Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

longer.
    Rockfish cleared out of my path as I shot upwards. An otter paused to watch me dart by.
    Halfway to the top, a pulse hit me from above.
    “No,” I whispered.
    A body eclipsed the sun.
    Without pausing to think, I bent at the waist and dove—and stopped short. Another presence closed in from below.
    Ladon streaked towards me, wooden spear in hand.
    “You made it far this time,” said Katus from overhead.
    I darted blindly sideways and collided with a tangle of weeds.
    Ladon reached for me. I slammed him with my tail, knocking the wind from his lungs in a stream of bubbles.
    Lights popped in my vision.
    Air.
    I tore through the weeds, scrambling to reach the surface.My senses clouded over.
    Up.
    For several desperate heartbeats, I knew only the shimmering light above.
    Finally, my head broke through the canopy. I took a long, gasping breath.
    The harsh sunlight blinded me. I coughed out seawater, panting hard, too dizzy to do anything but inhale.
    Ripples hit me on either side.
    My next breath came as a sob. I didn’t have time to inhale deeply. I had to dive—but I was too late. A webbed hand grabbed my hair.
    I shrieked, squirming to get away.
    “I’ve had it with these seal hunts,” said Katus, dragging me like a dead tuna. “I’m gonna ask if we can cut off her fin.”
    His nose had stopped bleeding. I tried to punch it in the same place. Ladon’s fist closed around my arm. I twisted, trying to sink my teeth into either of them.
    “Babe, you gotta understand,” he said. “Our lives will be on your hands if you escape.”
    I thrashed, hitting them with my tail and fists. But Adaro had obviously chosen these guards for their size. They were easily twice as thick as me, and pulled me away from the canopy with ease.
    Both of them oozed smugness. I bristled at the closeness, not bothering to hide my disgust.
    While a mermaid’s upper body resembled a human in its everyday state, mermen never left the state that earned us the nickname sea demons . Sharp teeth, long ears, webbed fingers, solid red eyes, and skin like rotting seaweed. Even then, a merman was more reptilian than a transformed mermaid—thicker and stronger, skin faintly scaly, a lipless mouth, nose blending into cheekbones like the face of a common fish.
    Nineteen and at the peak of fitness, Katus and Ladon embodied the hulking crocodile appearance better than anyone. Some mermaids went for that. I sooner would’ve kissed an anglerfish.
    As they dragged me back, the vibrant ripples of the kelp forest gave way to a dirty, lifeless city. Stone pillars towered beside us, barely visible through the murk.
    With Utopia nearly finished, Adaro had begun colonising further south. Most of this city was under construction, the surrounding coral beaten and dead. Even the water tasted sour, the result of constant stirring of dirt and grime.
    Ladon held my prison entrance open with his spear.
    I tried to bite Katus but he leaned away, shoving me into the cave with extra force.
    “I’m warning you, fish face,” he said. “We’ll knock you out next time. Drag you back by your pretty golden hair.”
    I blew bubbles in his face before the curtain of tentacles fell closed.
    Jellyfish didn’t usually bother me. Their sting was painful, sure, but after feeling the molten burn of iron in the early years of my life, it was hard to get worked up over those soft, slippery creatures.
    These jellyfish were an exception. I recoiled as they swayed towards me. Their tentacles fell two fathoms deep. Above, their guts were visible inside the pulsing bells. I wouldn’t have been able to wrap my arms around one if I tried.
    I backed against the rocky wall, feeling the jellies’ sting without touching them. My prison was barely a cave—an indentation, really—and I had to be careful where I drifted. A tiny pocket of air at the back served as my oxygen supply, and I had to bend my neck painfully to get it.
    The first day, I’d braced myself and tried to blast