Agner was still smiling, but he didn’t emerge fully. “I’m not really supposed to talk to you until the task is over,” he said, with a wink. “But if I was allowed to, I’d tell you I’m impressed.”
With that, he sank back into the seaweed. Merletta blinked at the fronds, trying to make sense of his words. The task wasn’t over? There was still more? Her heart sank.
But then she recalled Felix’s words.
Your task is to find the hidden treasure and bring it back to this spot.
She hadn’t brought her treasure back to the starting point. That was all she still had to do. That wasn’t so bad.
She set off swimming at once, retracing her strokes back over the rocks, across the sand, and through the coral. But she was only halfway back to the spot where she and Felix had parted when yet another masked guard emerged from the gloom, weapon raised.
Merletta felt irritated more than anything as she brought her own weapon up. She’d fought them off, she’d done the task. Did they really need to attack her on the way back, too?
But this attack wasn’t like the others. The guard didn’t attempt to land her any heavy blows, just shoved at her with the shaft of her spear. It took Merletta several moments to realize that the guard wasn’t fighting her so much as forcing her back, off course from her route. And it was another moment before Merletta realized, with a horrible jolt in her stomach, that she recognized that dull green tail.
“Ileana,” she hissed. “What are you doing here?”
But she realized even as she said it that she knew what Ileana was doing there. She was a Center guard. Merletta should have realized the former trainee might be involved in administering her test.
A strange mixture of anger and anxiety flooded through Merletta. Her gut told her that Ileana meant her real harm, and she should fight her off with whatever force was necessary. But if Ileana was just performing her assigned role in the practice test, Merletta might get into a spot of trouble if she speared her.
All the time these thoughts were chasing themselves through Merletta’s head, Ileana continued to force her backward, further from the meeting point with Felix.
“What…are you…playing at?” Merletta grunted, trying to dart around the other mermaid.
Ileana said nothing, just moved with snakelike speed to prevent Merletta from getting past her. Without a word, she resumed her advance.
Merletta was just beginning to think she should abandon caution and let her anger win, when Ileana pulled back abruptly. Before Merletta could react, Ileana had struck out with her spear, thrusting the blunt end straight into Merletta’s forehead.
Merletta went hurtling backward through the water, her vision spinning as pain erupted from the point of contact. She barely managed to hold on to her weapon, but she clutched it like her life depended on it, sure Ileana would follow up her advantage.
But no attack came. Instead, Merletta felt a horribly familiar brush along her arm, and caught a glow of white in her peripheral vision. She turned convulsively, and gave a cry of horror. She was surrounded on every side, floating in frozen terror in the midst of an entirely different type of cloud from the one she’d seen in the drop off.
The bloom of jellyfish was the biggest she’d ever seen. Or possibly she’d just never seen one up this close. She’d always avoided them. Another jellyfish brushed along her tail, and she let out an involuntary whimper.
They’re just jellyfish, she told herself. You’ve dealt with worse.
But she couldn’t seem to make herself believe it. She’d been afraid of the creatures since childhood, with an unreasoning fear. Her mind was clear enough to curse her own idiocy in mentioning that fear in her first ever lesson at the Center. This wasn’t the first time the information had been used against her. But knowing that it was a calculated attack by Ileana didn’t make it any easier to control the panic rising within her.
Just stay still. Let them swim around you, and wait until the bloom passes.
She was fully encased in the bloom now, shaking from head to fin, rapidly losing control of herself. A third jellyfish slid along her shoulder, and she could hold on no longer. Letting out a gurgling gasp, she flailed wildly, trying to get it off her. Immediately, its tentacles lashed her arm, and a sharp stinging sensation went through her. She thrashed more frantically still, blundering around in her attempt to get out of the bloom. Soon she was enmeshed in tentacles, pain shooting across every inch of exposed skin.
And still the bloom continued. It seemed endless. She swam blindly, trying to find the edge of it, trying to fight the throbbing in her head, and the much more dangerous panic that had gripped every one of her senses. Through the wispy white bodies she could see dark rock, and she made for it, hoping it indicated the edge of the bloom.
She reached the rock, and almost without realizing it, she darted into an opening, away from the jellyfish. For a long minute, she huddled in the dark, shaking all over. She tried to assess the sharp pain lancing across her body, but she was still so panicked, it was hard to think straight. Was she dying? How strong was the venom of these particular jellyfish? How many times had she been stung?
A minute flowed past, and she found that she was still alive, although in a substantial amount of pain. Her mind was spinning in a way that was unpleasantly reminiscent of her hallucinations. She could still see the pearly glow of the jellyfish moving past her hiding place, and she drew further back into what turned out to be a decent-sized cave.
Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, and she glanced around her nervously. It would be about right to find that she’d fled the jellyfish only to land herself in the den of some predator.
But she could see no sign of sea monsters in the large space. She frowned, momentarily forgetting about her pain as she swam deeper. What was she seeing? It wasn’t just an empty cave, that much was clear. A large clump of seaweed stretched across one corner, weighed down by rocks. It almost looked like…a bed. And on the other side of the cave were fish bones, and empty mussel shells. Merletta’s eyes, catching up to the darkness at last, were drawn back to the rocky wall above the seaweed. She swam forward slowly and ran her fingers along the scores. Someone had scratched a tally into the rock, as if counting out the days.
Merletta fell back, a strange feeling creeping over her. Someone had been living here—a merperson. No other creature would leave marks like that. It didn’t look like they were here still, but it couldn’t have been too long since they left.
Who could it be? She was well outside the barrier now. No one lived out here, no one ever had.
Merletta’s gaze fell on her own empty hand, and she realized with a start that she no longer held her paua knife. All at once, her task came rushing back to her, and she abandoned the mysteries of the cave and swam back to the entrance. To her relief, the last few straggling jellyfish were just drifting past, leaving blissfully clear water behind them.