“Or at least I can try.”
“Tell us, my lady,” said Leifkyn.
“The water well.” She looked at me hopefully. “I’ve sensed a naiad lives there. Though I’ve never seen it, I felt them when I fetched water there.”
“How could they help?” Haslek asked, one of the ten warriors Leifkyn selected.
“Naiads know things,” she said simply.
Then Lorelyn chimed in. “That is true. Can you summon the naiad and speak to her?”
Jessamine’s mouth quirked into a rueful smile. “Like I said, I can try. They are not biddable creatures.”
Indeed, she was my fated mate. The gods sent me a beautiful and powerful woman, to aid me and our clan when we could not help ourselves. We took her in to offer her help and protect her, but it was she who may be our saving grace.
I reached over and took her hand in mine. “Then by all the gods, my heart, please try.”
Chapter 24
JESSAMINE
Water drippedfrom stalactites hanging from the ceiling, forming crystalline stalagmites around the cave floor. It was the only sound other than my voice speaking the old naiad tongue. The chamber was bathed in blue light from the piece of blue coal Redvyr burned in a lantern beside him. I’d told him I thought bright torchlight might frighten a naiad from answering my call.
I’d been reaching out to the naiad I believed lived here in the cold of this entombed cave since before dawn. Redvyr had settled himself against the wall near the entrance. While the ethereal energy of a naiad resonated in this chamber, she did not heed my call.
“Perhaps it’s your presence,” I told him. “Sometimes, they’re shy. If it’s a female who lives here, she may not be answering me because you’re here. Many of them don’t care for males.”
With his arms crossed over his chest, his long legs stretched out in front of him, also crossed at the ankles, he heaved out a breath. “What if she gets violent? I’ve heard these creatures can be vicious sometimes.”
“They can,” I agreed. “But none has ever hurt me before.”
I didn’t tell him that one had threatened me back on the isle near my home in Morodon.
“I don’t like leaving you here alone,” he growled.
His rumble echoed in the small chamber. The well was a circular pool as wide as I was tall. The water was as blue as a midnight sky, no telling how deep it went. There appeared to be no bottom.
“Please, Redvyr. Let me try on my own. I’ll be fine.”
Confidence filled my voice, but it didn’t fill my heart. Naiads were independent fae creatures with a will of their own.
He pushed to a stand and strode over to me. Crouching next to the pool where I knelt, he cupped my face in his hands.
“I will be right outside. If you sense any danger, call out to me.”
“I will,” I promised him.
Then he brushed his lips across mine, purring against my mouth as he swept his tongue inside. When he pulled back, his hold on my face tightened.
“Call me if you need me.”
When he stood and turned to leave, a tinkling laugh, then another, filled the chamber, raising gooseflesh on my skin.
“No, no, no, beasty. Don’t leave so soon.”
My skin glowed, responding to the presence of magickal fae. On the far side of the water well, two naiads stared at us. Their skin was as deep blue as the water, their hair only a shade lighter, and their eyes pinpoints of silvery-white light.
“Hello,” I spoke to them in the demon tongue rather than their own language I had been using the past several hours, since they spoke it themselves.
