Page 86 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
Kestra smiled to herself, shaking her head. She liked the pair of them. Oddly matched though they were, theyfitin a way she hadn’t expected.
“I like him for her,” Flay said at her elbow. “As long as he doesn’t gobble her up, of course.”
“Hush!” Kestra clapped a hand over his mouth.
“What? It’s a possibility,” Flay said against her palm. “Just stating the facts, Blossom.”
“Come on,” she said, taking a lantern from Jazadri. “Let’s explore this death trap.”
“Maybe it will collapse on us and we’ll all be buried here together,” Flay said cheerfully. “How romantic. Don’t you think so, Jaza?”
“Painfully so, Captain,” Jazadri replied.
The city had long passed the rancid, smelly stages of decay, for which Kestra was grateful. Dust and a sheen of blown sand coated the floors of the homes and shops they entered. In some rooms, clothing and curtains had been strangely well-preserved, while in others, dishes and broken furniture lay in a jumble, swept together by some incoming tide that had ebbed long ago.
Jazadri found a cellar full of wine casks, all watertight and undamaged, which thrilled him and Flay beyond measure. “Thevalueof all this, Blossom!” Flay exclaimed. “Probably worth more than theWind’s Favorherself, minus theasthore! Jaza, get Baz and Corklan in here! We’re going to pack this up and take it along.”
As they moved deeper into the city, Kestra began to see machines she wasn’t familiar with—gears and pipes and coils, interlaced in strange configurations. She wasn’t surprised to see Mai perched atop a gigantic vehicle of some sort—an odd-looking carriage. Her cousin seemed to be investigating its propulsion system, while Rake stalked around the base of the vehicle, looking perturbed and anxious, especially when Mai’s footing slipped and she nearly fell.
If she tumbled off, Rake would catch her—Kestra was sure of it. So she moved on, away from the others and into a building with ornate patterns cut into its stone. A government building, perhaps, or the residence of powerful people.
She wandered through cool, dark stone halls, where roach-crabs scuttled away from the torchlight and sand crunched and popped under her soles with every step. A smell of rust and old metal, of dust and disuse, permeated the place.
Up ahead, a heavy stone door stood half-open, chains dragging from its metal-plated edges. And halfway through that doorway, two skeletons lay on the floor, draped in glittering objects that made Kestra catch her breath.
Chains of gold encrusted with rubies. Silvery mail, forged with a unique pattern of links. Delicate devices constructed of unfamiliar metals.
She peered past the skeletons into the chamber and saw rows of boxes, like the ones Shale and the other mer-males had found in the treasury of the Queens Below—the boxes that had contained the breathing devices, belts, and other technologies none of them understood yet.
So many of those boxes, with blue shimmery panels on top.
The two people who died here had been trying to escape with some of the treasures from this room. Kestra wasn’t sure how they perished so suddenly—there were no signs of damage from monsters, molten rock, or water in this area. Perhaps some foul toxic gas or ancient contagion had also been released during the Great Upheaval. This close to the emergence point, anything was possible. But in a hundred years, any such danger would have dissipated.
Kestra did not call the others at once. She stood for a moment, enjoying the exhilaration of the discovery—one she had made all on her own. She, a simple cook from The Three Cherries, a gardener from the town of Anchel on Kiken Island. She had discovered a treasure trove beyond anything they had hoped to find in the old city. This find was significant, not just for everyone aboard theWind’s Favor, but for humans and mermaids alike.
She picked up a few pieces of jewelry and stowed them in the bag she carried. Then she retraced her steps back through the building and out into the city, through what must once have been a wide, attractive plaza.
She could not wait to tell the others what she had found.
Ahead, in the bright gap leading from the cave-city to the sunlight, she saw figures silhouetted—Jazadri’s giant bulk, Flay twirling his captain’s hat with nervous speed, Mai’s birdlike figure, Rake’s sharp-eared form, Baz, and Corklan. All of them, standing there, staring out to sea.
She’d been exploring for longer than she planned. What had happened during her absence?
The treasure almost forgotten, she hurried over to them and scrambled up a slab of fallen stone to stand beside Flay.
“What is it?” she panted, pressing a hand to her stomach.
Flay turned to her, his blue eyes cracked with dread. “It’s Feral’s ship. TheAscendantfollowed us. And they’re coming ashore.”
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Mai didn’t usually like being coddled, protected, or kept out of harm’s way. But as they stood on the beach, waiting for Feral and his crew to come ashore, Rake swept an arm across her body and pushed her back, partly behind him. And she liked the protectiveness, the primal need he had to defend her.
The boats from theAscendantdrew up into the shallows, and Feral leaped out, his great boots splashing noisily. Chains glittered across his bare chest. He wore a much larger and grander captain’s hat than Flay’s new one, along with a grin so smug Mai wanted to smack it off him.
He sauntered up to Flay.
“Little brother,” he crooned, flicking a bit of debris from Flay’s shoulder. “Imagine meeting you here. What a delight.”
