Page 62 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Maurits went very still, and the moss maiden began to speak, her voice halting and pitching strangely, as if unused to speaking in such a tongue. It was the sound of branches scraping against a window, the harsh rustle of leaves scattering across cobbles.

“The prince comes from the Water King-kingdom... where King Thade has ousted his m-mother and taken the throne. The prince... brings a warning and an offer.”

“Yes, the flood,” Helma said. “We know.”

“It is worse than you know,” the moss maiden corrected her. “Much worse. All of the... all of the land folk are in danger. Thade does not intend to stop with the humans.”

The elves flew right out of their seats. “But surely not the air? Surely not the space between the land and the clouds?”

The widde juvven, though silent, grew agitated, their misty outlines blurring further.

Beside her, Helma touched the amulet at her neck, then crossed herself for good measure. A shadow passed over the already darkening assemblage of magical folk.

“But why?” Clara forced herself to ask the moss maiden.

The forest creature and Maurits shared a long, inscrutable look. Clara’s palms grew damp as she waited.

“Because... it is not just revenge that he wants, but power.” The maiden gave a raspy cry that belied even her own words. “Dominance.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Maurits did not like that he was forced to sit on the low stone, the object of his desire so near and yet so far from him. Though he supposed it was fitting that Clara was above him, for she was so far above him, perfect in every way, from the slight pout of her lips as she hung on the moss maiden’s words, to the slender finger she occasionally touched absently to her collarbone.

While Maurits had honed his powers and practiced to the point of exhaustion, he could not maintain his shifted shape for long. Already scales were beginning to come in on his legs, slowly transforming them back to his tail. He did not mind gazing up at her like the goddess she was, but he acutely felt the disadvantage it put him at. She had loved him best in his dog form, but it was his man’s form that he wanted her to see. She had once kissed him in that form, had once, he dared to hope, loved him a little. Now she only saw a creature who had betrayed her. And if he had his damn voice he would have been able to tell her all of this instead of having to hear his thoughts spelled out in the wretched tones of a moss maiden.

“What will it take for him to stop?” Clara asked at last, carefully averting her eyes from Maurits.

The question was both naive and bold in its scope, and Maurits loved her all the more for it.

“There is nothing,” the moss maiden translated for him. “Thade will stop at nothing.”

There was a worried murmur from some of the elves.

“I could go back,” Clara said quietly. “I could go back and appease him. I thought that I could do more good here, warn people. But it has become clear that any warnings will not be heeded, and if he is determined to see this through, then I will offer myself up to him and finish what was started.”

Never had Maurits wished he had legs more than at that moment, but the transformation to his tale was already complete. If he had legs, he would run to her, take her into his arms, and never let her go. He wouldn’t let her do something so foolish, with so little guarantee of success.

He shook his head, vehement, mouthing the wordno. He would not have her make an impulsive sacrifice.

At least he was spared having to explains this to her. “We are well past the point of him accepting you as a sacrifice,” Helma interjected. “As soon as Thade began consolidating power he saw what would be possible if he could take the land.”

“I am not so certain about that,” mused a kabouter with shockingly orange hair and a cape of freckles about their shoulders. Maurits could have throttled them. “Thade failed to follow through in securing Clara. Letting her slip through his fingers after the trial makes him look weak and inefficient. It may largely be symbolic, but securing Clara and seeing the end of the bargain through where his mother did not would send a powerful message.”

“There is no guarantee he would not continue to seek power,” countered an elf.

“Then we will cross that bridge when we get there,” the kabouter said. “Why sharpen weapons if we can avoid a fight?”

“But at the expense of a life!” another elf protested, gesturing to Clara.

“If there is to be a flood the likes of which we have neverseen, the elves will not cower away,” they said. “We may be small, but we will fight for both land and air. It is as much ours as the birds or the insects.”

“The girl has a wish in her pocket—why does she not use that?” asked a kabouter.

The freckled kabouter scowled. “And what exactly should she wish for? That Thade simply abandons his ambitions?”

Everyone was talking over each other, going in circles. The widde juvven hummed low and persistent, the moss maidens the only silent creatures in the entire disaster of a convocation. Maurits pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly realizing why so few of these were ever held, and why the different kingdoms seldom worked together.

“I will do it.”

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