Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(5)

Behind it, foothills sloped gently down to the seafloor. The hills were colonized by corals and seaweeds now, but Sera knew they’d probably been terraced for grapes and olives before Atlantis had been destroyed. She swam to the front of the house, hoping to find her bearings.

There, the terrain fell away steeply into a valley. At its center, clustered along what had once been a street, were ruins that went on for leagues. Serafina stopped dead at the sight of them, wonder-struck. She had information to gather, talismans to find, and a monster to hunt down, but she was so overwhelmed, she couldn’t move. Tears came to her eyes.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, great Neria, just look at it!”

Its houses were broken. Its temples toppled. Its palaces ruined.

It was silent. Deserted. Desolate.

But it was still so beautiful.

It was a place Serafina had long imagined, but had never hoped to see.

It was a vanished dream. A fallen empire. A paradise lost.

It was Elysia, the heart of Atlantis.





SERAFINA STARED, not moving, barely breathing.

So much had collapsed during the island’s destruction, but here and there, buildings, or at least parts of them, had survived. She had studied Elysia in school, and had produced several term conchs on its art and architecture.

There in the distance, that bowl-shaped structure—that has to be the amphitheater, she thought. And that huge open space flanked by columns, that’s the agora—the public square. And there’s the ostrokon, which the Atlanteans called a library.

Unable to contain herself a second longer, she cast a canta prax camouflage spell that allowed her to blend into her surroundings, just like an octopus. Prax, or plainsong, was the most basic mer magic and took little energy or ability. As soon as the songspell was cast, she swam for the ruins.

In minutes, she was at the outskirts of the city. She swooped down low, determined to enter it as her ancestors had, by its streets. As she swam through them—stopping to touch a column or lintel—forty centuries instantly fell away.

She swam into homes both humble and grand. Time and silt had covered much, but in one house she saw a mosaic portrait of a man, woman, and three children—the family that had lived there. In another, a statue of the sea goddess Neria, miraculously intact. In a third, she saw a human skeleton—a woman’s, she guessed, judging from the bracelets around her wrists and the rings on her fingers. Her delicate bones were furry with algae. Tiny fish swam in and out of her skull. Atlantis is under an enchantment. Who was she? Serafina wondered sadly. Had she known the six mages who had ruled Atlantis? Had she seen their talismans? How Sera wished the dead could speak.

As she was looking at the bones, a sudden movement to her left startled her. Her dagger was in her hand immediately, but it was only a crab scuttling up a wall. She sighed with relief, but the scare reminded her where she was—in the realm of the Opafago. The information she needed was here, she was sure of it, carved into a pediment or chiseled on a frieze. The faster she found it, the better.

Serafina moved on, deeper into the city, alert to sound and motion. As she swam, the camouflage spell she’d cast allowed her body to take on the colors around her—the sandy hues of rubble, the pink and white of coral, the greens and browns of seaweeds. In the center of Elysia, she knew, was the Hall of the Six Who Ruled and temples dedicated to important gods and goddesses. The ostrokon was there, and the agora, too. These public places would be more likely than private homes to have the information she was seeking.

She passed what looked like a wheelwright’s shop, with barnacled hoops still leaning against its front, then a wagonmaker’s and a blacksmith’s. She realized she was in what must’ve been an artisans’ quarter—like Cerulea’s fabra. The street hooked to the left and narrowed; Serafina followed it. The purpose of the shops that lined it became more somber. One had sold funeral biers. Another, shrouds.

At the bottom of the street was what looked like a temple. As Serafina neared it, she saw that its roof and walls were intact, unlike many of the neighboring buildings’. The temple’s massive doors, made of bronze, still hung on their hinges. Strangely, there was no corrosion on them. The stone columns flanking the doors were also intact. Above them were words carved in ancient Greek. Sera struggled with the letters, but eventually she deciphered them, whispering aloud the words they made: “Temple of Morsa.”

Abbadon had uttered similar words: Daímonas tis Morsa—demon of Morsa. Sera’s blood ran cold at the memory. Could this place contain information about the monster? Or the talismans?

No temple had ever been built for Morsa in Miromara, or in any of the mer realms. Merrow had decreed the goddess an abomination who deserved no place in a civilized society.

As she worked up the nerve to go inside, Serafina wondered if Merrow had other reasons for forbidding Morsa’s worship. Just as she wondered if Merrow had other reasons for herding the bloodthirsty Opafago into the Barrens of Thira, the waters surrounding Atlantis.

According to historians, Merrow said that she’d driven the cannibals in the Barrens because the ruins were useless to merfolk. Sera, however, believed Merrow had done so to make sure the true story of Atlantis’s demise was never discovered. According to Merrow’s ancient bloodsong, handed down to Vr?ja, the Temple of Morsa was where Orfeo had locked himself during the island’s destruction. Was there something inside it that Merrow also wanted kept secret?