“Well, then I especially have to pay you back before you die.” Wix took my hands in hers. “It’s terrible luck not to repay a life debt.”
I sighed. “That was my strongest concern about dying: the run of luck you would have if you didn’t pay me back first.”
“Oh, Reshi.” Wix shook her head. She held her hands out to me. One moment they were empty, the next they held a long, black cloak. “It’s nothing too special, really. I’ve never been good with crafted items. But I think you’ll really like it.”
The cloak felt lighter than it looked. It was a perfect fit, though it was long enough to sweep the ground behind me. I tried to smile, but it was weak. “Thanks, Wix.”
She held up a finger. “You know any gift from a fairy has magical qualities, right? Any guess what it does?”
“If it’s all right with you, Wix, I’m not in the mood for guessing games.”
“Hmph.” Wix crossed her arms. “I guess I’ll let it go this time. I made it for your transformations. As long as you’re wearing the cloak, whenever you shapeshift your clothing will become part of your shadow. When you shift back, you’ll still be fully clothed.”
“Wow.” I ran my fingers along the edges of the cloak. “That’s really impressive magic. Thank you.”
“The one thing it can’t conceal is iron, of course. You’ll lose your weapons during a shift.” Wix now held a carved wooden box. “So you’ll need these.”
I set one hand on the box, then hesitated. I met Wix’s eyes and asked: “Is this covered under the life debt?”
Wix shifted uncomfortably. “The cloak wasn’t enough by itself, so I had to add something. You’ll owe me a small price, but I promise you won’t miss it.”
I grimaced but curiosity got the better of me. The box opened to reveal the most beautiful daggers I had ever seen. Twin silver blades, delicately etched with fae runes, wickedly curved with points and curls, but small enough for easy concealment. I plucked one from the box to examine it. The hilt appeared to be made of a matte black metal and it fit my hand perfectly.
“What metal is this?” For a moment I forgot why I was in the middle of the woods at night. These blades could make murder an art. “Fairies can’t work iron.”
“It’s black gold. That’s why it’s warm to the touch.” Wix lifted the box, urging me to take the second dagger and the leather sheaths below them. “These are a fae treasure. I can’t tell you their secrets, so you’ll have to learn them as you use them. The cloak will hide them for you during transformations, though.”
I had been about to slip the daggers into my waistband, then stopped. “I shouldn’t take these. Once he kills me, he’ll take them.”
“They are only a gift to you, Reshi. When you die, they will return to me.” Wix smiled; her hands were suddenly empty of the large box. “I’m not entirely sure he means to kill you anyway. Why else would you be out here all alone?”
She made a good point. I had been out here for hours. For all Kestral knew, I could have run away.
“And now.” Wix stepped in close, driving me back half a step. “I need a price from you, Reshi.”
“I don’t—”
“Ssh, it’s a small one.” Wix wrapped her arms around my shoulders and tipped her face up to mine. She leaned in, rising on her toes. Or was she floating? I couldn’t tell from the angle.
Was she about to kiss me? I held my hands stiffly out to my sides, unsure whether I could touch her or not. The last thing I wanted was to incur any more debt. Do fairies even kiss? I couldn’t recall any lore about fairy kisses, but then, it was more than a little distracting having a half-clad female pressed against me.
Her lips brushed mine, petal soft. With great hesitance, I leaned down to meet her, then gasped as sharp, tiny fangs ripped at my lower lip. I shoved Wix away and stumbled back several steps, holding my hand to my mouth. Wix stepped back, her eyes glinting a feral red, matching the streaks of blood on her mouth. Light flickered around the clearing, seeming to emanate from her back.
“Mmm, king’s blood.” Wix wiped her mouth and licked her fingers. “I wish you had told me sooner, Reshi. The deals I could have made with you.” She shook her head slowly, her eyes bleeding back to green.
“What did you do?” I asked, checking the bite with my tongue. She hadn’t done too much damage, but it had been more than a little startling.
“I just took a taste, nothing more.” Wix made a gesture with her hand, starlight tracing the motion. Supposedly that was a symbol of sincerity among fairies. “Be careful who you share your blood with, Reshi. King’s blood mixed with mage blood is very valuable.”
“I wouldn’t have shared it with you, if you’d told me the price first!”
Wix shrugged, unapologetic. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Don’t worry, I can’t do anything with these little droplets. But if you’re ever willing to make a deal . . .”
“Right. I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied dryly.
Wix nodded, taking me at my word. “Good luck, Reshi. I hope not to see those daggers for a long, long while.”
“We’ll see.” I still felt a little bitter about being bitten but I tried a wry smile for her. “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you, Wix.”
She smiled and nodded once before winking out of existence. The fairy lights that had lit the clearing winked out, leaving me in total darkness. I considered shifting to my cat form for the night vision, then decided against it. I didn’t want Kestral to think I was trying to run. I glanced down at Cera’s grave one last time, bidding her a farewell before picking up the lantern and turning towards the cottage.
Time to face the fates.
Light flickered through the windows of the cottage. Why not just run? With Wix’s cloak, I could transform into a crow and fly for maybe an hour before exhausting myself. No, running wasn’t my best option. Neither was walking right up to the headsman, but I really didn’t have a lot of good options.
Shan snorted at me as I passed him to push open the cottage door. He pinned his ears and stamped his hooves, but he didn’t lunge at me. Maybe Kestral had promised to feed me to him afterwards.
Kestral looked up from a plate of food as I entered the cottage. I felt a brief surge of annoyance that he had raided Cera’s supplies, but then, it wasn’t as if she could use them anymore. The blue eyes failed to pin me. I felt nothing but exhaustion as I leaned back against the cottage door.
Kestral’s eyebrows knotted together, giving his eyes a shadowed look. Was that confusion on his face? Had he really expected me to run? Or did he think I’d come back to attack him? I kept my hands still and in plain sight, just in case.
“You came back,” Kestral said finally, setting his plate of food aside and standing up. He loosened his sword from its sheath. My heart tried to climb up my throat to escape but I swallowed it back down.
“Wasn’t that the deal?” I asked, voice soft. I felt that if I raised it, he would hear the fear in it. I spread my arms to the sides. “Go ahead and kill me.”
Kestral hesitated, hand on his hilt. He drew, showing several inches of steel, then slammed the sword back into its sheath. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall opposite me. “I want to ask you about some things.”
I tried a casual shrug but I’m sure it looked jerky. “If it’s about my other siblings, I don’t really know anything.”
“No.” His voice was like leather-wrapped steel. “You were the cat.”
I nodded.
“Why did you sneak into my room at the inn?”
I bit my lip, wincing as I tasted blood. “I need to draw life force to replenish my magic. It only works on sleeping people.”
“Why me?”
I shrugged. “I worked it out with Wix. I only drew from travelers, no one living in the village. It doesn’t hurt or cause any permanent damage or anything, but I was afraid someone would make the connection to me and . . .”
“Your bounty.”
I
nodded.
“Have you ever hurt anyone with your magic?”
I considered not answering the question. I mean, the worst he could do was kill me, right? “Not unless they were trying to hurt me first.”
Kestral stared at me for a long time. It felt like hours, though it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two. I locked my knees to keep them from trembling, but they were bound to give way any minute. Despite that, I kept my eyes on his. I didn’t have the strength to run, nor did I have anywhere to go. A quick death now saved me from the borrowed time of a cat-and-mouse hunt.
“What are you going to do now?” Kestral asked.
A nervous laugh bubbled up from my chest. “I don’t think that’s up to me.”
Kestral looked away, his eyes chasing thoughts I couldn’t read. “If it were up to you, what would you do now?”
A dozen witty answers came to mind first, followed strongly by the urge to beg for my life. But before I could speak, I felt an icy hand grip my heart. There was really only one thing I wanted. If I could have that, I could die satisfied.
“Revenge.” The ugly word fell from my lips like a drop of blood. “I want him to pay for killing Cera.”
Another long stare, then, slowly, Kestral nodded. “I can help you with that.”
“You would help me kill my brother?” My eyes narrowed. “For his bounty?”
Kestral nodded.
“Then what? Would you kill me for mine?”
Kestral shrugged. “I’d give you a head start.”
Another nervous chuckle worked its way up my throat. “Why should I trust you? You’ve already tried to kill me once.”
His face became shadowed, but only for an instant. What was that? Anger? Regret? Fear? “I saw your fight. You can’t beat him on your own. Having you will give me an advantage, so there’s no reason for me to harm you before. After . . .” He shrugged again. “If you run, I will kill you.”
A shiver raced along my spine, making my knees quiver before I could lock them again. “So then, what are we? Allies? Am I your pet mage now?”
Kestral grunted. “You need someone to draw upon, don’t you? I’ll let you draw from me. Get too greedy and I will turn you into a cat-skinned belt pouch.” He kicked off from the wall and jerked his chin at the plate of food. “Eat if you’re hungry. We’ll travel early tomorrow morning.”
As he walked into the kitchen, my knees gave out. I slid down the door, sinking bonelessly to the floor. It was all I could do to simply breathe. I had seen death in his eyes as sure as anything, yet somehow my heart was still pounding. My insides were in knots, fear and grief keeping them tangled and unsettled. I knew sleep would help, but I wasn’t sure I could, not after all of this.
Kestral stepped back into the room carrying two mugs, faintly steaming. He said nothing but held a mug down to me. Warm milk. He crossed back to the far wall and tipped his own mug back. I clutched mine to my chest; the warmth felt good.
“It will help,” Kestral said, lifting his mug. “With sleep and with grief.”
Maybe he poisoned it, I thought idly, taking a sip. No, I was sure if he were going to kill me, he would be upfront about it. He seemed like that kind of guy.
The warmth from the milk did help settle my stomach. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was from the battle with Velyn to digging Cera’s grave, from grief to facing my own mortality. I was only halfway through the mug before my head drooped, mug slipping from my fingers.
Kestral was there to catch it. I blinked up at him, searching for the fear but mostly only feeling numb.
“Shift,” he said, prodding me gently with a booted foot.
“Hm?”
“Change into a cat.”
“Why?”
“So, you can replenish your magic.” He tilted his head towards my pallet, then went to the kitchen to clean our mugs.
Did he know I didn’t have to be a cat to draw from him? I could do it just as easily as a human. Arguing the point would have taken more energy than simply shifting, and besides that, it was a fairly small pallet. By the time Kestral returned to the room, I was curled up on it with one paw over my face. I thought I felt a hand scratch my ears before I dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 3
I woke up in an empty pallet, dim morning light glowing through the cottage windows. I was allowed one delicious stretch before all of yesterday’s traumatic events came flooding back to me: Velyn’s betrayal, Cera’s death, Kestral’s . . . companionship? Alliance? What was this exactly? I had a vague memory of waking up enough to draw some energy from him, but after that I had slept like the dead.
My nose lifted to the air of its own accord. The scent of cooked eggs and freshly toasted bread danced in the morning light like dust motes. Had I really managed to sleep through Kestral cooking breakfast? My body shifted without me telling it to as I staggered into the kitchen, finding warm food on the stove. Cera’s icebox still had half a bottle of cool milk in it, so I helped myself to that as well. Standing in her kitchen and eating her food gave me a pang in my chest, but beneath my grief was my sense of self-preservation that told me food should never be wasted.
After breakfast, I ducked out the back door and circled the cottage. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on Kestral, I just wanted to see him before he saw me. It was still a lot to accept. Less than a week ago, he had nearly killed me. Now he was offering to help me avenge my sister. It made me feel just a bit skittish.
Kestral sat just outside the cottage, tying bags closed in preparation for the road. He wasn’t wearing his travel leathers yet, only a long pair of pants and a barely laced shirt. His skin held a faint flush, as if he had just finished exercising. While Kestral prepared for the ride, Shan had been turned loose from his ground tie and grazed at the forest’s edge.
I sidled around the side of the cottage, shuffling my boots in the dirt to draw attention to myself. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally sneak up on him and earn a crossbow bolt for my efforts. Kestral glanced up, noted me, then went back to adjusting the ties on his satchel.
“Thanks for breakfast,” I said, leaning back against the outer wall of the cottage. “And for letting me draw from you, I guess.”
Kestral nodded.
“Oh, and uh, I think it slipped my mind yesterday, but thanks for saving me from my brother.” I ran a hand through my hair, tugging my tie out to fix it. “And, you know, especially for . . . not killing me.”
Kestral nodded again, still not speaking.
“So, was there not any wake-tea or are you just not a morning person?”
Kestral shot me a quick glare. “We don’t know where our enemy is. Talking gives away our position.”
“Enemy? Velyn?” My eyes were drawn eastward, roughly the direction Velyn had sailed yesterday. “He’s not close. He still needs to recover from yesterday’s fight.”
Kestral stilled. “How do you know that?”
I blinked. “I don’t. Not really, anyway. But I’m sure he’s not close by.”
Kestral narrowed his eyes at me skeptically. I shrugged and finished pulling my hair back into a tail.
“I don’t have enough supplies for both of us, so we’ll have to stop at the nearest village.” Kestral stood, checking the weapons on his belt out of reflex. “Until we know if Velyn has updated your bounty information, you’ll have to stay in an animal form. Preferably something small.”
“Ugh, that’s so boring.” I thunked my head back against the cottage’s side. “No one knows me out here, and even if he did update it, it’ll take months for the new information to show up in all these little backwater villages.”
“Regardless, you’ll have to travel in animal form. Shan is not carrying both of us and I’m not walking.” Kestral glared at me. “I recall seeing a bird form.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “But when we get to the village, I’ll have to be human.”
“Why.” It wasn’t a question.
“Because . . .
” Because it was boring when I couldn’t speak to other humans. Because it would already be a boring day, sticking to crow form while traveling. “Because I have to eat enough for my human shape and none of my animal forms can eat that much.”
“I’ll get a room at an inn and bring food up,” Kestral replied. He put his fingers to his lips and gave a low whistle. Shan lifted his head from grazing, ears perked forward, then trotted towards us. “I saw your fight with Velyn yesterday. What was the small form you took? A frog?”
“Frog?” My feline sensitivities took offense at his guess. Had I a tail, it would be lashing in outrage. “Why would you say frog?”
Kestral shrugged before tossing the saddle over Shan’s back. “It was small and fast. Most shape-shifters have limited forms, usually tied to one animal family. I guessed that yours all have to do with the animals mages use for their magic.”
He really knew his stuff to have guessed all of that. “Well, mages don’t use frogs. At least, not as familiars. Maybe as ingredients. Or to turn vexing humans into.”
Kestral met my gaze evenly. A challenge.
I huffed and looked away.
“Then what was it?” Kestral persisted.
“A rat.” I dug the toe of my boot into the dirt. I hated giving up any secrets of my magic, especially to someone who had tried to kill me.
“A rat,” Kestral repeated, cinching the girth on his horse. “A cat, a crow and a snake. Any others?”
“Just one.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll show you.” I kicked away from the cottage wall. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to show Kestral my final form, as it was that I wanted to test out Wix’s cloak. It had worked this morning, but I hadn’t been awake enough to appreciate it. In fact, I was pretty sure my throwing knives were still inside where the cloak had dropped them the night before.
I had to close my eyes to begin the shift. I rarely ever took this form as it wasn’t particularly useful, but it’s always good to have a form no one knows about. After a breath, I was in my tiniest form—a large, black, hairy spider. When I opened my eyes to see Kestral’s reaction, a large boot came down on me. In a panic, I coiled my legs beneath me and leapt, using some quickly spun silk to catch the wind and drift to Kestral’s chest. He shuddered and a hand snapped up, shoving me away roughly. I managed to shift back to human, earning bruises as I hit the ground instead of broken limbs.
Sorcerous Rivalry (The Mage-Born Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
