Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (27 page)

Jenni grimaced. “This is the United States.”

Lathyr shrugged again, began changing to his water droplet form feet up, keeping his weapons close. “I will find you in six hours, near the shore of the Mississippi.”

“How fast will you be going?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know the current, my magic here, what I will face. I don’t know how quickly Kiri progresses, either.”

Surely he’d be able to find her. Please the great Pearl. “I’ll meet with you in six hours.” That would be full dark, but after the evening activity settled and before the night hours truly began.

“Right,” she said. “Later.”

He gave in to fear for Kiri, need for her, moved quickly to the river, plunged in. His form shifted to full mer with tail, and he sensed others around, naiads and naiaders, even some with power—not as strong as he, and none who would challenge him.

Not him, but what of Kiri?

Chapter 28

NOW AND AGAIN
Kiri’s form shifted...and when it did, and her mind came back online, she understood that something was happening with her scales, like being etched. With new experiences? Because she was using her new magic all the time?

She didn’t know, and logic and thought faded as she followed the growing lively-song-smell-energizing-touch-LIFE-taste component of the river that continued to draw her.

A naiader got in her face.

You trespass.

She could barely understand him mentally, his water accent was so strong, and she didn’t like the arrogance in his tone.

Pay fee,
he said, swimming close to her and his long and grubby nostril frills fluttered as he sniffed her.
Smell good magic. Nice. FRESH.
He smacked his lips.
Tasty.
Then he circled her, sniffing!

She didn’t know if it was an offense, but she chose to be offended. She dove deeper, down to the muddy bottom of the river that concealed interesting shapes and smells and sensations of ancient times and peoples—humans.

Pay!
He grabbed her arm.

Reflexively her sharp fins deployed, cutting his fingers, dark gobbets of blood joined the water. She swam fast.

The naiader looked surprised, then his face contorted into anger.
You. Will. Pay.
Flicking out a hand, he caught her on her tail fin and the pain was nothing like she’d felt before, nothing she could describe as a human—searing, stinging—as if delicate tissues were beaten with a bat, sliced. She gasped in water and river bottom and doubled up. He laughed and swam closer, sliding a palm down her hip around to curve her tail. No! She shot away in a spurt that left churning water and nasty man behind. Fast, fast, faster!

Until she got tangled in tree branches and came to an abrupt stop, thumping against a thick trunk that took all her air.

* * *

Lathyr had cruised rivers in his time...even partied in some when he was young—the Nile, the Yangtze, the Danube. All had different tastes, but unless his memory was wrong, this American one had more present-human textures than he’d experienced. Perhaps it was only the fact that he was closer to humans, or partial-humans than he’d been before, or paid more attention to human cultural essences than previously.

Because Kiri had been human and that was and would always be a portion of her essence, and he stretched to find the scent-sensation-signature that he occasionally caught a wisp of. He swam deep, with the fastest current, but still very aware that he seemed far behind her.

If she turned out to be a river naiad, she would of course move faster than he, who was essentially an oceanic merman. And this was her native land, so she would feel comfortable here. Though she was so damn
new
as Merfolk, appearing adult, yet without any of the experiences in growing up as Waterfolk...hardly able to change from form to form without thought. She didn’t know common Waterfolk speech—
either telepathically or the hand signing, or the esoteric writing in water.

She didn’t know manners.

There! There, wasn’t that her essence? Just a slither of a molecule of new-mer-Kiri-human-DENVER. Denver?

But Denver was dry, and now the greatest river in the land enveloped her.

Lathyr went faster, speeding by shallows’ naiads and naiaders in backwaters, in joinings of tributaries, not wanting to stop to ask of Kiri, not wanting to notify the more predatory of this river society that a prized one was lost.

He had to believe he’d find her before anything dreadful happened to her; to think otherwise would break his heart.

His heart. How had he come to love Kiri?

Her scent! With anger and pain and trailing fear. The trace older than he’d hoped. He spurred himself onward.

* * *

Kiri gasped and thrashed, turned legged and still fought the branches that trapped her, caught in her now-long hair, tangling it. Twigs and branchlets poked her, scraped her face with rough ends she’d broken. Air!

And she heard Lathyr’s voice, from her first memories as a mer.

Do not THINK of breathing, just do it.

But she couldn’t. Her lungs seized.

Not lungs, bilungs. Visualize them. Water in, siphon the air. Siphon oxygen from water!

Here, you, what are you doing there!
Unkind laughter followed the thought from a portly naiad. She was coming near, though Kiri couldn’t see her swimming. Something seemed wrong with Kiri’s eyes, too.

There was a tug and a branch ripped away, along with her hair. Louder laughter now, mocking
. By the Pearl, the shallows’ naiads get stupider every day.

A cold, too-long-fingered hand curved over Kiri’s shoulder, squeezed hard. And the smell! She didn’t like the odor of the naiad—merfem?—oily, fishy. Eeew. Completely masked the strange and wonderful fragrance-sensation Kiri’d been following, that had lured her.

She couldn’t lose it! And she couldn’t bear the waterfem’s clawlike fingernails piercing her skin.

What a finling.
The waterfem chuffed laughter and the breath she expelled hit Kiri in the face and it was too much and she let go...just let go of her form. Let herself intermingle with the water—stagnant water, here—and
pushed
toward the fast, free-flowing clean current that had swept her here and now would sweep her away.

By the Pearl. You SPRAT, you will DIE.

But she didn’t think so, didn’t care now that she discovered the wondrous scent again.

Too stupid to live,
were the last words she heard as she let herself subsume into the current, keeping only the lightest awareness of herself.

Finally her energy drained, and though she wanted to continue to follow the lure of the song, the scent, she knew she must stop. The water began to feel cold, and she’d learned that was a bad sign in Maroon Lake. She didn’t have the magic and energy to keep warm. Not good.

The first time she tried to solidify, she couldn’t and panic spurted through her.
Breathe.
She wouldn’t die, she
wouldn’t.
Wouldn’t waste all the time and energy Lathyr and Jenni and others had given to this project. Wouldn’t prove that humans were too fragile or stupid to transform into Lightfolk.

But it hurt to gather herself back together, as if instead of being all spread out in a zillion molecules, she had hunched into the smallest fetal ball she could make of herself, had stayed that way until her muscles had stiffened, and tiny movement stretched each cramped thread of her, shooting pain.

After long moments she became legged-mer—easier for her to visualize and she flailed in the water, bilungs pumping. Had to allow the current to drift her toward another, equally smelly, stagnant backwater. And she had to stay legged-mer, she had no energy or magic to become human or tailed or even construct a protective bubble around her with a magical spell.

And she found that the water was dark with night and she couldn’t see the sky.

And that she could still cry, tasting salty tears on her lips from sheer fatigue.

* * *

The river rolled on and took Lathyr with it. No time to appreciate its beauty. Every moment he strained his senses to find Kiri. He had to accept as usual that he would only find a minuscule vestige of her. After six hours, he surfaced and sent his magic questing up and down the riverbanks. He didn’t find Jenni, but did sense her husband, Aric. That one could travel faster and with less expenditure of energy since he was totally magic.

Aric was several hours behind Lathyr as the river flowed. With a lightly bubbled sigh, Lathyr
flicked
to the location.

He strode from the river as human. Instead of clothing himself with illusion, Lathyr took the boxers, jeans and soft cotton sweatshirt Aric offered and donned them before he chilled from being in his human skin. He’d expended too much energy to keep him warm in such thin skin.

“Any news?” He croaked the English words, neither his throat nor his mind used to the language.

“Jenni’s talking with the minor royals, hoping a Princess or Prince of Water will help.”

The royal couple had had no children, but a few cousins of the king were scattered in their smaller palaces in the oceans of earth.

“Where?” Lathyr asked blankly.

Aric smiled with satisfaction. “The great Water Palace in the Pacific.”

Lathyr raised his brows and Aric laughed. “She’s been wanting to go there for a while, and now she is.”

“Must be a little uncomfortable for a Fire Princess.”

Aric shrugged a shoulder, angled his chin at Lathyr’s pointed ears. “Though Jenni’s fire nature is most evident, she’s a quarter-elf and half-human.”

“She acts like a Fire Princess,” Lathyr said.

“She has to, and she was adopted by the royal Emberdrakes, since they were distant relations.” That reminded Lathyr that he shared blood with the Water Queen, which yet felt odd. Strange enough that he wouldn’t talk to the Treeman about it. Didn’t know anyone he could share the news with except Kiri, and that felt lonely.

He strode up the riverbank and followed Aric to a place where the Treeman had parked a luxury car.

“Let’s talk about this over dinner. Jenni will be meeting us.” Aric scanned him. “You need more fuel...you’re too pale.”

Lathyr shrugged, but when he thought of Kiri, his stomach squeezed. He’d eaten absently as he’d searched for her. “I didn’t teach her how to hunt fish and eat.”

Driving, Aric slid him a glance. “That’s all right, the Maroon Lake naiader did, or did you forget?”

He had, since he hadn’t been allowed in the lake. “Doesn’t mean she will be good at it,” he muttered.

“Hunger is a good teacher.” But Aric’s jaw had firmed.

Aric and he hadn’t been in the restaurant long before Jenni turned up with a merfem, as tall as Jenni and voluptuous in the manner of Waterfolk women. Talk stopped in the place when they appeared. Lathyr, who had been drilled in formal European manners, stood and bowed to each, which broke the silence and caused the room to buzz with talk.

The merfem ignored him, and he thought it better for their cause, for Kiri, to remove his plate and flatware to a table close to the royals’ booth, which caused raised brows from the staff, but little comment. Lathyr figured it was because of the wealth they displayed with rich clothes, and both women wore jewels.

He was close enough to hear Jenni’s summary to Aric. He hadn’t often met Princess Whitefroth, but knew of her. She was the princess of the North American continent and lived in one of the great lakes, was magically powerful, and was estranged from the Water King, all to the good. The North American Waterfolk should follow her orders, even those of the huge Mississippi. He wondered what Jenni was paying her.

Whitefroth would send out a call for those who had seen or interacted with Kiri, offering a reward of gold nuggets, and punishment for failure to report. Without sparing a glance toward Lathyr, the merfem stated that “the tainted-blood merman would interface for her.” She sounded smug at that, as if she’d been put out to think of interacting with the riverfolk herself.

“So you will only send out the call?” Jenni asked, as soon as the waitress took her order for blackened catfish.

The merfem’s nostrils pinched; her frills would have deployed had she been underwater. “I will enter the river and lay a
compulsion
that all must follow or sicken.”

Jenni’s mouth dropped open. “Sicken?”

Whitefroth rolled her hand. “You want results, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Jenni stared penetratingly at Lathyr, as if trying to speak mentally.

He looked down at his plate and said, “One would only be sick.” But a sick naiad in such a predatory place as the main river...even he wouldn’t care to chance it, though a native merfem or merman might—if they resisted the offer of gold. “However, to remove the binding that caused the sickness, one would have to request that in the presence of the great lady who set the compulsion.”

Jenni hissed between her teeth. Firefolk hissed very well. The Water Princess drew back against the cushions of the leather booth, but snapped, “Do not threaten me!”

Jenni lifted cinnamon-colored brows. “I don’t. But do not think me,
us,
weak.”

Half-breed,
Princess Whitefroth sneered mentally to Lathyr. He did not reply, but popped another piece of steak into his mouth. He’d developed a taste for beef in Colorado.

The Water Princess didn’t speak directly to him again until they stood on the bank of the river. Like most major rivers of the world, it was awesome. Her gaze swung to him. “There will not only be naiads and naiaders in this river, but some true merfems and mermen.”

He nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.” Keeping his head low but his eyes on hers, he said, “The new naiad went into the river some miles upstream, so your compulsion need only be sent down the river.” The length was significant.

Her lips tightened at the effort it would take to roll out a compulsion, but she nodded and dropped the illusion of clothes, though she still wore her diamond jewelry. Jenni’s gems sparkled in the moonlight, too.

Slipping into the river, she changed into tailed shape, her skin a pale blue-green, her long hair the same color, and the pattern of her scales curves and whorls, ridges pure green.

Not more than one or two angles on her pattern, not as powerful as he’d thought, which surprised him.

Because he didn’t wish to be subject to her compulsion, Lathyr stayed well out of the water. Whitefroth glittered and gleamed as she swam to the strongest current, then held herself there.

She opened her mouth, formed an image and essence shape of Kiri and sang the compulsion. “See this naiad, come to me, reward or punishment will reveal thee.” Lathyr saw the force of the spell ripple the large breadth of the river and continue downstream. He was impressed.

So he shucked his clothes and converted to full tailed merman and swam to the merfem. Whitefroth struggled to stay in place in the current that gave him no trouble, surprising him, but he knew she wouldn’t accept physical help. He formed a bubble around her, steadying her, and did the same for himself so she wouldn’t see that a despised one had more power.