by Lisa Morrow
Her trim eyebrows shot up. “I asked what you know about me.”
“About you?” I chewed on my bottom lip as I turned her question over in my mind. “You can transform into… that thing.”
Her pert nose sniffed, as if she smelled something unpleasant. “My other form is a Cartal.” She hesitated. “And actually, she is my true form.”
She kept walking as if what she’d said should make sense to me.
I scurried after her. “What do you mean your true form?”
We reached the top of the stairs, and I hesitated in the threshold of the new room. The brightness of the morning sun lit the massive space in a surreal glow, bouncing off walls lined with mirrors. The scattering of targets and obstacles, and the racks of weapons stacked high, seemed at odds with an otherwise cheery room.
“The practice room,” Meisha gestured. “You will spend a great deal of time here over the next few weeks.” She paused, her expression changing to an unreadable one. “And as for my true form… I am not human in the way that you and the other women are.”
“Isn’t there only one kind of human?”
She smirked. “Are you the same kind of human as the people of your village?”
I could say nothing to that.
Striding to the center of the floor, she sat down, crossing her legs beneath her. As she did so, her bare legs poked out from the two high slits I’d failed to notice earlier.
Looking up, I met her amused gaze. “You seem to find my clothing... interesting.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks. “Sorry. In my village, the girls all wore the same clothing. The most skin we showed was on our arms. Coming here and seeing you and Clarissa.” I nearly choked on the words I shouldn’t say. “Well, it’s been a bit of a surprise.”
“I understand.” She gestured for me to join her on the floor.
I sat across from her, crossing my legs beneath the skirts of my pale blue gown. My gaze swept to the only exit from the room. There was no way to know what my training would include, but I wished time would speed up, that I could be done with it already.
“So,” Meisha spoke the word gently, “you know about my other form, but what else?”
This question again?
I had to admit, I was curious about her, but I also couldn’t imagine what understanding more about her had to do with my training. Still, I preferred a simple conversation to the number of painful things I’d been imagining.
“I know you don’t like fighting.”
For a second I wasn’t sure if she’d be offended by my comment, but she radiated the calmness of an ancient teacher. “And what else?”
I shrugged. “I guess not much more.”
She seemed to expect my answer, because her expression remained soft. “That is because you have failed to ask.”
The urge to defend myself, to tell her I’d been too busy trying to survive to stop and ask questions about my captors, leapt to my mouth, but I swallowed the words. “Why would knowing about you matter?”
A small smile touched her lips. “Exactly. Why is it important to know ones enemy? From the moment you arrived, you saw me as such, yet you never stopped to discover my abilities, strengths, or weaknesses.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. She was right. If I had asked the right questions, maybe my escape wouldn’t have ended so terribly.
“So what should I know about you?”
She folded her hands in her lap and stared.
Not the right question then. "When did you first transform into a cat?”
“A Cartal,” she corrected, but there was pride in her voice. “My earliest memories are of being a Cartal, of running in the jungles with my litter mates, and hunting with my pack. It was only as I got older that I learned to take a human shape.”
I found I was leaning forward, hanging on her every word. So that’s what she meant! She really was more cat than human.
“But then, how did you end up here?”
The anger that stole over her face sent a quiver of fear streaking through me. “Some of the tribes capture us, transform us, and use us as Shaman. They imprison us in human form and use us until we are no longer useful to them.” Her nostrils flared. “They took my sister, my mate, and myself.”
Her lips curled, revealing sharpened teeth.
Memories of my first night at The Glass Castle flooded back to me, of Meisha jumping on me in the secret room, and of those same sharp teeth. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but anger must have caused her teeth to change.
My muscles tensed. No need to irritate her further.
“What happened next?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Her amber-colored eyes grew cold. “They kept my mate as a Shaman, and Blair came for my sister and I. To this day, I do not know how she sensed our powers.” She took a shaky breath, then continued on in a controlled tone. “But my purpose is not to reopen past wounds; instead, I wished to get you thinking in a new way, about why it is so important to know your enemy. We have no hope of defeating the wizards if you do not ask these same questions about them.”
I knew she was trying to change the subject, but I couldn’t help but ask. “You mentioned strengths and weaknesses… what are yours?”
She flashed me a humorless smile that was all teeth. “We all have strengths and weaknesses. In my human form, I am stronger and faster than most people. But otherwise, I have no special skills. As a Cartal, I have the strength, agility, and speed of a large predator. However, it takes time to transform.” She met my gaze. “Keeping this form is also difficult. I must drink a strange brew created by the tribesmen. It has an… unpleasant impact on both my body and mind.”
An awkward silence stretched between us.
“So now I know your strengths and weaknesses.” I hesitated for only a moment before meeting her curious gaze. “Do you know mine?”
She didn’t hesitate as she answered. “Yes, because yours are the same as Blair’s, and the same as your mothers.”
I opened my mouth to ask her more, but she silenced me with a glare. “With each goddess’s name, you will grow more powerful. And as we have already seen, you have a wealth of internal magic to fuel your powers.” She tilted her head. “But my abilities are second-nature to me. Yours are not. If you are stressed or tired, you may not be able to perform a spell. Your spells take time, so it is unlikely you could use one against a surprise attack. And if you run out of magic… such a thing would leave you completely vulnerable.”
“I’d never … thought about it like that.” And I hadn’t. Somehow I’d imagined magic as this limitless ability to make the world into whatever I wanted. Knowing otherwise was almost depressing.
“Yet there is more,” she continued. “As you have already seen, your powers are capable of great things, even if you do not have the magic to fuel them.” She looked down at her hands, studying them in silence before speaking again. “But if you decide to fuel your magic with the roses, or with the other Protectors’ magic through the Orb, you must deal with the consequences.”
I stiffened. “I hadn’t meant to do that.”
Her mouth pulled into a thin line. “Blair told me you did it without consciously deciding to… something that is hard to believe.”
I glared. “But it’s the truth.”
She shrugged, but her shoulders remained stiff. “You know using roses costs lives, but I wanted to warn you about using the other Protector’s magic. As I said, it comes at a price. The more you access it, the more you take, the easier it will be for others to take from you, to sense you.”
Prickles swept down my spine. I didn’t like the sound of that.
Wiping my clammy palms on my dress, my voice came out shriller than expected. “So is this everything I need to know?”
She snorted. “Hardly. But it is enough for now.”
I started to rise.
“Sit.” She commanded.
Sitting back down meant having to swallow a bit of my p
ride.
“You must be smarter.”
“Smarter?” I repeated, failing to hide my irritation. “I am smart.”
“You spend too much time thinking and not enough time taking notice of the world around you. Rather than let others argue, you throw yourself into the middle of the fight, just to end it. In a jungle, you would not last a day.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Blair believes you will be the one to end the war. I am not sure. Blair is far more powerful than you are, and she has failed to end it. But, I am ready to be free of The Protectors, and I can only be once this war has finished.”
Too many questions popped into my head at once, so I blurted the first one that came to my mind. “You want to leave The Protectors?”
She opened her eyes and gazed at me, an expression of pity lighting her face. “There are many of us who are ready to leave... we have long since served our time.”
“But, I’m confused. If Blair’s more powerful than me, why would I be the one to end this war?”
She looked pleased. “Exactly. A good question and hard to answer. I believe if Blair had been allowed on the battlefield, this war may have ended long ago.”
I sat up straighter. “She’s not allowed on the battlefield? Goddess’s breath, why not?”
For a second I thought she wouldn’t answer me. “Because Queen Gaudias doesn’t trust her. There is a long history behind it, but Blair did not feel killing the wizards was justified. When the war first began, Blair asked that the queen and her Protectors sacrifice themselves to give both the wizards and the people of Tarak peace.”
Her words struck me like a cold wind. “She was willing to die to end the war?”
Meisha smiled. “You see? There is much you can learn, if only you would ask.”
“But Blair doesn’t seem to care much for life.”
She tilted her head. “And you never once stopped to wonder why that might be, have you?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. She was right. I’d just assumed Blair held an inner cruelty.
“You are very young, Rose. I wonder what you would be like after a lifetime of hard decisions, of having to weigh the value of one life against the value of thousands.” She leaned closer. “The responsibility of such choices would weigh heavily on even the strongest person’s shoulders.”
Silence hung between us.
I turned my wrist over and touched The Protector’s mark. Already I’d done terrible things, without even meaning too. Like a giant blundering through a fairy village, my intentions mattered so little. I’d destroy all those roses, all those girls, because of nothing more than my ignorance. I couldn’t let that happen again.
“Meisha?”
“Yes?”
I took a deep breath. “The flowers I destroyed. I really didn’t mean to… and now I’m scared I’ll do it again, without meaning to.”
She leaned back, watching me. “It was truly an accident?”
I nodded.
Some unidentifiable expression came and went. Perhaps relief. “Then I shall teach you, so you do not make such a mistake again.”
A knot untwisted from my stomach. “Thank you.”
Scooting closer to me, so that our knees touched, she leaned in. A wild, exotic scent drifted over me. Something dangerous and exciting. “Close your eyes.”
My hands bunched into fists, but I obeyed.
“Inside of yourself, magic blossoms. We each see it differently. But for me, it is like a great fire raging.”
As she spoke, I pictured her words.
“Like any fire, it seeks to spread. Little flames curl out, reaching outside of us to connect with the world beyond.”
I held my breath. The golden flames reached out, searching for an escape.
“When our magic grows low, or we wish to create a spell beyond our abilities, we simply allow our magic to seek a source… not just any source though, that is very important. You must picture the roses in order to access them.”
Sweat gathered in my palms as I forced myself to push away the images of the flowers.
“We can also picture The Orb, or call out to other Protectors for help. But as I said, few Protectors willingly do this. They would rather use the roses than risk that others will be able to take their magic from them.”
“So we have no choice if they try to take it?”
Meisha was slow to answer. “You have more of a choice the less the others can feel you. If, for example, I gave my magic to you several times. Each time, I would sense you more and more easily. And if I was desperate, if your walls were down in a moment of weakness, I could take magic from you.”
Horror touched my words. “And I couldn’t stop you?”
“Perhaps you could gather the strength to push me away. But the experience, it is… violating.”
I opened my eyes. “So how do I put these walls up?”
Uncertainty filled her gaze. “I can teach you.”
“But?”
She sighed. “I know.” Her gaze grew more intense. “Your arm hurt when I wounded Asher.”
Shock coursed through me. “How do you?” But then I remembered, she was down in the hole with us, of course. “Why does it matter?”
“He is your One.”
We stared at each other.
“He is the man you are destined to be with, and no other. It is only him that you will marry, and when you are apart, it will be as if a piece of you is missing always.”
My heart throbbed. That was exactly how it felt. But uncertainty filled me. I’d never imagined meeting a man and simply accepting that I would marry him, that I had to be with him. It set me on edge.
“I don’t know anything about Ones,” I told her hopelessly.
She folded her hands in her lap. “Of course not. Only magic people have Ones. And not all of them. It is information we do not bother to share with humans, although more often than not they are our Ones.”
I frowned. “Then why isn’t this common knowledge?”
A gleam touched her eyes. “I want you to imagine that you are drawn to a man… and kiss, which is how the connection is made. The connection ties the two people together. But the human man, he does not have to feel the same way. He can, if he allows himself, but he does not have to the way The Protector does. Would you want him to know you are bound to him forever?”
The thought alone made me cringe. “I can see how that’d be a problem.”
She smiled. “Yes. With elves, giants, fairies and any creature with magic brimming through them, they have an easier time if they do not fall in love with a human.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest. “So Asher and I…?”
“He is a wizard, so you are his One, just as he is yours.”
An unexpected wave of relief swept through me. “So why did you bring up our connection?”
Her smile disappeared. “When you put up your walls, you seal him off from you too.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“So.” She closed her eyes, tilting her head. A peacefulness stole over her features. “My beloved is happy today. The humans let him walk through the jungles. He longs to run and play in his True Form, but it is better walking on human feet in the jungles than trapped in the village with the stench and closeness of the village.”
Her eyes opened, and the peacefulness slowly faded. “The only time I put up my walls is in battle, or when I am in a great deal of pain. I want to protect him from such things.” She paused. “The rest of the time, I cannot bear to seal myself off from him. It is like an open wound already, being so far from him. Not being able to touch him.” Her eyes glistened.
“I’m sorry.”
Two tears slid down her bronzed skin, leaving silver tracks. “It cannot be helped.” She glanced towards the window, the tears still clinging to her skin like memories. “So you see that most everything we do comes at a cost. Still, I shall teach you how to put your walls up. It is a valuable skill.”
And my training began
. It took me awhile to imagine non-existent walls and raise them. But each time I did it, the process was easier and easier.
“Now,” she said, breaking through my thoughts. “Keep your walls up. How do you feel?”
I pulled them up, feeling triumphant, but this time left them up. At first, I felt no different. Then, it struck me. I looked down at my stomach and touched it. Something inside me hurt, ached, but I couldn’t identify where the strange feeling came from.
After a time, realization dawned on me. It was the absence of something. Of my connection to Asher. Emotions I hadn’t realized weren’t my own were gone. Emptiness settled inside of me.
I gasped in breaths as I groped inside myself. It was as if I’d suddenly lost an arm. The absence of him created a pain that was both physical and emotional.
Dropping my walls, I inhaled sharply. He was there again. Lonely and confused, but there.
“Do you see?” Meisha asked me, those big amber-colored eyes filled with sympathy.
I unclenched my hands. “Yes.”
“I think that is enough for today.” She rose to her feet in one fluid motion.
I stood up more slowly. “What will happen to me if I can never save him? If I can never get him back?”
Reaching out, she squeezed my arm. “Have faith. Sometimes love is more powerful than even The Fates.”
Her words left me speechless.
She crossed to the room’s only exit.
I moved to follow her.
She raised a hand. “I have taught you valuable lessons, but you are not done.” A look of pity crossed her face. “You still must train with Clarissa and Blair, and that may be even less pleasant than you imagine.”
Chapter Sixteen
My entire body hurt. Even sitting on the floor brought protests from the swelling lumps and forming bruises covering my body. I’d never realized how much damage a fist and a wooden sword could wreck on a person, especially when used without the slightest hint of anger.
I shifted, and a groan escaped my lips.
Clarissa leaned against the wall, a smug smile on her face. “You’re a terrible fighter.”
I attempted a glare. “And where do you think I would’ve learned how to fight?”
