Read Online Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A by Jennifer Donnelly - Free Book Online Page B

metalworkers. They could set up a forge in no time,” added Desiderio.
    “Becca, any luck on the lava front?” asked Sera.
    “No,” she replied. “I’m sorry. I’ve got teams of goblins looking day and night, but so far we’ve found nothing.”
    “How are the building projects coming?”
    Becca unrolled one of the large parchments lying on the table in front of her. On it she’d charted the status of the new barracks, infirmary, and school. She took Sera and the others through it in detail. Half an hour later, she finished.
    “Becca, you have a tremendous amount going on. Can you assign some of the work to others?” Sera asked, her eyes on the chart.
    Becca shook her head. “I can handle it, Sera.”
    “But, Becca—”
    “Seriously. I’ve
got
it,” she insisted, an edge to her voice.
    Sera looked up at her, struck by her tone. As she did, she noticed that there were dark circles under Becca’s eyes, and that her cheeks looked hollow.
    Something’s wrong. Something more than a heavy workload,
Sera thought, alarmed for her friend. She knew she should take Becca aside and try to find out what was going on with her, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even think straight any longer. She had to get out of here.
    “Are we done?” Des asked. “Because we’ve got to talk about Vallerio’s troops, the Southern Sea, and—”
    “Des, I can’t. Not now. I—” she started to say.
    “Sera, you have to,” Des said, cutting her off. “We need to make a decision.”
    No,
Sera thought frantically.
    “Des is right, Sera,” Yazeed said. “About needing to prep, that is. Not about where to attack.”
    Des snorted. He shot Yazeed a look, then cleared piles of parchments off the table and placed them on the floor so that Sera had a better view of the map. As soon as her gaze fell upon it, another bolt of pain shot through her skull.
    “We have two enemies to battle: Vallerio and Abbadon,” Des said, “and we can’t take them both on at once. We all know that. What we need to decide—”
    Yaz cut him off. “Dude, come
on
! There is no decision. It’s
so
clear: we need to attack Abbadon first!”
    Becca’s eyes cut to him. So did Neela’s. Both mermaids seemed surprised by his rudeness. They looked at Sera, waiting for her to say something. But Sera didn’t because she’d barely heard him, or her brother. Her eyes were glued to the map. They swept over the cowries that represented her uncle’s troops and the turitella shells that stood for her own. The shells reminded her of chess pieces—kings, queens, knights, pawns. They seemed to taunt her, to tell her that
she
was a queen, the rightful regina of Miromara, but Vallerio was the one who ruled the board.
    Neela’s eyes remained on Sera, beseeching her to take charge. When she didn’t, Neela spoke instead. “Hey, Yaz?” she said. “We’re
all
tired and stressed, but that’s no reason to disrespect each other.”
    “I know, I know,” Yaz said, holding his hands up. “It’s just that Des and I have been arguing about this for days. We’re both frayed. Especially me. Sorry, Des. You’re up.”
    Des nodded. “As I was saying, Vallerio is our biggest threat. He’s the clear and present danger. His death riders are now attacking our troops every time they go into open waters. It’s only a matter of time until they hit our camp, and then—”
    “But Abbadon—” Yazeed began.
    “Is buried under a polar ice cap!” Des said, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted again.
    “Um, bro?” Yaz said. “Don’t know if you’ve heard, but the ice is melting. And the monster man’s waking up. And when he’s stretched and yawned and got his monster butt out of bed, he’s going to make Vallerio look about as scary as a guppy.”
    Des lost it. “Open your eyes, Yaz!” he shouted, pointing to the cowries. “Look at Vallerio’s troops—they’re everywhere! We’ll never make it to the Southern Sea. We won’t make out of