Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) (37 page)

Nothing happened. She continued breathing.

I rested my hand on the scales properly. They were colder and smoother than iron, and somehow, more solid. This creature was as indestructible as the legend said.

Remembering why I came here, I pulled the dagger from my belt.

You’re crazy,
said a voice in my head.
You’re about to wake this thing. How can you think that’s a good idea?

I wondered if she would be hungry when she woke. Ravenous, probably, after thousands of years.

I gripped the dagger more tightly. I had nothing to fear. I would be able to control her.

The legend had been accurate so far, and if it continued to be true in telling me I could wake the Host with my blood, then why wouldn’t it be true about this?

Imagining myself with power over this monster gave me a thrill I’d never felt before.

With a leviathan—
the
leviathan—at my side, I’d be the most powerful woman in the world. I could rule the seas.

No. That’s why Adaro wants her
, I told myself.

I wasn’t like Adaro. Once the serpent was awake, I would use her to kill Adaro, and then figure out how to destroy her. She had too much potential to be apocalyptic in the wrong hands.

But she was so beautiful.

Looking at the closed eye, a lump the size of my head, and feeling the warm air blowing from the nostril by my chest, I tried to prepare myself. I imagined how controlling her might feel.

How did it work? Did I think about what I wanted her to do? Did I tell her verbally?

As a descendant of Eriana, I supposed the instinct would come to me.

A surge of pride filled me. The goddess Eriana, who connected me to my people by blood and earth, was resting on the clay at my feet. This untameable creature she spent her life commanding was a part of me, and a part of my history—the beginning of Eriana Kwai.

I’d made it all this way to protect Eriana’s children, the people of this island. How would she feel to know her descendant was here, ready to carry on her destiny?

Now the Massacre was ready to depart, taking twenty more of Eriana’s children with it. I could stop it.

I, Metlaa Gaela, Daughter of Kasai, possessed the ability to waken the Host.

I turned the bone dagger in my fingers.

Do it now,
I thought.

Again, a grasp on time escaped me. How long had it been? Had the warriors departed already?

My hands trembled. Was it excitement? Fear?

Cold. I was turning to ice from the outside in. The cavern had numbed my wet—now ice-encrusted—skin.

I thought of the girls aboard the ship, and their families watching them depart, and the rest of my people, including my parents and friends. I couldn’t let them suffer any longer under Adaro’s grasp. I thought of Lysi, and Lysi’s family, who’d also suffered because of that merman’s desire for power.

When I wake you
, I thought
, I want you to kill Adaro
.

I knew it wouldn’t work that way. I’d have to command her, somehow, once she was awake.

I placed the blade across my palm. The engraving of the serpent head stared up at me.

“For Eriana,” I said.

The words filled the cavern. A chorus echoed, as though the entire island—the spirits of my ancestors, perhaps—was there with me.

I drew the dagger hard across my palm. A sting shot up my arm as the dull blade bit into my skin.

Blood seeped through the wound. I watched it pool in my palm.

I turned my hand. The blood fell. It trickled into the gap between the black, reptilian lips.

My heart hammered as I watched the blood drip down, both into the mouth and out onto the clay.

My hair stopped fluttering. The warm, rhythmic breathing ceased, plunging me into absolute, dead silence.

Slowly, the black scales overtop the eye parted. A vertical pupil narrowed into focus, a deep blue streak in the centre of a black, glassy orb.

The Host of Eriana looked straight at me.

CHAPTER TWENTY
For Eriana

Ephyra grabbed Coho’s wrist, sensing his decision a beat before I did.

“Don’t,” she said, a dangerous tinge in the whites of her eyes.

Coho ignored her. He whirled around, scanning our surroundings.

I followed his gaze to the scene of our attack. The blood had dissipated and the bodies had sunk, leaving the water as clear as though nothing had happened.

One weapon remained, bobbing at the surface: a longblade of wood, slate, and whalebone. My weapon.

Coho pulled free from Ephyra, grabbed it, and returned. He placed the blade under the rope binding my wrists and tail.

Ephyra grabbed his wrist again, stopping him from severing the rope. “You can’t—”

Coho rounded on her.

“Ephyra, I can’t let my sister die. I’ve already abandoned her.”

“What about our family?”

“We’ll go into hiding. Please. Meela is our family, too.”

They stared at each other, Ephyra holding tight to his wrist.

“We knew we would have to flee, eventually,” whispered Coho. “Why not now?”

Ephyra’s eyebrows pulled down. She softened. After a hesitation, she let go.

Without a word, Coho turned back to me. He severed the rope in a gentle way that was so Meela-ish it brought a lump to my throat.

Why hadn’t I seen it before?

“She talks about you all the time,” I said.

A deep crease appeared in his forehead.

Keeping his eyes down, he said, “When you told us you had to fight women in the Battle for Eriana Kwai … I wondered. I didn’t let myself believe it. But it’s true. She was on the Massacre, and you fought her.”

The rope fell away. I nodded, rubbing my bloodied wrists.

Around us, the world was still and silent.

“They trained her to kill mermaids,” said Coho.

I said nothing.

Coho dropped his gaze to the weapon in one hand, the rope in the other.

“Sorry for punching you.”

“It’s fine,” I said truthfully.

Fear twisting my gut, I turned to where Spio had disappeared.

Sure, Spio had always escaped the tightest spots a kid could find himself in—but he’d never gotten himself hunted for treason.

I met Coho’s anxious gaze. Sadness passed between us, and I knew he was also thinking of our friends.

We’d been so sure we would bring a new era to the Pacific. If the iron had worked, we would have succeeded. But Pontus, Junior, and Nobeard were at the bottom of the sea, and scavengers would be feeding on their bodies.

Meanwhile, Adaro was still alive. His Utopia lived on, and so did his plan to divide humans and merpeople.

“You should go,” said Coho.

I turned northwards, wondering how far I was from Eriana Kwai.

“You, too,” I said. “Take your family far away from here. I’ll … I’ll see you soon.”

Saying goodbye felt too final.

Coho held out my weapon. When I reached for it, he shot towards me, and before I knew what was happening, he wrapped his arms around me.

I hugged him back, feeling the closeness of family in his arms. Meela’s family.

I had to get to her.

Ephyra didn’t hug me, but her aura was apologetic. She promised we would find each other again.

We split ways. Coho and Ephyra followed the northwest current to Utopia. I went northeast to Eriana Kwai.

Facing the open water alone didn’t scare me. Not orcas, sharks, or other merpeople. The only fear swelling in my chest was for Meela, and whether I was too late to stop her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Goddess Rising

The vertical pupil hung in space, a deep blue streak on an inky backdrop. I hardly processed that I was looking into a living, seeing eye. It was as though such an enormous creature had no place in my brain.

I was reminded of being aboard the Bloodhound. In the middle of nothingness at twilight, wispy clouds had reflected in the black water. This glossy eye now swallowed me the same way the ocean had.

A soft, breathy groan rumbled the cavern. Her nostrils flared.

I needed to make her do something, to get her under my control immediately. I decided to start with that vast ocean in front of me: the eye. I would make her blink.

I focused my thoughts on the act of blinking. I imagined the upper and lower lids meeting.

The pupil stayed fixed on me.

I blinked deliberately, concentrating on projecting the action to the serpent.

She stayed motionless.

“Blink,” I said.

At the sound of my voice, the serpent raised her massive head, bringing her bottom jaw shoulder-height.

I stepped back.

She tilted her head to peer down at me.

With Eriana’s blood flowing in my veins, I’d assumed it would become clear how to control her once she was awake. I’d expected to feel her presence, to instinctively know what to do. But I felt nothing—only a stinging pain in my sliced palm and that paralyzing iciness in the air.

I didn’t know how to read the serpent’s expression, but I thought she looked groggy, even irritated at being woken from her deep sleep.

Beyond the head, something enormous scraped over damp clay. The noise echoed. She must have been lying in a cavern as vast as a stadium.

I stumbled backwards as the second head jutted from the darkness. The square snout hovered where I’d been standing, nostrils flaring.

The heads were identical, as the legend said. Neither appeared weaker than the other.

I fleetingly wondered how much body lay coiled in the darkness. I couldn’t imagine it. She was too surreal.

Two pairs of eyes watched me. I’d never felt so much like a helpless, trembling mouse.

Lower your heads
, I thought.

I desperately tried to feel the words with every part of me.

The serpent drew a long, slow breath from all four nostrils. Strands of my hair pulled towards her. A shudder ran up my spine in the breeze.

“Lower your heads,” I said, my voice unnaturally high.

She finally blinked of her own accord. A clear membrane crossed the eyes, front to back, and then the lids, top and bottom meeting gently in the middle. The cavern was so silent that I heard it, wet and sticky.

The lids had closed in unison, leading me to believe one mind controlled both heads. I had wondered if they would snap at each other like bickering siblings. But the serpent had full, harmonious control over her body.

The heads scanned their surroundings, mirroring each other.

I lifted an arm, extending my bleeding palm towards the second head. I concentrated on the sensation of pushing it away from me.

Nothing.

A low rumble met my ears. I checked over my shoulder before realising the noise came from the leviathan. The second head stuck out a long, red tongue, tasting the air between us. She could smell me. Was it the blood dripping from my hand?

The first head lowered to the ground. A scraping noise echoed again from the darkness. She was moving. With another flick of a forked tongue, the second head retreated into the cavern. It disappeared from my sight.

That briny, ancient scent of ocean became stronger, as though it oozed from the rippling scales.

She blinked, narrowing the vertical pupil, clearing her vision. She drew another breath that pulled wisps of hair from my shoulders.

The rumbling grew louder, coming from deep inside her.

Run,
said a voice in my head.

She tasted the air, and this time the tongue nearly touched me. I backed away, clenching my bleeding fist to try and stem the flow of blood.

The jaws parted with a sound like cracking wood.

I took this as my cue. I broke eye contact and whirled around, taking off at a sprint.

For several seconds, the only sounds were my bare feet against the clay and my heaving lungs.

Then I heard her behind me—a low hiss, and the sinister rasp of her armour against clay.

I pushed harder, sprinting down the tunnel until my legs burned.

The beams of light ended. The water must have been close. Without slowing, I dove headfirst off the ledge and into the water. I frog-kicked under the threshold, putting all my strength into each stroke.