Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga, #1)(77)

Ava concentrated. Her eyes could no longer see, but her mind still could. Sera wondered what she was going to try to show them. Not Abbadon, she hoped.

“Do you have it?” Magdalena asked.

Ava nodded. “I’m going to try to show you Macapá, my home. I’ll use one of the shells on my windowsill as the gandac,” she explained.

“Ambitious. I like it,” Magdalena said approvingly.

Ava began her songspell.

Gods of darkness,

Hear my plight,

Give to me

the gift of sight.

Gods of light

From up above,

Help me see

The place I love.

Ava was smiling now.

A river wide,

A river fast,

I ask you now

To help me cast

A vision clear

To show my friends

My home,

The place the river ends.

Serafina closed her eyes, waiting for Ava to shift from ochi to convoca, expecting to see in her mind’s eye the Amazon River, where her friend had grown up. Instead, she saw herself. A split second later, she heard a voice inside her head. “Sera? Is that you?”

“Ava!”

“Wow! I’m in your head, gatinha!”

“This is weird, Ava.”

“Ava? Sera?”

“Neela?”

“Yes!”

“Hey there!”

“Becca!”

“Yeah, it’s me! I can hear you, Ava! I can hear all of you!”

Another voice chimed in—Magdalena’s. “Well, the convoca obviously worked, since Ava is talking to us without talking to us, but the ochi is a total fail. You’re supposed to be showing us something far away—the Amazon, right?—but all I’m seeing is Sera and she’s right next to me!”

“Wait a minute,” Serafina said as the image came more sharply into focus. “That’s not the practice cave. And what on earth am I wearing?”

The Serafina in the image was clad in armor and riding a huge black hippokamp. She was bellowing at soldiers, moving them into position.

The mermaids soon saw why. On the other end of the field, a fearsome army was amassing.

Ava let out a low whistle. “Meu deus! Those are some mad ugly goblins,” she said.

“Feuerkumpel,” Becca said grimly.

“Sera, watch out!” Neela shouted.

A goblin had crept up behind Serafina. His black hair stood high in a topknot. He had a sallow face pocked by lava burns, nostrils but no nose, and a mouthful of sharp teeth, blackened by rot. His small, brutal eyes were as transparent as jellyfish. Serafina could see the network of veins running through them, pulsing with brown blood, and behind them, the dull yellow of his brain. Hard, bony black plates, like the chitin of a crab, covered his body. He was carrying a double-headed ax, its blades curved like crescent moons. As the mermaids watched, he raised it high over his head—then swung it.

“No!” Ava screamed. She scrabbled backward on the floor, as if trying to get away from the vision. As quickly as it had come, it disappeared. “Que diabo!” she said out loud. “What was that?”

“Your gift growing stronger,” Magdalena said.

“No way! It’s not my gift. My gift is sight. It always has been. I can see the truth. I can see what really is.”

“No, Ava. Not anymore. Your ancestor Nyx not only saw what is, he saw what will be. He had the power of prophecy. You do too. You just never felt it until now. It’s being near the others that’s bringing it out.”

“So I saw something from the future?” Ava asked.

“I think so,” Magdalena replied.

“Great,” Serafina said. “Looks like we have a battle with ax-wielding goblins to look forward to. I’m so happy about that. Because, you know, Abbadon just isn’t enough of a challenge for me.”

“Magdalena!” a voice called from the doorway. It was Tatiana, another one of the Iele.

“Baba Vr?ja wants to see you. Right away.” There was panic in her voice.

“What’s wrong?” Magdalena asked.

“Captain Traho just entered the mouth of the Olt. The cadavru saw him.”

“So? He’s done it before. It’s only a search party,” Magdalena said.

“He has five hundred death riders with him. Five hundred!” Tatiana said, her voice edging toward hysteria.

“Calm down, Tatiana. He doesn’t know where we are,” Magdalena said. “No one knows where we are.”

“He does now.”

It was Ling. She was leaning on the doorjamb, panting. Her face was flushed from swimming fast.

“But how is that possible? Who told him?” Magdalena asked.

“Abbadon.”





“I WAS SO WRONG,” Ling said.

She swam into the room. “All this time, I thought Abbadon was talking to itself,” she said. “Monster speaks, like, two hundred languages. And a lot of them are very old forms. That’s why it took me so long to see the pattern. I mean, ever try to make sense of ancient Abahatta?”

“What pattern, Ling? What are you saying?” Serafina asked, alarmed.

“I’m saying that Abbadon talks. But not to itself. It talks about us. Constantly. I didn’t understand at first. It kept changing languages so I couldn’t follow what it was saying, but now I can. Here, look…I wrote down a lot of its words.” She showed them a piece of parchment. It was covered with lines.