The healer hummed approval. “Very well done.”
“My son is a better man than I am, and I am pleased with that,” Windstrum said on a small sigh. Then his merry smile curved his lips and was reflected in his gaze. “Most of the time I am pleased that he’s an honorable man.” He fell asleep.
Aric stepped away from his father’s bedside, shaking his head as if at a loss for words.
“He is what he is,” Jenni said.
“He is what he is, and has never pretended not to be what he is. That’s something.”
“Yes.”
“I do love him.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll never understand him, but I love him.”
She hugged Aric. “And he loves you. You felt it when you held his hand, didn’t you?”
“There was love passing between us, yes.” Aric’s voice was rough. He wrapped his arms around her. “He loves me in his own way.”
“And it’s not a bad way. He wasn’t there for you when you needed him. But you found others to help you along your way.”
“Your brothers, your father. Etesian, even Cloudsylph.”
“Yes.”
Aric sighed, glanced around at the tents. “It’s over. Let’s get our stuff and leave.”
“Fine by me. My pocket computer stated the weather in Denver would be cloudless and in the upper sixties.” She rolled her shoulders. “I’m sure the brownies have my yard spick-and-span and maybe there are a couple of lawn chairs out in the back where we can soak up rays.” She sniffed and the scent of the ocean came to her as it had so often in the last week.
“I’m invited?”
“Of course.”
They hurried to the guest room and packed the few things that weren’t already in their bags—Jenni’s palm computer that she left on the desk, a sea-stained paperback book she’d carried along and been trying to read to distract herself, her brush.
“Ready?” Aric asked.
“For sure.”
They reached for each other’s hand at the same time and Aric smiled. He tugged her to the sliding glass door and opened it and the screen. They stepped from the house onto the hillside and let out pent-up breaths. Aric didn’t close the doors behind them as they walked around the house.
“I’m going home with you,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, then caught the resonance in his words, flashed back to a time long ago after she’d first met him. They’d been in a pub that catered to halflings, and her brothers—his friends who’d introduced him—had wandered off. Jenni had invited him to the house. That had been the first time he’d been to her home, met her parents. She knew now how much that simple invitation had meant to him at the time, outside of the sex that he’d anticipated and they’d had. She also knew now—they both acknowledged—how her inviting him to her home had changed and enriched his life.
She didn’t think this invitation could match that.
Hurrying her along, Aric took her to the empty area where the dancing circle had been. Powerful magic thrummed under her feet and the lingering traces of elemental power nearly made her dizzy.
He walked her straight to the center, turned them until they faced the forest south, took her other hand and gazed down into her eyes. Uh-oh.
“Will you wed with me and twine our lives together until we pass to the next?”
She hesitated. Even harder to answer than the I love you.
In the aftermath of the victory, of the knowledge that she had completed her mission, she could have let the giddy rush of triumph that still fired her nerves answer him with a yes. But she didn’t.
She had forgiven him, hadn’t she?
He stood there, tall and broad and with a mask of inscrutability on his face and his eyes dark and aching.
She hurt for him, too. Surely that was enough. She wanted him. She treasured his friendship and companionship. She loved him.
Before she could answer, the Eight glided toward her, and she had an instant’s revulsion and panic. She didn’t want to see them. Not when the faces of the Emberdrakes were new. Be congratulated on a good job when all this still reminded her of the past.
Despite everything, she hadn’t forgiven them. Aric was right, she felt deeply and she hung on to those feelings too long.
And despite the true words of love she’d screamed at Aric, she hadn’t forgiven him, and wouldn’t until she’d forgiven the Eight, and rooted out that last kernel of hard, unforgiving self-guilt.
She had to forgive them all. She had to open her heart and accept that they had all made errors in judgment that had led to tragedy.
She wouldn’t be whole, couldn’t claim this man who stood and suffered before her, if she didn’t forgive. She wasn’t the person she could be if she didn’t forgive. Her parents, her family, had taught her that.
She’d forgiven Rothly, but that was almost easier because he’d been the one who’d been the more bitter of the two of them, and he was a loved brother, not a beloved man that she wanted to spend her life with.
Then the Eight were there, not appearing as sorrowful as she thought they should. But even the younger Emberdrakes had lived centuries, and known losses before.
The Earth King walked up to her until he was only a handspan away, invading her space. “Well, child?”
“You abandoned me. Without me that bubble energy would have been nothing but chaos.”
The king’s face was as inscrutable as rock. He inclined his head. “That may be true. As it is true that I believed—” he put his thick-fingered hand on his chest “—that you would survive and triumph, as you did.” He stared at Aric. “That I believed our Treeman would fight and not fall. Which is what occurred.”
They stared at each other. Jenni and Aric against the Eight.
“Do you take our man from us?” asked Cloudsylph.
“Aric is his own man,” Jenni said.
“He is and we are honored to have him represent us,” the dwarf king said.
That was something.
“So you feel now, as you have felt all along. Angry at us. Can you not understand our past actions—even those of an hour ago—and forgive us?” the dwarf asked. “We were Six instead of Eight and needed the guardians. Had we fallen, the Dark ones would have swarmed over our gathering and eaten you all.”
Jenni shuddered. “I can understand and I can say I will forgive, but feelings don’t always follow words.”
“For now, the words will do,” the Water Queen said.
Many of the circumstances were the same as after that long, failed mission. But Jenni had changed. Was willing to admit that she’d changed, and she didn’t want to hold anger and bitterness close to her, let it poison her life as it had.
“I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.” And she continued the magical three-chant for each.
“And you forgive yourself,” the Water Queen said.
“I forgive myself, I forgive myself, I forgive myself.”
“And now, a boon for you.” The Earth King snapped his fingers and held a small crystal sphere. “I captured one of the minor bubbles that formed after the huge one broke. It’s yours, to do with as you please.” His lips twitched. “I think you will find that the elemental energies are balanced.”
When Jenni didn’t take it, he lifted her hand, put the thing in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “To do with as you please,” he repeated. “To become a full djinnfem or elffem if you please.”
Everything her family had ever hoped for was in her hand, but Jenni had learned so much since she was a child, mostly in the last few weeks. Being halfling wasn’t as important as being alive and happy with your life—your magic, your future.
She took Aric’s hand, gazed into his dear face. “I’ll wed with you.”
He closed his eyes, sighed out a breath that sounded like wind whispering in pines. “Thank you.” Opening his eyes, he kissed her hand. “Thank you.”
“And you will work with Eight Corp on the
meld project?” asked Cloudsylph.
“Yes. But I’ll work with my game, also, and practice my Mistweaver magical craft.”
“Good, we need you,” Blackstone Emberdrake said.
He was right, and she knew it. She’d remain a halfling, and be proud of herself and her talent that no one in the world could match.
The magical community, the Lightfolk royals, needed her as she was.
She had changed. She was Jindesfarne Mistweaver Emberdrake, and she would shape the future of Lightfolk and halfling and magic.
Acknowledgments
California Coastal Records Project,
www.californiacoastline.org, for the wonderful images of the Lost Coast of California. The U.S. National Park Service and most particularly the Yellowstone National Park website and online cams, and the cams at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks; the U.S. Geological Survey, and the QuakeWatch iPod Touch application. England’s Northumberland National Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. My apologies to any other references that I may have lost in my desktop crash (one hard drive of two gone, including internet bookmarks and history), and my laptop crash (motherboard and internet bookmarks and history gone).
ENCHANTED NO MORE
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7910-4
Copyright © 2011 by Robin D. Owens
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Worldwide Library, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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