Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) (33 page)

My heart skipped a beat when I saw familiar faces. I didn’t know their names, but I recognised them from the army. A day before, we had been allies.

Not dead,
I thought.
Please, not dead.

We had one target, and only one. Guilt squeezed my chest—even for the sharks, who pushed outwards with more force, now.

Adaro’s protection was crumbling. Five soldiers remained. Two of them were Coho and Ephyra, who were both bleeding from shark bites but hadn’t been hit with iron. Ladon was bleeding and burned, gritting his teeth against Junior’s brute-strength attack. The other two were ordinary soldiers. It drove a hole in my gut to see Nobeard and Pontus fighting them so fiercely.

The larger great white lunged for me. A strip of flesh hung from his teeth.

I was losing wind. I raised my blade, but those jaws suddenly seemed too much for my measly weapon.

“Leave it, Lysi,” shouted Spio. “He’s too pissed.”

I dodged the snapping teeth, expelling a spout of bubbles in the effort.

“No shi—”

“Go, Pontus!”

It was Junior. I whirled around. The great white blasted away, disappearing into the blue as fast as the thresher had.

Pontus had knocked out his opponent.

Four guards left. Junior parried Ladon while Nobeard fended off the remaining soldier. Coho grabbed Ephyra, pulling her away from the swinging iron. Whether he was giving us access to Adaro or keeping his wife safe, I didn’t know. Either way, Adaro was exposed. Pontus shot towards him.

Next to Adaro’s huge, imperial form, it occurred to me how young Pontus was. He was a boy, diving at the most powerful merman in the Pacific, a single weapon in hand.

Another thresher blasted through the space between Spio and me. I thought to stop it too late.

Pontus let out a war cry.

For a moment, I thought Adaro might flee through the widening gap in the sharks and soldiers. But he faced his opponent, teeth bared.

Pontus thrust the trident towards the king’s stomach.

Adaro seized the iron prongs, stopping Pontus cold.

I waited for the shriek of pain. I wanted to smell flesh on iron, to hear the sizzle as he burned.

But I didn’t. Had a tunnel closed around my senses, or was the scene too full of blood for me to feel anything else?

With one hand grasping the trident, Adaro drew back the other arm. That was when I noticed the weapon across his back: a stone mace, with a hook at the end. My iron hook.

I screamed. “Pontus, look out!”

Holding Pontus by the end of the trident, Adaro swung the iron hook.

Pontus saw it too late. The iron sliced across his face, blood spurting as his head snapped around.

His head lolled, the blow leaving him semi-conscious. This time, I heard the sizzle. I smelled burning flesh.

Somehow, Adaro still held onto the iron prongs of the trident. He pulled Pontus towards him.

This was wrong. Adaro should have been searing. He should have projected unbearable pain. Red beads oozed from his palms where he gripped the trident—but that was all.

He ripped the weapon from Pontus’ grasp and spun it around.

“Pontus!” I yelled.

Spio and I shot forwards.

We were too slow. The iron plunged through Pontus’ ribs.

I felt it. I never realised what Pontus meant to me until that moment—his last moment. After spending so much time with him, the pain he projected overwhelmed me. Fear and agony washed over my skin, bringing a cry to my lips.

Junior felt it, too, and a hundred times more powerfully. His outburst hit me like a punch in the stomach. He abandoned Ladon and shot for Adaro.

I shouted at him, but he wouldn’t hear me.

Ladon made to follow. Spio and I deflected him. Ladon swung at me, giving Spio the chance to slam him with the butt of his weapon. The air left his mouth in a stream of bubbles.

The king pulled the trident from Pontus’ limp body. He turned it on Junior.

The two mermen were similar in stature, but Junior had no iron. Would it matter, even if he did?

Ladon made a desperate swing at Spio, who retaliated by striking him across the chest. Another wound opened, and he backed off. He’d been bitten and slashed in several places. Blood poured from somewhere in his back. His eyelids fluttered. He would bleed out soon.

I pushed him with the hilt of my blade. He floated limp, too weak to retaliate.

All feeling seemed to have left my body. Light-headed, I glanced around.

The sharks had scattered. The last thresher tail disappeared in the distance, leaving drops of blood in its wake.

Between the floating bodies, Coho and Ephyra were hunched over, trembling, weaponless. They both bled from multiple punctures. A half-moon of teeth marks dotted Coho’s forearm. Our eyes met, and regret tightened my throat.

But what had I expected? Did I think we would charge in, push aside Adaro’s guards, and kill the king in one clean swoop?

Of course there would be death. Of course everyone involved—sharks included—would be slashed and beaten. The guards had sworn oaths and would do everything in their abilities to protect the king, including dying for him.

Junior slammed into Adaro with enough force to drive the king backwards.

For a moment, Adaro struggled to retaliate. Junior’s two maces were blurs, striking Adaro in the face, neck, and arms.

The king straightened, trident in one hand and hook in the other, and fought back. His arms crossed as he slashed the iron weapons at Junior.

Junior ducked out of the way to avoid being seared. He came back with a heavy blow to Adaro’s ribcage.

Thick and muscular, both mermen relied on brute force instead of agility to win this fight. The current pulsed with the force of two colliding great whites.

Their arms blurred, weapons pounding against each other. The dizzying speed and trailing bubbles left me blind to their movements.

Then the hook grazed Junior’s arm, and the pain caused enough hesitation for Adaro to swipe again with the trident.

Junior bellowed as the iron sliced his stomach.

I cried out, dashing towards them. Spio’s hand closed on my arm. He pulled me back in time to dodge a desperate swipe from Ladon.

In a fit of madness, I spun around and slashed at Ladon. Incomprehensible screams poured from my mouth. My blade sliced across his chest, his face, his throat.

His eyes rolled back. He went limp, sinking slowly.

My fingers gave out. I dropped my weapon. It drifted away in the current, and I let it.

Someone spluttered beside me.

Nobeard was slumped over, a hand pressed to his neck. Blood gushed between his fingers.

Spio darted over.

My chest constricted. He’d been fighting the merman who had given Spio and I the kelp buoys. What was his name?

He coughed up a red-tinged bubble.

“Anthias,” I said.

He met my eye, projecting defeat. He brushed a hand over his lips to wipe away more blood. Mistrust and fear lingered heavily between us.

I nodded towards the open water, indicating that he should go.

He glanced to the king, locked in battle with Junior, and then to Spio, and back to me.

I raised my weapon. I didn’t want to fight him, but I would if he got in the way of what needed to be done.

He fled. I watched him angle downwards until he disappeared into the darkness below.

An instant later, Junior screamed. Agony stabbed every cell in my body.

I whirled to see the trident buried deep inside Junior’s stomach. With a grunt, Adaro gave it one more shove before pulling it free.

I had a last, fleeting look at the kind face of Pontus’ younger brother. Then the life drained from his aura, and he slumped over.

“No …” The sound hardly escaped my lips.

“Hey, dude, you’ll be all right,” said Spio.

His voice seemed to come from a distance.

“Come on, I’ll take you—Nobeard? Hey, open your eyes. Let’s get you some air. Come on, buddy.”

The hook fell from Nobeard’s grip. It sank fast, vanishing from sight.

“You think iron can defeat me?” shouted Adaro. “The rightful king of the oceans is better than iron.”

Spio slapped Nobeard in the face, trying to wake him up. Blood poured from his neck, more slowly now.

Spio backed off, staring at his friend. Then he dropped his eyes to where the iron hook had disappeared. Without hesitating, he dove after it.

“Spio!”

We had no time for that. We had to go, or we’d be next.

Before I could dive after him, Adaro lunged at me.

I twisted away, propelling myself around his thick body.

I wasn’t fast enough. A hand closed over my fin. I cried out as his fingers dug into the soft tissue.

He dragged me backwards. I spun, swinging my fists, opening my jaws to bite him.

Adaro seized me by the hair, and then his arm was around my neck, his bicep pressing against my throat.

Rage prickled from his skin as he held me there. One massive fist gripped both trident and iron hook. He brought them up to my face, nearly touching me with the trident’s prongs.

“Who else is a part of the plan?” he shouted.

“No one,” I said through gritted teeth.

I tried to shrink away from the iron’s sting.

“Do not lie to me! Who are you working with?”

Was that a whiff of fear in him? I cast around for Coho. He and Ephyra hovered behind us, motionless, as though hoping not to be noticed.

Adaro brought the iron closer. The middle prong of the trident hovered a finger’s width from my eye.

“Tell me where the rebels are,” said Adaro, “or I will give you a scar to match the one you already have.”

I almost shouted that no one sent us and we were acting on our own, but I stopped myself. What would he do if he realised I had no information to give him?

At my silence, he gave a cold, deep laugh.

“Do you fear I will deal with them as I have dealt with everyone else? Pity, after all this, you find yourself alone once again. I wonder if it is your destiny to be alone, Lysithea.”

I clenched my jaw, unable to move, watching the tip of the iron trident.

“Are you so arrogant that you thought you could change the entire Pacific Kingdom?” said Adaro. “Did you think you belonged to something bigger? You and your friends, destined to overthrow the rightful king of the oceans …”

“You are not the rightful king,” I said, but my words came out too weak, too broken.

Had all of this been for nothing? Pontus, Junior, and Nobeard were dead. Coho had chosen his side. I’d spent a short time believing I belonged somewhere. That dream was never fated to survive.

The next beat of Adaro’s pulse hammered against my flesh, and his muscles tightened, and I knew he was about to close the gap between the iron and my face.

“Wait!” I said. “Remember your deal. You can’t harm me.”

Adaro barked out a laugh. “All your allies are dead and still you beg to live.”

I snarled. That wasn’t true. I still had Spio, and my parents, and my brother, and Meela.

I clung to that.

Meela and I could spend years and leagues apart, but the Massacre had proven that no matter what, I still had her. And her determination to take down Adaro matched mine.

“She won’t give you the Host if I’m dead,” I said.

“Your efforts have been a waste, Lysithea. You cannot save her. Once she frees the Host, it will make no difference whether you are alive or dead.”

Something in his aura sent a shudder through me. What did he mean,
you cannot save her
?

“I might have failed to mention it, but you must understand. That human of yours would never have agreed if she knew—”

“Shut up! You’ve got nothing—”

“Freeing the Host requires blood,” he said, voice rising over mine. “A human of Eriana Kwai must sacrifice herself.”

A terrible silence passed between us. My heart pounded so hard, he must have felt it.

“You’re lying.”

“Your human will be dead,” he said deliberately. “Tell me, do you really think I am lying as I say this?”

His pulse beat against my skin, steady and even.

The blood drained from my face, leaving me dizzy.

“She won’t do it,” I said. “You’re wrong.”

Would Meela know this? Did he withhold it from her so she would follow through?

In a flash, something rose beside us.

“Well, Your Majesty, no one can say you didn’t rule with an
iron fist.
”

Adaro hissed as Spio dove over our heads with the iron hook.

The impact of Spio’s swing jolted us forwards, but the iron didn’t draw the king’s blood.

Adaro waved his weapons haphazardly at Spio. I took the opportunity to jerk away from his grasp.

I landed in Ephyra’s arms. She’d grabbed a rope from one of the fallen soldiers.

Before I could push away, she pulled my wrists behind my back.

I shrieked, pummelling her with my tail.

“You two-faced—”

“Hey! Stop!” said Coho, appearing at Ephyra’s side.

He tried to restrain me, but I kept thrashing, fighting him and Ephyra with everything I had.

“Cowards!” I said.

They were supposed to be on our side. If they cooperated, we might be able to finish Adaro off.

I tried to bite Ephyra. My teeth snapped where her ear had been.

Something knocked me in the jaw. I grunted, blinking away the spots in my vision.

Coho unclenched his fist, eyes wide.

“I said, stop.”

Ephyra finished binding my wrists and tail, leaving hardly enough slack for me to float properly.

Still, I twisted against the ropes like a catfish on the end of a line.

Spio fought hard, but Adaro’s flying weapons forced him to retreat. The king slashed with both hands, pushing Spio towards the surface, where he would be cornered.

“Spio, get away from here,” I shouted. “I’ll be fine.”

Adaro stabbed the trident. Spio barely dodged it in time. He spun around and raised the hook.

“Spio,” I shouted. “Go!”

Spio hesitated. He glanced to Coho.

Adaro swung the trident. Spio darted away from the prongs.