The Marked Ones (Fairytail Saga)

by Munt, S. K

  He spotted Lincoln’s bungalow when he was halfway down the track, and zeroed in on it, heart thumping in his chest. A light was on, and he didn’t think twice about sliding open the door.

  ‘Oh my god!’ The blonde from the party, Adele, unfolded herself from the bed, clearly as shocked to see him as he was her. ‘Break and enter much?’

  ‘Hey!’ Ardhi looked around, but there was no sign of the man he was seeking. He forced himself to sound casual, hoping she didn’t know that he’d just helped destroy the restaurant. He was glad that he’d ducked back to Pintang’s room to change. ‘You’re Lincoln’s girlfriend, aren’t you? I was told you’d left.’

  ‘Ex girlfriend.’ Adele frowned. ‘Who are you? And how do you know anything about me?’

  ‘I’m Pintang’s brother, Ardhi. I’m here for a visit. I happened open Lincoln and that Tristan guy having a screaming match last night, and so my sister filled me in on what was going on.’ Ardhi spoke quickly, coming up with an edited version of events on the spot. ‘But Pintang said you’d left.’

  Adele examined him for a moment, then her posture relaxed and she sank back down on the bed. ‘Yeah well, I kind of did. I couldn’t get a flight out until tomorrow morning, so I stayed in River City last night knowing the stupid bitch Link left me for would be in our room.’

  ‘Ivyanne?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Adele’s face was red and puffy as she glared down at her lap.

  ‘So why are you here now?’ Ardhi asked. In my way? He added silently. Lincoln could come back at any moment, and he couldn’t wring his neck with a human witness present. In fact, now that his temper was cooling, he realized that he couldn’t actually kill Lincoln in his room. He needed to lure him somewhere else-somewhere private.

  Adele continued to gaze sullenly at her knees. ‘I’m not as ready to end our relationship as Link is. I’ve been trying to call him all day, but he ignored me. So I decided to come back instead.’

  Ardhi felt a pang of sympathy for her. She was clinging to her storybook ending, just as he was. Then again, she’d brought her pain on herself by crawling under the sheets with Tristan. ‘Did you really sleep with that Tristan asshole?’

  She looked up, her mouth in an ‘o’ of surprise. ‘Everyone knows that?!’

  Ardhi recognised the distress in her eyes, and saw a golden opportunity to create an ally. ‘Yeah well, Tristan’s telling everyone how he’s got the hottest girls in the resort after him.’

  Adele’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘That bastard! How am I supposed to salvage my relationship, or my image here, with him muddying my name? And Lincoln must be mortified!’ At that moment, her face screwed up. ‘Ew! Is that blood on your hand?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled, not missing a beat. ‘I actually just decked Tristan. Seems we have a common enemy.’

  She looked intrigued. ‘What’s he done to you?’

  ‘He tried his little seduction act on my sister.’ Ardhi lied. ‘I just busted him trying to wine and dine her, while that Ivyanne’s apparently off somewhere else. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Yes. I can.’ Adele shrugged. ‘It’s a shame you put a halt to the evening though. Would have loved to see the look on Ivyanne’s face when she found out that she’s being cheated on too!’ She cocked her head. ‘But why are you here?’

  ‘To apologize to Lincoln, for starting a brawl in his restaurant.’ Suddenly, Ardhi realized what a golden opportunity he’d stumbled upon. He wanted to lure Lincoln and now he had live, blonde bait. A plan quickly formulated in his mind, and he slapped his forehead in feigned forgetfulness. ‘But I just remembered-he’s supposed to be jogging!’ He turned to go. ‘I bet I’ll find him on the beach!’

  The bedsprings squeaked as Adele jumped to her feet. ‘The beach? Jogging? Of course! Can I come with you?’

  Ardhi paused at the door, glad his back was to her so she couldn’t see his triumphant smile. He fought to compose his face, then glanced back at her. ‘Okay. I guess that’s all right. But let me leave him a note, telling him where we’ve gone, in case we miss him.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Adele said. ‘My sneakers are out front. I’ll put them on while you do that.’

  Ardhi crossed to Lincoln’s dining table, snatching up a notebook and tearing off a sheet, trying to hide a smile as he hastily scrawled a fraudulent message. And as he wrote, he began to hum.

  ⁓

  ‘Let you go?’ Lincoln felt his throat constrict. ‘Ivanna, I only just found you again. I need you.’

  Ivyanne reached out, taking his hands in hers. ‘There are over one thousand souls who need me more, Lincoln.’ She sighed. ‘I am at the apex of a large, carefully cultivated family tree which stretches from one end of the earth to the other. And they need me to marry within my own kind.’

  ‘Of all of the break-up excuses I’ve heard in my time, leaving because a species needs you more than I do is a new one.’ Lincoln grumbled, running his hand through his hair wildly. ‘This is off the wall insane. Walking on water sounds more plausible than breathing under it!’

  Ivyanne laughed. ‘Well we don’t breathe underwater-we’re part mammal-not fish. I don’t know why we have scales-none of us have figured it out yet-but it’s just the way things are-it’s not really something we can google, you know?’ She grinned at her joke. ‘And because we don’t breathe underwater, we couldn’t possibly live there. We live in houses, most of the time, in small, seaside communities, where access to the beach is as easy as walking to the front door.’

  ‘How long can you stay underwater for?’ Lincoln challenged her.

  ‘In one breath? Personally?’ Ivyanne shrugged. ‘Fifteen minutes. But Ardhi and Tristan are closer to the ten minute mark.’

  Lincoln shook his head, amazed. ‘Okay fine-how fast can you swim?’

  Ivyanne shrugged again. ‘About forty seven miles per hour, once I get a good momentum going.... but that is just me. The others are closer to thirty eight or so.’

  ‘Where does the tail go when you’re on land?’ Lincoln didn’t know if he actually wanted more details, or if he would even absorb what she did reveal. But his brain to mouth synapses were misfiring. He was afraid if he let silence fall again-she’d leave.

  ‘It disintegrates. Breaks up into scales within minutes of being on land or willing the tail away underwater. Some can will it to happen almost instantly, others may have to wait up to ten minutes.’ She paused. ‘When did you notice the scales? I’m so careful!’

  ‘On your swimsuit,’ he said, frowning at the memory. ‘The one you dropped on the chair this morning.’

  ‘Oh...’ She frowned. ‘Is that what gave it away?’

  ‘Yep.’ He said shortly. ‘Before that, I was locked in on cult.’ He crossed his arms, determined to know everything now that he knew anything. ‘What do you eat?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m half human Lincoln, so if you’re imagining me sucking on plankton, you’re way off. I eat the way you do-only much, much healthier. And I don’t really need to drink, if that’s your next question. We all take exemplary care of ourselves-we have to, if we expect to get the most out of our life expectancy.’

  He couldn’t believe how clear and direct her answers were. Her cool-headedness was actually chipping away at his skepticism. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What’s your life expectancy?’

  Ivyanne raised an eyebrow at him. ‘I can answer two questions at once here.... you know Anna? The girl in the story?’

  He nodded dumbly.

  Ivyanne smiled. ‘The glimpse of her you caught was from ten forty four. Yet she only died three years before I was born.’

  Lincoln rolled his eyes. ‘Oh come on Ivyanne! That would have to make her at least-’

  ‘Nine hundred and thirty one years old when she died, to be exact, in nineteen seventy nine.’ She smiled softly. ‘If you think I look good for my age, you should have seen her! Of course with pollution the way it is, most of us are lucky to live half as long now. That’s why we’re all so involved with
taking care of the planet-you’ll often find my kind heading charities, backing lobbyists....’ She suddenly seemed to notice his confounded expression. ‘I’m getting a bit ahead of you, aren’t I? I mean, you’re probably still reeling over the scales thing....’

  Lincoln dropped to his backside, holding his head in his hands so his brain wouldn’t leak out of his ears. ‘So you’re my age?’ he managed to get out. ‘Ivanna really was, anyway?’

  ‘Yep. Only my aging began to slow radically when I hit sixteen-that’s when we get out tattoos, by the way, in case you were wondering why Ivanna-well, I, never had one. Once again, we have no concrete proof to back it up, but the legend is that Anna died that night-and was reborn. She was sixteen then, so it must have set a precedent. I won’t look the age we are now until I’m at least eighty. Which is why we move around so much. And why I told such a whopper of a lie when I realized that you hadn’t forgotten me.’ Her eyes dropped. ‘That was...unforgivable Lincoln. But a part of my biology is geared to do such cold-hearted things in the name of self-preservation.’ She knit her fingers together and briefly bit her lip. ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t feel remorse for it though.’

  Lincoln studied her guardedly. ‘I guess I can understand...though I’d be a lot more understanding if it was some other sap you had questioning his sanity.’ Lincoln hated the fact that it was all starting to make sense. ‘What about the other two? Ardhi and asshole? How old are they?’

  ‘Ardhi is three years younger than I am, and …’ she hesitated, looking pained. ‘Tristan is closer to forty.’

  ‘Forty.’ Lincoln whispered, his ego taking it hard. He was losing a girl to someone not much younger than his father! ‘Bloody hell....’

  ‘An infant by our standards,’ Ivyanne said softly.

  Lincoln tried not to notice the slight lift to the corner of her lips as she spoke about Tristan. ‘Are they using their real names?’

  She nodded. ‘Yep. Ironically, you’re the only one who ever called me Ivanna. You thought it was my name, and I didn’t correct you. I mean, you were pretty out of it when we first met-so I wore that name when I was with you, and it made me feel like I could be someone else.’ She smiled. ‘Then dad heard you call me it one day and we agreed, as a family, to call me that around you to avoid confusion.’

  Lincoln lifted his brow. ‘So if I’d had your name right from the start….?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have had a damn thing to hide behind when you recognised me, last week. I would have sung my appearance out of your head, fled, and never returned.’

  Lincoln groaned to learn of the way he’d assisted with her lie. He turned to the sea, trying to blink back tears. Ivyanne was finally being honest with him, he knew he should be grateful for that. But suddenly, the fact that Ivanna and Ivyanne were the same person seemed inconsequential -because now they’d both broken his heart.

  30.

  ‘What about the fix up, with your parents? Was that all a lie too?’ Lincoln finally asked, when he’d succeeded in breathing deeply enough to hold back the swell of emotions threatening to capsize him.

  Ivyanne shook her head, sitting beside him. ‘The creator-a princess of France-was my great, great grandmother. It makes me a royal as well....next in line to the throne.’

  A princess! Lincoln’s mouth fell open and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized this sooner. A mermaid princess! Well, no wonder she was playing hard to get-she’s impossible to get! ‘That’s why they’re so strict with you?!’

  ‘Yes.’ Ivyanne raised her hand in a gesture of hopelessness, her expression apologetic. ‘There’s my issue, see? I need to choose a husband-from a very small pool of worthy candidates to keep my bloodline undiluted. I couldn’t make a choice because I didn’t love any of them, so I ran away. Unfortunately, the two biggest pains, Tristan and Ardhi, followed me here.’

  ‘Ardhi?’ Lincoln squeaked. ‘Pintang’s brother? He’s here to marry you too?’

  ‘Yup.’ Ivyanne made a face, then cocked her head. ‘Hang on..when did you meet Ardhi?’

  ‘Last night. In front of your room. He said he was visiting Pintang and looking for her, and I never thought twice about it. Why?’

  Ivyanne looked down at her feet. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘What makes them worthy?’ Lincoln couldn’t help but ask.

  Ivyanne reclined against the railing, looking almost exhausted as he felt. ‘Obviously, starting and sustaining a civilization is not an easy task. After she’d created a family of her own, Anna encouraged them to run off and turn others-only none of them could do it. When they breathed into men, it simply saved them-like I did to you.’

  Lincoln could remember waking up, his chest expanding with her breath. ‘Oh.....’

  She nodded. ‘Anyway, the girls, once they grew into women, learned that they could lure men into their beds and get pregnant with their children, giving birth to more mer-folk nine months later and raising them alone-but the mermen couldn’t breed outside their species. Well they could, but they could father only human children with human women-a by-product, it’s theorized, created by the curse which Anne had lain upon her ex husbands head.’

  You’ll never bear a child as worthy as mine again! Anna’s disembodied cry reverberated in his brain. ‘That makes sense,’ Lincoln said, then caught himself. ‘Well it would, if logic didn’t exist.’

  Ivyanne smirked. ‘Anyway she realized it wouldn’t do. The half breed children were fine, but nothing like their parents-created by a full mermaid, and a turned merman or vice versa. Full-bloods were stronger, faster and more beautiful-but all of the full-bloods were related.’

  Lincoln wrinkled his nose as he did the math. ‘If you want me to get over you, you’re heading down the right, two-headed track.....’

  Ivyanne laughed again. ‘No. Ivy, who had been born after the change, was the strongest and most glorious of all. Her mother turned an unrelated human man for her, trying to keep the genetic line pure. It was a perfect solution, in theory. Only Ivy had a hard time falling with child-she didn’t get pregnant for over three hundred years.’

  ‘With your mother?’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘Right. And my mother couldn’t conceive with her first husband at all. After he died, she asked Anna-who was seven hundred by then- to turn a second husband for her. My mother married him, and almost a hundred years later, they had me.’

  Lincoln was trying to follow. ‘So if your great-grandmother, who died, is the only one who can turn-how have you guys managed to get on for hundreds of years without crossing DNA?’

  ‘I’m glad you asked-it shows that you’re keeping up,’ Ivyanne said, sounding like a proud teacher. ‘In the very beginning, when her second husband and children were flourishing, Anna took it upon herself to sire fifteen new mermaids-from all corners of the globe. She explained the legend with a shell, like I just have with you- and taught them our ways, but forbid them from breeding amongst themselves, or with any relations of Maxwell Zara, her second husband. They were created to merge with my bloodline alone.’

  ‘But if your bloodline have only produced one child every..,’ he did the math again, ‘...three hundred years, why would they agree to that?’

  Ivyanne beamed. ‘For the privilege of being eligible to marry into the royal family one day.’ She inhaled. ‘Every mer descended from the ‘Marked’, as we call them, bears a similar tattoo to mine to distinguish them. As time has gone on, one or two members of those families have showed a talent for turning as well, which means they each have a pure family tree.’ She smiled. ‘Ardhi and Tristan, and a third boy whom you’ve never met-Bane, are all full-bloods, from some of the oldest families. Since I was born, I’ve known that I’d have to breed with one of the Marked one day.’

  ‘No turned human for you?’ Lincoln tried to sound like he was joking, but he knew he wouldn’t pull it off. Any hope he’d had for a future with her now that he knew the truth was falling like a ruined soufflé.

  Ivyanne shook her head. ‘I’m actual
ly the first offspring of Anna’s who can take advantage of The Marked prospects-it took centuries to get the numbers up, because mermaids tend to breed more girls than boys. In that sense, it’s a relief that I have them as an option, because there’s nobody around who can turn for me now.’

  Lincoln frowned. ‘But you said there are over a thousand of you!’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘Yes, but being born with the ability to turn at will is like winning the genetic lottery-you need to have been born, or created by an incredibly powerful mermaid who could do the same to even have a chance. So far, there have only ever been eight. Twenty years ago we had three, but now they’ve all passed away.’

  ‘So why didn’t they turn humans like crazy when they were alive to increase the odds?’ Lincoln felt agitated-as thought the Mers had cheated him of a future with Ivyanne.

  ‘Because we don’t want millions of us Lincoln.’ She said, her expression grim. ‘Keeping the secret is hard enough now while the population is considered critically low.’ She furrowed her pretty brow. ‘That’s another reason why my mother wants me to get married now-the chances of bearing a child who can turn will be that much higher in a Marked/Court union and we really need one again.’

  Lincoln did not like the idea of Ivyanne being bred like a racehorse with Tristan or Ardhi because it might give them special children. ‘You said....turn at will? Is there another way?’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘Yes. All of us can do it Lincoln-I could turn you right now.’

  Lincoln sat up, his interest piqued. ‘Sign me up then!’

  But she laughed and looked away. ‘Believe me I would....’ She darted her eyes back to him, and they were sombre. ‘But it would literally kill me.’

  Lincoln swallowed. ‘What?’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘We can all turn-if that breath is our last. It’s no small matter-but a choice we have to make. The life leaves our body, and transforms a human-if they’re within our grasp, of course. Then, we die.’

  ‘Oh my god....’

  Ivyanne nodded. ‘A few mers have had mates created that way-it’s usually an intentional maneuver, plotted by an elderly relative who is ready for the next life. There would be a line of mers willing to do that for me, the princess-above their own children.’ She looked at him. ‘But not now that there are Marked Sons for me to marry. I couldn’t ask someone to give up their life so I could marry a human and turn my nose up at the system. So if you were wondering, if I plan on turning you, unfortunately-that’s the answer. It’s not possible.’