Jenni sat at a nearby table and Aric joined her. They ate in silence. For herself, Jenni was enjoying her meal. Exist in the moment with good food.
Aric was eating with enthusiasm, but a line had dug between his brows and Jenni decided he was mulling over how to explain events to the Eight. Good luck to him. Better him than her.
She rose to get some scrambled eggs and bacon, ate those, too, and found herself full. As she put her tableware down and looked around for a dish bin to place her dirty dishes, Aric spoke again. “Just leave the dishes. Brownies clean up.”
“After halflings?”
Another shadowy smile from him. “I think the halflings treat the brownies with great respect.”
“Which they don’t get from Lightfolk nobles.” Jenni made it a casual statement, rubbed her eyes to stay awake. “I think I need that nap.” She was realizing that all the time she’d been waiting for the Lightfolk to contact her again had worn on her, too. And the brownies had reorganized her life. Pleasant, but wearing.
Aric inclined his head. “It would be best if you were fresh for the meeting with the Eight.”
“Instead of being fresh with the Eight.”
He looked confused and she understood that he hadn’t gotten the human slang. “I’ll try to mind my manners.”
Tilting his head, he said, “You never were so contrary.”
“No, I wasn’t with you. Before,” she agreed. “I was a happy child secure in the love of my family.” She glanced away. Liquid was pressing at the back of her eyes again. She flopped her hand in a gesture. “The battle and the loss…” She shuddered. “Such sudden change and reversals made it all the worse.” She knew she’d behaved badly but she wasn’t going to apologize. Not to Aric and not to Cloudsylph. She wasn’t healed enough to be magnanimous.
She stood and pushed back her chair. “Let’s go. I’m tired.”
His face cragged into concern…new lines and planes she hadn’t noticed even the day before. Maybe the events had worked on him, too. Being the Eight’s man couldn’t be easy. Yes, he was maturing, no wonder he’d gone looking for a mate. “I’ll show you to the dormitory.”
“Fine.” That irritated, too, but weariness enveloped her like a fog, seeping into her pores, infusing her.
They walked to the door, and Jenni sensed whisking motions behind her, turned to look and their plates were gone, the table was damp with cleaning. No sign of the brownies. The nobles and royalty probably liked them to be so fast as to be invisible.
“Thank you.” She projected her voice.
“Thank you,” Aric echoed.
No more than three minutes later, he was standing on the threshold of the empty female halfling dormitory and Jenni was scanning to find her bed. It was about ten beds along the right wall, just before the entrance to the common shower, and she didn’t know whether that was a prime space or not. A shower sounded excellent. She set her bag on the carved wooden chest at the end of the twin bed and began to strip, then a strangled sound came from Aric.
Huh. He’d seen all of her—more, felt and tasted—before.
The skin over his fine cheekbones was ruddier than ever. His green, green gaze met hers. “I’ll be back in four candlemarks to escort you to the meeting.” That was about the same time she’d met with Cloudsylph the day before. Must like midafternoon meetings.
“Fine,” she said, then couldn’t prevent the words. “Enjoy your time with your lady.”
His smile appeared more like a grimace, but that might be hopeful thinking on her part. He ducked his head and closed the door.
Once again Jenni turned thinking off as she enjoyed the hot shower, and dried herself with a huge fluffy bathsheet, thus conserving her own energy. She wiggled into a large cotton T-shirt that was so old it was softer than silk. Sliding between four-hundred-thread-count sheets, she fell down the hole of sleep.
A shake on her shoulder woke her up and she saw a halfling—earth-dwarf and human—looking down at her, pleasantly ugly. “You only have enough time to get dressed for the meeting with the Eight.” The woman’s voice was low, raspy and, again, attractive. She was really short, though. “We let you sleep as long as we could.”
Jenni must’ve looked terrible then. She sighed. The woman stepped back and Jenni saw a multitude of rounded eyes on her. She tugged at the tangle of her hair. “So, skirt or trousers?”
“Skirt!” They all sounded shocked she would even ask. Not one of them wore pants.
Shrugging, Jenni tried not to notice as everyone watched her dress. She’d grown up with two sisters and wasn’t modest.
She’d just finished draping a paisley silk shawl around her shoulders—arty again—when a knock came at the door. A mob of women rushed to her, surrounded her and Jenni felt the glimmer of balanced magic enhancing her looks.
“Thanks,” she said as she walked to the door.
“Welcome,” someone said. “The rooms feel better since you’ve come.”
She’d passively balanced the elements already? Must be because there was so much magic around. That reminded her and she hurried back to her tapestry bag, pulled out one of the vials of brew and drank it down. She had a feeling that the Eight would test her elemental balancing.
That would be good for another practice session—or two.
Aric knocked again and she crossed to the door, opened it and saw that he wore dark green silk trousers with his lighter green silk shirt. No tie. Not looking like a human at all. His deep auburn hair was combed behind the pointed ears he’d received from his father. Aric offered his arm and Jenni took it. Old habits. Maybe she could dredge up old feelings of awe and her old manners to get her through this next bit before moving on to her future.
“Good luck,” more than one woman whispered.
Again she and Aric walked in silence. They had too little—or maybe too much—between them to talk about.
They came to a wide corridor of pale brown marble floors and walls that emanated a glow that lit the hallway. Two old dwarfmen stood on either side of smoothly carved pillars of alabaster framing a large, square door of solid gold.
As Jenni and Aric approached, the dwarfmen gestured and the door split into two and opened outward. A breath later she and Aric were in a room, opulent beyond Jenni’s imagination.
They faced a glass wall showing a massive aquarium, with a luminescent garden of plants gently waving in a mild current and colorful fish swimming. To the left was a fireplace carved into stone that could have held a dozen people. The soft rippling of a thousand chimes sounded and Jenni looked up to see the ceiling that was nothing but strips of metal and glass in various sizes, hung from thin wires of silver and gold and copper.
She could only spare one glance for the chamber and its furnishings before her gaze went to the Eight, who sat on intricate thrones to the right.
Aric pivoted and bowed deeply.
Jenni curtsied, though not quite as deeply as Aric. Her glance slid over the perfection of the kings’ and queens’ faces, then focused on the tapestry of an elemental wheel over their heads. She didn’t dare meet any of their eyes.
The Kings and Queens of Water and Fire sat on each end with Air and Earth in the middle. The only time Jenni had been in the presence of such power was when she’d arrived late at the portal opening and fought for her family’s and her own life. She hadn’t paid much attention to them, only caught a glimpse of the four who had passed through.
Those before her had been fighting. She recalled the flash of the silver blades of the elves of air, the flaming blades of fire. The dwarven earth couple had wielded glassy shards of obsidian, thrown darts of other metals, even silver, at the Darkfolk.
She recalled the scent of violent death, of evil that stained the ground with acid blood, with smoking mucus…
“Oh!” A liquid gurgle came from the Water Queen and she rushed to Aric. She was smaller than Jenni and lush with curves accenting the pale green skin encased in fronds of seaweed. The queen reached up, set
ting her fingertips on either side of Aric’s jaw. “You are hurt, Treeman. Too dry. Seared by djinn anger.” She looked disapprovingly at Jenni.
Left over from this morning or more recently? Jenni raised her brows. “Not me. One of your kind.” She glanced at the seven intent upon the scene of the queen and Aric and Jenni. “A full-blooded Lightfolk royal djinnfem.”
The King of Air frowned. “Synicess?”
“So she was addressed.” Jenni thought it wise not to mention the woman’s name.
“Rough sex, then,” the Water King grunted.
With soft, susurrating sounds like waves lapping a gentle shore, the Water Queen sent liquid to Aric. Jenni could almost hear his cells being plumped up with vital water.
“There,” the merfem whispered and returned to her throne, leaving damp footprints in her wake. Again Jenni caught flashes of her beauty from the corner of her eyes—a wide forehead, pretty nose, full, plump lips. Eyes of a deep green that would enchant even immortals.
Aric had told her that Water and Earth had sent Rothly on his ill-fated mission. Jenni was sure, now, that this woman had nothing to do with that. No, it would be her mate. He was a large-boned man who took the queen’s hand in his. He had green-tinted blond hair and beard, and was strong-featured. The aura of his magic was gigantic—power that had rested on his broad shoulders for a millennium, since the last portal was opened for the previous Eight to leave.
Jenni breathed deeply of the air, let her vision gray as she summoned her gift. The elemental energies in this chamber were close to being balanced. It must be a room the Eight often used.
But the energies weren’t exactly balanced. Some individuals of the Eight were stronger than others. Some spent more time in the chamber. The room itself, despite the addition of all elements to it, would not have been originally balanced. Who knew what magic—the kind and strength of it—had been done in this room?
Before she’d exhaled, she was in the gray mist, the power in the room was so strong. Now she could look at the Eight and see them. The magical beings were like columns of the elements.
Air was a blue-white flame, flickering fast. The Air Queen was the weakest of the Eight, the next weakest in magic was the Fire Queen, a bright torch of yellows and oranges and reds. It wouldn’t be long until she garnered enough power to match the older couples. Then came the other newer rulers—the Fire King and the Air King.
In meeting with the Air King, Jenni had been dealing with the strongest person of the two new couples. Huh. She began to believe that this mission was as important as he said.
Jenni turned her gaze on the older couples. Of those, the Earth King, the dwarfman, was the strongest. Instead of the short, thick body that his physical form wore, his power in the mist rose as a strong pillar of a thousand-faceted diamond, stretching beyond the floor into the earth and above the limits of the chamber’s ceiling. So many bright angles!
Secondary in power to him was the Water Queen, who’d just healed Aric. She looked like a column of deep blue water showing the froth of sea spume at the edges, with shiny shells occasionally revealed—bits of wisdom, or spells? Then came her lord, the Water King, a tall crested wave frozen at the point of falling, breaking everything in his path? Finally, the power of the Earth Queen stood as an image of the palest pink marble veined in rose, polished and beautiful.
Jindesfarne! Aric snapped at her mentally.
She ignored him, opened her mouth to test the balance of the elements around her. A little too much earth and, of all things, air. The Air King and Queen who had left fifteen years ago had been so strong that sheets of their power still lingered. Yet, had they stayed, their power would have begun to erode, diminishing them.
Jenni!
With a slight shifting of her feet, Jenni balanced the room, bringing in small sheets the size of bath towels of fire and water to equalize the energies in the room.
Beyond the room she sensed great layers of power she could draw upon to enrich the atmosphere and fuel any spells the Eight might wish to do.
She felt mental exclamations from the throats of the powerful beings projecting from the real world to the interdimension. Sighing and straightening her shoulders, knowing she couldn’t count this brief trip to the interdimension as one of her practice sessions, she stepped from the mist and back into the room adorned with luxuries of centuries.
“—fascinating,” the Air Queen said.
“She is back,” the Earth King grumbled in the tones of a deep gong.
The Water King stared at Jenni, his face impassive, but she sensed his impatience and prejudice against her, mixed with a realization that she could be an asset if used well. She swallowed.
He arched a mobile green brow. “I had not realized that this chamber was out of balance in the least.” He shrugged, and droplets rolled down his bare arms and splashed on the heated floor where they dried in an instant. A corner of his mouth quirked, but Jenni still felt menace surrounding him. “Interesting.”
“It is,” fluted the voice of the Air Queen. She spread her arms. “I can feel a difference in my power, as if it was refined.”
“The elements are exactly balanced,” the Earth King said. His dark eyes glimmered above rough-hewn dwarven features and his creviced face. “How long have you…Mistweavers…had this talent?”
Jenni lifted her chin but didn’t stare him in the eyes. She’d lose herself under the ton of rock of his will. “Three generations. My grandfather, my father’s father, developed it. He was an elf of air, of the Zephyrosa family.”
The dwarfman grunted. “Disappeared under mysterious circumstances.”
“He got lost in the gray mist of the interdimension.” She wanted to add a snarky comment about them sending Rothly to face the same fate, but didn’t quite dare.
“Why did you Mistweavers hide this talent from us?”
Jenni’s turn to raise her brows. “I was sure that my father explained our powers to you.”
The Earth King made a short, choppy gesture. “Only fifteen years ago.” His voice deepened further.
“I—we—were always under the impression that half-breeds were not welcome to speak to you royals,” Jenni said. “There are plenty of half-Lightfolk half-humans with various powers.”
“But you can balance any area for us, enhance our power by bringing more.” The Queen of Fire leaned forward, her face broader, her features more sensual than Synicess’s. The Queen’s brilliant amber eyes fixed on Jenni. She felt the impact. “This is a great boon to us.”
Jenni continued, “We were also under the impression that claims of power of half-Lightfolk aren’t believed.”
They didn’t answer and the discussion didn’t continue. Not one soul had believed what the Mistweavers could do until they experienced it themselves.
“I don’t think we have thanked you personally for your effort in stabilizing the portal so our predecessors could leave for another world, and giving us more power to do the ritual to summon the portal…and to fight the Darkfolk. You have my thanks,” whispered the Fire King in a low rasp, like flames crackling on logs.
Jenni slid her glance across his face and got a shock. His eyes were tilted like her own, like her mother’s, and the color was the same, a light brown. She nearly stared too long, got caught in his glamour, but wrenched her gaze away, found she was panting a little.
“I am Cole Emberdrake. My mother is a Desertshimmer,” the Fire King said. “You can trace a lineage to her, too.”
Jenni reflexively dipped a curtsy. “Thank you for your kind words.” She forced a smile, lowered her head. “And thank you all for the funds you transferred to me.” Not that she’d wanted them—or even seen her bank balance yet.
“I am grateful, too,” the Fire Queen said with a sincere smile.
Jenni curtsied again to her.
“You made our task easier,” the Water Queen said.
Another dip of knees.
“But there were eight Mistweavers to do the elementa
l balancing for the portal,” the Earth King said. “Now there is only you for this bubble ritual. Can you do it?”
Jenni didn’t know what he was talking about and Aric moved restlessly beside her. She decided to answer blindly but with confidence. “Yes,” Jenni said. “I can.” She stared at each of their foreheads in turn. “If I get support of the Eight. If I am not attacked. If I only have to handle the elemental magics that only I can summon.” She bit off each word.
“You are still bitter about the portal contretemps.” The Water Queen leaned forward. “We were fighting for our lives, too.”
“And I and my crippled brother were controlling energies that eight summoned when seven were dead and dying and wounded. I, a half-breed. No one helped me then. No one.”
“We have thanked you and we have paid. What can we give you now?” the Water Queen murmured. She sounded soft and sympathetic, but Jenni thought that manner only covered ruthlessness.
“You can’t give me what I want. I want my family back. No one and nothing can do that for me.”
Aric made a strangled noise and settled into his balance as if hunkering down for a storm.
“We respect you and your gift,” the Water Queen said.
“Do you? All of you?” The old wound was breaking open again, pus escaping, poisoning her own breathing air. Jenni was tempted to step into the mist and gather strings of the elemental energies and yank them, disrupting this room…forcing the Eight to work a major ritual to restore it.
Tears boiled away in her ducts before they reached her eyes. Yes, she was still angry and bitter and hurt, hurt, hurt.
A thick wall of earth magic backed her up a step or two. She looked down to see the broad form of the Earth King, who’d stepped from his throne to stand before her.
CHAPTER 10
THE EARTH KING GLANCED UP AT JENNI WITH ancient, unfathomable knowledge in his eyes. She blinked as she met his dark brown eyes, realizing he was deliberately not snaring her. “You are very young,” he said, as if she were a child of two.
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