“Good Goddess.” Dilys gave himself a shake and focused his concentration on the source of the bleeding inside her. Her lungs. Alongside her punctured and water-filled landwalker lungs, a second set of sea lungs had begun to form. Begun, and been stopped in mid-transformation, resulting in a maze of ruptured blood vessels and a torn patchwork of frilled membranes partially attached to her ribs.
Realizing that he’d have to find a way to help her body complete its transformation or watch her die in his arms, Dilys flew into a renewed frenzy of action. He seized Calivan’s pouch and snatched one of the bright crystals from its depths, siphoning the stored magic from the crystal and shoving every last bit of it into Gabriella. “Stay with me,moa kiri! Stay with me!” He drained another crystal, then another and another, transferring all of the stolen magic back into her, giving her as much of his own as he dared as well. “Come on,moa kiri.You can do this.” She remained glassy-eyed and unresponsive. He cast a frantic gaze at his mother. “Nima!Help us! She needs more magic!”
But when Alysaldria would have approached, Ryll and his men stepped in her way. “Dilys, my brother,ono.My heart is breaking for you, but if Gabriella is lost to us, we cannot risk losing your mother as well. Youknowthat.” Ryll didn’t state the other obvious truth. There was no way Calberna’s queen would survive the death of her son and the traitor’s death awaiting her twin, so what magic she currently possessed had to be saved to be passed on to the nextMyerial.
Dilys ground his teeth to hold back the roar of frustration rumbling in his chest. Anger would serve no purpose. Ryll was right. They couldn’t risk losing the magic his mother carried.
He clutched Gabriella to his chest, trying to think past the terror that gripped his heart. What blood remained in her veins, he was keeping contained. Oxygen, however, was a separate issue. The abruptly arrested transformation of her lung tissue was preventing her from breathing either air or water. She was rapidly slipping away from him, the slender body in his arms more akin to a corpse than the vibrant woman who’d claimed him, her slight form so still and cold, her flesh chilled by the sea... all the sun-kissed warmth that he loved so much drained out of her.
Wait.
His mind seized on two small words.
Sun. Warmth.
That was it!
Gabriella was the daughter of the Summer King, descendent of the Sun God, Helos. When Lily’s father had beaten Summer nearly to death, Dilys’s aid and Tildavera Greenleaf’s great healing skills hadn’t been enough to mend Gabriella. Summer had spent days basking in the sun to complete her recovery. But here, tucked away in a cave a hundred feet below the surface, she was cut off from one of her greatest sources of power.
Praying that he was right, Dilys scrambled to his feet and raced out of the laboratory and through the library, Gabriella clasped in his arms. When he reached the glass-fronted lobby area, rather than sprinting up the tube and through the palace to reach the surface, he dove for the moon pool. Gabriella wasn’t breathing, so a swift swim directly to the surface couldn’t hurt her any more than drowning already had. And swimming would cut his time to the surface in half.
The moment he hit the water, the webbing between his toes plumped and expanded, giving him additional speed through the liquid environment that was his second home. The massive muscles in his lower body flexed, sending him shooting upwards through the lagoon’s clear waters, towards the shining sunlit warmth of the surface.
“Calbernari!” he shouted in Undersea Tongue as he swam, “To me! On the south palace lawn! TheSirenaneeds your help!”
He burst from the water like a porpoise, propelling himself through the virtually nonexistent density of the air to land on the soft grass of the manicured palace lawn. He found a spot where no shade blocked the sun’s midday rays and laid Gabriella flat on the ground. The wet cloth of her dress clung to her. He shredded the fabric without a thought. He wasn’t entirely sure how her Summerlander magic worked, but it seemed to him that the more of her skin available to the sun’s direct rays, the better. If he was wrong and she got irate later over the ruination of her gown and the careless way he bared her to the eyes of their people—well, he’d wear a stupid, besotted grin and accept her fury without a peep of protest. Better a live, angrylianathan a silent, dead one.
Calbernans were already pouring from the palace and leaping from the waters of the lagoon in response to his call. “She needs magic,” he told the ones who reached him first. “As much as we can offer her. Anyone with a direct emotional connection to her, lay hands on her. The rest of you, network to me or the others. And for the gods’ sake, do not cast your shadow on her. She needs sunlight as much if not more than she needs our magic.” It was afternoon, the sun casting shadows from west to east, so Dilys positioned himself to Gabriella’s right. He began channeling his magic into her, infusing it with all the wild, unfettered love in his heart. A dozen pairs of hands were laid upon him, and power flooded into him and through him to Gabriella.
“Let me through!” The growing throng parted as Ari, hobbling on crutches and scowling ferociously, shoved his way through.
Dilys met his cousin’s eyes and after only a slight hesitation gave a nod of thanks. Ari was wounded, but on the mend. If he considered himself well enough to help, Dilys wasn’t about to refuse his aid. A dozen of the Calbernans who’d accompanied him to Wintercraig joined Dilys and Ari at Gabriella’s side, including Ryll and the young, newly-wedded Talin, with his pretty Summerlander bride by his side. The network of power multiplied exponentially. She absorbed so much power, so quickly, Dilys could only wonder how her slight body could hold it all. Yet she not only soaked up every ounce of energy sent her way, but her body remained thirsty for more.
Physically, emotionally, and magically connected to Gabriella as he was, he could feel the electric pulse of the Calbernans’ selfless gift racing through her veins, igniting the magic in her blood. Her eyes, which had been open, fixed, and glassy, slid shut, her dark lashes curling against her wan cheeks. Hope surged through him. It was the first movement she’d made since he’d reached her.
“That’s it,moa kiri.You can do it.” She still wasn’t breathing on her own, so he covered her mouth with his and blew air into her lungs, careful to keep the myriad broken blood vessels in her chest sealed as he did.
A few seconds later, he felt a slight flutter against his magic. A few seconds after that, the flutter became a more definite push against the seals he’d created to stop her internal bleeding. The sensation felt a bit like a hand impatiently nudging him aside. He pulled back, tentatively releasing a small portion of the blood vessels he was keeping in check. When blood didn’t immediately start pouring from the ruptured vessels, he pulled back a little more. The torn flesh inside her began to knit together. The reparations were slow at first, but began happening with increasing speed as more and more of the damaged tissue began to heal.
Suddenly he wasn’t pushing power into Gabriella anymore. She was pulling itoutof him, and through him, out of every person connected to him. Beside him, Ari gasped and arched his back. So did the others whose hands lay upon Summer’s skin. Like a ripple effect, everyone behind them gasped, too.
Dilys tried to move his hands and discovered he couldn’t. They were glued to Gabriella’s flesh. Just as the hands of those touching him were glued to him. Gabriella had seized control of their symbiotic network. Magic raced through them, roaring its way towards her, into her, into the flesh that was now healing and reshaping at a dizzying speed. Her back arched. Her hands clenched into fists. Her skin was so hot it was practically burning Dilys’s palms, but still he couldn’t pull away. Hisulumilit up, burning in his flesh like fire. The light beaming from his tattoos bent in visible arcs to flow like glowing rivers into her body.
Her mouth opened, as if on a soundless scream, and then came the noise he’d been waiting for, praying for. Deep, raspy, raw. A shuddering, painful breath as oxygen-starved lungs dragged air deep. A groan rattled in her throat as the newly formed gill slits along her ribs expelled the water trapped in her equally new sea lungs, then she jackknifed into a sitting position, coughing and gasping for breath. The network linking the Calbernans to Gabriella dissolved.
Tears spilled from Dilys’s eyes, but he didn’t even try to stop them. Instead, he gathered Gabriella close, holding her tight against his chest, muttering incoherent words of love, relief, and prayers of thanks as he pressed kisses into her hair, against her face, her lips, against the soft, fragrant brown skin that was once more so warm and full of life. “Moa kiri. Moa liana. Myerial myerinas.Thank Numahao. Thank Helos. Praise be to all the gods. I thought I had lost you, beloved.”
“I think you almost did.” Her voice was raspy, pitched much deeper than normal. She coughed a little more and hugged him back, her slender arms twining around his chest, her palms flattening against his shoulder blades, holding him tight. “I was dying. If you hadn’t thought to bring me to the surface and into the sunlight, I don’t think I would have made it. You saved me, Dilys.”
He ducked his head. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Yes. I could feel you inside me, when the sun was healing me. I could feel you with me.”
“Yes.” He drew back just enough to smooth back her soft black hair and drink in the sight of her sweet, lovely face with its full lips and thickly lashed eyes that had turned pure, bright gold. He could spend the rest of his life looking at her and never grow tired of the sight.
“I can still feel you there.”
He blinked to clear the tears that were suddenly blurring his vision and nodded. “Yes.”
