The Bird and the Sword

by Amy Harmon

  They left once more and carefully locked the door behind them again, murmuring about what could have caused the window to shatter in such a way. This time they didn’t remain, but hurried off down the corridor, leaving a trail of mumbled words in their wake. I sighed in relief and calmly, purposefully asked the lock to disengage.

  It did so with an audible click, and I sent up a grateful prayer to the God of Words.

  I eased the door open and peeked down the hall. It had grown dark, and sconces had been lit on every floor. I would have to be certain to avoid the staff who were all aware that I should not be roaming the palace unattended. I’d never been in this wing, never negotiated these halls, and I didn’t know how I would reach the king without being seen. My father would be returning as well, and I didn’t want to attempt another command that could completely backfire.

  Twenty minutes later, breathless and frazzled, I eased myself into the king’s quarters and leaned heavily against the door. The room was dark, the king’s clothes in a messy pile, boots toppled, sword and sheath abandoned, even his crown—something he rarely wore—sat atop his tunic, like he’d melted into the oak floor and left his clothes behind. There was an emptiness to the room, a melancholic abandonment in the crumpled clothing that had me calling out, as if I could make contact with his thoughts.

  Tiras, where are you?

  I called again, sending my words outward, flinging them into the darkness, shouting the only way I could. But there was no response. I paused in indecision, afraid to leave the room, uncertain of where to hide myself or what I should do. I walked to the balcony and stepped out into the darkness, my eyes searching the guards below for Kjell, for Boojohni, for something.

  Kjell? I pushed the word out into the night air, and it vibrated like a gong in my head. The guard below me didn’t raise his head. I slumped down onto the balcony, pressing my face against the iron rails, weary and uncertain. I could see my chambers across the way. My room was ablaze with light, which was odd, as it had not been night when I’d been escorted through the halls to the banquet and I doubted that the maids awaited me now. I could see the open balcony door and beyond that, a tall shadow loomed. There was someone in my room. Tiras had instructed me to go there, I remembered now. Why hadn’t I gone there first?

  I wished again for flight, that I could wing across the distance between the two balconies. I couldn’t change into a bird, a little lark, and flutter up into the sky, but maybe I could still fly.

  I retreated back into the king’s chambers and pulled the silk sheet from his bed. Clutching it in my arms, I pressed it to my chest, eyes closed, concentrating on the words that would give it flight. When I was a child, I had pressed the words into inanimate objects with my lips, with sound. This was decidedly more difficult.

  Up, away, into the sky

  Lift me high and let me fly.

  Nothing happened, and I realized I had to be specific. I had to imbue the sheet with a name, and direct it by that name. When the candle had moved, I had called to it specifically. When the fire died, I had done the same. When the glass broke, I had been precise about what I’d wanted. So precise that it had opened the only way it could, by breaking.

  Coverlet. It was a coverlet. With the tip of my finger, I traced the word into the silk, focusing on the letters. Then, with not a little dread, I fisted it in my hands and demanded it rise.

  Rise, coverlet, from the floor, through the window, to my door.

  It rose, billowing, pulling me toward the balcony like it was being sucked into a wind storm. But though it would have flown, I was too heavy to fly with it, and it simply flapped like a sheet in the breeze, helpless against my grip. I clung to it, not sure what to do next, and I didn’t hear the door open behind me.

  “What are you doing?”

  I started and jumped, almost losing my grip on the coverlet that whipped and tossed in my hands.

  Tiras stood in the doorway of his room, clothed like he’d spent the last hour in the stables instead of writhing in pain like I’d envisioned. Kjell stood beside him, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. I gasped and immediately focused on the task at hand.

  Coverlet, be still

  Obey my will.

  It was the first rhyme that came to my head, but the flapping ceased and the coverlet drooped from my fists, the flight removed from every corner.

  “Witch,” Kjell breathed. “You are a bloody witch.”

  “Kjell!” Tiras said. “Leave us.”

  Kjell ignored him. “Tell me, Teller. Did you poison the king’s wine? Did you do your father’s bidding? Does the little lark want to be Princess of Jeru?” He strode forward and ripped the coverlet from my hands. I stepped back, eyes on his, arms at my sides. Kjell was afraid of me. His fear billowed out like the coverlet had moments before, whipping in the air, making me afraid too.

  I shook my head. No. I came to help.

  He winced as if my voice in his head caused him pain. I looked at Tiras, who hadn’t moved except to shut the door behind him.

  “Kjell. Go. I am fine. Go back to the hall and see that all is in order.”

  “Tiras, by all the Gods! She is dangerous!”

  “She is,” Tiras agreed, nodding, his eyes on mine. “She is that. Now go, Kjell. And make sure Lord Corvyn doesn’t slip away. Poison is more his style, I think. He had help though. I’m guessing certain members of the council are expecting news of my demise. I’ll be down shortly to let them see that they have failed.”

  Kjell growled an expletive that made me blush and the king sigh, but he did as he was told, his hand on his sword, stomping to the door and pulling it shut with great force behind him.

  “Show me.” Tiras nodded toward the sheet in my hands.

  I stayed still, not willing to condemn myself further, and I pled with him silently. It is nothing.

  “Show me, Lark,” he demanded. I bunched the sheet in my hands and turned to put it back on the bed. He walked toward me slowly. “Why are you in my chambers?” he asked, allowing me to believe, for a moment, that he was not going to insist on a demonstration.

  I thought you were ill.

  “And you came to finish me off?” There was a smile in his voice. I looked at him sharply. “The door was locked. How did you get inside?” he asked as he continued to move closer.

  I hung my head, having forgotten that detail.

  It was not locked.

  “It was.”

  I wondered if he could feel the lie on me, the way I could feel falsehoods when others told them.

  “You are a Teller. Did you tell the door to open?” He was so close I could feel his breath stir my hair. “Did you tell the apple to hit Bilwick in his fat mouth?” There was laughter in his voice, and I relaxed the smallest bit.

  Yes.

  “Show me.” He walked back to the heavy door and slid the bolt home. I hesitated briefly. He looked at me expectantly, and I knew there was no hiding any of it from him.

  Open lock, upon the door, I wish to leave the room once more.

  The bolt immediately released. The king laughed, and wonder rose from the sound.

  “You could have gone . . . any time. Yet you have stayed in my castle behind locked doors, playing the prisoner. Why?”

  I shook my head in denial. Not any time. I had to learn the words. You gave them to me.

  “I gave them to you?” he repeated, dumbfounded.

  You taught me to read. You taught me to write.

  “This power is new?” His voice lifted in surprise.

  The power is not new. The words are new. My mother took the words away when she died. She took my voice away so I wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

  “Maybe she took the words away so no one would hurt you,” he ventured, and his voice was kind. “It wasn’t your mother who made the poppet fly, was it?”

  Sorrow crashed over me, weighing me down, causing my bowed head to hit my chest in despair.

  No.

  “Does your father know what you can
do?”

  No.

  I had no desire to lift my heavy head, and felt Tiras approach once more and stop in front of me. I kept my eyes on his boots until he touched my chin with one long finger, tipping my face to his. His eyes were soft, and I found myself wanting to tell him everything.

  My father hates me.

  “How can that be? He seems desperate to have you return to Corvyn.”

  He is afraid you are going to hurt me. He is afraid I’m going to die. And if I die, he dies. Another gift from my mother. She made sure that his own survival depended upon ensuring mine.

  “Ah, I see. Such a clever Teller. Your mother was very wise.”

  I nodded.

  “We are all caught in her snare. Your father. You. Me. Even my father was obsessed with her. Meshara,” Tiras whispered.

  I felt my eyes widen and my heart skitter. Tiras raised both hands to my face and cradled it thoughtfully, his fingers tracing the line of my cheek and the sharp edge of my jaw down to the point of my chin. I could hardly breathe, and I didn’t know if it was his gentle touch or my mother’s name lingering in the air. Or both.

  “None of us were ever the same after that day. My father lost me, just like your mother foretold. And he died knowing it.” His hands fell away suddenly, like he realized what he was doing and checked himself. He stepped back, but his eyes still held mine. I wondered what he saw when he gazed at me. Did he see my mother from that long ago day, the way I’d seen his father in him? I’d hated him for what his father had done. Did he hate me for the same reason? I shook myself and asked a tentative question.

  He lost you?

  “He was a monster, and that day, I saw him for what he was. I began to turn from him, to change. I am a far different king than I would have otherwise been.”

  Kjell says you are dying.

  “I’m not dying.”

  But there is something wrong.

  “Many things.” He smiled, just a sad twist of his mouth. “There are many wrongs to be righted.” He walked to the balcony and opened the doors wider, letting in the evening air. After a moment he turned back to me once more.

  But . . . you aren’t ill?

  He shook his head slowly. “No. Not ill. Not dying. But I’m losing the battle.”

  Against the Volgar?

  “Against all of Jeru’s enemies.” He paused, considering. His eyes were black and his mouth was bracketed with weariness. “Will you help me, Lark?”

  How?

  “Show me what you can do.”

  I thought of the broken window and the accidental fire. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But maybe if I was very careful, very exact, it would be okay. And I wanted to show him, to show someone, what I could do. The attention was intoxicating and completely foreign.

  I said a simple rhyme, lifting the coverlet off the floor, asking it to float in the air like a little boat. It rose and hovered obediently. I shot a fearful look at Tiras, but he seemed intrigued.

  “Something else.”

  I asked the coverlet to drift back to the floor. I told the chair to dance and it started to rock back and forth in a clumsy rhythm. Tiras laughed. I shrugged. Dancing chairs and floating coverlets wouldn’t right any wrongs.

  “Can you compel me to act?” he asked quietly, and my heartbeat quickened. “Can you make me dance like the chair or rise into the air?” he pressed. I bit my lip and reached out with tentative words.

  Dance now, Tiras, up and down. Move your body all around.

  He stared at me, eyebrows raised, lips quirked.

  You aren’t dancing.

  “No. I’m not. And I feel no compulsion to do so.”

  I shrugged helplessly.

  It doesn’t seem to work on people. You have free will. It is but a suggestion with a little push behind it. Are you even tempted to dance? Even a little?

  “No. I’m not,” he snorted, and my lips twitched too. “So how do you heal me, if your power doesn’t work on people?” he asked.

  I don’t heal you. Not really. I tell your body to heal itself. It wants to be healed, and it obeys. I think.

  “You think?”

  I shrugged again. I am learning more every day.

  “And the Volgar? You told them to fly away. In the clearing after I took you from Corvyn. We all would have died. But suddenly they flew, and I could feel something repelling them. I could feel it.”

  The Volgar are closer to animals than they are to humans, and it takes a great deal more energy to influence them than it does to instruct an object. A great deal more energy to influence you—even just your body.

  “That is why you fall asleep so deeply when you try to heal me?”

  Yes. It’s . . . exhausting . . . forcing my will on others.

  “But not on objects?”

  There is no resistance with inanimate things.

  Tiras nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and I relaxed further, enjoying myself.

  “I want you to try again, but don’t let me hear. I want to see what you are capable of,” he urged, and my joy became reluctance once more.

  I was allowing him to hear my rhymes, the little spells I flung into the air. If I instructed him to act and kept it from him, could I actually influence him in some way? Could I make him love me? The thought whispered through my heart and mind unbidden, and I turned away, embarrassed and rather surprised at myself. I wouldn’t want that.

  “Try again,” he demanded, as if he’d heard my inner monologue.

  My heart pounded in my chest, and I shook my head. Compelling someone was repugnant to me.

  I don’t want that much power. I don’t want to bend people to my will.

  “I give you permission,” he murmured. “Don’t you want to know what you can do?”

  Not knowing is so much easier. So much safer.

  “Focus,” he commanded, ignoring my misgivings. I wondered briefly if his power to compel wasn’t a great deal stronger than mine. I always seemed to obey him.

  “What do you want, Lark? What do you want me to do?” he pushed, waiting, his posture tense as if he expected me to send him careening into a wall. As if I could.

  I closed my eyes to create some distance and, keeping my feelings in my belly rather than my head, pushed outward, urging Tiras without even knowing specifically what I asked of him. I was trying so hard to hide my words from him that the command was more a base desire than a neatly formed spell. I hardly knew what I was attempting, when suddenly Tiras was looming over me, pressing his mouth to mine. I froze and opened my eyes.

  The brush of his chin was slightly rough, his mouth insistent, almost angry, as if he sought to conquer rather than convince. He held my face as he had before, fingers splayed into my hair, but when I failed to respond, he immediately pulled back, but not much. His eyes glittered, and his hands stayed buried in my hair.

  “Why ask for something you don’t want?” he whispered, the words tickling my lips.

  I didn’t ask. I would never, ever ask for something like that.

  His eyes narrowed further, and his hands fell to his sides, releasing me as suddenly as he’d kissed me.

  I hadn’t asked . . . had I? I would never, ever ask, no matter how much I wanted something. Or someone. I’d thought about love. That was all. Then he’d kissed me. I didn’t know how to kiss, and I had responded with all the ardor of a rock wall.

  I didn’t ask, I repeated.

  Tiras looked puzzled for a moment, then contemplative. He folded his arms across his chest, and I could feel him listening intently, like he was trying to peel back my protestations and uncover all the things I wasn’t saying.

  “I’m going to kiss you again,” he murmured finally. “Unless you tell me no.”

  My mind was a huge, white wall. No protestations. No thoughts. No words at all.

  “Breathe,” he whispered, and I obediently sipped the air. “Come here.” Again. Immediate compliance.

  He didn’t reach for me or pull me to him, didn’t crush m
e against his chest. He simply tipped my chin up and brought his mouth down.

  Then he coaxed cooperation with gentle conviction.

  Sweet rose from his consciousness, and wonder limned the word.

  He wheedled entry, pulling my top lip between his, tugging and tasting, only to slide past it to seek my timid tongue, plying me and playing me, until I was matching the pressure of his lips and exploring the heat of his mouth with eager strokes and breathless wonder.

  I heard his decision to cease before he pulled away, leaving me with my chest heaving and my lips wet. Bereft and immediately embarrassed, I couldn’t meet his eyes, but could feel him considering me, even as a decision was reached. Then he spoke, drawing my gaze.

  “Kjell is right. You are a dangerous little bird. But I think I will keep you.”

  The king escorted me back to my chambers and put four guards at the door.

  “For your protection, and for mine,” Tiras explained. I didn’t respond, and I still couldn’t look at him. My heart felt strange and my hands shook beneath the long drape of the bell-shaped sleeves. I could still taste him, heady and strong, and though I longed to run my tongue along the seam of my lips to relive the moment, I felt claimed without being wanted. It was a feeling I knew well. It was a feeling that made me long for Boojohni, the only soul on earth who loved me.

  I waited up, trying to read, trying harder to listen, but the castle was quiet and when Pia and Greta came to attend me, removing my dress and brushing my hair, they seemed tired and irritable, but nothing seemed amiss, and they chattered over the evening’s events and the work that still needed doing. I didn’t know whether my father had crept away, fleeing to Corvyn without me, or if he, like the rest of the delegation, had retired to his chamber to plot again.