Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (29 page)

But they would probably haul her ass out of the river and bundle her...where? She had no home, now. Time to accept that. She couldn’t live in her beautiful house on Mystic Circle—it had no pool. Even the Castle might be beyond her. She ached for her friends, for Shannon and Averill. Their lives had changed and now hers had transformed beyond belief.

She might be able to stay in touch, but she didn’t think she’d be living in Colorado unless it was in a tank. She shuddered.

The smell-dance-song swirled around her, making her nostril frills strain to feel it...leading away downstream. Making her scales quiver instinctively. And that was it!

Instinct. Pure instinct told her to follow the smell. Something in her subconscious alerting her that she wouldn’t reach her full potential as a naiad, as Waterfolk, unless she found that smell and sucked it into her bilungs, and sang the song and danced the dance.

She had to do this to be Kiri the Naiad. That was the goal of this quest.

A fish newly dead and not eaten drifted down from above her. She dived in and scooped it up, ate greedily, even licked her fingers of its juices, her ewww barometer had changed so much.

Feeling more chipper at her revelation and the food in her belly she drifted upward, and saw light flickering across the water. Dawn had come and she hadn’t noticed.

Moving faster, stretching her toes, she zoomed upward, and bumped a log. It flipped in the water and snapped. She plunged back and down, but remained nose to snout with the alligator.

Chapter 30

HELL!

Panic whipped through Kiri and she found the low and fast current, flung herself into it at too steep of an angle and bounced right out. At least on the other side.

She
pulled
on her magic. Water formed a tough bubble around her—oh, she’d pay for this sooner rather than later—and let the river bob her way too slowly to another backwater. Her antics had stirred up the mud, and that also hid her. She curled up in the bubble and it shrank around her and she went a little faster, then got swept into the mouth of a tributary. The bubble popped with the rougher water since she’d depleted her energy. And when she found another downed tree in the mouth of that other river, she scouted it for inhabitants, then hid, gulping water and crying
again
.

The food she’d eaten had replenished her, but now she was tired once more and the song-smell echoed in her ears and blood and teased her nose frills and she couldn’t turn back but wasn’t sure she could go on, and as she watched, a black-webby film of
something
magic and nasty floated down the main river in front of her and so did the now-lively alligator, and...and...a shark.

What had she gotten herself into? Should she give up? Turn back? Yell mentally and see if she could find Lathyr? Could Lathyr handle an alligator and a shark?

Of course he could. Kiri herself might have been able to use magic to fight them, but had let panic and tears and weariness rule her actions. She considered. Humans, alligators, sharks...other Waterfolk. Who were the most predatory?

She found, dug and ate more mussels, then headed back out, following the song-smell that had her firmly in its grasp.

No choice and no turning back.

* * *

Lathyr hadn’t caught Kiri by the time he sensed the ocean, and then, of course, he understood everything. Because the call of it danced in his blood, skimmed through his nerves, caressed his skin. Even as far as St. Louis he had felt it, the tide ebbing and flowing, but it was so familiar, he only noted that he could feel distant salt water.

Kiri had felt it, too, but it would have been new and fabulous to her, wouldn’t it have been? The pull on marrow and molecule? She probably didn’t even know what she was feeling.

Despair trickled through him. She’d been absolutely right when she’d said that he could overlook something basic. He hadn’t believed her, but it was true.

But if she reacted to the ocean the way he thought she would now, that meant she was a sea naiad, and they were few. And he and the other Lightfolk had already underestimated her, so she could actually be a
merfem,
one with power and a taste for the brine of the ocean, one who belonged in the depths. Like he did.

Her lack of scale design had marked her as naiad, but the pattern of scales showed the heritage of the mer—the family lines strong in magic. Kiri had no mer family.

In any case, he doubted he’d reach the ocean before she did, and there were so many more dangers—oceans and multitudes of dangers—that could maim or kill her.

And he couldn’t stop, take the time to find Jenni or Aric, who might be the only ones who would believe his new theory. He didn’t know this particular river, but he knew great rivers and how the waters acted when a storm arose, and one was coming, a big storm that might affect both the river and the area of the ocean it flowed into.

Even he knew that hurricane season in this area peaked in late September and it wasn’t that far past the end of the month.

So he began to pray, for Kiri, for himself because he was going into the teeth of whatever storm that raged to find and keep her, and he prayed for them both.

* * *

Kiri floated, half-conscious, not altogether solid. She knew that wasn’t smart, but every time she’d donned her two-legged or tailed mer form, she’d gotten into trouble—chased by mers or other predators, pulled by some stupid lingering spell in the water to struggle upstream to the north, even had her tail caught in a fishing net! She still wasn’t sure how that had happened.

And she knew, in the back of her mind that yet had an occasional thought, that she was in danger of losing herself to the river, of losing track of the molecules that comprised her body, period. Of dying.

It didn’t seem so bad...just dissipating.

That
was
the extreme danger.

What saved her was the very thing that had lured her. The smell. The scent of magic...and something else. She
had
figured out that part of the fragrance was magic, but it was magic wrapped around something else, or some other thing embedded in the magic.

And she reacted to the presence of it in the water. As a discombobulated, scattered being she couldn’t
really
smell it—the thing she longed for. So she began gathering herself together. It hurt, the water seemed cold, and it took energy she didn’t think she had to spare. She’d have to eat again.

But with nose frills, she could smell it, she could catch the scent and bring it close, draw it into her lungs.

Nearly taste it.

Her tongue came out and swiped her lips, and an explosion ran down the synapses of her brain.

Salt water!
That’s what it was. Sea salt. In the water. That’s what she
needed.
Her tail flicked faster, and she moved with speed and grace, following the scent-taste, much stronger and richer here. Must be far south in the river, closer to the ocean—and she didn’t know where.

But the magic-sea-salt invigorated her, caressed the ridges of her scales with sweet energy, power.

Something that she knew innately was necessary for her being. She was an ocean naiad. Who knew?

Who could have known?

She only dimly recalled her transformation, but knew they’d put her in the saltwater tank. That liquid didn’t have the rare spice she felt here. Why, she didn’t know. Because there wasn’t any other living things in it? No plants, no hint of living fish and mussels...and the decay of that which had died?

But the salt-ocean-magic called to her, and even now that she knew what had her in its grip, she couldn’t turn aside. She
did
spend a spare thought to reach for Lathyr, but he was too far away. She could vaguely sense his mind, his worry, but could not stop to reassure him. Could not go back.

Not ever return to the human Kiri Palger had been. She was Waterfolk.

Oh, love for Shannon and Averill yet remained in her heart, but the currents washing through her had carried much of human Kiri away—both good and bad.

She wouldn’t be able to stay in Denver, no matter how much she wanted, and tears dribbled from her eyes and gave the water her own salt at the thought of her once-beloved house in Mystic Circle, the community she’d just begun to discover and the loss of it.

As for Lathyr...confusion seeped into her. He was an ocean mer, one of the major water elementals, a merman. Yet he’d been able to stay in Denver, appreciated Mystic Circle and the Castle. She didn’t understand. Maybe it was just the fact that he’d been around so long that allowed him to live away from sea salt magic. She didn’t know and would have to ask.

Soon, when she was able to go back to her human form, after...after...

After she reached the ocean?

Hopefully.

In a moment of clarity, after swallowing a few mussels, she understood that she didn’t dare forget her humanity or her human form, all the knowledge she’d gained. To have believed so earlier was wrong. She had to stay herself, reclaim herself. Somehow.

As for now, she didn’t know if she still swam in the main river of the Mississippi, the current wasn’t as strong, and the banks were closer—but she’d followed the strongest fragrance of the magic. The ocean was near, a thrill to a woman—a
naiad
—who’d lived most of her life landlocked.

She’d experience exciting tall waves of many colors, colors she’d see differently under the water, sounds that would resonate differently in her ears. The taste that was like nothing she’d ever known.

Now she was in her full naiad form—tailed and with her hardscale skin, the first transformed human woman to Waterfolk.

Definitely needed to reclaim her human self and identity.

Later, after the wonderful and exciting ocean.

* * *

Several hours had passed and Jenni had ordered Lathyr from the water, and Aric had brought his wife to where Lathyr had left the river. Jenni had also insisted he eat. He had used much of his strength and felt thinner.

They sat around a table in Natchez, Mississippi. Lathyr didn’t drop his eyes, didn’t feel out of place with Jenni and Aric now. And the others’ faces showed pale with lines of strain.

“The weather report is bad,” Aric said baldly. “A hurricane is coming.”

Lathyr didn’t bother to hide his shudder. He’d weathered a hurricane. Two. Two only and had never wanted to do those, let alone another. “If I knew where she was, I’d get her.”

Jenni slanted him a sympathetic look, placed her warm fingers over his fisted—and webbed—ones. He’d lost a little control. Drawing a breath—at least the air was humid with a salty tang—he made his hands human again.

“We know,” Jenni said.

His jaw flexed and he made his teeth more human, too, minded the color of his skin, the shape of his ears as their waitress came by and he ordered absently. He couldn’t shut away the worry. Kiri had made a place in the chambers of his heart, in the tide of his blood. He’d never be free of her, didn’t want to be. But that connection wasn’t wise to display to anyone before he could make plans,
find Kiri.

He forced his jaw to unlock long enough to say, “I do know that she’s beyond New Orleans, close to the ocean.”

The couple exchanged a glance, and Jenni actually looked haggard. “Right into the hurricane’s path,” she said. “No one will allow us into the area.”

Humans and their human rules, but a hurricane was no place for a half-human, quarter-fire princess.

“Yes, you must stay here.” Glancing around to make sure they were unobserved, Lathyr used his knife to slice his palm again, deeper. He’d ordered a huge dinner and would eat it all. Again he took Jenni’s hand, then Aric’s, murmured a small binding chant—something he hadn’t done for centuries, and the last had been with a good human friend, now long dead. But both Jenni and Aric had a softness for him that the binding would stick to; both were friends.

The princess watched with wide eyes, flexed her fingers and smiled. “Feels a little odd, but not unpleasant.”

Aric grunted. “Feels good.”

Lathyr nodded, Jenni’s fire magic had brought a brief sting, Aric’s woodman and elven nature had been...nice. “Now you will sense if I die.” His face tightened. “And I will be able to use the bond to push an urgent message to you when I find Kiri.”

Jenni sighed. “Also good. We’ll do what we can when we can.”

“Of course.” It felt good connecting to friends. He should not have stayed so solitary—but no one had offered him friendship in any of the places where he’d stayed.

That was the past.

The food came and Lathyr gobbled it down, went to a stall in the men’s restroom and took his droplet form and moved back to the river. Now he used storm weather and magic to skip down the river until he got to where he’d sensed Kiri.

She wasn’t there, and he had to go deep into the current to find her.

* * *

She was in her full, tailed form, reveling in the scent and feel of salt water on her skin, when water churning with wind and wave picked her up and grabbed her. She panicked, fought, to no avail. She was caught, trapped by the current and the weather, being battered.

Ducking into the main water stream, she concentrated on working her bilungs, getting enough air in the frothy water, but debris shot at her and she deflected it with a tight field she formed around herself, and her skin that she’d hardened as much as she could into armor.

Scary. Out of control. Keep her head.

This wasn’t a man-made situation, didn’t feel like anything an evil Dark one would do, either.

What?

And it struck her landlocked brain—the South, New Orleans, autumn. Hurricane weather. Oh,
shit.

She curled into a ball, flipped until her head pointed upstream, tried again with all her magic, all her augmented physical strength, to push against the current that carried her down the river, would dump her out...somewhere. Gulf of Mexico? She thought so. Dammit. She didn’t know much about the Mississippi River Delta, not even the configuration of lower Louisiana.

Only that it was no safe haven in a hurricane.

Once she broke the surface, but was dragged under too quickly to see more than night black, no stars, bad clouds. She wasn’t sure how long it had been night, how soon it would be morning, or even if she could hang on that long.

Fighting only tired and weakened her, so she gave up and tucked tight and saw the banks of the river blur by, the occasional naiad or naiader huddled safe in a nest they’d made.
They’d
been wise.

She’d been ignorant and foolish and soon she might be dead. She mind-yelled, trying to reach Lathyr, Jenni, anyone.

Nothing.

So she endured, and the rushing weather and waters surged into the ocean, taking her with them.

It was colder and darker than she’d imagined, but the turbulence lessened as she sank deep.

Among the dim and muddy waters, a group of tough-looking mers approached her, radiating anger in every fin at her invading their territory. She’d learned that look on her trip down the river.

And the pure truth was that she had no clue how to deal with them, except that she couldn’t look vulnerable.

Smells of mer, river, salt, magic.
The words came to Kiri’s ears in an odd cadence, reverberated into her mind at the same time.

One sniffed, his nose frills were long, outrageously beautiful, as was his body, his pattern, and his powerful tail. And he knew it.

He added sign language that she didn’t understand. She was culturally blind, and that was a problem. Her heart pulsed hard in the fringes of her tail fin, so hard she had to control the tremble of the beat. Deadly to show weakness.