The fog suddenly clears, and I gape at the sight in front of me. I’m standing in the middle of the cove. The sky is grey, but the water is a light turquoise colour, turning to navy near the rocks. On the rocks, there’s movement, and I watch open-mouthed as figures raise their hands over the sea. They’re Mer, I realise—incredibly beautiful women with long, dark hair. Their tails are a muted turquoise that echoes the ocean, and even as I watch,the song rises and the sea surges beneath their fingertips as if obeying their call.
I stumble as my feet hit a rock, and at once, in a flash of colour, they’re gone.
“No, please don’t go,” I call. “Come back. I need your help.”
A dark head bobs up. “Cary?”
“Oh my god, Melusine,” I say, stumbling onto the rocks and walking to the edge to look down at her.
She smiles and calls out, “Come back, sisters. ’Tis the dragon’s mate.”
Heads bob up around us. “The dragon’smate?” one breathes, looking at me as if I’m something she found in a zoo. “I thought he’d be taller.”
Another shakes her head, her violet eyes gleaming. “I thought he would look hardier. The dragon is veryrobust.”
I sigh, and Melusine grins at me. “Nevertheless, he is the reason that I am accepted at court. He and the dragon.”
“Ooh, Sigurd,” one of her sisters breathes. “Such aprettyman.”
“Nay, he is taken,” Melusine says firmly. She turns to me. “Sigurd contacted the prince this morning. He interceded, and I am to have a stay of time and the freedom to choose.”
“I’m so pleased. What will you choose?”
“Both,” she says simply. “I want homes in the sea and the land. We shall see what happens when my powers are fully in effect. Either way, I will have Robert.”
“Have you seen Sigurd?” I ask.
Her face sobers. “Yes, he was here earlier. Cary, he does not look well.”
Worry surges in me like the tide. “I need to find him.”
“If he is still at the beach, he will be at the far end. He likes to sit on the rocks on days such as these and listen to our songbut still gives us our privacy.” She shakes her head, her smile affectionate. “Such a one, that dragon.”
“Over there?” I ask, pointing.
She nods. “Good speed,” she calls, and the women all dive down. There’s a flash of green as one of their tails breaks the surface, and then they’re gone, and there’s only me, the sea, and a mournful wind.
I set off down the beach. I’m stumbling and half running now, the urgency beating in my body like those great wings of his. I seem to run forever, slipping on the sand, my hair wet from the sea spray, and my breath coming in pants. Then I see him.
I stop dead, the surge of relief so great it makes me weak. He’s sitting on the rocks barefoot and dressed in jeans and a hoodie, his long hair loose and blowing in the breeze.
“Sigurd?” I croak.
His head turns, and then he jerks and rises to his feet. “Cary?” he says in consternation.
“I came back,” I manage to get out, and he jumps from the rocks. In two long strides, he’s in front of me, and I throw myself into his arms. The fresh surge of relief is almost painful, and I struggle to get closer, aware of him doing the same thing.
“Oh my god, I found you,” I breathe. Then, in the next breath, I snap, “What have youdoneto yourself?”
He looks terrible. He’s grey and he looks pale and diminished, somehow. His hair is a faint shade of red, and even his tattoos appear grey. He looks like a living shadow.
“Why are you here?” he says wonderingly.
“I came back,” I say simply. I’d imagined so many different ways of communicating what I feel for him, but in the end, the words fall from me, simple and true. “I fell in love with you, Sig, and I don’t want to be apart from you. I love you.”
He sucks in a breath, and I watch as jubilation fills his face. Then I gasp as the grey vanishes. The colour comes back tohim like a flame licking over old newsprint, burning over him until he’s once more my vibrant redhead, the colours of his dear tattoos and runes restored.
“You’re you again. My dragon,” I say, and he pulls me into his arms, hugging me so tight I feel my ribs creak. But I don’t protest. Instead, I hug him back just as tightly, letting everything that he is to me fill my heart.
