Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A (31 page)

Mahdi followed her gaze to his side and grimaced. His jacket was soaked with blood.

“Are you going to die, too?” she asked in a choked voice. Her face crumpled. She covered it with her hands and wept.

Mahdi was at her side in an instant. “Hey, hey…it’s okay, Sera. It’s not as bad as it looks. A couple of stitches and I’ll be fine.”

He pulled her close and held her tightly. Sera grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and buried her head in his chest. “So many gone because of them, Mahdi…
so many
.”

“Shh, Sera. We won. It’s over. There won’t be any more killing. Not after today,” Mahdi said, still holding her.

After a few minutes, she pulled herself together and said, “I’m keeping you here, and I shouldn’t. You need to see a doctor.”

“In a bit,” Mahdi said. “I’m going to check out the hallway first, make sure it’s totally clear. What about you?”

Sera shook her head. “I—I can’t…I need a moment. Alone. I need to get ahold of myself,” she said, her voice still quavering.

“It’s your mother, isn’t it? Being here, in this room, reminds you of her.”

Sera looked down at the floor. “She wouldn’t be very happy if she could see me right now,” she said. “She would tell me that those who would govern others must first govern themselves.”

Mahdi laughed. “That sounds just like her.” He lifted Sera’s face. “Take the time you need, Sera. I’ll come back for you in a minute. Your mer are scared. They’ve just come through a battle. They need to see you, but they need to see you strong.”

Sera nodded. Mahdi left, and she made her way over to the sofa in front of the lavaplace. She sat down and closed her eyes. Never had she felt so weary. She’d survived the maligno and Alítheia. She’d fought a battle and won it. Portia Volnero was dead. Vallerio and Lucia were captured.

It’s over,
Mahdi had said. But Sera felt like Traho’s words were the truer ones:
it’s only beginning.
Now she had to pick up the pieces. To bury the dead. To reassure her frightened mer. Now, for the first time, she had to rule.

“How, Mom? How?” she said aloud.

The words came back to her, as they had time and time again.
The love of my people is my strength.

She would need that love in the days to come, as she tried to put her broken realm back together.

Sera opened her eyes. It was time to go. As she started to rise, she felt something brush against her tail.

A goby or a blenny,
she thought, remembering how schools would swim through the palace, despite the maids’ best efforts to keep them out.

She looked down, but it wasn’t a fish that had brushed her tail. It was a tentacle, thin, withered, and a sickly shade of green. Another tentacle wound around her tail, and then another. A face peeked out from under the settee. It was withered, too, but Sera knew it.

“Sylvestre?”
she whispered, joy and disbelief mingling in her voice. “Is it
really
you?”

The little green octopus nodded. A tentacle wound around Sera’s wrist.

“I never thought I’d see you again!” Sera said. “What happened to you? Are you sick?”

Sylvestre nodded again and Sera, her heart filling with love for the little pet she thought she’d lost, leaned down to scoop him up in her arms.

And that was what saved her life.

Because a heartbeat later, a dagger sliced through the water behind her, missing her back by a scale’s breadth.

“I
HAVE NOTHING TO SAY!” a malicious voice hissed.

Sera whirled around. She saw a knife blade glinting. A shadowy figure lunged at her again. Sera darted away. As she backed toward the mantel, she was able to get a look at her assailant.

“Lucia?”

The emotionless face, the long black hair…Lucia looked just as she had moments ago. The only difference was her clothing. She must’ve changed.

But how?
Sera’s mind scrabbled for an explanation.
How did she escape and get back here?

“I have nothing to say,” another voice whispered, to Sera’s right.

Sera’s head jerked around. “It
can’t
be!”

There was another Lucia. She was advancing on Sera, too, and she also had a dagger.

“I’m seeing things,” Sera whispered. “This must be an illusio spell.”

But then the Lucia at her right lunged at her, dagger out, and Sera learned that she was no illusion. She skirted the thrust, but not quickly enough. The dagger opened a gash in her arm.

Great Neria,
Sera’s mind yammered.
They’re malignos!

Sera’s crossbow was on the floor, all the way on the other side of the room. There was no way to get it. She panicked, but then remembered she had a sword at her hip, one she’d taken from the guard room in the dungeons.

She pulled it out of its sheath, and when the Lucia on her right attacked again, Sera parried its blade, then thrust with her own.

It pierced the creature’s chest. Sera drew the blade out, then watched in horror as silt—not blood—poured from the wound.

The maligno moved toward her again.

“I have nothing to say,” came a growl from behind her.

Sera twisted around. There were three of them now. They were closing in on her, pushing her back toward the lavaplace once more.

With a warrior’s cry, Sera lunged at the closest maligno, swinging her sword high. The blade severed the creature’s head cleanly.

The body fell to the floor, silt pouring from its neck. Sera charged the next one, decapitating it, too. By the time she’d killed the third, she was panting heavily. Her entire body was trembling.

She passed a shaking hand across her brow. Lucia had made these three things, plus one more—the one her fighters had taken to the dungeon.

Sera’s blood turned to ice as she realized what that meant: the real Lucia was still at large.

A click, sharp and metallic, sounded behind her.

Slowly, Sera turned around.

Lucia was floating only feet away from her, in the entrance to the tunnels. She was holding a speargun.

Before Sera could even scream, Lucia raised it.

And fired.

I
T WAS OVER in a split second, yet in Sera’s mind, it would last forever.

In the hours and days and weeks that followed, images and sounds would come back to her. A blur of green. The sensation of falling. The spear hissing through the water. Stars exploding behind her eyes as her head hit the floor.

Pain, and a heavy weight. Crushing her. Squeezing the air—and the life—out of her. She felt something warm seeping over her skin, into her clothing. Her vision cleared. She could see the ceiling, covered with bright anemones, feather worms, and brittle stars.

And then Lucia was leaning over her, her face beautiful and cunning.

“So much for love,” she said, a mocking smile on her lips.

And then she was gone. Sera heard a soft whoosh as the secret door swung closed. She tried to move, to get up, but she couldn’t.

And then voices.

Neela’s screaming.

Becca’s shouting, “Get a medic in here! Now!
Now!
”

Yazeed’s: “No. Gods,
no
.”

Garstig’s: “She’s in the tunnels! Break the door down! Hurry!”

And then there were voices she didn’t recognize.

“Careful. Go easy. On three…”

The weight was removed. Water flowed into her lungs. She could breathe easily again.

“Get her up!” That was Becca.

Sera felt hands on her. Becca’s hands. Neela’s. They lifted her up off the floor.

The room swam as she struggled for her balance. Her head throbbed. Her thoughts were scattered and jumbled. She struggled against the confusion. Trying to clear her mind. To
think
.

“Sera? Sera, can you hear me?” Neela asked.

“I—I’m bleeding…” she replied, looking down at the crimson stains on her clothing.

Hands opened her jacket. They felt for wounds.

“You’re all right. You’re not hit,” said Ling, relief in her voice.

“I—I’m not?” Sera stammered. It seemed the blood she was covered in wasn’t her own. But that made no sense. She pressed a hand to her aching temple. “But then how…who…” Her words trailed away as her eyes came to rest on two medics who’d swum into the room. They were working feverishly on a motionless figure stretched out on the floor.

It was a merman dressed in green. Emerald green.

Sera’s eyes widened. Suddenly, it all made sickening sense. The blur in the water. The weight. The blood.

“No,” she said, shaking her head wildly. “No, no,
no
!” The last word came out in a long, tearing shriek.

A spear was sticking out of the merman’s back. On the left side. Where his heart was. His face was turned away from Sera’s, but still she knew him.

It was Mahdi.

T
HE PAIN WAS like nothing he’d ever known.

Every breath he took seared his lungs. Blood poured from his torn flesh, over his shattered ribs.

Through the red haze of agony, he could hear something. It was pounding, slow and labored. It was the sound of his own heart, struggling to beat.

Time slowed. The images before his eyes blurred. Urgent words, spoken and shouted, stretched out forever. He couldn’t understand them.

Hands lifted him, bringing fresh pain. Shouts echoed around him. Lights blazed from the ceiling above.

And then a face came into view, blurry at first, then clear.

Sera.
She was
alive
.

Relief washed over him like a gentle wave, lapping his pain away. He’d gotten between her and Lucia’s speargun. He’d saved her; that was all that mattered.

He felt her take his hand in hers and squeeze it. He squeezed back. She was crying, but trying to smile. “Hang on, Mahdi. Please, hang on,” she sobbed.

There was so much he wanted to say, but he couldn’t make the words come. He wanted to tell her that she would be all right. That she was brave and strong. He wanted her to know how much he loved her.

The pounding in his ears grew softer. His vision blurred again.

“No!”
Sera screamed. She looked up, at somebody else. There were mer he didn’t know in the room with them. They were wearing masks and gloves. “Help him!
Do
something!” she shouted.

She turned back to him, terror in her eyes. “Mahdi, no,” she begged frantically. “Don’t go. Please,
please
don’t go….”

The pounding slowed. His eyes fluttered closed.

“Mērē dila, mērī ātmā,”
he whispered. “Always….”

The beat of Mahdi’s brave heart faltered, and then finally, it stopped.