Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) Read online

  The Host of Eriana looked straight at me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  For Eriana

  Ephyra grabbed Coho’s wrist, sensing his decision a beat before I did.

  “Don’t,” she said, a dangerous tinge in the whites of her eyes.

  Coho ignored her. He whirled around, scanning our surroundings.

  I followed his gaze to the scene of our attack. The blood had dissipated and the bodies had sunk, leaving the water as clear as though nothing had happened.

  One weapon remained, bobbing at the surface: a longblade of wood, slate, and whalebone. My weapon.

  Coho pulled free from Ephyra, grabbed it, and returned. He placed the blade under the rope binding my wrists and tail.

  Ephyra grabbed his wrist again, stopping him from severing the rope. “You can’t—”

  Coho rounded on her.

  “Ephyra, I can’t let my sister die. I’ve already abandoned her.”

  “What about our family?”

  “We’ll go into hiding. Please. Meela is our family, too.”

  They stared at each other, Ephyra holding tight to his wrist.

  “We knew we would have to flee, eventually,” whispered Coho. “Why not now?”

  Ephyra’s eyebrows pulled down. She softened. After a hesitation, she let go.

  Without a word, Coho turned back to me. He severed the rope in a gentle way that was so Meela-ish it brought a lump to my throat.

  Why hadn’t I seen it before?

  “She talks about you all the time,” I said.

  A deep crease appeared in his forehead.

  Keeping his eyes down, he said, “When you told us you had to fight women in the Battle for Eriana Kwai … I wondered. I didn’t let myself believe it. But it’s true. She was on the Massacre, and you fought her.”

  The rope fell away. I nodded, rubbing my bloodied wrists.

  Around us, the world was still and silent.

  “They trained her to kill mermaids,” said Coho.

  I said nothing.

  Coho dropped his gaze to the weapon in one hand, the rope in the other.

  “Sorry for punching you.”

  “It’s fine,” I said truthfully.

  Fear twisting my gut, I turned to where Spio had disappeared.

  Sure, Spio had always escaped the tightest spots a kid could find himself in—but he’d never gotten himself hunted for treason.

  I met Coho’s anxious gaze. Sadness passed between us, and I knew he was also thinking of our friends.

  We’d been so sure we would bring a new era to the Pacific. If the iron had worked, we would have succeeded. But Pontus, Junior, and Nobeard were at the bottom of the sea, and scavengers would be feeding on their bodies.

  Meanwhile, Adaro was still alive. His Utopia lived on, and so did his plan to divide humans and merpeople.

  “You should go,” said Coho.

  I turned northwards, wondering how far I was from Eriana Kwai.

  “You, too,” I said. “Take your family far away from here. I’ll … I’ll see you soon.”

  Saying goodbye felt too final.

  Coho held out my weapon. When I reached for it, he shot towards me, and before I knew what was happening, he wrapped his arms around me.

  I hugged him back, feeling the closeness of family in his arms. Meela’s family.

  I had to get to her.

  Ephyra didn’t hug me, but her aura was apologetic. She promised we would find each other again.

  We split ways. Coho and Ephyra followed the northwest current to Utopia. I went northeast to Eriana Kwai.

  Facing the open water alone didn’t scare me. Not orcas, sharks, or other merpeople. The only fear swelling in my chest was for Meela, and whether I was too late to stop her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Goddess Rising

  The vertical pupil hung in space, a deep blue streak on an inky backdrop. I hardly processed that I was looking into a living, seeing eye. It was as though such an enormous creature had no place in my brain.

  I was reminded of being aboard the Bloodhound. In the middle of nothingness at twilight, wispy clouds had reflected in the black water. This glossy eye now swallowed me the same way the ocean had.

  A soft, breathy groan rumbled the cavern. Her nostrils flared.

  I needed to make her do something, to get her under my control immediately. I decided to start with that vast ocean in front of me: the eye. I would make her blink.

  I focused my thoughts on the act of blinking. I imagined the upper and lower lids meeting.

  The pupil stayed fixed on me.

  I blinked deliberately, concentrating on projecting the action to the serpent.

  She stayed motionless.

  “Blink,” I said.

  At the sound of my voice, the serpent raised her massive head, bringing her bottom jaw shoulder-height.

  I stepped back.

  She tilted her head to peer down at me.

  With Eriana’s blood flowing in my veins, I’d assumed it would become clear how to control her once she was awake. I’d expected to feel her presence, to instinctively know what to do. But I felt nothing—only a stinging pain in my sliced palm and that paralyzing iciness in the air.

  I didn’t know how to read the serpent’s expression, but I thought she looked groggy, even irritated at being woken from her deep sleep.

  Beyond the head, something enormous scraped over damp clay. The noise echoed. She must have been lying in a cavern as vast as a stadium.

  I stumbled backwards as the second head jutted from the darkness. The square snout hovered where I’d been standing, nostrils flaring.

  The heads were identical, as the legend said. Neither appeared weaker than the other.

  I fleetingly wondered how much body lay coiled in the darkness. I couldn’t imagine it. She was too surreal.

  Two pairs of eyes watched me. I’d never felt so much like a helpless, trembling mouse.

  Lower your heads, I thought.

  I desperately tried to feel the words with every part of me.

  The serpent drew a long, slow breath from all four nostrils. Strands of my hair pulled towards her. A shudder ran up my spine in the breeze.

  “Lower your heads,” I said, my voice unnaturally high.

  She finally blinked of her own accord. A clear membrane crossed the eyes, front to back, and then the lids, top and bottom meeting gently in the middle. The cavern was so silent that I heard it, wet and sticky.

  The lids had closed in unison, leading me to believe one mind controlled both heads. I had wondered if they would snap at each other like bickering siblings. But the serpent had full, harmonious control over her body.

  The heads scanned their surroundings, mirroring each other.

  I lifted an arm, extending my bleeding palm towards the second head. I concentrated on the sensation of pushing it away from me.

  Nothing.

  A low rumble met my ears. I checked over my shoulder before realising the noise came from the leviathan. The second head stuck out a long, red tongue, tasting the air between us. She could smell me. Was it the blood dripping from my hand?

  The first head lowered to the ground. A scraping noise echoed again from the darkness. She was moving. With another flick of a forked tongue, the second head retreated into the cavern. It disappeared from my sight.

  That briny, ancient scent of ocean became stronger, as though it oozed from the rippling scales.

  She blinked, narrowing the vertical pupil, clearing her vision. She drew another breath that pulled wisps of hair from my shoulders.

  The rumbling grew louder, coming from deep inside her.

  Run, said a voice in my head.

  She tasted the air, and this time the tongue nearly touched me. I backed away, clenching my bleeding fist to try and stem the flow of blood.

  The jaws parted with a sound like cracking wood.

  I took this as my cue. I broke eye contact and whirled around, taking off at a sprint.<
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  For several seconds, the only sounds were my bare feet against the clay and my heaving lungs.

  Then I heard her behind me—a low hiss, and the sinister rasp of her armour against clay.

  I pushed harder, sprinting down the tunnel until my legs burned.

  The beams of light ended. The water must have been close. Without slowing, I dove headfirst off the ledge and into the water. I frog-kicked under the threshold, putting all my strength into each stroke.

  Too soon, the water pulsed, like something had been thrust violently into it. It propelled me forwards, carrying me so my back collided with the earth above.

  I pushed away from the clay ceiling and kicked, blinded by the swirling black water.

  I’d been out of breath before I submerged, and my lungs begged for air already.

  The current drove me towards the stone door. I slammed into the tunnel walls with each pulse.

  I felt like I’d been caught in an undertow. Each collision, each push to keep myself moving forwards, expelled more air from my lungs.

  Ahead, a sliver of daylight peeked through the muddy water.

  I hit the ceiling again. The door was in front of me. I clawed at it, frantic, until my fingers stung.

  The sliver of daylight widened.

  The water around me was tinged red. Blood flowed from my palm and now my fingertips.

  A hand seized me by the collar. It hauled me through a narrow gap and thrust me towards the surface.

  I kicked towards the light.

  My head broke through. I spluttered as a wave splashed into my mouth.

  The entire earth was shaking, churning the water around me like a boiling pot. The trees in the schoolyard swayed.

  Tanuu popped up next to me, eyes huge. Blacktail surfaced next, and then Annith.

  “Get out of the water!” I shouted, my voice so raspy and panicked that I didn’t recognise it.

  We swam furiously for the shore. I was so exhausted that the three of them overtook me easily. Blacktail reached the shallows first. She whirled around and extended a hand. I seized it. She dragged me out.

  We waded for shore, a nightmarish struggle against the weight of waterlogged clothes.

  Tanuu shouted something I couldn’t hear over the rumbling earth.

  Water splashed the backs of my legs and battered the mud in small tidal waves.

  “I can’t control her,” I shouted. “I tried thinking, speaking, moving my hands. She didn’t obey—”

  A noise like cracking ice pierced the air.

  On the other side of the puddle, where the tunnel must have spanned, the earth split. A great, jagged chunk of rock thrust skywards. A fissure opened up beside it, and the water from the trench poured inside.

  I cried out, staggering backwards.

  An enormous, black, scaled head erupted from the ground. A fringe of horns fanned out at the back of the skull, like a mane of bones beneath hard flesh. The serpent opened her jaws to reveal rows of curved teeth, each one the length of my forearm. Her tongue slashed the air in a streak of red.

  Tanuu’s profanity was drowned out by the most agonisingly loud noise I had ever heard. The serpent’s roar brought my hands to my ears.

  The earth stopped shaking as the sound echoed through the trees.

  And I was sure, beyond doubt, that the entire island had heard—and felt—Eriana’s Host awaken.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Ancient Awakening

  The vibrations across the water penetrated my bones, a sense like nothing I’d ever felt. Ancient, timeless, like the feel of the sea itself.

  I stopped. Each breath rushed into my lungs, hot and painful.

  The feeling faded.

  Then a roar like thunder. What kind of animal would make a noise so terrible?

  There was one explanation.

  Meela had found the Host.

  “No,” I breathed.

  Absurdly, I told myself I wasn’t too late. I could still stop her. I had time to fix this.

  My heart beat so fast that I trembled as I stared across the water.

  Eriana Kwai was visible, a faint mark on the horizon.

  Maybe Meela hadn’t been the one to do it. Or maybe Adaro was wrong, and the Host didn’t require a sacrifice. She could still be alive.

  The current changed, dragging everything down and away from the land.

  As it gathered into an enormous wave, I dove.

  I angled towards Eriana Kwai, fighting the pull.

  The noise, the swells, the deep reverberation might have been the result of an earthquake. But I knew it was more than that.

  An uneasy feeling settled deep inside me. If I’d heard and felt it way out here, how much further would it carry?

  Waves continued to rise, pushing far out to sea. Every mermaid and merman for leagues around would feel this and believe it was the result of an earthquake.

  But there was one who would know the horrible truth.

  I wondered where Adaro was—and how long it would be until he found out that the Host had been awakened.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Descendants

  We sprinted towards the forest.

  Behind us, the slab of rock jutted from the middle of the schoolyard, revealing a gaping hole into the cave below. The Host’s endless body erupted from it, blacker and more solid than lava rock. Blasts emitted from her nostrils, each breath laboured. Water sprayed from her scales and flooded across the field in torrents. My ears filled with a sound like a waterfall.

  Tanuu, Annith, Blacktail, and I plunged between two fat hemlocks, masking ourselves in the woods. I motioned for them to stop.

  “I want - to see - what she does,” I said, wheezing.

  The others were breathing too hard to say anything. They leaned against the trees, clutching their ribs. Our heavy clothes dripped onto the moss floor.

  The leviathan’s body coiled in the trench, displacing the water and turning the field into a swamp. When the second head emerged, she raised it beside the first and paused. She surveyed the schoolyard with chilling intelligence in her eyes.

  The world fell silent but for the water dripping from both heads.

  She tasted the air with tongues the size of oars.

  Her pupils narrowed. Her nostrils flared.

  Both massive heads snapped in our direction, as though responding to a noise.

  I stopped breathing. My pulse pounded in my ears.

  Then the serpent lowered her head. I heard a wet grinding, like rock on mud, as she came towards us.

  “Run.”

  We sprinted headlong through the forest, crashing through branches, ignoring the pine needles whipping our faces and brambles catching our clothes. I concentrated on my feet. Though a lifetime of going barefoot had given me tough soles, stabs of pain shot up as I landed on stones and roots.

  Behind us rose a symphony of splintering trees, puffs of breath, and grinding rock. The serpent was destroying everything in her path.

  Or, almost everything. In that moment, I was more grateful than ever for the vast trees on Eriana Kwai. Even a leviathan couldn’t knock down a thousand-year-old sequoia. It was enough to let us stay ahead.

  The serpent roared in frustration. The sound came so close that my eardrums stung, as though the sheer volume had popped them. She was much too close. Did I imagine the warm air on the back of my neck?

  I didn’t dare look over my shoulder in case it slowed me down.

  A buck shot from the woods beside me and I stumbled in surprise. I caught blind terror in his eye before he outran us and disappeared. I veered, trusting his path through the thicket. The others stayed close behind.

  With each step, my sopping pant legs chafed and clung together. My lungs screamed; a stitch burned in my ribs. Nearest me, Annith breathed so hard it sounded like whimpering. Adrenaline must have kept her pushing past her injury.

  Could we dive into a cave and let the Host pass? Or would she smell us and corner us in there?

/>   Blacktail gasped something.

  “What?” I said.

  “Beach. Left. Lead - to ocean.”

  I glanced left. If we broke the deer trail and kept running straight, we’d land at the beach. If we could get to the ocean—the leviathan’s territory—maybe she would satisfy herself on a more familiar meal.

  We had to try.

  The thought of the end of our sprint gave me new energy. I leapt off the deer trail, back into the dense bush. The absence of a pathway forced me to slow down. I used my hands to vault over a fallen log, and again to push between the cleft of a twin spruce.

  Beside us, the ground plummeted into a ravine. I knew animals sometimes ran along creeks to wash away their scent when fleeing predators. Though I doubted the trick would work here, it was worth a shot.

  I ran down the steep slope, arms flailing for balance. We splashed into the creek and turned downstream. The water came to my ankles, but it was easier to run through than the uneven bush.

  Something thudded behind me, and someone grunted. A splash. Footsteps stopped.

  I slowed, but heard Tanuu say, “I’ve got you. Keep running.”

  Annith caught up and jabbed me between the shoulder blades. “They’re up. Go!”

  I did.

  The sky brightened ahead. The trees thinned.

  We burst from the woods. I couldn’t slow down, and the drop in the earth made me trip. Reacting instinctively from years of combat training, I rolled into a ball as I fell, protecting my head. I flipped over once, twice, three times, rolling across the beach like a stone.

  I hit something solid and sprawled flat, coughing. My shoulder seared where it hit, blazing through my back and arm.

  I sat up, grasping for a sense of direction.

  I’d landed on a rocky beach, my back to a boulder. Where the forest ended, dirt became rock, and grass became clumps of seaweed.

  A dark shape loomed along the shoreline. The upturned fishing boat.

  The tide was rising, splashing into the broken hull and sending a wide spray with each wave.

  Lysi’s beach would be just beyond that. That meant there was a hollow behind this boulder where a tide pool liked to form.