Dark Tide (Waterfire Saga #3)
Jennifer Donnelly
For L.A.M.
There is no way back for me now. I am going to take you on journeys you’ve never dreamed were possible.
—Alexander McQueen
THE MERMAID’S SWORD glinted in the watery twilight of Tanner’s Deeps. She held it in front of her, both hands gripping the hilt, as she moved through the deserted village.
Tanner, whoever he was, was long gone. So was everyone else. Yet the mermaid kept her sword raised. Blacktip sharks were known to hunt along the lonely currents that swept through abandoned villages. Predators of another kind prowled them, too—looters who ransacked the houses of the disappeared for anything of value.
The mermaid was traveling back to Ondalina, her arctic home, and had seen many such villages on her way. In the Freshwaters. In Miromara, and here, in Atlantica. All were gutted and ruined. Their mer had been abducted. The few who’d managed to escape told of soldiers in black who’d come for them with weapons and cages. Where the mer had been taken, no one knew.
Satisfied no looters were near, the mermaid sheathed her sword. She was weary and night was coming with its many dangers. A small house, its door off the hinges, was directly in front of her. She entered it cautiously, startling some mackerel. The downstairs rooms showed signs of violence—an overturned table, smashed plates, toys scattered across the floor. She swam upstairs and found a room that offered her a soft, anemone-filled bed.
Weariness was etched on her face. She craved sleep, but dreaded it, too. Nightmares haunted her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it—Abbadon, the monster. She saw it advancing on the others—Ling, Ava, Neela, Becca, and Sera—and tearing them apart.
I should have stayed with them, she thought. I should have helped them.
But they wouldn’t have wanted her help. Not once they’d learned the truth.
As she swam toward the bed, something moved behind her. She caught a blur of darkness, a pale face.
There was someone else in the room.
The mermaid spun around with the speed of a tarpon, her heart thumping in her chest, her hand on the hilt of her sword.
There was someone else there, she saw, but not in the room. He was inside a mirror that was hanging on a wall.
“Don’t be afraid, Astrid Kolfinnsdottir. I would never hurt you,” he said. “I know your secret. I know how you’ve suffered. They mock you and call you weak, yet you have the blood of the greatest mage who ever lived running through your veins. Come with me. I’ll put an end to the cruel words, the laughter. I’ll make you powerful, more powerful than any creature alive.”
The mermaid eyed him warily. He was human. His face was obscured by shadows. But she could see that at his neck, a flawless black pearl hung from a chain.
“How do you know my name? Who are you?” she demanded.
The man replied by offering his hand. It pushed through the silvered glass and hovered in the water—a question instead of an answer.
The mermaid’s fins prickled, but she ignored her fear. Something about him drew her closer, something as powerful as the tides.
She lifted her hand to his. As she did, she glimpsed her own reflection in the glass. And beyond it, the man’s face, no longer in the shadows. For an instant, his eyes—as black and bottomless as the Abyss—became her own.
In terror, she slammed her tail fin into the mirror and shattered it. As the pieces rained down, the mermaid bolted from the room.
She swam as fast as she could. Out of the house, away from the village. Into the cold, dark waters of the night.
SERAFINA DI MERROVINGIA, rightful regina of Miromara, cocked her crossbow.
“Shoot to kill,” she ordered.
Twenty-five Black Fin fighters nodded in unison, then fanned out, their camo blending in with the weedy rock face at the base of Miromara’s royal palace. Casting a last glance at the dark waters above her, Sera turned and headed for a tunnel in the rock. Her uncle’s soldiers rarely patrolled this lonely part of the palace grounds, but she could afford no surprises tonight.
THE TRAITORS’ GATE, read the ancient words carved over the tunnel’s entrance. Enemies of Miromara had been brought to the dungeons through this passageway for thousands of years, until it had been permanently locked during an unprecedented era of peace and then forgotten. The irony was not lost on Sera. The real traitors were inside the palace—her uncle Vallerio; his new wife, Portia Volnero; and their daughter, Lucia. They’d assassinated Sera’s mother, Regina Isabella, and stolen the throne.