Burton sat down again next to Anna. “Well, I will tell you this, Anna Lott. The Mern city is far beyond what you see on the surface. There lies a kingdom beneath the ground, and you are part of the royal family that rules the real city of Mern. You are a maiden’s daughter and your mother would be delighted to see you again.”
“My mother? I don’t ever remember meeting my mother. Before I was sent to Ikarus after the attacks, I lived with my uncle my whole life. He raised me and was very strict. I didn’t have much of a life there. So there is little to remember of my childhood before the mages attacked the Mern islands and I was sent to Ikarus.”
“Your ‘uncle’ William was not your uncle. But before I go on, it’s time to eat,” Burton said. He began at the end of the table that stretched across the huge dining hall. There were more than twenty different covered plates on the table. He placed his hand over the first lid.
Anna could see the dry dirt spilling out from the sides. She couldn’t believe that these people were actually going to eat it. Was Burton going to do something like he did to the water? She thought.
“So what is going to be our appetizer for tonight’s meal?” Burton asked aloud.
Everyone started cheering and laughing, shouting out all types of delicious foods that Anna would give anything to have a taste of right now. The water was clean and satisfied her thirst, but now her body needed nourishment and dirt wasn’t going to give that to her.
Burton smiled through the shouting. The lid he held started steaming, and the aroma was so delicious it made Anna’s stomach rumble. She gained hope for a real, hot meal.
“To start,” Burton said, “shrimp, scallops, and oysters.”
When he lifted the lid, the plate was filled with food: seafood, her favorite. Her mouth watered while the others picked at the plate. She was surprised at how patient and generous everyone was to each other. Nobody pushed to get into the food or complained.
“Next…smoked ham,” Burton said. He went on lifting the rest of the lids: eggs, fish, berries, bread, corn, potatoes, and chicken soup. Then there were cakes and pies towards the end.
Anna and Burton talked for hours over the delicious food. He told her about her mother and how she had lain with a mainlander and had Anna. Her father, who she had called her uncle, kept her above ground with him, holding her ransom. He demanded gold from Anna’s mother, living secretly beneath the sea, where underwater mountains were rich in the mineral, so he wouldn’t kill her. Your father’s greed solidified your mother’s fear of land dwellers and secluded herself from the rest of the kingdoms. It was a dark truth, but Anna needed to hear it.
Then Burton lightened the mood, sharing stories about the histories of Mern, Grale, and Illyrium while Anna told him all about Ikarus. By the time Burton finished briefing her, Anna had eaten her fill.
“How did you do all of this?” Anna asked, knowing that she might not even understand the answer.
Suddenly Burton’s face froze.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Something has changed. Someone’s here.”
The sound of the screeching pulley that lowered the bucket into the well echoed through the cavern.
“Go, Anna! Now,” Burton said. “They will take you back to Demitri.”
“Go? Where is there to go?” she asked.
Burton took her firmly by the arm and directed her back to the open space near the water’s edge. Anna could see the torches at the top and the bucket as it lowered, but she didn’t know who was coming down.
“To the real city of Mern,” Burton said, “Find your family and convince them to help fight this war.”
“Oh. No, no! I can’t swim…and…and you said this went miles down. I’d never survive,” Anna said.
“You don’t have to swim,” Burton said. He pointed to the water, “Look.”
As Anna looked through the glossy surface, she saw the same creature that she had been seeing at The Ponds and streams since she came to Ikarus; water birds. She was relieved that Indrid was wrong about her hallucinating.
The ruckus from above got louder.
Then, in her mind, she heard Rayne telling her, I would never let you drown. And the sound of her stepbrother’s soft voice made Anna’s fears vanish. She jumped into the water.
Through the murk she could see the waterbird, a large relative of the goby fish, staring back at her. It was twice her size. When it rubbed its fins against her, she took hold of its dorsal fin, and it swam down into the black depths. Her heart raced and her breath became short. Before she inhaled the water, another waterbird swam alongside and kissed her with its giant algae-sucking lips, leaving a bubble filled with air that surrounded her entire body. Suddenly, Anna could breathe again.
The waterbird then pushed the bubble all the way down to where the caverns met the Mern Sea. The large goby moved fast, using a suction cup on its belly to shove off of corals and rocks to fight against the deep currents. They approached a light Anna saw from miles away, glowing in pitch darkness. When they got close, Anna realized that it was a massive coral reef and the rocks that shaped the structure glimmered, even in the depths without sunlight.
The waterbird stopped and let Anna’s bubble go. The bottom of it dragged across the sand floor as she drifted with the water’s current. The giant reef was all around her. Now that she was up close, Anna saw that it was shaped like a webbed dome. Millions of fish swam through a complex system of tunnels through the bioluminescent reef.
Anna realized she was inside the real Mern, the city under the sea. Burton was telling the truth—the stories were real. People had evolved to adapt to life underwater. The kingdom above secretly took orders from the
