Sea Spell (Waterfire Saga #4)(14)
Is he safe? she wondered. She knew that Orfeo and his thugs were after him, and that the Praedatori were too scattered to protect him. He’d had to leave the college where he was studying, but he couldn’t go home to his family’s palazzo in Venice, because it was being watched. Is he on the water or on land? Is he happy? Has he found a terragogg girl and forgotten all about me?
“Why?” she whispered, clenching her hands into fists. “Why not Desiderio, or Yazeed, or any one of the other amazing Black Fins? Why a human?” Tears stung behind her blue eyes.
This secret love was torture. She wished she could confide in one of her friends. Maybe Neela, Ling, or Sera could help her make sense of her feelings. She’d promised herself she would, a hundred times at least, but she always ended up backing away, too scared that they wouldn’t understand.
When you keep a secret, the secret keeps you. Those were the very words she’d said to Astrid when she was trying to get her to tell the others about her inability to sing. If only she could follow her own advice, but it was so hard to confide in others, to trust them.
Becca was an orphan, and her early life—spent in a series of foster homes—had taught her that it was unwise to show vulnerability. If you were vulnerable, you were weak, and weak mer had their stuff stolen or got pushed to the back of the line at mealtimes.
Becca’s early experiences had made her the self-reliant and organized mermaid that she was, and she was proud of that, but those tough years had made her something else, too—a mermaid who was good at giving help but bad at asking for it.
Becca’s tears were brimming now. She angrily blinked them away. “Stop it. This instant,” she told herself. “Crying won’t help you find a lava seam.”
Practical to a fault, Becca pushed her painful feelings down and kept swimming. She arrived at the storehouse a few minutes later, unlocked it, and swam inside. Glancing around, she spotted some shovels leaning against a wall.
The work crew in charge of the lava detail had covered a lot of seafloor, but there was a good deal more to search. Becca grabbed a shovel, locked the storehouse, then swam north through the black water, determined to get a head start on the day, organize her work crews, keep everything and everyone under tight control.
It was the only way to silence the one thing she couldn’t control: her willful, traitorous heart.
MAHDI WATCHED closely as Vallerio, Miromara’s high commander, moved tiny marble soldiers across a map that lay on the table in front of them. Mahdi’s dark eyes were troubled. He’d returned from the western border an hour ago, only to be pulled into a military meeting.
“We have over fifty thousand weapons hidden in warehouses throughout Qin,” Vallerio said, frowning, “and the same number of troops infiltrating the realm. The question is: Do I move more soldiers in and attack now, or do I wait?”
“For what?” Portia Volnero, Vallerio’s wife, asked, with an impatient toss of her head. “The sooner Qin is ours, the better.” She’d recently returned from Ondalina, where she’d forced the new admiral, Ragnar Kolfinnsson, to swear allegiance to Miromara.
“I’m worried about the Black Fins,” Vallerio said. “I’ve sent battalions to the Southern Sea as well. Just in case.”
“In case of what?” Mahdi asked. He knew, but his information had come from Sera, not Vallerio, so he had to pretend ignorance or Vallerio might become suspicious.
“In case of trouble,” Vallerio said evasively. “One of our allies has…” He paused slightly, then said, “…interests there that require our protection.”
“Which ally is that?” Mahdi pressed.
“You haven’t met him yet. But you will. All in good time,” Vallerio assured Mahdi. His tone brooked no further discussion. Mahdi let the matter drop, but he knew who the unnamed ally was: Orfeo.
The fact that Vallerio was moving troops into the Antarctic waters raised the scales on Mahdi’s tail. Was Orfeo planning to enter those waters soon? He would have to get word to Sera, via his courier. Allegra, a Miromaran farmer, secretly brought and took message conchs for Mahdi when she delivered produce to the palace kitchens.
Vallerio frowned at the map now. “If the Black Fins discover we’ve moved so many of our soldiers out of Miromara, they might attack us.”
Portia laughed. “The Black Fins shouldn’t worry you, Vallerio. According to our spy, Guldemar only gave Serafina twenty thousand troops. She wouldn’t dare attack with such a paltry number.”
Vallerio’s frown deepened. “Serafina has Guldemar’s ear. She might get more troops out of him. Perhaps we should neutralize the Black Fins before we attack Qin.”
Mahdi’s stomach lurched at that, but he kept his expression neutral and chose his words carefully, knowing that what he said next could save or doom Serafina. “I think that would be a mistake.”
Vallerio raised an eyebrow. “Do you? Why?”
“Serafina only has Guldemar’s ear as long as she has gold,” Mahdi explained. “Thanks to your spy, we know how much treasure the Black Fins stole from us, and how much of it Sera paid to Guldemar. Because of our ambushes, she’s also had to pay for additional shipments of food and weapons. She’s running out of funds, her troops are few, and she has no idea that many of our soldiers are in Qin and the Southern Sea. She wouldn’t dare attack us now. We should take Qin, and then annihilate the Black Fins.”