The capital’s fiery heart was a blast furnace fifty feet high that roared day and night. It was shaped like the head of the first Meerteufel chieftain, Kupfernickel. Lava bubbled in his mad eyes. From his snarling mouth flowed a white-hot stream of slag. Foundries dotted the city. They belched steam and sprayed sparks as molten Kobold steel was cast into weapons and armor. In the distance, mines pitted the seafloor, and slag heaps rose like mountains.
Sera was waiting to be admitted to Guldemar’s stateroom. She and her retinue of twenty Black Fins had assembled with ten chests, each filled with gold, silver, and jewels.
The Black Fins were in serious trouble. They’d managed to steal plenty of treasure, and to hide it well, but they’d enraged Vallerio and he’d vowed to kill every last one of them. His forces were moving ever closer to their hideout, making it almost impossible to leave it. Two Black Fins had been captured while trying to gather food. The youngest fighter, a mermaid named Coco, had witnessed it and raced back to headquarters to tell Sera, but there was nothing anyone could do. When the captives had refused to give up any information, even under torture, Vallerio had had them executed. It was only a matter of time until the Black Fins’ hideout was discovered, and they needed to be long gone when it was.
Sera wished she could go to the new Duca di Venezia for help, but word had it the palazzo was deserted and the Duca nowhere to be found. She’d sent envoys carrying requests for safe haven to the elder of Qin, the president of Atlantica, and the queen of the Freshwaters—the leaders of every free realm except Ondalina. With tensions running high between Kolfinn and Vallerio, she’d thought it too dangerous.
The envoys had returned empty-handed. The leaders—stunned by Vallerio’s invasion of Matali—were playing their cards carefully. They’d been told Serafina was dead, the envoys reported. She would need to prove her identity. Meetings would have to be held. They needed time. But Sera didn’t have time. Desperate, she’d decided to seek help from the fractious Meerteufel.
Yazeed swam to her side now. “Nervous?” he asked her.
“Very,” she admitted.
“Who do the Kobold hate?” he asked.
Sera laughed darkly. “Everyone.”
“Who do they hate the most?”
“Each other,” she replied.
“Exactly. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Remember that, Sera.”
Sera nodded, grateful, as always, for Yazeed’s counsel.
The Kobold goblins, once a single people, had splintered into several tribes thousands of years ago, and had feuded over lava seams and ore deposits ever since. Many members of the Feuerkumpel tribe were in Cerulea, serving as mercenaries in her uncle’s army. The Feuerkumpel and the Meerteufel despised each other. Sera planned to take advantage of that fact now.
Sera heard the sound of footsteps, so alien to mer ears, and then doors to the stateroom swung open. Standing in the entry-way was a short, stocky goblin. Like all other sea goblins, he had transparent eyes, holes for nostrils, and gills on his neck, but Meerteufel goblins had two features that distinguished them from other tribes: black-lipped mouths, and horns. One pair of horns curved up from the goblin’s temples, the other sprouted downward from his jaw. Sera recognized him. He was Stickstoff, head of the Meerteufel’s military.
“H?vdingen tar emot nu!” he barked.
Sera understood him. The Chieftain will see you now!
Her hand automatically went to her ring—Mahdi’s ring. Touching it made her feel like he was near, and that gave her strength. She took a deep breath and led her fighters into the stateroom. Her back was straight, her head was high. She wore no silty camo fatigues now; she’d come before the Meerteufel dressed as the queen she was in a shimmering blue sea-silk gown and long, high-necked black coat. A choker of pearls and sapphires circled her neck. A crown of pure gold adorned her head.
The goblins did not need to know that Neela had made the dress and coat out of draperies she’d found in an abandoned mansion, or that the jewels had been snatched during the Black Fins’ raid on Miromara’s treasury vaults.
They didn’t need to know that Sera, and her Black Fins, were in constant fear for their lives. That they were weak, exhausted, and desperate. That these negotiations were their last hope.
Sera was doing what generations of reginas before her had done in times of peril—she was bluffing.
Sera hadn’t had the luxury of learning how to rule during peacetime. This was war, and she had to learn fast, while hungry and dirty and scared. Her mother had often told her that ruling was like playing chess, and that she must play the board, not the piece. The last few months had taught Sera the meaning of her mother’s words: ruling was a game of moves and countermoves, of feints and ripostes. One had to anticipate her opponent, and think several moves ahead. Sera was now playing a game of life and death. And she was playing to win.