As the hours passed, Erin began to greatly appreciate the small size of the secret underwater hidey hole she was stuck in. The single lantern Coyrifan had left with her was enough to fill the entire space with warm light, as well as a pleasant heat if she sat close enough. It made the aloneness much easier to bear.
Unfortunately, it didn’t light up the tunnel it was connected to, fading much too quickly into utter black a step or two outside of the cave. She tried not to think too hard about how heart-stoppingly scary it would be if anyone suddenly walked in.
Since Coy had gone to get some proper food and other things from Koben for her, she’d spent most of the time reclining on the pile of fleeces and studying his books, trying to figure out the written language of Emerrane to distract herself from the gnawing hunger of skipping meals for the last twenty-four hours or so. Though the symbols used almost exactly coincided with the familiar alphabet she’d grown up with, there were a handful that seemed to be combinations of several letters, and the spellings of many words were simplified. It was all rather logical and wouldn’t take too much effort to learn with a little practice. A pen and a notebook would have been helpful, though.
Funny, how life was so new and busy now that she’d never even thought about reading since coming to Emerrane, aside from occasionally perusing the wiki on her tablet. It would have had to come up at some point, though. Surely there was some sort of paperwork involved in griffin-keeping, and in applying for citizenship in Nilvar.
The terms she had to accept in exchange for that citizenship were heavy on her mind when Coyrifan’s voice echoed down the tunnel, calling her to come assist him. She put down the book, rose from the fleeces, and took up the lantern. It was running a bit low on fuel, so she turned it down to conserve what was left. She made a mental note to refill it later.
Pausing at each intersection to check for the etched sun symbol, Erin managed to find her way through the maze of tunnels and back to the flooded cavern entrance.
The sight of Coyrifan’s smiling face made the cavern seem bright, even though the lantern was minutes away from failure. The sight that actually made Erin smile so hard that her lip felt about to split was that of the sealed and tarred crates he’d stacked on the ledge above the water. He grinned and handed her a metal crowbar as she scurried over.
The first crate she opened was full of clothes. The second was bedding—a thick, rolled-up mat and several soft blankets. There were a few more to go once she’d opened the third, but the contents of the third were definitely what she was most concerned with at the moment.
Food!
Jerky and hard tack, and lots of it. There was also a small selection of dried fruits and a crate full of filled water flasks. The plainest fare she could ever eat, but Erin was at the point of hunger where she didn’t particularly care. She grabbed a handful of whatever, sat with her legs hanging over the ledge, and tucked in.
Coy sat next to her while she ate, amused by the speed at which she did so. By the time she’d wolfed down two pieces of jerky, half a flask of water, a handful of dried cranberries, and was working on a chunk of hard tack, he’d apparently developed an interest in her knees, looking at them very thoughtfully.
She was about to comment when his gaze intensified for a moment, and suddenly Erin’ legs were glued together. She panicked and tried to jump to her feet, but failed and flailed, tossing her hard tack into the water. She nearly went in herself, but Coyrifan caught her under the arms and hauled her back from the edge. As he dragged her along, she stared in shock at the long silver tail that followed after her.
As soon as he released her, Erin backpedaled on her palms, trying to get away from the dead weight that had replaced her lower half. She bumped into Coyrifan, could go no further against his push back, and clutched her face in terror-clawed hands, unable to take her eyes away from that thing.
Slender as he was, the merling was unnaturally strong. He took hold of one of her hands and easily placed it on what would have been her thigh. It was like connecting an electrical circuit and switching the light on. Suddenly, she was aware of the tail as a part of herself. Dumbfounded, she flexed the end of it, fanning the plume-like fin that was its crown. “I can feel it, now,” she breathed. “Unreal.”
“You only think you can feel it,” he said with a chuckle. “You still have your legs, beneath the illusion.”
“I do?” She looked at the silvery extension again, trying to sense her true limbs. She ran her palm over its surface, and could feel nothing but a suede-like texture, as well as the sense of her own hand against the tail. “But then—if your legs are just an illusion, how are you able to stand upright? Are you floating or something?” That was a disturbing thought.
“It isn’t the same thing. These legs are quite real.” He shrugged. “For someone else, though, I can only make them think what I’ve told them to see is real.”
“So, theoretically, I can just stand up and walk around like normal?”
A corner of Coyrifan’s mouth turned up. “If I let you think you can.”
Erin was mid-protest when he did that weird stare again, and suddenly a large chunk of the meaty part of her tail was missing, a scoop of taut, stringy-looking scar tissue in its place. She made a choked noise and nearly ejected everything she’d just eaten.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“This modification would account for how poorly you swim, if anyone saw you.”
“You have GOT to be kidding me,” Erin yelped, turning her face away and blocking the sight with her hand. “Change it back, change it back, change it freaking back!”
“Must I? Even with the wound, you look more lovely this way,” Coy said in a genuinely-confused tone, not comforting her in the least.
Erin’s lip was tightening, involuntarily pulling itself into an ugly, sneering grimace. With a gasp, she cupped her face in her hands, palpating her skin in a blind panic. When she felt the smooth skin, rubbing a finger back and forth over her lips to be doubly sure, she was able to relax a fraction. The sight of that wound had triggered the memory of her scars so strongly that, for those terrifying moments, she’d thought they’d actually reappeared.
“I—I thought it might be useful to let you get accommodated to the disguise, in case it was ever required,” Coyrifan said, his golden eyes uncomfortably wide. He nodded toward Erin’s lower half, and the illusion dissolved. “I apologize—was it too much?”
“Definitely too much,” Erin said, still feeling like she was going to hurl. She stared at her legs, hating the chilling sensation of being alienated from her own body. It was all too easy to believe those legs were dead and would never move again, just like before. She was afraid to touch them and find out.
“This seems a good time for it,” the merling said, reaching a closed hand toward her. “I have something for you. I regret that we likely cannot use it as we did without Imyra to help us, but perhaps it will give you some comfort nonetheless.”
Erin’s heart leapt as he opened his hand, revealing the moonstone heart necklace that had once belonged to her mother. She forgot all about her legs, jumping to her knees to gather it up in both hands. “I thought I would never see it again. How did you get it back?”
“As part of our agreement, Koben gave it to me before we left the shore. I was waiting for the right moment to give it to you.”
After hastily clasping its chain about her neck, Erin sat back down and continued to hold the jewel close. She smiled for a brief, happy moment, but sobered as she looked at Coyrifan. He uncertainly looked back, clearly still confused by her unexpected responses.
“Coy… how are you going to get the Medelapura back from the other tribe? Can you really do it all by yourself?”
“I cannot,” he said grimly. A beat later, he smiled. “But I can get it back from my father.”
Erin couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Are you saying they didn’t steal it? You lied to Koben?”
His smile dimmed ever so slightly at the accusation. “I did. I wanted to see you again, and that was the simplest way to do it.”
Quite suddenly, she was thinking about all the occasions that Leslyn and Kaleit had warned her about the merling's charms—and about the way she’d summarily dismissed those warnings, every single time.
“I need you to be very honest with me, Coyrifan,” she said, fear edging its way up her spine. “Why did you bring me here? Do you have an actual plan, or was this just for fun?”
“Do you doubt me?” he said, his brow lightly furrowing. “Of course I have a plan. It is dangerous and may not succeed, but I do have a plan, and I do need your assistance to carry it out. If you aren’t willing to go through with it, I’ll have no qualm… but I won’t be able to take you back to the surface.”
Stomach sinking, Erin mutely held his gaze.
“I’ve upset you again?” In the fading glow of the lantern, the fair-haired merling searched her face, his own beginning to pucker with consternation. He scooted closer to the girl and took her hand, ducking his head in a look that was bordering on pleading. “Forgive me, Erin. I only thought that, if you would stay with me until Dry, we can rest assured that Prince Koben will allow Imyra to come home when you return, regardless of whether we succeed with my father.”
It would have been easy to leap to the worst conclusion then, but Erin remembered her first meeting with Coyrifan, when he’d told everyone what Imyra was to him. They were bonded so closely that even death could not part them for more than an instant. If she became stranded inland, both of them might suffer terribly for the rest of their lives.
“I’m not as valuable as Imyra is.” Suddenly ashamed for what she’d begun to think of Coyrifan, she looked at the ground. “To someone like Koben, I’m no one. I’m an orphan and a non-citizen. If I disappeared, there’s probably not even a record of my existence.”
A warm touch on her cheek turned her startled gaze upward. Coyrifan’s golden eyes were very close, close enough that she could clearly see the dark half-moons of his pupils in the dusky circle of lantern light.
“You are very, very valuable,” he said, stroking a strand of hair back behind her ear.
Heart thundering, Erin couldn’t think of one word to say.
“You can trust me. I’ll protect you until Dry comes.” Coy repeated the same gesture on the other side, smiling softly. “I’ll keep you safe here forever, if need be.”
That was when the words did come. She looked away, her throat tightening.
“That’s really nice of you. It really, really is… but I don’t want to live here forever. I’m human. I need to be on land.”
Coyrifan went very still as she finished her declaration. A few moments later, he leaned away. “Erin, I’m sorry. I’ve upset you so many times today. I didn’t realize this would be so difficult for you.” As he spoke, he slid back to a more respectful distance. “The fact remains that you may be the only way I can save Imyra’s life. Regrettably, I must ask you to stay. Please.” He clasped his hands together, silently beseeching her.
“I understand, Coy,” she said, but she couldn’t make herself meet his eyes. “I’ll stay.”
“I’ll owe you my life for it,” he said emphatically, then slipped over the ledge into the water and shifted back to his natural form.
As he began slowly moving away, keeping his back to the darkness and his eyes on her, Erin had a sudden, powerful need to call him back. Her thoughts were awash in all sorts of yearning what-ifs and fairytale fancies, but her heart knew the truth.
It could never work, and it was stupid to give in to the silly hope that it could.
“Be careful out there,” she said, suspecting that it might be some time before she saw the merling again.
“I will,” he replied. “And, Erin… the last thing I wanted to do was make you feel like a prisoner. I truly thought you would be happy here.”
“I know.” She managed a small smile and a wave goodbye. It was good to see Coy’s face brighten in response.
He waved back and then turned, bobbing slightly in preparation to dive.
His dive was abruptly cut short as another merling popped up right in front of him. Coy barely managed to throw himself backward fast enough to avoid their faces colliding.
The newcomer was very petite and had long black hair that formed a flat, dripping curtain above the surface of the water. Big blue eyes squinted through that hair at Erin while slim olive arms crossed across the merling’s chest.
This new merling was definitely female.
And she was not happy.
"What's this, Coyrifan?” she squawked.