“Over?” Sera echoed in disbelief. “It can’t be over!” She ripped her jacket away from her face and tied it around her waist.
“It didn’t work, Sera,” Yazeed said. “I can’t tell if the lava ate a hole in the wall or not. Even if it did, there’s too much of it in the tunnel. We can’t swim through lava. We’re done.”
Bitter disappointment filled Sera.
“We should go,” Yaz said. “Get back to the others and—”
His words were cut off by a deafening roar. He grabbed Sera and pushed her against the main tunnel’s wall, covering her body with his. A rush of hot water came shooting out of the old tunnel, followed by pieces of rock and a thick cloud of silt.
Sera braced herself for the searing pain. For the suffocating fumes. For the end.
But it didn’t come.
The hot water spiraled up. The debris sank. There were no more bubbles. No lava. As Yaz and Sera opened their eyes and waved the silt away, they saw there was no more old tunnel, either—just a gaping hole where it used to be. A soft, golden light emanated from the other side.
“You okay?” Yaz asked.
“Yeah, I think so. How about you?”
But Yaz didn’t answer. He was already at the edge of the hole, looking down. Sera joined him, and caught her breath.
Gold glinted up at her. Rubies, emeralds, and sapphires sparkled.
Lava globes on the walls of the vaults illuminated mountains of Miromaran treasure.
“Damn, merl,” Yaz said in a hushed voice. “We didn’t just burn a hole in the wall, we caved it in.”
Sera nodded, her eyes sparkling like the jewels below her. The old pipe, the tunnel it had run through, most of the treasury vault’s back wall, and a good part of its ceiling were gone. Lava, still bubbling, covered some of the treasure. They’d have to be careful to avoid it, but there was plenty of treasure left untouched.
An electric thrill ran through Sera as she realized that her fighters could move much faster through this wide space than they could’ve through the old tunnel—and they could carry more loot, too.
Yaz read her mind. “We can haul out twice what we planned to,” he said excitedly.
“If we don’t get caught,” Sera added. She nervously glanced up. “It’ll be a miracle if they didn’t hear anything.”
“We’ll be okay. Mahdi has drummers up there. Singers, too. And plenty of lightworks explosions. Their noise will cover ours,” Yaz said.
Sera smiled. She reached for a sailcloth sack tucked under her belt, then plunged down into the vaults. “Come on, Yaz!” she called over her shoulder. “It’s time to rob the robbers!”
BIANCA DI REMORA, swathed in bright pink sea silk, fluttered like a butterfly fish around Lucia Volnero.
Bianca’s gown was pretty, but not overly so. She’d been wearing a yellow gown earlier, one that had done a better job of showing off her lush, curvy figure. Lucia had thought it quite beautiful and therefore had promptly made her change it. Her courtiers should shine, of course, but only a little. After all, they were merely the setting; she was the jewel.
“Those were, like, the best lightworks ever,” Bianca gushed. “And Mahdi did it all for you! He’s sooo in love.”
“He is, isn’t he,” Lucia purred.
She was seated in the center of the Grand Hall, at the Royal Table. The lightworks show had just ended and Mahdi had swum over to the lightcasters to tell them how pleased he was.
“You should have seen how he was looking at you during the show!” Bianca said. “Then again, everyone’s looking at you tonight.”
Of course they are, Lucia thought.
She was wearing a spectacular gown made of thousands of tiny overlapping disks of polished abalone. The shells caught the light as she moved, casting an iridescent shimmer. She wore her long, blue-black hair down. A stunning sapphire, set in a platinum headband, rested just above her widow’s peak. It sparkled darkly, like her eyes.
Lucia’s gown, her sapphire, her beautiful face—they turned all heads, but she hardly cared. There was only one merman whose gaze she craved—Mahdi’s.
She’d wanted him for her own ever since he’d come to Miromara for Serafina’s Dokimí. With his long dark hair, his chiseled features and soulful eyes, he was the most handsome merman she’d ever seen. And he was the Emperor of Matali, a large and powerful realm. She deserved no less.
Her eyes sought him out now. He was floating by the throne, laughing with the lightcasters. He was beautifully dressed and so good-looking it made her ache. Watching him, she recalled that he had not looked so good after the fall of Cerulea, when she’d found him in a prison cage.