Enchanted No More

by Robin D. Owens

  “Go.” The elf clapped his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “I will not.”

  “Go! Return when you can. Demitroland hopes to divide and conquer. Go!”

  With a desperate look at the elf, who grinned wildly, the dwarf vanished.

  More screams from the hill, the sound of fighting.

  Something brushed Jenni, pulled her attention to her job. One of Kondrian’s shadleeches! She stamped her feet and her words, saw more converge on Aric and the guardian, the slash of shining blades. Then Aric’s face as he mouthed the words, I love you.

  She halted for a moment, suspended in his love, in her need for him. She screamed, “I love you!”

  His grim expression broke into wonder. He blew her a kiss and she thought it went straight to her lips, filtered down to settle in her heart. Tears rose to the back of her eyes. “I love you.” She formed the same sentence with her lips.

  He nodded, saluted her with his sword. “Go into the mist!” Aric yelled. “Your spiderweb will protect you from the shadleeches. Be safe.”

  She lifted her foot, and a bolt of black lightning struck her side, burning! She shrieked, fell.

  Aric grabbed her, slapped a hand over her wound that sent pain to every nerve. “Heal, my love!” Her skin twisted, seared more, hardened. She couldn’t think, could only gasp. Treefolk healing couldn’t affect her. Could it?

  “Elf-bright lightning!”

  They both had elven blood. That blood seemed to boil and blister and burst around her wound.

  “Get into the interdimension!” Aric roared. He shoved and the mist was there and in she went. Again she fell to her hands and knees, moved to her butt, huddled over, focused on what she had to do for them to be together. She’d barely reached her feet before she heard the King of Air, Cloudsylph, order the elf guardian to him.

  Leaving Aric alone to guard her. Her heart leapt in fear and her hands went to her mouth to suppress a cry.

  She wanted to go help him, but she had her own duties.

  Sheets of energies flashed. She cast her senses toward the bubble and felt the roiling of them all inside. If they burst now, mixed with other wild magic, there’d be nothing but chaos.

  That the Dark ones could use to their advantage.

  She turned her attention to the hill. The Eight, the old Six and the two new Emberdrakes, were continuing with the ritual, others fought. She had to do her part.

  So she struggled to her feet.

  Two Dark ones attacked the Eight and their people—not the strongest. One held back, seeming to rise on tendrils of smoking evil as if he watched the fight—ready to swoop in if there was an opening for a killing blow, but staying selfishly separate.

  Balance the hillside first. She sent great sweeping elemental energies there, all in equal amounts, saw it caught and formed.

  They fought around her, she could sense it in the gray mist…so many moving and flashing auras. Deep, dark oily ones of three great Dark ones. The bright pillars of the Eight. To me! the Earth King commanded once more. Aric hesitated, glanced her way. He would think she was safe in the mist. Would he go to the Eight?

  He stayed.

  Not many around her, and Kondrian was committed to fighting her defenders, to wresting the whole of the energies of the bubble from the Lightfolk if possible.

  No time to worry about the battle…Aric…anything but the bubble.

  Ignoring the tears of grief and pain and fear rolling down her cheeks, she pressed a hand to her side and stretched her magic, herself, toward the bubble…through the thin skin of it, delicately, delicately, to be swept into the swirl of energies.

  Fire! More fire to lick at her, her wound, her skin. She pulled it into her, used the energy to heat her, fight her pain.

  Water, not much in the bubble, but surrounding it…surrounding her. She filtered some into the bubble. Pulled a matching amount of air from the molecules of the sea. She thought. She hoped.

  All even.

  Maybe. Best she could do as the bubble floated through the ocean.

  She heard a mental cry from Aric, and turned to look at his strong green aura, saw that his father had deserted them to go fight in the mass with the Eight. Relative safety.

  Another inner cry from Aric and he swung his sword fiercely at the dark and flitting triangular shapes—shadleeches.

  She ached. Emotional pain ripped away reason and rationalizations and mental understanding of why the Eight did as they did, opened old wounds again.

  All the bitterness she felt before flooded her again, rising from where she’d quashed it away. Hurting, light-headed, the past and the present merged.

  The Eight fought, but they’d abandoned Aric, abandoned her.

  Where were her guards? Gone. Needed to protect the circle, the ritual, the Eight. Perhaps they needed the guards, but so did she. She was tiring, would not be able to stay in the gray mist for long, and once she left she’d be killed.

  So much for channeling the force of the bubble—a bubble that contained enough power to kill them all.

  Six fully powered kings and queens, two new ones, but all older than Jenni. Twenty more full-blooded Lightfolk, and all concentrating on the bluff. None on the beach.

  Even if they didn’t believe she was important, Jenni knew she would stick to doing her duty, while the Eight ignored what they couldn’t see.

  She looked down. Her blouse and undershirt gaped, showing brown-scabbed skin that ached. She had to discount it. Yes, so much for guards.

  Her anger, her bitterness, her grief had to be quashed—or more, finally released. Jenni took the whole seething mass of negative and violent emotions within her and flung them away toward Kondrian. There was a concussion of magic when it hit the Dark one—the thing that was less than a person. Its aura shivered. Flashing green and silver sliced at it—Aric, fighting. For her, for them, for his belief in the Lightfolk, whom she doubted.

  Again and again she flung her rage and loss and wailing desperation at the thing and it receded. Then it snapped out a tentacle and shadleeches swarmed.

  Toward her.

  Instinctive panic that the shadleeches could enter the mist, trap her and feed off her as they had her brother.

  She spun around, saw no more flames of elemental magic that would signal any other guards but Aric. Once again she shoved her anger out and away from herself. Betrayed or not, she must keep her bargain.

  She coughed, sucked in a breath at the realization that she believed in the good of this mission. If the Eight and other Lightfolk could influence the energies inside the bubble for the good of the Lightfolk, create a force for good in this world, any sacrifice would be worth it.

  So she pressed her hand to her side even as she fell on her knees and faced the direction where the bubble lifted from the ocean into the air. She willed it to rise faster, but it continued to move at a steady pace. She began gathering all her energy, drawing sheets of water energy from the ocean, earth from the rocks and sand, air from the turbulent wind, fire from the very source of the bubble, magma under the earth’s crust, close, close.

  The Eight’s ritual continued. They were ready for the bubble. Good for them.

  She’d make sure to do all she could, in memory of her lost families—the Mistweavers and Emberdrakes, Aric, if he fell, even for herself if she did.

  Resting on her heels, she studied the glorious pearl that was the sphere—shining with energies moving within it, painting its gleaming surface.

  A shadleech zoomed through the mist, another and another. A mass. She wasn’t ready for the agony as they bit her and hung on.

  Breathing through the pain, Jenni flung her arms to shake off the shadleeches. Didn’t happen.

  Had they been mutated again by Kondrian? Or was it that the spiderweb tatt didn’t work as well in the mist as the forest? But it had been as a protection for the dryads and Treefolk. The first was a shock, and the second and third. Piercing pain as their teeth clamped on her. Terrible lassitude as
they sucked her magic before her mind overcame her rioting fear and sent fire against them.

  Yet they fastened on her side, slurping her magical energy—and blood. Two others attached to her raised arms.

  She wiggled until she buried her knees in rich earth energy, drew that into her body, it came slowly, reluctantly. The Earth King not so supportive in this, either.

  Jenni! Jen-gin! Rothly’s call touched her mind. She shuddered.

  Roth-ly!

  I’m here to help. He sounded grim. Use me and my power, our shared blood-bond.

  She looked around but couldn’t see him in the mist. More shadleeches were coming, though, enveloping her.

  And energy began to trickle into her. She gasped and felt more power. From Hartha and Pred, from the small browniefem of her suite in the Earth Palace. From Fritterworth-Crag and Chinook and Rothly.

  I love you, Jenni…I forgive you, and myself, and thank you for forgiving me.

  Pulling a fire sheet closer, she drew the energies into herself. Shadleeches flapped and unheard screams rippled through the atmosphere. Some had fried. She found herself grinning, gnashing her teeth as if ready to rip into the things.

  Evil hive creatures. She loathed them.

  And Rothly’s energy matched and twined with hers and she reached for Aric, found him desperately fending off Kondrian, helped by more Waterfolk. She bonded closely enough with him that they shared magic, and sensations. She felt his weary-heavy sword arm swing, and surged fire through it.

  Aric lunged with a flaming sword, cut Kondrian’s belly open so his putrid guts fell out, and flamed, and he died screaming in an oily spiral of smoke.

  “The bubble!”

  It was a chant she could hear in the interdimension. Aric whirled and she caught a glimpse of what he saw—an enormous iridescent bubble full of elemental magic. Breathtaking.

  She caught one sentence of the rising chant of the Eight—a triumphant Eight. Understood from Aric that one other Dark one had been defeated and slain.

  “Give us what we need, the way to prosper—Lightfolk and human.” The words Aric heard reverberated into her ears.

  Jenni, the bubble, Rothly whispered in her mind and she turned her sight again to the interdimension, the massive amount of energy about to burst.

  The bubble and the forces were just…too…big. She couldn’t control all of it, could balance the energies but not control. And she didn’t think that the Eight and their dancing could, either. She gave her all, then watched it pop, most of the energy flowed and was directed by the Eight.

  Grab some, Jenni! Pull it! Use the bubble magic to become a true Lightfolk! Rothly shouted in her mind. Become a real djinnfem or elffem!

  He was right. She could become a true Lightfolk, a pure magical being.

  If she did, she’d give up her elemental balancing talent. She was the last, and she was proud of that talent and being a Mistweaver, a Mistweaver Emberdrake.

  She watched the energies of the bubble and the sheets of elemental magic she’d summoned to equalize them meet and merge. Water to fire, earth to air. But not equally—and balancing them was beyond her.

  The chant moved over her, but she couldn’t hold on, was drained.

  Letting go of the last of her own magic, she fell again into the real world, found herself on the beach with water lapping at her.

  CHAPTER 32

  ARIC GRABBED HER, HIS ARMOR GONE, smelling like sweat and blood.

  She leaned against him, feeling scoured out, both tired and good. Finally she had managed to rid herself of negative emotions that had been eating at her from the inside. She glanced again at the wound in her side, healed somehow in the last few minutes to a wide and shiny red scar.

  “Jenni. You did it. I love you. We did it!” Holding her, Aric hopped to his feet and whirled them around. “Two Dark ones dead, their shadleeches dead, too.”

  “We did it,” she croaked, putting her head on his chest. “I love you.”

  “I heard you.” He kissed her. “I felt you. The most amazing thing. My Jindesfarne.”

  The elf guardian appeared before them. He had a few smears of blood and ichor on his clothing. Jenni figured that if his appearance really matched the way he’d fought, he’d have been covered in the stuff, his armor would show rips and blows, his hair would be matted with sweat and blood of his own.

  But he looked just a little less than immaculate. And he was smiling—deeply, joyfully—as if he, too, felt an immense relief.

  He bowed. “Well done, children.” Shook his head at Jenni. “Your skill is incredible. Thank you.” Then he clapped Aric on the shoulder, nodded. “You are a man I’m proud to fight next to.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And your father, Windstrum, is in the triage tent and has asked to see you.”

  Aric flinched. “How badly is he hurt?”

  “Not too badly, a sword thrust through his chest, but being healed. Fluttering the healers’ hearts, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Go see your father, Aric,” the elf said softly.

  Aric’s brows came down. “Advice. So you’re being a guardian?”

  “Always.” The elf bowed once more. “Again, good job, both of you. I am glad to see the future in your eyes.”

  “Uh,” Jenni managed before he strolled off.

  Aric slid her to her feet, but kept an arm around her. She turned her head into his shirt, let it soak up more tears. “I could have lost you,” she said.

  “We could have lost each other. And not just from battle. I felt that great bitterness you had.”

  “Gone now. As gone as the Emberdrakes.” She couldn’t help the tears. “I didn’t know how much I liked them.”

  “You never know how deeply you feel,” he said.

  “I know that I never liked Synicess.”

  “She was deranged. And sly. Waiting until the worst possible moment to try and usurp both Fire royals. I’m sure she believed she could win.” Aric shook his head. “I didn’t realize how angry she truly was until she met you.”

  Jenni tried to think. “The other kings and queens wouldn’t have interfered.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time violence was used to become royal. Kingship goes to the strongest. Though I doubt Synicess would have held that throne long.”

  Jenni gulped and clutched his shirt, decided to change the subject. “You have a father, Aric.”

  “You have a brother.”

  She sniffed loudly. “And we’ve made up.” His gaze was green and soft when she looked up. “We’re good now, Rothly and I. And Rothly and you.”

  “I’m glad.” Aric pulled her along to the nearest tree at the bottom of the hill, they entered, then exited at the top.

  The ridge was full of rushing people dealing with the aftermath of battle, or collapsed nearby in sweet gratitude that the fighting was over and they’d lived. The sun was warm on them and Jenni finally smelled their own odor—forest and air and sticky-resin-sweat from Aric. Regular human sweat from herself with a hint of ocean and scorched hair. She released Aric’s hand to run her fingers through her hair. Definitely some crispy ends. And why was she thinking about her hair when Aric was having a crisis? She tugged at it.

  Because she didn’t want to prompt him further to do what she thought was the right thing for him. He had to decide and he already knew her opinion.

  He turned and reached up and took her wrists. “Leave it alone, it looks fine.” After a breath in and out, he said, “We’d better go see Windstrum.”

  “Don’t do it because of me.”

  He snorted. “That’s what I think I should do. Make my peace with him.”

  She pulled her hands from his grip, linked an arm with him. “Good idea.”

  “After all, half of my nature comes from him.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was hurt when he didn’t come to help us.”

  “Yes,” Jenni said again.

  “I know what you felt that firs
t battle. And I’m sorry now that I hurt your feelings then.”

  “Ah.” She wasn’t sure what to say. Everything seemed so complicated. She didn’t want Aric to mix his feelings about his father and her together. “It’s past.” As the Emberdrakes were past and her grief was present and would have to be dealt with in the now and the future.

  The rest of their walk to the triage tent was in silence. The place was dim, and Jenni’s nose twitched at the stringent odor of healing herbs. No one was groaning in pain or despair though, the way it had been during that first battle. The Eight had been prepared this time. Those who were dead had been taken away by their families or the Eight had cared for them. Those who had been deeply wounded had been transferred to palace healing wards. Only those with minor wounds were still here.

  No stench of death was here, either, and Jenni breathed easier.

  A healer of the minor Waterfolk, a naiad, hurried up, but Aric waved her away. His gaze had already fixed on a raised pallet in the corner of the tent near a light-heat glow globe. They walked toward the elf reclining there, pale and beautiful. His harp and flute cases were beside the bed.

  “Hello, Windstrum,” Aric said.

  “Can’t you call me Father?” Windstrum’s eyelids were puffy and heavy, but his voice, though plaintive, was still musical.

  Aric hesitated, then bent down and kissed the elf’s smooth cheek. “Hello, Father.”

  “So tall and sturdy and strong, excellent,” Windstrum murmured.

  Jenni leaned against Aric. “I think so.”

  “A good man. A strong man,” Windstrum continued. “I am not much of either.” He cleared his throat. “I was not the father I should have been. Will never be the father that I should be.” His eyes seemed to burn. “But know that I care for you, and that I think often of you.” His breath bubbled on his lips.

  A healer hurried over and tsked at them, bending a disapproving look on Aric and Jenni as she stroked Windstrum’s brow. Then her hand went to his chest and pressed. Green healing energy flowed from her hands into Windstrum. He tensed, then went limp, but his gaze was still fixed on Aric’s face.