“How do you—?”
“Deiopea said it before she…”
Meela looked around as though hoping to see the wreck. “Do you know where?”
I frowned, and then decided to attribute her lack of concern over Deiopea’s death to adrenaline. Maybe it was all too much for her to consider at the moment.
“It ends inMaru, so it’s a Japanese ship,” I said.
“The Bering Sea?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
We fell silent, catching our breath with every breach.
Everything we’d left behind nagged at me—all those prisoners, those poor humans, Deiopea. Her entire family had been killed and her city occupied by Adaro’s army. No one was safe—southern merpeople, former humans, anyone who might oppose Adaro. Plus, the conditions of the labour camp and what they were working towards were all worse than I’d thought. How many were dying down there each day? How long did we have until they succeeded? How much coastline would such a tsunami destroy?
That idea smouldering in the back of my mind glowed once more.
I stopped. “Wait.”
Meela spun around, panicked. “Are they—?”
“No, no. Sorry. I—” I cast my senses behind us anyway to make sure we were still alone. “I was thinking, Mee. Even with the Reinas’ help, we can’t stop this.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way they’re rounding everyone up. The labour camp. All the guards, and the black marlins—and you didn’t see the way he uses other animals in battle. Adaro’s army won’t go down easy.”
“Okay,” said Meela slowly. “But our only option is to try.”
Her green eyes popped against the orange glow of the rising sun. It peeked over the horizon, brightening the flat, peaceful surface. I wanted to rest, to find a raft or an island and curl up there with her. But we had to keep moving.
I swam onwards, Meela keeping pace.
“Killing him is only part of the battle,” I said. “What about his armies? We need to consider the bigger wars—the one between the kingdoms, and the one against humans.”
“Isn’t that why we’re going to the Reinas?”
I shook my head. Deiopea had said the entire Moonless City hadn’t been able to resist Adaro’s army. How would a small group of rebels be able to overthrow him? We needed more help than that.
“There’s another option,” I said. “Someone who might be powerful enough to stop all of this.”
“Tell me you have a leviathan hidden somewhere.”
“No.”
My brain worked over what Deiopea had said about the serpent.Rivals the power of the original Medusa.She had been talking about the Medusa of millennia past—but what about her descendant? What about the Medusa reigning over the Atlantic?
“We need Queen Medusa,” I said.
Meela glanced sidelong at me. “If she has snakes for hair and a glare that turns you to stone, sure. If not, I don’t see how she can help us.”
I shook my head. “Adaro might have the serpent, but Medusa has the oldest regime in history and a kingdom a thousand times the size of Utopia.”
“You think her army can rival Adaro’s?”
“We can wait and find out with the rest of the world, when Adaro invades the Atlantic—or we can find out sooner. We can go to the Atlantic. We can get Medusa’s help before Adaro becomes unstoppable.”
