The doctor left, to give them privacy, and closed the door behind him. Astrid leaned against it, hands behind her back, afraid to move or speak, afraid to make the specter she saw before her real.
Kolfinn opened his eyes. “Astrid?” he said weakly. “Come closer.” He patted the edge of his bed. She put down her pack and sword and swam over to him. “I’m glad you’re home,” Kolfinn said. “We need to talk. I haven’t got much longer.”
Sorrow, as swift and lethal as a spear, pierced Astrid’s heart. “Kolfinn, no. You’ll get better,” she said, her voice breaking.
Displeasure surfaced in her father’s eyes like an orca’s fin knifing through water. “I expect better of you, Astrid,” he admonished. “Soft displays are for our southern cousins. We of the northern seas have no use for such foolishness.”
Astrid nodded. She swallowed her tears.
“When I die, Ragnar will become admiral, as you know. Rylka, whom I’ve appointed acting admiral, will oversee the transition.”
Ragnar was Astrid’s brother. He was twenty, older than Astrid by three years. Rylka, the realm’s commodora, was officially in charge of the realm’s military. Unofficially, she was Ondalina’s spymaster. Nothing happened anywhere in the realm without Rylka getting word of it.
“Why does Ragnar need Rylka? He’s strong,” Astrid said. “He’ll make a good admiral.”
“He is strong, but he’s inexperienced. Rylka will guide him,” Kolfinn said. “I’m fearful both for Ragnar’s ascension and for the security of the realm. We’re on the verge of war with Miromara.”
Astrid’s stomach lurched at that. “War? Why?”
“The Miromarans have been trying to kill me. Shortly, they’ll succeed,” he said wryly. “What’s more, Vallerio has accused Ondalina of invading Cerulea and killing Isabella, Bastiaan, and Serafina. He’s wrong, of course, but we can’t convince him otherwise. He’s taken over Matali and he’ll have that realm’s military might behind him if he attacks us. We can’t hope to fight off a force of that size.”
It’s time to tell him where I’ve been and what I’ve learned, Astrid thought, shoring up her nerve. She took a deep breath, then plunged in.
“Kolfinn, you’ll never convince Vallerio. Because he’s not wrong, he’s lying. Serafina’s not dead. Isabella and Bastiaan are, and he’s the one who killed them.”
Kolfinn paled, obviously alarmed by this news. “How do you know that?”
“Serafina told me.”
Kolfinn’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been with Serafina? I thought you went hunting.”
Astrid nodded guiltily. “I did. Sort of. But, um, for answers instead of animals.”
She told him everything that had happened—from the first time Vr?ja had summoned her, to fighting Abbadon in the Iele’s caves, to her trip through Atlantica with Becca.
When she finished, Kolfinn, who’d sat forward so he could hear her every word, flopped back against his pillow, stunned.
“Astrid, I find all this almost impossible to believe,” he said.
“I don’t blame you,” she said. Then she touched her fingers to her chest, to the place over her heart, and pulled a bloodsong. It showed her and the five other mermaids fighting Abbadon. She pulled another that showed Sera during the convoca, telling Astrid and Becca about Vallerio’s treachery.
As the blood faded into the water, Kolfinn’s expression hardened. “Vallerio murdered his own sister,” he said. “The danger we face is even greater than I thought. A merman capable of such an act is capable of anything.”
“Kolfinn, the Iele summoned me to help fight Abbadon,” Astrid said. “Sera and the others have asked me to join them.” She hesitated, working up her courage, then said, “I want to go.”
Kolfinn shook his head. “Absolutely not. It’s far too dangerous. I forbid it.”
“But they need my help! They can’t fight Abbadon without me!”
“A monster in a cage on the other side of the world troubles me less than the monster in Miromara,” Kolfinn said. “And what good would you be to those other mermaids? You can’t songcast.”
His blunt words cut her, but Astrid pressed on. “There’s something else I need to tell you….I can make magic again.”
Kolfinn’s eyes widened. “You can? How? When did this happen?”
Astrid didn’t reply. Instead, she pulled the whalebone pipe out of her backpack. Taking a deep breath, she played a canta prax spell and mottled the room in shades of purple.
“See?” she said excitedly, expecting her father to be pleased.
But he wasn’t. Far from it. Scorn thinned his lips.
“A pipe?” he said. “Pipes are for children. No admiral’s daughter is going to be seen casting songspells with a pipe.”
Astrid shrank under his disdainful tone. She tried to protest, but he spoke over her.