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

  Tanuu read from the page.

  “… feeding Eriana’s own blood to the sleeping beast, the soul hosted by the human revives the one within the leviathan. Once the beast has woken, the flesh that was slit to provide the blood will … will never …”

  His voice broke.

  Blacktail froze, the last strip of cotton hovering over my hand. She stared at Tanuu with wide eyes.

  Tanuu swallowed hard. “… will never heal. The sacrifice of one of Eriana’s descendants will ensure the reawakening of the leviathan is considered with the severity it deserves. Control of the leviathan will then be granted to a descendant branded by Eriana’s Mark. The one with the Mark …”

  He reached the end and lowered the page, eyes bloodshot.

  “Gains control of the leviathan until death,” said Blacktail, recalling the end of the sentence.

  My head felt light, like everything had drained from it. I must have swayed, because Lysi placed a cold hand on my back.

  “The flesh will never heal,” I said. “Tanuu …”

  “You’ll bleed to death,” he whispered.

  Blacktail finished wrapping the tourniquet. I winced as she tightened the knot a bit too firmly.

  “No,” she said. “You won’t. The cut isn’t deep. Look how thick I’ve wrapped—”

  Her eyes widened as she stared at her work. Blood seeped through the cotton. It pushed beneath and through the material, uncontrollable, like a river during a snowmelt.

  “It’s my fault,” said Tanuu, breathing fast. “I knew a page was missing. I shoulda stopped you from—”

  “We all knew,” I said. “I cut my own hand. This isn’t on any of you.”

  I couldn’t look at their faces. How could I have done this to them?

  Something splashed. Annith was on her feet, running towards Dani.

  Dani lifted an arm lazily. The serpent coiled around the rock, an impenetrable shield.

  Annith stopped, knee-deep in the tide, chest heaving. “You let Meela give her blood! You let her do it knowing she was a sacrifice!”

  “Don’t be selfish,” said Dani. “All of this is about more than Meela. With her sacrifice, a child of Eriana Kwai now has control of the most powerful weapon in the world.”

  Annith tried to run forwards again, but the serpent lashed one of its huge tongues at her. I caught a whiff of ocean stench in its warm breath.

  “Think about it!” said Dani. “I control the spirit of Eriana. The fate of the oceans is in my hands. I have power over who lives—and who dies.”

  Her pale eyes were fixed on Lysi in a way that made my stomach churn. The serpent’s heads lingered on either side of the boulder, like dogs waiting for a command.

  “Guys, watch the serpent,” I said, barely audible.

  Between the two heads and Dani, three sets of eyes focused on us. I might have been imagining it, but since Dani had claimed the Host, I thought those vertical pupils had changed, even grown paler.

  “Dani,” shouted Blacktail, standing in front of Lysi and me. “Meela is already dying because of you. Try anything else and you’ll have four more bodies on your hands.”

  “So, what? In the end, when I’ve saved Eriana Kwai from the sea rats, a few sacrifices won’t matter.”

  The black serpent drew taller, darkening the cloudy sky. Annith held her ground, heaving with rage.

  Dani didn’t strike. Somewhere beneath this reckless shell, she hesitated to kill again.

  “You want to save our people,” I said.

  My friends stared at me like a rock had spoken. Had they heard me? My voice sounded distant. I strained to talk louder.

  “You want to save our people, so start with the ones in front of you. Every child of Eriana Kwai matters. Every life matters. Making peace shouldn’t mean making sacrifices.”

  Dani’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing. The serpent stayed immobile.

  A jolt of pain shot through me. I gasped. My insides felt like they were splitting into threads.

  My friends knelt around me, at a loss for how to help.

  Exhaustion trickled through my veins, making me dizzy, pushing me down with each desperate beat of my heart. If bleeding out meant falling asleep, Lysi holding my hand, my friends at my side, maybe this wasn’t such a bad way to die.

  Dani turned away. The rising tide closed around her, isolating her in the thrashing waves. She raised and lowered her arms, testing how much control she had.

  Somewhere distant, Lysi said my name. I met her watery eyes, bluer than sapphires. I wanted those to be the last thing I saw.

  Something was different about her.

  “You’re tanned,” I said.

  Lysi’s lips parted in surprise. “That’s what you’re getting out of this? I got a suntan?”

  I wanted to smile at her, but couldn’t manage it through an overwhelming wave of sadness. I’d been prepared to die to save my people for years—but I wasn’t ready anymore. This was too soon. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  Another jolt of pain rippled through my body. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t cry out. My friends spoke to me, but I could no longer hear them.

  Coldness spread over the backs of my legs. The tide had caught up to us. The others noticed, too. Tanuu and Blacktail splashed around to my arms and feet as though to lift me back to shore.

  I glanced down at my palm, and then regretted it. Blood oozed through the material, pouring from my hand once more. I breathed deeply, telling myself I was imagining it.

  But I knew deep inside myself that this was real. I was dying.

  “I’m gonna lift you,” said Tanuu, squatting behind me.

  “Wait,” I said. “Dani needs to finish the plan.”

  “Finish the plan? Meela, I think we have bigger things to worry about!”

  “That is the bigger thing. I won’t stop until one of us—me or Adaro—is dead.”

  My voice rang over the hissing waves. Lysi, Tanuu, Blacktail, and Annith stared at me. I hoped they caught more determination than the fear I felt.

  This was the end of it. The Aanil Uusha would claim a life today.

  “It won’t be you,” said Lysi. “I won’t let you die.”

  Without a glance at Tanuu or Dani or anyone, she ran her fingers through my hair. Her eyes followed her fingers across my jawline, over my shoulder, down my arm.

  I squeezed her hand.

  The waves calmed, sloshing gently against each other. The leviathan had stopped circling the boulder.

  “Wait,” said Dani. “Meela, are you—is that demon—I think I’m going to be sick!”

  Hours earlier, I might have been embarrassed about Dani finding out. I might have tried to push Lysi away in the presence of anyone else, especially my friends. But I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care if the whole world found out. Lysi was here, and that was all that mattered.

  Annith, Tanuu, and Blacktail were also staring at Lysi—but instead of horror, I saw amazement on their faces.

  I remembered the first time I’d seen Lysi. Inside and out, she’d radiated beauty. Even now, after seeing her a hundred times, that feeling of admiration never disappeared.

  My lips pulled into a weak smile. Far from being embarrassed, I was proud. I wanted the world to know how much Lysi and I meant to each other.

  “I thought it was bad enough you made friends with a demon,” said Dani. “But you actually have feelings for one? You let her lure you like some pathetic sailor?”

  Annith spun around. For lack of other options, she picked up a stone from the beach and hurled it at Dani.

  The boulder was too far, and it fell miserably short of the serpent coiled around it.

  Dani laughed. “Don’t make me send Sisiutl after you.”

  The serpent answered with a rumble.

  “Dani, look what you’ve done,” said Annith. “You keep killing, and for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing! We’re going on the Massacre with a leviathan at our heels. Don’t you want to see us brin
g peace?”

  “Yes,” I said. “So don’t waste this chance. Dani, we were after the Host for a reason. You need to use it to kill Adaro. Do you understand?”

  “I’m going to kill more than just the king. By the time I’m done, there will be no sea rats left in the world. Starting with—”

  “No! That’s not what we need to do. Mermaids are not the enemy.”

  “Not the enemy? Who do you think is responsible for killing everyone over the last few decades?”

  “You have a chance to redeem yourself,” I said. “You can be remembered as the girl who brought peace. Keep going down this road, and you’ll be remembered as the girl who murdered her friends and wiped out a species.”

  “Stop saying that!” said Dani. “I’m not a murderer!”

  The serpent hissed, one head lunging towards us. The jaws snapped closed on empty air, close enough that a puff of warm wind blew my hair back. Frothy waves crashed into each other, flooding the beach and sending swells up to our necks.

  The threat didn’t scare me. Dani wasn’t going to kill us. The fact that she hadn’t attacked us yet proved it. She’d murdered, she’d made mistakes, but this wasn’t her. Somewhere inside, Dani was still a child of Eriana Kwai, and a warrior who wanted to help her people. With her in control of the Host, we had to help her discover that part of herself and hope she would carry out our plan.

  “How did you find out, Dani?” I said, trying to bring her temper down. “The Host wasn’t easy to unearth, and you somehow got to the legend first.”

  The serpent’s heads lowered as Dani dropped her arms. Her mouth twisted into a sneer.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let the issue drop after that pathetic meeting. So I kept an eye on you. I overheard what Anyo told you—the story of Eriana, the eyes in the water. The legend of Sisiutl has been in my family forever. I went to the totems to see her and figured out I needed to climb. I took the important page and left the rest for you to find.”

  “You can read the old language?” I said.

  “No, but Hassun can. He’s proven useful.”

  “Is that all people are to you?” said Annith. “Tools to get a job done?”

  I extended a hand, signalling Annith to stop. The serpent opened its jaws and hissed as Dani’s temper flared.

  “So you knew you needed Eriana’s Mark,” I said. “How did you find the symbol?”

  “The cultural centre,” said Dani. “Nothing but rats and mould inside, but I did find Eriana’s Mark on nearly every weapon. So I burned it into my flesh.”

  “Meela,” said Tanuu gently. “We gotta get you out of the water.”

  I looked down. It had risen to my waist. I thought about standing, but even the thought made me want to close my eyes and sleep. How much blood had I lost? My fingertips were grotesquely discoloured.

  “We’re gonna lift you. Ready?” said Tanuu.

  Annith joined Blacktail at my feet.

  “While you all figure that out,” said Dani, “you’ll have to excuse us. I have an island to address.”

  “Dani, please,” I said. “Don’t take the serpent on the Massacre.”

  I had no doubt she would stay true to her word, and kill every mermaid she and the Host could find.

  One of the heads drew close enough to the boulder that Dani reached for it. When she touched it, she wore an expression I never thought I’d see on her face—tender, sweet, with all the love in the world, like a mother holding her baby for the first time.

  “I’d say Sisiutl’s listening to me nicely, wouldn’t you? Do you think she’ll let me ride her to the ceremony?”

  She stood on her toes to see the top of the nearest head.

  Lysi’s eyes flashed red, then. Her teeth lengthened. Before I understood why, something leapt from the water and crashed into us, knocking Lysi into me.

  Lysi snarled like a wildcat, and then I was underwater.

  A hand closed around my hair and pulled me back up. I surfaced, gasping and blind, to my friends’ terrified screams.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sworn Oath

  Strymon’s full weight landed on me, knocking me backwards.

  I braced myself in time to stop my head from slamming against Meela.

  “Where is the king?” Strymon shouted over the screams of Meela’s friends.

  He prickled with both anger and fear. Did he think we had succeeded?

  I hesitated to transform into a demon in front of Meela. Then I realised how ridiculous that was.

  I snarled. “With any luck, he’s dead.”

  Strymon reached for my throat. I tried to roll him off me but he was like a boulder pinning me down.

  “You reeked of treachery since you arrived,” he said, fingers closing around my neck. “Now I discover the remains of bloodshed on the way here.”

  He pushed me into the rocks, strangling me. I clawed at his eyes. He grunted and grabbed my wrists instead. With a force that would shatter human bone, he pried my hands away from his face.

  “I warned the commander not to trust you,” he said. “In the end, he was just as foul. He deserved his fate.”

  The tide rose, the next wave submerging me.

  “You have one more chance to tell me,” said Strymon. “Where is the king?”

  “Gone!”

  Rage flared in his aura—but I sensed the fear beneath it.

  Meela was screaming. The boy, Tanuu, was pulling her away from us. My mind flipped back to her language.

  “Blacktail, your dagger!”

  No. I couldn’t let her get involved. He’d kill her with one blow.

  “Stay back, Mee! He’s too—”

  Strymon barked a laugh. “And you speak a human tongue! It should not surprise me. A traitor right through. I should have killed you the moment I became commander.”

  “Lysi, what’s he saying?” said Meela.

  She was fighting the boy, trying to get closer.

  “Mee, stay—”

  Strymon shoved my face beneath the water. While one hand held me there, the other slammed against my ribcage. The air left my lungs. He punched me again, and again, until my lungs emptied.

  Through his webbed fingers, his head eclipsed the cloudy sky, agitated water blurring his face. I clawed at his arm. He pressed me harder against the rocky bottom, keeping his face out of reach.

  He kept punching until I wasn’t sure which was worse: the pain in my ribs or my deflated lungs. I was going to drown.

  I twisted, desperately trying to roll him off me, when one of the humans launched herself at Strymon. He stopped punching to throw her off. Ripples spread out as she splashed into the tide some distance away.

  At once, three more humans threw themselves at him. Pain surged from his pores. Blood dripped into the water above me. One of them must have had iron.

  Strymon let go. I pushed myself up as he threw someone away from him with the ease of tossing a fish. But before I could surface, his fist came down across my face, pushing me back into the rocks.

  I screamed in fury, though no one would hear it. My lungs spasmed, sending a jolt of pain up my throat.

  The world overhead darkened. I thought I was losing consciousness—but then I caught a glimpse of white, shining teeth and a pink tongue. The two remaining humans scattered.

  It had been a matter of time until the serpent came for us. I stopped fighting. At least this death would be a quick one.

  The jaws closed over Strymon. I heard his scream from beyond the water. The serpent lifted him away from me.

  I stayed still, watching through the turbulence as the head flung his body into the air and swallowed him. Droplets of blood hit the surface, smelling fresh as they spread out in front of my face.

  I waited for the other head to descend on me.

  It didn’t come.

  The darkness drew away. The sudden brightness of the grey sky made me squint.

  I pushed myself up and surfaced with a shuddering gasp.

  The humans wer
e scattered in the waves. I searched for Meela, for the smell of blood draining from her body. I couldn’t sense her. The scent of Strymon’s death filled my nose, masking all else.

  “Help!”

  It was Tanuu. He staggered, fell to his knees, and then stood again, trying to lift something. A girl, face barely held out of the water. One arm was draped across Tanuu’s shoulders. Her long, wet hair clung to her face.

  I lunged for them, half-swimming, half-crawling through the shallow tide. I passed under the serpent’s second head. It watched me but made no move.

  Gasping for breath, I had no energy to fight the panic bubbling inside me.

  “Mee!”

  “She’s conscious,” said Tanuu.

  Weak and groggy, she repeatedly tried to get her legs under her, only to have them give out. I let her use my shoulder as a crutch while the girls splashed over.

  Annith pulled Meela’s arm across her shoulder. They waded for shore, stumbling over the rocks.

  Too low in the water, I could do nothing but watch. The other girl, the one they called Blacktail, gripped an iron dagger, glancing around for more attackers.

  The serpent’s eyes followed us. So did Dani’s. Her mouth was open. With an air of surprise, she dropped her gaze to her hands—the ones that had commanded the serpent to kill Strymon.

  The same hands had commanded it to spare me. Why?

  Water streamed down Annith’s face, which might have come from her hair or her red eyes—or both. Tanuu’s eyes, too, were puffy and red. Blacktail was solemn, stony, like someone numb with shock.

  Dani waved an arm. The serpent faced us, its energy rising. I braced myself, ready to break away from Meela and her friends. But the girl wavered.

  One instant, she projected that blind desire for prey I only felt in animals; the next, such intense fear and dread that I might have smelled the change in her blood.

  She flickered between these states as she watched us labour through the waves. I couldn’t get a steady read on her. My muscles stayed tense, preparing me to flee any moment.

  Then Dani turned away.

  Slowly, the serpent ducked below the surface.

  Above the waves, I barely heard the movement. Below the waves, soft ripples brushed my tail as she retreated.