Mistweavers 01 - Enchanted No More (16 page)

Jenni ran her hands through her hair, let it separate and wave around her. The natural curl was suppressed so it was much longer than her shoulders.
How long have I been here?

Five nights and four and a half days. It’s about noon. The dwarves are working on replacing the ledge of your balcony before humans can notice that it was gone. The Air couple state that no satellites got photos of the unfortunate contretemps—the Air Queen deflected any surveillance. The Fire couple insist you need fire healing, too, since you’re floating in liquid. They are appalled. So be ready to be baked
.

Now that he mentioned it, she was feeling a little waterlogged.
When can I get out of here?

His eyes took on a gleam and his lips curved in a smile. She thought he saw all too well into her globe. She shrugged and her hair floated and her breasts bobbed—and his smile got wider.
They said that by the time you would ask such a question, you would be healed as much as necessary
.

Jenni frowned, looked at her arm. The skin had closed, but she wasn’t sure all the tendons and muscles and nerves were aligned properly.

Swim to the top of the orb. There’s a porthole.

Huh. Up she went. There was a tiny two-inch slice of air at the top of the sphere, but she didn’t see any porthole. Then Aric’s distorted face was over her and he tapped a small circular spot that could be a plug. It was about an inch wide. Jenni stared in disbelief. He tapped it again in a deliberate fashion.
Open it like that,
he said mentally.

So she tapped and the plug opened like an iris, continued to widen until it was her size. Jenni didn’t see where the liquid went, it just…vanished.

Aric stood on a mobile wooden staircase. He leaned down and lifted her by her waist, swung her up in his arms and descended. Plucking a thick red robe off a peg in the wall, he stood behind her as she slid into it and tugged it around her. Wonderful thick fluffiness encompassed her. She examined her magical energy and decided against a drying spell.

Aric reached under her collar and drew out her hair, his hand stroking her head. “Jenni,” he sighed. Then he wrapped his arms around her, stepped close so their bodies touched. “Jenni.” His voice was thick, like fog in a forest.

“You didn’t suspect he’d come after me?”

He stiffened a little behind her, but his lips went to her neck and he inhaled deeply. “No. I didn’t think of that, either.” He hesitated, said, “Though naturally I did tell them that Kondrian had threatened you.”

“Naturally.” She tried not to sound bitter, but something leaked through.

He turned her around, grasped her by her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Jenni!”

“You weren’t almost eaten by the damn Dark one!”

Fear flickered over his face, then it set back into exasperation. “Who opened the door to Kondrian and his leeches, Jenni?”

She grimaced. “I did.” She tried to free herself from his grasp but was hauled against his chest. He smelled great, rich earth turned from winter’s frost to spring’s welcoming redwood needles. That nearly distracted her. “I opened the door, but he got to me first, affected me mentally.” She hadn’t sorted out whether her nightmares were her own or the Dark one’s fashioning. She trembled against Aric, drew his scent into her lungs to steady herself. “Kondrian said that the shields were too weak to protect me.” She didn’t know how that could be, she’d been in a damn mountain.

“Thick shields diminish the view and your suite usually houses elves.”

“Not a halfling like me.”

Aric stroked her back. “I’m not sure that the Eight knew that Kondrian was in the area or would attack you. I don’t think they set you up.”

“Then they were there awful fast.”

“We’ve learned how to deploy rapidly.”

She leaned back, looked at his face. Battles were in his eyes. That would definitely age a person. She glanced at his sword, she could see the whole hilt projecting over the arm of the chair. “How much have you fought?”

“I’m well trained now. I caught the eye of Cloudsylph during the portal battle—”

“He was in charge of the warriors.”

“Yes. I trained. I fought. Other Darkfolk both major and minor, shadleeches. Only in the past two years, when the Meld Project was initiated, did I move from a soldier to a liaison with halflings.”

She didn’t know quite what to say. He hugged her, then lifted her again, went to the chair and sat with her on his lap.

There was an almost silent
whoosh
and the healing orb deflated into a nearly transparent sac hanging in midair. The atmosphere was heavy with liquid for moment, then that vanished, too, maybe into the walls and the floor, though Jenni couldn’t see it. She leaned against Aric, listening to his slow Treeman heartbeat. She wasn’t sleepy or hungry, and she liked the feel of his arms around her.

“I’m to debrief you,” he said, and rubbed his chin against her head. “Tell me everything you can about the attack.”

She started slowly, speaking of her dreams, then the fake call from “Fritterworth.” There wasn’t much action to tell of after that, just suffering. She hadn’t even seen the royals or Aric arrive.

“The Dark one was wounded,” Aric said roughly. “I don’t think whatever he got from you remained with him—not the magic or the energy. He spent more trying to escape. I got the big shadleech myself. That seemed to diminish him some, too.”

“Kondrian took my blood,” Jenni said in a small voice. “I’m not sure what that means.”

Aric cuddled her close. “We’ll find out.”

They rested in silence together. Together. It felt nice. Silence, no need to talk, as if all the flickers and flames between them that had been extinguished were growing from embers into a fire. How large would that fire become? Could it become? Campfire, bonfire blaze, wildfire that ate up acres?

A knock came at the door and Rothly entered, sneering. “How cozy.”

ARIC STOOD WITH JENNI. HE SET HER ON HER
feet on the far side of the chair, so it was between her and Rothly, near his sword, as if he were protecting her. “I don’t like how you are speaking to your sister.”

“She’s no sister of mine. Nor are you my friend.”

Jenni cinched her belt, circled to stand at Aric’s left. She saw Aric’s brows rise. “Not your sister? You have both been adopted into King and Queen Emberdrake’s family. More of her doing than yours.”

“And here you are, ready for sex with her, as always. I heard you were engaged to Synicess. But she’s a difficult djinnfem, isn’t she? Jenni is much easier to be with and, now, almost as high in rank.”

“Nothing is higher than a born royal with no human blood,” Jenni said.

“Still believing his lies?” Rothly said.

Aric literally crackled beside her, as if his skin were going to bark…in anger or protection.

“Aric’s never lied to me,” Jenni said. Her voice was quiet, her
emotions
were quiet. For a fleeting second she wondered if the healing liquid had helped her guilt. She tipped her head, staring at her brother, too thin, but dressed elegantly and well. His arm was straight.

“I never lied to any Mistweaver,” Aric gritted out. His fingers touched her back, lingered, and Jenni thought that he might want to put his arm around her waist, but instead he put his hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing here if Jindesfarne Mistweaver Emberdrake is not your sister and I am not your friend?”

Rothly took a step back, bumped into the doorjamb. “I wanted to see— Rumor has it that you came to the Earth Palace via Northumberland. What did you do to my home?”

“Well, now, I cleaned it,” Jenni said, hurt seeping into her at Rothly’s manner. “And I balanced it.”

He shook his head and his light brown hair flipped out of his eyes. “What did you take? I’m sure you took something.”

Jenni lifted her chin. “I took portions of
my heritage
. Copies of the journals—copies—”

“You stole my work!”

“I copied your work, and I haven’t had a minute to look at it. I also took some tea.” She hoped the coldness of her lips translated to a chilly smile. She stared at his mended arm. “I suggest you send the rest of it to me at my home in Denver. You’ll be having no more use for it. You can’t go into the mist again.”

Pain twisted his features and a raw sound escaped him. Jenni caught her breath. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. He’d miss the interdimension? She hadn’t…not so much that she couldn’t go years without visiting it. Maybe it was the fact that he was shut out of it forever, no longer a Mistweaver in the truest sense of the name. “I’m sorry.” She heaved a sigh, rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would hurt you.”

“You bitch,” Rothly said.

“Don’t apologize to him,” Aric said at the same time. He stared at Rothly until her brother shifted feet. “You haven’t been half as mean to him as he has been to you. Haven’t been half as bitter or hysterical, either.”

“Hyst–hysterical!” Rothly sputtered.

“Go back to your home and your hermit ways, Rothly Mistweaver Emberdrake. I don’t care to call you my friend, haven’t for years. The lady standing beside me will finish the mission that you were foolish enough to agree to.”

Rothly whitened. Pallid didn’t look good on him.

“I’m sorry you’re so unhappy,” Jenni said.

Her brother stared at her with wide and painful eyes and she realized she’d phrased the statement like her mother or father would have. She drew in a breath, decided to go on in the same manner. “What can you do to make your life better?” She opened her hands. “You have power again, find your new talent.”

He hissed at her and she managed a lopsided smile. “Your fire nature is more prominent than your air now.” She swallowed. “Please get well, Rothly.” One more deep breath. “What can I do to help you?”

“You’ve taken on his task, you’ve given him kind words, you’ve tried to send brownies to him,” Aric said. She ignored him.

Rothly stepped back into the hallway. “Nothing.
Nothing!
” He slammed the door.

“Oh,” Jenni whimpered. She turned to Aric and looked up at him. Strong and stable…and hurting at the sight of such a changed Rothly. As she was.

She went into his arms and they closed around her. She stood with him for a long while, until a brownie came in and told Aric that the Eight wanted to speak with him. He left for another conference. Jenni was led from the water quarter of the Earth Palace to the fire area and a desert sauna room to bake the kinks in her magic…and her tears away.

Later that afternoon, Jenni planned a dinner for Aric and herself. Even as she selected the menu and smoothed a sky-blue tablecloth shot with silver over the dining room table, she knew that Aric would stay with her and they’d make love in the night. She wasn’t completely sure of her feelings for him, but the feelings of guilt that she’d had, and the blame that she’d assigned to him for the loss of her family, had fallen and been washed and seared away.

She stared out the huge arched window overlooking jagged, peaked mountain ranges, one rising behind another. All white with snow with blue reflecting the sky and gray with rock. The view wasn’t as clear. If she narrowed her eyes, she could see the slight waves of the thick magical shield that would protect her from any Dark one’s influence.

But she didn’t think that the nightmares of the past had been totally from Kondrian. She’d had them before, though not so vividly for a long time.

If she wanted, she could let guilt and bitterness eat into her heart again. But now she knew she’d made a choice before. Yes, she’d been late to join her family an hour ahead of time at the portal. To show the Eight their honor at being chosen to work for the royal Lightfolk.

What would have happened to her if she’d been on time when the Lightfolk moved the ceremony up and she’d entered the mist at the same time as the others? She’d have been killed and eaten by Kondrian. Hadn’t she run immediately to her mother when inundated by terror? Hadn’t Jenni felt her mother’s wounding and death? Yes.

As for Aric… If she let it, her fragile new relationship could break against the mountain peaks like an egg. Yes, he’d chosen to pick up a sword and run to Cloudsylph and his warriors and defend the royals. She could continue to hold that against him. But he hadn’t been well-trained in warfare like Jenni’s brother Stewart, who had been the first of her family to fight and die. No doubt being with other warriors in the mass around the portal had saved his life, too.

She could continue to blame him, or accept that he’d made a quick choice—for his kind instead of his friends. No. That way lay bitterness, and she didn’t want any more anger at the past between them. She chose to nurture her relationship with Aric instead.

She went into the bedroom and plumped up the pillows. Blue silk bedspread and pillowcases. The entire suite was a luxury she’d never experienced.

That had come with a cost. She’d almost died!

Jenni shivered as she felt the cold wind of her fall. She
wouldn’t
remember the horror of being drained by Kondrian and the shadleeches. That way lay panic and madness.

He was still out there…somewhere. She’d been told that he’d been wounded, but she wasn’t sanguine enough to believe that the wounds would hamper him. Before he’d fled too far he would find innocents to eat. Hell, he’d probably eat his own shadleeches.

Her imagination was too vivid. So she lit large pillar candles crafted by fire sprites and djinns and smelled spring. The magic of blooming and becoming. Of trees waking up from the winter’s cold touch. She wasn’t sure what she felt for Aric. Wasn’t sure what she’d ever felt for him—real love or infatuation.

But the sharing of selves and passion would be exquisite.

Wandering back to the sitting room, she stared out the window wistfully. The sun was beginning to set and she longed to see colored rays against the snow.

There was a tapping at the door. “Please come in,” Jenni called.

A smaller-than-usual browniefem entered carrying a huge tray of domed food above her head. Jenni would have offered to help, but knew it would insult the little woman…and the brownie was stronger than she. Though a minor Earthfolk, the brownie was all magical. Jenni gestured to the cherry sideboard and the brownie efficiently set the dishes out on woven hotpads.

The smell of food filled the air, and Jenni’s mouth watered and her stomach rumbled. The small woman curtsied.

“Wait!” Jenni asked.

Twisting her hands in her apron, the browniefem looked down. “Yes, Princess Jindesfarne?”

“Just call me Jenni.”

The woman flinched, and Jenni ignored it. She gestured to the window and the ledge beyond. “Is it safe for me to go out?”

“Course. Dwarves fixed. Shields strong. You fall, no. You seen, no.”

Ah, the browniefem didn’t know English well, probably never served a halfling or a human. Jenni held out her hand. “I’m still a little scared, and would like to go out on the balcony. Would you go with me, hold my hand?”

The brownie’s large triangular ears trembled in surprise, quivered at the tips. With small steps, she joined Jenni, placed her hand in Jenni’s. She sighed—she’d been afraid that the brownie would curl her hand around one or two of Jenni’s fingers, which would be embarrassing for them both.

They moved with tiny steps to the door. Jenni hesitated before touching the knob. But she liked this suite. Wanted to see the view. Would not let her fear get the better of her. She opened the door and stepped out on the ledge. It seemed exactly as it had been before…not that she’d seen much of it.

With another sigh, she stepped farther out on the ledge. The brownie flattened herself against the short rock wall between the door and the window.

“I’m so sorry!” Jenni said. “I didn’t know this would be an ordeal for you, Madam Brownie.” She considered letting loose of the little woman’s hand, decided that would be worse for her. So they scuttled back through the door and Jenni closed it. She released the brownie’s hand.

The woman’s eyes bugged out more than usual. The tips of her ears rolled down and up repeatedly. Then she vanished.

“That was really well done, Jenni,” Jenni said aloud. The view still beckoned, and she wished the brownie were here to give her courage to face it again. Sunset colors smeared outside her window, bolder than the night before. Golden, nearly neon pink. With a big breath, her palms dampening, Jenni opened the door again and walked out onto the ledge.

There was still a waver to the air, but not as much as over the window. After all, her sleeping mind wouldn’t be vulnerable out here.

She walked to the rim of the ledge, felt the warm press of magic…air elf and some fire djinn. For an instant she considered stepping into the interdimension and bringing elemental energies to balance the shield and make it stronger. She shrugged the thought aside. She’d want to make tea before she went to the interdimension again, and most of the time she’d spent there lately had been under emergency circumstances. Maybe all of the time. She’d been worried about Rothly…last night fearful for herself. But she’d let go of Rothly earlier in the day. Let him chart his own course without her. She couldn’t long for his forgiveness anymore. His grudge wasn’t hers and she wouldn’t let him foist guilt on her anymore. She’d grown.

She grieved for the brother he’d been, for the bitter man he was, but she couldn’t change his mind. She’d changed her own and that was all that was in her power.

In any event, she was committed to fulfilling his word and the mission.

She looked to the sunset painting the mountains gold and pink, casting lavender shadows, and let the colors soothe her mind and spirit. She calmed her mind, sank into a serene meditation, watching the colors shift and shade.

“Jenni,” Aric said, coming up behind her and setting an arm around her waist, pulling her close to his body and taking a pace back from the edge. She smiled but didn’t turn in his arms, wished to watch the sky darken and stars flare into bright points. With city living, she hadn’t seen the Milky Way for a long time.

“Jenni.” Aric lowered his head, and his breath on her neck stirred her sensually, caused an anticipatory clench deep inside her.

So she leaned back against him. “The sunset…”

“Fabulous,” he whispered, as he stood still beside her.

The colors softened to pastels, then to gray. Darkness descended to the rugged thrusting peaks.

Jenni made to step forward to catch the last light of day, but Aric kept her close.

Aric grimaced as he glanced around. “Above tree line.”

He was right. No tree could live here. He arched his green brows at her. “You know you can fall and turn into lightning and maybe live. A whole different matter for me. I’d shatter into splinters.” He tilted his head. “Though I might have some cones with a few seeds in me.”

Frowning, Jenni said, “Your father was air, an elf.”

His face hardened. “So I might not smash and I might be able to pull on both my natures to float a little. The food in your suite smells great. Let’s eat.”

Jenni watched him as he returned to her rooms inside the mountain. She had enough issues of her own to know that Aric would have to work through his. She smiled slyly. He’d prodded her out of her guilt and bitterness, it was only fair that she meddle, too. Not right now, but soon.

The sitting room was so bright it dazzled her eyes. Blue and silver-toned, not real silver, though she and Aric would not be bothered by the pure metal. He was right, the smells were wonderful. Freshly steamed vegetables, tender slivers of meat—quail, chicken, fish, beef—in various sauces. Gourmet cooking. The French had nothing on brownies.

When they sat to ate, Aric had a gleam in his eyes. At his first bite, he closed his eyes, rumbled approval. “Good food.” He scanned the suite. “Luxurious rooms, don’t care for the colors much, though.”

“You should, you’re half-elf.”

His jaw clenched.

“But we won’t talk of that right now. I prefer you in greens and browns, myself.” The baby asparagus was fresh and crunchy and wonderful.