Shaine glanced up only briefly when Jesse sat beside him on the grassy bank, then went back to his contemplation of the sun on the water.
“What are you thinking about?” Jess asked quietly.
“The lake,” Shaine said truthfully. “How many things are living in it, right now, and how much simpler life must be. Maybe if you lived in water cold enough, you wouldn't be able to feel anything... Maybe you could even go to sleep, and not feel tired anymore...” It occurred to him belatedly that he'd said more than he meant to, that he'd done the forbidden and let his shields down, but he couldn't find the will to strengthen them again.
Jess hugged him, hard, and didn't let go. “Tired from what?”
“From being alone. From being so completely totally fucking alone.”
“I'm here.”
“Until they figure out if you are who they're so scared you are and get really serious about trying to kill you. Even if you aren't, they might kill you anyway for the hell of it. And I'm all out of tricks to keep you safe. And when they do that, I may as well kill myself, because I can't go back, the water's still all blood...” He buried his face in Jesse's shoulder, felt the walls crack for the first time in years, felt the tears come.
Jess whispered something too soft for him to make out, but otherwise just tightened both arms around him and waited.
It felt as though all the pain he'd denied so long suddenly demanded acknowledgement, all at once; like all the waters of Niagara Falls lived inside, and the pressure had finally eroded the walls past any hope of holding them together. In a way, though, it was such a blessed release...
“Feel better?” Jess murmured, once Shaine quieted.
“No.” That was a lie; on some level he did. The deep depression remained, though. He pulled away, struggling for some version of self-composure.
“Why is there blood in the water?”
Haven had done something to Jess; the boy Shaine remembered finding would have taken it literally.
Done something. Now there was an understatement.
“Because my family fucked up your life. My family killed a whole village, your family included, just because they were there and too close to finding out that water has children too. My family and a bunch of demons, actually, and nobody would tell me why in any way that made sense.” The rising wind blew Jesse's hair into his eyes; Shaine reached out automatically to brush it away for him, gave him a sad smile as any number of emotions crossed those dark eyes in rapid succession. “I managed to make myself human enough to walk into the middle of Haven and never get a second glance.”
“Protecting me.” Jess growled softly. “I wonder if I know anyone who hasn't been keeping things secret from me trying to protect me. Now it's not just some psycho mage throwing tantrums and an unstable wolf bitch with a grudge, now there's a bloody conspiracy behind it all? It would've been real nice if you'd let me know this before now.”
“I know. But all it would've done is help them find you. I wasn't about to finish the job my family started.”
The anger faded, and Jess sighed. “You didn't do anything to me. Whatever your family did, that wasn't you. And even if it was you, you've helped me more than enough times to make up for it.”
“You should never have been on the streets! That bastard should never have had a chance to hurt you! You should be with your real family.”
“Well, I'm with the next best thing, so things haven't gone too badly. I'm still alive, and I'm damned well going to stay that way. Especially if I have information, for a change.”
The wind danced around them, made them both shiver. Shaine glanced up, and frowned. He'd spent quite some time watching the reflection of the clear sky in the water; where had all the grey heavy clouds come from, and that too-cool wind?
Alarmed, he closed his eyes, reached deep inside, forcing awake senses long dormant.
Those senses gave him a fuzzy impression of power at work, shimmering tendrils of it running through the waves and the wind...
“Oh, shit,” he breathed. “No wonder I started thinking about that so much all of a sudden.” The demons were too cautious, they didn't want to mess with Jess just in case, but the merenai were another matter...
Practicality took over; he got up, and held down both hands to Jess. “We can finish this conversation later. We have to get back to the house.”
To his relief, Jess simply nodded, and accepted the help in getting to his feet. “So let's move. Which direction are we watching for danger?”
“The lake and the sky.”
The sky kept darkening; Shaine cursed at himself. If he'd been paying attention, instead of giving in to feelings that did him no good at all, they could've been safely back inside the walls by now.
Power surged, and the water rippled, as though something large had made a dive just below the surface. A surface that quivered, then collapsed, drawing itself together and up into the form of a huge snake.
“Ah, hell. Jess, stay behind me, got it?”
“Right,” Jess said, his voice shaking only slightly. Well, he must be getting somewhat used to magical shocks by now, although they weren't usually spreading cobra-hoods overhead and weaving back and forth in a threatening dance. “What if we get away from the lake? Into the forest?”
“They just might switch to calling the lightning,” Shaine said grimly. “Water itself I can fight. Lightning is way too advanced for me, it'll get us both quite dead.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Shaine spread his feet, and braced himself—this was going to hurt, might very well kill him, but if he could keep them from getting Jess anything was worth it. He turned his attention inside, to the channels where power had once run freely. The little he'd used since blocking off those channels had been a narrow stream, just enough to keep them from drying up completely. Except that now, he needed far more than that stream, he needed the full river to flow again. The spring at the source remained, he knew that, the challenge was to clear the way and set the power free...
The water-serpent struck at them; Shaine let himself be distracted long enough to shield, and the serpent was bounced harmlessly away.
He had to reach it, whatever it cost him, or Jess would die, this construct of water would drag him under and drown him...
Deep inside, something shuddered, and something shattered, and power surged along the dry channels, power so cold it burned, raw against his nerves... but it was there, waiting for him to use it.
He took a deep breath, and sang cold and ice and winter.
Somewhere not far away, but far enough away to keep the singer out of immediate danger, he heard a second voice raised, calling summer and warmth. Doggedly, he fought it, and slowly the water-cobra stilled, hardening into ice.
“Jess?”
“Yeah?” the wolf answered instantly, alertly.
“There is no way in hell I can beat a fully-trained mage. You have to get Kevin, he and I together should be able to. I'll keep him from noticing you aren't here, just don't take forever, okay?”
Rather helpful that Jess was only in the magesilks wolves liked to wear; without even a pause to reply, he shifted, and faded neatly into the forest on four feet.
An amusing thought flitted across his mind, the scene when Jesse appeared, quite possibly with Sundark already in circle, to haul Kevin away for a mage-battle—of water, not fire.
Then the water-serpent thawed again, dipped low to threaten him, and forced his attention back to the battle itself.
It couldn't actually hurt him—what could it do, pull him in and try to drown him? He kept fighting it anyway, pretending Jess was still behind him, struggling to freeze the serpent into rigid ice.
The other voice quavered, fell briefly silent; the snake hardened promptly, and the other voice returned with a different song. Shaine reached frantically for the power of the lake beside him, and flung it into a shield as the huge ice statue fell—directly over him. Shards of ice exploded in all directions with alarming force; instinctively, Shaine crouched, lost the thread of the song, but his shield held and none of the ice touched him.
Round one's over.
He searched outwards for the signature of the mage facing him; if he or she were from his family, from the colony he'd grown up in, he should be able to recognize it.
Familiar, oh yes, it took no effort to identify.
Oh, hell. That was Lew... how could he fight his own cousin, once his dearest friend?
No matter who it was, he had no right to attack Jess, and no matter who, Shaine was going to be in the middle.
Lew waited, granting him the next move. Between equals, it was a courtesy; at the moment, it felt like condescension.
Shaine gathered together what power he could, and wove it together with his determination. He began to sing again, pouring into it all the darkness he could, all the pain and fear and despair he could call up from his memory. The song forced it on Lew, made him live it, more vivid than the most realistic nightmare, drove it into his senses and memory mercilessly.
It must have been sheer shock that won him the long few moments before Lew fought back; that wasn't exactly a conventional weapon for a mage-battle, even between merenai. He felt the shiver of power as Lew attempted to protect himself from it; he lashed out harder, caught him off-balance and Lew lost the half-formed shield.
Lew's voice twined into his, reflecting it back at him, locking them both in same reality. Shaine winced, but he'd lived through it already, so it couldn't affect him as it did Lew; he twisted the song, gave him huddling with Jess in the cold, gave him hunger, gave him kneeling in front of a stranger unbuckling his belt.
He sensed power near him, not shadow-shifting and fluid but brilliant heat. He fell silent, breathing hard.
“Where and what?” Kevin asked.
“Jess?”
“The others won't let him out of the house. Where and what?”
“Full-trained mereni-mage, out in the lake, not far away—maybe out on the island. He has to be after Jess, thinks Jess is still here.”
“Great. Nothing like fighting blindly.”
“Tell you what. I'll defend, you attack. There are things you can't shield from.”
“Can you draw enough of an attack to give me a focus without letting on I'm here?”
“I bet there's one coming any second now, as soon as he gets over what I just dumped on him.”
Shaine counted heartbeats, waiting, praying that he could counter anything Lew might send at him. He reached twelve when he heard Lew singing again—a gentle song, one of home and the waters and playing in the waves, chasing fish and dozing in the shallows under the warm sun, an invitation and welcome...
Nails digging into his palms hard enough for the pain to distract him, Shaine took a deep breath and answered the song with one of his own. It was shaky at best, all it did was deflect the power in the calling away from him and Kevin, but maybe Kevin could get that focus and attack quickly enough.
“Damn,” Kevin muttered to himself. “All that water's really going to mess with anything I use. Let's try this.”
Lew's song broke, with a sharp cry.
Silence, straining to find some indication of the result.
It came—the wind picked up, whipped viciously around them; lightning danced across the sky, and thunder crashed at a deafening volume.
“Great, now he's getting mad,” Shaine said.
“He's not the only one who can get mad.”
“The storm will give him more power to call on—and if you hadn't noticed, you've got less sunlight to play with.”
Kevin flashed him a feral grin. “He's not the only one with an extra power-source to call on. Mine's sitting in the living room in a circle right now. And even though they're inside, the windows are open in that room and the wind is going to feed Cynthi. And won't the storm help you, too?”
“True.” A half-trained mereni-mage and a full-trained elvenmage with his coven behind him, against one full-trained mereni-mage. Why did the odds still feel like they were in Lew's favour, despite that? “I suggest you hit him with something before he starts calling the lightning down on us.”
“Hmm.” Kevin frowned thoughtfully, expression briefly distant—consulting with others, maybe? He spread his feet for balance, shook his head to get his hair out of his eyes, and stretched skywards.
Lightning flashed again, but Shaine felt a surge of power. Much of it was the rapid multi-tonal staccato of fire, but there were other threads twined together to create the whole, the slow drumlike pulse of earth, the high crystalline chiming of air, and a fainter rippling cascade of water, others he couldn't identify.
“Come on,” Kevin murmured. “Try that again.”
This time the lightning hit the lake right in front of them, disturbingly close. Shaine threw up an arm to shield his eyes; Kevin didn't move.
Another flash, again close. Shaine glanced at Kevin, had to squint to see past the ball of bright-coloured light balanced between and slightly above his palms. Gathering the light from the lightning? That was some trick of timing, Shaine had to admit.
“I'm going to be pretty open for a minute,” Kevin warned.
“Right.” Which meant watching doubly closely for the next attack to come.
It wasn't lightning. It was another song.
This one called his name, begged him to come home, back to the waters and his own kind, he hadn't done anything wrong, he could still return. No more loneliness, no more pain, no more hiding...
He knew he had to counter it, but he faltered, felt the power in it coil around him like a loving caress.
Come back and dance the waves with Lew, as once they'd loved to do... all he had to do was leave behind the land-bound world, come into the lake, and Lew would welcome him, they could go home...
Water splashed around his ankles; he looked down, startled, he hadn't meant to move. Water on his cheeks, too, but that water was salt. There was too much strength in that song, Lew truly believed it, truly meant it and wanted his lost cousin to come.
Shaine wrapped both arms around himself, fighting his own anguish. He couldn't go, he didn't belong there anymore, in some ways he never had. And he couldn't leave Jess...
Jess. That was something to hold on to.
Somehow, he found his voice, and called on all the depths of his feelings for the black wolf. The seductive luring lost strength, and he backed away, up onto dry land, to stand beside Kevin.
Pure power exploded; Shaine closed his eyes and turned his head until light levels returned to normal.
Silence.
“Is he...?”
“He's alive,” Kevin said gently. “I just gave him one hell of a case of backlash shock, from what Flynn can get, but otherwise he's okay.” He smiled. “Major advantage of being able to channel more power than most mages: I can pull overload tricks.”
“That's... good.” He couldn't bring himself to want Lew really hurt.
“Come on, let's go back.”
With the threat over, adrenaline began to fade.
By the west gate, overlooking the lake, Shaine halted. He couldn't seem to make the tears stop. That was crazy, he was a mereni-mage, he was supposed to have some control over water...
He looked for the blood in the lake, but there was only water, the clouds breaking up and allowing patches of blue sky to glimmer through and be reflected.
“I can't ever go home,” he whispered.
“Then find a new home,” Kevin said softly. “Come on. You're backlashed too. That's enough to mess with anyone's emotions.”
I can't go home. Oh, god, I want so much to go home...