All up to her.
She closed her eyes. Felt the magic. The great and balanced elemental magic imbuing the chamber, just outside her grasp, for now. But if she believed in herself, she could have it, stand there in the outer circle and dance together with others who had magic.
Yes, she yearned for that.
So one last huge breath...one of the last breaths she hoped to take as a human, and she uncurled her toes from the tiny groove they’d found in between the mosaics and stepped onto the path. And felt a huge rushing of exultation from the others. Respect. Appreciation. Belief.
Dance! Dance on the path. She shuffled and swayed and music surrounded her, air rushed in her ears, her feet kept time with her pulse, then came a lapping tide, the roar of surf. Patter-patter-thump! Her dance. She raised her arms, swayed. Fire crackled and she could almost see it leap joyfully in a bonfire.
Yes!
Joy. Believe.
Now and then she heard low and earthy drumbeats from an instrument held by the dwarf, who circled, elbows linked, with others around the room in a blur of colors. They sang, magical elemental ancient songs with notes so sweet and pure Kiri wept.
And then she reached the center of the room and magic struck her.
Who are you? the magic whispered as it whirled. Where do you belong? To whom do you belong? Grammatical magic, who knew? But it shuddered and demanded the cells in her body answer.
The room disappeared and she hung in rainbow-glitter-streaked blackness. Awesome. The chamber was beautiful, but she hadn’t liked it as much as the image she’d had in her head of a proper ritual room, a conservatory, like the one at the Castle, but without a pool. In the ritual room there were no living beings other than those in the dancing circle down here. No plants, not even an insect.
Then she thunked down.
Who are you? Where do you belong? To whom do you belong?
She stood in a...crib...bending and straightening her legs, whimpering, thin hands curved around the rail. People were shouting. People she loved. So she screamed. Look at me! Look at me! Pay attention to ME!
The man and the woman turned and yelled at her.
Black and rainbow glitter whirled her.
She stood on the shadowing staircase at seven. Her father opened the door and it was cold and he took a suitcase and left, slamming the door. The woman cried and cried and cried, and Kiri did, too, but nothing changed.
And she began to feel more than the wind that whisked the memories around her, yanking tears from her eyes, tangling her hair into painful snarls. Heat crisped the tiny hairs along her skin. Fire.
Searing her lungs as she gasped. Then a vision formed of her grandmother’s living room, a modest ranch-style home in Denver. Peace. Rules, but no hysterical demands from her mother, no cold orders from her father.
Yes, this was a home.
Who are you?
I am Kiri Palger and I am singular. I am special. I am unique. She could scream that to the wind, that gut-heart-soul belief because she knew it to be true. Everyone was special and unique and so was she.
Her dorm room, with Shannon sitting in an institutional desk chair, went up in flames that licked Kiri. Love for friend. This one friend.
Memory flashed of her own green Mohawk hair, chains, a belly ring. Yeah, that had hurt.
She carved her own meaning of special into her soul. She had to, because she was creative...with games, with stories for games. Yeah, that got real respect in the outer world, sure.
Who. Are. You? The elemental powers mocked as she was torn apart, cell ripped from cell.
And she was screaming and crying from pain but nothing escaped her lost mouth, sounded on her lost ears, affected the rainbow sparkling night at all. But without sight or smell or hearing or touch, she yet knew who she was, yet kept the kernel of herself together, protected the seed of who she was and could become.
The searing fire stopped, the piercing wind, the tumbling earth that had smothered her, all washed away by a sea-green-white-frothed flood that threatened to send her molecules tumbling away and never to be gathered again, lost to the salt of the ocean and the four winds and the desert sands and motes of the universe.
Who are you! A demand she felt.
A demand she answered silently. She no longer had words, nor concepts, that she’d always thought were the basis of her being, a rational mind. No, the demand pulled something from her that she’d never imagined...a shape. Her heart, her blood, her marrow, her being fashioned it, threw it into the restless storm—a many-pointed star.
And with that burst of light, pain consumed her, and all she knew was enduring, surviving, being.
One last pummel and she lost herself, struggled all the way back for one last instant. She could not survive another. But the robe took on the water and the earth and twined around her and felt so heavy she fell.
She hurt. She lived.
A wild thing whimpered, desperate, but she couldn’t help, could only hunch in the present.
“It’s done!” some woman said-shouted, sounding happy.
Kiri wept—the woman was not her mother.
“We must immerse her in the Castle pool immediately,” a man said, not her father, and she was glad and she liked the voice, the faint accent and should know it, should know him, but didn’t and liked the feel of this man’s arms under hers and his grip as she slipped and wiggled.
A light blue arm with four-jointed fingers, woman’s arm, flopped before her milky vision, then away.
Air rushed by her, drying her lips and her skin and seemed to be putting little cracks in her that dirt and dust caked around and hurt!
All of her hurt!
Blackness—without any rainbow sparkles. Had they all gone into her and turned into fizzy champagne? Sorta felt like it and she was smiling and her cheeks bunching and she cried and giggled—darkness swooped around her, then she was shoved into something warm and soft and liquid and she knew she was being born.
* * *
Lathyr and others watched through the window of the saltwater chamber as Kiri curled, then stretched, then curled again. She was in complete mer form, including tail, tail fin, fins along her arms and her legs and webbed feet and hands. Her skin was a slightly deeper blue than his own, but he had elven blood. Her hair was long and deep green. She lived.
His body wanted to sag against the tank wall, but he kept it straight. Naiad Kiri had nearly died in the pool, so they’d moved her to the saltwater tank.
A person nudged him and he forced his feet to shift aside so Amber Davail could look in. She smelled of perspiring human, not unpleasant, but not mer, and he wished to have mer around him. Wished to be with Kiri, but the Emberdrakes would not allow that. This last test she must pass alone, waking as a Lightfolk.
“Wow,” Amber said. “That was incredible.” She turned with wonder in her eyes and met his gaze. “Thank you for letting me participate.”
He inclined his body. “You are quite welcome. We could not have done it without you.”
Rafe Davail pushed close to his wife, looked in at the new water Lightfolk fem without a glance at Lathyr. “You think such a transformation will always take so many people of mixed races? And in a magically balanced chamber? Not sure it’s cost effective.”
“I—we—hope to refine the process,” Lathyr said.
“Is she a merfem or a naiad?” Amber asked.
“A naiad,” Lathyr and the other Waterfolk said.
“How can you tell?” Amber persisted.
Lathyr was in his two-legged, hardscaled form and gestured to his skin and the silver pattern of ridged scales. “Naiads and naiaders don’t have these designs, and mers are born with them.”
“Oh.” Amber stared at his chest, and then gazed back at Kiri’s unmarked blue torso.
The earnest young naiader said, “It’s mostly a matter of power. Mers have more magic.”
“Ah.” Amber grimaced. Like the rest of them, she’d wanted Kiri to become one of the grea
ter elemental beings...a merfem, dwarfem, djinnfem.
Rafe smiled and his lashes lowered over gleaming eyes. “Let’s go home. All that magic was...energizing.”
Sexual, he meant. Lathyr nearly begrudged the couple their happiness when Kiri remained in danger. Nearly. Now that he’d come to know them, he understood they’d fought battles in the past and would in the future.
Most of the others of the circle left, too.
“We did a great job. The project is a success.” Jenni stuck out her chin.
“Yes,” Lathyr said. Kiri still had to wake and accept her fate.
“Kiri will be fine,” Aric said, wrapping his arm around his wife’s waist. “Later, Lathyr.”
“Yes,” Lathyr repeated. The couple walked away, murmuring.
He stood by the window and brooded, watching Kiri. For a moment or two he’d been terrified that he’d lost her, and sickness welled through him, poisoning his blood. He’d convinced her to take this chance. He’d wanted to prove his new powers were valuable. That he was valuable. He’d wanted to win his estate. Have a true home, a place of his own, forever. None of that was worth Kiri’s life.
A small, wet cough attracted his attention and he saw the naiader who had helped in the circle, a member of the Meld team. The naiader was very young, under four decades.
Lathyr turned and bowed formally to the man, expressing gratitude with swirls of his hands. “Thank you for taking part in the circle.”
The naiader shifted his weight, ducked his head. “It was great. Great circle, biggest—um—most important I’ve ever attended.” He shoved a small note bubble at Lathyr.
Lathyr took it with a questioning look.
The young naiader said, “Jenni says that Ms. Palger might need to try out rivers and streams and whatnot.”
“True,” Lathyr said.
“I, uh...” The naiader shifted again. “My father lives in Maroon Lake. Anyway, he, Stoneg, is interested in this project, and if you need to show Ms. Palger options, like such a lake, Stoneg says she could visit.”
There weren’t that many lakes in Colorado, and Lathyr had memorized them all. Maroon Lake in the mountains was beautiful, but there was something—
The naiader continued. “I know, it’s not a very deep lake, but with it being so shallow, not much harm could come to her. It’s a mountain lake, not a city lake, stocked with trout, and natural enough. Twenty-five acres for her to roam and feel right in. Good exercise for her bilungs in a natural setting, and for learning to mask her appearance.”
Only a naiader would want to live in so shallow a lake. This Stoneg must cloak himself in illusion all the time. Lathyr repressed a shudder. “I will consider that. I thank you for your offer.” Again Lathyr bowed.
With a casual wave, the naiader dissipated into the air and moved his molecules from the Castle to wherever he called home.
Lathyr waited by the window all night, watching as Kiri curled and stretched, curled again, woke and half dozed and swam. After a while she reverted from a tailed mer to the legged form with hardscale, and a couple of hours after that her skin turned back to its original color and texture and she became human.
Amber dropped by early the next morning. She gazed at the human Kiri. “Can you get her out of the water?”
“Why?” he asked, feeling sluggish from lack of sleep.
“She’ll be frightened if she wakes up surrounded by water. She’ll think she’s drowning. You should take her out now.”
“Her bilungs—”
“Won’t they automatically change?”
They should. Lathyr could only hope.
“I really think you should get her out of there,” Amber insisted.
Lathyr should run the idea by Jenni, but now he was more certain of his contribution to the project, of himself and his worth. “Very well.” Slowly he drained most of the water and when the chamber contained only a meter, he went into the tank, held Kiri close, then rose with her into the air.
Her breath caught. Stopped.
He waited, counting off the seconds. No more than twelve before he’d decide whether to return her to the water or try to force the air-breathing part of her bilungs to work.
She coughed, coughed again, sucked in loud and noisy breaths. Something a mer would not do. Were her bilungs good?
She clung to him and he prayed she would not drown in air.
One more cough, then her eyes opened and she blinked and the nictitating lids went away and her befuddled gaze was the same sea-green he’d always admired.
“Lathyr? I had a dream—”
“You are naiad, Waterfolk, Lightfolk,” he said.
Chapter 22
“YAY!” A MUFFLED woman’s shout hit Kiri’s ears and she blinked again. Her eyes...felt funny, and sounds to her ears had a funny tone, too. She’d thought she’d heard other noises and voices and conversations, but couldn’t recall them.
She coughed again, throat raw and burning, felt wobbly. Lathyr steadied her and she realized she was plastered against him. He didn’t seem to mind.
Lathyr, ritual.
“You okay, Kiri?” Amber shouted.
Lathyr, ritual, Amber.
“You breathing?” Amber insisted.
Lathyr, ritual, Amber and breathing. Kiri drew in a deep breath, the pain in her throat easing. She looked up at Lathyr, his pale blue face, his slightly pointed ears, his green hair. His chest was harder than muscle and skin against hers.
Lathyr, ritual, Amber, breathing. Lathyr Lightfolk merman!
Knowledge slammed down on her, even as water lapped around her legs. Holding on to his biceps, she looked down at herself.
She was naked, her body the same.
“Whew,” Amber said, in a loud voice. She waved at Kiri through a round window. “Good to see you’re doing good after spending most of yesterday afternoon and all night in the water.”
A day and a half in the water? Kiri’s toes weren’t even wrinkly. “I made it.” She gripped Lathyr harder. “Say it again, what you did before, when I just woke up!” She had to hear the words, had to have them thrum against her ears.
“You are naiad, Waterfolk, Lightfolk,” he repeated.
“I made it.”
“Yes,” Lathyr said.
“I don’t feel any different.”
“You are,” Amber said.
“You are in your human form,” Lathyr said. He bent so his mouth was close to her ear. “Are you pleased?”
“Hell, yes.” Kiri slid her feet in a small boogie. She didn’t slip.
“We are in the saltwater tank in the Castle,” Lathyr said precisely, as he helped her through a large porthole.
“I didn’t even know there was a saltwater tank in the Castle,” she said.
Amber grabbed Kiri and hugged her hard—differently than Shannon, but Kiri’s eyes stung all the same.
“Thank God,” Amber said. She stepped back and grabbed a lush terry robe from a browniefem and helped Kiri into it while Lathyr closed the door.
“Do you recall the Water Realm banishing spell from Transformation?” asked Lathyr.
It took a minute to call up the gesture and the words. “Uh, yeah.”
“Send the water into the air or the earth.”
Magic. Her first real magic. Pressing her lips together, Kiri turned to face the tank and visualized the finger-flexing and hand-waving a couple of times before she tried.
It worked! The remaining water vanished.
Kiri gasped.
“Excellent!” Amber said.
“I guess.” Kiri felt a little dizzy.
Lathyr pulled her arm through his elbow. “You need food and water.”
“I’ll have breakfast with you,” Amber said.
“Great,” Kiri said faintly. She felt the magic around her, inside her, had used it, and that had tingled, but she wasn’t as changed as she’d expected. And she was a naiad, not a mer or an elf.
Lathyr guided her up the wide stairs, and a brownieman
ushered them into the breakfast nook on the ground floor in one of the turrets, with a view of the gardens.
Well, at least she wasn’t a brownie—that had been a fear. And she wasn’t a dwarf.
* * *
Kiri was eating scrambled eggs Florentine when Jenni bustled in, a wide grin on her face. She bent down and kissed Kiri on the cheek. “Welcome to the Lightfolk.”
“Thanks.”
“We believe that you should stay here at the Castle where Lathyr can keep an eye on you,” Jenni went on. “If you’d turned djinn or dwarf, you would have stayed with me.”
“Oh.” A twinge went through Kiri at the thought of not being in her own little house, her own bed. She tried to think logically. “So I’m a naiad. Do you, like, measure my magic or what, first?”
But Jenni was shaking her head. “I think your magic is still, um, flickering into a flame inside you. We’ll wait. Isn’t like we’ve done this before.”
“All right.” Kiri looked at Lathyr. “What first?”
He put down his napkin. “Forms,” he said.
“Forms?”
“A Waterfolk has various forms. Full mer with tail.”
She’d missed having her tail! Dammit. “Forms like in the game.”
“That’s right. You need to practice your forms and your breathing.”
Kiri sighed. What had she expected, zooming through the ocean and playing with dolphins? Despite all the time she’d taken to make her decision, she hadn’t quite imagined the immediate afterward of her transformation.
“Okay.”
“Eventually you will be presented to the Lightfolk royals,” Jenni said. “The four elemental couples, the Eight.”
Eight Corp. Now it all made sense.
“Okay.”
“You’ll do great,” Jenni said in those cheerleader tones she’d used all through the project.
And Kiri felt better for eating. Magic really did wash through her. She managed a big grin back. “Yeah, I will.”
* * *
Later she stood in human form, naked with Lathyr in the shallow end of the pool. The water only came up to her knees and she was all too aware of her nudity, but Lathyr seemed to be all right with having no clothes on. At least he wasn’t reacting to her as if she were attractive to him, and she shouldn’t be thinking of sex.
Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) Page 20
