by A. K. Koonce
Right where the heart of the attacks were coming from.
My knees hit smooth sand, and then a frighteningly angry dragon transforms into an even angrier man. On storming steps, he rushes into the dark forest. Just to clutch his big hands firmly onto a thin woman. He holds her by the shirt, pulling her forward to be seen in the moonlight.
“Are you the mage?” His question is a growling sound that only makes the woman grasping his tightly clenched fists smirk up into his aggression.
“You came for me; you tell me, Shifter.”
She’s definitely the mage.
“Kain, let her go.” My bare feet rush over the cool sand so quickly I’m at his side in an instant.
It takes him longer than that to slowly take his hands off of her.
“She attacked us.” Kain doesn’t step back; he doesn’t give her an inch of space.
“You were a beast swarming my island. And don’t think I don’t know about your cruel friends and what they did to my mermaids.”
My attention swivels to the woman with the wild blonde hair. It’s tangled and twisted into long pieces that she’s pulled back from her thin face.
“Your mermaids?”
“Yes, my mermaids. I’ve blood fed them for decades to get their pods to live in this area. They surround my island, grant me safety, and in return, I feed them the finest food the island has to offer. I’ve raised the majority of them, so when you pose a threat to them, you’re posing a threat to me.” The sharp point of her chin tips defiantly high, making Kain’s brooding gaze narrow on the aging woman.
Her clothes aren’t tattered, but they’re not very proper either. The deep-purple dress is tied high at her hip, revealing her slender legs, while her top is nothing more than a thin piece of black material that’s tied in the center.
She looks every bit like a woman comfortable in isolation.
“I didn’t come to cause harm.” I take a step closer, but the moment her pointed words are spoken, I stop.
“Well, clearly you did.”
“I need help.”
“You’re out of luck, my fellow mage. I am not the one to offer help. I’m a forgotten memory in your world, and I’d rather like to keep it that way.” Her small shoulders pull in as she folds her arms tightly over her chest.
Instead of accepting her answer, I plow on with my words.
“The Solstice Queen is alive, and she’s been seeking me out. I want to know why, and I want to catch her before she catches me.”
A beat of pure silence passes while she keeps her curious green eyes locked on me.
“Of course Ellise is alive. Only a fool would believe an idiot like Barron could get rid of a mage as powerful as her.”
“What does she want with Arlow?” Kain grinds his question out, and it’s just then that the mage glances down to realize the shifter is naked before her.
Her attention lingers low on his body for the span of three seconds, but she’s not nearly as enchanted with his body as I am. Huh, isolation does strange things to women, it seems. I should count myself lucky this sort of lack of appreciation for the male body didn’t happen to me while I was in hiding.
Her eyes are still thin slits when she brings them up to meet his glare.
“I. Don’t. Know.”
The tension mixes with the disappointment thickening in my chest, but I refuse to accept that.
“You don’t know?”
The hate in her eyes softens when she looks at me, and I can tell she feels a sense of sisterhood between us. It’s how I felt with Agatha and Ellise the moment I met them. Something bigger than ourselves swirls between us as I stand here with this stranger.
“I find it curiously odd that you don’t know.” Her stance remains rigid, but her tone is no longer sharp and slashing. “Do you know how many mages are left in this world?” There’s a bland emptiness in her pretty eyes as she waits for my reply.
I shake my head slowly. “Maybe a few hundred.”
Her lips part with a bitter smile. “Lower. Much lower. Obscenely lower. Less. Than. Ten.”
That number hits me hard, striking through my chest with more force than any magic she could have thrown at me.
“Ten?”
“I get glimpses here and there. There’s a friend of mine living along the coast of Warf. There’s a small group of elder mages rotting away in the Northern Kingdom: there’s one that Barron himself blinded, there’s the Queen who started it all, there’s me. And there’s you.”
All I hear is the pulsing heartbeat in my ears as I stare wide-eyed at the wild woman in front of me. Eight. If she’s right, there’s eight mages left in the entire world.
“You and I are on the brink of extinction, my friend.” She says it so casually it hurts to even listen to her anymore, but of course, I fucking do. “Barron wanted to demolish our kind and slowly, with time, with the natural fading of life, he will.”
Is that the reason why Ellise wanted me to go to Attika with her? Is she building a haven for us there? If she was, why didn’t she reach out to Agatha?
“How do I know what she wanted with me?”
Her smile is a faint appearance of happiness. It’s like she wishes she truly was happy but she just can’t find it in her to try anymore.
“You’ll have to ask her yourself. My cousin was always was a private woman. No one knew Ellise would attack her own army until the damage was done. She had big plans, but the world would have been a different place indeed if she’d been more prepared that day. If she’d reached out to even one mage of equal power, it would be an entirely different world that we live in today. It’s funny how easily history could have been changed once it’s all over and we see the bigger picture.”
A chill crawls across my bare shoulders at the sound of her sorrow-filled words.
The mage before me is lost in the thoughts of the world she’s envisioning. In that world, mages would be rulers, and men like Barron, like Linden, they’d be at our mercy.
And I wouldn’t have had to hide a day in my life.
I can feel her gaze on my face and when I look up she’s searching my features, picking me apart on the surface, but I feel her attention sinking into me, prying into my thoughts with an eerie feeling that crawls within my mind.
“You could summon her,” she tells me on a low, conspiratorial voice. “With manifesting magic, the summoned individual cannot leave until they’ve fulfilled the request or questions of the summoner.” Her eyes are shining bright with vicious excitement.
“Is it dangerous?” Kain cuts in, and his simple question makes the mage scowl at him as if she just now remembered he’s here.
“It’s not. The summoned remains in the space of the summoner’s magic until the request is filled. Then the summoned is thrown back into their previous location in the blink of an eye.”
“What do I need to do to summon her?”
The mage’s smile pulls at one corner, and it’s a quiet look of excitement.
“It’s a more powerful sort of magic. It’s so powerful, the magic will know who you wish to see the moment it’s set into motion. To summon someone, to tear them away from their lives to fulfill your own needs, sacrifices must be made.” She glances from Kain and then to me, building the pressure in my chest to an unbearable pain with each second that passes. “You’ll need a piece of someone you last harmed, a drop of someone you’ll always love, and a part of pain that you caused.”
My lip curls as I try to make sense of her words. A piece of someone, a drop of someone, and a part of pain? That doesn’t even make sense. She’s just saying crazed, strange things to scare the shit out of me, and quite honestly, she’s doing a fucking fantastic job.
Kain’s warm hand slides into mine. He nods, and I think, whether he understood a word of that or not, he’d still be pulling me away from this woman.
“Be careful, Arlow,” the mage whispers as she takes a daunting step closer to us, eating up the space of sand until she’s driving us ba
ck into the sea. With intent, she holds our gaze while forcing us out into the sea.
Cold water laps against my toes, and the moment I feel it, I react.
Her lips part to say something more, but it’s me who tears us away from her. My magic wraps around the dragon shifter and me, and without hesitation, I pull us away to safety.
For once, I’m the cautious one.
Sixteen
A Part of Pain
The next morning is chaotic at the dock. Sinister doesn’t pause for a single fucking second before throwing ship after ship into the sea with a flash of all his glorious demon magic. He waves with mock politeness here and there to the women who gape at him. Molly’s mouth hangs wide open, just waiting for the flies to land there while she glares at the demon who’s clearly exhausted of performing for all of them. He winks at her, and that small gesture alone causes her to run off in the direction of the village.
“A piece of someone you last harmed, a drop of someone you’ll always love, and a part of pain that you caused,” Chaos repeats what I just said, and Rime’s sea-blue eyes narrow in thought.
“A piece of the last person you harmed. That’s that mermaid Queen.” Rime’s gaze is fixed on the rushing waves in the distance.
The morning sunlight is a slash of pale yellow that hurts my eyes but doesn’t seem to bother the ice dragon at all.
For the first time since last night, the mage’s words make sense. I had thought it was all just confusing words meant to make me crazy. It took Rime less than a minute to dissect the first section.
“So she needs a piece of a dead mermaid. That’s kind of sick.” Chaos’ brows pull together, his attention drifting from the busy demon in front of him to the crowd of whispering villagers behind us.
“Not entirely. It’d be nothing to clip a lock of her hair.” Kain turns away from us as he speaks, keeping all of his brooding attention on the whispering men and women.
It isn’t lost on me that this is the second village that we’ve gained just a bit too much attention in. This time it’s Sinister’s fault. I can’t be blamed for the ruckus this morning. At least…not yet.
“Arlow. What are you doing?” The hissing question is one I’ve heard all my life. It wasn’t just the few bat incidents when I was older. It was when I was a little girl and I had no idea the stirring power within me was bad. I didn’t understand why it was so shameful and why it was so dire for me to hide that special part of me away. And so, my mother would ask me this same hissing question laced with fear and anger with every slip up I made.
Just like she’s asking right now while the demon in front of us doesn’t stop his quick work for even a second.
“Tell him to stop. Right now. He’s going to get you killed, Arlow.” My mother’s lips quiver, but she tightens her jaw to stop the weakness from showing. Her big blue eyes shift frantically over the crowd, and she pulls her thin shawl tighter around her small shoulders.
I wish I could tell her there’s nothing to worry about. It should be the easiest thing in the world to comfort someone you care about. And yet, I can’t tell her that. I can’t tell her a flat-out lie.
“It’s fine, Mom. We just have to finish up these ships for the Prince to collect this afternoon.” I pause, hating what I’m about to say to her. But I say it anyway. “I’ll be sure to be gone before Linden and his father arrive. I’ll be gone before the villagers have time to point their fingers at me, Mom.”
The thin line of her lips falls until she’s gazing at me with sadness cracking across her beautiful features. I feel that look deep inside my chest, splintering through with aching pain.
“Arlow, don’t,” she whispers. “You just got here. Don’t leave. Don’t—don’t leave me again, Arrie.” Her eyes clench closed, and when her lips tremble once again, she can’t seem to stop it.
A heavy wave of guilt spreads through my chest, wrapping tightly around my heart and my lungs until I can barely breathe while looking at her. One of the hardest things in life is to hurt your mother. And to do it time and time again, it doesn’t get easier. It isn’t any easier today than it’s been my entire life.
My hand lifts with hesitation, but it slides slowly into her small palm. The sound of uneven breaths and quiet sniffles filters between us, and as much as I just want to curl myself into her arms, I’m not a little girl any more. I’m an exhausted woman now. The years I spent doing as she told me, hiding myself away, it’s so fucking exhausting. And I’m tired of it. Physically tired.
I don’t know how she does it and doesn’t completely crumble from the amount of stress she must be carrying around on her shoulders. That’s how she’s always been, though: strong, resilient, unyielding.
And that’s how she is right now, even as quiet tears slide down her cheeks. It’s then that I know.
A part of pain that you caused. For my mother, I’ll always be just that: a part of pain.
My fingers lift, and I brush away her warm tears. With a discreet wave of my hand, I magically seal those teardrops away, saving them for a later time.
Her thin fingers tighten around mine like she can literally hold me here for the rest of our lives if she holds on tight enough. I let her hold me just like that with her tears streaming down her face faster and faster while a quiet, pressing sadness fills the space between two mages who hide more secrets than the world will ever know.
“Don’t get into trouble, Arrie.”
The gentleness of her voice hurts my heart even more. Her new acceptance of who I am now hurts me even more for some reason that I can’t explain.
“And come back to us. Visit. Stay for a while. Say you’ll come back.” Her voice trembles down to a shaking whisper, and dampness stings my eyes as I nod to her.
It’s a quiet moment shared between us.
Until it isn’t.
“When King Barron arrives, I’ll be sure to tell him what I’ve seen over the last few days.” Molly’s bitter face comes into view from behind my mother, and the tension around us twists into something new and defensive. “The freak little girl and her freak little friends aren’t welcome here. You five freaks will not be—”
“Molly, can you just shut the fuck up for five minutes.” My mother casts a glare over her shoulder, and her outburst gets her exactly what she wants.
Molly does, in fact, shut the fuck up.
Finally.
Vixen and Miles glance from my mother to Molly, and then they smile at me just before they slip into the steam rooms. I note the way Miles leans in close to whisper in the girl’s ear. A giggle shakes through her just as the door closes behind them, and a small amount of happiness spreads through my chest.
When the woman’s lips thin into a nonexistent line, she storms off, leaving a smirking group of five freaks behind her. My mother turns to me, noting the smile on my lips before she looks me in my eyes that are identical to her own.
“Promise you’ll come back. And promise you’ll say goodbye this time.” Back and forth her thumbs brush against my knuckles, holding me with both hands but knowing she’ll have to let me go.
“I will.” My voice is thick with too much emotion, and she and I are both nodding to each other until another gentle hand brushes over my wrist.
I look up to the warm color of my father’s eyes. He hovers between us, studying my face for a long moment that I feel ticking by with every hard beat of my heart.
“Your demon friend is a good worker. The quota your men were hitting in the forest was unlike anything I’d ever seen either. They’re unexpectedly hard workers. You’ve found yourself some good ones.”
The gruff tone of my father’s words holds a sort of respect, and I can’t help but smile. It’s odd what leads my father to slowly like these men; Kain’s simple determination to make sure I build these boats and keep my word. And now Chaos, Rime, and Sinister have hit some sort of impressive quota. Nothing says he’s a keeper like quotas.
My father’s approval is incredibly strange but appreciated.
I bite my lip and sneak a glance back at the four quiet men behind me. Sinister finally lowers his hands. I can’t even count the number of floating ships crowding the sea right now. He might have gone a little—yeah, I’ll say it—overboard.
“I’m trusting you four to look out for her. She’s a smart girl, but …”
“Incidents happen?” Sinister cocks a dark brow at me, barely suppressing a smirk.
“Exactly.” My father nods so hard I’m almost insulted.
I’m not that bad. Usually.
“We love you. Stay safe, Arrie.” His arms wrap around me, pulling both my mother and myself against his chest, muffling my reply in the strength of his embrace.
We stay like that until the crowd quiets, the sun rises a little higher, and the pressure of what I’m about to do today becomes too much to ignore.
And then I leave them.
Again.
Seventeen
An Unexpected Meeting
The ship we take out onto the calm morning sea is smoothed to perfection. Not a single nail or board is out of place. My dad was right; Sinister is a good worker. Demon employee of the month hands down.
Maybe we’ll keep this one. We could sail the world. Forget all about Attika and the mysterious mage who lives there.
But I can’t do that. There will always be something at the back of my mind that just has to know. What did she want from me?
“So once we get the hair of a mermaid, what about the rest of it? The pain and the love. What do you make of that?” Chaos looks to Rime as he leans on the edge of the ship, the wind whipping his white shirt against every line on his body.