“We’re on,” Yaz said.
Sera ended the convoca and the four snapped into action. Yaz grabbed hold of one side of the handwheel, Franco the other. Sera and Luca swam above them to give them room to work in the confined space. Yaz and Franco counted to three, then threw all their strength against the wheel, but it wouldn’t budge. The wheel was green with corrosion and crusted with barnacles. They tried again. Luca took a turn, replacing Franco, but still the valve wouldn’t open.
Yaz slapped his tail against the valve’s housing. “We don’t have time for this!” he yelled.
“We could scrape some of the barnacles off,” Franco ventured.
He started working at them with the broad edge of the pickax. As he did, Sera heard something—tiny voices angrily shouting. She realized that she understood them.
Bending down to the barnacles, she politely asked them to get off the valve. Furious over the assault on their home, they stubbornly refused. Sera then explained that it was their ruler asking them to do so and the survival of the realm depended upon their cooperation. Immediately a staccato of pops was heard as the barnacles released their grip. Some relocated to the new pipe, others to the tunnel walls.
“Since when do you speak Cirrian?” Yaz asked, astonished.
“Since the bloodbind,” Sera replied, silently thanking her friend Ling, an omnivoxa—one who can speak all languages.
Back in the Iele’s caves, Sera, Ling, Ava, Becca, and Neela had sworn a blood oath, and in so doing, each had received some of the others’ powers. They were sisters now, bound forever by magic and friendship.
Yaz and Franco grasped the handwheel again and put every last ounce of their strength into turning it. For a few seconds, nothing happened; then there was a groan as the ancient valve opened, and a deep rumbling as lava entered the old pipe.
“Yes!” Yaz said, tailslapping Franco.
Sera and Luca cheered, but their cheers were cut off as bubbles blasted out of the old tunnel, followed by a rush of sulfur gas. It swirled around the four violently, filling the water with hot, choking fumes.
“Something’s wrong,” Yaz said tersely.
“What’s hap—” Sera started to say, before a fit of coughing overtook her.
“Oh, my gods,” Franco whispered, lurching toward the valve.
Yaz peered down the tunnel. Fear filled his eyes. “Blowback!” he shouted. “Close the valve! Now!”
SERA FOLLOWED YAZ’S gaze, horrified. Lava was rapidly filling the tunnel. They’d released too much and now it was flowing in the wrong direction…toward them.
“Franco! Grab the handwheel!” she shouted, ripping her jacket off and tying it around the bottom half of her face.
But Franco couldn’t hear her; he was limp in the water, overcome by the poisonous gas. Luca was thrashing his tail in pain. He’d been closest to the tunnel and his back had been burned by the superhot bubbles.
“Luca, get Franco out of here! Swim down!” Sera shouted, her voice muffled by her jacket. She knew the gases would rise and that clean water was below them.
Luca, shaking with pain, grabbed Franco and swam. Yaz, teeth clenched, was already on the handwheel. Sera joined him. They tried their hardest to turn it, but it didn’t move. Yaz and Franco together had barely been able to open the valve, and Sera wasn’t as strong as Franco.
She glanced fearfully at the lava again. It was only a foot away from the lip of the main tunnel. In a few more seconds it would be dripping down into it. She and Yaz would not be able to swim back down the main tunnel and get out, as Luca and Franco hopefully had. They’d have to swim up into the palace and try to escape through a window—if they weren’t caught first. The Black Fins’ one chance at the vaults would be gone.
Desperation gripped Sera. Without treasure, she’d never be able to take Cerulea back. Lucia would remain upon Miromara’s throne. The death riders would continue to raid villages and enslave their inhabitants. Vallerio and Portia would get away with murder, and the mysterious figure for whom they were trying to get the talismans just might succeed in freeing Abbadon.
These things can’t happen, Sera thought fiercely. I won’t let them happen.
With a warrior’s cry, she threw all her strength against the handwheel. The muscles in her arms shuddered; the cords stood out in her neck. She and Yaz, on opposite sides of the wheel, churned the water white, using the force of their powerful tails as leverage. And finally, with a grudging groan, the wheel turned.
“Keep going, Sera!” Yaz shouted.
Sera did, and a few seconds later, the valve was closed. The flow of lava stopped. Yazeed looked down the old tunnel and shook his head.
“It’s over,” he said, his shoulders sagging, defeat in his voice.