CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jareth~
Jareth nodded encouragingly to the silent nixie. “Please, continue.”
Iliana’s lips were two thin gray lines. Her eyes two black voids in her ashen face. “Myst and I greeted the goddess with all respect. But after Rán had instructed us, Myst begged to be released from her service. She reminded Rán that we had attended to our duties as good and faithful servants through many long ages of men.”
Iliana’s pallid face lost even more color. She swallowed convulsively. “Then the goddess appeared to us swollen with wrath. She called Myst ungrateful, traitorous, and an oath breaker. Had she not given us immortality and endless youth and beauty in return for obedience and fealty? For her offense, Rán placed Myst in a cask and sealed her up. I have not seen her since.”
“Could you not open the cask?” he asked.
“Oh, did I not say? Rán ordered the cask to the vast deeps. It vanished on the instant. Rán left me to guard the treasures of the dead in dreary solitude.”
“Yet you are now wandering quite freely. What changed?”
Jareth packed up his cup and compass, even though he did not know if Iliana would be able to return it to his closet. It hardly mattered. All his clothing seemed to have shrunk, even his boots pinched his toes and rubbed the heels. His jumpsuit was tight everywhere and his parka about to split across the shoulders.
“I continued my duties,” she said sadly. “Occasionally another nixie would bring more treasures or take something. But they no longer dared to converse with the sister of the rebellious Myst. And so things continued for centuries, until one day the sea floor yawned like a great glowing mouth.”
It was obviously a horrifying memory, for her voice stuttered, and her whole body trembled. “M-m-molten r-r-rock poured out, unquenched by the sea. It threatened to engulf the t-t-treasures of the d-d-dead.”
“What happened then?” he whispered.
“I tried to save what I could from Aegir. Rán was angry because I chose to save the books and let her husband swallow the weapons and love tokens. Yet how could one nixie withstand the wrath of mighty Aegir if Rán could not? Rán dismissed me from her service as a faithless slave, and an oath breaker. She cast me out without home or friends.” Iliana ended her story on a sob.
“And you came to Severn Island?”
“After much wandering. In those days, it was uninhabited. That is, no men or dragons lived there. Just the Princess Alexandra. She took me into her service, and permitted me to live in her stream.”
“But you are not friends?”
“Elves do not befriend the soulless,” Iliana said bitterly. “I am her vassal.”
“I see.” Actually he didn’t. “When she married Theo, she did not take you into her home?”
“She did.” Iliana sighed. “But I made a terrible mistake.” She wrung her hands. “When Sofie was born, I begged for her. I thought that the Lord Theodor would be angry that his firstborn was a daughter, and that the princess would be happy to be rid of her baby. But she wasn’t. Lexi called me names and threw me out.”
He tried to imagine Lexi being asked to surrender her child. It was not a pretty image. But Iliana was utterly woeful. Clearly she had misunderstood. “Why did you want Sofie?”
“She is so lovely. I like the way she makes me feel. As if I am warm on the inside as well as the outside. I only wanted to rock her, as the princess does.” The nixie’s face was soft with longing.
“Not take her soul.”
“Oh, no.” Iliana was horrified. A frown marred her perfect face. “I don’t think I could anyway. I only wanted to have someone to love me.”
He had heard of nixies of course. In times past, children had been threatened with them. And he had heard also of the soulless. Yet Iliana did not seem to him to be wicked. Just unemotional. Except when she spoke of her sister and baby Sofie. What was going on? Why had she chosen to save Jareth from the countess’ evil spirit?
“That was your ring I found in the stream?” he checked.
“Yes.”
“And was it enchanted as Lexi feared?”
She nodded. “Just a little love spell.” She held her fingers apart the thickness of a hair.
“You wished me to fall in love with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I want what the princess has. A warm house, a husband, and a baby.”
A harmless enough ambition. “And will you love me in return?”
She went back to wringing her hands. “I don’t know. Perhaps when I open Hel’s gift and my soul is restored,” she said hopefully. “But the goddess said I was not to open the box until I was assured of your love. And I do not believe you love me yet.”
She was beautiful, desirable, and he was sincerely grateful to her. Was that love? He thought not. But he certainly owed her big time. “Are you indeed a virgin?” he asked her again.
“I am.”
“Then Iliana, I claim you as my fated mate.” He had expected that momentous vow to cause the northern lights to dance, but nothing changed. Perhaps the elders were mistaken. More likely he had put his faith in fairy tales.
“What does that mean?” she asked wide-eyed.
He grasped her elbows and looked down into fathomless black eyes. The eyes of the soulless. “It means that I will lie with you and transform you into a dragoness. That I will marry you and give you a home and a child. Is that not what you want of me?”
She nodded. Swallowed hard. Hope illuminated her beautiful face, animating it for once. “Except for the part about becoming a dragon. I don’t think I want to become a dragon, Jareth. I just want to be human all the time,” she explained earnestly.
“It’s not within my power to take your virginity and not transform you, Iliana. No transformation means no children.”
Her face fell. “Not even one?”
“Not even one,” he assured her.
He almost wanted to smile at her distress. She was such a strange mixture of ignorance and wisdom. Tenderness warred with gratitude in his heart. Tenderness won. Perhaps uttering his vow had been as lifechanging as he had always been warned. Or perhaps he wished to believe so.
“And will you love me, Jareth Lindorm, when I am a dragoness?”
“So I have always been told. It is said that once a dragon transforms a maiden, he loves her forever. And she him.” He simply wasn’t sure that he believed the legends. And he wasn’t about to begin his marriage with lies, however comforting she might find them.
“Do you think that dragon magic works on nixies?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea, my dear.” He pulled her into his arms. They had time for a kiss to seal their betrothal.
She was rigid in his arms, but suddenly she softened and returned his kisses with enthusiasm. In fact, if she became any more enthusiastic, they were going to do the deed here on the open tundra with the wind whipping across the snowy plain. He lifted his head.
He was looking down into the soft and pretty hazel eyes of a stranger. Long brown hair – straight brown hair – blew in the wind. The freezing wind. He was embracing a nude woman, and he was as naked as she.