Page 119 of Midnightsong
“King Varin, we cannot permit you to pass until we have word that it’s safe to leave here,” one sentinel with a gray tail said, holding out her lance to block Varin’s path.
Left alone with his thoughts, a startling one struck Kaden. “Where are Cyrus and Adrielle? And their children?”
“Shangjiang Narea sent another unit to retrieve them, and the nobles. Hopefully they can get to them before the landwalkers do,” the other sentinel, with a light green tail said.
Kaden sent a wordless plea to Sanyue. To save Cyrus and Adrielle and their merlings. To save his people.
A scraping sound outside drew the sentinels’ attention, and they pointed their lance and trident outward. Kaden craned his neck to look over their heads but saw nothing.
The sentinels darted inside, dodging a spear sailing across the opening.
Two male divers swam past and spotted them. They raised spearguns, but the sentinels struck first. A lance through one diver’s chest took one down, and the other sentinel caught the other, grabbing him by his foot before he could escape and brought him to a stranglehold.
Both humans fell. A third emerged, a woman, firing a speargun through one of the sentinel’s hearts, and the sentinel faded before Kaden’s eyes.
The sight of his soldier bleeding filled Kaden with dread. The remaining sentinel went after the third diver, spearing her and yanking her weapon out while she bled out and sank.
“Black fathoms. I need to do something. I need to fight.” Kaden’s words hitched, and he looked to Varin for support. “I can use my monarch magic.”
“You cannot. You will get swarmed,” Varin replied.
“There’s more coming. You need to get out,” the remaining sentinel said. “Go!”
She whirled around, trident facing the swarm of divers approaching, and Kaden clutched Varin’s wrist, pulling his uncle with him as they swam over their heads before the humans could blink an eye.
They sped through the halls, tails pumping, never looking back. Kaden was fatiguing, but they needed to keep going. More divers in camouflage emerged from the corners of their palace.
“How many are there?” Now Varin was the one to pull Kaden along as he slowed, giving in to his tired muscles.
“Sharp left.” Kaden urged, and they exited the palace from its apex. A spear skated by and grazed his tailfins.
A human submarine advanced on the palace proper, firing another torpedo into their gardens. It pushed the mer back, and a cloud of sand from the seabed stirred up. Sentinels swarmed them, using a burst of magic to push it back. The submarine hardly moved, and a second smaller one was visible, coming in from Kaden’s left side.
So many dead bodies on the seafloor, attracting a small shiver of shayu.
In the distance, divers were escaping with filled nets, and submarines and more divers prevented the mer from going after them.
Any hopes of him being a good leader sank right along with the dead mer and humans. He didn’t know what to do now, what to tell his soldiers. How many more mer had to die?
What had Saeryn caused? He swore to execute his uncle without mercy when he saw him again, the coward.
“Your uncle did this.” Varin spoke Kaden’s thoughts aloud, morose. “And now he’s left you to clean up the mess.”
Kaden set his jaw. “He did.”
“We need to go there. Use our magic. Keep them back. With you and I, they won’t stand a chance,” Varin said.
Byusing our magic,Kaden knew he meant a tsunami devastating enough to carry the entire human army and their ships out of their seas. Memories raced of the destruction Serapha had once wrought in her fury. Not just with a tsunami but followed by a cataclysmic maelstrom shortly after.
The docks and land miles up the coast were empty. This would be their chance to drive the intruders out without hurting human civilians.
Still safe in their place, Kaden stared, sweeping across the mer and human horde, brushing away a lock of hair that had drifted into his eyes.
From the left, another unit of sentinels and Shangjiang Marron appeared from the humans’ flank, saviors slicing their way through the illuminated sea. Following them were three hujings and two dabaisha, and a shiver of what Angie would call salmon sharks raced past them for the dead divers. The unit approached Kaden and Varin.
“There. The humans are undefended from the seafloor. If we can direct a wave upward, we can drive them out,” Kaden pointed out.
“We’ll take you,” Marron said. The hujings, shayu, sentinels and Shangjiangs surrounded him as they moved through the depths.
