Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle) (5 page)

The king’s tail flexed with muscular power; the magic that flowed from him actually cleared the water, giving more visibility
. I am pleased that one of my subjects can contribute to this situation. That your power was augmented.

From the corner of his eyes, Lathyr saw the naiader twitch. That one didn’t believe the king’s last statement, either. But at least the royal merman wasn’t actively hostile.

The King flicked his fingers.
You actually wish to live on land in that Castle?
Water snorted from his nostrils.
As if a few rooms and two turrets make a castle, a palace. Not even enough rooms for my own retinue let alone my lady’s or anyone else’s.

Keeping his head low, Lathyr said,
Yes.

A massive shrug sent the water rippling.
We royals come to this wretched place as needed. We have purchased a compound closer to Eight Corp’s headquarters and raised a mansion with four separate wings around a common hub. Cloudsylph has the half-breed Fire Princess balance the place as necessary, perhaps monthly.
Another shrug.
We prefer that place. The Castle in Mystic Circle will be used for guests only—it’s so small.

All the better, as far as Lathyr was concerned. He didn’t know the last time that the royals had stayed at Mystic Circle or visited, but it was clear to him that the neighborhood was a treasure. If they couldn’t appreciate it, too bad.

Then intensity replaced tedium in the king’s vibrations.
I don’t want you anywhere near the Queen of Water,
the king said.

Lathyr’s nictitating membrane flickered over his eyes as he blinked in surprise. He backswam a space.

I know you will have some contact with us eight royals, but do not come near my wife. You talk with her and you will find yourself more of a drifter than you are now, with no one offering you the hospitality of a stay space.
The king grinned and dropped the illusion that his teeth were dull and humanlike.
You may have to stay on land and in our weaker form forever.

Lathyr remained motionless in the water. Everyone knew the King of Water was a volatile man, did not care for fools, but did not react well to aggression.
I am unaware that your queen knows of my existence.

She does not, and I wish to keep it that way.

Chapter 5

HEATING FROM THE
inside in excitement, Lathyr strove to project calm, and subservience. There was a mystery here, but one he didn’t dare solve...not without powerful allies to stand behind him.
I will strive to remain beneath your lady’s notice.

Good.
The king’s nostrils showed frills as he unfolded them in a sneer at the place around them. His gaze went to the
naiader cowering near the bank and he nodded with royal condescension
. We thank you for your service and will have gold nuggets brought to you.

A squeal of delight and vibrations of awed loyalty emanated from Lathyr’s host. Lathyr let himself sink into the silt of the lake, his head significantly below the king’s, who pivoted with a hand twist toward Lathyr.
We will allow you to stay in the Castle at Mystic Circle, during this time you are associated with those other folk and humans.

Lathyr ducked his head, darkening his second eyelid so the king wouldn’t see that he still watched the royal man.
My great thanks.
But knowledge trickled through him. The king understood that Mystic Circle was balanced since Jenni had lived there for a decade and a half, but preferred pure water magic around him. Lathyr believed the merman hadn’t been often at Mystic Circle and experienced the difference, hadn’t spent much, if any, time at the Castle, owned by the Eight for over a decade. So he didn’t know the true boon he was granting.

Denver was not a place the merman would care to be—landlocked with no beaches for thousands of miles, high altitude instead of the deep ocean depths where the primary water palaces sat. The city was
very
dry. And like the king had indicated, surrounded by humans and land animals instead of ocean fish and mammals and a large society of other mers. The naiads and naiaders here would be mostly isolated.

So the king would not consider giving Lathyr leave to reside in the Castle much of a favor, if one at all, and would believe spending time human, on land, more like a trial than a pleasure.

Just a duty, my lord king.
Lathyr attempted a casual note with an undertone of pain, of wanting to please and thus putting himself at a disadvantage for the king.

Since that aligned with the royal’s own ideas, the merman nodded.
We have discussed reward for you.

Lathyr wanted to bring up his need for his own home, a small valley in the ocean, but kept his thoughts tight, unleaking. This royal could be fickle, best to continue to hide his own needs.

Again the king looked around and his lip curled.
Some of my elder subjects, with a more scholarly bent, wish less responsibility.

Meaning they’d rather live in a palace than run an estate. Excitement pulsed through Lathyr in a burst he couldn’t control. Yes! A tiny domain, even under the royals’ scrutiny, would do.

Your reward will be commensurate with your success.

As decided by whom? The king? The entire Eight? Lathyr did a lowly swirl.

Someone will be by with a key to the Castle in Mystic Circle, where you can reside as long as Princess Emberdrake needs you.
That was mocking. The king would not be able to conceive of taking orders from a Fire Princess, not to mention a half-human Lightfolk. Marin Greendepths had been born of a royal line, had moved into the position of King of Water long before Lathyr’s existence. The great mer paused.
You will recall ALL that I instructed today?

A definite threat.

Of course, my liege,
Lathyr said.

Schlllluuurrrppp.
A column of mud and detritus swallowed the king and he vanished elsewhere.

Lathyr allowed himself a cough and swam fast out of the swirling mess. It would take days to settle. Somehow he’d make it up to the naiader who had offered him hospitality.

Lathyr would move to the Castle, a lovely idea. He had no doubt it would be a mansion fit for the Eight, luxurious, matching the palaces he’d served in as a child and now occasionally visited. That would be a pleasure, luxurious surroundings, a pool of water of his very own. Living in Mystic Circle would also be very good. Wouldn’t being there help him develop and stretch his magic? He hoped so.

Far from scorning the inhabitants of Mystic Circle, he was intrigued by them. Brownies would probably run the Castle; Princess Jindesfarne was friendly and interesting and easy to work with. What he’d seen of the Treeman, Aric Paramon Emberdrake, Lathyr liked.

Kiri Palger was enticing.

But what was important was that both Aric and Jenni worked closely with the King of Air and knew the other royals. And Lathyr might find out from them the answer to a new and urgent question. What was it about the Queen of Water that might affect him, the low-status Lathyr Tricurrent?

* * *

Kiri had stayed at the neighborhood party as long as she could manage. She’d made sure to talk with all her neighbors, and thought she was being accepted by them. Progress. She’d also conversed with some of Rafe Davail’s sparring buddies from the Denver Fencing Lyceum. Again thinking of her ass—and a better paycheck if she was hired on by Eight Corp—she toyed with the idea of taking fencing lessons.

Now, though, she lay in her sweats on her thin yoga mat, on her living room floor. Her feet were on the cushion of the comfy chair-and-a-half she’d found at a thrift store. New age music drifted around her, sank into her. She loved the tonal progression of this piece, even though it was supposed to balance her chakras. Maybe it did.

She was decompressing from the party.

That she didn’t get the job developing Pegasus Valley wasn’t as much of a disappointment as she’d imagined. No sulking there. She could be in on the launch of a new game as a writer! How cool was that?
Très, très kewl.

She’d accomplished what she wanted—she’d met Jenni Weavers Emberdrake. The woman had impressed Kiri; she could only hope that she had done a bit of the same—and with Rafe and Amber Davail, too. She’d liked them, liked being in their company.

Her muscles relaxed. Her mind floated on the music and she noticed undertones she hadn’t heard before, the slow, quiet beat that sounded heartlike, the crackle of flames.... Kiri turned her head to her empty fireplace—nope, the music was not reality.

She rolled her neck back, delighting in the easing of knotted tension and shut her eyes. Yes, as a counterpoint to the fire there was the ebb and flow of surf...and the light whistle of wind.

Nice, very nice. She’d thought she’d known the music, but had never heard this before.

And in a few breaths sleep claimed her.

Then, nightmares, glassy and bright, trapped her. She heard a dome thunder down, clamp around a twisted Mystic Circle. She was stuck in the terrible landscape. Like a game world. Or a horrible snow globe.

Though Jenni’s backyard and the cul-de-sac looked the same, it had transmogrified into threat—now the clouds weren’t clouds but flickering black flying monsters, overshadowing. Huge
things
that would suck her soul from her body and leave her dead. Circling, circling, ready to dive when her terror was strong enough for them to taste.

Something pushed her. Hard invisible hands. More and more came at her, tiny but strong, beings she couldn’t see, couldn’t elude, pushing her from Jenni’s yard.... No sound from the nasty small ones...at first...then evil whistling giggles, laughing at her, knowing they could kill her...thrusting her south to the edge of the Circle...which fell away in a gigantic waterfall no one could survive. Crushed to death by water.

Her fingers dug into the earth, grabbing, trying to defeat the inevitable. Shards of rock jabbed under her nails. She screamed and screamed and nothing came from her mouth.

With a hiss, a fiery whip wrapped around her wrist. The giggles became long shrieks pitched at the very top of her hearing, spearing into her head. She’d stopped, but the fire ate through her skin and flesh searing down to the bone. Not saved...just dragged north to the Castle, five times its normal size, not brown brick but black stones, slick with dripping blood. Something waited there to feast on the rest of her.

The monsters in the sky dove.

Sharp beaks pierced her, ripped. A huge clawed birdlike foot grabbed her around the waist, puncturing internal organs. Hideous pain, then they flew
through
the Castle walls and she was dropped onto a hard stone floor inscribed with a magical pattern. A hooded figure sat on a throne above her. She
knew
she’d been captured and was trapped until torture brought forth every bit of information she had. And she didn’t even know why.

Lightning stormed around her, the walls of the Castle disappeared and she floated in an electric universe that transformed from lightning to brilliant fireball stars....

Kiri’s feet thunked from chair to ground and she quivered, not enough muscle control to even curl up into a ball and hide.

Whoa. Really intense scary nightmare. All from her anxieties about meeting her neighbors and fitting in and the wrenching hurt earlier of not getting the job and the excitement of being a writer on a new game and maybe a teensy fear of failure. The threat of using all her vacation time for an entire year and then washing out of the effing game prologue, having to stick with her present job with no relief.

Her breathing sounded loud and harsh, the house too quiet. Something she didn’t often notice or mind, the memories of her parents’ loud and ugly fights still echoed from her childhood so that a quiet house meant peace.

How long had she been out? She couldn’t see the clock, her arms and legs jerked once as she tried to move, then she rolled over. The cheap wall clock from the dollar store showed that her dream couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes. Though it had seemed like infinity stretching to doom.

She rocked to her feet and passed her computer and the game with no more than a glance, almost shuddering. Even if she entered Fairies and Dragons and defeated monsters there, it might spark more dreams or nightmares that night. She didn’t want to chance that.

A little scritch at the uncovered window made her jump and whirl. She thought she saw a
thing,
a little brown triangular-eared rat
thing,
peering in at her with big round eyes.

She sat down hard on the floor and noted the computer hum. It clicked and she flinched. Soothing music wafted out, the album repeating. Maybe her chakras had been overbalanced.

Rising slowly, she looked at the bay window. Nothing there, of course, no scratches on the glass, of course.

A pounding at her front door had her breath trapped in her chest and her body reflexively surging forward.

“Kiri! Kiri!” shouted her friend Shannon from beyond the door.

Kiri looked wildly around the place. Since there was only the chair and two small tables in the living room and she’d mopped and dusted that morning, the room was clean. She glanced down at her sweats. You could barely see the hot chocolate stains against the black fabric, and Shannon and Averill—Shannon’s husband who was probably with her—wouldn’t care.

Rushing to the door, she threw it open. “What is it? Is something wrong—” But Shannon’s beatific smile stopped that sentence.

Shannon flung her arms around Kiri in a tight hug, they rocked and Shannon snuffled. “I have news. Good news!”

Kiri returned the hug. “Fabulous, come in.”

With only a little geek-gawkiness, Shannon pranced in. She was a tall, skinny woman with a pale complexion that showed light freckles. Her carroty hair sprang out from her head in a thick mat and her smile made her cheeks high and round.

Kiri gestured to the big chair and unfolded a camp seat. Shannon’s joy washed over her and she grinned back at her friend. “Tell all.”

Settling into the chair with a quick butt wiggle, Shannon beamed. “I’m pregnant. Averill and I are having a baby.”

Air whisked around in Kiri’s mouth and she understood it had fallen wide open. “Wow.” Her wits scrambled. “I didn’t even know you guys were hoping for a baby.”

Shannon flushed red. “It was an accident, but we’re thrilled.”

Kiri swallowed. “That’s fabulous,” she enthused. Meanwhile her thoughts spurted in a thousand directions, like brain synapses misfiring. Shannon was her oldest and best friend and if Kiri knew anything it was that their relationship had just changed irrevocably. Shannon would be focused on Averill and the baby, rightfully so, but Kiri felt a little cold.

Then she felt a lot cold and the open door creaked. Kiri hurried to shut it. “Wow,” she said again.

“We’re so happy!”

“That’s absolutely great!” Kiri went over and hugged her friend. “I have milk for the coffee to celebrate!”

Shannon laughed. “Thanks. No more caffeine for me for the duration, but could I have some herbal tea?”

“You got it.” Kiri went to the kitchen and filled a glass measuring cup with water. She set it in the microwave, rooted in her tea drawer and found chamomile. That was supposed to be good, right? Soothing? She shrugged. The box said it was caffeine free. She plunked a bag in a mug. “How are you feeling?”

“Fabulous.” Shannon hopped up and whirled around then strode to Kiri and hugged her again. “Revved.”

“Great,” Kiri repeated. She couldn’t scrape up different words. “I’m happy for you.” That she could say with full sincerity.

“Averill and I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“That’s so nice. Thanks.”

“And I wanted to tell you myself, so Averill is getting us drinks down at the Sensitive New Age Bean. You know how restless he is,” Shannon ended fondly.

The microwave dinged. “You sure you want the tea?” Kiri asked.

“Yeah, I do. He’ll probably bring me chai. He can never remember that I hate chai.” Shannon tsked. Kiri poured water on the tea bag, handed the mug on a saucer to Shannon.

Shannon sank back into the chair. “We’ve just been to a birth center and have already gotten masses of information. They are so nice there and we met other soon-to-be parents, too.” Dimples showed in Shannon’s cheeks as she blew on the tea water, then sipped. Her glance slid away.