Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga, #1)(60)

She was done with heavy silk gowns that got in the way. Of jewels so valuable they required their own security detail. Of gold crowns and diamond tiaras that weighed heavily upon her.

Now she wore clothing that allowed her to move and to blend in. Her hair was so short that no one could grab it and hold her back. Instead of jewels around her neck, she carried a dagger at her hip.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t look like royalty. She looked fierce, edgy, and troublesome. A merl not to be messed with.

And she liked it.

The three mermaids rounded a bend in the Dun?rea now.

“Look! There it is!” Ling said, pointing.

Fifty yards ahead of them was the Olt. It was rushing heavy and fast into the Dun?rea, whirling into swift eddies, and thick with silt. Like all rivers, it had a voice. The Olt’s was earthy and low, and it sang about the black mountains it came from; the wolf, bear, and deer that drank from it; the tall trees that grew on its banks; and the sweet breezes that blew across it. The mermaids swam into the mouth, then through its rough, churning waters. They emerged a few minutes later, coughing and sneezing and worse for the wear. Serafina shook silt out of her hair. Ling pulled a frog out of her sling. Neela spat out a minnow.

Dazed, Serafina scrambled away from the river’s mouth toward its bank, trying to get out of the rushing water. She rested her back against a network of gnarled tree roots.

And didn’t see the thing lurking behind them until it was too late.

“Sera, look out!” Neela cried.

All at once, Sera was jerked against the tree roots. She heard a snarl and smelled a gut-wrenching stench. She screamed and tried to pull away, but was pulled back.

“Hang on, Sera!” Ling shouted, pulling her sword out of its scabbard.

The blade came down to the right of Sera’s head. An instant later, she was free…and a human arm was lying on the ground. She whirled around to see what had attacked her.

It was a terragogg. Or what was left of him. He was dead. His clothes were in tatters and so was his skin. His nose was gone. Teeth showed through a lipless mouth. He had only one arm now. And only one eye. It moved rapidly in its bony socket as he raged back and forth in his tree root prison.

“Holy silt!” she said, gasping. “What is that?”

“A rotter,” Ling said. “There’s some serious malus at work here, merls.”

Serafina knew that very powerful mages could reanimate the human dead and make them do their bidding using canta malus, or darksong, a forbidden magic.

The creature growled low in his throat. He swiped at them with a decayed hand.

“I wonder if he’s a sentry for the Iele,” Ling said. “He saw us, but we never would have seen him if Sera hadn’t gotten so close.”

“What a welcoming touch,” Neela said, grimacing.

“And there’s another,” Ling said. With her sword she pointed at some white objects, half-buried in leaves and mud. They were small bones. From a hand, most likely. They were arranged in an oval with crossed lines running through it. “It’s Greek. A theta in its archaic form,” she said. “It means death.”

“Death?” Neela said. “How about Hi? Or Hey, there! or Nice to see you?”

“It’s a warning, I think. Meant to scare off the uninvited,” Ling said.

“Follow the bones,” Serafina said. “That’s what Vr?ja told me. I think we’re on track.”

The rotter stopped growling. He turned toward the mouth of the Olt, listening.

“Come on,” Ling said, putting her sword back in its scabbard. “This is no place to hang out.”

The three mermaids continued up the river Olt, and the rotter stood where he was.

Listening.

Watching.

And waiting.





BY LATE AFTERNOON, the mermaids had put another five leagues behind them and were coming to the Olt’s first bend. They’d used no velo spells in the Olt, as they were afraid of speeding past landmarks. They’d encountered more freshwater mermaids, defensive and territorial, and had pleaded with them to be allowed to cross their patches of river. As they approached the bend, they heard voices, raised and shrill.

“What now?” Neela said wearily.

Serafina, worried, held a finger to her lips and hooked a thumb toward the bank. All three flattened themselves against it, then inched forward. As they rounded the bend, an alarming sight greeted them—three ghosts were attacking a mermaid. The ghosts had once been terragogg girls. They were wearing clothing from another time. The mermaid was young, too. She had curly red hair, blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles across her face. She wore gold-rimmed glasses that were hanging off one ear.

“How dare you come here!” one ghost shrilled at her.

“After what you did!” the second shrieked.

“Stealing him from me!” the third shouted.

The ghosts were pinching the mermaid. Slapping her. Pulling her hair. She was fighting back hard.

Ling sighed. “Is everyone in the freshwaters a t?ngj??” she asked.

“What’s a—” Serafina started to say.

“A jerk.”

The three rushed to the red-haired mermaid’s aid.

“Leave her alone! Get out of here!” Ling shouted.

“Shoo!” Neela said.