Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(65)

She risked a small wave. Mahdi saw her. Even from where she was sitting, she could see his face go white.

Sera, get out of here!

Why? What’s wrong?

Leave the Kolisseo. Hurry!

I can’t! The death riders are blocking the exits.

You’re in serious danger. If they find out…if they see you…

If who finds out? What do you mean?

Before Mahdi could answer, trumpeters blasted a deafening fanfare. The noise broke the convoca.

Vallerio swam to the royal enclosure amidst more cheering. “Miromarans, thank you!” he shouted, holding up his hands for silence. “Thank you for this heartfelt welcome! I am glad to be back among you. You have suffered. You have lost your regina. You have lost your royal city. I am here today to restore them to you.”

Cheers went up again, but they were not enthusiastic enough to please the Kobold. A few seats away, a goblin soldier threatened a family. “Heie, d?rer! F?r du blir goblin kj?tt!” he said. Cheer, fools! Before you become goblin meat!

“I have made peace with our enemies,” Vallerio continued. “I have brought friends from the north to help keep this peace and rebuild our city. But that is not enough. Our realm needs a leader if we are to move past the darkness we have endured into a bright new dawn. We all mourn our beloved Isabella, taken from us too soon. We mourn her daughter, Serafina, killed in the attack on the palace.”

“What?” Serafina whispered. “He thinks I’m dead?”

She started to rise. Goblins or no goblins, she was going to swim to her uncle now and show him that she most certainly was not dead.

Sera, no! He’ll…you, don’t…a voice said inside her head.

It was Mahdi. His words were faint and broken up. She looked at him. He was looking in her direction. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. It was a warning. Sera sat down again.

“I have your new regina here with me today,” Vallerio continued, his voice jubilant. “I have the one who will lead Miromara out of the pain and sorrow of the past and into a brilliant future!”

Vallerio swept his arm toward the opposite side of the Kolisseo. As Serafina watched, a mermaid appeared in the arched doorway there.

Serafina knew her all too well. She knew the ebony hair, the cobalt eyes, the mocking smile.

It was her old enemy.

Lucia Volnero.





GASPS WENT UP from the crowd. Even fear of the brutal goblins couldn’t make the people cheer.

Lucia, stunningly beautiful in a gown the color of midnight, swam into the Kolisseo. As she did, twenty burly mermen, each wearing armor and carrying a shield and a lava torch, followed her. Serafina knew who the mermen were, and what they did.

“My gods, no. She’ll die!” she whispered.

Vallerio spoke. “In accordance with Merrow’s decree, and the laws of this realm, we will ask Alítheia to judge this mermaid fit to occupy the throne of Miromara…” He paused, then added, “…or not.”

What is he doing? Serafina wondered, panic-stricken. She’s not a Merrovingian. Alítheia will kill her.

Serafina remembered Mahdi saying the Volneros might have collaborated with Traho. Was this Vallerio’s way of punishing them for it? He’d always been hard and uncompromising toward the realm’s enemies, but never vicious. Had he changed?

Surely Portia would stop him. Lucia’s mother wouldn’t allow her child to be led to the slaughter. She would beg Vallerio for Lucia’s life. They’d been in love once, Serafina remembered. Her words would soften him. But Portia didn’t move. She wasn’t distraught. She wasn’t weeping. She was perfectly fine.

Lucia took her place in the center of the Kolisseo, and the burly mermen swam to the iron grille covering Alítheia’s den.

“Release the anarachna!” Vallerio ordered.

The next few minutes felt like a dream to Serafina—a nightmare in which something horrific was happening, but she couldn’t speak or move or do anything at all to stop it. She watched as the terrible bronze spider hissed at Lucia, calling for her blood, for her bones—just as the creature had done to Sera herself only weeks ago.

Sera knew that the spider’s task was to make certain only blood descendants of Merrow ruled Miromara. Legend had it that when Merrow was close to death, she asked Neria, the sea goddess, and Bellogrim, the god of fire, to forge a creature of bronze to protect the throne from pretenders. As the Kobold were smelting the ore for the monster, Neria slashed Merrow’s palm and dripped her blood into molten metal so that the spider would have the blood of Merrow in her veins and know it from imposters’ blood.

“Stop this uncle, please,” Sera whispered. “If she’s guilty of something, she deserves a trial, not cold-blooded murder.”

But Vallerio did nothing and Sera, along with everyone else in the Kolisseo, had to watch as Lucia faced Alítheia.

They watched as the Mehterba?i, leader of the Jani?ari guards, handed her his scimitar.

As Lucia drew the blade across her palm.

And as Alítheia bent to drink from the wound.

And then, Sera couldn’t watch anymore. She bent her head, not wanting to see the spider do her dark work.

“Alítheia!” Vallerio bellowed. “What say you?”

Serafina clenched her hands, waiting for Alítheia to attack.