Six
Calypso
Embarrassed tears burned my cheeks as I hunched over my throbbing foot. I had been in Azulin’s lap. Closing my eyes, I focused on getting the panicked sensation in my chest under control.
I had shifted. My eyes popped open. I could shift!
Testing out my senses, I felt the same as I always did—well, except for my throbbing ankle.
“Can I check your ankle?” Azulin’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Does it hurt?”
“It throbs,” I admitted.
“If you let me check the spelled bandage, I can adjust it to help with the pain. May I?”
Mentally chastising myself for my foolish reaction, I nodded. Straightening, I began smoothing my hair back from my face, winding it into a twist, and pulling it over my shoulder and out of the way.
Azulin moved closer, rising and resettling on the ground with uncanny grace and speed. I grimaced. In my few moments as a cat, I had been so clumsy. I knew cats could be graceful and elegant creatures, thanks to growing up in a village full of feline shapeshifters. My ungainly, graceless form was a shame to feline kind.
My foot warmed even before Azulin touched it. A strange mixture of magic and a tension I dared not name welled up inside me when his cool fingers touched the skin above the bandage. The vines on my arm heated and tightened, and I tensed in response. What was going on between our magics?
“This is going to hurt.” Azulin lifted his attention from my foot to my face. His eyes—strangely bright for such a dark color—glinted as they studied my features. “I need to unbind it to check the damage and reset the spell to fit the new situation.”
“What new situation?”
“I drew out all the venom I found,” he said as he set to work. His fingers moved efficiently. My pain ramped up as he released the bandage and began unwinding it. “With the venom gone, you should be feeling back to your normal self. However, I am unable to repair the physical damage the nathair did to your foot. That process will take time. I am hoping my spell bandage can help speed up the healing process. But at the very least, I can set the spell to dull the pain.”
He shook the unwrapped bandage out like one would shake out a rolled-up sock. The action did something because the magic in the bandage neutralized.
Then, winding the bandage into a ball, Azulin did something new to it, initializing the spell possibly. When he began rewrapping my abused ankle, the material hummed with a warm magical sensation that soaked into my skin and immediately eased my discomfort.
“You will still need to stay off of your foot,” he said as he tucked the last bit of the bandage in on itself. The end of the cloth melted in to join the rest and hardened into a plasterlike shell.
“Does it hurt less?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted. “How am I going to keep up with you if I can’t walk?”
“One of us will carry you.”
“Or you can shapeshift again,” the pooka suggested.
I frowned at him. He was lounging against the far wall watching us with a smirk on his face. “Considering I don’t know how I shifted in the first place, I have a hard time believing I can do it again.”
The pooka laughed. “I can explain how you’re able to shift now.”
Azulin tensed. His demeanor changed in an instant from warm and sympathetic to cool and distant. Rising quickly, he moved away and began fiddling with his storage spell.
The pooka grinned and came to sit beside me. “You see, his magic—” He gestured toward Azulin. “—unlocked your shifter magic. Meanwhile, your magic is straightening out the chaos the curse created of his magic. You two are magically compatible.”
I lifted my vine-covered arm. The sleeve fell back, revealing the magical tattoo in all of its glowing, glimmering glory. “Is that why I have this now?”
“Yes, and much more.”
“Eat.” Azulin interrupted the pooka by dumping an apple in my lap and then tossing a second one at the pooka’s head. “We need our strength to survive what the maze has in store for us tonight.”
“The moon is rising?” the pooka asked.
“Any minute now. I can feel the curse growing in strength.” Azulin offered me a flask. “Water?”
“Thank you.” I gulped down roughly a third of the contents before handing it back. “Sorry, I was thirsty.”
He accepted the flask and slipped it back into his storage compartment. “That is why I gave it to you. Now eat. The curse is growing in strength, and we need to be ready to run.”
I bit into my apple. The sweetly tart moisture burst on my tongue.
“I can carry her in my horse form,” the pooka suggested as he munched loudly.
“And when I am in need of your assistance?” Azulin asked.
“She can get down.”
Azulin rolled his eyes. “Have you missed the last day? The labyrinth changes won’t wait for her to climb down. And if the passage shrinks down smaller than a horse’s size, what are you going to do? Dump her?”
The pooka smirked. “I could always become a rabbit.”
“Then I would crush you,” I pointed out. “There has to be an alternative.”
“I could carry you,” Azulin suggested.
“I don’t see how that will be easier than me riding on the pooka.”
“If you are in your cat form, carrying you would be easy.”
The pooka finished his apple and tossed the core into the darkness behind us. “He has a point, Calypso.”
Azulin went rigid with anger. “Don’t call her that.”
“Why ever not? It is her name, isn’t it? Not her true name, but neither is Callie. So, no danger there.”
“She didn’t give you permission.” Azulin’s intensity and the ramping up of his magic made my entire arm tingle—not unpleasantly so. It was strange.
“Since when do I need someone’s permission?” The pooka straightened. “Names are names.”
“I noticed you haven’t offered us yours.” Azulin moved his right hand to the hilt of his sword, revealing his own glowing marking.
The pooka threw his hands up in frustration. “Is that what is keeping you from trusting me? My name?”
“I have a question.” I reached for Azulin’s sleeve and missed as he moved to invade the pooka’s personal space.
“Not your name. I want—” The air sizzled with Azulin’s magic. If I didn’t intervene soon, they would come to blows. And that was the last thing any of us needed right now. . We needed to work together to survive.
Standing, I gritted my teeth at the sudden pain. I muscled through the urge to collapse and straightened to my full, albeit diminutive height. Lifting my head, prepared to demand the two males’ attention, I discovered that I already had it.
“What are you doing?” Azulin demanded as he returned to my side. He didn’t touch me, but his hands hovered inches away from my arm.
“Standing—”
“You shouldn’t be standing.” The pooka reached out to steady me on my other side.
Azulin glared at him. “Don’t touch her.” The air crackled with gathering magic as the flame above my head flared brighter.
The pooka raised his hands in surrender and stepped back.
“Stop it,” I commanded. “Leave the pooka alone. He’s done nothing but help us. I don’t understand why you’re so against him, but I don’t need to know. What I do need is for you two to stop provoking each other.”
My ankle had begun throbbing in earnest now and I shifted my weight, swallowing down a yelp of pain. “I’m willing to shift again, and you may carry me if you believe that is best.” I shifted painfully again, trying to ease my weight off my throbbing ankle as much as possible. The idea of being carried by Azulin was growing more appealing by the second.
“I advise against it,” the pooka declared with uncharacteristic solemnity. “It will only strengthen the connection between you.”
“You said it was already past the point of no return,” Azulin glared at the pooka.
“It is possible to deepen the entanglement to the point you are inseparable.”
“What are you two talking about?” I demanded.
Before either of them could reply, the labyrinth groaned and began rumbling.
Without a word, I shifted. The pain was draining my energy to care beyond our need to survive. The two of them needed to stop arguing long enough to get us out of this mess.
Azulin scooped me up, tucking me securely against his chest, and the pooka started running.
∞∞∞
Azulin
I cradled Calypso’s small cat body close to my chest with one arm, supporting her along her torso, trying to avoid bumping her injured back leg. My magic sang happily at her magic’s closeness. In counterbalance, my conscience nagged me about being the reason she was hurt in the first place.
“Incoming wall!” the pooka warned. “Any sign of a turning?”
I peered through the gathering gloom ahead. “None that I can see. The smoke is making it hard to see.”
The pooka coughed. “And breathe. Is that brimstone I smell?”
I bit back a curse. “How did they capture two dragon shifters?”
“It might not be a dragon shifter.” The pooka kept pace with me as we plunged further into the smoke. “It could be something else.”
A glow began illuminating the floor ahead. “Wait!” I grabbed at the back of the pooka’s shirt, but I was too late. The floor dropped away, and suddenly we were sliding downward at a steep angle.
The pooka transformed, and I was joined by a rabbit as well as a cat. Catching the Pooka by the back of his neck, I tried to control our fall. Abruptly, I was scrambling for our lives as the passage dumped us out onto the edge of a lake of lava. Skidding across the uneven hot bricks, I rolled onto my side and then to my feet just in time to halt our skid just shy of the edge of the flames.
The pooka uttered some colorful language in his native tongue. I stumbled away from the edge of the heat as my hair and clothing began sizzling. Calypso burrowed deeper beneath my arm, hiding her face against my side.
I moved to put the pooka down, but he immediately protested. “My paws will burn!”
“Then transform into a man. Your boots will protect your feet.”
I held him out by the scruff of his neck and then dropped him. He transformed before his feet hit the ground, expression livid as he rubbed his neck.
“Never hold a rabbit that way. It chokes them.”
I ignored him. “Look for a way out.”
I grimaced, scanning my surroundings. This was the worst of my plausible scenarios. I could take down most monsters, navigate mazes, and solve puzzles, but I couldn’t combat intense heat over long periods. And I definitely couldn’t keep another human, much less a cat, alive for long at these temperatures.
A cough wracked my chest. Calypso wisely kept her face planted in my shirt. I adjusted my grip around her so it was more secure and peered through the smoky haze. Tapping into my magic, I tried to use it to see through the blinding smoke.
Then the floor began dropping away. Backing up against the wall, I wrapped my hand in my shirt and started probing the wall as I eased along it to the right.
Then I bumped into the pooka, who grabbed my arm and started tugging. Hoping he had found a way out, I followed willingly. We scrambled along at a half run as the ground rumbled beneath us.
Just as I began to fear that an escape would never appear, the wall abruptly dropped away and the three of us fell through a gap in the stones barely wide enough for one person. The moment my boot heels crossed the threshold, the wall snapped closed with a sharp crack.
In unison, the pooka and I collapsed onto the blessedly cool stone floor, gasping for breath and randomly breaking into brief coughing bouts. Calypso crawled off my heaving chest as I repeatedly inhaled as much musty, but blissfully cool, air as I could manage before exhaling again. Perched next to me in her cat form, she pressed against my side, her heart pounding frantically beneath my protective hand.
“How could a bad portal experience possibly be worse than that?” the pooka demanded before erupting into a hacking fit.
“It can,” I insisted. “We survived. There is no guarantee either you or Calypso would survive a botched portal transport.” I coughed and swallowed hard, throat burning from the smoke. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened.”
The pooka snorted, which set off more coughing. “Now you grow a conscience,” he barked.
“I was never without one. You are alive, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “Good point. You didn’t kill me out of hand.”
“I was tempted to,” I admitted. “Multiple times.” Apparently, there was nothing like a near-death experience to make one confess awkward things.
A distant rumbling signaled that our rest time was at an end. I sat up with a groan, picking up Calypso and tucking her into the crook of my elbow once more. She settled against me with a sneeze and then a purr before she rubbed her head against my shirt. I took it as a gesture of gratitude and surveyed our new circumstances.
“Only one option.” The pooka waved at the narrow passage heading directly away from the lava behind us. “Shall we attempt to get a head start?”
“No running.” I coughed. “At least not for a few minutes if it’s an option at all.”
“Agreed.”
The three of us set off into the darkness, my flame hovering above our heads.
“You still owe me a torch,” the pooka commented.
I gave him a side glance. “And why mention it now?”
He shrugged. “It could come in handy later.”
I rolled my eyes. The pooka’s penchant toward joking was going to get him in serious trouble someday. But then, it was certainly the least harmful quirk he could’ve inherited from his species. At least he appeared to be more honest than most of his kind.
Calypso squirmed. “Merow?” She appeared to want to get down.
I strained my senses. The rumblings of before had ceased. The only life I could detect was far ahead. That didn’t mean there weren’t more traps ahead similar to the lava slide, but for the moment, we could pause.
“Hold up,” I called to the pooka, who was venturing down the corridor a bit farther ahead than the reach of my light spell. “Calypso wants something.”
“What could she want?” he sniped, but he turned back to join us. “A feast? A soft bed? Oh, I know, maybe she wants to get out of this horrible maze!”
“We all want that,” I pointed out as I knelt to place Calypso on the cool packed-dirt floor.
She shifted before I had a chance to back up, giving me a close view of her pained expression and the fear in her eyes before she closed them.
“Might I have some more water?” She coughed hard, a barking sound that instantly concerned me.
“Certainly.” I stood and began working the storage spell. Merely due to all my recent practice, I didn’t fumble the edges of the spell this time and produced the water flask in record time.
“Do you want some food?” The pooka crouched next to her and offered a hard roll and a hunk of cheese wrapped in a very crumpled waxed paper.
She regarded the food for a moment as though weighing the decision. “No, thank you.”
“I have more fruit if you want that instead,” I offered as I pressed the water flask into her hand. “Feel free to finish off the water. I have more.”
Calypso shook her head as she brought the flask to her mouth. “I fear I’ve already accepted and eaten too much.” She began gulping down the water.
The pooka regarded me quizzically. I grimaced. We probably both suspected the same thing.
“The apple you ate did not bind you to any pact or spell,” I said quietly. “Neither does the water. I am not here to trap you.”
Calypso finished her drink and eyed me while wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, adding another streak of dirt to the soot marks covering her face. “Then what were you two talking about when you mentioned our compatible magic might make us inseparable? Is it because of this?” She lifted her arm and revealed the gold vine again.
“That isn’t a cause; that is a symptom,” I replied. Composing my features, I worked to suppress my raging emotions, chief of which was frustration.
“Just tell her, you old stick-in-the-mud.” The pooka snorted. “What is done is done. Best face her wrath now than keep hoping for reality to change.”
I grimaced. He had a good point. I didn’t want to admit it. “Our magic is that intertwined already?”
“Past untangling.” The pooka shot Calypso a sympathetic smirk. “You’re stuck with each other now.”
“How stuck?” She studied me and the pooka. “Geographically? Is he going to have to move into my village?”
“Him? In your village?” The pooka broke out into uproarious laughter.
“I am the Seelie king, Calypso.” This point would have to be immutable. I wanted to bend, to accommodate. She had been caught up in my curse and hurt like so many others. “My domain needs me, or my people will be undefended. You will need to come live with me.”
“In your kingdom?”
I studied her. How could I say this gently? How could I speak of a permanent connection such as marriage, when we were still strangers? It felt odd to even call her a friend when we knew almost nothing about each other. “Most likely within my castle.”
Her expressive eyes widened. “And if I say no?”
I couldn’t bear watching the hope fade in her face. I closed my eyes and wrestled with the urge to track down the Unseelie king and hurt him like he had hurt her, an innocent in this crazy mess. At the very least, I could offer her the truth. I opened my eyes to find her watching my face, fear and confusion darkening her lovely eyes.
“No choice,” the pooka declared from his collapsed position, lounging against the far wall.
“What do you mean?” she demanded. “What will happen if I just refuse? I walk home after we escape from here.”
The pooka shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this happen before. But one thing I can promise is there will be negative side effects to any separation.” He narrowed his gaze at me. “For both of you.”
With a sigh, I glared at him. “I liked you better when you were complaining about losing your torch.”
“I didn’t lose it. I sacrificed it, and you owe me a new one.”
Before I could respond, a roar shook the passage, the sound chilling me to my core.
“What was that?” Calypso asked as she inched across the floor to press against my leg.
The pooka regarded me with wide-eyed horror. “That was definitely a dragon shifter.”