since I didn’t grow up around them, only hearing stories and seeing paintings.
“Hello, dear, I’m Aura, high priestess of the Spring Fae mermaids and the spirit keeper of the healing pool.” Her voice danced around the space, bouncing off the walls and coming at me from all directions.
High priestess of the mermaids? Spirit keeper?
Whoa. Should I bow?
“I’m … Lily.” I gave a small curtsy for good measure. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing here or how I got here, but if she had brought me here, I was going to show some dammed respect in the hopes she could free me as well. She smiled hugely, bowing her head back to me in a gesture of good faith. I think this meant she was truly a mermaid and not a siren. The vibes felt right, but I made a mental note to go home and get as many books on the mermaids as possible.
“I brought you here because I respect your free will,” she said, her purple scaled tail glittering in the reflecting light of the crystal sconces that lined the cave wall.
“Umm, thanks.” At this point I was wondering if I would be trapped here forever. Maybe she was lonely … it didn’t look like there were any other mermaids hiding in here with her, but I could be wrong.
“I see that you brought a jar. Most people come to my pool to be healed, but I haven’t had a visitor since the dark times, and so I wonder … did you come to be healed or just to take my water in your jar and heal another?”
I gulped, guiltily grasping the glass jar. “Well, I don’t need a healing. I ca—”
“Don’t you?” She sat erect and her hands pulsed with a silver light that then swirled in the air above her.
Did I need healing? Is that what she was telling me?
“Umm, do I?” Fae didn’t really get sick. I mean, of course there was poison, curses, old age, mortal injury and the like, but I didn’t have any of that.
She sharpened her gaze. “You do not know?”
I swallowed hard. “Know what?”
I felt like she was about to give me a cancer diagnosis or something, but Fae couldn’t get cancer of course.
“You have an extremely powerful and intricate binding spell on you. If anyone else were to remove it, they would meet their death. Anyone but me of course. I can remove it if you like…”
My mouth opened in shock. A binding spell … on me?
“Binding what?”
She shrugged. “Your true power I would think. What else?”
My true power? I was a seeker. That was my power … right? My mind reeled as I soaked in her revelation. Who would bind me? My mother? Maybe she’d planned to tell me about all this on my birthday and then remove the spell? But that didn’t feel right. My mother was a lot of things, but she would never bind something in me, some power. She’d want me to train with it because untrained Fae power was dangerous. Maybe I was a healer too … or a warrior Fae with extreme strength like Trissa…
Speaking of the warrior Fae, I knew that Trissa and Elle were waiting for me and they’d be worried—I needed to act quickly.
“Remove it please,” I declared, making up my mind. If I had some kind of binding keeping me from my full potential, then I wanted it gone. ASAP.
She nodded. “As you wish. Visit me again soon, yes? I’ll introduce you to the others next time.”
Others? I gulped.
“Okay,” I lied, unsure if I could make that happen.
With a smile, she clapped her hands and then I was plunged into water again, spinning and spinning.
An electric jolt ran through my body, and pain like I’d never felt before ripped through every cell I had. It was burning, deep and electric, as every muscle in my body flinched. I screamed, bubbles rising before my face and up to the surface. The pain then retreated, just as soon as it had come, and I started to kick up to the surface, jar in hand.
What. The. Hell. Was. That?
My body trembled as currents of power pulsed into me. I kicked my way to the shore, breaking the surface, but at first glance couldn’t find Trissa and Elle.
Rolling out of the pond and back onto the ground, I stood on shaky legs screwing the lid on the jar with weak hands. It felt like I’d been plugged into an electrical