Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(68)

“Me…our friends…we’re all swimming separately to the pit—the refuse dump north of the city. We’re going to meet in the kelp forest on its western edge. We’ll wait until it’s dark, then head for a new safe house in the azzuros, the blue hills. You must join us. All of you. It’s too dangerous for you here.”

Serafina looked at Neela and Yazeed. They nodded.

“Thank you, Niccolo,” she said. “We’ll see you there.”

As soon as he left, Serafina told Yaz how to get to the kelp forest.

“Wait a minute, why are you telling me?” he asked. “You’re coming with us.”

“I’m going to meet you there. There’s something I have to do first. Do you have any transparensea pearls?”

“Why do you need—” Yazeed started to say. Then he shook his head. “No way, Sera. Are you out of your mind?”

“Give me a pearl, Yaz. I have to know if he’s part of this.”

“Sorry, fresh out.”

“I’m going anyway.”

Yaz swore, but he gave her a pearl.

“I’ll meet you in the forest,” Serafina said. “In one hour.”

“One hour,” Yazeed said. “Or I’m coming after you.”

“Please, Sera…” Coco said, her eyes large and fearful.

“I’ll be there,” Sera said confidently, smiling at her. “I’ll make it. I promise.”

As Neela led the child away, Serafina’s smile faded. She grabbed Yazeed’s hand and put something into it. He looked down and saw that he was holding a necklace with a big blue diamond in its center.

“Give it to Neela if I don’t,” she said.





SERAFINA, STILL VISIBLE, cautiously swam into the ruined stateroom of Cerulea’s palace.

She’d taken a secret passageway from the stables to get here. It was a risky move, but she didn’t have a choice. Transparensea pearls often wore off without notice, and she didn’t want to activate the one Yaz had given her until she was well inside the palace. It was an enormous place and she knew it could take time to find her uncle.

Sneaking by two grooms and three death riders to get inside the stables had taken some doing. Luckily, they’d been so busy drinking posidonia wine in celebration of Lucia’s Dokimí that they hadn’t noticed Sera as she’d crossed the exercise yard, swimming low behind bales of sea hay.

Now, as she crossed the stateroom, she looked at the gaping hole where its east wall had once stood. A mournful current swept through it. Anemones and seaweeds grew along its broken edges. She swam to the throne, then bent down to touch the floor near it. Head bowed, she stayed there for quite some time, remembering her mother. Then she rose and backed away from it.

As she did, a movement behind the throne startled her. She spun toward it, dagger out, then realized she was seeing herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the wall.

For a moment, she worried that Rorrim might be lurking behind the network of cracks in the silver glass, or worse yet, the eyeless man. But the mirrors were empty.

She took the transparensea pearl out of her pocket and cast it. Now all she had to do was figure out where her uncle was. His living quarters were in the palace’s north wing, so she decided to start there. To get to them, she had to swim past her mother’s presence chamber into the north corridor. As she approached the chamber, she saw that its door was closed. But voices were carrying through it.

Careful not to make any noise, she pressed an ear to the door. The voices belonged to Vallerio and Portia. But she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Sera quickly swam through a hole in the stateroom wall and around the side of the palace to see if the Presence Chamber’s tall windows were open. Luckily, one was. She squeezed through the opening, and swam silently into a corner to listen and watch.

“If the people knew…if they ever find out…” her uncle was saying.

“The people are fools. No one has any idea you were behind the invasion. You covered your wake well. You warned Isabella that Ondalina would wage war. Kolfinn inadvertently helped us by breaking the permutavi.”

“I still don’t know why he did it,” Vallerio said.

“Nor do I. And I don’t care. It was a real piece of luck for us. So was your begging Isabella to declare war on the very day of the attack. The councillors who survived will remember your words and tell the people how wise you were.”

“But how were the payments made? If they find that gold is missing from the vaults…”

“He paid Traho. As promised. And the councillors will have no problem paying the Kobold, because they saw how you used them to liberate the city,” Portia said, laughing.

Sera wondered who this he was.

“That was a stroke of genius, my darling,” Portia continued. “Making it look as though you and the Kobold frightened Traho into surrendering. Now that the beasts are here, they can root out the resistance for us. Miromara is ours. Matali is ours. Soon Qin will be, too. Mfeme is on his way there as we speak. Atlantica will fall next, then Ondalina, and finally the Freshwaters. Soon our daughter will rule all the waters of the world!”

“Nineteen years,” Vallerio said. “That’s how long I’ve waited for this. How long I’ve waited to make you mine. To be the family we always should have been. To put our daughter on the throne.”