by Aaron Crash
Ziziva found herself outside on the ledge, back in the cold and damp. And that damp wind, misty from the crashing waves below. She didn’t mind wet or cold, but she preferred sunshine and warmth.
The fairy girl went zooming back down through the insides of the lighthouse to the very bottom floor, to the mermaid princess’s room. Ribby sat at her desk, reading. Ziziva landed on the desk.
“Ribby, you hate that name, and we should be playing the screaming game, where you hate me, and I hate you. But you are ignoring me and silent too. Why are you doing what you do?” Ziziva looked into the large face of the woman. It was thrilling to be so small. The fairy girl noticed so much about the woman in front of her, the smell of her, that large body with so many secrets.
The Fayee were all female. It was only natural for them to find sexual solace in the arms of each other. While Ziziva had never thought she might be attracted to the dreadful Charibda Delphino, here she was, standing in front of her, a tiny bit aroused, a little curious, but mostly baffled and annoyed.
“Talk to me,” Ziziva said miserably.
Ribby leaned back. Her hands rested on the desk. She gazed into the face of the fairy. “There you are. There. I’ve spent much of life pushing away the dirt worms, and I know the game. I didn’t think you were playing any kind of game until you came here, obviously troubled, but still here, out of the blue, spouting your nonsense. Your mask slipped a bit, Ziziva. It only took my silence to tear it from you completely.”
“Can I trust you?” Ziziva twisted her fingers together nervously. Her wings shivered. What she was doing was madness. What she wanted she could never have.
Ribby smiled, and it was sad. “I’m alone, and solitude gives me a certain perspective. You can trust me. Can I trust you?”
Ziziva’s voice cracked. “I need a friend. No one at the school can know. No outsiders should know. Some of the Aquaterreb have learned some things about the Fayee, and they have kept silent. I am hoping to trust in your silence. I’m hoping against hope.”
The fairy girl flung herself off the desk, spun up her Scintilla Dust, and then changed into her Verum Self. She let her warm cloak fall, and it puddled around her feet. She still had her sparkly dress on, but in a very real way, Ziziva felt more naked than ever. “We are not always small. We are not the silly creatures you believe us to be. And we are all women. To get babies, we lure men, human men, into sex. They fuck us and we make them forget. We’re given baby girls, and the next generation of the Fayee are raised on the waterways across the world.”
Ribby let a slow smile curve her lips. “Such secrets, Ziziva. You are trusting me. But why?”
“Ymir.” Saying the barbarian’s name felt dangerous, crazy, suicidal. That name had changed Ziziva’s life, and that name was making her risk everything, her future, her fortune, her very life.
Because for the Fayee, to share secrets, to break the silence, meant death.
“And what of Ymir?” the mermaid asked in a hushed voice.
Ziziva looked around for a chair, and she drew it over to herself. She picked her cloak up off the floor and draped it across her legs as she sat down in front of the mermaid.
Ribby half smiled. “Are we being modest now?”
“Not modesty,” Ziziva said seriously. “I don’t want my nice cloak dirty. You were not modest when I came in, in your transparent gown. I could see everything.”
Charibda’s half smile grew into more of a smirk. “And here you are, big, serious, not pestering me with your rhymes and giggles. I am surprised. More surprising? Your infatuation with Ymir. He’s your business partner, but you want more, don’t you?”
“I would.” Ziziva couldn’t tell the mermaid everything. No, there were parts of her lust for Ymir that she couldn’t even admit to herself. The fairy girl bit her lip. “You won the hearts of Ymir and his wives. How did you do it? How would you tell me to go about it?”
Ribby’s eyes dropped to the ground. “I’m not sure you can, Ziziva. They hated me. They had their reasons. I hated them and wanted to drive them away. But they never had a reason not to trust me.”
Ziziva couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes and giggling, slipping back into the Winkle Way. “Don’t be a fool, mermaid girl. Your silly people came to murder scholars and destroy the school. You and I are ever the same, and like you, I want to win the game.”
The mermaid scowled, went to say something cutting, but stopped herself. “It fucking kills me to see how similar we are. But when I wanted Ymir and his sharreb to embrace me, there was the Kurzig Durgha, which made all the difference.” The mermaid thought for a second. “That’s not exactly right either. I found ways to help them, and to be of service to them. I tried to be pleasant. I won over Lillee first, and then each of them, one by one. You could try that.”
Ziziva considered the mermaid’s words carefully.
Ribby’s next words caught her off guard. “But what are you seeking, Ziziva? Love or lust? Lust would be easy. Ymir and his wives love to fuck. Love? That would take some doing. What do you really want from them?”
“A family,” Ziziva whispered. “Love, then lust, then love again. And a child. Ymir’s child that would I raise myself.”
The fairy girl looked Ribby in the eye. “Everything I just told you could get me killed. I should remove your memories to keep me safe, but if you are to trust me, I have to trust you first. Can I trust you to keep my secrets? Please say yes. If you say no, I don’t know what I shall do.”
There was such compassion and kindness in Charibda’s eyes. It was almost unbelievable to think she’d been a spoiled princess not too long ago.
“I will keep what you told me to myself until the Winter Solstice—on that you have my word, and it’s a promise I don’t give you lightly. But you have to tell Ymir what you told me. You have to share yourself with him and risk everything.” The mermaid paused. “I don’t envy you. It will not be easy. It wasn’t for me.”
Ribby leaned forward. They were sitting almost knee to knee. The mermaid moved the fairy’s cloak and brushed soft fingers over Ziziva’s leg.
Ziziva knew it wasn’t sexual. “You’re using your Flow magic. You’re trying to see into my future.”
The mermaid smiled, then whispered, “Jelu jelarum.”
Sparkling scales ran up and down the length of the mermaid’s body even as her eyes darkened and her lips grew black. Sharp fangs filled her mouth.
The mermaid grabbed both of Ziziva’s thighs. Her fingernails, not claws just yet, pressed painfully into the fairy’s legs. What was she seeing? What did she know?
The mermaid’s voice turned into a growl. “Yes, a child, and, yes, a war, another war has come to the Majestrial, and my fate hangs in the balance. As does yours, Ziziva the Betrayer, and fire, fire will come. A worm of old. A beast of the skies dripping fire and shit from the heavens. The death of a mother, the life of a child, and you, Ziziva Honeygood, will hold my fate in your hands. Your fate and mine, intertwined. You will either be the life of me. Or you’ll be all of our deaths.”
Ziziva readied a spell to disrupt the magic, to blast Ribby’s mind into pieces. The fairy girl didn’t want to hear this strange mermaid creature murmuring her frightening words.
Ziziva should’ve known straying from the path, disobeying the Divine Verum Spark, would destroy her life. If she stayed in her own world of business, profits, and servitude, she would be safe. But to stray from the fairy queen’s wishes? To throw her lot in with a damned barbarian ruffian and his collection of wanton sluts?
The mermaid’s prophecy was the penalty. This was the price.
Ziziva couldn’t stop the tears. She hated crying. She hated weeping more than anything, and she hated to do it in front of other people. She was one of the richest women on the continent. She shouldn’t cry. She could pay others to cry for her.
And here she was with tears on her face.
Ribby’s face changed back to the pretty woman with muddy brown and green eyes. Th
e mermaid had lost all of her scales. She too had tears on her face.
Ziziva whispered, “Don’t tell me that what you saw will come true. Please, don’t tell me I am doomed.”
“I can’t tell you what’s going to fucking happen,” the mermaid shot back sharply. “I only feel things. You will bring great change to the Majestrial, there will be a baby here soon, and there will be a dragon here, a dragon like in the stories. And death will come with the dragon, death, fire, shit.” Ribby laughed even as tears fell from her eyes. How her moods could change! She was like the sea! “I wish I could tell you more. But I can tell you this, sweet, strange Ziziva Honeygood.”
The mermaid let go of the fairy’s legs and instead held her hands. “I have an idea of how you can start your path to joining Ymir’s sharreb. I started my journey into that family with Lillee. You, my friend, should start with Gatha. And I know exactly what you should do.”
Ziziva listened closely. With every word, she grew afraid. Ribby’s vision had unnerved her. The mermaid’s plan disturbed the fairy just as much. But soon Ziziva’s excitement eclipsed her fear. She had a way forward. And there was an old Fayee saying, “Give a fairy some capital and a business plan, and watch the world tremble.”
The world should be trembling. Too bad Ziziva was quaking just as much.
Chapter Twelve
FRIDAY NIGHT, YMIR sat at his desk on the second floor of the Librarium, reading back through the Scrolls of Obanathy, the ones he’d read before. Della wasn’t comfortable giving him the apocryphal works of Octovato, but she didn’t mind giving him something he’d already read.
He kept the scroll unrolled and hidden by the Aegustus biography so no one would guess he was studying ringology, though Obanathy was also a poet and a mathematician.
Ymir understood Della’s plan better—his breath, Lillee’s breath, and Tori’s breath, their kisses, just might unlock the Veil Tear Ring for her. It was still risky. They were dealing with demonic forces. However, those same forces had allowed the Vempor Aegel Akkridor to conquer an empire and hold it for a thousand years. While the building of the empire had drenched the continent in blood, there had also been peace and prosperity. How demonic was it that the poor had hundreds of years of full bellies?
It spoke volumes that the Majestrial’s Honored Princept herself was willing to help them.
They were going to meet with Della at midnight, at her sixth-floor alcove office—him, Lillee, and Tori, though Tori was having second thoughts. She knew the kiss was necessary for the spell, but she was having trouble with the idea of kissing the Princept. Of course, Lillee found the prospect intriguing. Talking about their lust for the Princept had turned on the elf girl like nothing else.
Della wanted to meet in her alcove office since they’d be in the Coruscation Shelves, where Gulnash had been. Gulnash wouldn’t have had access to the Scrollery, under any circumstances.
Ymir was deep in thought when Tori came hurtling up the stairs and found him at his desk. She was sweating and flushed. “Ymir, come quick! Gatha is causing trouble in the Unicorn’s Uht, and I reckon it’s better for you to come than campus security. Or the StormCry constables. Melissa and Kadie said they’d give you fifteen minutes and then they’re calling in the police.”
Ymir shot up, stowed his books and the scroll in his satchel, and hurried down the steps. Tori couldn’t keep up. “You go, Ymir. I’ll be in the kitchen. I want to talk about this kissing business tonight. I’m hoping you can talk me either into it or out of it. Gosh me underground, I just don’t know. And I don’t want to eat any of the Amora Xoca. The last thing we need would be for me to get my Inconvenience.”
Ymir spun around. “I’m not sure we have a choice about the kiss, girl.”
Turning back, he hustled out of the Librarium, across the Flow courtyard, and down the Sea Stair. He passed the corridor that led to Jennybelle’s original apartment. They’d had such good times there, but the Zoo was a better place for them.
While Ymir hurried down the steps, he slid the Crystal Null Ring next to the Winter Flame—the rings were magic and resized to fit any of his fingers perfectly. The minute he put it on, he felt his dusza react. Like with the Gather Breath, he could feel the souls of the people in the taverns and shops of the Sea Stair Market—their various states of existence. He felt sadness, happiness; some were lost in a drunken blur, some had tingles in their sexes, hoping for love that night. He felt bloodlust, and he felt secrets, and he felt despair.
He wasn’t overwhelmed by the sensations—he could cut through the noise easily enough by narrowing his focus to his senses, his breath, what he was seeing, smelling, and feeling, from the scent of the ocean mist on the wet rock to the cold air on his skin.
He yanked open the doors to the Unicorn’s Uht to see Gatha gripping the fine clothes of Darisbeau Cujan. Her fist was cocked back to split open the swamp man’s face. Lillee had already frozen Daris’s two friends, Odd Corry and the Viscount Roger Knellknapp, to their table. Ice covered their mouths.
“Gatha!” Ymir roared.
Gatha flung Daris into him. “Do you want to murder the man? I’ve already beaten his friends. Lillee helped a bit. Just a bit.” The she-orc swayed, clearly intoxicated.
All the scholars in the Uht were scared of the drunken she-orc. They were right to be. If Gatha went on a killing spree, there were few people who could stop her.
The two women who ran the bar, Melissa Teheregi and Kadie Gnal, were scowling.
Melissa shouted at him. “You get her out of here, Ymir. And free those men. And fix our chairs! And you have to pay her bar tab!”
Ymir settled Daris into a chair. The dark-haired boy didn’t stop smirking, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“How much did Gatha drink?” Ymir asked.
“Not the orc, the elf!” Kadie roared.
Lillee took that moment to collapse onto the floor. She was every bit as hammered as Gatha.
“And the pretty girl,” Melissa pointed to Jennybelle, who lay across a table, out cold.
Ymir marched over, scooped up Jenny, and threw her over his shoulder. He then offered Lillee a hand to help her up.
She gave him a drunken grin and spoke in Ohlyrran. “The shine of your eyes, the gold of your rings, the red of your blood are the jewels of the world, far grander than the three moons rising in wonder, or the shine of the sun, or the world bathed in rain. For what is the ocean if not tears?” Lillee bent and kissed his arm. “I just made that up. I’m very good at poetry.”
“Not your best work,” Ymir grumbled.
Swords of fire burst from Gatha’s hands. People gasped at the heat. Others headed for the door. “Remember our fight here, Ymir? Remember you bested me? The first fight I ever lost. You had to beat me unconscious.”
“I remember,” Ymir said agreeably. “We can reminisce in some other place. We can find more of that ippa grog you like so much. I doubt they have it here.”
“We do!” Melissa protested. “Why do you think she’s so drunk?”
That made Ymir grumble. That foul brew was only good for murdering rats and lighting fires—it worked almost as well as the Yellow Scorch Ring to destroy things.
Thank the Shieldmaiden Gatha wasn’t wearing the Yellow Scorch then.
Gatha slashed her flame blades through the air. “Come on, fucking barbarian, I want another chance to best you. I might as well do it in this ridiculous tavern, with these soft-bellied scholars watching with eyes agape. Let’s show them blood, and then after I beat your ass, you can fuck me in front of all these virgins.”
It wouldn’t be much of fight. Gatha could barely stand.
Ymir found Gatha’s dusza easily; it burned so brightly and had such savage courage. And yet, her mind was troubled. The woman who had never lost a fight in the Ssunash Pits had known defeat at Old Ironbound, by Ymir, by a merfolk king, and she’d had her ankle broken in the Kurzig Durgha.
Ymir wasn’t surprised to see that Lillee’s soul bur
ned just as brightly. And even unconscious, Jennybelle’s dusza was an inferno of passion, intelligence, and love. His women had the brightest souls in the entire marketplace. And Ymir’s own soul matched theirs. Together, they could build empires or destroy worlds.
So it was rather sobering for Ymir to easily pull power from Gatha. Her Sunfire swords vanished in wisps of smoke.
“Villain!” Gatha roared, snapping out her tusks. She took three steps toward him, but by that time, Ymir had pulled more energy from her soul. She staggered and would’ve fallen, but Ymir swept the ice covering Odd Corry and Roger Knellknapp. He created a fountain of ice that caught her fall and let her slide down to the ground.
Ymir then swept the amwabs of frozen water out the door and onto the wet street. The chairs, the two boys, all of them, were dry. Ymir enjoyed having such control over the ice, though Flow magic was nothing compared to what he could do with the Winter Flame Ring.
Daris crept forward, looked down at Gatha, then glanced up at Ymir with a wiseass look on his face. “Can’t carry all your women, can you, Mr. Barbarian?”
Ymir was tempted to rip out the fucker’s soul or freeze the blood in his veins. If Daris had any power, he might be able to counter Ymir’s attack with a magical disruption spell. It was doubtful. Ymir could fill the boy’s innards with frost.
Instead, Ymir reached into Jennybelle and gave her dusza a shake. She let out a gasp and he set her down. She was trembling and sweaty, and half her face was covered by her black hair. Her bright blue eyes were dull from the alcohol.
“Fucking Cujan punk!” Jennybelle stepped forward and punched Daris in the nose.
One of the lady bartenders screeched, “Ymir! Get these drunk bitches out of here!”
Lillee helped Jennybelle stagger out. Together, they were able to move as merely drunk women instead of unconscious women.
Ymir pulled Gatha off the floor, and he struggled to get the she-orc onto his shoulder. She weighed almost as much as he did. His legs tensed and his spine compressed under the weight of the warrior woman—she was made up of pure muscle, hard, unforgiving, and heavy.