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

  I didn’t reply. Moths continued to flutter in the porch light. Not knowing what else to do, I started to walk past Tanuu.

  “Meela, please. I just wanna know if you’re all right. If we’re all right.”

  I turned.

  “I just need some recovery time.”

  He nodded once, but his eyebrows stayed pinched. “I get that. The Massacre’s a lot for anyone to handle. You don’t have to grieve alone, though.”

  I held his gaze. The dim light made his pupils huge, so I felt like I was staring into the face of a baby seal.

  Footsteps crunched behind me. Annith was barely visible, all in black with a hood casting her face into shadow.

  “You coming or what?” she said.

  She stopped at the edge of the porch light, scrutinising Tanuu with black-lined eyes. “Is he coming, too?”

  “No,” I said, at the same time as Tanuu gave a hearty, “Yes.”

  Annith and I exchanged a glance.

  “Annith and I have plans,” I said. “We can talk tomorrow.”

  Not that I wanted to have a conversation about my feelings with him the next day, but I thought that might make him more inclined to leave us.

  “Where ya going?” He followed us down the driveway, away from the soft glow of my house and onto the dead-end dirt road.

  “We’re having a girls night,” I said. “We’ll be talking about periods and stuff. You won’t like it.”

  “Like hell you are. Since when does girls night involve dressing all in black and leaving the house under the cover of darkness?”

  “You can’t come with us,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “This isn’t your fight!”

  “Ha! This has to do with the Massacres, doesn’t it? Heard you girls want to stop them. Are you trashing the training area?”

  Annith snorted. I shot Tanuu a glare he wouldn’t see.

  “We don’t want to vandalise anything,” I said. “We’re working on a better method. A way to make peace.”

  “And?”

  I said nothing, kicking a rock so it bounced off a tree trunk. The sound cracked through the air.

  “Whatever you’re doing, I wanna help,” said Tanuu.

  I glanced sideways at Annith.

  “He could keep watch for us,” she said. “I mean, it won’t look good if we’re caught.”

  True, we had been under higher visibility since we’d gotten back. No Massacre survivor could go out in public without attracting attention.

  The potential for disgracing my family dawned on me. My father had survived the Massacre, Nilus had died for it, and my mother had supported all three of us through training and departure. With that level of involvement, our family had achieved a level of recognition on Eriana Kwai.

  We arrived at the path leading into the woods and stopped. Without the crunch of our footsteps, every chirp, every hoot, every whistle rang clearly.

  I removed my boots. In pitch darkness, the forest would be easier to navigate in bare feet.

  “Meela, I want our freedom, too,” said Tanuu. “I sat at home while you girls fought the sea demons. Yeah, I would’ve been lunch in seconds, but still. Every minute you were out there was torture. Now I have the chance to be useful, if you let me.”

  I crossed my arms. An owl swooped low over our heads, the night so silent that I heard the swoosh of its wings.

  I scrutinised Tanuu’s outfit. His windbreaker had reflective strips on the chest.

  “Take off your coat. You’ll stand out like a lighthouse.”

  He did, with enthusiasm. His shirt underneath was grey.

  “All right,” I said. “You can keep watch.”

  He thrust a fist into the air, and then balled up his jacket and tossed it next to my boots.

  “What am I watching?”

  “We’re going to borrow a couple of things from the training base,” I said. “Crossbows. Ammo. Anything else that might be helpful.”

  “You didn’t get to keep your Massacre weapons?”

  I huffed.

  “They took them back for the next round of trainees,” said Annith.

  A stiff silence followed. Unfortunately, the girl who actually should have been stripped of all weapons still had access to them.

  “Why don’t you borrow my father’s hunting bow?” said Tanuu. “I could—”

  “Oh my gosh, Tanuu,” said Annith, “we need iron weapons. A hunting arrow will just bounce off a mermaid’s skin.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  We entered the forest. After the empty dirt road, the dense rainforest wrapped me in warmth and comfort. We followed the narrow path, me in the lead, guided by the carpet of moss on either side. I extended a hand to brush the passing saplings, feeling them shake off cool droplets under my touch.

  “Doesn’t your father have a crossbow?” said Tanuu.

  “We can use the ammo, but the bow’s a piece of junk,” I said. “Tried it last night. The bolts don’t even leave it in a straight line.”

  “We should bring it, anyway,” said Annith. “It’s still iron.”

  “I think the poker from my fireplace might work better.”

  My eyes adjusted quickly to the blackness. I sprung onto a fallen tree and ran up the sloping log a few steps before landing on the ground again, nimble on the balls of my feet.

  “So you’re gonna steal some weapons and fight the mermaids on your own?” said Tanuu.

  His tone suggested that was about as good an idea as a man deciding to go for a dip in the ocean.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “We need something to keep us safe while we search the shoreline. We’re going to look for a cave.”

  I pretended to concentrate on stepping over roots and logs. If he was going to help us, he needed to know the story. But after our meeting with the Massacre Committee, I didn’t feel up to sharing the plan anymore.

  Annith picked up my hesitation.

  “I think Tanuu will have a better reaction than they did,” she said.

  “I can hardly imagine a worse reaction.”

  Tanuu waited.

  “All right, I’ll tell it,” said Annith.

  I said nothing. She took this as permission, and gave Tanuu a tame summary of how I’d met Adaro. For Tanuu’s sake, she avoided mentioning the part where I’d gotten hypothermia and nearly drowned.

  The woods thickened, the moss warm beneath my feet. It pressed in from all sides like a giant pillow, muffling our voices and footsteps. A shape leaned across our path, blacker than the backdrop. I touched it as we ducked beneath, the log soft and springy beneath my palm.

  When Annith got to the part where we planned to double-cross Adaro and kill him, Tanuu stopped walking.

  “You’re both nuts,” he said faintly, as though in deep awe.

  Annith laughed.

  “Not going to argue,” I said.

  His shoes padded softly as he jogged to catch up. “What exactly is the Host?”

  “Adaro said it’s like a pet,” I said. “Something playing host to Eriana’s soul. She was bound with it when she died. That’s all we know.”

  “Have you tried the library?”

  Annith sighed. “What do you think we’ve been doing in the last two weeks?”

  “And?”

  “There’s plenty of material on the last two hundred years of international relations,” I said.

  “Boring,” said Annith.

  “There was one book that mentioned the goddess Eriana,” I said. “That’s the one we all read in grade two.”

  “A bit less boring.”

  “But there was no mention of her pet anywhere.”

  “No idea where it is?” said Tanuu.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “So,” said Annith, “we decided we need to hunt for the Host ourselves.”

  Skunk cabbage met my nose, and I veered right to avoid traipsing through a marshy patch.

  “Adaro thinks the Host is somewhere beneath the isl
and?” said Tanuu.

  “Right,” I said. “We’re thinking it’s in some kind of cave.”

  “And the crossbows are for?”

  “Skaaw Beach.”

  Tanuu made a noise between a gasp and an “oh!”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  None of us had been to Skaaw Beach. As with every beach on the island, access was forbidden. We knew about it through word of mouth, as a landmark on Eriana Kwai. Skaaw was the old-language word for lava. A million years before, molten lava had oozed from cracks in the earth and cooled quickly, forming hundreds of peaks, valleys, and jagged columns along the stretch of beach.

  “On the way there,” said Annith, “we’ll be able to check out other places, too. Like the cliff below Meela’s house.”

  I didn’t tell her I already knew what the cliff below my house looked like, because I spent half my childhood there.

  Ahead, water trickled. I led us to the narrower part of the stream. We hopped over it, moving quickly through mud that was sure to house a swarm of mosquitoes.

  “What happens once you get this mermaid king out of the way?” said Tanuu.

  “He’s, like, the whole reason we’re being attacked,” said Annith. “He’s been trying to get rid of us so he can find the Host. Once he’s gone …”

  “We’ll be able to go fishing,” I said.

  “So you’re sure freeing this thing’s a good idea?”

  “Adaro won’t stop trying to get it,” I said. “This is what he’s after, and he’ll keep attacking us until he gets it—or until we kill him with it.”

  Tanuu said nothing for a long time.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “I might believe you.”

  “That’s a start,” said Annith.

  “The committee didn’t, then?”

  When neither of us answered, he added, “You’d think they’d wanna avoid losing more warriors.”

  I glanced back, trying to see Tanuu’s face through the darkness. Annith was right: he had reacted better than the committee had. At least he was entertaining the idea.

  “The committee thinks the change in training masters will fix the problem,” I said. “But even if they do turn out better warriors, Adaro’s army is also getting stronger.”

  A long silence passed, filled by the distant hoots of a saw-whet owl and the scuffing of Annith and Tanuu’s boots. My bare feet were soundless over the moss.

  “You still have time to change your mind if you think we’re nuts,” I said, offering Tanuu an escape.

  “No,” he said. “You’re right for trying to find this Host. I don’t wanna see anyone else die because of the Massacres either.”

  “I totally knew you’d feel that way!” said Annith. “You’re a step ahead of Rik, you know.”

  I turned my head sharply. “You told Rik?”

  “Obviously. We tell each other everything.”

  After a few seconds of meaningful silence from me, she added, “Almost everything.”

  I hoped she was being truthful.

  We stopped talking, drawing near the training base. When we reached the clearing where the Enticer sat, we stopped. The rotting fossil of a ship was the island’s most famous landmark—if only because no one could figure out how a ship had ended up in the middle of a forest. It now made up the centre of the Safe Training Base. The weapons stayed here, locked away when not used for target practice.

  “You know Mujihi isn’t gonna take it lightly when he realises someone broke into his weapons shed,” whispered Tanuu.

  “That’s why we’re only taking a couple,” I whispered. “And if he does notice, he won’t be able to prove it’s us.”

  The crumbling outline of the Enticer loomed like a black hole in the glade. Around it, the cabins remained dark and empty.

  Something big slunk through the bushes across the way, but I couldn’t see what it was before it retreated into the forest. I caught myself hoping it was just a mountain lion, and then realised how ridiculous that was. This side of the shoreline, a mountain lion was the worst animal to encounter. Running, hiding, and fighting were all useless, especially at night. Still, somehow I would have rather fought a mountain lion than faced the shame of being caught breaking into the training base.

  “Wait here,” I whispered to Tanuu. “If you see anything suspicious, make an owl call.”

  “How will you know it’s not a real owl?” he said.

  He stood hunched, arms crossed. I heard his teeth chattering.

  “Make another sound, then,” I whispered impatiently.

  “What about this?” He tilted his head back and made a ridiculous, guttural cry. “Rrree-ah! cah! cah!”

  Annith and I stared at him.

  I whispered, “How will I know it’s not a real velociraptor?”

  Annith stifled a laugh in her sleeve.

  We left Tanuu shivering at the edge of the clearing. The air felt thinner, cooler as we left the insulation of the bush. Stepping cautiously over the forest floor, we crept past the Enticer and towards the wooden shed containing the training crossbows.

  Annith stumbled over something and grunted.

  “Some idiot’s been having a bonfire.”

  I glanced back. An ashy fire pit lay in the middle of the clearing. Annith had tripped over an iron rod dropped beside the charred logs.

  “Maybe the trainees,” I said. “Or else some kids trying to have a party.”

  The dark outline of the shed came into view at the top of the shooting range. A bit taller than me, curved on top with double doors in front, it might have passed as the garden shed of a sweet old lady.

  I removed a pin from under my ponytail and slid it confidently inside the enormous lock. It reminded me unpleasantly of the time I had to do the same thing while locked inside the brig on the Massacre. Traitor, my crew had called me.

  The task was easier here, surrounded by still woods instead of a mermaid-infested ship crashing through angry seas.

  As I wiggled the pin around, pushing the buttons inside, I kept my ears strained for weird noises.

  At last, the lock clicked open. I removed it hastily.

  Crossbows lined the walls, hanging on pegs. A pile of extras littered the bottom, along with quivers and bolts.

  “Grab them from the floor,” whispered Annith, “so they don’t notice any missing.”

  I reached down just as a noise split the air that made my blood run cold.

  Tanuu.

  I whirled around to see the whites of Annith’s eyes. What had he seen? I’d honestly not expected Tanuu to be useful. Who could be creeping around the training base at this time of night?

  We gaped at each other.

  Should we abandon the crossbows and run? Put the lock back on? Hide inside the shed and wait it out?

  Annith seized my wrist and pulled. “Come on!”

  I grabbed the first thing I touched and sprinted after her.

  We made it not two steps before I heard a click, an electric buzz, and Annith’s black camouflage became useless as she was bathed in the orange glow of a floodlight.

  We stopped dead in our tracks.

  A girl stepped into the clearing, arms crossed, lips curled in an expression of savage triumph.

  A crossbow was slung across her chest. I considered running—but then a man stepped out from the darkness behind her, face purple with anger. He put a hand on his daughter’s bony shoulder.

  “My goodness, ladies,” said Dani in her usual purr. “This doesn’t look good at all.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The South Pacific Army

  By the time Katus and Ladon slowed down, we must have been halfway to the equator. Every piece of me ached from being stuck without my arms for so long.

  A mountain range sprawled ahead, crackling with plants, fish, and shrimp. The movement tickled my skin, and beyond it, something larger.

  While I couldn’t see through the blue, every angle and divot materialised as a tiny swirl in the current. At first, I thought
this might be another city under construction, Adaro’s kingdom expanding towards the South Pacific. But the water didn’t have that same dirty scent. Coral breathed on every surface, mature and healthy. Stone buildings grew into the mountain range like they’d been there for centuries. They towered high above the reef. The architecture was curved, ancient, unlike the blocky structures of Utopia.

  “The Moonless City,” I whispered.

  In school, we learned that Adaro had made a peace pact with Queen Evagore when he crossed the Ice Channel into the Pacific. Adaro stayed north and built Utopia there, while Evagore remained in the Moonless City.

  “Is the military base here?”

  Katus and Ladon ignored me.

  “Hello?” I said. “Are we there?”

  “Yes,” said Katus, not looking at me.

  They both oozed exhaustion. I felt a smug satisfaction at the thought that the trip had been as gruelling for them as it had been for me.

  As we drifted closer, I doubted the queen would suddenly be all right with Adaro’s army storming through her city. It didn’t sound like part of a peace pact.

  Anemones swayed below. Small fish darted inside, brightly coloured in ways I’d never seen. In other circumstances, I might have plunged to the bottom for a closer look.

  To my right, a turtle flapped along, the only creature indifferent to the three predators passing through. I slowed, feeling her presence.

  She projected tranquility. I’d never felt it at such a deep level. I wanted to swim closer, but the rope tugged sharply.

  A ridge materialised ahead. It rose from floor to surface, a natural wall of coral and rock. The current told me the other side was a grotto, like a circle carved by a meteor a million years ago. Activity buzzed inside of it—the deep voices and laughter of mermen. I couldn’t tell how many.

  My nerves tightened. Situated just outside of the city, this had to be the military base.

  We rounded the ridge. I stopped short.

  Hundreds of soldiers bustled inside the grotto, darting into caves and emerging with freshly sharpened blades, scarfing down handfuls of eggs, wrapping seaweed around their foreheads to tame floating locks of hair. I sensed weapons of wood, slate, argillite, chert, bone, coral, shells, and barnacles.

  This crater must have been an apartment at one time. Plateaus at the surface offered plenty of space to rest. The walls blocked the currents while camouflaging its inhabitants. It would have also been a haven for food, except all fish and other animals seemed to have scattered.