Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (30 page)

Look what the winds and waves have brought us,
a merfem bubbled in such a way that it sounded like a cruel purr to Kiri.
A lost river mer. Let’s play twist her tail.
The merfem smiled with awesomely jagged teeth.
Off. Twist her tail off.

Kiri knew that was literal. The merfem had noted the merman’s long study of Kiri, of scales on her body that had raised and begun to take on a tint in ragged spots, splotchy bits. They didn’t look anything like a pattern. Naiads didn’t have patterns. She scanned the beautiful designs these mers showed. Nope, they were mers and she was a naiad.

She didn’t know how to fight, but she’d do her best. How she wished she’d spent more time in the Water Realm. But she hadn’t known magic was a reality.

Her mind skittered. Was there any way she could call for magical help and not alert those before her...send her mind out on a different frequency maybe? Low or high?

She didn’t know, but in her fear she
reached
for magic, sent a yell for help in as high a tone as she could make it, then as low.

The mers laughed and the merman rolled his shoulders. She wasn’t sure whether they’d heard her or not.
Hardly worth bothering about.
His lip curled and when he tossed his head his long hair caressed the cheek of the merfem.
She’s yours to play with, Flawn.
He backswam, then watched with amusement as the others of his band closed around her.

Slowly, then. She will give us much sport,
the merfem said.

They circled, poked, threatened, teasing and playing with Kiri before the kill. And she knew they’d kill her. She was too strange and different. She smelled of naiad, and the river, and salt and magic. She was sure that the fragrance of her magic was foreign and from their wrinkled noses, not an odor they cared for.

A long, cylindrical shape sticking out of the side of an ocean wall caught her eye. She grabbed it, tugged. More laughter.

It’s too stuck to use,
Flawn mocked.

But Kiri put her power into it, her panic, her magic and yanked. The thing came free and she tumbled head over tail.

More laughter, but edgy now.

She had a weapon, even though it turned in her hand, flaky with rust.

Let’s finish this,
Flawn said.

Chapter 31

KIRI’S MIND SPARKED
with thoughts fast with fear. Remember fighting in the Water Realm. Think of this as a game. Calculate the drag on the pipe, the power to put behind the swing. Angle
there.
Swim so back is against that shelf wall. Aim for Flawn and the other two most aggressive, leave those hanging back alone. Don’t aggro—aggravate—them. Don’t make them enemies. Leader guy might not follow up if not too much damage is done. Hit, make a hole in their defenses, run through them when disorganized.

She held her staff like a bat, a metal rod of about five feet, just the right thickness for her to grab well. Clenching her jaw, she formed a bubble around herself...and Flawn hesitated. Why? No matter.

Kiri watched the merfem’s eyes, her body language, to gauge when to swing.

Then a keening alarm came from the rear and the group scattered.

A great swarm of stingrays, swimming in formation—blacker than anything she’d seen—black with
evil
against the surface of the water zoomed into view ahead of her

Ha!
gloated a shapeless form of pure darkness riding the largest stingray.
I have found you. You escaped me in that hideous building in that horrible inland city, but now my great power discovered your trace and I have found you where I can take you.

The snapping of teeth.
And eat you.

Worse than the alligator. Worse than the mers—who watched from nearby folds in the earth but would not intervene. Fear froze Kiri.

Her rod wobbled in her hands.

She’d go down fighting.

A sweet, sweet sound struck her. Music whispering through her ears, twining down into her very heart, bucking her up. Someone came in response to her call.

Some
ones.
More than the group of stingrays. More than the band of mers—who she heard whispering among themselves, their thoughts impinging and bouncing away from her mind.

Tis Twilight Hope’s pod,
a merman said.

Why would they come? Here? Now? For that THING
? Contempt from Flawn.

She is different than we,
said the alpha male.

An almost human snort with words Kiri translated as the sarcastic,
You think?

The music became so unbearably lovely that Kiri shuddered. It drew her, demanded that she respond.

She raised her arms and
sang
with her naiad’s voice, tones and musical scales.

And she moved, tail swirling, torso dipping, whisking figures in the water, gathered magic around her, fisted in her hands. Yelling with triumph she released it—straight at the dark ugliness.

Stingrays flapped and keened as if they hurt.

No! Stop! No!
ordered the evil Dark one.

The singing increased and she was surrounded by dolphins.

And the stingrays blew apart as if they’d been only illusion or formed of evil thoughts or nothing of this earth or dimension.

But the chill of the evil one yelling and cursing shoved thought and fear back into Kiri’s mind until he disappeared, too. Yet he left a threat against her that smeared her like spilled oil.
I will EAT you, you mutation. Soon.

Joy at the dolphins, fear at the threat mixed, emotions overwhelming her.

And her scales itched and stung all along her torso, front and back, and edging her spine and tail, as if using her magic had marked her.

Lathyr
appeared,
displacing a volume of water, just in front of her. The local mers converged on them. And Kiri tasted salt again, from the ocean around her and the tears that had started to her eyes and mixed with the sea.

Her lover held out his arms—an offering, but no demand. She swam into them and they hugged her tight against a body she knew that gave her bone-deep comfort.

Dear Kiri,
he whispered next to her ear.
You are safe.

A near thing, the dolphins saved me,
she said.

Part of your magic, I think,
Lathyr said. He looked at them swimming around her.
They sense emotions, so project your gratitude.

She did, mixed it with awe at their beauty, appreciation for their singing. And she received a wash of affection back as they danced and leaped, then swam away.

Luckily we only caught the edge of the hurricane,
Lathyr said, then slid his hands down her arms, folding her fins flat. That gave her pleasurable shivers.
You’re developing a scale pattern, Kiri, look at yourself.

She could see the angles on the top of her breasts, brushed the raised scales with her fingers, shivered again. The design was barely tinted differently than her skin. Everyone else had a distinctively colored pattern. She wondered if hers would change.

None of us knew,
Lathyr said.
None of us imagined you held enough magic to ally with a dolphin pod. That you were not naiad.

Not naiad,
Kiri repeated.

Not naiad but full merfem. You were just born without a pattern, and full mers are born with designs on their scales. But you had no mer blood family background to show in your scales—you had to develop the pattern with your magic yourself
.

Wow,
she said, blinking both lids to comprehend.

Lathyr smiled, met her gaze with his dark and serious one.
You are a greater elemental being, and one who needs the ocean. Your physical deterioration would have stopped once you, an oceanic merfem, reached the sea.

As Kiri struggled with the fact that she was an oceanic merfem, he turned to the other mers and executed one of his fancy bows. Flawn eyed him with approval.

Yeah, he sure was a beautiful merman. Not as chunky as the local leader, more refined. Classier.

Lathyr stood—somehow, okay he was upright not angled—projecting a confidence that bordered on noble arrogance. With hand signs and mental telepathy, he said,
The only good thing you did here was help distract the great Dark one.

A Dark one!
a merfem squealed and vanished with a flick of the tail, along with the rest of the band except the leader and Flawn. Even they paled and trembled.

I am authorized by the royals to award gold for services rendered to Kiri and myself.
Lathyr shrugged.
You, however, did not show a modicum of hospitality or generosity to Kiri.
Another shruglike gesture that rippled his whole body.
A pity you lost a fortune and the goodwill of the royals by threatening Kiri.
He smiled a shark-sharp smile.
In fact, I’m tempted to report your behavior to the Water King himself.

Now the two seemed to pant with distress.

The guy flourished a bow, not nearly as good at it as Lathyr.
Our deepest apologies to you and her.
He didn’t look at Kiri, but did shoot a glance at Flawn.
You’re on your own.
He dissipated into the water.

Lathyr’s nostril frills closed as if he smelled something bad and he raised his brows at Flawn, who hunched over in terror. Kiri got the impression he was holding her there.

As for you. One should not assume strangers have no friends that will call you to account for torment.

Hands moving in a blur he compressed water into a tight, hard ball about the size of two fists and shot it at Flawn, hitting the sensitive webbing of her tail. She screamed and disappeared.

Lathyr?
Kiri questioned. His face had set and showed little but he emanated fury.

An aura of light flared from him, then he turned and his eyes showed guilt.

They scared you...they should be frightened themselves. They were going to kill you.

She didn’t know good mer body language so she just lifted her chin.
They were going to try.

She got a faint smile.

I was too late. I lost you. I didn’t protect you.

I didn’t stay for you. Didn’t talk to you. I was stupid.

Shhh.
He pulled her close again, and their tails bumped. Kiri recalled how much hers had hurt when injured.
What about Flawn’s tail?

It will heal, not even scar. Her community should take care of her.

Kiri wasn’t sure of that, but let it go.

They floated for a few minutes, before he said,
We have been summoned by the Eight and the closest palace is in what you call the Puerto Rican Trench.

She hadn’t even known there was a sea trench near Puerto Rico. She was still sorting out what and who she was when he moved fast through the water in a way she hadn’t learned—too fast for Maroon Lake. They seemed to teleport, and as she caught her breath, they hovered outside a gorgeous palace that looked like it was built of glass or clear crystal.

In the ocean. And deep, if she read the pressure around her well.

A few glass spires rose above them, though the wings of the palace made it look more horizontal than vertical, reminding Kiri of several glass conservatories mixed together. Oddly charming.

Lathyr twirled her so he was behind her, his arms wrapped around her, in legged-mer form. So she turned legged-mer, too, easily.

Other mers swam near in various forms; she even sensed some dispersed in the water. The palace seemed a busy place. In a mental tone that Kiri believed only she could hear, he said,
I will take you to the door outside the royal audience chamber.

She clutched at him.
Stay with me!

Of course.
His telepathic voice became tender.
I will not leave you, Kiri.

No, because he’d been abandoned himself. And, deep inside, had she felt that way, too? She’d been older when her parents had established their second families and seemed to squeeze her out, but had she thought they’d abandoned her? Maybe.

I won’t leave you, either,
she said.

And she sensed his emotions, clearer and more intimate than the dolphins, a huge rush of delight and tenderness.

Then they were inside the palace and it was dry and her bilungs pumped hard as she gasped for air.

Lathyr eased his hold on her. “Don’t think about it, just—”

“Breathe,” Kiri said at the same time he did.

“I should have told you we were going to the air atmosphere portion of the palace.”

Another wet and sucking breath, a couple of pants, and she could answer. “I should have figured that out. Royal audience chamber and summoned by the Eight means all the royals and that includes all the other elemental royals, none of whom live underwater. Right?”

“Right.”

Breathing easily now, she noticed the opaque crystal glass door in front of her. Tall naiader guards in two-legged form stood on each side. They wore additional armor and held long tridents.

“Wait!” someone called in a high-pitched voice and Kiri blinked at the sight of Mystic Circle Castle’s browniefem Melody hustling toward them with a bundle of material in her arms.

Before Kiri could ask the woman what she was doing here, Melody had flipped a long green cut-velvet scarf thing around Kiri, handed a blue one to Lathyr.

The browniefem’s ears flexed. “Good I brought a ruana. You have mer pattern skin. This good garment for you. Mers prideful of their designs. Like to show.”

Melody sniffed and twitched at the garment that had fringe sticking to Kiri’s damp scales. With a deep breath, she drew all water from the surface of her skin, puddled around her and Lathyr, and the cloth.

Little browniefem fingers adjusted as the woman exclaimed in satisfaction. “You look good now. Ready for the audience.”

Melody stepped back, and back...and into the wall of the corridor.

Kiri gaped.

Trident butts thumped against the floor, drawing her attention back to the guards. They moved toward the two leaves of the door and opened it.

Lathyr slipped her hand onto his arm.

A naiad’s high voice called out. “Attention, the transformed human, Kiri Palger of Denver, United States, and Lathyr Tricurrent of Trobriand Trough.”

The buzz from the voices of about thirty people in the large room faded abruptly and everyone stared at her. Kiri felt like a freak.

Lathyr put his other hand on hers, squeezed her fingers, then removed that hand.
You are beautiful and magical and merfem. Know that.

Kiri straightened her spine and used every smidgen of grace she had to look like she glided across the marble floor.

The chamber was deep in the side of the trench, not close to any of the glass windows, and Kiri got the idea that it wasn’t used much. On each side of the door were huge fireplaces crackling with fire-eating great logs.

A mural on the far wall appeared to look out on an airy view...a cliff showing an ocean beneath...with storm clouds and lightning in the far corner. She narrowed her eyes since it reminded her of scenery in the game, Transformation.

No one stood within ten feet of the eight thrones.

This is not one of the major Water Palaces
, Lathyr reminded her.
So this room is kept for the royals only. It is the most secure room in the place, but less comfortable for us Waterfolk than the rest of the residence.

The rest of the palace is gorgeous,
Kiri admitted.

Lathyr nodded, his expression becoming more immobile with every step he took toward the thrones.

The closest royal couple were djinns, and Kiri kept cutting her gaze toward them since she’d never seen djinns, not even in the game. Their skin was ruddy, maybe even red, their hair was mostly black, though the woman had auburn highlights. Flames seemed to dance in their eyes, flickering with yellow and red and orange. Like all of the Lightfolk, they were exotic and beautiful.

The Fire royals have only been king and queen for a few months. As a couple, they are fairly equal in power and they are the least in magic of the Eight. Of the others, the greatest in magic is the Earth King, then the Water Queen, the Water King, the Earth Queen, the Air King and then the Air Queen.
Lathyr stopped and made a flourishing bow.