by Amy Harmon
I remembered Boojohni’s words of days before. “He who persecutes the hardest has the most to hide.” I wondered what Lord Bin Dar was hiding and what Lord Gaul and Lord Bilwick truly gained by supporting him.
“My question is this, Queen Lark.” Bin Dar said my name with a lilting skip, as if it sounded silly to him. “What are your opinions on the Gifted? Your mother was a Teller. Will you allow them to live and breed and infect Jeru? Or will you have the courage to root them out?”
He knew I couldn’t answer aloud. They all did. I looked from one to the next, the corpulent and the thin, the sweating and the pale, the conspiring and the weary. Bilwick and the lords from the south looked on, but their minds were on their stomachs. We’d been sequestered all afternoon. Lord Gaul and Lady Firi observed, offering nothing. My father glared, praying I wouldn’t upend chairs, and Lord Bin Dar waited, spinning a quill in his skeletal hand.
As my gaze narrowed on the pale feather twitching between his finger and thumb, I saw it shift. For a millisecond, the white quill became a long-stemmed glass, as if his desire for wine had gotten the better of him. I blinked, and the glass was a feather once more, spinning, spinning, spinning.
My eyes shot upward, his narrowed, and I had my answer. I picked up my own quill and dipped it into my inkwell, forming the letters on a blank sheet of parchment in large, bold print, so he and the rest of the council could plainly read my response.
Shall I start with you, Milord?
At sundown on the seventh day of Penthos, I dressed in black from head to toe, and I climbed the hill to the cathedral, just like I’d done on my wedding day. The bells rang in intervals of seven, tolling mournfully over the city. I don’t know how the sound had changed so much since that day, becoming dreary instead of bright, ominous instead of optimistic, but it had. Maybe it wasn’t the bells. Maybe it was me—my ears, my heart, my hope. Maybe I was different—a Changer after all.
The people did not throw flowers this time. They stood silently and watched my procession, some weeping, some stoic, dressed in their own varying shades of grey, brown, and black.
It was not uncommon in times of conflict for a fallen monarch to be memorialized on the battlefield where he met his end, and sometimes, as with King Zoltev, there were no remains to honor. If Tiras were brought back, his body would be placed on a pyre overlooking the city for another seven days. At the end of that time, the pyre would be lit, reducing the king’s body to dust and to the earth from whence it came.
But Tiras’s body would not be brought back to Jeru. His remains would not be turned to ash. We’d been sent no further word about the details of his “death,” no glorious accounts of his valor or updates on the war effort against the relentless Volgar. Hashim had not returned. A monument for Tiras would be erected next to the monument for his father, and his father before him. The hill beyond the cathedral was littered with dozens of statues raised for warrior kings of Jeru.
The lords walked behind me to the cathedral, appropriately grim-faced and sober, and I did my best to pay them no heed, though their thoughts and concerns brushed at my set shoulders and my stiff back. Lord Bin Dar had called the proceedings to a halt after I’d challenged him, and they’d not been taken up again.
I had little doubt I would be set aside. The council had convened, but there had been a great deal of conversation and collusion, bargaining and coercion in private quarters all over the castle. I’d heard my name bandied about and my life bartered with countless times. Lords Enoch, Janda and Quondoon were in favor of letting me remain in my position as queen, but felt no fealty to me or residual sentimentality for Tiras. They simply wished for Jeru to be governed ably and for their own provinces not to suffer any ill-effects from its poor management.
Bilwick, Gaul and Bin Dar wanted me gone.
My father and Lady Firi stood on the outside, each for their own reasons, and watched with apprehension. My father argued for my life—and his—though that usually included placing himself in a position of power to protect it. Lady Firi kept her own company, and I could never snatch her words or her thoughts from the air the way I could with most of the other lords. I suspected her mixed feelings had a great deal to do with Kjell and his eventual return; she stiffened when his name was tied with mine in any way.
A stalemate had been reached, and all parties seemed to agree that until Penthos had passed and the king’s brother had returned, no final decisions would be made. So I climbed the tall hill, dressed in black, a widow instead of a bride, and begged Tiras to rise again.
That very night, like an answer to my Penthos prayer, my eagle sat, perched on the garden wall beyond the Great Hall, silhouetted in moonlight that suddenly felt warm, golden, and impossibly bright, melting the ore around my heart, making it liquid and soft.
He spread his great wings and beat the air, and I followed him, just like I’d done before.
I didn’t wait for Boojohni or summon a guard. There wasn’t time, and I couldn’t risk an audience if he managed to change.
Tiras?
Come, the bird urged, flying from branch to branch, wall to wall, making sure I kept up. I obeyed, practically running through the forest, mindless with joy, with brilliant hope, watching his wings flex and fold as he led me deeper. Before long the cottage beckoned, quietly peaceful beneath the bows of sheltering trees, and my heart was an eager drum, pounding in anticipation, needing to believe that Tiras would be able to change for me, that I would soon see him again.
The cottage was dark, and the shutters gaped wide, pressed against the stone walls instead of folded inward to keep the forest at bay. The eagle was nowhere in sight, and I stopped, suddenly afraid, suddenly wondering if, in my desire, I’d simply imagined the bird was an eagle. I called his name, sending the word into the night, and the call went unanswered. Even the creatures that usually hummed and scurried were silent.
Then a light flickered in the cottage, a lamp being lit inside the tiny space, reassuring me like a mother’s voice. I ran, clutching my skirts in my hands, a sob in my chest. I pushed through the door, Tiras on my lips, and drew up short.
She wore the dress edged in lace that I’d discovered beneath the bed, the garment I had assumed belonged to the Changer who’d been captured and killed and brought before my throne on hearing day.
Lady Firi?
She laughed, fastening the ties at her throat. “I told you my family had Gifted blood. Did you simply assume it was a mild strain?”
You are an eagle?
“I am whatever animal I wish to be. A little mouse in the corner listening to the king make all his plans. A tiny bird on the sill gathering information like crumbs. A cat lurking in the shadows. A carrier pigeon delivering messages from Firi.”
Alarm coiled in my belly.
Are you the Changer the hunter saw?
Her smile was smug, and she inclined her head, as if she were receiving applause.
But . . . you were . . . dead!
She waved her hand in the air. “I was pretending. No one expects a bird to play dead.” She smiled—a kind, regretful twist of her lips that made the hairs rise on my neck. “I waited until the room cleared, until you left, and I flew away. Kjell watched me go. Did he not tell you?”
I shook my head. He hadn’t. But one thing was clear. Lady Firi knew everyone’s secrets.
You wanted me to believe you were the king.
“Yes.”
Why?
“Because I knew you would follow me here. I failed that night. The timing was off. Then the king returned. I had to change my strategy.”
I stared at her, not wholly comprehending. But . . . why?
“I want Jeru. In order to have Jeru, I must marry a king, but Tiras has taken care of that, hasn’t he? He has made Kjell his successor. I didn’t anticipate that, though I hoped. I thought I was going to have to take Jeru by cunning. Now I can just take it by marriage. The way you did.”
I never wanted to be queen.
“Every
girl wants to be queen,” she snarled, her expression shifting so quickly I saw a glimmer of beast. “I can be a lion, a snake, a bird, even a dragon. Why not a queen?”
She shrugged, but there was anger beneath her nonchalance. “There have been so many things I couldn’t have predicted. You, for one. I didn’t even know you existed, and suddenly you were Queen of Jeru, snatching it away from me.”
You were the one who kidnapped the king on our wedding day.
“I’m a Changer. I knew when the king would be most vulnerable. I knew his pattern. It wasn’t difficult. My guards took care of the heavy lifting.”
And the lords? My father?
“I told them the king wouldn’t arrive. Promised them.”
But he did.
“Yes. Another thing I couldn’t predict.” She tilted her head, considering me. “Did you have something to do with that?”
I didn’t answer, forcing blankness to my face. Had she not heard me? Had only the birds been privy to my call?
“The king will not arrive this time, will he? He’s not coming back. And Kjell will return, heir to the throne. So you have to die.”
And the attacks in Firi? What if Kjell is killed?
“The Volgar are not in Firi. I lied. They are here.”
I rushed to the door, and Lady Firi didn’t even try to stop me, but her words were like knives in my fleeing back.
“Liege wanted you. I want Jeru. We have an arrangement.”
I ran, pushing the words upward, needing to warn whoever could hear that death was descending from overhead.
All of Jeru, hear my cry,
Turn your faces toward the sky.
I heard and felt the dip and dive of wings above my head, but the wings above me were not those of an eagle. I’d heard the sound before. Talons pierced the layers of my cloak and my dress, grazing the flesh of my back and encircling my ribs like an infant clutches her mother’s breast. I screamed soundlessly as my feet left the ground, crying for Tiras, for Jeru, for my child. Wind whipped at my face and pulled at my hair, as the ground grew farther and farther away. I expected to be released any moment, to plummet to my death, only to have the Volgar beast follow me back to earth to eat from my broken flesh. But the beast who held me firmly in his clutches flew without ceasing, his wings beating the air in a steady rhythm. Flap, flap, flap, soar. Flap, flap, flap, soar.
I could not compel him. I pushed and begged, straining to see him as I dangled from his claws, peppering him with spells that had no more effect on him than wishful thoughts. The beast continued to fly, ambivalent to every word I wielded.
He was not like other birdmen. His spiked, serpentine head sat on a man’s shoulders, arms, and chest, the entirety covered in silvery scales, while his lower body was that of a bird. The underside of his black wings were shot with green and blue, like peacock feathers. Horrific and oddly beautiful, he was a conglomeration of man, bird, and reptile—a dragon—and I’d never seen anything like him.
Higher and higher we rose, the mountains east of Jeru City rising like a jagged fortress before my eyes, cliffs and crags jeering like sharp teeth from the shadows. The creature began to circle and slow, letting the currents sweep him downward, using his wings to slow our descent, until his great, feathered haunches grasped the earth. With a flutter and a thrust, he entered a gaping cave carved into the side of the mountain and dropped me unceremoniously.
Disoriented and dizzy, my head spun and my stomach revolted, my intense relief warring with a paralyzing fear of what was to come. I panted, pulling my cloak around me, wincing as the wounds on my back made themselves known. I struggled to rise and swayed against the wall of the cave, clinging to the rocks as I waited for the world to settle.
The beast watched my attempts to calm and comfort myself with strange fascination, his dragon head tipped at an angle, waiting for me to demand answers. It was dark in the cave, the full moon beyond the wide opening insufficient to light the deep corners. I crept along the wall, not foolish enough to think he would let me flee, but hopeful I could get closer to the entrance, closer to the light.
I didn’t want to die in the dark.
He stalked me, allowing the few steps it took to bathe us both in moonlight, and then he spoke.
Do you know who I am, little queen? The words came from his mind, not his mouth. I shivered, hating the way they felt inside my head, intrusive and heavy, leaving no space for my own thoughts. It was the way I communicated, and I suddenly understood why Kjell resented it.
No. I made my voice a spear and flung it outward. He hissed, and steam curled from his narrow snout. He loomed over me, herding me to the cliff’s edge.
I turned away from him, averting my face so he wouldn’t see my fear. He crept closer, so close that my toes kissed the edge and his presence warmed my back.
“But I know who you are,” he whispered, using his voice to show he could. His forked tongue darted between his teeth, and his scalding hot breath tickled the exposed skin below my ear, searing my flesh. I clenched my jaw, refusing to cry out, even with my thoughts, and I considered falling.
“You are Meshara’s daughter.”
I stiffened, hating the way he crooned my mother’s name like a man savoring his wine. He touched the blistering skin on my neck with a scaled knuckle, and I felt a wet pop and a flash of pain.
“I’ve burned you. Forgive me. I forget how fragile a woman’s skin can be. You are quite beautiful, really. Deceptively so. Like moonlight. Pale. Slender. One almost looks right through you before he catches his breath and looks back.”
Tiras had said the same thing.
The beast stepped back, as if truly apologetic that he had blistered my flesh, and I eased away from the ledge, my eyes still glued to the cavernous darkness below.
“You are Meshara’s daughter, Queen of Jeru, Lark of Corvyn.”
My breath stalled, and I found his eyes in the wan light, waiting.
“My son made you queen. How clever of him.”
My throat throbbed and my ears burned, and I touched tentative fingers to one lobe, uncertain I’d heard him clearly.
Your son?
“The king. Tiras,” he whispered, and the S hissed between us. “I am Liege. But I am also . . . Zoltev. Do you remember me, Lark of Corvyn?”
I shook my head, adamant, resistant. Terrified. You are Volgar.
“No. They are animals. I am a man. With wings. And claws.” I heard his smile, though I didn’t see it.
Zoltev was a . . . man, and you are a beast.
“But if I want to be a man, I am a man.”
I watched, unable to help myself, and true to his words, with an undulating twist, he stood before me, devoid of wings and claws, feathers and scales.
He looked like Tiras.
The arrogant set of his chin and his unapologetic stance made my heart shudder with recognition. His hair had greyed, his body had aged, and the eyes that looked out at me were Kjell’s. But I knew him.
He laughed when my legs gave way beneath me. I teetered, catching myself at the last moment and slicing my hand on a sharp edge. Blood welled, crimson and warm, and dripped against the rocks beneath my fingers. My mother’s blood had spilled over stones. It had pooled beneath our bodies and congealed in my hair.
The beast king crouched over me, dipping his finger into the blood on my palm.
“But why would I want to be a man when I can be Liege?” he said simply, drawing his finger into his mouth, tasting me.
He contorted and shook, and his lower body was once again clothed in feathers, his legs and feet resembling those of a bird. He rose, throwing back his head, and his wings tumbled down his back like a flag unfurled.
“I prefer to be something in between.” He remained a man from the waist up, but talons shot out from his hands, neatly breaking through the skin on the tips of his fingers like a cat flexing his claws.
“I can be anything I want to be. I’m a Changer and a Spinner.”
Not a Healer
?
“It is the one gift I have no need of. There’s no one in all of Jeru I want to heal.”
Of course not. Healing required love.
“I’ve spun vultures into warriors, into an entire army. I started with a few and bade them attack. We left bodies to rot in the sun, and more vultures came. I spun them into Volgar, and one by one, I built an army. I tell them what to do. They are easy to control . . . aren’t they? You destroyed so many of my creations, little queen. I should destroy you.”
I struggled to stand, not wanting to cower at his feet, and he watched me rise, as if I amused him.
“I should destroy you, but you might be of use to me.”
I flinched, and his black-winged eyebrows rose. “The beasts obey me because I am their creator. But I am not a Teller. I can’t compel them with mere words. But you can.”
I could feel them even now, the words that animated their huge, avian bodies and their simple minds. I could hear their hunger and their bloodlust, and I repelled them, flinging spells to keep them away. I couldn’t see them, but they were near.
“I can hear you. You fear them. But they aren’t coming for you.”
Why are you doing this? You left. You made your sons, your subjects, all of Jeru believe you were dead.
“I jumped from the cliff, and I changed into a bird.”
Why?
“Meshara said I would become everything I feared—a monster—and I did. Meshara knew what I was becoming. I might have spared her, but she knew. So I had to kill her.”
He’d killed her because she knew. Boojohni was right. My mother had seen what was to come. It was not a curse but a prophecy. The realization swept through me with sudden clarity.
“I’d already begun to lose control. But after Meshara died, it became worse. I was changing without warning, entering the stables and shifting into a horse. Taking a bath and becoming a great, flopping fish. Turning everything I touched into something I didn’t want. Gold into rocks and rocks into water, bread into sand and my sword into straw. I woke up one morning and the sheet on my bed had become a boa constrictor.” He stared at me with pursed lips. “I was afraid of what would happen if my secret was discovered.”
