The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Sefu’s breath was shallow and painful to listen to. One of the mares called out harshly; they were both still several yards away, crowding against each other with their ears pinned back, afraid. Afraid of the fire, and wondering why their stallion would not get up. Emma stroked the thick lock of hair that lay on his brow, and fought to keep breathing.

  If he was a shapechanger, I could save him, she said to Fern.

  You can’t save everyone. He turned haunted eyes to her. This isn’t your fault. It’s theirs.

  The serpent priests.

  There was a flash of light and suddenly Teremun was there beside Emma, gasping and shaking. Red crouched down next to the jackal guard, gripping the man’s shoulder to steady him. Teremun’s head was bald and his skin looked tight, but otherwise he seemed healed. Physically. He reached out to Sefu, face twisting with despair.

  “I am sorry my lady,” said Teremun with a voice still raspy from smoke inhalation.

  “Teremun, it’s okay,” Emma managed to say. “You nearly died trying to save him. You should change back, keep healing.”

  The jackal guard just shook his head grimly. “I will stay.” He wrapped his arms around himself. His teeth were chattering. Emma shrugged out of her awful purple cardigan and handed it to Red, who draped it around Teremun. The guard hissed but clutched the edges of the garment to hold it in place.

  “He saved the mares,” Teremun said. “They were already free when we got to the stables. The door was kicked down, but he must have circled behind to herd the mares out first. That was likely when the beam collapsed and trapped him. Then…this.”

  Emma swiped tears from the sides of her face and neck, clenching her teeth, unable to speak anymore. How the fuck am I supposed to do this?

  Fern slid over to her and curled up against her back, resting his head against the back of hers. His arms went around her waist. Locked together physically and psychically, there was still no comfort, just the consolation that at least she would never have to explain to him what she’d been through this day, because he was there.

  Sefu breathed out, and then there was pure silence.

  Emma stared at his huge, ash-streaked and bloodied body until her eyes went dry, waiting to see his side heave with another breath, but there was nothing. His large, dark eye was still, only the frigid wind ruffling the lashes.

  He was dead.

  Emma didn’t realize that her grief had opened the metaphysical link she shared with Kahotep, king of the jackals, until Teremun looked at her with tears streaking his face and said, “My king?” That was when she smelled the incense and felt more than just Fern’s arms around her.

  Sunlight and sorrow streamed into Emma’s mind; there were no words — telepathic communication via the pledge bond was extremely difficult over great distances — but there were shadowed images, if Emma closed her eyes. She did so, and saw the jackal queen’s huge green eyes, widened in horror and sympathy. Emma had to open her eyes again.

  Teremun had crept closer to her, and she held her hand out to him. He claimed almost her whole arm, wrapping it in his embrace and pressing his face into her palm, shuddering as contact with his king comforted him — and likely boosted his healing. She didn’t begrudge him that. She felt like she didn’t have the strength to do anything but breathe, wanted nothing more than to lie down in the mud and snow next to her horse and never get up again, but it wasn’t an option. Besides the fact that they were in too much danger, she didn’t want to leave Sefu’s body here, but she didn’t know what to with him either.

  From hundreds of thousands of miles away, across seas and deserts, Kahotep managed to send her one very simple thought.

  She straightened, looking over at Red Sun where he was still crouched and staring down between his feet. “I want to take him home, Red.”

  Red stood, nodding. “If the jackal king can send you a location that’s inside of their wards, I can read it off you and get him there,” he said, voice gentling as he looked down at Sefu. “I don’t want to leave you unprotected though, so it’ll have to wait until Seshua — uh. ” Red stepped backwards.

  Emma frowned. “Red?”

  Red shook his head. “Fern, get her away,” he said urgently.

  The serpent priests, Emma thought as her heart kicked into a gallop. Fern stood with his arms around her waist and dragged her back. He moved faster than she could so she didn’t resist — she looked around for the attack, as though she might see it coming — but Red wasn’t moving. Neither was Teremun.

  Emma followed their gazes.

  Fern, she said slowly. What am I seeing?

  Arms still firmly around her waist and chin resting on top of her head, Fern was rigid. Same thing I am. Sefu’s body is…melting?

  No. That wasn’t right. Sefu’s body was evaporating.

  White mist curled up from hooves that would never pound the earth again, and from his tail, and from his huge, beautiful but lifeless head; as more mist boiled off the body, it seemed to dissolve, disappearing so slowly the eye couldn’t track it. But it was disappearing. Sefu was disappearing.

  Emma made a noise of denial in her throat. This couldn’t be happening. “Is this some kind of serpent priest trick?” She glanced at Red; he shook his head mutely. Emma had to look away from him and back down at Sefu’s body, because there was so much less of it now and she’d only looked away for a second.

  This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair!

  The mark burst to life in Emma’s palm, responding to her desperation. Please, Fern! We can’t let them take him!

  Fern’s anguish burned into her. It’s not safe, Em, you don’t know what’s happening. Please don’t hurt me just for trying to keep you safe.

  Emma sobbed, once, and squeezed her eyes shut as she sagged in Fern’s arms. When she opened her eyes there was nothing of Sefu left; just a thick carpet of that white mist, boiling where Sefu had died. It started to disperse, the wind swirling it away, and Emma’s heart broke all over again. She turned and buried her face in Fern’s chest to keep herself from screaming.

  She felt Fern’s mind blanch with shock a moment before the approaching sound of four paws running over snow turned to two feet, and Seshua said, “Who the hell is that?”

  Emma turned back around. Fern’s arms went limp and he let her go, and she took a few steps forward, trying to get her brain to work.

  The mist was gone. Sefu was gone.

  There was a naked man sleeping where Sefu had died.

  Seshua threw up his hands. “I leave you people alone for a moment, and this is what happens.” The freezing magic of the jaguar king’s Call washed over Emma, lifting Seshua’s hair, and then washed away just as fast. If possible, Seshua looked even more irritated. “Is someone going to tell me how you turned Emmalina’s horse into a person, or must I wake him and ask him myself?”

  Emma took another couple of steps toward the sleeping man, whoever — whatever — he was. He lay sprawled on his side, a wealth of long, thick brown hair spread out in a tangle beneath him. His skin was the same cool, sandstone brown as Teremun’s, but his features were sharper, his nose strong and hooked and the rest of his face obscured by a dark, close beard. Broad shoulders and long legs. Large hands. He was generally well muscled, though his arms and shoulders were huge.

  “Do not get too close,” Seshua said. “ We do not know what magic this is.”

  Now that’s an understatement, Fern sent shakily. But he’s right. He moved up next to her, face and mind reflecting just as much confusion as she was feeling. Look.

  Their mystery man lay in the shallow indentation that Sefu’s large equine body had left in the muddy snow, and beside him lay the bloodied, broken off timber strut that had killed the stallion. If there had still been any doubt in Emma’s mind after that, though, it was obliterated when the man snorted, eyes still closed, and rolled limply onto his back.

  Below his left pectoral muscle, there was a shiny pink rectangular scar. From the timber strut that pierced
his side.

  He was also circumcised, not that the information had any relevance whatsoever, Emma admitted to herself. Except to embarrass the hell out of her as she looked back up to his face and found his eyes half open and focused on her. He blinked. His eyes were pale green, framed by thick dark lashes.

  Then he grunted and scrambled to his hands and knees, and suddenly Emma was surrounded by a wall of shapechangers. From behind Seshua’s arm she watched as the mystery man pedaled backwards, falling over his own arms, eyes wild. He made a shrill noise in the back of his throat, managed to get to his feet — swaying badly, fists opening and closing — and then he whipped around as though searching for something. He was tall, taller than Red Sun, nearly as tall as Seshua; his hair swung, wavy and long enough to cover his muscular and very naked backside.

  The panic went out of him when he saw the mares huddled together by the fenceline several yards away.

  Next to Emma, Teremun said, “Of course.”

  Before she could ask what he meant, the man turned in their direction, gaze finding Emma’s. He said something in a language Emma didn’t know. Whatever it was, it was involved. When he stopped, he laughed, and the cadence of it reminded Emma so much of Sefu, calling to her from the pasture in the evenings, that a chill raced up her spine.

  Teremun stepped away from Emma and said something in the same language, or something like it. The mystery man blinked, turning his head to the side to look at Teremun sideways with just one eye. The way a horse would. He seemed to notice he’d done it and looked at Teremun face-on once more.

  They exchanged a few more words in mystery man’s language, and then he nodded. “Yes,” he said, speech heavily accented. “I can. Though, to say that I am out of practice would be stating things mildly.” He shook his hair, then his whole body, like a dog might, and looked at Emma. “My lady, I am glad you are alive.” The courtly bow he performed was in no way hindered by his nudity. And Emma discovered the clichéd expression “piercing green eyes” had been coined for a reason.

  She shoved out from behind Seshua but kept her hand on the king’s arm. “Who are you?”

  His gaze roved over her face. “I am Shadi ibn Nasir ibn Hatim al-Hakim, once a prince of the magi and undeserving of the title, former master assassin and rightfully cursed, until now.”

  “Wow. Impressive.” Might’ve been more so if she knew what any of it meant.

  He inclined his head toward her. “To answer your true question, my lady, your senses do not deceive you. The name you have known me by is Sefu, blade of the desert and king of horses. Excuse me.” He turned, lifting his head to fix his gaze on the two mares standing to attention several yards away, their ears pricked forward. Then he took a deep breath and uttered a shrill, whinnying cry that Emma had heard Sefu make hundreds of times, and the mares broke away from the fenceline to dance over to the mystery man.

  When they got to him they snorted and pawed the ground, laying their ears flat and tossing their heads, but he made soothing noises and held out his hands to them.

  “Ah, dear ones.” He rubbed their velvety noses, a smile of pure joy lighting his face.

  In spite of having cried herself dry moments earlier, Emma’s eyes stung, even as her heart leaped with elation. “But how —”

  “Sweetheart,” Red cut in. “We all wanna know how, but we have run out of time if I’m gonna get everyone to safety. Storytime can happen later. Seshua, how many guards did you find?”

  The king growled. “Leah, Marco, Horne. The rest have fled, to minimize risk of their being taken hostage and compromising our safehouse locations. Marco and Horne are too injured to be moved, but Leah is well and guarding them.” He breathed out, shoving both hands through his mane of hair in frustration. “The Roadhouse will not be safe for much longer, and now I must decide what to do with this, too,” he added, gesturing at Sefu and the mares.

  “That is simple,” said Sefu — or Shadi. His voice went dark. “Once my mares are safe, I go where my lady goes, or you learn what I meant when I said I was once a prince of the magi.”

  Seshua’s growl turned feral, and Emma wished she could stop to fully appreciate just how ridiculous it was that both Seshua and Sefu were naked while they faced off. She pinched Seshua instead. “We don’t have time for this. He goes with me. Everyone’s going with me. Red, get the jaguar guards please.” Red chuckled and disappeared, reappearing a moment later with two jaguars — one red, one gold — in a pile at his feet and Leah staggering to regain her balance. She looked nauseated and determined not to hurl. Sefu didn’t look troubled to see Red popping in and out, but then, if he remembered anything from when he was in his other form, he already knew what Red was capable of. Another question that had to wait.

  “How many trips will you need to make to get us out of here,” she asked Red Sun.

  He shrugged. “We’ll find out.”

  “Okay.” Emma reached for Teremun’s hand, and he took hers, frowning a question. “My link to Kahotep is stronger when I’m touching you.” He nodded, looking exhausted and ill, but a lot of it was probably just that his eyebrows hadn’t grown back yet.

  Seshua put his hand on the small of her back, radiating intense heat. “This is ambitious.”

  She tilted her head back to look up at him in wonder. “But you’re not telling me to stop. Seshua, I’m proud of you, you’ve come so far. Now give me some room, your aura’s interfering with my stuff.”

  He stepped back, raising both eyebrows. “Your stuff?”

  “Yeah.” She waved a hand in the air, indicating herself, with extra emphasis on her head. “My stuff. Psychic stuff. Now be quiet.” She closed her eyes, calling up the memory of sunlight and dry heat.

  Kahotep’s scent rolled over her, incense and desert sand. She squeezed Teremun’s hand and gathered her mental strength. I need sanctuary, she projected as hard as she could. A location within your wards. Give me the image, and we can get there.

  Kahotep sent the image without hesitation. Emma held onto it. Fern, merged with her, said to Red Sun, “She has the location.” Then Red’s mind was in hers, locking onto the link between her and Kahotep.

  “Got it,” he said. Emma opened her eyes and looked at him.

  Then the world disappeared.

  13

  For thousands of years the shapechanging races of Egypt had lived hidden from human populations by magic. Most people didn’t realize that in spite of the rise of globalization, there were still huge swathes of land, thousands of miles of it across the African continent that remained uncharted. It was simply too inhospitable, and too big, for humans to cross. Satellite images and air surveys could only provide so much information. Isolation was the shapechanger’s first defense, but magic was their best.

  Just because the land was inhospitable to cross didn’t mean it couldn’t sustain pockets of abundant life. Pharaoh Kahotep’s royal sanctuary was built around a massive oasis, with another less than twenty miles beyond the high walls of sandstone that ringed the small city Kahotep called home. It was not the grand palace of his ancestors; those ruins had been defiled by his uncle Khai Kaldun and the cruel, dark magic he’d practiced there, and Kahotep left it behind when he became Pharaoh.

  All of which Emma had already known, from her trip to the Jackal Kingdom and from the emails she received from Kahotep’s assistants when they traveled to the nearest human city with net coverage. The Jackals were one of the old kingdoms, and their preferred method of survival — isolation from humanity — excluded certain luxuries like email and online shopping. Emma got the feeling that would begin to change under Kahotep’s rule, which was excellent, because if he and Nathifa were having a baby she so wanted regular updates.

  She’d never seen the new jackal kingdom though. So when she materialized inside the sanctuary walls with the others, head spinning, she tried to look at everything all at once and promptly fell on her ass. Teremun made a pained sound beneath her. Okay — not exactly on her ass. Then Seshua stagge
red back and tripped over her. Probably because he was still reeling from Traveling, his reflexes failed and he landed flat on his back.

  Yes, Emma observed, he was still very naked.

  She felt Fern’s amusement like champagne bubbles in her mind, and looked up to find him standing over her. He held out a hand; she took it and hooked the other arm around Teremun’s bicep and let Fern haul them both up in time to avoid being trampled by one of the mares cantering past with her tail high in the air and an indignant tilt to her fine head. Shadi strode after her, clucking his tongue and calling to her while the other mare plodded after him.

  He glanced down at Seshua as he went after the mare. “Your Majesty.” He tipped his chin in a nod, and his smirk was epic.

  Seshua swore. “Horses,” he said darkly. “Infernal beasts.” He came to his feet in a lithe, predatory motion that could never erase the fact that Emma had just watched him pratfall right next to her. He shook his hair back from his face and looked around.

  There was a lot to look at.

  It was dusk; there was still a hint of gold in the lavender sky beyond the sanctuary walls to the west. The walls were high, but their purpose was a magical boundary, not a physical one. The oasis the sanctuary was built around had created a shallow valley out of the desert around it, and as Red had rematerialized them near the wall, the view was of rooftops and thick date palms swaying in the evening breeze.

  The sanctuary was like a small city, home to perhaps a few thousand shapechangers, all of varying rank and station but all welcome under Kahotep’s rule. Lights were coming on in the windows of the pale one and two-story stone dwellings that stretched away for a mile or so in each direction, but they weren’t electric. In the distance, the taller structure of what must have been the jackal king’s modest palace rose above the other rooftops. Closer, there were small, well managed pastures where sheep and goats clipped grass, uninterested in the newcomers.

  It was beautiful, but Emma was more concerned with her own people. “Are we all here?”