“Be careful, Your Grace,” Baco cautioned. “Guldemar’s waters are well defended, the Kargjord included, and there’s nothing he loves more than a fight. Think hard before you send your troops there.”
Portia’s eyes narrowed. “I pay you for information, not instruction,” she said. “Get out!”
The moray unwound itself from Baco’s shoulders and circled him protectively.
“As you wish, Your Grace,” Baco said slyly. “But what a shame it would be for me to leave before I’ve shared the rest of my information.”
“Tell us. Now,” Lucia ordered.
Baco smiled. “I’ve learned the identity of the Black Fins’ leader,” he said, drawing out his words.
He’s enjoying this, she thought. Why? And then she realized, with a sickening certainty, that she knew why. She knew exactly what he was going to say.
“It’s the prin—Ah! Forgive me, my regina, I meant the former principessa. Serafina. You thought she was dead, I believe? I’m so sorry to disappoint you, but she’s very much alive.”
ASTRID LIFTED HER face to the sky and smiled as the snow kissed her cheeks.
Her eyes drank in the colors of home—the soft gray of an arctic gull’s wing. The clear blue heart of an ice floe. The crystalline white of a million snowflakes. To Astrid, these shades of pale were the most beautiful colors in the world.
She’d surfaced a moment ago, eager to hear a guillemot’s cry, a seal’s bark, the silence of snowflakes falling on water, before descending to the Citadel.
In the distance, she could see icebergs drifting, secret and mute. To the goggs, they were places where no one and nothing lived—which is just as the Ondalinians wanted it. But under the surface, there was movement and life, color and sound. The massive bergs, weighing millions of tons, contained floating mer cities.
Ondalina was the northernmost realm, and most mer found it forbidding, but Astrid loved it. The cold made her heart beat faster. It cleared her mind. She could think straight among the glaciers, the pack ice, the snow.
And she desperately needed to think. She and Becca had parted company a week ago, when they reached the current that Becca would follow south to Cape Horn.
“Becca, I can’t—” Astrid had begun. She meant to finish by saying “thank you enough for the whalebone pipe,” but Becca, misunderstanding, had cut her off.
“You’re not allowed to say no, remember?” she’d scolded. Then she’d hugged Astrid tightly. “I’ll miss you,” she’d added. “And I’m still hoping that you’ll join us. Think about it, Astrid. Please. We need you.”
Becca wants me with them, even though she knows I can’t sing, Astrid thought now, still unable to fathom it. Becca actually believed Astrid could make the group stronger. Here, in Ondalina, a mermaid who couldn’t sing would be shunned as a weakling.
Sera wants me with them, too, Astrid thought. But she doesn’t know the truth about me. If she did, she might change her mind.
All the way home, Astrid had asked herself, “What do you want?”
She still didn’t know the answer.
Part of her wanted to join her new friends. She wanted to help them fight Abbadon. But part of her was scared. If she joined them, she’d have to tell them the truth about herself, and that went against everything Astrid had been taught.
Openess wasn’t the Ondalinian way. Life was harsh in the Arctic. Bitter cold stalked the mer constantly. Food was scarce. Predators were everywhere. Ondalinians prized toughness, hunting prowess, and the ability to hide—to hide yourself, your home, and, above all, your weaknesses.
Ondalinian camouflage spells were known throughout the merworld to be the best. Children learned them while they were still in the cradle. When a merbaby was born, well-wishers didn’t say, Congratulations! Instead they said, Hide it!
Becca had asked Astrid to think about joining them, and Astrid was. She knew she’d soon have to stop thinking, though, and make a decision.
But there was another thing Astrid had to think about—her father. Eyv?r, her mother, always told her to listen to her instincts. And right now, Astrid’s were telling her—loudly and clearly—that the things she’d learned during her journey to the Iele’s caves and back were connected to the bad things that had happened to her father. What she didn’t know was how.
Before she’d set off for the River Olt, someone had placed a sea burr under Kolfinn’s saddle, causing his hippokamp to rear and throw him into a wall. He’d broken several ribs. Then someone had slipped poison from a Medusa anemone into his food, making him very sick. He’d mostly recovered, but the poison had left him weak.