The Rising

by Kristen Ashley

  Serena stood before it as Chu unsheathed his sword, tossed it under the boughs, and settled into it.

  She swung his mantle off, stating, “Take your standard.”

  “Keep it,” he muttered.

  “Chu—”

  She said no more as, quick as the strike of a snake, he reached out, clasped her hand and yanked her under the shelter, onto his lap. He then pulled his mantle from her hands, whipped it about them, and cocooned them both in it.

  She did not wish this to be a warm and comfortable position.

  But she could not deny it was.

  “Does this suit, my princess?” he teased.

  Instead of deigning to answer, she huffed out a sound and turned her gaze to scan the beyond.

  He wrapped his arms and the ends of his mantle around her.

  “If you relax, it’ll be more comfortable,” he suggested.

  She tried to relax.

  She did not succeed.

  “Rena,” he murmured. “What’s the matter?”

  Ha-Lah said they must learn to talk.

  And she was right, they must learn to talk.

  Or she must.

  Chu seemed to know how.

  And now they had nothing to do but sit, stare at nature…

  And talk.

  “Is it your wish to…?”

  She could not finish.

  “Is it my wish to…?” he prompted.

  She drew in an unsteady breath.

  “Serena,” he growled, giving her a squeeze of his arms. “Talk to me.”

  She turned to face him.

  “Do you wish to marry?”

  His head jerked.

  She understood that with no words.

  And she suddenly needed to get away.

  His arms kept her where she was.

  “If you do not wish it, I would understand,” she said quickly, again facing the beyond.

  “You would understand?”

  She did not understand the emphasis.

  She also didn’t ask him to explain.

  “Yes,” she forced out.

  “Rena—”

  “I am…we could just—”

  “Be quiet, warrior, and look at me.”

  Slowly, she turned her head to look at him.

  “Do you wish to get married?” he asked.

  Absolutely not.

  But…

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Gods, you do,” he whispered, staring at her mouth.

  “It is not very Nadi—”

  His eyes jumped to hers. “My sweet mouse, you are Nadirii, but that is not all you are.”

  She stared at him.

  “You are so much more.”

  She continued to stare at him.

  “Your sister is Nadirii, and she married.”

  “Yes, I know. It was yesterday, Chu, and we sat side by side watching it. But that marriage was arranged.”

  “And you wish me to believe Elena, Queen of the Nadirii, wouldn’t ride to the under-realm battling demons all the way to wed Cassius Laird?”

  Her sister would do just that and more.

  Chu didn’t make her confirm that.

  He asked, “Is she the only Nadirii ever wed?”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  She watched him closely while she stated, “So, you do wish to get married.”

  He grinned wickedly. “Are you asking?”

  She made a much greater attempt to launch herself from his lap.

  But she found herself on her back atop a bed of pine needles with her Trusted atop her, his face close to hers, his expression very serious, his maneuver deft, for she had not unscabbarded her sword and neither of them had been impaled upon it.

  “I want only to be free to do whatever makes us happy,” he said. “Without the strictures of the Nadirii or what you feel is your duty as a Nadirii princess standing in our way.”

  “I have something to tell you that is important to me that I fear you will not like.”

  His face closed down.

  Damn it.

  She knew it.

  “You feel your duty is to your queen and thus you must stay at her side,” he said tonelessly.

  She did not know what he was on about.

  “What?” she asked.

  “And my duty is to my king and I have vowed to remain at his side to see him and his family safe.”

  She now knew what he was on about and in the knowing, she grew solid beneath him.

  “And thus, we reach a stalemate after this is all done,” he concluded. “For you will not leave your queen and I cannot leave my king.”

  This was not the issue.

  Or it hadn’t been the issue.

  Though it was now partially the issue since it was clear he’d thought much on it and the thoughts he’d had were not cheerful.

  She began to broach that with him when he said, “But I will.”

  She had thought she’d grown solid before.

  But now it felt like all the muscles in her body had atrophied.

  “You…will?” she pushed out between stiff lips.

  “Although I do not relish waiting for Elena to leave The Enchantments, and you to follow her, so that I can see you, for I cannot live with you in them, I will wait for my times with you and Mars will understand when I take them. It is not only he, but he was taught by his father, family is most important. This is why Guard is not with us. He has a new child. Mars is more likely to cut off his own arm than take Guard from his wife and daughter when she is that wee and Zosime needs him. And I know this because times are this rife, and Guard is not here. He’s with his family. When it is our times to share, Mars will arrange something for me.”

  “After this, I am free to do as I wish,” she told him quietly. “Elena might want me at her side, yes, but she would prefer me to do what makes me happy.”

  His eyes lit.

  “It is that I wish a son.”

  These words rushed out before she could stop them.

  “Rena—”

  “I know it is not what you wish but,” she raised her hands to frame his face, “you are beautiful, and you are a good man, and I want to raise a son with you. I do not know what kind of mother I would be. I never thought I would wish to be a mother. Now, having you, I do.”

  His eyes warmed.

  But she was not finished.

  “What I know is, men like you, and women who can teach their sons to respect the sisterhood, should be the ones making sons. I have thought on this long, and I feel the Nadirii got it wrong. I see it through what I know could have with you. We should have been making girls and boys. Our ancestors should have taken their sons with them and built a true army. The kind that fought at the Heights. The kind that stood, side by side, and it did not matter who was what. What country. What sex. Just fighting for right. I…I…”

  She realized she’d descended into a giving speech and finished it quickly.

  “I just wish for you to consider giving me a son.”

  “Then I will say I have considered this, and when the time comes, I will give you one.”

  She felt her brows shoot up.

  “Though, if you agree, he will be second born so he knows humility,” he carried on.

  “I…well, yes. I…er, that would be, I would agree,” she stammered, her stomach warming, the area around her heart feeling light.

  He grinned.

  “So, marriage and Firenze and a son,” he decreed.

  “I would not wear a pink dress,” she stated firmly.

  “It would not look good with your hair.” His head dipped close and his tone dipped low. “The purple of Nadirii. Or the green of Firenze.”

  “Maybe,” she muttered.

  If it was a tunic and leg casings.

  Though, she would consider a fancy tunic.

  He was grinning again.

  And then he wasn’t when his head shot up and turned, as if he was listening.
<
br />   But she heard it then too.

  They were both out of their shelter, back to back, Chu had his sword in hand, and she had her fingers about the hilt of the weapon on her belt.

  They turned in a circle, keeping the other at their backs, and scanning the area.

  “Which way did you hear it?” she whispered.

  “North,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “I’m high. You’re low. You’re on tracks, warrior,” he ordered, turned and then he moved up the hill behind their shelter.

  Stealthily, gazing about and opening her senses, she moved in the direction where she heard the noise.

  It had been soft. Needles rustling.

  She thought this sound came through an approach.

  Thus, she often cast her eyes to the ground to check for tracks.

  But she saw nothing.

  She’d searched a relatively thorough area before she heard, “Zsst.”

  Her head turned and she moved up the incline to Chu.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Maybe an animal?”

  He pointed.

  She turned in the direction he indicated and only saw some evergreens.

  “I don’t—”

  “The trees, Rena.”

  She looked closer.

  Disturbed needles.

  Bent boughs.

  “Gnomes,” she said.

  “Hmm,” he hummed.

  She looked to him. “How did they get bloody gnomes on their side? The gnomes hate Airen as it was, almost as much as the Nadirii.”

  Chu simply continued regarding the disturbed trees.

  “Chu?” she called.

  “Before I left my birth country, I had just started training in the Mystics.”

  “Sorry?” she asked.

  “Not the continent.” He looked to her. “The arts.”

  Oh.

  The Mystics.

  Her gaze slid back to the trees as a chill slithered up her spine.

  “I can harness my momentum to propel me to do a number of things many cannot. But I did not train long enough to ascend to the art of weightlessness.”

  She again gave him her attention. “Do you think they have Mystics?”

  “I think a gnome would disturb the needles, but he would not break boughs.”

  Serena fully turned to study the area.

  The vantage was good for their cover.

  “They were spying on us,” she deduced.

  “Yes.”

  “We need to go into Dunlyn.”

  “Yes.”

  She gave him her eyes. “Disguises?”

  “Pull up the hood of your cloak,” he ordered. “I shall take my chances. You are not changing us here.”

  She nodded.

  “Let us go,” he murmured.

  She nodded again and led.

  Chu followed.

  144

  The Deep

  Queen Silence

  Aboard The Finnie, Seil Sea

  OFF THE COAST OF AIREN

  I stood at the railing of the handsome galleon, staring down into the waters, a bitter, stiff wind blowing my hair about my face.

  The waters were somewhat choppy.

  Ha-Lah, Aramus, Jorie, Frey and Finnie were just down the deck from me.

  And my husband stood before me.

  The vein in his temple was pulsing.

  “This is natural for me,” I said soothingly.

  “It is cold,” he replied.

  “And Ha-Lah and Jorie have assured us that I will not feel that,” I reminded him.

  “A being can die swiftly in this cold,” he said, as if I had not spoken.

  “A being could, if they were not mermaid.”

  He cast his gaze down to the water.

  I lifted my hand and pressed it to his cheek.

  He gave his beautiful eyes to me.

  “I will be fine,” I promised.

  “I find suddenly I would wish for a wife who was less dauntless and bold,” he muttered.

  I started giggling.

  He, too, put his hands to my face, both of them, before his head descended, and he took my mouth in relentless kiss.

  I was clinging to him when it ended.

  “Now go,” he murmured. “Before I commandeer this ship and take us back to Sky Bay.”

  I nodded, his hands still on my face moving as I did.

  Mars removed them but wrapped his fingers around one of mine and led me down to the others.

  Jorie watched me the entirety of this short journey.

  “You are ready, little sister?” he asked when we arrived.

  I nodded to him too.

  His gaze went to Mars’s.

  “I will be with her every length,” he stated. “And Ha-Lah will be with us.”

  “Do not keep her down there long,” Mars grunted.

  For a moment, Jorie didn’t say anything.

  Until finally, he spoke and did this solemnly.

  “My brother, you can trust me.”

  They locked eyes, and I waited.

  I was glad it didn’t take my husband long before he jerked up his chin, gave my fingers a squeeze and let me go.

  “Right. Ladies, for your convenience,” Frey murmured.

  He then unlatched and swung open a gate in the railing which was where they put the gangplank.

  Ha-Lah and I moved the few feet to that as Jorie called from behind us, “Do not turn around.”

  Regardless of his words, I began to do that, but Ha-Lah grabbed my arm and whispered, “He’s disrobing.”

  Faith.

  I nodded to her earnestly and absolutely did not turn around.

  I was wearing a heavy dressing gown over a light shift that ended just over my bottom, slippers on my feet.

  Ha-Lah was in much the same.

  We heard a splash, and I peered over the railing to the waters and watched until Jorie’s head surfaced, his dark hair slicked back.

  He smiled encouragingly up at me.

  I drew in a deep breath.

  “Now remember,” Ha-Lah started, remaining close. “We are in The Deep. It will happen nearly instantly when you hit the water. A knitting. You won’t be able to control it. Don’t panic. It is natural. Just relax into it and let it happen. Jorie and I will be right there. Yes?”

  “What if it doesn’t happen?” I asked.

  “It’ll happen,” she assured.

  “But what if it doesn’t,” I pressed. “What if, in the joining of a human and a Mer, the human wins out?”

  “That has never happened, Silence, and you will not be the first. Trust me.” Ha-Lah took my hand then demanded, “Tell me you don’t feel it.”

  I drew in another deep breath.

  “Tell me it doesn’t call to you,” she continued.

  I could not do that for just being in Sky Bay, all the way up at the Citadel, I was still close to the sea.

  And it called to me.

  “It calls to me,” I whispered.

  And standing on the deck of that ship, the water but steps away, I realized it had been doing so all my life.

  A yearning I’d grown used to denying, for I didn’t know what it was, thus had no idea how to assuage it.

  She tipped her head to mine, resting her forehead to my own.

  And there, she smiled happily.

  “You’re about to go home, my sister,” she whispered.

  Then she stepped back, undid the tie on her dressing grown, dropped it to the deck (and yes, she was wearing the same as me, a small shift, hers marine blue). She flipped off her slippers, and with taking but the time it took to aim a smile at Aramus, she dashed to the opening in the railing and executed a graceful dive into the sea.

  I moved to the opening, stood there and watched the waters until she surfaced.

  She did so beaming.

  Home.

  I looked up to Mars.

  He nodded his head.

  I so loved my husband.

  I then
took several paces back, divested myself of dressing gown and slippers, stood in the cold for a moment in my red shift, drew in one more very deep breath.

  Then I raced to the opening and dove in.

  I sluiced through the waters and the panic came instantly, for I felt the cold.

  And it was so cold.

  Relax, Ha-Lah had instructed.

  A knitting, she had told me.

  Even in reminding myself of these, automatically, I arced up, wishing the surface, when Ha-Lah’s words were proved true.

  I felt a knitting.

  All sense of cold vanished when it started at my waist, the feeling, so strange, like something was pressing through my skin, I could do nothing but float in the water and experience it.

  But once it started, it went fast, speeding about my hips.

  And then my thighs were forced together.

  I looked down, opening my eyes for the first time under the water, and was surprised at the clarity I could see through the wet.

  And thus, I looked to my lower half and saw the scales push out and form over my knees, my calves, ankles…

  My feet reflexively pointed, and as my toes disappeared, a glorious, filmy caudal tail sprung forth, scalloping down the sides and drifting well off the point at the end.

  The scales of my fin gleamed silver and lagoon blue, with glimmers that appeared like aquamarines, the translucent caudal at the end was a lovely silvery lilac.

  As I drifted under the surface, staring in wonder at my tail, I saw a long, winding fin the same colors as my own, with some aqua as well (but the caudal was not translucent or filmy, it was strong and spined), coil and drift about me.

  I turned my head to the left to see my brother there.

  Faith, but his tail was very long.

  And his chest was very defined.

  Further, upon perusal, I saw he had extra fins. Dorsal ones at his hips, and others farther down, on either side, where, if he still had his legs, his thighs would meet his knees.

  I smiled at him.

  He spoke, and it was deep, rumbling, and only slightly bubbly when he ordered, “Strike for the surface, little sister. Your husband will want to see you’re all right.”

  I nodded, and started to kick, but as I didn’t have legs, the movement I made forced me down.

  “Watch,” Jorie instructed and lifted his chin up to something beyond me.

  I turned my head and saw Ha-Lah there.