Temptress Unbound by Lisa Cach Page A

here, at the edges of my vision, came the golden swarm. Their hum fell in tune with the vibrations of my throat and head, amplifying the sound, changing it to something not of this world. Through my mask of scales I saw Arthur’s expression open, the tight line of his mouth relaxing, his brow smoothing as my song wrapped around him.
    My toes pushed upon the lever, releasing the counterbalance to raise Skalibur from the water. I began to lift my hands, expecting to see the tip of the blade rise from the water.
    I waited.
    And waited.
    I dug at the lever with my toes, making sure it had released.
    Had it taken this long for the counterbalance to fall, when we’d practiced?
    I kept singing. Arthur’s gaze was upon the water, where my hands were pointing—where I expected the tip to show at any moment. Onshore, people craned to see what was happening. A whispering murmur ran through them: What’s happening? Can you see? I don’t see anything.
    The tension grew. My toes waggled the lever, hoping to shake something loose. In desperation, I sought out Maerlin’s mind.
    What’s happening? Why doesn’t she release the lever? I heard him saying in his head. And then he felt me there, listening. Nimia, release the lever!
    I tried to speak to his mind, tried to say I had, but he couldn’t hear me.
    I’d have to get the sword up some other way. I could have Arthur dive for it . . . but that would be so undignified. There was no magic to that; that’s what we’d wanted to avoid from the beginning.
    I closed my eyes and drew my swarm inward. I felt the water against my legs and reached out through it to Skalibur, and to the green stone. Lift it, I urged the water. Bring it to the air.
    In my mind’s eye the dawn’s light shone down through the water and into the stone, the lake water and stone united in their color. I felt it then: a certainty that they were of the same substance. They were the lifeblood of this island, the water and the stone. They gave life, they renewed, they brought the spring growth to the land. They were the gateway to Annwyn, or whatever name one wished to call that realm beyond the visible, where greater spirits dwelt, and they had chosen for Skalibur to be born from this lake and into Arthur’s hand.
    My swarm flowed out into the water, touching the stone, and moving onward to swirl around Arthur. The stone hummed, its message carried through the water to its new master. I felt the glow of the stone’s power traveling to Arthur, racing up his body to his heart.
    An ahhh went through the crowd.
    I opened my eyes and saw that the water around Skalibur was glowing as if a brilliant flame were caught beneath the surface. I stopped singing as the glow grew, spreading outward toward the shore as the heart of it intensified and went from green to gold to white. Bubbles boiled to the surface, and then all at once there came a great eruption of water and steel and light, and Skalibur flew from the lake, high into the air.
    Catch it, you must catch it, I urged Arthur through the water.
    He needed no such urging; his arm was already outstretched, his eyes upon the turning blade that flashed in the sunlight, spinning drops of water out over the glowing lake.
    Skalibur held for a moment at the peak of its flight, then fell, somersaulting, to land its grip with a smack of perfection in Arthur’s palm. His strong fingers closed upon it, and the light gleaming in the stone faded away—it had been drawn inward, I somehow knew. Not just into itself, but into Arthur.
    He looked up at me then, his mouth soft with wonder and a nascent understanding that there was something here that went far beyond our small human successes and failures.
    This is why I did it, I said, hoping the message would reach him, though the hum of my swarm was almost gone. Skalibur is greater than I. No greater than you, though.
    Maybe I imagined the flicker in his expression