Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (26 page)

“Yes. Marin loves his queen and wishes to keep her to himself. One has speculated that they have no children due to the King’s possessiveness, and their current heirs are presumed to be the Seamont couple who live in what the United States humans call the Puerto Rico Trench.”

That explained a few things.

Etesian gave a little cough, also seeming to study his view. “Have you ever seen the Water Queen?”

“Only vaguely, once and recently, as she healed me. I was not in any shape to speak to her.” Lathyr kept his tone idle.

“I believe the percentage of Air elemental magic in her blood is even less than that which you have.”

“No doubt. She is royal.”

“And beloved of the Water King,” Etesian said.

“And beloved of the Water King. Naturally I would not care to irritate the Water King in the slightest.”

“Naturally not.”

“Yet...” Lathyr let the word hang in the silence, turned to meet Etesian’s eyes, knowing that his own gaze had gone very elf-blue. “The Water King did make a point of warning me against being near his lady.”

The elf flicked his fingers, activating a strong privacy spell, and stared directly at Lathyr. “The Water King has been successful in ensuring you remained unknown to Alika all your life, from the moment your mother abandoned you. Shuffling you here and there at his whim. Most of his court know this.”

Lathyr’s breath came a little faster. He hadn’t known that, either. A major effect on his life had been hidden from him all these years. But he would make no move to come to Marin Greendepths’s awareness again. Lathyr’s chest had expanded with...pride. Though he wouldn’t claim the relationship, he wasn’t as alone in the world as he’d thought since his mother had committed suicide by orca.

He put down his cup and stood, bowed formally as a child to an esteemed elder scholar, dropping his gaze. “Knowledge is always treasured,” he said, then looked the old elf in the eyes. “Even if one will never act upon it. I thank you for the very delicious tea.” He wanted to be back with Kiri and all the potential of the future, not dwell on the past.

“You are quite welcome. Anytime.” The elf paused as if he might say something more, shook his head. “You’d best return to your fledgling.”

On impulse, Lathyr asked, “What do you think of that matter?”

A gleam lit the elf’s eyes. “I think it is a very interesting venture.” He made a shooing gesture with his hands. “Be off with you.”

Another nod from Lathyr. “I’ll try to keep these volumes safe.”

Etesian chuckled. “They are old and meant as punishment to bore fledglings. We have all the information on other media.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll see what your new one makes of them, whether she is a curious one who follows through on her curiosity, whether her perusing such old volumes is an indicator of how well a human might make the transformation.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Good to know I can still be useful,” Etesian’s eyes twinkled.

“Thank you again.” One last bow.

* * *

There was a scent...it colored Kiri’s dreams with an iridescent sparkling trail and woke her...to the dimness of a giant, quiet and cool tub in the hotel room. No sound but the beating of her heart...in a different rhythm than she was accustomed to, she noted for the first time since her change. Because she had a different heart? She knew she had different lungs, and different skin, and, wow, cool—tail!—in her naiad form, but heart? She wished she could see an anatomical chart of the Merfolk. Maybe one of the books Lathyr brought her would include that.

If Kiri had anything to say about Things To Be, there would be info—maybe 3-D graphics—for humans who were transformed.

And the fragrance still tempted. She rose from the pool, her tail turning to finned legs without thought this time, and relief washed through her, even as she sloshed up, then out of the tub, becoming fully human again.

“Lathyr?” she called, but knew before the tiles echoed her words that he hadn’t returned. Stargrass wasn’t near, either, but who could blame her? Watching someone else sleep would be boring, and Kiri had succumbed to weariness pretty soon after Lathyr had left.

Kiri walked from the bathroom, and the air didn’t dry her skin as quickly as back home. Stopping before a full-length mirror in the short hallway, she studied herself. Her features were pretty much the same, as was her height, but she’d lost weight.

She recalled the first time she’d logged into Transformation, how hungry she’d been after the game, and how she’d thought burning calories would be a great deal...the true transformation had nearly killed her, but had made her thinner. For the first time in years, her stomach was flat. She frowned. Hadn’t Lathyr disapproved of that?

Well, a nice layer of fat would insulate you from the cold of mountain lakes, she guessed, not that she’d seen any fat on Lathyr or Stoneg or Stargrass.

What
was
that smell? She went into the bedroom, very dark since there was no skylight like there had been above the pool. No light and no Lathyr.

Slipping into clothes—big, but at least comfortingly her own—and shoes, she opened the door to the balcony.

Oh,
yeah!
She wasn’t sure what the fragrance was, but it was wonderful, astringent and herbal and beckoning. Even better than what she recalled magic smelling like when she first whiffed it in the game. She drew in a large breath. Really, not much magic here, and what there was, was Merfolk because they owned and used the hotel.

But with the breath came the
tang
on her tongue. Spicy, vibrant. Lifting her face, she turned in a circle until she caught the scent again, and temptation, and promise. If she followed her nose, she’d come to a fabulous land of delights.

It came from the direction of the river, as if it were one tiny component of the great flow of waters.

A wind kicked up and she fell under glamour again, this time of scent and not any magical being stronger than she. Putting her hands on the railing, she leaped over it. In the second before she lit a story below, her mind cleared with a
what the hell am I doing
instant, then her mass thinned to air-water-droplets and her knees flexed and she landed softly.

The wonderful smell was much stronger here and she was lost in the fragrance of it and she began to run in the direction of the river.

Then she was there and it was big and muddy and smelling of itself—biggest river in the United States, rich with odors from ten states and peoples and cultures and food and fish and a little magic and that teasing, luring smell and in she went, and swam out of her clothes, kicked off her shoes, turning into legged-mer, then tailed-mer, coughing once as her bilungs changed from breathing air to air in water and swimming, swimming, swimming.

Her nose frills unfurled and quivered, bringing more of the scent in a lilting vibration smell-taste, coating
need
along her scaled skin and she went to the fast deep current and let the river whisk her downstream where the scent throbbed in rich lushness.

Chapter 27

LATHYR COALESCED FROM
the air onto the balcony, nose twitching at Kiri’s fragrance. She’d been practicing her forms, good. Hands full of ancient volumes, he shoved the slider open farther with his shoulder, calling, “Kiri!”

No answer.

“Stargrass!” he snapped as he raced through the empty rooms. The pool in the bathroom showed a lower level of water, no drips of water on the floor.

More silence.

Stargrass!

The naiad coalesced on the bed, naked and languorous, smiling with lowered lashes. “Here, Lathyr.”

“Where’s Kiri?”

Stargrass rolled a shoulder, yawned. “In the pool.”

“No.” He dropped the books on the floor, went again to the balcony, stared hard at the faint molecules where Kiri must have stood. “Did you practice forms with her?”

“Bo-ring. She’s in the pool.”

“No. She isn’t. She isn’t in these rooms. Can’t you sense that?”

Stargrass’s thin green brows dipped a little, her lower lip thrust out in a pout. “Seems like the same energy as always.”

He stared. “I didn’t know your power was so low.”

Sitting up angrily, she tossed her hair, strode past him to the bathroom. He followed, crossing his arms. Stargrass looked in the pool. Mouth set in a frown, she thrust her arm in the water, as if Kiri had dispersed into the water and only a touch would solidify her. “She’s not here.” She looked around in confusion.

“Where is she? When was the last time you saw her?”

“I...uh...” The naiad turned, dropping the illusion of clothes over herself. A strained smile flicked on and off her face. “She must be in one of the hotel pools. I’ll check.” She dashed from the room.

Dread squeezing his tissues, Lathyr stepped back onto the balcony, strained to sense Kiri, opened his mouth to try and taste her essential magical flavor. A hint, nothing more, not even a tiny droplet of Kiri.

Humid air near a river—not the best atmosphere for him to trace her—he who usually lived in or by oceans. Below him, a blur caught his attention, Stargrass moving fast in her own native air, checking the entire hotel. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the jamb of the sliding door, pushed his senses out in waves, hoping to touch Kiri. Nothing.

“Stargrass!”

She was back in the room, hunched, diminished. “She is not in the hotel,” Stargrass whispered.

Lathyr’s gut contracted. “Follow her essence.”

Panic came to her gaze. She wet her lips. “I don’t know it.”

He would not let her fear infuse him. “You. Do. Not. Know. Kiri’s. Essence.” He could feel the hair on his neck lifting. “You were assigned to watch her. You have been in her company for several hours and you don’t know the feel of her essence? You didn’t touch her, scan her,
sense
her?”

Her shoulders hunched.

Lathyr crossed to the far end of the balcony, pointed to the faint residue of Kiri’s change to air-water droplets. “There, that’s her trace. Learn it, follow it, and I will follow you.”

“Now?”

“We don’t have much time. If we lose her, I will have to report to Eight Corp.”

Stargrass sniffed in dismissal.

“Do you not know that Eight Corp is the royals?”

The naiad’s eyes rounded, her chest heaved with bellowlike breaths. “No. No.”

“That’s who I work for. That’s who I report to.” His smile sliced at her. “But first I might tell Fire Princess Jindesfarne Emberdrake of this fiasco.”

Stargrass screamed, too high for any mortal to hear. Lathyr pointed to the spot again and she fell upon it, sank
into
the wood of the balcony floor, then misted away. Lathyr stripped and followed.

Kiri’s path wandered...like she’d been mortal human, that gave more sensation—the lovely feeling of her warmth, still warmer than most mers, the unique fizz of energy on his skin. The fear clogging his throat, tightening his muscles, eased.

Soon they were at the sloping riverbank, and Stargrass cowered in legged-mer form, her long toes buried in soft mud. “She went into the river.
Deep
into the fast current.”

“How long ago?”

“I dunno.” Stargrass trembled.

“Lead on.”

“I can’t. I’m a shallow water naiad. There are
things
in the deep and fast.”

Fury boiled within him and all the fins on his body stiffened to knifelike sharpness. The river overwhelmed his senses; he’d not be able to track her. Not know if or when she’d leave the current or the river...might not even sense her blood or death if he cruised in the mighty waters. His skin hardened to battle armor with his ire.

Stargrass flung herself facedown into the mud.

“What is going on?” roared the Water King, rising from the river.

“I have lost the new naiad,” Lathyr said.

The king backhanded him into the river and Lathyr tumbled, face hurting, bones shattered. He could use his anger and fear and guilt to mend the bones, but figured the Water King would prefer seeing the damage on him. Lathyr shook his head, oriented himself, swam upstream to where the king remained. As he lifted himself from the river to stand, air stinging, he saw the Water King had become legged, with his foot on the back of the crying and whimpering naiad. The royal glanced over at Lathyr.

“You were at the Earth Palace today.”

Lathyr bowed, swirling his arms in the air as if he stood before the king in the depths of the ocean. He kept his head low, but his gaze on the temperamental merman. “That is so. I lingered too long speaking with the scholar.”

“Scholar.” Water snorted in muddy streams from the king’s nostrils.

“My mistake.”

“But, not, I think, as bad a mistake as the failure of this miserable, foolish naiad. She did not listen,
did she?
” The final words thundered in Lathyr’s mind and he had to sink his own feet into the riverbank.

No,
the naiad mewled in a tiny mind-voice.

“She did not pay attention to our instructions, did she?”

No,
Stargrass whimpered.

She lost the human-turned-Lightfolk, the experimental transformation, did she not?

Yes.
Stargrass shuddered now.

The king stepped aside, flung his arm out toward the river. Lips curling at Lathyr’s and Stargrass’s failure, at the whole project, too, no doubt, the merman said, “Find her.”

Stargrass flung herself into the river
. I search!

Wait!
Lathyr shouted telepathically. Stargrass hovered in the water near the fast and deep current. He inclined his torso even lower.
Please let me and Jenni Emberdrake handle this.

The king’s teeth showed sharply in a grin.
Very well, but there will be...repercussions...if the new one is not recovered.

No help for it, Lathyr dipped his head, gaze on the water rushing around his feet. His neck vulnerable to a mortal strike from the king.

With a whoosh, the merman was gone.

The pale green face of Stargrass bobbed a few yards away, wet from more than the river, fear had water from her tissues beading on her face.

Jenni is compassionate,
Lathyr said.

Stargrass shook her head.

He gestured her to join him and she swam, then trudged up the bank, again appearing much diminished. He didn’t touch her, didn’t want to, his anger still deep. “We will see if Jenni has any ideas for tracing Kiri. Meet me in the lobby fireroom lounge.”

Weeping, Stargrass disappeared.

* * *

Kiri submerged herself in the current, in the river, becoming one with it...flowing fast downstream, only paying attention when she had to
stretch
to feel the smell-song-taste of what she yearned to find.

* * *

Stargrass was fully human with light green skin and dressed in a flowing gown that covered most of her body when Lathyr went down to the fireroom lounge. He had dressed in one of his silk suits of deep blue with a pale blue silk shirt after telephoning Jenni and relaying the information that Kiri was lost.

Jenni had sworn and promised to be there shortly.

“You’ll be all right,” he said to Stargrass.

She shook her head and took a plush red velvet chair far from the fireplace. “I am doomed.”

“I doubt you’ll ever be called upon again by the royals for any duty, but we should save your skin.”

He was fairly sure his skin would be all right, too. His face was mending. But his own potential estate might be lost. That hurt, a deep ache pulsing with every heartbeat, but not as wrenching as his continuing fear for Kiri.

Could she survive the huge river? What
were
the monsters in it deadly to Waterfolk?

With a crack, the fire flamed high in the hearth, then Jenni stepped from it onto the flagstoned floor before it.

Her face was redder than usual, her complexion all fire, eyes blue-flamed, and hair springy and crackling.

“What happened?”

Stargrass shrieked then prostrated herself on the floor. “Please don’t eat me. Please, please. It was all my fault. I was bad, bad, bad. Foolish naiad. Please don’t flame me!”

As Lathyr watched, Jenni settled down. She sighed, looked at him.

“Stargrass was...inattentive...while I was at the Earth Palace today and Kiri slipped away, into the Mississippi River.”

Now Jenni paled. That river could be the death of her and she knew it. Her lips formed, “Why?” but her voice didn’t come out.

“Why?” Lathyr frowned. “What do you mean?”

Jenni swallowed. “Kiri isn’t stupid. Why would she do something like that?”

Lathyr shrugged. “I don’t know.” He spread his hands and fluttered his fingers. “The call of a huge and moving body of water? She’d only experienced the pools in the Castle, a mountain lake. Nothing of the magnitude of this river.”

Jenni looked at Stargrass. “Did she say anything to you?”

“No, Your Highness.”

“Do you have any insights why Kiri might do this?”

Stargrass’s gaze rolled in mute appeal in Lathyr’s direction. He didn’t think she’d done anything but absently answer Kiri’s questions, might not even be able to describe Kiri. He kept his own gaze hard. Stargrass hunched further in front of Jenni. “No, I have no insights, your fieriness.”

“Are you of any use to us whatsoever in this matter?” Jenni asked.

“No, Your Highness.”

“Then go.”

“Go where?”

“Go home.”

Stargrass didn’t wait for another word. She vanished. Lathyr was glad.

“Do you have any way to track Kiri?” Lathyr asked, chest tight with trapped hope.

Jenni crossed her arms. “What, mysterious
fire
royal ways, in the
Mississippi River?
”

He stood straight. “What of mysterious human ways?” He continued to breathe shallowly, still hoping.

“I’m sorry.” Her direct gaze met his. “You’re lovers—you should be able to trace her.”

Lathyr was unsure whether the woman approved or not, but wouldn’t deny it. “Her essence is still new to me and would be lost in all the multitudinous sensations of the river.”

“You’re a strong mer!”

“I am new to this land, and never saw that river before earlier today. I don’t know its standard essences.” His jaw flexed. “And Kiri’s magical signature is yet evolving. I left her talking to Stargrass in the pool.” He gestured to the bathroom and Jenni strode in there, held her arms out over the water, her forehead furrowing as she sensed the magical energies as no other person on the planet would. Humming, she nodded, and brought the elemental magic to full water in the room...Lathyr felt it, and it was good, but not as lovely as when everything balanced. If he hadn’t lost his chance at a home of his own, he’d...no, Jenni was primarily fire elemental, she wouldn’t guest in an underwater residence. His traitorous mind built a home with dry areas for friends who were human or other, the people from Mystic Circle. That abode would never be, too expensive for anyone but royals.

Jenni was done, and strode once more out to the balcony and the mighty river she could no doubt feel as opposite to her power. She leaned against the rail. “Kiri’s lost in that.”

“I’ll go after her,” Lathyr said.

Turning toward him with a hip on the rail, Jenni said, “Like you told me, you’re ocean mer, and more on the eastern side of the world.” Her mouth flexed down. “And I’d forgotten you have that bit of air in you.” Sweeping a hand down herself, she said, “Like me.”

“I’d forgotten that about you, also.”

Her eyes warmed slightly. “Something we have in common.”

“I thought that all those of Mystic Circle had qualities common to my own.” He lifted his shoulders, where a great burden lay...he
had
to find Kiri, couldn’t leave her alone in such a river. “I’ll go after her.” He folded his clothes in his suitcase and packed Kiri’s. Inclining his head to Jenni, he asked, “Will you take care of these, please?”

“I’ll do that, and I’ll contact the royals.”

“I’ve spoken to the Water King. He wants Kiri found, but I doubt he will help, or tell his wife to help.” He paused. “I believe if we bring the Water Queen into this matter at this time, against the King’s wishes, we will make a bad and longtime enemy.”

Jenni’s mouth tightened, but he saw her considering how the Water King could block her in this situation and future endeavors. Her mouth turned down before she answered, “I understand, though the Water Queen’s innate magical power is stronger than the King’s.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, second only to the Earth King’s, the royal dwarfman.”

Interesting but nothing to think about right now. Lathyr stretched, preparing to enter a massive waterway new to him. He’d need all his senses sharp. All his defenses, too, physical and magical. He strapped what would have appeared like a toy sword and dagger to humans at each hip.

“The other Water royals are distant relations to the king, and smaller in power. I don’t know them well enough to call on them at this time,” Jenni said. “We need to coordinate...plan on meeting places so we can exchange information.”

“No.” Now his voice was harsh. “The longer I wait, the less clue of her I will find.” He let his fear show on his face. “And the more things can happen to Kiri. There are many, many mer in that river, but none of great stature, royal stature.” He frowned, tested the air again. “I do not believe the denizens would allow a very noble mer to claim a large stretch of river.”