Three Rings (The Fairytail Saga)

by S. K Munt

  Ardhi shrank back against the counter, his eyes wide with fear. ‘I don’t-’ he licked his cracked and dry lips. ‘I don’t know….’ his gaze slithered away from hers, resting on Lincoln, assessing him, dumbfounded. ‘Is he-?’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘He’s mer….you made him a mer, Ardhi. For me.’

  Ardhi nodded. ‘But I lived….’ he looked back at Ivyanne. ‘I didn’t know I would, but I lived…..’ he bent at the waist and began to cry. ‘Oh god, oh god….’

  ‘Oh my god,’ Vana’s voice was suddenly in Ivyanne’s ear. ‘Incredible!’

  Her father was at Ivyanne’s other side. She imagined that they were creating a shield around her. They were afraid.

  ‘Be careful sweetheart…’ her father whispered, his voice catching with emotion. ‘We don’t know what kind of state he’s in.’

  ‘I know that.’ Ivyanne sighed, arms twitching with the need to reach out and comfort Ardhi. He had sank to the floor and was now curled up in a ball, knees to his face, rocking and sobbing. He looked so broken that she wanted to put him back together, only she was almost frozen to the spot. But her dad was right. He could lash out. So she bit her lip and stared hard at his face, feeling herself begin to shake. ‘Eka, Joakim-’ her voice broke. ‘Come closer, but don’t crowd him.’

  ‘Of course! Oh..Ardhi!’ Eka wept, clutching her husband with one hand, reaching out to her son with the other. ‘You’re alive!’

  Ardhi looked up at them, eyes wide. ‘Mum…? Lux? You think I’d hurt you-’ His face contorted with pain.

  Suddenly, Lincoln strode past them, not slowly, but with great purpose, holding out a lavender chenille throw from the back of the couch. Without looking to any of them for guidance, he leaned down and brought the heavy throw down over Ardhi’s knees.

  ‘Here you go mate,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘Your mum and dad aren’t afraid of you, they’re just afraid they’ll crush you with their hugs.’

  Ardhi stared at Lincoln, then glanced at his parents. Then nodded.

  That was it for Ivyanne’s restraint. If Lincoln could get that close to Ardhi without a bolt of lightning coming out of the rapidly greying sky, then so could she. She rushed forward, her hand finding his. It was ice cold, and scales were caked to his legs still in thick batches. How long had he been in the ocean for? Days? Weeks?

  ‘Ardhi what happened?’ she burst out, squeezing his hand tightly. ‘We searched everywhere.’

  His eyes focused on hers. He looked dazed. ‘How long has it been?’ he asked, licking his lips again. His other cold hand reached up and gingerly touched the side of her jaw. ‘I feel like I haven’t seen this face in centuries….’

  Ivyanne put her other hand against his, stilling it. She could feel Lincoln’s gaze on them. Not angry, but possibly very worried. He backed away.

  ‘One month today,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears, distorting Ardhi’s face. ‘We saw a dolphin after you turned Lincoln. We thought you were dead.’

  Ardhi’s eyes didn’t stray from her face, and yet they never met her probing gaze. His expression was a cross between anxiety and wonder. ‘I thought I was,’ he said thickly. ‘I swam and swam in that form, not thinking, not feeling...just swimming. When I came to, I was on a beach, washed up and alone. It was dark, and it took me awhile to realize that I was in human form, or that I had made it all the way to Papa New Guinea in the body of a dolphin.’

  ‘New Guinea?’ Ivyanne gasped.

  ‘Say what?!’ Lux’s eyes were almost bugging out of her head. ‘But-’

  Ardhi nodded. ‘I don’t know why I went there, I just went….Ivyanne I was so scared-everything was blurry, and it still is-’ his eyes suddenly focused on hers, and they shone with pain. ‘All I knew was that I had done something bad, and I needed to stay away from you.’

  Ivyanne’s tears spilled over. ‘Have you been there this whole time?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess so. I keep slipping….I keep becoming dolphin, and it throws me off. But I think I stayed there a few days as a human, then started making my way back up.’ He swallowed. ‘I’m a shape shifter, aren’t I? Like Roan Fire?’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘It seems that way,’ she said softly, tears running down her face. ‘That must have been scary to discover, all alone. Ardhi you should have come straight back! We’ve been beside ourselves, thinking you were gone forever!’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d have me back,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘The things I did...Ivyanne...I must have gone insane. It seems like that all happened to someone else.’

  Her father cleared his throat. ‘This is astounding. Ardhi...son...I haven’t got the words...’

  Behind him, Lincoln crossed his arms and looked perturbed.

  ‘Neither do I.’ Ivyanne squeezed Ardhi’s hand again, before pressing it to her lips. She tried to think of everything he had suffered alone-not only since the night he had turned Lincoln, but everything before then. Having a power he couldn’t bring himself to share, loving her and getting nothing in return….being so overwhelmed by life and its obstacles that the only reasonable solution had been murder….she could understand his duress-but could she forgive him for what had eventuated of it all?

  He seemed to be asking her the same thing with his eyes.

  ‘It’s a miracle!’ Joakim rushed forward. ‘A blessed miracle!’

  Ivyanne and her father got to their feet and moved out of the way, clearing a path for the Kayu-Apis. Seconds later, the overwrought parents stumbled past them, throwing themselves at their shaken son, crying and laughing and obscuring him from view with hugs.

  Lincoln’s arms were around Ivyanne then, his grip on her avaricious, his heart beating hard enough for her to feel it against her back.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Ivyanne nodded, but she really wasn’t sure. She stared down at Ardhi as his parents enveloped him, swallowing rapidly, trying to blink back more tears-and wondering why she suddenly was gripped with a strange, almost overpowering sense of foreboding.

  At that moment, Eka and Joakim lifted their faces and turned to one another, their smiles bright. Too bright. Then Eka ducked to kiss her son’s head exclaiming:

  ‘Ardhi! You’re the most powerful mer in the kingdom now-do you realize what this could mean?’

  It would have been an innocuous statement, if not for the way Eka looked at Ivyanne as she posed the question. Or the way Lux’s eyes darted from Ardhi, to Lincoln, to Ivyanne, a thoughtful expression crossing her face.

  Ivyanne’s heart seized in her chest and suddenly, she was running.

  ⁓

  ‘Ivyanne! Link!’ Vana screeched, lifting the skirt of her cream cheesecloth dress and running barefooted across the sand, waving the box with Anna’s crown above her head. ‘Wait! Darling-’ a choked sob escaped her and she shielded her eyes with one arm from the glare, watching remorsefully as the ocean closed above Ivyanne’s head. Her daughter didn’t even look back.

  ‘Hey! Vana!’ Breath puffed her name. ‘Ivyanne, she-’

  ‘She’s running from what she just saw in their faces,’ Vana said bitterly, watching Lincoln resurface near where she’d just spied Ivyanne, then duck under again. To the distant eye, against the silver-sheeted blue of the ocean, Lincoln’s actions resembled the playful surfacing of a baby dolphin. And it was funny, because in so many ways-that’s exactly what he was.

  But at least he was pursuing her. Vana had wanted a private word with Ivyanne, the opportunity to comfort or coddle or celebrate, depending on Ivyanne’s take of the situation-but she was an old woman now, and couldn’t keep up enough even to adequately express her love in time.

  ‘And what did she see?’ Lux asked, her voice without inflection.

  Vana turned to the sparkling blond beside her. ‘Opportunity. That’s all they’ve ever seen.’

  Lux pursed her lips, then looked back out to the horizon. ‘Ardhi too?’

  ‘Especially Ardhi.’

  Lux sighed, and looked do
wn at her feet. ‘Vana...I know you don’t trust me much-’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’ Vana said shortly. ‘Are you so surprised? The thing that links our people together is the need to breed. Your inability to do that is a liability-because there’s nothing you need from us that I can give you, in exchange for your complete compliance.’

  ‘But I’ve complied for almost forty years!’ Lux cried. ‘Willingly. Doesn’t that merit me a bit of trust?’

  ‘A bit.’ Vana conceded. ‘But if you want more, I suggest that you keep your feelings for Lincoln to yourself.’

  Lux lifted her chin. ‘And if I don’t have any feelings for Link?’

  Vana sighed. ‘Sorry-feelings, attraction, either or…it all leads to a bed in the end.’

  ‘And what if this wasn’t about me wanting him?’ Lux asked quietly. ‘Just wanting to break them up?’

  Vana looked at her reproachfully. ‘Then it’s just heartless, and you’d lose any trust I have. Why do you bring that up?’

  ‘Because I’m still wondering where my trust lies.’ Lux said quietly. With that, she turned back to the house, leaving Vana alone and very confused.

  ⁓

  After forty five minutes of weaving through the islands at a cracking pace, Lincoln started to wonder if Ivyanne was actually going somewhere, or simply fleeing. Lincoln grit his teeth and concentrated his lower body muscles on flicking the tip of his tail, which gave him a short burst of speed. He got close enough to keep her in sight, but it wasn’t until she suddenly turned and headed for a submerged land mass at last, that he was able to gain on her.

  Lincoln was relieved that she was heading for the shore. He felt like his skull was about to fracture from the sheer volume of new and panicked thoughts which had overcome him the moment he realized that Ardhi was really and truly alive and dripping on Vana’s kitchen floor. Being unable to voice any of those thoughts or questions, only to cruise along, frantically trying to keep up with the speedy princess, was driving him insane. They were surrounded by coral and beautiful marine life and yet it was all insignificant to him that day. He had questions and he needed them answered before he stroked out.

  The first and foremost being of course: Why had she run? What was her question?

  He saw her beach herself, and he exhaled the rest of his oxygen store in a massive sigh, following her, not bothering to transition, sensing that she probably wouldn’t. She’d torn off her clothes and left them behind in her haste to enter the water at Bracken, so staying in her tail would be a means to preserve some modesty on the surface.

  Some...but not all. A shiver went through him as he realized that her upper half would be as bare as his. For a moment, he forgot his hysteria and concentrated on getting to her before she could artfully arrange her hair.

  But when the water slanted to the sand and Lincoln emerged on the shore, it became apparent that modesty was the last thing on her mind. Ivyanne had already maneuvered herself into a cluster of rocks near a tidal pool to his right, leaving a drag mark in the wet sand behind her. Lincoln pushed the excess water out of his eyes and frowned to see curl up into a ball on her side and sob like her heart was breaking.

  ‘Ivyanne?’ He asked, filling with fear-wanting to ease her tears but unsure of how to go about it given that he had no idea why she was falling apart to begin with. Were they cathartic tears of relief for Ardhi’s return? Or something else?

  Ivyanne didn’t respond, only cried harder, tucking her face into her brilliant blue scales and shuddering anew.

  ‘Okay.’ He said, more to himself than to her, suddenly feeling drained. He crawled clumsily after her, moving until his body formed a protective curve behind her back, then shifting her until they were nestled against the side of the largest rock, hidden from view. He pressed his lips into her shoulder, relieved that she didn’t shove him away.

  ‘It’s okay honey,’ he whispered. ‘Cry now, explain later. I’ll always be waiting on the other side.’

  Ivyanne nodded and hiccuped, and Lincoln squeezed his eyes shut, her pain tormenting him even as her closeness, and the ring glinting on her balled fist, filled him with joy.

  ⁓

  Ivyanne wept without knowing why, dreamt without focus and dug her fingers into the wet sand beneath her, wondering if this was the meltdown her mother had alluded to weeks before. Sure, she had fallen to pieces over Tristan, but this was something else. Emotions wreaked havoc within her stomach, and every sob seemed forced out of her by her pounding and agonized heart.

  Lincoln’s arms tightened around her and Ivyanne’s misery lifted momentarily, reveling in his warmth, proximity and understanding.

  It didn’t matter if she didn’t understand why she was falling apart. All that mattered was that Lincoln held her through it. And that no one dared suggest an alternative option for her hand again.

  Even if he was as powerful as their creator.

  17.

  Lincoln woke slowly, his consciousness chipping out fragments of his dream in a random, lazy manner, allowing facets of reality in.

  In his dream he’d been on the timber seat of his family’s old boat, but nothing about his position was as firm or unforgiving as that little old thing had been. Instead, he was sinking into something warm and gritty and damp, and the air buffeting him was hot and dry and caressed rather than chilled him-not like the icy winds which had howled across Bas Strait back then. There’d never been a jacket thick or waterproof enough to insulate his body heat on those excursions. Most of the time, he’d been miserable.

  In his dream, he’d been watching his mother teach him wordlessly how to tie a knot around a sinker, grayish slight streaming through her dark hair as her pale fingers pulled the knot tightly, binding the weight in place. But in reality his eyes were closed, his only view being the dull red glow behind his eyelids.

  In his dream, he’d been wearing his old high school jersey, maroon and blue with its kinked white collar that would never iron flat. But in reality, he was so warm that it was almost unbearable save for the ocean breeze he now recognised wafting across his shoulders. The sensation was incredible, like lying in body-heated sheets on a chilly day. He curled around Adele, squeezing her against him, wondering what perfume she’d bought now, because it smelled good. Incredible, in fact. Like heaven ought to.

  Adele. Adele? His sub-conscious set off the alarm-indicating that he was missing something BIG. Lincoln’s eyes flew open, and he found himself staring at the ridges of a spine that was familiar to him yet being viewed at a foreign angle. It was bare, so bare, so consistent in its bronze tone that it looked like the photoshopped back of some model in a magazine. Not a mole, nor a pore or even a mosquito bite marred its surface, and it expanded gently with every breath she took.

  Not Adele! Recognition bubbled his blood. Ivyanne!

  The princess’s shoulder was obscured by the fountain of golden waves that she’d swept to her front in slumber, but he could see the perfect, un-pierced lobe of her ear and the shadowed curve of her jaw. And like every other part of her, they were glorious, making his lips almost pulse with the need to press them against her skin.

  We fell asleep. He swept his gaze upwards, being careful not to move a millimeter for fear of waking her. The sun was still overhead but sinking over the tall clusters of rocks surrounding them. How long had they been out? An hour? Two? He didn’t remember drifting off, only holding her while she sobbed.

  But the tears had stopped now and she was suspended in the un self-conscious grace of a slumbering princess. A naked, slumbering princess who had wedged every lickable curve of her body against the sharper planes of his own. Her grief was no longer serving as a distraction, nor was his empathy acting as a buffer. He looked down and the slope of her backside nuzzled against his hips-at her tawny skin against his sun-darkened own, and like a fuel-station ignited by a tiny spark, heat engulfed him, the flames violent and vicious. Ivyanne Court was naked in his arms on a tropical beach in the middle of nowhere and…. Lincoln
shifted slightly, gazing over her mass of curls to the arms she had crossed over her chest, to hug herself. Her left hand was closest to him, and there was his ring on her elegant finger.

  Ivyanne Court...wearing his mothers ring. His fiancé….his Ivanna. His. Possession claimed his muscles and he flexed, pulling her tighter still, unable to resist lowering his mouth to her shoulder and planting a soft, wet kiss on the first part of her he could make contact with. She tasted like salt and powdered sugar and his cock thickened where it pressed against her. There was a twinge in his gut, telling him it was wrong-she’d been distraught the last time she’d been awake-and yet that taste overrode his guilt. His lips brushed across her shoulder blade to the tiny tattoo on the nap of her neck and he groaned, breathing in her scent which was more concentrated there, thanks to the proximity of her hair. He inhaled her, his lungs expanded with her, and then stretched the hand of the arm beneath her until his fingers could close around her plush, moist curls. He squeezed, and his erection twitched again. He wanted that hair in his face, wrapped around his wrist, and falling like a veil between them as she leaned into his lap and-

  ‘Hmm.’ Ivyanne’s murmur was soft as she burrowed back against him, closing any remaining space between his flesh and hers. Lincoln froze, locking his jaw as the pleasure rushed over him, both aroused beyond imagining, and terrified that she’d wake up and distance herself, or maybe even tell him off for being a pervert for molesting her in her sleep.

  But after the longest five seconds he’d ever endured, she began to breathe again deeply and evenly, still lost to sleep, too exhausted from the emotional battery of Ardhi’s return to realize that there was a paralysed, naked man pressed against her slightly curled thighs.

  Lincoln kept his face pressed to the back of her neck, determined to make the most of this moment, and lock every second away in his memory for when they were old and grey and drew more pleasure from playing boardgames together then simply lying there.