Delia Fernbrook's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Delia Fernbrook had bound owls, hares, and a river otter to her will. But the lake spirit refused to show its face, and she could not chain what she could not see. For three nights she had knelt on the mossy shore of her island, chanting the binding words. The water stayed dark and empty. Her robe of stitched leaves hung damp against her arms. To make the spirit her familiar for eternity, she first had to learn its shape. Her wolf lay behind her, ears flat, watching the black water. He would not go near it. Even her animals feared this thing. Delia tried a lure. She set a pale lotus blossom on the surface and pushed it out with her staff. Its petals gave off a soft, moonlit shine. Spirits loved beauty. She whispered a call and waited, breath held. The blossom drifted, glowing. Then the light beneath it moved. Something rose toward the shine, slow and enormous. Delia leaned close, hungry to see. A shape gathered under the petals, wide as a barn door, and two pale eyes opened in the deep. The spirit swallowed the blossom whole. The light snuffed out. Darkness took the lake again. Delia struck the water with her staff and swore. She had shown it a gift and learned nothing. The spirit knew her game now. It would hide deeper. A voice laughed above her, small and bright as a bell. "You feed a god a flower and expect it to hold still?" Delia looked up. A fairy hovered over the reeds, no taller than her hand. Light spilled from her wings and scattered on the water. Delia knew her. This was the willowglow sprite who nested in the old lake trees, the one creature that had never bowed to Delia's spells. They had circled each other for years, wary and unbound. "You've watched it," Delia said. "You know its shape." The fairy folded her arms. "I do. It has no shape you'd like. It wears the face of whatever last touched its water." She drifted closer, unafraid. "Your lotus is inside it now. So tonight, enchantress, the spirit wears the lotus." Delia's pulse jumped. A spirit with no true form could not be bound the old way. But it could be tricked into wearing one she chose. "Show me," she said. The fairy smiled and dipped one glowing finger to the surface. The water stirred. Under it, a shape bloomed open like petals, layered and wide, pale eyes at its center. For the first time, Delia saw the lake spirit whole. It had taken the lotus as its skin. She had her form at last. But it was borrowed, and it would not last. The petal-shape already trembled, ready to dissolve back into nothing. Delia gripped her staff. She had won her first sight of the spirit. Now she had until the shape faded to bind it, and the water was already going still.