“It wasn’t that bad,” Jenni said.
Queen Emberdrake raised perfect dark brows at Jenni’s lie. Her mouth quirked and she squeezed Jenni’s hands. “We’ll be ready to drink champagne with you after this is all over.”
Jenni could only pray that would happen. She dipped a curtsy and the queen released her hands. The Air King came up and patted her shoulder. “Good job.”
“Thank you.” Then she faded back to the front porch of the house, leaving the area to the Lightfolk. Not one halfling was there except herself.
They formed a large circle, but didn’t hold hands yet to close it. The strongest of all the Lightfolk in the world, about thirty of them, and most of them armed. Jenni wondered if it would be enough against the Dark ones who would show up. And wondered, as all must, how many of the remaining four great Dark ones would come.
The royals, the Eight, entered singly in the order of the strength of their power. Last was the dwarf king, as the greatest of all the Lightfolk. He circled the Folk, as if studying them, stood in the center and stamped his feet as if testing her work. Then his gaze arrowed to her and he nodded. Her held breath dribbled out. First obstacle overcome. The Eight approved of her balancing of their ritual area, even though it changed every instant each person was on it. She’d done her best.
She inclined her head and turned to go back into the house, to descend to her place on the beach. Behind her, she sensed Aric bowing to the Eight.
The house was colder than ever, seemed almost empty since much of the power it had contained was now drawn to the dancing circle.
When she reached the beach, she found the two guardians walking along the shoreline. They turned and greeted her with welcoming smiles. Their gazes slid over Aric, weighing, and he stiffened beside her.
The elf came up and slapped Aric on the shoulder. “You’re looking good.”
He relaxed slightly, but Jenni thought his anxiety was still there. No matter how much he trained, a half-Treefolk half-elf could not match either of these warriors. “Glad to see you here.”
“For the duration,” the dwarf grunted.
“What’s that smell?” Aric asked.
Jenni sniffed, there was a faint oily metallic tang in the air.
“Dark ones.”
She stopped, yards from her place in the sand. “What?”
“They’ve been here, scouting.” The elf loosened his sword in his hilt, a gesture that indicated a habit rather than need.
“I didn’t sense them,” she whispered.
“Minor evils.” The dwarf showed his pointy red teeth. “Minions.”
“Uh-huh.” Jenni’s stomach tightened. She wished so much this was a computer game and not reality.
Aric’s fingers touched the small of her back, urging her toward her pattern. “You’ll be safe in the interdimension.”
“I shouldn’t stay there for long. Only when I need to be there to work. That is…when the bubble bursts and to hold the magics equal for the Eight’s spell,” she repeated for the benefit of the guardians.
The elf graced her with a half smile. “We heard you the first time.”
“Ah. About the Dark ones.” She hadn’t asked about that, either.
“We don’t think all four’ll show up,” the dwarf said. “Three, max.”
She was close to her spot now, could smell stale bubblegum. “Including Kondrian.”
“Intelligence has it that he is at full power again,” the elf said. “No doubt they’ll attack at what they perceive to be the worst possible time for us.” He sounded unruffled, though Jenni was nearly panting.
Aric frowned at the air guardian.
“We believe they may work at cross-purposes, as usual,” the elf ended.
Notes of chimes and harps and flutes drifted down from the bluff. Jenni looked up to see the circle ceremoniously closed.
“They’re starting the preparatory ritual to test their magics and blend them. Though everyone convened once to practice, that was in the air palace, not here, not where they have a completely balanced dancing floor.” The elf lifted Jenni’s limp fingers and kissed them. “You have nothing to worry about. You’ll be fine.”
Pellets of sand shot into the air. They looked at the dwarf, who kicked the sand again, scowling at them. “You know I hate when you say things like that. Hate that.”
Still with the half smile, the elf shook his head, bowed and handed Jenni onto her spot. She took it, and her churning emotions subsided. Everyone was prepared for the Dark ones, for the bubble. She should just concentrate on fulfilling her tasks.
She angled herself until she faced the point where she’d been keeping track of the energy she’d associated with the bubble. There was a little fizz, one she could almost hear. Shaking her head, she met Aric’s eyes. “I’m going into the interdimension.”
So she breathed and chanted and pattered her feet. Misty and gray, the interdimension rose before her and she shuffled into the different space.
There was a quiet sigh.
Nothing mentally from anyone around her—Aric or the guardians.
Nothing from the Eight and their chosen Lightfolk on the hill above, who had finished their preparatory ritual and were dancing freely, flickering energies.
From deep in the earth, under the ocean, under the crust.
A sense of great magics, encased in a sphere.
Enormous.
Rising.
The bubble.
Her skin went clammy in an instant. The mist pressed against her, seemed to writhe with nightmarish shapes. Her imagination, she knew. But her heart beat hard as she realized that all their timing was off. Again.
The bubble wasn’t going to wait for the exact moment of the spring equinox in an hour. If she’d been on time, once again she’d have been late.
She calmed just enough to say the words to make a graceful exit that wouldn’t wrench her.
Still, as she stepped back, her ankle twisted and she lurched into Aric’s arms. She grabbed him, looked at the guardians. “It’s rising. The bubble is coming!”
“At what pace?” asked the elf. His face had gone tight, intense.
“Fairly quickly. Coming through the planet now, I can’t tell how close. Except probably will hit within…” She speared her fingers through her hair, tugged at it as if that would make her calculate correctly. “No more than three-quarters of an hour. And it’s huge.”
“How huge is huge?” asked the dwarf.
Jenni flopped her hands in a wide gesture. “Uh. Could encase a semitruck? At least.”
Not a Lightfolk comparison. The three men stared at her. “Uh, hold my house?”
“Full. Of. Magic,” the elf said.
“Yes.”
“Wild magic, new magic, elemental energies straight from the Earth’s core itself!”
The Kings and Queens of Earth and Water appeared on the beach. Ringed around Jenni.
“You say the bubble is rising!” the Water King demanded. His green hair moved like waves.
“Yes.” She stood straighter, lifted her chin. “It’s coming through the crust now.” She looked at the Earth King.
His brows lowered but he didn’t appear any more gruff than usual. Tilting his head, he said, “Maybe. Maybe.” He shot out a stubby finger to point at her. “Go back into that place where you can see such energies and link mentally with us.”
She didn’t want to, wanted to save her strength. Aric nudged her.
“All right.” She rubbed her arms, didn’t want to spare any magic to warm herself. Shaking out her limbs, she enunciated her words—Mistweaver spellwords, nonsense words to others—and did all that must be done, and found herself once again in the interdimension.
YOU CAN HEAR ME? The Earth King’s voice pounded in her head like a sledgehammer on an anvil.
You are too loud, she replied mildly.
She thought she could hear the rumble as he cleared his throat. Examine the energies you believe indicate the bubble.
Pressure filled the atmosphere as if even this space between the Earth’s dimension and others’ awaited a significant event. She scrutinized moving elements, wrapped in balls, not stretched out in sheets like she was accustomed to seeing. Flashing lightning red-orange and violet-white: fire and air. Thrumming splashes of green-blue, golden brown that moved like earth, groaning and cracking. Near the crust right now. No more than a couple of hundred yards northwest of where she stood. Though deep, it was “visibly” coming closer.
Narrowing her eyes, she focused and projected her magical-sight, hoping the dwarf king—and whoever else might be linked to her—the Emberdrakes on the cliff and Aric could sense what she did.
Wonderful, whispered Aric. She got the impression he was looking at the mist, too. The sheets of elemental magic that flowed eerily in the distance, the flickers of the magical Lightfolk on the ridge that she glimpsed at the edge of her vision.
A hollow grunt popped in her ears. The Earth King. Eight, prepare for the royal tuning-and-joining ceremony, ordered the dwarf.
Dark ones sighted in the distance! someone cried.
Fire is MINE! shouted someone.
The blackness of death slammed across Jenni’s senses. She crumpled onto the ground of the interdimension. Dared not move.
CHAPTER 31
FIRE WINKED OUT. A HUGE GAPING HOLE appeared in the balanced elements that had glowed around her. Jenni rocked to her hands and knees. Magic lifted her hair, coating each strand with sweat. The King and Queen of Fire had died! Stabbing pain of loss. She hadn’t thought she’d bonded with them much. She’d been wrong.
How?
No time, no time. Air and water energies were rushing to overcome all. She reached into the Earth’s crust, into the center of herself and pulled, grabbing as much fire as she could handle, drawing sheets of the energies to herself, the beach, the area.
Her tears sizzled away as they left her eyes and met the hot skin of her cheeks. Another family lost, ripped away. New mother and father. How? How? How?
Jenni! Rothly screamed in terror.
Here! she managed a faint reply. Forcing the air and water energies back, drawing fire to fill the gap. She couldn’t hold it long.
Sister! Hold two minutes. A male voice, but not Rothly. Strained but calm. Who? She strove to think as she wedged raw elemental fire energy into the gap she’d kept open. Let it run wild a little bit, flame the air hot, steam away the encroaching water. Maybe, maybe she had two minutes before the fire burned her up. She took a breath and it seared and she used the fire itself to protect her lungs.
Who had called her? Blinking, an image formed of a man—a full Lightfolk—whom she’d vaguely noticed on the bluff. The Emberdrakes’ son. Even as she thought of him, the wild fire was drawn to a new source, tamed. Most of it. Not as much as the older royals could control, but enough to keep all steady. Enough that Jenni could let the reins on it slither away. A new Fire King and Queen had stepped into place.
Rothly pressed again…Jenni?
I…am…okay…. She doubled over, feeling aching emptiness, the hollowness of loss, the stone of tangled emotions lodged again in her belly. She—they’d, Rothly and she—had had ties to the Emberdrakes. Distant relatives and adoption bonds that had lain lightly until cut. She didn’t know how she could bear it, but she would have to. She had no time to let grief roil through her, she had to go on, or all was lost.
Who died? Rothly asked in a small voice and she heard the self-blame in it, the loathing of self that he hadn’t been there to help.
The Emberdrakes, she moaned.
The King and Queen of Fire? Both!
Both…both…both…all, all, all.
Sister, we need you! Control yourself! the new King of Fire snapped.
Who the hell are you on our private mental line? Rothly demanded.
I am your brother, Blackstone Emberdrake. Jindesfarne, straighten up and do your job. Desperation seeped into his tones, and the fire was wild again, unconstrained. Jenni snatched more.
How? whispered Rothly.
Betrayal! A female voice hard with anger shouted it aloud as well as mentally. With the whip of words, more fire was gathered from Jenni, shaped into good use. Blackstone’s wife. A strong djinnfem. Good.
Betrayal. Jenni finally understood the word. It hit with the force of remembered agony that she’d betrayed her family. She reeled, didn’t hold on to the mind-set for the interdimension, fell out, onto the beach where only Aric and the guardians were.
Mistake.
“How dare you say I betrayed!” screamed a familiar voice and Jenni felt a wrenching in the magical fire energies, more immediate here in the real world. A wrenching in her being, too, as her bonds with the other Emberdrakes were skewed, strained. Her gaze went to the top of the bluff where the Eight—the Six—had mended the circle and were grimly continuing with the ritual.
Three figures were separate, throwing flames.
“Jenni, get back into your mist!” the new Fire Queen shouted from above. But she wasn’t the queen. Shades of magic bathed her. Synicess had grabbed fire energy, was glorying in it, using it as a weapon on Jenni’s Emberdrake brother and his wife.
Synicess wanted to be Fire Queen.
Royal status was in the balance. Power.
“I was the one betrayed! Me! My parents abandoned me to go to another dimension.” Synicess would have frothed at the mouth if her flaming magic hadn’t prevented it. “I was left behind. They didn’t take me, though I begged.”
Jenni would have left her, too. Crazy woman.
The crazy-strong-full-Lightfolk-djinnfem turned her copper gaze on Jenni. A shot of flame hit the sand next to her, fusing it into glass.
“Get back into the mist!” her Emberdrake brother roared.
“You betrayed me, too,” Synicess said. “You took my man. And there he is, the fool. Burn, Treeman.”
Jenni stepped in front of Aric, braced, figured they would both die.
The new Fire King slipped behind Synicess, wrapped an arm around her neck and snapped it.
Synicess’s body dropped, Emberdrake kicked it from the cliff. It hit a couple of rocks before it burst into flame.
“The bubble!” He met Jenni’s eyes and jerked his head. She wriggled to send her senses downward through the sea, found a huge spherical shape breaking from the Earth’s mantle and into the ocean.
Emberdrake grasped his lady’s hand and they inserted themselves into the circle between the Cloudsylphs and the royal dwarves. The dwarves were moving slowly, too slowly, as if their feet were reluctant to separate from the rock of the bluff. The elves appeared strained, almost transparent.
Energies needed balancing.
Jenni lay encrusted in sand, panting, soaking up sun, scrabbling for her own balance. Everything was too bright, all sensual input from the real world too painful.
The loss of a new mother and father too black.
“And here are the Dark ones,” the dwarf guardian said grimly.
A cloud passed over the sun, casting dark and wavering shadows on the ground. People began to curse and Jenni looked up. Not a cloud, shadleeches! Huge, triple the size of the ones she’d fought. Horror escaped her in a cry. She wanted to clutch Aric, but was caught in her ritual. Keep to herself. Even love—given and taken—distracted from the concentration needed to face the interdimension and do a major working in the mist.
Spitting, the dwarf sliced his sword whistling through the air in a couple of testing swings. “Should’a figured that if Kondrian modified his shadleeches to go into the interdimension, someone else might make ’em grow to be better weapons.” He moved his gaze from the sky to Jenni. “Better slide into your interdimension, girl.”
“They shouldn’t be able to follow you, not these,” the elf said.
“No,” Aric
added bleakly. “But those might.” He jutted his chin at a smaller line of grayish dark that flew lower from the north, along with a gray shape that Jenni knew in her bones was Kondrian.
Aric pulled his sword, loosened his shoulders, took his fighting stance.
“Think the great Dark one Demitroland made the large ones?” The dwarf had hunkered down, freed his other weapon, a short axe, from its sheath.
“Probably,” the elf said. He still stood negligently, holding two thin and shining blades. “Demitroland likes big.” Then his blue, blue eyes met hers. “Go, now.”
A few armed Lightfolk showed up. To Jenni’s surprise, all of Diamantina’s staff—ready to defend her land home. Another surprise was the tall, silver-blond and elegant elf, Windstrum, Aric’s father.
Aric sent the elf a brusque nod, turned to stand in front of Jenni.
“Hades, they’re not aiming for us, but attacking the Eight!” the dwarf said.
Jenni stood, tried to meet Aric’s eyes, but he was focused on the enemies. Heart thundering in her ears louder than the wings of all the shadleeches, she began to say the meaningless words in any language but Mistweaver. The words weren’t important, the sound of the syllables were. She stamped in place, felt it was better to keep her feet close to the ground. Her eyes sharpened or dimmed or changed…whatever they did for her to see the interdimension. It was here, just a half step away.
The mist formed before her, she hesitated.
The great shadleeches swooped and the Earth King shouted dwarvish words that pulled at Jenni, but she knew the command. “To me. To us!”
The dwarf guardian trembled, then shuddered, like a rockface about to be sundered. “He orders me! I am older. I am stronger—” he shouted in outrage. “That dwarf can command me if he pulls earth power.” The dwarf guardian was sweating dirt-brown droplets.
“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!”
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