Without thought, my body shrinks into goshawk and contorts backward, my wings flapping frantically, out of reach of the wooden chair now broken upon the floor. Though the small man I just knocked down is struggling to push to his feet, clearly winded, the woman who aimed the chair demands immediate attention. She’s headed toward some sort of contraption mounted on the wall.
I fly forward before she can sound the alarm, shifting back to human and toppling both of us to the floor. Instantly she rolls to the side, dislodging me, and scrambles back to her feet. I grab her ankles and yank, bringing her down once more, then punch her in the throat before she can right herself. It’s a risky move; I can only hope it didn’t kill her.
By now, the smaller man has successfully gotten to his feet, but his suffering lungs and the sight of his comrade now duplicated, naked, before him is enough of a distraction. An instant later he joins the other two in the bitter surrender of unconsciousness. I smile smugly at his inanimate form. With humans, nudity can be just as much a weapon as feet and fists.
Panting heavily, I return to my natural form and consider him more closely, my moment of levity already slipping away. He’s young, now that I really look at him. Probably not much older than I am. I wonder what his family might be like, and whether they know he’s here. I wonder what his name is. Then I’m glad I don’t know.
I shake my head, scattering the fragments like leaves in the breeze. I can’t let thoughts like this distract me. He’s old enough to know what he’s doing. I make quick study of the three options in front of me before settling on him.
Moving quickly but methodically, I shift my features until I’m a replica of the boy—shorter stature, stubby fingers, eyes the color of the sea, thick black hair cut close on the sides. I make my vocal cords thicker as well; all I have to go on are a couple of sentences, but I think I get the voice close enough to pass. Then I strip him of his uniform, making a few final adjustments—thicker arm hair, wider biceps, squatter torso—before slipping on the clothes.
The uniform is dark blue, the color of the sky between twilight and midnight. The wide, short-cut sleeves are starched and hang rather stiffly around my arms. I tuck the shirt into the pants, add the belt, and finish with the black socks and shoes. Then I check my work against the two still-clothed guards to make sure I’ve got it right.
My gaze falls again upon the motionless form of the boy whose identity I’ve stolen. I know I should ensure that none of the guards can sound the alarm before I’ve freed Helos. But he didn’t wake this morning thinking it would be his last, and surely there’s at least one person waiting for him back home, someone who loves him.
I don’t want to be a killer.
I remember Weslyn saying, I don’t think anyone should.
Logic wins. Ordering myself not to hesitate, I smother them all with shaking hands until their hearts stop beating. Then I wipe my palms on a uniform and vomit against the wall.
There is death on you.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the corpses, biting back a fractured sob.
Please, fortune, don’t ever make this easy on me.
After a glance through the window to confirm that Helos is still in his holding cell, I slip from the tower room—don’t think about them, focus—and descend the creaky wooden stairs, willing there not to be a guard shift anytime soon.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really get a chance to observe how this boy moves. Judging by the age gap between him and the other two, I’m guessing he’s of a more junior rank. Still, his role is the captor, not captured, so he can’t be too insecure. As I make my way from the base of the stairs to the double doors opposite the first line of cages, I settle on my walk and attitude: confident, but not seeking to draw attention to myself.
Nobody intercepts me as I pass through the doors. There are a few people in the corridor, all dressed in the same navy uniforms as the ones in the tower. I stride with purpose toward the second room on the right. That’s where the soldier I trailed my first time in this hall went after messing with the box of keys on the wall, and though I’m not positive the key to that box is inside, it’s a place to start, at least. Before I reach it, I pass another room—more of an oversized closet, really—with the door swung wide on its hinges, revealing a collection of tools: rods, ropes, torches, netting. My lips press together until they ache.
I can guess what those are for. Magic may give most of the prisoners unique abilities, but it doesn’t give them heightened strength against brute force or the power to escape a tangled mass of ropes.
The second room, which looks to be some sort of recreation room now that I can see it clearly, is brimming with men and women as it was before. None of them acknowledge my presence when I enter, but I imagine that luck won’t hold for long. I also don’t see a single magical person, despite the scent I picked up on before.
Keeping my head down, I walk the outskirts of the room, tracing the path the previous soldier had taken before I lost her. I examine each person through downcast eyes, searching for any signs of illness.
There are no covered ears or pained expressions. None of the people are on the floor, grasping at sanity through fracturing wills. That makes no sense. If the magic I scented had come from a human, someone in here ought to be dying.
Unless the source is a shifter.
A particularly raucous band of laughter snares my attention, and I follow the turned heads and slapping hands to the apparent source of the joke: a familiar face in the opposite corner of the room. Short, dark hair, broad shoulders—it’s one of the men I saved from the caegar, the one who tried to haul me to my feet when I’d been paralyzed. The one I slashed with my claws to get away.
He’s just … sitting there. Not talking with anyone, seemingly indifferent to being the butt of mockery. Only sitting, eyes unfocused. He might be the one, yet he appears just as healthy as the rest.
I have no time to reflect on it further. I reach the end of the second wall and spot a small board mounted above a counter. The board is lined with rows of hooks—and keys. Hardly able to believe my luck, I take one step, then another, then another—until I’m facing the board.
“Olin, are you deaf?”
I jump in my skin as the voice sounds directly to my right. I had heard someone call for Olin but had no idea it was meant for me.
I know that voice.
The man at my side looks exactly as I remember him. A little older than Olin. Long, muscular arms. Severe jawline. Golden hair and beard that contrast sharply with his eyes, which are dark as flecks of coal.
I can still see his hands driving a knife through the caegar’s shoulder.
I can still see mine pressing against Olin’s nose and mouth.
“What are you doing?” Kallen demands in an undertone, his northern accent gruff.
My heart is beating wildly out of control.
Captor.
Butcher.
How many innocents in that wagon fell at his hands? Does he see their faces behind closed eyelids or feel the life gasping from their bodies, as I still can of the people I’ve killed?
There’s no way he could recognize me now, not disguised as I am. And yet—what if?
“Mute now, too, are you?”
The accusation snaps me back into character.
I take quick stock of his posture and tone, trying to assess whether he and I are friends. He’s angry, but he’s speaking quietly rather than making a scene of it, so I think maybe we are.
I don’t like to think about what that says of the boy I’m impersonating.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I reply in a low voice, matching my “friend’s” tone and accent as best I can. “I want to check on one of the shifters. He was acting kind of funny.”
“What do you mean, funny?”
I don’t comment on the way the blood rushes from his face, only shrug noncommittally.
“That isn’t your job,” he persists. “Let someone else handle it and get back in the t
ower before someone notices.”
I fix him with a pointed look. “It’s my job to keep watch, and that is what I’m doing. If you’re scared, you don’t have to come.”
The color returns to his cheeks. “Idiot, you can’t go alone. The commander would have your head.”
So much concern. Where was it when I was in the forest saving his life?
He snatches a key off the board. We really must be friends, then, if he’s willing to accompany me to keep me out of trouble.
“Thanks,” I mutter, and he rolls his eyes in a way that promises Olin will pay for this act of loyalty later. I turn to follow him out of the room—and freeze.
“Changed your mind, have you?” Kallen asks dryly.
I don’t reply. I don’t move.
On my first visit to this room, I heard the sound of darts hitting their mark and thought little of it. Now I see what I couldn’t as a mouse: the target mounted on the opposite wall. It’s a painting of a woman. A woman with olive skin, brown waves cascading down her back, Helos’s nose, my cheekbones—the same, narrow face shape as my own. Nearly the same face as my own, just a few years older. And eyes I’ll never forget, because they were the last part of her I saw before she ran.
It’s my mother.
It cannot be. But it is. Her resemblance to Helos and me is so striking, it’s irrefutable.
What in the world is she doing here?
“Traitorous bitch,” says Kallen, following my gaze.
I want to ask who she is to these people, why a wrinkled painting of her is mounted on the wall to be used as nothing more than target practice. I want to ask this man if he knew her. But I bite back the slew of questions on my tongue; I have no idea how long he and Olin have known each other, what they’ve talked about, or what’s common knowledge to everyone here. The wrong question could give me away.
I attempt to school my features into a mask of contempt and grumble a few words that hopefully pass for assent. My throat chokes on them.
A thought bobs to the surface then, so sudden and sharp it outshines all others in this moment: I have to get Helos out before somebody notices the resemblance. Whatever the reason she’s here, she is clearly reviled. No connection to her could be good.
Without a word, I brush past Olin’s friend and lead the way out of the room.
I feel like I am burning and drowning all at once. Fire singes my skin, incinerates my veins, a writhing mess of confusion and sorrow and rage and fear so overwhelming it’s difficult to walk, to breathe. Kallen catches up to me and reaches the key box first, which he swiftly unlocks. The rows of keys are arranged to match the cages outside, so it’s easy to find the one I need. I snatch it hastily so he can’t see how my hand is shaking.
Then we’re out the doors and into the late afternoon sunlight, blinding and branding and burning, burning, burning. My mother. My mother. I can’t make sense of it. I wasn’t prepared to have to face her ghost. Wasn’t—
“What are we looking for, exactly?” he asks roughly. By now, I realize anger is his mask for fear.
“He was pacing his cell,” I reply, inventing the answer as it falls from my mouth. The forest walker who was taken inside on my previous visit is still missing from her cage when we pass it. “He looked agitated. Like he was waiting for something.”
Helos comes into view, isolated at his end of the row save for Andie two cages away. He isn’t pacing. He’s sitting motionless in the corner.
My companion slows his gait. “He looks fine to me,” he says, which is absurd because my brother doesn’t look fine at all.
“Let’s just be sure,” I insist, and to my relief he follows, albeit reluctantly.
Helos lifts his head when we reach his door. His expression is defiant, haunted, but he makes no move to stand. He recognizes the man at my side, too.
Kallen appraises him critically. “Well, I don’t—”
The rest of his sentence is cut off as he crumples to the ground. My knuckles, which were already sore, now ache so painfully I have to clench my teeth. They’ll certainly bruise, but by the river, it was worth it.
Helos leaps to his feet, swaying a little on the spot as I unlock the barred gate, then the fenced one. “Who are you?” he demands.
“Rora,” I say, quietly so Andie won’t overhear. I have no wish to leave a trail. “It’s Rora.”
My brother blinks in astonishment. “What? How did you…?”
“There’s no time,” I rush on. “Let’s go. I took care of the guards in the watchtower, so the way should be clear enough. Weslyn is—”
A horrible, blaring horn rends the air, so loud I cover my ears involuntarily. There’s movement at the watchtower. I turn back to Helos, whose panicked expression mirrors my own.
“They found the guards,” I say. “We have to go now.”
“You can’t.”
I spin around so fast I almost knock Helos over in the process. The voice belonged to Andie. “What?”
She watches me mournfully from where she sits in a tattered, long-sleeved tunic and pants, silver-eyed, her streaked hair curled in ringlets. Her legs are crossed tight beneath her curvy body. What she makes of the fact that a soldier is helping a captive escape, or whether she’s guessed the truth, I have no idea. “He can’t leave. They’re all on high alert now, and I heard one say the king is eager to see him. This particular shifter.” She raises her eyebrows. The truth, then. “As soon as they find his cage empty, they’ll loose their dogs and scour the hills and the woods across the way. You wouldn’t make it a mile.”
“You really think they could find us in all that land?”
“Not them. The dogs.”
No. No, no, no. I didn’t make it this far to fail. There has to be a way. There must be. Focus! Maybe in my disguise, I can distract them while Helos runs. Maybe I can … Maybe …
Disguise. Distract.
Shift.
“Helos,” I say urgently. “You have to switch with me.”
“What?”
“Switch with me!” I repeat. “Do it! I’ll stay here and pretend to be you, so they don’t think to search the woods. You’ll have time to get ahead—grab Weslyn and make for the river. I can shift to mouse when things return to normal and crawl out of the cage, then fly to catch up. I can escape, but you can’t. Quickly, Helos!”
He sees the logic in it, or maybe exhaustion has weakened his ability to argue, because he’s already morphing into the borrowed form of Olin. Once he has the features right, I assume the face I know best in the world, and we switch clothing in a mad dash. He’s moving rather gingerly, but there’s no time to ask about it now.
“When you’re far enough away, stash the clothes and run for your life,” I instruct, pushing him outside the cage. “Carry the shoes if you can. I don’t know what they’ve done with yours.”
Now that he’s out and I’m inside, the reality of what he’s about to do seems to sink in. He plants his heels.
“Rora, I can’t let you do this,” he says. “I can’t—”
“Weslyn is in the woods, across the hills and to the left of the compound. Find him and keep moving toward the river, okay? The dogs can’t track us once we’re across.”
“Rora!”
I don’t give him another chance to object. Instead, I shove him backward, turn the key in both of the locks, and throw the key to his cage—my cage—as far into the trees at the base of the mountains as I can.
And I slam the gates shut.
TWENTY-THREE
As soon as Helos has gone, I throw myself down in the corner of the cage, rumpling his hair—my hair—into a state of disarray. I don’t have the bruises, and only half the grime, but there’s no help for that now. Hopefully my captors will assume that shifters are fast healers.
I try not to think of Helos’s stricken face and instead picture him far from here, escaping across the open land when no one is looking.
Several people are hurrying down the line of cages toward me.
/> I exchange a quick look with Andie, who has been staring openly, before turning back to the concrete beneath my feet. How long has she been a prisoner here? My gut tells me she won’t give me away, but better to secure her loyalty just in case. “I know your cousin Peridon,” I tell her in a low voice, risking one last glance out of the corner of my downturned eyes—shock is written plainly across her face, but fortunately she has had the sense to look away.
The uniforms have arrived; there must be half a dozen at least. One of them hastily checks Kallen’s pulse before calling back, “He’s still alive, Commander.” Gone are the easy grins, lounging limbs, and bawdy humor of the recreation room. The soldiers, or whatever they are before me, stand stiff at attention, mouths drawn tight, eyes trained on someone moving quickly to the front of the group.
Everything about him speaks of authority: the stripes and badges on his red-accented uniform, the way the others part to let him through, the manner in which he carries himself, the force with which his frigid gaze now knifes through mine.
“You are responsible for this?” he says, gesturing to the body in the grass. It’s a statement, not a question.
I frown in confusion and say nothing.
“What happened here?” he demands again. “Speak, or I’ll cut out your tongue and be done with it.”
I look again at the fallen man, who will likely revive at any moment. “He had some sort of fit. I don’t know more than that. I’m not a healer.”
A storm brews on the commander’s sun-darkened face. “Yet your own injuries have healed quite well.”
I don’t reply.
“He can’t have come alone. Who was with him?” he asks, turning to his reports.
There’s a brief moment of silence. Then one says, “It looked like Olin.”
“Olin,” the commander repeats, marching to shove his face a finger-length in front of the person who answered him. “Olin is currently lying naked and dead in the blood-forsaken tower!”
The soldier blanches slightly.
“So,” the commander continues, pacing back to my cage. “One Olin is in the tower. Another is seen walking the grounds.” The soldiers seem to hold their breath in the quiet that follows. “Who let another shifter infiltrate the camp?”
Forestborn Page 29
