Astrid nodded. Desiderio was right. They had nothing. Even her sword was gone. Tauno had knocked it out of her hands and she’d forgotten to take her dagger back from the guard in the dungeons.
“We need hippokamps,” she said. “That’s the most important thing. And I think I know how to get them.”
“How?”
“Your uncle Ludo,” Astrid said. “I was with him earlier today. He was desperate to see you. I know he’d help us.”
“Do you know the way to his house?”
“I do, but it’s a good distance from here.”
“It would be safer if we camoed, then,” said Desiderio. “We need to make ourselves white, blue, and gray. Like the ice.”
“A camo?” Astrid echoed, panicking. “I can’t….I—I…”
“I know. You’re too upset to cast. You’d probably turn yourself orange,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
He took the other saber down from the wall and handed it to her. “It’s better than nothing,” he said. Then he sang a quick canta prax spell and seconds later, they both blended in perfectly with the walls.
“Ready?” he asked.
Astrid nodded. She set off out of the Hall of Justice for the network of tunnels that would get them to Ludo’s house. Des followed her.
As they swam, she was haunted by images of her father. She remembered how wasted he’d looked in his hospital bed, and she remembered his last words to her.
What we do, we do for Ondalina.
They were different in many ways, she and Kolfinn. But in their love for their realm, they were united. Her father had fought for Ondalina his entire life. He had never stopped. Now, she would carry on that fight.
Kolfinn was dead. His ways, the old ways, were over.
Astrid was about to set off on a new current, the current that Vr?ja had ordained.
She knew it would be hard.
She knew it would be frightening.
And only the gods knew where it would lead.
“ATTENTION!” A HARSH voice bellowed.
Ling was out of her bunk before her eyes were even open. She’d only been at the camp for a week, but already she knew to move fast at Selection. Anyone who didn’t was docked an entire day’s rations.
She took her place with the other prisoners who lived in Barracks Five. Thin and sickly, they all floated in a single line in front of their bunks—hands at their sides, eyes straight ahead. Ling was near the far end.
Two death riders flanked the open barracks door. Their commanding officer—Sergeant Feng—came through it now, a crop in his hand. Tall and brisk, with hard eyes, he swam down the line of prisoners, looking them over as if he were inspecting sea cows.
He prodded one merman with his crop. Lifted the chin of another. “You,” he said to a third.
Fear filled the eyes of each prisoner as Feng approached. It turned to relief if he passed them by, horror if he didn’t. All were quiet as he moved down the line. Except for one mermaid who dared speak after she was selected.
“Please, sir…I have a child here. Her father’s dead. There’s no one—”
The sergeant swung his crop so quickly the mermaid never saw the blow coming. The pain silenced her. Tears in her eyes, a crimson welt rising across her cheek, she took her place with the other Selects outside the barracks.
Three more mermaids were chosen. Five mermen. The sergeant had almost finished the Selection when he stopped in front of Ling. He eyed her grubby cast, then moved on.
Ling’s wrist had been broken when she was captured in a net lowered by one of Rafe Mfeme’s trawlers. The cast was the only thing keeping her alive. Without it, she would already have been selected.
The sergeant picked two more mermen, then turned and addressed the remaining prisoners. “The rest of you, work hard, and you, too, may soon be selected!” he said. Then he and his soldiers swam through the doorway and disappeared.
Ling heard mer exhaling all around her. A few were crying, upset at the loss of a friend or bunkmate. The death riders said it was an honor to be among the Selects, that only the strongest and bravest qualified. But Ling—and everyone else in the barracks—knew differently.
“Guess we live to see another day at Happy Hills,” whispered Ling’s bunkmate, Tung-Mei. She’d arrived at the camp three days ago.
Ling smiled sourly at the nickname the prisoners had given the labor camp located in a shallow valley near the Great Abyss.
“I’ll see you later, Ling…if neither of us gets beaten to death today. Gotta go, before they dock my breakfast,” Tung-Mei said.
She darted through the doorway and disappeared into the crowd of prisoners hurrying to their jobs. The waters weren’t even light yet, but prisoners were made to work for two hours before rations were handed out. No one wanted to be late. They got little enough food as it was, and being deprived of breakfast meant gnawing hunger until noon.