by Jasmine Walt
We entered the small upstairs room, which was barely big enough to hold the cot and dresser in it. Xiver didn’t bother with a light – the window in his room was one of the few in this town that was still intact, and moonlight washed over the space. He tossed me unceremoniously onto the hard bed, and I considered kneeing him in the balls. But I didn’t need his roommate running up here to see what all the crying was about.
“Strip,” he ordered, his fingers moving to his belt.
I sat up and pretended to fumble with the buttons on my shirt. “I think I need some help,” I said with a shy smile. “It’s hard to see in the dark.” I spread my legs apart, inviting him to step between them and giving him a hint of what he thought was coming.
His dark eyes gleamed with hunger, and he stepped between my legs without hesitation. As soon as he was close, I clamped my thighs around his hips, then drew him into my embrace and whispered the same Word I’d used on the soldier guarding the mineshaft. Xiver’s body stiffened as the magic washed over him, and then every single muscle in his body relaxed as he slipped into a deep sleep.
“We’ve got him,” I told Fenris as Xiver’s forehead knocked against my shoulder and a loud snore erupted from him. “Now come help me get him out of here before I change my mind and kill him after all.”
With our bags packed and a heavy, unconscious Xiver slung over our shoulders, Annia, Fenris, and I snuck out of the camp, heading back into the forest. Fenris and Annia carried him while I forged ahead, making liberal use of the sleeping spell Fenris had taught me on the few guards who were on night watch. I’d knocked out Xiver’s roommate the same way – since we weren’t planning on coming back until after we’d rescued Iannis, there was no longer any point in trying to hide my magic.
We trekked several miles into the forest before we decided we were far enough away that we could interrogate Xiver without interruption. My nose detected no scouting parties in the area, so we tied Xiver to a tree, and I delivered a good, hard slap across his face to wake him up. After the way he’d manhandled me, it felt good.
“Oww!” Xiver’s eyes popped open, and he jerked, likely wanting to clap his hand across his stinging cheek. When he realized his arms weren’t moving, he looked down at himself, and his eyes bulged as he realized he was strapped to a tree. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Aww, does little Xiver not like being tied up?” I crooned. “I bet the delegates down in that mineshaft feel the same way.”
His eyes narrowed. “So Captain Milios was right! You three are traitors.”
“You’re the traitor,” Fenris growled, taking a step forward. “You and the band of renegades you run around with, terrorizing good, innocent people in the name of justice.”
“Those filthy mages we’ve got down in the mines aren’t good or innocent,” Xiver sneered. “They’re part of the institution that oppresses us. What the fuck did they bribe you three with to get you on their side? You’re all shifters and humans, the same as us. You should be helping us, not them.”
“Thanks for the speech, but we’re not interested,” Annia interjected. “We brought you out here because you seem to be the only one who knows what happened to the Chief Mage, and I intend to drag his ass back to Solantha so I can cash in on the big pile of gold the government’s put up as a reward. Now would be a good time to tell us what you know, before we disfigure something of yours.” She pulled a knife from the sheath at her side and tested the point with her thumb.
“Like I’d help a gold-digging whore like you.” Xiver spat at her feet, narrowly missing Annia’s boots.
I cracked my palm across Xiver’s face again, and his head snapped to the side. “You might want to use better manners on my friend. She’s pretty good with that knife.”
“I’m not scared of a little pain,” Xiver snarled. The fear gleaming in his eyes told a different story, but I had to admire him a little for his refusal to give in. “You bitches probably don’t even know how to use a blade outside the kitchen anyway.”
The knife in Annia’s hand landed with a thunk to the right of Xiver’s head, slicing off a lock of his inky hair as it buried itself into the tree trunk. Xiver’s face paled, and I snickered.
“I’ve got more of these,” Annia warned, pulling another knife from her boot. As she straightened, the blade gleaming in her right hand, she pretended to yawn. “It’s kinda late though, and I’m getting pretty tired, so my aim might not be the best—”
“Like chopping off my dick with that knife of yours is going to help you?” Xiver sneered. “You’re not collecting that bounty no matter what you do, so go ahead and waste your time carving me up like a turkey.”
Annia paused, and Fenris’s face turned icy. “What do you mean by that, exactly?” I asked cautiously.
“I mean that your precious Chief Mage is dead!” Xiver laughed as he curled his lip at us. “I killed him myself, so you might as well tuck your tails between your legs and run on home!”
“How do you know he’s dead?” I asked, resisting the urge to check the serapha charms resting against my chest. I’d last checked them only an hour ago, and Iannis had still been alive and well.
“Because I threw the bastard out the door, that’s how!” Xiver boasted. “The plan was to put everyone to sleep with a special gas, but your precious Chief Mage wouldn’t stay down, and he tried to kill me. So I lost my temper and threw him out the door, and then I landed the dirigible north of our camp, safe and sound. Things might not have gone exactly as planned, but I did my fucking job. Not many humans can say they faced down a Chief Mage and lived to tell the tale.” His chest puffed up with pride.
“You lie!” Fenris cried, lunging forward. He wrapped his fingers around the straps of Xiver’s tank top, pulling him close so that they were nose to nose. “There’s no way you would be able to get rid of the Chief Mage so easily!”
“It was pretty damn easy if you ask me.” Xiver smiled slyly. “The bastard was half paralyzed from all that gas, so he missed with whatever stupid spell he tried to cast on me. He was weak as a kitten when I grabbed his robe and shoved him out the door, so no way he survived the five-thousand-foot drop. He’s burning in the afterlife right now for all his crimes against humanity.”
Fenris let go of Xiver, his head bowed as he stepped back, and for a moment I thought he was done. But then he lifted his head, eyes gleaming with fury as he pinned Xiver with the coldest, deadliest glare I’d ever seen.
“Your crimes are inexcusable,” he whispered, raising his hands. My eyes widened as power crackled from his fingertips, the blue-green glow I associated with magic. “On behalf of the Federation, I sentence you to death.”
Bolts of lightning erupted from Fenris’s hands, hitting Xiver straight in the chest. Annia and I both clapped our hands over our ears, a second before a deafening crack ripped through the air. The soldier’s mouth opened in a scream as the lightning tore through him, and I squeezed my eyes against the flash of purple and yellow that momentarily lit up the clearing. Spots danced beneath my closed eyelids, and I waited until the sizzle in the air subsided before opening my eyes.
What had been a healthy human male only a minute ago was now reduced to human-shaped chunk of blackened flesh. The stench of charred flesh coated my nostrils, but I was less stunned by Xiver’s death than by the manner of how it had happened. Ripping my eyes away from Xiver’s corpse, I stared at Fenris, whose chest heaved with exertion even as he continued to glare at the remnants of the human who’d inspired his wrath.
“Oh, that is it!” Annia stomped her foot, looking pissed as hell. She marched right up to Fenris and dug her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him around to face her. “I knew you’ve been hiding something since day one, and I can’t take it anymore. You’re going to spill the beans about what you really are, and you’re going to do it right now.”
“Let go of me,” Fenris snarled, ripping her hand away, but I stepped forward and placed my own hand on Fenris’s shoulder,
digging my fingers a little more firmly into his muscles than was perhaps necessary.
“Fuck that,” I snapped, my anger rising quickly to match Annia’s. “You don’t get to hide behind your excuses anymore, Fenris, not after that crazy fireworks show you put on for us. How the fuck did you do that?” I jabbed my finger in the direction of Xiver’s corpse.
“He’s got to be a hybrid,” Annia declared, her eyes narrowed as she studied Fenris. “No wonder the Chief Mage took you in, Naya. Apparently you’re not his first pet project.”
“I am not Iannis’s pet,” Fenris growled. “Nor am I a project, as you so callously put it.”
“But you’re a hybrid, aren’t you?” I pushed, noticing that he hadn’t denied it. “I understand why you might want to hide that from everyone else, but why would you hide it from me?” I asked, hurt creeping into my voice. “I thought we were closer than this.” I let the illusion spells drop from us, and Fenris’s thick, dark hair and beard rematerialized along with his regular features. “Aren’t there few of us as it is? Shouldn’t we be sticking together instead of hiding our nature from each other?”
Fenris sighed, running a hand across his beard. “It isn’t that simple, Sunaya. I’m not sure that the term ‘hybrid’ properly defines what I am.”
“Well then tell us what does,” Annia said, tapping her foot impatiently. “We’ve got time, and nobody but us is around to hear your secret.”
Fenris pressed his lips together as he scanned the tree line, and I knew he was using his senses to try and determine if anyone was nearby. “This is extremely sensitive information,” he said quietly. “If I share this with you, you must promise to tell no one. My life depends on it, and more importantly, Iannis’s as well.”
“Of course,” I said, my anger dissipating as eager curiosity resurfaced. Excitement lit inside my chest at the idea that I might finally be able to unravel the mystery that was Fenris. “We won’t tell a soul, right Annia?”
“I swear by the Ur-God,” she said promptly. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Very well.” Fenris stared up at the starry sky peeking through the tree branches, and I wondered if he was just gathering his thoughts or looking for guidance. “The truth is that I was not born as a shifter at all. I was born a mage, to a wealthy Federation family in Nebara.”
“That’s impossible.” I gaped at him, dumbstruck. Nebara was two states north of Mexia, located almost directly in the center of the Federation. “Mages don’t become shifters. Why the fuck would you do something like that?”
“In order to escape a death sentence.”
Annia frowned. “But you said you were from a wealthy mage family. What could you have possibly done to earn a death sentence that they couldn’t have saved you from?”
Fenris snorted. “Money and status doesn’t protect you from everything, Annia. And besides, I wasn’t just a mage from a wealthy family. I was the Chief Mage of Nebara.”
“No fucking way.” Annia’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull. “You mean Polar ar’Tollis? The one who was sentenced to death by the Minister’s Office for helping prisoners escape?”
“I believe that’s what I just told you,” Fenris said dryly.
“By Magorah.” I sat down in the dirt, overwhelmed with what I’d just heard. Everybody knew about Polar. He’d helped a human family whose child had tested positively for magic escape across the northern border to avoid execution, and the Federation had decided to make an example of him by executing him in the child’s place. “I can’t believe it. No one was ever sure if you’d escaped, or if the Federation had decided to kill you quietly.”
Fenris huffed. “The Federation wanted to make my death a public spectacle to discourage other mages from following in my footsteps. They would have succeeded had Iannis not intervened.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” I leaned my head back against the tree trunk and pressed my palm against my forehead. “Are you telling me that Iannis turned you into a shifter?”
“Keep your voice down!” Fenris hissed, glaring at me. “If anyone overhears that and word gets back to the Federation, they’ll have us both executed.”
“You’ll have to excuse us if we’re a little shocked,” Annia said, shaking her head. She sat down on a small rock in the middle of the clearing and stared at Fenris with something akin to awe. “It’s not every day that we meet a shifter who used to be a Chief Mage.”
“I didn’t even know there were any mages around that still knew how to pull that off,” I muttered. The practice of creating shifters had been banned nearly a thousand years ago, a long time ago even by mage standards.
“The act may have been banned, but the spells still exist, and are even practiced in secret in certain countries that choose to flaunt the Great Accord.” Fenris sniffed at that. “Using an old and dangerous spell, Iannis and I managed to fake my death, and he transformed me in secret. I was in hiding for over a year before I came to live with him at Solantha Palace. You’ll understand why I keep well away from naturally born shifters.”
“Wow. That’s incredible.” My heart swelled with emotion at the thought that Iannis would do something so utterly selfless. I wished he were here so that I could throw my arms around him and hug him for it. The more I learned about him, the more I realized just how different he was from the stereotypical mage. “I guess you two must have been good friends.”
“Yes…you learn who your true friends are when you’re desperate. We met years ago in Manuc when I was traveling overseas, and kept up a correspondence. I backed him when the Federation was voting on his appointment as Canalo’s next Chief Mage. When he heard I was in trouble, he didn’t hesitate.” Fenris’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose that’s part of the reason why I lost my temper. Iannis saved me, and now that it’s my turn to save him, I’m failing.”
“We’re not failing,” I said firmly, taking his hand in mine and squeezing it. “We’re hitting a few roadblocks, that’s for sure, but we’re not defeated and we’re not going to be. As long as this thing is still glowing, we’re going to keep searching.” I pulled out the serapha charm that was tied to Iannis’s soul, and light burst from it once more.
“You still haven’t explained how it is that you can do magic,” Annia said, frowning a little. “If the Chief Mage turned you into a shifter, shouldn’t that mean you can’t do magic anymore?”
“In theory you would be right,” Fenris said, his lips quirking into a smile. “But shifters naturally have some magic at their disposal in order to shift, and Iannis tried to preserve as much of my power as possible during the transformation. I do not have the magical strength that I once did, and my skills are not what they used to be, but I still retain my knowledge and can do some spellwork.” He closed his eyes as he wiped a hand over his face. “It is exhausting though, especially large bursts of magic such as frying someone with a lightning bolt.”
“Here, let’s eat.” I pulled Fenris and Annia away from the stench of the charred body, then pulled out some dried meat for Fenris out of my backpack. We’d smuggled food from the pantry into our packs, stretching our supplies out a little longer. “We should replenish our strength as much as we can before we head out.”
“To where, though?” Fenris demanded. “We’ve no clue where Iannis ended up.”
“No, but Xiver did give us a good idea of where he parked that dirigible. Maybe we can find some clues there.”
“Yeah, and didn’t the captain say their mage went to destroy the dirigible?” Annia added. “If we can intercept him, maybe we can keep him from getting back to the camp so we can rescue the delegates without his interference.”
“I would love to get my hands on that traitor,” Fenris said, a hungry gleam in his eyes as he chewed his jerky. “Between the three of us there is a good chance we’d be able to subdue him.”
“Alright.” I patted Fenris on the back, then popped another piece of jerky into my mouth. And as we prepared to leave, I wondered ju
st how much excitement I could look forward to now that Fenris was finally letting his bloodthirsty side show.
15
After our short rest, we headed back north into the mountain range in the direction we thought the dirigible might have ended up in. Unfortunately, Xiver hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he’d hidden it well, and we searched for several hours without any sight of it. Between hiking up into the forest with Xiver, then back out again and up into the range, we were exhausted, so halfway through the night we collapsed in a cave and slept for a few hours. I had to admit I missed the cots we’d slept on at the Resistance camp, but I was so tired from all the magical and physical exertion that I couldn’t bring myself to care overmuch.
The sound of unknown voices woke me, and I bolted upright to see that two Coazi males were standing at the entrance to our cave. Their forms were backlit by the morning sun rays streaming in, and I jumped to my feet, squinting against the light. Fenris and Annia, who’d been woken by my motion, quickly followed suit, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Annia nock an arrow and aim it at the intruders.
“Hold up,” I said, raising my hands to indicate to the Coazi that I meant no harm. The spears in their hands were pointed downward, and I didn’t think they intended to attack us, though they stiffened at Annia’s aggressive stance. “They’re not pointing any weapons at us, Annia, so I think we should do the same.” I waited until she lowered her bow, then turned my attention back to the Coazi. “Good morning.”
“Are you seeking Flying Man?” the one on the left asked as the two stepped a little further into the cave and out of the blinding light. Now that they were a little closer, I could see that though they wore the same buckskin tunics as the other tribe we’d encountered, the beads decorating their clothing were arranged in triangular patterns rather than the swirls the other tribe favored.
