Shattered by the Sea Lord - Starla Night Page 0,13
his jaw, and focused his intensity on Dannika as he unveiled the news she least wanted to hear. “It is all true.”
The other warriors freaked out.
“Second Lieutenant! Speaking of it is forbidden. You will summon them with your loose talk.”
He withstood their shouts with his usual resolute, unbending firmness.
Lotar gazed at the sea as though preparing for an actual invasion.
The Sons of Hercules would have a field day with this.
What a PR nightmare.
And they knew it.
“Dannika represents us to her people. Our future brides,” Ciran told his agitated warriors. “She has asked for the truth. I will not lie.”
“She cannot tell the brides,” Nilun protested. “They will fear us.”
“Oh, now you worry about scaring brides?” Gailen asked dryly.
“Of course I am concerned. Who would not be?”
“We may never surface again,” Tial said, wide-eyed. “Bermuda will ask us to leave. We will never find acceptance on land to meet our brides.”
“Dannika will not let that happen,” Gailen said encouragingly.
They all looked at Dannika. The desperate eyes of her warriors pleaded silently for her help.
“Of course I won’t,” she promised, because they would find their brides. “But, um, why don’t you tell me what we’re dealing with here? So I can prepare a proper statement. Like, why has no one talked about this before?”
“I would also like to know,” Stevie said.
“We do not speak of the city because All-Council labeled it anathema.”
“So is Atlantis,” she said.
“But there is universal agreement. They sink ships indiscriminately. Break apart families. Steal young fry. All mer cities shun Lusca.”
The warriors shuddered as if him saying the name summoning the devil.
Wow. Okay. What a nightmare. Dannika steeled herself. “Tell me everything.”
“I do not know the word Stevie used, but long, long ago, humans invaded this city’s sacred islands. They took, enslaved, or killed the sacred brides. Enraged by the loss, the city declared war on all surface humans. They sank many, many ships.”
A deep unease settled over the warriors as if Ciran were opening an umbrella indoors while walking under a ladder and breaking a mirror. They clapped their biceps and thighs, quietly questing for the absent daggers.
“The All-Council gathered its largest army, filled with willing volunteers from all the cities, to end the attacks. They failed. Lusca controls what you call giant squid and an even larger animal known as the kraken. They are formidable.”
Kraken?
What could that even be?
“Ever since, we have avoided their territory,” Ciran continued. “Lusca has been cut off from the rest of the mer—from resources, knowledge, trade—and so they are reduced to raiding. They attack anyone who ventures too close, and some careful travelers that are simply unlucky.”
“Why hasn’t it come up before now?” Dannika rubbed her elbow. “Mermen were discovered because of the GoPro. We know more than ever about the ocean. But giant squids are attacking innocent boats and nobody has a clue?”
“The squids mess with electronics,” Stevie said. “They turn the ocean red and cause a nasty fog. You can’t power engines, can’t use the radio.”
Again, all the warriors turned to the videographer.
“It is not the squids,” Ciran corrected, frowning, “but the red mirror stones the warriors use to control them. How do you know this?”
“My stepmom ran into them south of here. They operate out of the Bermuda Triangle.”
The Bermuda Triangle.
Thousands of disappearances, unsolved mysteries, rumors of ghost ships, sudden fog, monsters.
It all fit.
She didn’t want to believe it.
Dannika repeated flatly. “Are you serious?”
“Serious as the grave,” Stevie said.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Please be joking.”
“I wish. I’ve been searching for Bex ever since…” Stevie calculated. “It’s been almost twenty years. And I asked around a lot after mermen emerged. It’s why I took this job. I was always hoping to find something.” He jerked his thumb at the warriors he’d filmed the previous days. “These guys know.”
They averted their gazes.
He again tapped his camera against his thigh. “As soon as I finish editing, I’m chartering a boat and seeing what I can find.”
“It will not be much,” Ciran warned.
“My stepmom’s a survivor.”
“The Lusca do not leave survivors.”
“She escaped once. They sank her sailboat, and she later got picked up by a yacht with a satellite phone. Red fog closed in and cut us off. I give it decent odds she escaped again.”
“The Lusca destroy all humans. This stepmom could not live on the ocean for twenty years. It is impossible. And if you search those waters, you place yourself in danger.”
“I know. But we are in the age of the GoPro, and I have an advantage Bex didn’t.”