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

  Gasping, every part of me aching, I crawled around the boulder. The tide pool rose to my neck when I sat on the bottom. My clothes were so wet and icy that the water felt warm.

  I glanced around for my friends. Nearby, someone was wheezing. Hands and knees slapped the rocks. A dirt-caked arm clawed the ground beside me. I reached for it. Annith. I pulled her behind the boulder, telling her to get in.

  “Annith, where’s—?”

  “They’re coming,” she said, the words a sob.

  The din grew closer. The serpent was about to break through the trees.

  Why weren’t Tanuu and Blacktail out of the bush yet? Annith had told me to keep running. She’d said they were fine. I should have stopped to make sure.

  “Annith, where—?”

  “Shh!”

  Trees snapped. The noise echoed.

  In the tide pool, the brief feeling of warmth passed. I shivered convulsively.

  “There,” said Annith.

  I turned. A short ways down the beach, our friends broke through the forest at full speed. They dove for the fishing boat.

  The ground trembled. A roar brought my hands to my ears.

  Tanuu wrapped a protective arm around Blacktail as they backed into the hull.

  The serpent crashed onto the beach with a force like a mudslide. Sticks and dirt flew across the rocks.

  She spotted the fishing boat and paused, nostrils flaring. The first head glanced around, taking in the beach, the treeline, the ocean. Her body and the second head still lay in the bush.

  She dipped her tongue into the broken hull.

  Annith tugged my arm, trying to get me to lean back. I couldn’t. Tanuu and Blacktail were pressed against the rotting wood, chests heaving.

  The serpent grunted, sending a blast of air over the wreckage. Fragments of wood fluttered into the waves. A long tongue traced the edges of the broken cabin.

  Without warning, the serpent swung her horned head, disintegrating the top half of the boat. Tanuu and Blacktail disappeared beneath the rubble.

  I clenched my jaw, trying to stop my teeth from chattering so loudly.

  The serpent blinked at the rubble, as though noticing the mess she made. She tasted the air around it. Then she turned her great head towards the sea. A low hiss met my ears.

  She moved towards the water.

  Those intelligent eyes revealed more than hunger. Was she searching for her master? Or perhaps the Enticer?

  Though she hit the water in relative silence, torrents swelled on either side of her. I held my breath as they flooded the tide pool and briefly submerged Annith and me.

  The body followed, undulating across the beach. The enormous black scales clicked over the rocks.

  Shivering, I curled my knees to my heaving chest. What had I done? I couldn’t control her, and now this beast, large enough to destroy every ship in the sea, was free.

  But the same legend that told me how to free her also told me she could be tamed. I just needed to find out how to do it. What was I missing?

  “Meela,” whispered Annith. “The second head is about to pass. She’ll see us.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Go that way.”

  We crawled from the tide pool and around the other side of the rock, keeping as quiet as possible.

  A blowing sound came from somewhere nearby. The second head was passing.

  I stayed still, holding my breath. If she spotted us, it would be too easy for her to change direction and attack.

  A crack split the air. Unable to stop myself, I peered around the rock. The trailing head had lunged for the fishing boat. Her teeth sunk into the weak frame and disintegrated the rest of the hull.

  I hadn’t heard Tanuu or Blacktail scream. Were they buried? What if a piece of steel had hit them?

  I covered my mouth to stifle the panic rising within me.

  Annith nudged me in the ribs. She pointed to the far side of the pile of rubble. Our friends pulled themselves from beneath it. They huddled behind the last standing fragment of wood, as insignificant as a pair of hermit crabs.

  The serpent kept retreating into the water. She hadn’t seen them. Rotting wood fell from her jaws, leaving a trail down the beach.

  She submerged. The water puckered as she swam, her size making her easy to follow.

  For a moment, waves swirled like a vortex, and then they calmed. Her wake continued onwards. She must have been feeding.

  We continued to watch, frozen in place. I kept my eyes on the ocean, unsure whether the serpent would return to shore.

  Annith glanced at the forest. “We need to figure out what we’re miss—”

  She flinched as the serpent exploded from the water, flinging something large and bloody into the air. She swallowed it and splashed back down, sending a spray as high as a ship’s mast.

  Every piece of me ached. My hand throbbed, blood pouring from the place where I’d cut myself with the dagger. I tried to hold the wound closed, but the blood oozed from my fist.

  Annith gasped as she noticed the amount of blood on the rocks at our feet.

  Too exhausted to speak, I shook my head to indicate I was fine. I hadn’t cut myself deeply. I’d only used the dull bone dagger. The run must have pumped the blood through my body more vigorously.

  Right now, we needed to regroup and figure out how to control the leviathan before we lost her. Or before she returned to land.

  Footsteps pounded behind us. We turned.

  A girl burst out of the woods.

  The thin, bony figure skidded to a halt at the sight of the destroyed fishing boat. Then her gaze shifted beyond that, to the waves that thrashed more violently than the wind demanded.

  Mane falling out of her high ponytail, face flushed and sweaty, Dani wore this year’s Massacre uniform, clean and pressed for the ceremony.

  “They did it,” she said to herself.

  Her wild eyes landed on Annith and me; we were hunched against a boulder, sopping wet and trembling.

  “You gave your blood?”

  I stared at her, panting. When she saw the blood dripping from my clenched fist, she let out a whoop.

  She strode closer to the water.

  “Eriana! Show yourself.”

  She thrust a fist in the air.

  “What’s she doing?” said Annith.

  I had no answer. A thrill of dread overcame me.

  In the distance, the ripples quieted. Then the water stirred again, closer. Scales poked out of the waves like the glistening back of a whale.

  An enormous head burst from the water, sending a spray wide enough to drench us.

  The leviathan’s eyes bored into Dani. Her jaws opened, as though ready to strike.

  She froze.

  The second head emerged. All four deep blue eyes stared at Dani.

  Dani dropped her arm after presenting it to the leviathan.

  “The serpent head,” I said breathlessly. “She has a serpent branded on her wrist.”

  What did Dani know about this symbol that we didn’t?

  Dani must have noticed the change of energy in the leviathan. She waded into the rising tide and climbed onto the highest boulder on the beach.

  “Sisiutl,” she said, in a low hiss that might have come from the serpent herself.

  The waves calmed. Both massive heads lowered, as though cowering.

  “You’re more beautiful than I imagined,” said Dani.

  “Dani, what’ve you done?” said Annith. “What’s it doing?”

  Annith’s voice seemed to come through a tunnel. Whether from shock or exhaustion, the world grew fuzzy. I watched in horror as Dani faced the two-headed serpent.

  I was reminded of a raven perched on a treetop as she stood on the high boulder, arms outstretched.

  Dani lifted her left arm. The first head twitched, following it.

  “No,” I said, my breathless voice carried away by the wind.

  Dani lifted her right arm. The other head snapped around to look at it.
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br />   “Meela,” said Annith, voice high, flooded with the panic I felt in every fibre of my body.

  Dani raised both arms higher, and lower. The leviathan followed, rising up, and then down, fixed on Dani’s every move with four gleaming eyes.

  Dani cried out in elation. She slammed her palms forwards as though pushing the air, and both heads emitted an earth-shattering roar.

  The wound in my palm seared. I hunched over, clenching my fist in vain. Blood poured from the gash. I pressed it, trying to stop the flow.

  “Annith, help me fix this,” I gasped.

  A high wave brought the icy water to me. My blood splashed into it, clouding and disappearing.

  Before Annith could take my hand, pain burst through me, coming from deep inside my hand and shooting up my arm like shattered glass. I couldn’t stop the scream escaping my lips.

  Someone yelled my name. I stared, unfocused, at the blood oozing from my hand. Something was wrong. I’d been cut so many times and it had never stung like this. It had never bled this much—not from a cut so small.

  Sinking lower to the ground, I stared at my palm, gasping.

  I shivered as another swell brought the icy water to me.

  Blacktail and Tanuu were there. I didn’t remember them running over. The three of them knelt beside me.

  Someone yelled my name again. It wasn’t any of them. It was distant. I hadn’t heard that voice in a long while. For the briefest moment, warmth spread in my chest at the sound of it.

  I turned towards the ocean, hearing the warning that came too late.

  “Mee, stop!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Home

  Closing that final distance to Eriana Kwai seemed to take an eternity. I swam as fast as I could, tail whipping, letting the waves control when I breached.

  I let go of my weapon so it wouldn’t slow me down. Whatever I was about to face, that blade wouldn’t help me.

  Activity stirred on the right. Idle movement and chatter told me it was merpeople going about their everyday lives.

  My heart leapt. This was the town I’d grown up in. That meant I was half a league from Eriana Kwai.

  The bottom grew shallower. Children playing in the coral pointed at me as I sped past.

  If these families knew something was wrong on the island so close to home, they didn’t show it. Their lives were too peaceful, too remote.

  They had my empathy. In a few short years, those children would be drafted into the army. Like me, they would have to abandon their lives and move to Utopia to serve the king.

  I kept swimming, passing over salmon, sea lions, rocks, and sand. Above, the island loomed closer. Trees became distinct against the mountains.

  That rumbling carried towards me, grazing my skin and thrumming in my ears.

  What was I supposed to do when I got there? How could I stop Adaro when iron was useless against him?

  Our failures proved it: fighting him would not work. We needed something bigger.

  Could we find another mine? Lead him into a whale’s open mouth? What about the Host?

  I shook my head, not sure why I was even thinking about this anymore. My allies were dead. There was no ‘next time’.

  Earlier today, five of us had set out with confidence. Now, three of us were dead, and Spio had been forced to swim for his life. Even if he had managed to escape, there would still be a search for his arrest. He would have to live in hiding like Coho—Nilus—and Ephyra.

  I had to find them.

  Nilus was a whole new reason Meela had to be alive: I couldn’t let her die before telling her about her brother.

  Maybe he thought it better not to tell his family, but I knew Meela. She would want to know.

  I couldn’t speak for her parents, but if they would rather have lost a child than accept him for what he was, I didn’t care. They could deal with it.

  The beach drew near. The floor rose to a few fathoms deep.

  The presence of the Host closed around me like a net. Whatever this creature was, its aura was more powerful than anything I’d felt before.

  She was a female form, regal and commanding. A queen?

  No, a goddess—like the spirit of the ocean itself.

  I hesitated, suspended. I had to get a better feel on her.

  Where was she?

  Her scent blended with the ocean, making her hard to detect.

  Then, with a shock that drained all feeling from my limbs, I saw her.

  A serpent.

  Her body coiled over the floor, thick enough that she could have swallowed a humpback whale.

  I traced my eyes along the body, frantically looking for her head. Stiff vibrations in the current told me her scales were harder than granite. They followed a smooth, symmetrical pattern, and I couldn’t tell front from back.

  A shadow fell over me and I looked up. The dark shape of the serpent’s head was above surface, fixated on a large boulder. No, on a human standing on top of it.

  Don’t be Meela.

  But I recognised the girl’s thin frame from the Battle for Eriana Kwai. Dani.

  A shadow materialised behind her.

  For a moment, I thought the choppy water was playing a trick on me. It looked like a second head.

  Suddenly, I understood why her scales were so symmetrical, her presence so disorienting.

  The smell of blood met my nose. Human blood.

  I snapped my head around, focusing on the source.

  It disappeared as fast as it came. Someone must have been at the edge of the tide, creeping waves pulling the scent into the water.

  With the next wave, their presence hit me: several humans on the beach. They were hurt.

  I shot towards them, surfacing briefly.

  Beyond the overpowering feel of the serpent, she was there. I would recognise her anywhere.

  “Mee!”

  It was her blood.

  I darted past the serpent. The scent of Meela’s blood grew stronger. It was noticeably stale, like an animal that had already died.

  Panic swelled inside me. I couldn’t think.

  I surfaced again, screaming for her.

  “Mee, stop!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Missing Piece

  Maybe too much was going on, or maybe Annith and Blacktail both recognised her, but nobody reacted when a mermaid threw herself at me and knocked me backwards.

  Lysi’s coppery hair sent a spray as it fell across my shoulder. She wrapped her arms around my waist in a hug as warm as it was cold.

  “I’m too late,” she said. “No, no, no ...”

  “Lysi!”

  “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”

  I pulled back, too shocked by her sudden appearance to absorb what she was saying.

  “You’re here,” I said.

  I studied her face—the angle of her cheekbones, the dimple in her chin, the curve of her nose, the shape of her lips. Had her eyes always been so blue?

  Even tightened by panic, her features were perfect.

  “Didn’t what?” I said.

  Her eyes locked onto my bleeding hand. Breathing hard, she grabbed it, watching the blood seep from the wound.

  “It was a sacrifice, Mee. The blood to free the Host.”

  I frowned at my palm. That couldn’t be right. A few drops of blood had worked fine.

  “The pages never said anything about a sacrifice,” said Tanuu.

  He reached for my injured hand, and Lysi let him take it. He pressed the cut as though he could stop the bleeding. I’d never seen him look so fearful. Did he believe it?

  “It just needs stitches,” said Blacktail.

  “Let’s wrap it,” said Annith in a shaky voice. “A tourniquet.”

  “Good idea,” I said, oddly calm.

  Blacktail pulled off her shirt—my cotton shirt, as I still wore her wool one—and used her dagger to cut it into one long, spiralling strip.

  “Hey!” I said. “That’s the last time
I let you wear my clothes.”

  She glanced up without amusement.

  They were panicking for nothing. I would be fine, once the bleeding stopped.

  I scanned their faces. They were honed in on my bloody hand as though dismantling a bomb. Why hadn’t anyone reacted to Lysi? Was she even there?

  I ran a hand up her arm. Smooth, cold. Yes, she was there, watching Blacktail wrap my wound.

  It was as though they were all too afraid for me to care that a sea demon had appeared in their midst. I wanted to tell them to calm down, but I couldn’t make a sound.

  The world was discoloured, like watching everything through a haze.

  It was a few drops, I thought. The pages in the totem pole said nothing about a sacrifice.

  Dani’s laugh split the air.

  Lysi snapped her head around, a flash of red in her eyes. She leaned closer, as though to shield me.

  Dani was facing the serpent, arms raised. It undulated below the surface a short distance away. If it weren’t for the occasional head poking up for air, the glossy, black body could have passed for a breaching pod of whales.

  “I feel her,” shouted Dani. “I can feel Eriana! This is crazy.”

  High on the isolated boulder, Dani’s wild expression, windblown hair, and rapid breathing gave her the appearance of someone struck by lightning.

  She caught all of us staring and grinned.

  “I have something for you.”

  From inside her Massacre uniform, she pulled out a roll of parchment and threw it at us. It landed steps away in the rising tide, where it rocked in the waves.

  “No,” said Annith, scooping it up. “How did …”

  “Missing a page, weren’t you?” said Dani.

  A high wave splashed against the boulder, sending a spray over her head that hissed when it landed.

  “Read it,” said Annith, dropping to her knees beside Tanuu.

  “I knew you’d never free Sisiutl if you understood the full details,” said Dani.

  Tanuu took the page from Annith. My blood smeared across it from his reddened hands. Blacktail still wrapped the cotton strip, making each turn tight and precise. My fingers swelled from the pressure.

  Lysi pulled herself closer to me. Her tail pressed against my hip. I touched her, making sure she was still real. She had to stay with me. She couldn’t disappear again.