by Zoe Chant
But after a few seconds, he said only, “I take it this involves the tall martial artist who’s the legal guardian of those two teens? Don’t answer if you don’t want to,” he added hastily.
“It’s okay. And it does.”
“Good.” Master Reynaldo’s voice warmed. “I know it’s none of my business, but the way he watched you the other day . . . well, let’s just say you deserve that kind of a break. We’ll miss you around here, but on the other hand, my wife told me this morning she hadn’t realized how much she misses teaching. You’re covered.”
They chatted a little more about the students and classes, then rang off, Jen feeling a whole lot better about leaving the studio. She wondered what Doris and Bird would say to Godiva about Jen’s vanishing—then decided it was better to let them handle it. They were right. It hurt, not telling old friends the truth.
But the secret—all these secrets—were not hers to share.
She got back to discover that Doris had arrived from her volunteer work at her synagogue. She, Bird, and Joey sat around as Joey began setting up the barbeque.
“There you are,” Doris exclaimed. “Do you want me to run to your house for anything? Joey said he’d drive after me, to make sure no one tails us.”
Jen was about to say yes, then gave a laugh. “Wait a minute. We’re thinking like people planning an airplane or car trip. I can’t carry anything extra this round. But I can always come back, and go straight to my place for whatever I need.”
Doris blinked. “You’re right. If that thing inside you lasts, it will let you go anywhere, any time.”
“As long as I can see exactly where I’m going,” Jen said, and a rush of joy burned through her as the possibilities began to whiz through her head. She could go back to that village to visit those children she’d spent all those weeks with, and had never forgotten since. She could go back to the marble streets of Dubrovnik, or take Nikos to her favorite restaurant in Paris . . .
Her head turned as she looked at Nikos. Happiness brimmed within her, but she consciously tried to breathe through it. Time to be practical, not blather about trips to Paris. He was facing trouble at home, a place she’d never seen, though it sounded awesome. There were people she was about to meet—equally awesome people, but they might look at her as an intruder.
Her life had taken a sharp turn into the unknown. As the melding shadows blurred Nikos’s beautiful coat, she met his steady gaze, recognizing him inside that marvelous beast, and she knew with every cell in her body that whatever happened, she was in it for the long haul.
Though the entire terrace stretched between them, she heard his Yes. Not with her ears, but with her heart.
“I think it’s almost sunset,” Bird whispered.
But Jen had already vaulted over the wall, and slid her arms tightly around Nikos’s neck. She put her mind firmly on the target: a mosaic made of pebbles depicting leaping dolphins.
There was a breathless moment when her arms closed around a living man, his own arms crushing her to him, and she felt that weird sensation that wasn’t the transfer. Then her arms were wings, and he gently stepped back as she shook her feathers out. She was a phoenix once more.
SIXTEEN
JEN
And Nikos was a man. She was still in the circle of his arms, but his grip had loosened. She closed her eyes until the longing began to ease. She had to think of that one moment when they stood together, man and woman, in each other’s arms, as a promise.
She opened her eyes to find that Nikos had sunk down to one knee, and was looking at her anxiously. Are you okay?
She heard the thought before he spoke. She shaped the word Yes and thought it at him. He blinked as if she’d shouted. Am I yelling?
The thought came out before she could form it and push it.
His instant smile was an answer.
You mean I’m doing it? The telepathy? She stared at him in surprise.
You’ve been doing it all yesterday. You don’t really need to be touching me—though I like it when you do, he responded.
The sound of many feet caused him to rise and turn, and a crowd of young people appeared in the archway. They were dressed in a variety of styles, from the belted tunic-shirts and loose pants stuffed into low boots that had been popular for centuries, to T-shirts and jeans.
These would be his hetairoi, Jen suspected. Cleo and Petra had described them all, but Jen still didn’t quite understand what hetairoi really meant. She guessed it was something like a martial arts school, but also like an honor guard.
Cleo pushed between them and burbled happily, “You made it!”
“Glad you’re back, boss,” someone said, and the others chimed in with greetings—all of which Jen discovered she understood.
She turned wonderingly to Nikos, who was watching her closely. “Did you get that?” he asked, low-voiced.
Yes. She tried saying it quietly in her mind, and his smile twitched into a brief grin before he said more seriously, “Many mythic shifters understand any language when they hear it. I guess phoenixes are among them. It might take you a little longer to catch on with speaking, but it’ll come.” And to his hetairoi, “Did Petra and Cleo brief you?”
“Yes.” A tall young man came forward. He had dark skin, tight curls, and a brilliant smile. He moved like a martial artist. They all did.
“This is Mateo,” Nikos said to Jen, and to Mateo, with pride and warmth in his voice, “This is Jen Carlsen. My mate. And here is Bryony.”
“So it really happened?” Bryony was a short, solid young woman with a lot of tats and piercings. Her hair was a brush cut dyed electric blue. She pushed forward to stand next to Mateo. “When will you be able to shift?” Her attention switched from Jen to Nikos.
“I don’t know. California is exactly ten hours behind us, but this time of year, daylight is nine and a half hours. So sunrise is very soon, and I expect we’ll be forced to shift again, and so on, sunrise, sunset, until we can fix this.”
Jen had been looking around at the pure white stone pillars surrounding her, age-old Doric columns, open to the bowl of the sky. It was that deep azure fading toward the light blue of impending dawn. Nikos, you didn’t tell me how beautiful it is here!
Nikos said mind to mind, I wish we could introduce you to the island from above, but it’s too close to dawn.
She tried to hide her pulse of regret, but before Nikos could speak, Bryony cleared her throat. “What about Keraunos?”
“Oh, he’ll sniff out that our scent has gone cold soon enough. We can expect to find him prowling around within a day after Medusa sends a private plane to fetch him. But now he’ll be on our turf.”
At that, shoulders tightened. Postures straightened. Definitely martial artists, Jen thought, as a beam of golden sunlight touched the top of a column—and once again her body shivered and shifted. It didn’t hurt—it was more like her skin blurred oddly, then every muscle itched and stretched at the same time. Her sight narrowed, she lost that extra color she couldn’t name, and between one blink and the next, her point of view rose a couple of feet.
She swayed for a second, then the disorientation was gone. She stood there in her running shoes, borrowed clothes, and her jacket. Shifting was getting a little easier.
She turned to see that Nikos was now a coal-black stallion with a pewter sheen, his pearly horn catching highlights from the rising sun. He backed away, his hooves striking sparks from the stones of the mosaic. There was something primeval about the ancient columns, the mosaic, and dominating them all, the wild and splendid winged unicorn.
His thought came, We can still give you a tour.
“I’d love a tour,” she exclaimed. “But how?”
Ride on my back.
“Can you take my weight?” she asked doubtfully, looking down her length.
Nothing easier. I’ve borne grown men.
“Well, they probably weren’t much heavier than I am,” she said, and stepped close.
He w
as about to ask if she needed help mounting, but she vaulted onto his back in a way that caused Bryony to give a crow of admiration and approval.
Tuck your feet under my wings, he said. Hold onto my mane—no, it won’t hurt.
His wings gave one a sharp crack, like a great sail snapping open, and he leaped into the air. Jen felt her stomach drop, then exhilaration replaced that weird sensation as Nikos sailed out over the lower castle, gliding in a way that had become familiar to Jen in her day as a phoenix. She knew instinctively that he would never let her drop.
Then, amid a thunder of wings, the gathering of hetairoi shifted and leaped aloft. Jen looked around in sheer amazement at the variety of shifters, some soaring high, others low, in what she began to realize was a formation, and no one fouled anyone else’s wings. To her left was a pegasus, a pretty roan mare. To the right, a human face caught Jen’s eye, and she realized from studying mythology years ago that she was seeing a lamassu, a winged bull with a human head, long beaded dreads flowing around his serene face. She recollected reading that lamassu were protective spirits, like stars.
Flying next to him was another with a human face, a manticore, with a lion’s body and a serpent’s spiked tail. A little behind them flew a nue night-bird: a striped tiger in front, fading into a long, curling serpent’s tail. She was held aloft by enormous bat wings. A third was almost all dragon, except for a rooster’s head—a cockatrice.
Flying highest and fastest was a boibhre, a huge silver-blue cormorant—right next to Petra’s graceful wind horse.
Cleo’s hippogriff hovered, as though to reassure herself that Jen was all right, then with a flirt of her wings, she took her place in the formation.
Mateo and Bryony flew to either side of Nikos, like an honor guard. Mateo was a griffin—not unlike Cleo, but with a lion’s back end instead of a horse. His eagle head had blue-black feathers below a white crest. Bryony was a huge bat, a kama-sotz; Jen remembered the name because the name of the creepy planet Camazotz in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time had been taken from the mythic creature.
They banked, and the sun caught in brilliant shards over the steel feathers of a minokawa, flying above a peryton, an antlered eagle.
The hetairoi made an amazing sight, flying in perfect formation, their colors glowing in the morning sun. Jen was so exhilarated by the hetairoi that she forgot to look down until they were banking around another rocky mountain. They were high enough by then for her to make out the shape of the entire island, which was a crescent with the two ends lost in scintillating mist. It looked about the size of Rhode Island, if that had a couple of gigantic mountains at either end.
She caught sight of the main city, built around a natural harbor shaped like a horseshoe. Almost all the buildings were white, except for the tiled roofs of blue or red.
They banked again and headed for the castle. She sat back, loving the wind in her hair, the swoosh of wings, and how the hetairoi banked and dove, soared and turned as one, precision flying that had to be an inspiring sight from below.
I could do this forever, she thought. She was so caught up in the thrilling flight that she was startled when Nikos’s chuckle reached her. Fly as much as you like—the others will show you the areas to be avoided. I’m going on an inspection tour.
They landed, and everyone except Nikos shifted to human again. As they laughed and bantered, she smoothed his mane, admiring him but wishing he could be human, too.
We’ll fix it, he promised. With his words came memory of their single kiss.
Then he took off. Jen watched, her lips tingling as she smothered a smile.
When he vanished around one of the towers, Cleo took her hand, and tugged. “Come,” she said. “Now that we’re all human again, I’ll introduce you to everybody!”
Names flew at Jen, too quick to follow. She couldn’t remember who was the cockatrice and who the peryton and who the eagle. That was all right. She knew from teaching martial arts classes that she’d catch up as she got to know individuals.
Most of her attention was claimed by her surroundings. She tried to take in the worn marble staircases, the long, beautiful halls with mosaic floors and bright mural-decorated walls, and the walks along actual castle walls—complete with towers on one side, and on the other a thousand foot drop—until it really settled in that Nikos lived in an actual castle. Cleo proudly pointed out where solar paneling had been fitted in above walls built over a thousand years ago. Someone with an artistic eye had blended modern conveniences with ancient art and grand design.
Cleo began pointing. This wing belonged to the hetairoi, that wing to the Iatreio, which Jen mentally translated to infirmary, and over there the state rooms, and above those the ‘residence,’ belonging to Nikos’s family, which everyone called the aerie, as it was the highest level in the castle. Lower down were the kitchens and all the support areas.
State rooms, as in rooms of state? Residence, as in royal residence?
As Cleo’s fast explanation piled up the words, Jen finally comprehended that Nikos wasn’t just a teacher, as well as a sort-of EMT—that is, he was both, but he was also . . . well, the word kyrios, she understood now, meant king.
The island was a kingdom, and Nikos was its king.
She tried to wrap her head around that idea as she descended yet another staircase. A king. She wondered if that first, disastrous love of Nikos’s that had made him wary of relationships had wanted a king instead of him.
Jen did not understand that kind of thinking. She wanted him, but without the king? No, it was integral to his being. She would never ask him to give up all this, in order to devote himself exclusively to her.
Sooooo . . . was staying with him going to make her a queen?
She grimaced, shoving the idea away. It was simply too laughable.
She followed Cleo out onto a broad walled plateau that overlooked the switchback road leading up to the castle, and below that, a town spread at the foot of the mountain. From up high, most of what Jen saw of the town were the red and blue tile roofs. The walls of the houses were almost all white. A harbor lay like a horseshoe to one side of the town. A variety of ships floated in the harbor, from old-fashioned sail-driven fishing boats to a huge, sleek super-modern yacht.
“Whose is that?” Jen asked, pointing down at the yacht that reminded her of a high-tech shark.
Bryony had been following them, silent until now. Cleo’s smile vanished as Bryony said, “That belongs to Medusa.”
“Medusa,” Jen repeated. “Who’d name their kid that?”
“Medusa calls herself that,” Bryony said, drawing Jen to the other side of the plateau—which, Jen realized, was actually a training ground. People were rolling out weapons racks, and two carried rolled mats. “She’s a gorgon.”
Jen was going to exclaim, Gorgons are real? But she bit it back, remembering that ten minutes ago, she was aloft on a winged unicorn, flying with cockatrices and griffins, among others. At least Doris and Bird swore zombies were not real, she thought.
Bryony made a spitting motion in the direction of that yacht. “Medusa is a billionaire’s brat of the worst kind.”
“Whatever she wants, she gets,” Mateo said, powerful arms crossing. Jen wondered when he had become a griffin. As a baby? She was afraid to ask—what were good manners in this situation? He turned to Jen and asked in a polite voice, “Would you like to join us?”
Jen had been aching for a run, at the least, for two days. A workout would be heavenly. “I’d love that.”
The others were already stretching. As Cleo and Bryony went to take their places, Bryony at the front and Cleo at the back, Jen took up a position next to Cleo.
Though kung fu was her home style, she’d begun training with her father in Krav Maga, and had practiced with other styles over the years, depending on where she was and what was available. She knew the oldest hand to hand combat style the Greeks had was called Pankration, which the Spartans had developed in ancient times. It was mai
nly a mix of boxing and wrestling moves, though like any martial art, there were variations from teacher to teacher.
Mateo and Bryony led the forms three times through, then they moved to knife forms, and then to sparring. Jen expected to be lagging, but her energy stayed high—as high as it had been years ago. It wasn’t like she’d suddenly turned young. Her body was the same, her hands were those of a woman in her fifties. But becoming a phoenix seemed to have infused her with energy.
Toward the end, a shadow briefly blocked the bright Aegean sun, and Nikos sailed down, folding his wings as he landed at the other end of the training ground. He tossed his head, his horn gleaming in the light, and everyone redoubled their efforts in front of their . . .
King.
Jen huffed a laugh—and then, “Ouch!” A slap on the bicep from her current partner, who had introduced himself as Tassos. Jen blinked, sensing that Tassos, a boy of maybe twenty, wanted her to be serious in front of Kyrios Nikos. Tassos was the manticore, that she remembered, as his head had not changed.
Jen caught a bright flash of amusement from Nikos, like sunlight spangling water, and schooled her face to seriousness as she resumed the scrap. But she couldn’t help the thought, You’re a king! You didn’t tell me you are a king. Could he really hear her from way over there?
I was afraid you’d reject me. I’ve heard how you Americans feel about kings.
She chuckled inside as she dealt out two fast palm hands, a sweep, and she disposed of Tassos. He smacked his hands together and bowed, smiling as he swaggered to the side.
Nikos’s thought came, He’s impressed by you, because you took him seriously enough to defeat him.
Jen shook her head and smothered another laugh.
Two more scraps, then a bell rang somewhere down in the town. That served as a signal to call a halt. Nikos came to Jen’s side as his elite guard all trooped off in another direction.
