Sea Spell (Waterfire Saga #4)(79)

She touched her forehead to his, then quickly left.

She didn’t look back. It was easier that way.

If she had, she would have seen it.

A single silver tear rolling down Mahdi’s cheek.





CLIO TOSSED HER HEAD and thrashed her long serpent’s tail. She didn’t like canyons.

“Easy, girl,” Sera said. She’d been reunited with her hippokamp after the Black Fin invasion. A death rider captain had taken a liking to her, and had taken good care of her.

Krill Canyon, in the Haakon Basin, rose steeply on both sides. At its far end, a sheer bluff soared high into the water. Rocks and boulders obscured its base. Anything could be hiding in them.

Sera and her troops had been traveling to the Southern Sea for five weeks now and not making the kind of progress she’d hoped for. They’d been battling the cold, which stiffened joints, snapped harnesses, jammed weapons, and sickened soldiers. A few had succumbed and had been buried along the way. They were also going through food stores faster than they’d planned, which meant that part of every day was spent foraging and hunting instead of swimming or marching.

There were other threats to be dealt with as well. They’d encountered a clan of Fryst on the Scotia Ridge, who’d menaced them at first, but then decided to join them when Sera told their leader where they were headed and why. They’d also run into several EisGeists. The creatures had regarded them hungrily, but had moved off, obviously intimidated by their numbers. As Becca had predicted, skavveners trailed them constantly.

As dangerous as all those creatures were, Sera was much more worried about Orfeo and Lucia. Orfeo knew where she was headed. And Lucia could have easily found out. Either could be waiting in ambush.

The decision to go through Krill Canyon had been made to save time. It was a direct route out of the Haakon Basin and into the Weddell Plain. Like Clio, Sera didn’t relish swimming through it. Normally, she swam over canyons, but a large chunk of her army was goblin, and goblins walked. They could swim, but weren’t much better at it than the goggs were.

“Whoa, Clio,” Sera said now, halting the hippokamp. She raised a hand to stop the long column of troops behind her.

Turning to Ava, who was riding next to her on a gentle, biddable mount, she said, “Aves, do you feel anything?”

Ava concentrated. She was about to shake her head, but stopped.

“What is it?” Sera asked, her fins prickling.

Ava frowned. “Nothing, I think. A shoal, maybe. And a pod of whales.”

“Any mer?” Sera asked.

“I—I can’t tell. The whales are jamming me,” Ava said.

Sera knew that whales could enhance mer magic, and could make a mess of it, too.

“The sooner we get out of this canyon and past that bluff, the better,” Sera muttered. She was about to nudge Clio on when a figure appeared on the eastern rise.

It was a mermaid. She was carrying a staff.

“Weapons raised!” Sera shouted. Instantly, crossbows and spearguns were aimed.

The mermaid cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, you jackwrasses! Put those weapons down! You’re scaring the kitties!”

A hundred giant catfish swam up to the edge of the rise, fanning out along it. They wore chain mail made of flattened soda cans and helmets fashioned from shiny silver hubcaps.

“No way,” Neela said.

Sera grinned. “Lena!” she shouted back at the mermaid. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?” the mermaid shouted back. “Didn’t want to come. Can’t stand you, to be honest. But I didn’t see much of a choice. Word’s traveling about the thing under the ice. Seems to me like you need all the help you can get. As I recall, you couldn’t even swim down a river without bringing a world of trouble with you. Not sure I’ve ever met three bigger fools.”

Lena, Sera recalled, was not exactly a diplomat.

“Wow, she hasn’t changed a bit,” Ling said. “Still as charming as ever.”

“Lena, come down! We definitely need all the help we can get!” Sera shouted.

Lena, a freshwater mermaid from the Dunarea River, had hidden Sera, Neela, and Ling from Traho and the death riders when the merls were on their way to the Iele’s cave. She’d saved their lives. She swooped down into the canyon now, followed by her catfish. Sera saw that the staff she was carrying was a hockey stick—the same one she’d threatened them with when they tried to cross her patch of river. Her bright red hair was just visible under her horseshoe crab helmet, and she wore the same soda can chain mail as her catfish.

“It’s so good to see you,” Sera said, embracing the prickly mermaid. “Thank you for joining us.

Lena winced and thumped Sera on the back. Ling and Neela hugged her, too. Then Sera introduced her to Becca, Ava, Yazeed, Garstig, and R?k, all of whom rode at the front of the troops.

“We should get going,” Yazeed said when the introductions were over. “This canyon is not a good place to hang out.”

“Well, you might want to wait a minute,” Lena cautioned.

“Why?” Sera asked.

“There’s a crew coming up behind me. Been following the same current I was on, but they veered farther west. Probably come out up there,” Lena said, pointing at the bluff. “I hid the kitties in a trench one night and doubled back to spy on them. Fierce-looking bunch. Numbering about a thousand, I’d say. Got about twenty whales with them, too.”