Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (21 page)

With a casual wave, the naiader dissipated into the air and moved his molecules from the Castle to wherever he called home.

Lathyr waited by the window all night, watching as Kiri curled and stretched, curled again, woke and half dozed and swam. After a while she reverted from a tailed mer to the legged form with hardscale, and a couple of hours after that her skin turned back to its original color and texture and she became human.

Amber dropped by early the next morning. She gazed at the human Kiri. “Can you get her out of the water?”

“Why?” he asked, feeling sluggish from lack of sleep.

“She’ll be frightened if she wakes up surrounded by water. She’ll think she’s drowning. You should take her out now.”

“Her bilungs—”

“Won’t they automatically change?”

They should. Lathyr could only hope.

“I really think you should get her out of there,” Amber insisted.

Lathyr should run the idea by Jenni, but now he was more certain of his contribution to the project, of himself and his worth. “Very well.” Slowly he drained most of the water and when the chamber contained only a meter, he went into the tank, held Kiri close, then rose with her into the air.

Her breath caught. Stopped.

He waited, counting off the seconds. No more than twelve before he’d decide whether to return her to the water or try to force the air-breathing part of her bilungs to work.

She coughed, coughed again, sucked in loud and noisy breaths. Something a mer would not do. Were her bilungs good?

She clung to him and he prayed she would not drown in air.

One more cough, then her eyes opened and she blinked and the nictitating lids went away and her befuddled gaze was the same sea-green he’d always admired.

“Lathyr? I had a dream—”

“You are naiad, Waterfolk, Lightfolk,” he said.

Chapter 22

“YAY!” A MUFFLED
woman’s shout hit Kiri’s ears and she blinked again. Her eyes...felt funny, and sounds to her ears had a funny tone, too. She’d thought she’d heard other noises and voices and conversations, but couldn’t recall them.

She coughed again, throat raw and burning, felt wobbly. Lathyr steadied her and she realized she was plastered against him. He didn’t seem to mind.

Lathyr, ritual.

“You okay, Kiri?” Amber shouted.

Lathyr, ritual, Amber.

“You breathing?” Amber insisted.

Lathyr, ritual, Amber and breathing. Kiri drew in a deep breath, the pain in her throat easing. She looked up at Lathyr, his pale blue face, his slightly pointed ears, his green hair. His chest was harder than muscle and skin against hers.

Lathyr, ritual, Amber, breathing
. Lathyr Lightfolk merman!

Knowledge slammed down on her, even as water lapped around her legs. Holding on to his biceps, she looked down at herself.

She was naked, her body the same.

“Whew,” Amber said, in a loud voice. She waved at Kiri through a round window. “Good to see you’re doing good after spending most of yesterday afternoon and all night in the water.”

A day and a half in the water? Kiri’s toes weren’t even wrinkly. “I made it.” She gripped Lathyr harder. “Say it again, what you did before, when I just woke up!” She had to hear the words, had to have them thrum against her ears.

“You are naiad, Waterfolk, Lightfolk,” he repeated.

“I made it.”

“Yes,” Lathyr said.

“I don’t feel any different.”

“You are,” Amber said.

“You are in your human form,” Lathyr said. He bent so his mouth was close to her ear. “Are you pleased?”

“Hell, yes.” Kiri slid her feet in a small boogie. She didn’t slip.

“We are in the saltwater tank in the Castle,” Lathyr said precisely, as he helped her through a large porthole.

“I didn’t even know there was a saltwater tank in the Castle,” she said.

Amber grabbed Kiri and hugged her hard—differently than Shannon, but Kiri’s eyes stung all the same.

“Thank God,” Amber said. She stepped back and grabbed a lush terry robe from a browniefem and helped Kiri into it while Lathyr closed the door.

“Do you recall the Water Realm banishing spell from Transformation?” asked Lathyr.

It took a minute to call up the gesture and the words. “Uh, yeah.”

“Send the water into the air or the earth.”

Magic. Her first real magic. Pressing her lips together, Kiri turned to face the tank and visualized the finger-flexing and hand-waving a couple of times before she tried.

It worked! The remaining water vanished.

Kiri gasped.

“Excellent!” Amber said.

“I guess.” Kiri felt a little dizzy.

Lathyr pulled her arm through his elbow. “You need food and water.”

“I’ll have breakfast with you,” Amber said.

“Great,” Kiri said faintly. She felt the magic around her, inside her, had used it, and that had tingled, but she wasn’t as changed as she’d expected. And she was a naiad, not a mer or an elf.

Lathyr guided her up the wide stairs, and a brownieman ushered them into the breakfast nook on the ground floor in one of the turrets, with a view of the gardens.

Well, at least she wasn’t a brownie—that had been a fear. And she wasn’t a dwarf.

* * *

Kiri was eating scrambled eggs Florentine when Jenni bustled in, a wide grin on her face. She bent down and kissed Kiri on the cheek. “Welcome to the Lightfolk.”

“Thanks.”

“We believe that you should stay here at the Castle where Lathyr can keep an eye on you,” Jenni went on. “If you’d turned djinn or dwarf, you would have stayed with me.”

“Oh.” A twinge went through Kiri at the thought of not being in her own little house, her own bed. She tried to think logically. “So I’m a naiad. Do you, like, measure my magic or what, first?”

But Jenni was shaking her head. “I think your magic is still, um, flickering into a flame inside you. We’ll wait. Isn’t like we’ve done this before.”

“All right.” Kiri looked at Lathyr. “What first?”

He put down his napkin. “Forms,” he said.

“Forms?”

“A Waterfolk has various forms. Full mer with tail.”

She’d missed having her tail! Dammit. “Forms like in the game.”

“That’s right. You need to practice your forms and your breathing.”

Kiri sighed. What had she expected, zooming through the ocean and playing with dolphins? Despite all the time she’d taken to make her decision, she hadn’t quite imagined the immediate afterward of her transformation.

“Okay.”

“Eventually you will be presented to the Lightfolk royals,” Jenni said. “The four elemental couples, the Eight.”

Eight Corp. Now it all made sense.

“Okay.”

“You’ll do great,” Jenni said in those cheerleader tones she’d used all through the project.

And Kiri felt better for eating. Magic really did wash through her. She managed a big grin back. “Yeah, I will.”

* * *

Later she stood in human form, naked with Lathyr in the shallow end of the pool. The water only came up to her knees and she was all too aware of her nudity, but Lathyr seemed to be all right with having no clothes on. At least he wasn’t reacting to her as if she were attractive to him, and she shouldn’t be thinking of sex.

She kept her eyes on his face...well, no lower than his chest...after she’d given him a quick check-out to see that he was human despite the pale blue skin and the pointy ears. She’d been right about the ears all along.

“Listen to me, Kiri,” Lathyr said patiently and she met his eyes as her gaze traveled back up. She thought his lips held a satisfied curve.

She swallowed. “Listening.”

“We have four forms.”

“Whoa.”

He chuckled.

“Human form, as I am.”

“Your skin is blue.”

“That it is,” he replied austerely. “An outer manifestation of my elemental magic nature. Just as Jenni’s skin is reddish and Aric’s has a tint of green.”

Words escaped Kiri as she understood that she’d been blind to so much around the Circle. She wondered about the other inhabitants, but wouldn’t ask.

“Kiri?”

She wet her lips, more from nerves than need. She seemed to have more spit in her mouth. If she thought about it, she could sense water from the pool penetrating her skin and going...somewhere. Plumping her tissues?

“Our form that you will feel most comfortable with is human,” Lathyr said, as if he knew her mind wandered. “Our second form is legged-mer with hardscale.”

Before she could ask anything, he’d turned
different
. She’d felt the spike of magic that made him
other
. His skin became more like tiny scales, and there was a raised pattern on his scales on both torso and legs, most beautiful. And that part of him that she’d been distracted by and was
not
looking at, was gone behind a bulge, nicely protected?

“Do you have an anatomy book of mer forms?” she asked.

He appeared surprised, but grinned, tilted his head toward the front of the house. “There may be one in the library.”

“Okay.”

“Now you try.”

“Wait, I want to see the differences.” She stared at him. His fingers were longer, with an extra joint, there were fins along his arms and the backs of his legs. He spread his fingers and she saw they were webbed and as she watched, hard nails extruded into claws. Looking down at his feet through the clear and still water, she saw they were also longer, webbed and clawed.

“Awesome,” she said doubtfully.

He shook his head, still smiling, and turned.

His back and butt and legs looked the same except for the fins on his legs and spine.

He swam a few strokes, his shoulder-length green—hair? plant fronds?—floating around his head. His facial structure had stayed the same.

Just like the game.

With just his head above water, not doing any paddling or anything to stay afloat despite his muscular mass, he said, “And there is full mer.” He ducked underwater and became a merman, complete with long fishtail ending in a double fin with more webbing between it. A beautiful blue-green-silver glittery tail. Sexy.

He had the same pattern on his tail as he’d had on his legs, only more complete. And when he flipped and zoomed around the pool, he was breathtakingly beautiful in his grace. He seemed longer as a full mer than he was tall as a man. Looking at the tail, it was obvious there were no legs in there, pure fish structure.

Kiri swallowed again. Fish hadn’t been her favorite thing.

But she loved the koi.

Lathyr stopped just beyond her, bobbing chest high in the water. She’d been wrong about his face. It had subtly altered, and there was tiny, delicate webbing around his nostrils. Inside?

So many questions—that she could find answers for herself if she tried to change. She
knew
she’d been legged-mer, and full-mer earlier, just after the transformation.

And why was she delaying? She was a
magical
being! She’d wanted this.

Despite all logic, she’d wanted to be an elf.

Instead she was a naiad. And that was really cool. Really.

“Think of your magical power,” Lathyr said, his voice lilting more, with undertones she could hear that humans—or even other elemental beings—might not be able to distinguish.

Lovely tones. She could be a beautiful mermaid—naiad, she corrected.

And she couldn’t go back.

She closed her eyes and
felt
her magic, huge and liquid and wonderful. She had this, more senses, the ability to do wondrous things, experience fabulous adventures unknown to humankind.

Smiling, she let the sense of her own magical power infuse her,
felt
it all along her skin, in her tissue, blood, bones. She
was
magical. She’d fought to become magic, to have such power, to be able to
use
it.

Whether she’d anticipated it or not, she was Waterfolk, mer, a naiad. Her smile widened as water lapped around her legs, as she sensed each droplet in the air around her, some even lying on wide-leafed plants, and being sucked up.

The heat of fire, the rich scent of earth, the soft press of air magic, all balanced, enveloped her. To be magical, to be naiad, was a very good thing.

“You have changed to your legged-mer form,” Lathyr said softly.

She opened her eyes and looked down. She hadn’t truly
experienced
the change, but now that she thought back, she recalled the fizz along her skin. And she felt different. Like his sex, hers was protected behind a fold of skin. Her nipples, too, were covered, as if she’d grown another skin-with-scales over her body. She felt slightly heavier. Sucking in her breath, she caught a fluttering around her nose. Those little curtains of web!

Slowly she touched the pad of her light-blue-skinned, longer finger to them.

“Nostril frills,” Lathyr said.

“Pretty.”

“You are exquisitely beautiful,” he whispered.

Kiri blinked, and another lid came over her eyes, one she could see through. She squealed, lost her balance and fell into the water.

Lathyr was there, taking her hand and drawing her into the deep section of the pool. Her hair had extended again, and caressed her all the way down to her waist, emerald fronds.

She angled up to take a breath, and he shook his head.

Can you hear me, Kiri?
His voice came into her mind.

Startled, she backpaddled, then nodded strongly.

That is good. Now you must become accustomed to your bilungs.

Once again Kiri thought of an anatomy book.
Bilungs?
She thought the question at Lathyr, in what she hoped was a normal tone of “voice.”

Lungs that will take what you need from the air...or the water. Bifunctional.

“Uh-huh,” she said, and the sounds warped and escaped on bubbles and she got water in her mouth and went quiet with incipient panic.

Don’t think about breathing, just do it. Your lungs will adjust.

She didn’t see how. Almost couldn’t believe him, but had those murky recollections of being in the tank—and she couldn’t afford to
disbelieve
or panic.

Should I, should I open my mouth?
she asked.

Swim with me, lovely Kiri.
He took her hand and drew her down to the bottom of the pool. She gasped, shuddered. Trembled.

Breathed.

She kept her mouth slightly open. Probably looked odd, but it seemed to feel better...for right now. They swam slowly, then to the middle of the pool, Kiri looked down and colors there were no names for exploded into view. The pool bottom wasn’t white, like she’d thought. There was neon-purple-silver, red-violet-shining-blue, and as she stared, the pattern became a mural.

This is wonderful!
She dropped his hand and sank closer...and curled her tail under her.

At the sight, she gobbled water, spewed, her lungs—bilungs—compressed, trapping water, air,
stuff
.

Lathyr swam close, drew her into his arms, turning her head against his chest.
Breathe. Yes, you are full mer with tail. Breathe with me. One-two-three.

She did, and felt his tail brush hers...not quite sensual, or sexual, but made her very aware of her own, wide and muscular at the hips and strong all the way down, but so flexible. She felt powerful. Her beautifully curved and delicate fin at the end of her tail wiggled. She had a tail! Eeek!

You are exquisitely Kiri. Breathe with me. One-two-three.

Exquisitely Kiri. She liked that, smiled wide and water went in and out of her mouth, necessary air went in and out of her lungs. Impossible? Or only possible with magic? Probably, but she
was
magic. She angled her tail to see it. Darker green than Lathyr’s, as her hair was darker.

Breathe with me. One-two-three.

She hadn’t needed the last reminder from him, breathed on her own fine, now, but bent her tail up close.
I don’t have a pattern,
she projected her thoughts.