Rane squawked in protest. “You must not, Mother!”
“Peace, child, we must do the transformation down here where I can comfortably work with her blood,” Ursilla responded, already rising to her feet. “But we must have this Arandur on hand. And if we do not let the King of South Woods see her with his own eyes, we will have quite the war on our hands. I do not care for the idea of putting our new children in danger, do you?”
Flinching at the reproof, Rane muttered something unintelligible.
“She will return,” Ursilla promised her, completely unruffled. “Come, Sellion. I will take you to the surface. Let us find your kindred and settle things.”
By the time that Sevana’s head rose above the waves, she knew that she’d been dead on with her predictions. An entire war party stretched out along the banks, most of them still mounted and bristling with weapons. The night air was brisk and cold, and the water lapped harshly against her wet boots, sending a shiver down her spine and over her skin. Sevana quickly tried to get a head count, but the moonlight wasn’t strong enough for her human eyes to penetrate far, and only the glint off platinum blond hair or drawn weapons gave her any clue as to how many Fae warriors were arrayed in front of her.
Aranhil stood on the sand with his boots just touching the water, arguing heatedly with one of the Unda guards. The guard was apologetic, bobbing his head up and down, but adamant in his stance of not escorting the war party below the waves.
Sevana didn’t get more than five words out before Aran’s head snapped around; when he spied her, he leapt straight into the water. “Sevana!”
She gave an oof as he scooped her up, breath knocking out of her lungs as strong arms wrapped around her like steel bands. Awkwardly—her arms were half-pinned—she patted his back. “I’m alright, I’m alright.”
“Sellion!” Aranhil also slogged into the water, reaching her side and prying Aran off─not that her friend moved more than six inches. Her king, on the other hand, looked fit to be tied. “Why are you here, daughter?”
“Peace,” she soothed him, not wanting war to break out on the spot. “Rane was a bit high-handed with matters, and we’ve had words about it, but all with good intentions. Her guards saw me taken, one of them tracked me to the research facility, and they staged a rescue. Because they weren’t operating under direct orders, they didn’t know what else to do, so they brought me back to Living Waters to report in.”
Aranhil looked torn between relief and aggravation. “Rane could have said something.”
“She did send a message, but I think it passed you on the road,” Sevana answered steadily. She was not blind to the fact that both men had a tight grip on her, and knew that they’d been scared badly by her third disappearance. Not that she was precisely happy with it either. Kidnapping left much to be desired. “Ah, do I dare ask what you did to Cope Institute?”
Lifting his nose in a haughty manner, Aranhil informed her, “Such a place took my daughter. Of course they were punished.”
Sighing, she went with the more direct question. “Is it still standing?”
“No.”
“That figures,” she muttered, resigned. Catching sight of Ursilla standing nearby, watching this play out with open amusement, she belatedly remembered her manners. “Aranhil, do you know this esteemed lady?”
Turning, Aranhil regarded the elderly Unda for a long moment, losing his arrogance and becoming slightly more deferential. “I have not had that honor, though I believe I know who she is. Well met, Ursilla.”
“Well met, Aranhil of South Woods,” Ursilla returned with her throaty voice, giving him a simple inclination of the head in greeting. “As you see, your daughter was safe with us. We would not harm one who belongs to you, nor disregard the many blessings she has given us as our friend.”
At that, Aranhil slowly relaxed. “Of course. You must pardon my panic. We have already lost her once due to someone else’s arrogance, then again twice in one night. We were beside ourselves with worry.”
“I quite understand. However, I must speak with you regarding your daughter.” Ursilla drifted closer, the skirt of her dress floating about on top of the ocean waves like decorative sea foam. “I have examined her, and I believe that I know how to fix her.”
Everyone within earshot—and that was the entire war party; the Fae had good hearing after all—immediately focused on Ursilla, all ears. Sevana waited with a mix of emotions, as she was glad to finally have a course to follow, a solution in hand, but she just knew that it would start a whole new round of arguments.
“We must turn her wholly Fae, but do so in careful and guarded increments,” Ursilla continued without prompting. “She will never be true Fae, in body and magic, but I believe her change will be as complete as a teenager’s. She will have good health, a decent lifespan, and her magic will settle into a stabilized nature.”
Aranhil lit up, delighted by this news. “We thought a complete change would do so, but we were unsure of the process. You can do this safely?”
“I can,” Ursilla confirmed calmly.
He gave her a deep inclination of the head, his long blond hair swinging forward over one shoulder, as close to a bow as Sevana had ever seen him give. “You honor us with your aid, Ursilla. I would be very glad to leave my daughter in your hands.”
“I’ll be happy to help her, as your daughter is also our friend. But I must have the blood of the one who initially turned her, to help complete the transformation.” Her dark eyes turned to Aran and studied him from head to toe. Aran normally stuck out like a sore thumb when standing in a Fae party. His tan skin and thick, unruly dark hair cut short was unlike the rest of them, and his manner of dress was a silent proclamation that he spent most of his time in the human world. Even if Ursilla hadn’t been able to see his magical makeup, she would likely have been able to peg him. “This one, I take it.”
Aran inclined his torso in an acknowledging bow. “Yes. I am Arandur.”
“Ah, Sellion’s Arandur,” Ursilla responded with understanding, her brow quirked knowingly. “She was quite firm that you would be worried about her. We came up to the surface to find you.”
Sevana cleared her throat, fighting a blush. The way Ursilla said this invited everyone else to interpret Sevana’s actions in a wholly different way. She hadn’t meant it like that, Aran was just a very close friend, and he had already been put through the wringer several times in the past two weeks as it was. “Yes, well, I was also concerned there was a war party on his heels. And lookey there, I was correct. Aranhil, Ursilla can fix me, but this will take several weeks, at least, and we’ll need Arandur on hand throughout the process.”
The quirk in Aranhil’s mouth said he’d also caught the insinuation of Ursilla’s words, but he let Sevana off the hook and responded to her words instead. “Yes, I imagine this will take time. I also imagine that it would be easiest for Ursilla to work here, within her sea, instead of forcing her to stay up on land. I am correct, Ursilla?”
“You are.” Ursilla left it at that, waiting for his response.
He thought for a moment, then his eyes flicked to Aran, still standing so close to Sevana that their sides brushed as they breathed. “You will go with her.”
Aran gave his king a blatant ‘don’t be stupid’ look. “Of course.”
“Give me regular updates,” Aranhil requested of the two of them. “I will manage things up here for you, Sellion. If you wish to write a quick letter to your business partner and Master, I will relay them for you.”
That was infinitely kind of him and Sevana agreed immediately. “Please.”
“Sellion,” Lorien called to her from his chellomi, “I have writing materials.”
Perfect. Sevana slogged the rest of the way to the shore, reaching up for the paper, pencil, and the small writing board that he had on him. Lorien was always the most prepared out of the group. She wrote hastily, her handwriting sloppier than usual, and forced herself several times to slow down before it
became completely illegible. Her note to Morgan was quick and to the point. The one to Master was slightly more comprehensive, as he had a better grasp on the magical side of things. To both, she requested that they shut down her business for the next year, as it would take at least that long for her to figure out how to work magic once again.
If she ever could work as an Artifactor again. Sevana was not convinced she would be able to pick up the threads of her life after this.
The thought made her chest jitter in strange ways, but she forced the building anxiety aside, as it had no place in this moment. She didn’t have much of a choice but to move forward. Time would tell how the chips would fall.
Finished, she folded both letters, wrote the recipient’s name on the outside, and handed them to Lorien. “Thank you.”
Leaning forward in the saddle, Lorien confided, “I will be relieved to give them good news. Good luck, Sellion. Know that if you need us, we’ll come.”
She smiled up at him without really thinking about it. “I know. Hopefully I’ll see you before the seasons change.” She paused, thought about sending a letter to the Sa Kao monarchy, explaining why the Fae had been pissed off enough to level a building…then thought better of it. The researchers—if anyone had survived—could do their own explaining. And it wasn’t something that a letter could cover. When she had a chance to sit down, she’d contact Milly by mirror and see if she couldn’t somehow rig a two-way call via the mirrors to properly sort that out. Maybe a three-way, as Aranhil should definitely be involved as well.
Sevana returned to the water’s edge, not surprised when Aran stayed right next to her, practically hovering. He’d probably be like this for days until his panic receded. Sevana would try not to kill him in the meantime. She almost told Ursilla they could go back down but thought better of it. “Aranhil. Don’t think this means you can empty Big and shut everything down. I’m not immediately moving into South Woods after this.”
Patting her on the head like a child, Aranhil smiled. “We’ll talk about it later.”
That had not been a yes. Sevana glared at him. “I mean it. If I have to put everything back in place, I will be quite cross with you.”
“We won’t touch anything yet,” he soothed her, still in that patronizing tone of voice.
She did not trust him. At all. Giving him a warning look, she decided to send another message to Master or Sarsen, get someone to check in regularly with Big. “Alright, Ursilla, I suppose we’re ready.”
“Then let us go down.”
With a negligent flick of the fingers, Ursilla created an air bubble around them, drawing them down into the cold and dark world of the sea. Sevana forced herself to breathe, as she instinctively wanted to hold her breath. She always did for some reason. It was and wasn’t like having a glass bowl shaped around them as they descended into the sea, a stationary thing that moved with them. The difference, of course, being that it wasn’t solid like glass and she could put her hand straight through it if she chose to. Sometimes schools of dish darted in close, but they automatically veered away from the three people walking along the wet ocean floor, avoiding a collision. Only when several feet of water rose above their heads as they descended did she think to ask the obvious question. “Aran, you have no luggage, do you?”
“Nor do you,” he observed with an unconcerned shrug. “We chose to move light and fast, I had no time to think of packing. Your things are still on your ship. Don’t worry, someone stayed behind to arrange shipping it back. I’m the only one who knows how to pilot it, after all.”
Yes, that was true, hence Sevana’s brief flare of panic. She had a terrible mental vision of someone trying their hand at flying and crashing the ship into Nopper’s Woods. “Right. Good. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to depend on Rane and Curano’s hospitality. Nothing we own is suitable for underwater living anyway. Its colder down here and we’ll inevitably get wet at some point. Their clothes are better suited for this environment.”
“True enough.” Aran’s fingers reached out, tangling lightly with hers, just the tips brushing. “You’re alright with this?”
Sevana nearly gave him a blithe assurance, but they had been through too much with each other for her to just dismiss his concerns. “I’m not sure. But I feel like it’s the only path forward. I can’t stay as I am. I can’t have my body reset to what it was. This is the only thing I can do.”
He nodded, his hold on her hand tightening. “You won’t be alone through this.”
Snorting a laugh, Sevana drawled, “Of all the things I’m worried about, that wasn’t one of them.”
Aran shared her grin for a moment, eyes soft and warm with affection. “Yes, I suppose I am a guaranteed thing, aren’t I?”
“It’s good you’re aware of that.” Shaking her head, she let out a low breath. Even though she’d known that Aran would be with her through all of this, somehow she’d needed to hear that reassurance. “Just so you know, Rane’s got a problem down here that she wants me to solve after my magic’s straightened out. They’ve got some sort of transportation device that’s not working correctly.”
He cocked his head slightly. “The cost of giving you the help you need?”
“It was never said, only implied. But yes, I think that’s exactly what it is.” Sevana shrugged, as it didn’t bother her. In fact, it might be a blessing in disguise. Best for her to have a magical problem to solve while she whiled the weeks away, waiting for her transformation to reach completion. And it would be good to see if she really could solve magical problems once her magic was wholly restored to her again.
Ursilla tilted her head just enough to say over her shoulder, “It is a rather complex system, in fact. It connects our nation with the other Unda nations, and even leads to some openings in the sea caves to allow us access to land. It has not worked properly in the past two decades, and our own engineers have not been able to determine why. The system only works intermittently.”
That was far more informative than what Rane had said in passing. Interesting. Sevana had no real working knowledge of Unda magic and was intrigued by the project. Would this be a dichotomy of magic, something opposite of how Fae magic worked? Similar? Sevana assumed the latter; after all, the Unda and Fae were cousins, so their blood worked along similar lines. But nothing she had seen so far had been akin to Fae construction, which made her wonder.
Aran snorted a laugh, his eyes warm on her. “I swear, you’re only happy when you have a puzzle to solve.”
“Be grateful I have a puzzle to solve,” Sevana retorted without heat. “Otherwise I’ll be languishing down here like some damsel in distress and climbing the walls in boredom.”
He blanched at the idea. “Ye merciful gods, preserve us from that.”
She laughed, because Aran of all people understood just how well she dealt with boredom—which was to say, not at all. He’d been one of the few people brave enough to stay with her during her convalescence, and he had not come out of that time completely unscathed. “You see? Rane’s actually doing me more of a favor than she realizes.”
Aran nodded in fervent agreement. “I’ll extend my heartfelt thanks when I see her. Ursilla, you said before that you must have my blood to help you. Is there any other aid that I can render?”
The ancient Unda shook her head gently. “This is not a process that anyone else can put their hand upon. It is not wise to have too many influences during this. Simply lend your blood and attention when I call for it.”
“And keep me out of trouble,” Sevana tacked on with a maniacal grin. “You’ll have your hands full just doing that.”
Giving a long sigh, Aran muttered under his breath, “That is the most profound understatement ever uttered under the sea.”
Sevana cackled again, not denying it. If she had to be stuck under the ocean for weeks—possibly months—at a stretch, then at least she had someone with her to torment and tease.
Rane either moved very quickly or she’d been plottin
g for a while on how to keep Sevana down under the sea. Sevana darkly suspected the latter. Rane was nothing if not determined and sneaky. Sevana wasn’t inclined to complain, considering the lateness of the hour. It was nearing midnight at this point, and despite her enforced nap earlier, she wanted nothing more than a horizontal perch and quiet.
Her underwater home for the next few weeks was at least inviting. The outer shell of it had been formed with coral reefs that overlapped each other, growing in a multiple menagerie of hues and species, yet somehow avoiding a slapdash appearance. It was quite obviously grown and cultivated to look this particular way, to form this particular dome shape. The inside of it glowed, as if crushed florescent rock had been applied to the ceilings and walls. A strongly applied elemental magic layered all throughout the top, stretching out along most of the street so that Sevana could walk and breathe without attempting to grow gills in the next fifteen seconds. The floor was firmer here, a polished stone that looked like andesite to her eyes, which made sense, as the ocean floor was largely made of sediment and volcanic rock. True bed linens and furniture sat artfully arranged, appearing as if they’d just walked off some landbound furniture store. Sevana had stayed in worse places, no question.
Of course, her guest house was nestled into a neighborhood of similar looking houses, all of them of the same general build and construction materials. They looked so much alike that she’d have trouble finding this one again easily. Some of the houses had planters outside of their doors—collections of flower-like anemones with their delicate white feathery edges, or bold red centers, like peonies—or strategically grown coral reefs in their shades of purples. The planter boxes didn’t just liven up the place in between the dark grey sea rocks of the streets, but also would serve as landmarks. And Sevana would need the landmarks.
Still, as inviting as this large, domed cottage under the sea appeared, it grated that she had to be here, so far from the comforts of home. Or perhaps it was the uneasy anticipation of what the next few weeks would entail that made Sevana’s nerves cringe. Ursilla had promised that Sevana’s body and magic could be changed over to Fae.
The Fae Artifactor Page 4