Seven Wardens: Books 5-7

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The murky water of the Loch had never filled her with this much apprehension before. There was no doubt what the sick feeling in Macey's stomach was about though.

"Are you okay?" Rónán asked.

"Yes. I'm just not sure I'm ready for this."

He leaned over and squeezed her hand. "You can take any heat off yourself by reminding them you arrived with a selkie."

She gave him a weak smile. It was a risk bringing him with her but the others were busy with the blood cakes and she needed to swim down to the palace before retaking her human form. It was easier to do that with Rónán than with any of the others.

"Not the right thing to say?" He frowned, clearly annoyed with himself for upsetting her.

"I don't think anything is the right thing to say at the moment," she countered. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"I'm always going to worry about you, Macey," he countered. "That's part of my job."

Her uneasy smile changed slightly at his words. She loved her men and having them around her always made her feel more secure.

"Thank you for coming with me despite the danger."

"Of course. The others would have done the same if they could breathe underwater."

"Just a small obstacle there." She sighed, worrying about how it would work if she did become the kelpie queen. With three of her men unable to live underwater and the other one hated for what he was by the kelpies, it just didn't seem possible.

"It's time to stop stalling," he urged her. "The sooner we get down there, the sooner we're done with all of this."

She nodded, knowing he was right. Without saying another word, she stepped into the water, letting it lap around her ankles. She was glad she'd already taken her clothes off. That was another way she could have stalled otherwise. She knew Rónán was right. She needed to get this over with or she never would.

The deeper she got, the stronger the pull to shift became but there wasn't enough Loch water around her yet to give in to it.

Rónán splashed around her, already in his seal form. He didn't have the same problems as she did, mostly because his shifted form could breathe above water too.

She smiled at the sight, glad to see him playing and having fun. They did that in the pool at her men's house. No. At their house. It was where she considered home and she should own that.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged under the water and gave in to the shifting urge. Pain racked through her entire body as her limbs lengthened and webbing grew all over her.

The murky water became clearer as her eyesight strengthened and she became attuned to the minute vibrations of the world around her. She could have done with that extra sense above land. Maybe that would have helped her in the Mahoun's castle. She shuddered at the memory. She wanted to pretend she was fine with the events of the past couple of months but really, they consumed every moment of her. She was just grateful her men gave her frequent excuses to escape the thoughts. When they were touching her, she wouldn't have to think about the horrors she'd seen or the unanswered questions that lingered.

It didn't take long for the kelpie palace to rise from the Loch floor before her. It was a squat building, as it had to be. The Loch was reasonably deep but anything taller would have been spotted by humans long ago. The last thing the kelpies wanted was to be discovered that way.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

There weren't any kelpies swimming around. There weren't even any fish. Terror filled her as she considered why that might be. Normally the whole place was swimming with life. If her brothers had returned, then what else could have happened? It didn't make any kind of sense.

She gestured to Rónán, pointing her head towards where the window to her rooms was. It wasn't where she'd normally enter the palace but with something so clearly going wrong, she didn't want to risk the normal ways.

The two of them swam quickly, the water from Rónán's fins hitting her sides as he came closer. It wasn't ideal but she preferred having him this close given the circumstances.

She swam through the window, feeling the bubble which surrounded the palace slip past her skin. It wasn't quite the same as the one the na fir ghorma used but she imagined it worked in a similar way. She could stay in her kelpie form in her rooms if she wanted but she didn't have to, so she swiftly shifted back into her human body. She'd spent so much time in it recently that it was becoming the more comfortable of the two.

"I wondered when you'd show up," Aunt Nessie's voice said.

Macey jumped. She hadn't expected her Aunt to be waiting for her.

Slowly, she turned around to find the older woman sitting on her bed, a drawn look in her eyes. The woman was a lot thinner than she had been, but it didn't suit her. Quite the opposite. She looked ill which only increased Macey's unease.

"What's happened?" she croaked, dimly aware of Rónán shifting behind her.

"The King is dead."

"No," Macey blurted and shook her head wildly. "No. No. No. He can't be. No."

Strong arms wrapped around her as the sobs took over. The King. Her father. The man who'd raised her and made her into the woman she was today. Other than locking her powers when she'd first gone to land, he'd never done anything to stunt or control her. Far from it. He'd loved her.

"I'm sorry, Macey, but it's true."

"Why?" she wailed, not looking at her Aunt, only burying her face further into Rónán's chest as the tears fell. She didn't want to believe what she was hearing.

"We don't know," Nessie answered.

"How?" More questions were forming in her head but she couldn't find the words to say them out loud over the grief."

"Bruce..."

"Bruce?" Macey demanded, the tears drying up almost instantly. What had her brother done?

Concern and anger warred within her heart as she tried to make sense of what could be going on.

"We don't know exactly what happened. But Bruce and Jerry came home. A few days later, Bruce had a meeting with your father and when he came out, he told everyone the King had died."

Macey's mouth fell open. It was good they were underwater and her fire rage couldn't be unleashed. It wasn't Nessie's fault. At least, other than not giving her father enough protection.

"What did he do?" A coldness settled over her, completely at odds with the remains of the tears on her cheek.

"We were hoping you'd be able to tell us. What happened to you all on land?"

"I don't know what happened to them," Macey admitted. "We've been apart for months and the only thing I know about them is that they were released and came back here."

And if they'd done what she suspected they had, she was going to kill them herself.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, the last of her tears giving way to the stillness within her. All warmth was leaking out of her, disappearing into the murky waters that had once been her home. Right now, she wanted to be as far from here as possible.

"In mourning," Nessie explained. "They're taking his body to the Spring of Life to be buried there."

That made her sit up straight.

"The Spring? But he's a king! He should have a big state funeral here in the Loch, with everyone assembled, all the dignitaries and ambassadors and..." Her voice broke. "Why didn't anyone tell me? There have been kelpies coming to my house for days now, but none of them have said anything."

"Yes, why didn't anyone inform us?" Rónán asked heatedly. "We would have come. We could have prepared for this. It wouldn't have come as such a surprise."

He hugged Macey tighter. She appreciated his touch, his closeness. It stopped her from going ballistic and tearing the room apart. And Nessie with it. Nobody had told her, and now, she wasn't even going to be at her own father's funeral. And they were burying him at the Spring! That was a place were common kelpies took their dead to be washed in the purifying waters before being buried in the marshland surrounding the Spring. But her father was a king! Not just any kelpie. A king!

"Shortly before your father died, a group of kelpies left the Loch," Nessie said without looking at Macey. "They'd heard about your victory and decided they wanted to support you rather than your brothers." She cleared her throat. "Your father wanted to avoid trouble, so he asked them to leave. He didn't want civil unrest."

"And then he died," Macey said tonelessly. "How long ago?"

"Five days."

"Five days?!" This time, Macey didn't even try and hold back her anger. It flooded out of her with the power of twenty strong kelpies, smashing through the walls of the Palace, destroying everything in its path. Power roared in her ears and everything around her blurred as more and more magic streamed out of her. She dimly felt both water and wind magic combining, but she didn't care. The anger controlling her heart was better than grief. So much easier to bear than the thought of never seeing her father again.

Never again.

His deep laugh as he rocked her on his knees. His praise when she shifted for the first time. The sadness in his eyes when she told him she intended to leave the Loch.

"Macey!"

She knew it was Rónán shouting, but she didn't care. She couldn't. All that was left in her was anger and the coldness spreading through her body. Soon, she was going to be nothing but ice.

The magic within her was turning into a tsunami, pressing against her mind. It would be so easy to give in. To let the magic take its course. To no longer prevent it from destroying everything in its path. It had always wanted to do that. She just hadn't realised. All that anger in her wasn't hers. It was her magic's.

"Macey, snap out of it!"

Her father was dead.

She was never going to see him again.

Her brothers had done it.

She roared in anger, expelling the last of her magic. Something crashed in the distance but she couldn't have cared less. Now she was even emptier than before. She needed to fill the hole gaping in her heart. Everything was so empty.

She took a deep breath and pulled.

Power rushed into her, taking her with it, sweeping her away in its arms.