Three Rings (The Fairytail Saga) (27 page)

‘I agree.’ Lux piped up. ‘Wait at least three, for perspective.’

Lincoln shot Lux a dirty look.
Perspective?
What was her problem?

Ivyanne was staring at her too, annoyed, as though unaware that they were speaking for the same side of the argument.

Vana got to her feet, replacing the crown in its box. ‘Okay, well if you can agree upon that, I suppose it will have to do.’

‘Can we at least announce an engagement?’ Ash asked, still looking perplexed. ‘I want the people to know that Ivyanne has decided on a course.’

‘You can,’ Ivyanne said, stroking Lincoln’s back. ‘If that’s okay with you, Link.’

Lincoln almost laughed at how quickly everything was happening. He turned to Ivyanne’s father. ‘So I have your permission to ask for her hand, I presume?’ he asked dryly.

‘Of course, son,’ Ash patted him on the back again.

‘Good,’ Ivyanne got to her feet. ‘So it’s settled.’

But Lincoln caught her hand, his heartbeat accelerating. ‘Actually, not quite.’

She glanced down at him, her brow furrowed. ‘Oh?’

Lincoln nodded, reaching into the pocket of the shorts he’d carefully carried the whole way there three days before, when Vana had summoned him to inform him that Ivyanne wasn’t with child. He pulled out the small glass box, smiling when he saw that seawater was still leaking from the the joins-it seemed appropriate somehow. He slid off the couch, getting to one knee in front of her.

‘Ivyanne Court…’ his voice almost broke on her name, but the way her eyes widened in surprise got him through the potentially overwhelming moment. ‘You’re everything, sweetheart. My past, my present and my future, are all tied up in you….’ he popped the box open, showing his mothers eternity ring, which glinted brilliantly in the sun streaming through the windows. He’d begged it from his father four days after he’d been turned, hoping against hope, that it would end up on her delicate finger. It was a thick white gold band studded with diamonds and in the centre glinted a large oval ruby, which was framed with a flattened, circular ring of even more diamonds. It was vintage, but the design was a beautiful mix of antique elegance and modern bling-sort of like Ivyanne, who seemed to belong to every era.

‘Will you marry me, my beautiful mermaid?’ he asked softly. ‘Will you save me again?’

Ivyanne’s lips were trembling, eyes sparkling with tears. She nodded wordlessly, and Lincoln could have fainted with elation.

‘Of course,’ was her gentle reply. She beamed at him, and he grinned, slipping the ring easily onto her left ring finger. He was on his feet in a second, lifting her up and spinning her around, laughing and slightly weeping, pressing his face into her damp hair, savoring the moment.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Vana’s voice suddenly broke in. ‘He was one step ahead of me honey. That almost
never
happens.’

‘Well I’m glad it did,’ was Ash’s reply. ‘Hate to think that you and I are as clever as it gets around here.’

Lincoln looked up and saw that Ash had moved next to his wife, encircling her shoulders in a hug. He grinned at his fiancé’s father and kissed the top of Ivyanne’s head feeling safer, and more content than he had in years. Now he could hold her whenever he wanted and know that she wouldn’t pull away. She was destined to belong to him-finally. He could have taken flight.

‘Oh…..’ a voice at the front door croaked. ‘Not…...good…..’

Lincoln turned towards the doorway, just in time to see a soaking wet and trembling boy stumble naked into the room, catching himself on the corner of the kitchen bench.

‘Bad timing,’ the boy’s darkly tanned shoulders shuddered with a cough. He lifted his dark grey eyes, looking past Lincoln, to Ivyanne. ‘I should go….’

A shock ran through Lincoln. ‘No way…’ he breathed, almost wanting to rub his eyes to erase the image away. He looked down at Ivyanne, and saw that she had gone white as a sheet.

‘
Ardhi
?’.

Ivyanne knew the others didn’t believe their eyes. But then again, they hadn’t daydreamed about this moment as she had. Everything added up quickly to her-and she was instantly amazed that she hadn’t seriously considered the possibility of Ardhi’s continued existence before then.

His parents screamed and staggered forward, instantly weeping and crying out his name, but Lux held them back, a concerned, shocked look on her face- nodding at Ivyanne to handle the situation, to test the waters, like she understood that Ardhi’s arrival could be akin to a bomb being detonated, instead of a miracle.

Ivyanne stepped forward, slowly, purposefully, calculating what had transpired in her head. Ardhi was a mystic. He had turned Lincoln, and lived. But what about the dolphin she and Lincoln had both seen? Was her childhood friend as powerful as her grandmother? As Roan?

‘Ardhi….are you
okay
?’ Ivyanne spoke softly, not wanting to spook him. She had no idea what he was thinking or feeling, but he hardly looked ‘with it’ enough to pose a threat.

Ardhi shrank back against the counter, his eyes wide with fear. ‘I don’t-’ he licked his cracked and dry lips. ‘I don’t know….’ his gaze slithered away from hers, resting on Lincoln, assessing him, dumbfounded. ‘Is he-?’

Ivyanne nodded. ‘He’s mer….you made him a mer, Ardhi. For me.’

Ardhi nodded. ‘But I lived….’ he looked back at Ivyanne. ‘I didn’t know I would, but I lived…..’ he bent at the waist and began to cry. ‘Oh god, oh god….’

‘Oh my god,’ Vana’s voice was suddenly in Ivyanne’s ear. ‘Incredible!’

Her father was at Ivyanne’s other side. She imagined that they were creating a shield around her. They were afraid.

‘Be careful sweetheart…’ her father whispered, his voice catching with emotion. ‘We don’t know what kind of state he’s in.’

‘I know that.’ Ivyanne sighed, arms twitching with the need to reach out and comfort Ardhi. He had sank to the floor and was now curled up in a ball, knees to his face, rocking and sobbing. He looked so broken that she wanted to put him back together, only she was almost frozen to the spot. But her dad was right. He could lash out. So she bit her lip and stared hard at his face, feeling herself begin to shake. ‘Eka, Joakim-’ her voice broke. ‘Come closer, but don’t crowd him.’

‘Of course! Oh..Ardhi!’ Eka wept, clutching her husband with one hand, reaching out to her son with the other. ‘You’re alive!’

Ardhi looked up at them, eyes wide. ‘Mum…? Lux? You think I’d hurt you-’ His face contorted with pain.

Suddenly, Lincoln strode past them, not slowly, but with great purpose, holding out a lavender chenille throw from the back of the couch. Without looking to any of them for guidance, he leaned down and brought the heavy throw down over Ardhi’s knees.

‘Here you go mate,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘Your mum and dad aren’t afraid of you, they’re just afraid they’ll crush you with their hugs.’

Ardhi stared at Lincoln, then glanced at his parents. Then nodded.

That was it for Ivyanne’s restraint. If Lincoln could get that close to Ardhi without a bolt of lightning coming out of the rapidly greying sky, then so could
she
. She rushed forward, her hand finding his. It was ice cold, and scales were caked to his legs still in thick batches. How long had he been in the ocean for? Days?
Weeks
?

‘Ardhi what happened?’ she burst out, squeezing his hand tightly. ‘We searched
everywhere
.’

His eyes focused on hers. He looked dazed. ‘How long has it been?’ he asked, licking his lips again. His other cold hand reached up and gingerly touched the side of her jaw. ‘I feel like I haven’t seen this face in centuries….’

Ivyanne put her other hand against his, stilling it. She could feel Lincoln’s gaze on them. Not angry, but possibly very worried. He backed away.

‘One month today,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears, distorting Ardhi’s face. ‘We saw a dolphin after you turned Lincoln. We thought you were
dead
.’

Ardhi’s eyes didn’t stray from her face, and yet they never met her probing gaze. His expression was a cross between anxiety and wonder. ‘I thought I was,’ he said thickly. ‘I swam and swam in that form, not thinking, not feeling...just swimming. When I came to, I was on a beach, washed up and alone. It was dark, and it took me awhile to realize that I was in human form, or that I had made it all the way to Papa New Guinea in the body of a dolphin.’

‘New Guinea?’ Ivyanne gasped.

‘Say what?!’ Lux’s eyes were almost bugging out of her head. ‘But-’

Ardhi nodded. ‘I don’t know why I went there, I just
went
….Ivyanne I was so scared-everything was blurry, and it still is-’ his eyes suddenly focused on hers, and they shone with pain. ‘All I knew was that I had done something bad, and I needed to stay away from you.’

Ivyanne’s tears spilled over. ‘Have you been there this whole time?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess so. I keep slipping….I keep becoming dolphin, and it throws me off. But I think I stayed there a few days as a human, then started making my way back up.’ He swallowed. ‘I’m a shape shifter, aren’t I? Like Roan Fire?’

Ivyanne nodded. ‘It seems that way,’ she said softly, tears running down her face. ‘That must have been scary to discover, all alone. Ardhi you should have come straight back! We’ve been beside ourselves, thinking you were gone forever!’

‘I didn’t think you’d have me back,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘The things I did...Ivyanne...I must have gone
insane
. It seems like that all happened to someone else.’

Her father cleared his throat. ‘This is astounding. Ardhi...son...I haven’t got the words...’

Behind him, Lincoln crossed his arms and looked perturbed.

‘Neither do I.’ Ivyanne squeezed Ardhi’s hand again, before pressing it to her lips. She tried to think of everything he had suffered alone-not only since the night he had turned Lincoln, but everything
before
then. Having a power he couldn’t bring himself to share, loving her and getting nothing in return….being so overwhelmed by life and its obstacles that the only reasonable solution had been murder….she could understand his duress-but could she forgive him for what had eventuated of it all?

He seemed to be asking her the same thing with his eyes.

‘It’s a miracle!’ Joakim rushed forward. ‘A blessed miracle!’

Ivyanne and her father got to their feet and moved out of the way, clearing a path for the Kayu-Apis. Seconds later, the overwrought parents stumbled past them, throwing themselves at their shaken son, crying and laughing and obscuring him from view with hugs.

Lincoln’s arms were around Ivyanne then, his grip on her avaricious, his heart beating hard enough for her to feel it against her back.

‘Are you okay?’

Ivyanne nodded, but she really wasn’t sure. She stared down at Ardhi as his parents enveloped him, swallowing rapidly, trying to blink back more tears-and wondering why she suddenly was gripped with a strange, almost overpowering sense of foreboding.

At that moment, Eka and Joakim lifted their faces and turned to one another, their smiles bright. Too bright. Then Eka ducked to kiss her son’s head exclaiming:

‘Ardhi! You’re the most powerful mer in the kingdom now-do you realize what this could mean?’

It would have been an innocuous statement, if not for the way Eka looked at Ivyanne as she posed the question. Or the way Lux’s eyes darted from Ardhi, to Lincoln, to Ivyanne, a thoughtful expression crossing her face.

Ivyanne’s heart seized in her chest and suddenly, she was running.

⁓

‘Ivyanne! Link!’ Vana screeched, lifting the skirt of her cream cheesecloth dress and running barefooted across the sand, waving the box with Anna’s crown above her head. ‘Wait! Darling-’ a choked sob escaped her and she shielded her eyes with one arm from the glare, watching remorsefully as the ocean closed above Ivyanne’s head. Her daughter didn’t even look back.

‘Hey! Vana!’ Breath puffed her name. ‘Ivyanne, she-’

‘She’s running from what she just saw in their faces,’ Vana said bitterly, watching Lincoln resurface near where she’d just spied Ivyanne, then duck under again. To the distant eye, against the silver-sheeted blue of the ocean, Lincoln’s actions resembled the playful surfacing of a baby dolphin. And it was funny, because in so many ways-that’s exactly what he was.

But at least he was pursuing her. Vana had wanted a private word with Ivyanne, the opportunity to comfort or coddle or celebrate, depending on Ivyanne’s take of the situation-but she was an old woman now, and couldn’t keep up enough even to adequately express her love in time.

‘And what did she see?’ Lux asked, her voice without inflection.

Vana turned to the sparkling blond beside her. ‘Opportunity. That’s all they’ve ever seen.’

Lux pursed her lips, then looked back out to the horizon. ‘Ardhi too?’

‘Especially Ardhi.’

Lux sighed, and looked down at her feet. ‘Vana...I know you don’t trust me much-’

‘Of course I don’t.’ Vana said shortly. ‘Are you so surprised? The thing that links our people together is the need to breed. Your inability to do that is a liability-because there’s nothing you need from us that I can give you, in exchange for your complete compliance.’