A few months later, Erin rode a-griffinback with Koben to One Tree Beach for a special visit. Crylis was growing smaller in the sky, and with the Dry approaching fast, the water had receded far enough out that she could see the huge drop off in the deep blue where the island’s reach ended abruptly. In just a week or two, One Tree Beach would be nothing but a sandy area at the edge of a sheer cliff. Down at the harbor, the platform elevators were already required to board or disembark from any seagoing vessel.
With Koben watching from a few dozen paces further down the sandy strip, Erin shed her boots and socks and took a couple of steps out into the frothy waves, looking out across the ocean with anticipation.
When Coyrifan finally appeared, rising from beneath the water, her stomach was in knots.
He was frighting to behold at first glance. From the delicate, almost feminine build he’d had before, Coyrifan’s frame had grown considerably, though the muscles that shaped his body were far more wiry than bulky as his father’s had been. When Erin looked at his face, it was hard to notice anything but the wicked-looking upper teeth that had outgrown his mouth, jutting down over his lower lip and almost halfway down his chin. She shuddered to think what the full set would look like if he bared them.
He seemed cognizant of his menacing appearance, letting his smile grow wide, yet graciously keeping it close-mouthed. As he drew near, Erin found herself focusing on his golden eyes instead of those awful teeth. She realized then that his face really hadn’t changed that much at all. Definitely not the soft, wholly angelic figure he’d cut before, but Coy was still himself. Just… bigger.
Recognizing that her friend was still just that, she felt brave enough to venture waist-deep, sand squishing between her toes. They met with a shy touching of their palms to each other’s, Coyrifan laughing brightly at how his deadly-clawed hand decidedly dwarfed the girl’s. It had barely been any bigger before his transformation.
The familiar laugh cut through the last shreds of fear, and Erin found herself giggling just like she had in the early days of their friendship. The merling briefly closed his big paw of a hand upon the hers with surprising gentleness before releasing it, though she immediately sensed the immense strength he was holding back.
“I’m glad you’re all right, Coy," she said.
“And I am glad that you’re all right, Erin.”
“I heard it was… pretty terrible, that day you brought the stones back to us.”
“It was terrible,” he confirmed, though his eyes remained warm. “Many men died.”
“I’m sorry that you lost your father, and that you had to… well… do that.” She gestured at the length of his now much larger frame. “That’s what you were trying to prevent all along, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “It was. And it is difficult to control at times, even with Zeriva’s assistance. But this is who I am. And who Imyra is.”
At his quiet words, the young heartbeast seemed to appear out of nowhere in the deeper water beyond them, the perfect blue that had camouflaged her body draining away to reveal her familiar pearl-white hide. Erin gasped as Imyra snaked her way through the water, looking very little like the friendly creature the girl remembered from their visits at the pond.
When she could no longer move forward without beaching herself, Imyra lifted her neck above the surface to arch high above Erin and Coyrifan, gallons of seawater dripping from her vaguely horse-like head like rain. She had grown so immense that she could have eaten them both whole in one strike without even touching them with the terrifying, ice-like spears that were her teeth.
“The Turning, as well as an unlimited supply of prey, has given her quite the growth spurt,” Coy drawled, grinning delightedly at Erin’s horror.
The loud sound that burst from Imyra then was not pleasant by any stretch, but the flicker of yellow that blinked across her massive body was enough to make Erin recognize it for what it was—a happy trill.
“You do remember me,” she said in breathless surprise, then abruptly gasped again and ducked as the beast’s muzzle descended with terrifying suddenness to bring itself just shy of touching her head. Erin took the hint and reached up to pet Imyra’s nose, more to placate the animal than because she actually wanted to.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“All right, my darling, that’s enough,” Coyrifan kindly said to his heartbeast. “Our friend is a little too tired to play just now.”
“Way too tired.” Erin’s words came out in a sigh of relief as Imyra obediently backed away to a much safer distance. As she sagged, her mother’s heart-shaped moonstone slipped out from beneath her shirt collar.
“You still wear the Howlith,” Coyrifan noted, his half-moon pupils growing large at the sight. His face fell ever so slightly as his eyes trailed back up to Erin’s. “I was suddenly looking forward to more of our long-distance conversations, but then I recalled that Imyra is with me for good now. The sad truth is, that part of our friendship is finished. As is my honorable charge.”
Something about the way he said that made Erin Look at him again, searching his face.
He was still very beautiful to her, and she still cared very much for him, but something was different about her feelings for Coyrifan now. The heady thrill that always accompanied her thoughts of him was strangely absent. It had lasted exactly as long as Erin had been part of their connected events above and below the water’s surface.
As long as it took for a certain artifact to reach a certain Queen’s hands.
“Are we bonded, or are the moonstones?” she wondered aloud.
Coyrifan was silent for a few seconds. “I’d like to think it was the former, but I do wonder now. Certainly the stones belong together, and we were certainly useful in returning them to each other.”
“Yeah…” As her voice trailed off, Erin found herself looking up at the sky. “Koben told me that you never actually put a spell on me after all.”
“I did not.”
“Good.”
The merling smiled, his eyes lighting up in such a way that she couldn’t help but grin along with him. “I am glad that we became friends on our own, Erin.”
“Me too.”
“This is the last time we’ll see each other for a while,” Coyrifan said, his gaze shifting beyond the girl. “Maybe the last time altogether.”
Already shaking her head in denial, Erin turned and saw Koben coming to join them. She looked askance at the prince even as she growled, “I should have known it would be something to do with you.”
“Not me, dear girl. There is a certain Queen who requires the use of a very special stone on her next voyage,” Koben explained. “One that will allow her to pass unscathed through the territories of other merling tribes.”
“You mean my necklace,” she stonily replied. It was always the necklace.
“Yes.” He crossed his arms over his chest, nodding toward the merling who still treaded water beside Erin. “Now that our business with Chief Coyrifan is complete, we will awaken your Howlith as soon as Katharesa is able to join us with her Medelapura. That should be some time tonight.”
Erin jealously clutched the heart-shaped moonstone against her collar bones. “I’m not giving it to her.”
Koben held up his palms in a blithely defensive gesture. “No one said you had to. You’ll merely find yourself drafted for the duration of the voyage, if you’d rather not part with it.”
“I’m not leaving Phoebe behind again, either.”
“She’ll fly in time to join us, I guarantee. We still have much to prepare, and that will take a good while.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “You swear?”
The prince solemnly laid a palm over his own heart. “I swear.”
Erin held his gaze for a few moments longer, squinting mistrustfully all the while, before turning back to Coyrifan. The fair-haired merling was still smiling brightly as he bobbed in the water beside her, and still keeping his sharp teeth politely concealed. She wished he’d stop smiling, just for a minute. It made it hard to be as sad as she wanted to be just then. “So… I guess this is… goodbye.”
“It is,” Corifan readily confirmed, reaching to clasp Erin’s hand in both of his. He held it against his chest, bowing himself over it in an emphatic stance as he did so. “I will be forever grateful to whatever power it was that granted me your help, and your friendship.”
“Agreed,” Erin replied, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
He instantly pulled her to himself with intent to return the gesture, but his tug proved to be a little more powerful than he’d meant. The merling gleefully took the opportunity to turn the accidental yank into an enthusiastic hug, soaking her clothes. Erin squirmed and squealed against the wet embrace as Coyrifan kissed her the same way she’d done him, then tore herself away, halfway between laughing and crying.
"Thanks a lot, fish-face," she muttered, though she was unable to wipe the grin off as she uselessly shook out her sopping sleeves.
"It was my pleasure, finless clod," he sang back, then shielded his face from the sprinkle as a happily-outraged Erin splashed water at him.
They continued to smile at each other, surrounded by the soft rushing of waves.
"Goodbye, Coyrifan," Erin said in the peaceful quiet, her smile abruptly deforming into a tearful grimace as the words left her lips.
"Goodbye, Erin." His smile was steadfast as always.
"Say hi to Zeriva for me," she said, slowly beginning to walk backwards towards the shore.
"I will," he said, his fanning tail gently shifting him oceanward. "And when I do, I will refrain from mentioning that you kissed me."
"Thanks," was her grim reply. "She'd hunt me down for sure, even with this Howler around my neck."
"You've got that right, my friend." His musical drawl was thick with irony.
The silly exchange was enough to give Erin control enough to swallow back her tears, grinning one last time as she waved to Coyrifan. He and Imyra dove beneath the waves, headed for home in the dark depths below the town of Nilvar.
Erin turned and silently followed Koben as he waded back to land, deep in thought and rolling her mother’s moonstone between her hands.