even for a just cause? How could she send thousands to their deaths?

And then she heard another voice—Vr?ja’s. Sera was certain that the river witch had been killed by death riders, but she lived on in Sera’s heart.

Instead of shunning your fear, you must let it speak, Vr?ja had told her. It will give you good counsel.

Sera listened.

The N?kki peddle death, her fear said. But you must learn to sit with death, and his merchants, if you want to defeat your uncle and destroy the evil in the Southern Sea. How many more will die if you take no action?

Sera raised her eyes to Kova’s and, in a voice heavy with dread, said, “We have a deal.”

Kova nodded. “My terms are half up front.”

Sera’s fins flared. She did not take orders from arms-dealing sea scum. “My terms are nothing up front,” she shot back. “When I get my weapons, you get your gold.”

Kova gave her a long look. “How will you get the goods to the Karg? They’ll be in crates roped to hippokamps. My hippokamps. They aren’t part of the deal.”

“That’s my worry,” Sera replied.

Kova snorted. “Yes, it is. That and much more,” he said, rising. Julma and Petos followed his lead. “Give me five days,” he said, thrusting his hand at Sera to seal the deal.

Sera rose, too, and shook it, her eyes locked on his, her grip firm. Kova released her hand and then the three N?kki pulled their hoods over their heads. Seconds later, they were gone.

Sera looked down at her palm, knowing what she would see.

She felt a hand on her back. It was Ling. “It washes off,” she said.

Sera shook her head. “No, Ling,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”





THE CURRENTS of M?rk Dal were deserted, its shops closed, its homes shuttered against the night. The glow from a handful of sputtering lava globes was all that illuminated the sleeping goblin village in the frigid gray waters of the North Sea.

Astrid Kolfinnsdottir moved silently down the main current, sword drawn, eyes alert for any movement. She was hunting for a mirror.

There were none in the Kargjord, where she’d left her friends, or in the barren waters that surrounded that wasteland. She’d been swimming south for days. M?rk Dal was the first village she’d come across, the first place where she could find what she needed.