Her mother’s chest was heaving; the arrow was moving with every breath she took. It had shattered her breastplate and pierced her left side. Isabella touched her fingers to the wound. They came away crimson. The sight of blood—on her mother’s hand, dripping down her skirt—broke Serafina’s trance.
“Mom!” she screamed, lurching toward her, but it was too late. Jani?ari had already encircled her. They were shielding Serafina from harm, but also preventing her from getting to her mother. “Let me go!” she cried, trying to fight her way through them.
She heard the shouts of merpeople, felt bodies thrashing in the water. The spectators were in a frenzy of fear—swimming into one another, pushing and shoving. Children, separated from their parents, were screaming in terror. A little girl was knocked down. A boy was battered by a lashing tail.
Unable to break through the Jani?ari, Serafina pressed her face between two of them and glimpsed her mother. Isabella was still staring down at the arrow in her side. The Jani?ari were trying to surround her as they had Serafina, but she angrily ordered them to leave her and go to the Matalis. With a swift, merciless motion, she pulled the arrow out of her body and threw it down. Blood pulsed from her wound, but there was no fear on her face—only a terrible fury.
“Coward!” she shouted, her fierce voice rising above the cries of the crowd. “Show yourself!”
She swam above the royal enclosure, whirling in a circle, her eyes searching the Kolisseo for the sniper. “Come out, bottom-feeder! Finish your work! Here is my heart!” she cried, pounding her chest.
Serafina was frantic, expecting another arrow to come for her mother at any second.
“I am Isabella, ruler of Miromara! And I will never be frightened by sea scum who strike from the shadows!”
“Isabella, take cover!” someone shouted. Serafina knew that voice; it was her father’s. She spotted him. He was looking straight up. “No!” he shouted.
He shot out of the royal enclosure, a coppery blur. A split second later, he was swimming up over the amphitheater—between his wife and the merman in black above her who was holding a loaded crossbow.
The assassin, barely visible in the darker waters, fired. The arrow buried itself in Bastiaan’s chest. He was dead by the time his body hit the seafloor.
Serafina felt as if someone had just reached inside her and tore out her heart. “Dad!” she screamed. She clawed at the Jani?ari, trying to get to her father, but they held her fast.
More Jani?ari, led by Vallerio, surrounded Isabella. The Mehteraba?i had ordered another group to the royal enclosure, where they’d encircled the Matalis and the court.
“Bakmak! Bakmak!” the Mehteraba?i shouted. Look up!
Out of the night waters descended more mermen in black, hundreds of them, riding hippokamps and carrying crossbows. They fired on the royal enclosure and on the people. Jani?ari raced through the water to fight them off, but they were no match for their crossbows.
“To the palace!” Vallerio shouted. “Get everyone inside! Go!”
Two guards took Serafina by her arms and swam her out of the Kolisseo at breakneck speed. Two more swam above them, shielding her. In only seconds, they were back inside the city walls and safely under the thicket of Devil’s Tail. They continued on to the palace. When they reached the Regina’s Courtyard, the guards broke formation and hurried her inside.
Conte Orsino, the minister of defense, was waiting for her. “This way, Principessa. Hurry,” he said. “Your mother’s been taken to her stateroom. Your uncle wants you there too. It’s the centermost room of the palace and the most defensible.”
“Sera!” a voice cried out. It was Neela. She’d just swum inside the palace. She was upset and glowing a deep, dark blue.
Sera threw her arms around her and buried her face in her shoulder. “Oh, Neela,” she said, her voice breaking. “My father…he’s dead! My mother…”
“I’m sorry, Principessa, but we must go. It’s not safe here,” Orsino said.
Neela took Serafina’s hand. Orsino led the way.
As they swam, Serafina realized Neela was alone. “Where’s Yazeed?” she asked.
Neela shook her head. “I don’t know. He and Mahdi…they swam away. I’m not sure where they are.”
They swam away? Sera thought, stunned. While her mother, bleeding and in pain, was daring her attacker to come forward? And her father was sacrificing his life?
“Bilaal and Ahadi? Are they safe?” she asked.
“I haven’t seen them,” Neela said. “Everything happened so fast.”
The wide coral hallways of the palace, the long, narrow tunnels between floors—they had never seemed so endless to Serafina. She swam through them quickly as she could, dodging dazed and wounded courtiers. As she neared the stateroom, she heard screams coming from it.