A slip of the tongue can have deadly consequences. The last thing Marella wants to hear is that they're moving half-way across the ocean during her senior year. But her father's been posted as Ambassador to Pharlandzi, a rival Mermaid kingdom, and no amount of whining or pleading is going to change the inevitable: Marella is leaving her school and all of her friends behind to swim in strange waters. As an ambassador's daughter, she's expected to abide by certain codes, know all the etiquette, curtsy to the right people, and bite her tongue around others. But that tongue of hers has always gotten herself in trouble, and now she's in too deep--fighting for her life deep. She doesn't know who submitted her name into this challenge, but the one thing she knows? It's death, or victory, and her father didn't raise a loser. She'll come back a dragon-riding warrior, or not at all. With no friends, little time to prepare, and death lurking in the shadows, will her limited training be enough to keep her alive?