All for a Rose

by Jennifer Blackstream

  Corrine’s eyes drifted closed. A long exhalation rolled out from her body, flowing from her nose and mouth on a sigh that came from somewhere deep in her body. Something inside Maribel loosened, the phantom string she’d felt so keenly earlier. The nausea and pain she’d had a moment ago vanished, so quickly it made her head spin anew. She blinked, startled at how much more vibrant the world seemed suddenly, how much clearer her mind was. Strength flowed through her and she pulled in a deep, soul-cleansing breath.

  Corrine slid to the floor, her head lolling to the side. A small smile played over her lips.

  “Sshe wass holding you and you were getting weaker while sshe sseemed only to grow sstronger. Don’t you ssee how much sstronger sshe iss? I know there iss a connection.”

  “Sshe musst feel what you’ve done to her, ssomewhere insside her, sshe musst know.”

  Maribel’s hand stilled on Corrine’s cheek. Slowly, tilted her head down so she could look into Corrine’s cloudy brown eyes. “You were taking energy from me.”

  Corrine blinked once, slowly.

  Dread curled in Maribel’s stomach, sent icy shards bobbing into her bloodstream. “Corrine?”

  “Y…yes.”

  The confession was so breathy that Maribel had to strain to hear it, and even then she thought she might have imagined it. Her heart pounded, hope shooting up inside of her like a geyser, explosive with its force. She grabbed Corrine by the shoulders. “Do it again,” she commanded. “Take more, take everything you need.”

  Corrine’s teeth clacked together from the force of Maribel’s jostling. She could tell the moment the words registered because Corrine’s eyes flew open, the haze over the brown orbs retreating. “No,” she rasped. “Will kill…you.”

  Maribel shook her head, unable to keep from looking at Daman’s body lying a few feet away. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t shifted. There was no rise and fall to his body, no twitch in any flesh from the top of his head to the tip of his heavy tail. He was gone. She bit her lip to hold back a sob. “I won’t watch you die too.”

  Corrine tried to push herself up, hands scrabbling at the ground, pushing her back against the wall in a vain attempt to shove herself upright. Her dress tore, the sound of wet fabric tearing jolting Corrine out of her futile attempts. She stilled, studying Maribel from the corner of her eye. A spark of green lit somewhere deep within the brown irises.

  Maribel recognized the pull when it started. It was the same string, the same nauseating tug that had laid her out earlier. Even prepared for it as she was, she couldn’t help but curl her arms around her stomach as if that could ease the discomfort. The invigoration of a moment ago seemed like a dream as the adrenaline fizzled out, left her drained, listing to the side.

  She blinked trying to stay conscious, needing to reassure herself that Corrine was getting better. Images blurred into watery blobs of color and gray ate away at the edges of her vision. Her heart lurched as she fell back…

  And into a pair of strong arms.

  Maribel blinked, breath chilling to ice in her lungs. “Daman?”

  Daman’s eyes looked into hers from where he hovered over her. Well, sort of Daman’s eyes. They were the same beautiful silver, but the pupils were round like a human’s instead of slitted like a reptile’s. Her brow furrowed, brain fighting to process the other changes. His skin. It wasn’t pale silvery-blue anymore. It was the pale flesh tone of a human. The scales were gone, the ridges that had traced his brow, curled down his shoulders…gone.

  “Maribel?” Daman held her face in his hands, gently, as if afraid of hurting her.

  “Daman!” Maribel thrashed in his lap, desperate to sit up, to see for herself that she wasn’t dreaming. Arms akimbo, body stubbornly refusing to do as she instructed it, she let out a cry of frustration.

  “Easy, easy,” Daman hushed her.

  The strong arms around her flexed, became steadying. Maribel’s hands landed on his shoulder, dancing over his skin, his jaw, his face. He held still, let her touch him, reassure herself he was all right.

  “Oh, Daman, what happened?” she breathed. “I thought you were dead, and Corrine—”

  Daman’s face tightened, pain in his eyes. His grip on Maribel tightened and he tried to pull her to him, tried to keep her from turning around to where Corrine would be.

  “Daman…” Maribel struggled against him, straining to look behind her. Daman put his hands on her face. Slowly, he shook his head. Panic rose like a wild thing in Maribel’s chest and she renewed her efforts, thrashing, needing to see for herself.

  Daman had to let her go or risk hurting her. As soon as he relaxed his grip, Maribel spun, heart in her throat.

  Corrine was lying on the floor, her eyes open, but drooping. Her chest rose and fell slightly. Or did it?

  “Corrine!” Maribel tried to go to her sister, but her body wouldn’t support her. She collapsed, sobbing, stretching for her sister, but only grasping the edge of her skirts. Daman’s hands closed around her, lifted her and carried her to Corrine’s body.

  “I don’t understand,” Maribel sobbed. “What happened?”

  A muffled shouting from somewhere close by drew Maribel’s frazzled attention to Corrine’s bag. She pointed, too disoriented to verbalize what she needed. Daman followed her hand and nodded. After carefully settling her against the wall—moving so slowly Maribel wanted to scream—he fetched the bag and brought it to Maribel. She fished around in the bag and removed a small cage.

  A tiny creature was inside, roughly the size of a raven, but thin and humanoid. She had pale pink skin and her clothing was sewn from some sort of gauzy material that was darker in some places and clung to her body as if it had dried funny. It swiped it’s long ponytail out of its eyes and glared at Maribel, translucent wings fluttering angrily.

  “Let me out!” the fairy demanded. She stared at Corrine’s body slumped on the floor, face creasing in consternation. “Let me out or she’ll die!”

  Maribel flicked the latch on the cage and opened the door, barely resisting the urge to shake the cage to get the loud creature out faster. The fairy zipped out in a flash of glittering lights and landed on Corrine’s shoulder.

  “Who are you? What happened to Corrine? How did Daman—”

  “Agh!” the fairy shouted, covering her ears. “Too many questions! I can’t concentrate! Shut up!”

  Maribel snapped her mouth closed, as the fairy laid her hand on Corrine’s cheek and spoke in a voice too quiet for Maribel to make out what she was saying.

  “Is she going to be all right?” Maribel leaned to the side, grateful when Daman put an arm around her and held her tight. She laid her head on his shoulder, too tired to hold it up anymore.

  The fairy didn’t answer. Her eyes lit up and a second later she was gone.

  A second later she was back, holding a flower in her hands. Broad white petals glittered with gold dust, a warm pulse flowing out from its shining center. The energy washed through the air, flowing over Maribel, infusing her muscles with heat and vitality. She sat up, still in Daman’s embrace but no longer leaning on him.

  “The Rose of the Mist,” she breathed.

  The pixie nodded. “Use it. Save your sister.”

  Maribel caught the rose as the pixie half-flung it through the air. As soon as her hand closed around it, the invigorating sensation she’d felt before increased, pounding through her like a sledgehammer of adrenaline. She sucked in a breath, blinking through the buzz of power.

  “Don’t go getting drunk on me yet,” the pixie barked. “Heal your sister first!”

  “I… I don’t know how to use it, I don’t have the…book.”

  The fairy crossed her skinny arms. “You’re sidhe. I’m not sure how this is confusing you.”

  “She?”

  “Not ‘she,’” the fairy corrected her. “Sidhe.”

  Maribel blinked. The fairy rolled her eyes.

  “You’re a changeling. A sidhe changeling. The plants listen to you. Just…” She
waved her arms in frustration. “Listen to the flower! Talk to the flower. Tell it what you want it to do.”

  Tears burned in Maribel’s eyes. “I don’t know how.” Corrine’s chest hitched, her body going stiff. Her eyes drifted the rest of the way closed.

  “No!”

  “Maribel, look at me.”

  Daman’s voice sounded far away. Pressure on either side of Maribel’s head made her turn, held her still no matter how hard she tried to focus on Corrine and that dreadful stillness creeping over her body. Finally she became aware of Daman’s eyes, the fact that she was looking at his face from inches away.

  “Listen to me, and take deep breaths,” Daman said calmly.

  Maribel pulled at his grip, but he held her firm.

  “Corrine is going to be fine,” he said firmly. “You are going to listen to me and you are going to heal her. She will be fine.”

  “You don’t know that.” Maribel sobbed, her voice hitching as a fresh wave of hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Yes, I do. Now close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Hold the flower.”

  Maribel pressed her lips together to hold back another sob, but did as he told her. She clutched the rose so tightly the stem snapped, smearing her hands with liquid that smelled of spring and newly churned soil. She whimpered and opened her eyes, crying out when she saw what she’d done.

  “It’s okay, you haven’t hurt it,” Daman soothed. “Close your eyes.”

  More tears spilled as she obeyed, her closed lids sending them washing over her cheeks in sheets.

  “Concentrate on the flower. Do you feel the warmth? The pulse?”

  Maribel nodded, holding the thought of that warm throbbing beat in her mind.

  “Picture the glow, feel the warmth.” Daman cupped his hands around hers, cradling her grip around the rose. Slowly, he lowered her hands to Corrine’s wounded flesh.

  Blood slicked her fingers as she pressed the flower to Corrine’s skin. The jagged edges of the slash marks had started to curl, some blood clots making the flesh tacky. Maribel swallowed a scream, concentrating on the rose, on what she wanted desperately for it to do.

  Please work. Please work. Please work. Oh, Corrine, come back to me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Ssso the witch isss going to live.”

  Daman didn’t take his eyes off the mirror, gaze still locked on his legs.

  Legs.

  “Yes, she is.” He angled his body to the side, stepping carefully. He’d dreamed of having this form back for so long, but it had never occurred to him how hard it would be to get used to walking again. He’d fallen over the first time he’d tried to stand up.

  Which is to say, he would be very embarrassed, if he weren’t so overjoyed.

  “You’re not very upssset about it. Consssidering you ssseemed to put sssome effort into killing her, I find that ssstrange.”

  Daman had been staring into the mirror long enough now that he figured he was bordering on vanity, so he tore his attention away from his reflection and focused on the cuelebre. His houseguest was hanging from one of the wall sconces again, wings tucked neatly against its slender body. It had fixed him with the usual beady-eyed stare, tapping its chin with the tip of its tail.

  “Sssomthing’sss different about you.”

  “Can’t fool you,” Daman said dryly, crossing his arms. “What do you want?”

  “Jussst checking in.” The cuelebre wound its head around one hundred and eighty degrees, peering at Daman from its upside-down vantage point. “You’re ssshorter.”

  Daman opened his mouth then closed it. He slanted a glance at the mirror and realized the cuelebre was right. He furrowed his brow and looked down at his body, then back at the mirror. Now that he thought about it, it felt strange to have his height so…consistent. In his naga form, his height changed depending on the flex of his muscles, how much of his tail he raised off of the ground. His human legs remained the same. He didn’t bob up and down as he stood either, there was no flexing of muscles subtly raising and lowering him.

  His hair remained the same, so that provided some transition. His eyes were similar, metallic grey, only with a circular pupil instead of almond-shaped. He ran his hands over his stomach and arms, tracing the skin where once there had been scales and ridges.

  “I’m sssurprisssed your lover isssn’t with you.”

  Daman tensed, hands stilling on his stomach. His temper flickered inside him, familiar and alien at the same time now that he was in this form. Your lover. His heartbeat echoed in his ears as he slowly faced the cuelebre. “How do you know she’s my lover?”

  The cuelebre twitched, tongue flicking out and back in. “Oh, isss ssshe? I meant the word in itsss purest form, lady love and sssuch, you underssstand. But can I take your resssponssse to mean thingsss are now physssical—”

  The change came to him with the enthusiasm of an old friend returning from a long voyage. Daman’s body swelled and twisted. Scales clattered down his body in a rain of thick, plated glitter and his muscles and bones stretched, broke, reformed. He opened his mouth in a wide yawn, a snout extending from his face, full of razor sharp teeth and four curved fangs the size of short swords. His claws scrabbled at the floor as he whirled to face the cuelebre, his thick tail swishing behind him. He snorted at the flying pest that seemed all the tinier next to his full wyvern form.

  “No need to be ssso touchy,” the cuelebre grumbled. He perked his head up, beady gaze suddenly fixed on the door behind Daman. “Your…lover isss coming.”

  Daman swirled around in a chaotic swirl of scales, muscle, and claws, commanding the same grace as he had in his half-and half form, the tail more familiar to his brain than two legs. Footsteps echoed in the hallway beyond the door and he cursed and called the change again.

  Dizzy from changing twice in such rapid succession, he stumbled a bit as he grabbed the clothes he’d pulled out earlier and dressed as quickly as he could. The cuelebre snickered behind him, a pleased hissing sound that would have earned it a knock upside its tiny head if Daman had had the time. As it was, he had barely fastened his trousers when there was a knock at his door.

  “Daman?”

  There was a tone in the voice that came through the door, a note of uncertainty, colored with fatigue. That voice made something in Daman’s stomach clench, a tight sensation of dread tugging at his guts as if it would spill them out onto the floor.

  He abandoned his shirt and rushed to the door, snarling as his legs threatened to dump him on the ground. A moment of concentration and he got them under control enough to reach the door. He flung it open and came to a dead halt.

  Maribel stood there in a simple mint green dress, the cotton hugging her curves like beloved treasures. She’d bathed, and her skin was scrubbed clean of blood, along with what he guessed was a layer of skin. Her clothes were rumpled as though she’d been sleeping in them, and her face was still flushed as though she’d only just woken up. Though any thought that she may have been sleeping was disillusioned by the slight redness in her eyes and the droop in her shoulders.

  “You’ve been crying. Are you all right?” Daman asked gently.

  Maribel nodded tiredly. Her gaze roved over Daman, skittering over his new form as if she still couldn’t quite believe it. She hadn’t really had time to see him properly earlier, not with her hands covered in her sister’s blood, Corrine’s life force leaking away from wounds Daman had inflicted. Maribel hadn’t taken her eyes or her hands from her sister until golden light had spilled from the bloody gashes in her neck and chest, melting the wounds closed like hot wax being smoothed into perfect skin.

  Daman had helped her get her sister into bed and left them together. As much as he’d wanted to stay, there had been a tightness in Maribel’s posture that…frightened him.

  “How is Corrine?” he asked, unable to stand the silence any longer. He tried to keep the question light, but emotion battered his words, showed his uncertainty in all its inglori
ous light. He desperately wanted to ask Maribel if she’d forgive him, if she’d ever be able to forget that it had been his claws that had nearly cost Maribel her sister. But he was afraid of what the answer might be.

  “Sleeping still. The rose seems to have worked.”

  There was an awe in her voice that reminded Damon of how sheltered Maribel had been from her heritage, how human she had been raised. It would be interesting to see how she adapted to the knowledge that she was anything but human.

  He hoped he would be around to see it.

  “Would you like to come in?” Daman stepped back and to the side. His steps were still shaky in this form and he moved as though he had splints on. It was irritating, but in that moment he was grateful for the distraction it provided.

  “Not yet.”

  Daman’s heart hardened to rock in his chest, a painful weight that ached with every breath. He shuffled back to stand in front of Maribel again, studying her carefully.

  “Corrine and I talked a lot before she fell asleep,” Maribel started slowly. She wrung her hands in front of her. “She told me about the bonding spell.” She took a deep breath, stilled her hands. “I guess she knew what I was right away—I mean, that I wasn’t…”

  She cleared her throat. “The fairy says that Corrine’s illness wasn’t really an illness, that really it was some entity that had decided to grant Corrine power. She called it a ‘patron.’ She says that’s why Corrine had hallucinations and seizures, it was the power she had inside her. I guess without a familiar or anyone to properly train her, a witch isn’t able to fully process her abilities, and it can cause a lot of problems. For Corrine, she used too much energy just fighting to stay sane. The magic was manifesting itself in nightmares and things that scared her, so she was constantly trying to suppress it entirely. It weakened her body and that’s why she always felt so ill.”