It had been on the tip of my tongue to mention the shark, but a zing went up my spine at that, the excitement crowding out all else. “She did?”
“When I asked Kiraka about N’andana, she agreed that finding their forgotten islands would be helpful in thwarting Deyrr, and she told me to find this box,” Dafne continued, “that the contents would be helpful. She said to see if you knew what to do with them.”
My invitation at last—preceded by a test. The time had come.
“You’re not surprised,” Ursula noted, sniffing out trouble, as seemed to be one of her gifts.
“Did she call me by name?” I asked Dafne, dancing the line of truthfulness by not answering.
Dafne frowned at me. “She said, ‘your shapeshifter friend.’ I assumed she meant you.”
“I can test the map-sticks tonight,” I declared. Kiraka had summoned me at last—if more obliquely than I’d anticipated—and I wouldn’t fail to answer.
Both of them glanced at the windows, now violet with dusk.
Ursula shook her head. “We’ve nattered too long. I’ll not send you out to fly at night. I know it’s dangerous for birds.”
“Not for an owl,” I answered.
Dafne frowned, picking up her ink pen. “I didn’t know you had an owl form.” She must have a list, somewhere, of my forms. The ones she knew about. I couldn’t very well stop her from writing down what she observed, but I didn’t need to reveal more than necessary. Among people who remember everything that’s said, you learn early to watch your words. Probably another reason Tala avoid garrulousness.
“Which stick matches this sketch?” I asked, instead of addressing her question that hadn’t exactly been one.
She sorted through the box, and Ursula narrowed her eyes at me in speculation. “How many forms do you have?”
“Several,” I answered, and smiled when her frown deepened. I took the stick Dafne offered, dropped it to the floor, and shifted into owl shape—no need for privacy among friends and family—and grasped the map-stick in my talons. A perfect fit. I flew up to the windows, irresistibly drawn, a more distant part of me belatedly remembering they weren’t true exits.
“Zynda!”
I followed Ursula’s voice to the open doors and swept through the palace and out into the twilight. Free under the open sky.
Much better.
~ 3 ~
Moranu’s moon shone silver, beneficent, and just rounding from full as she gathered her shroud again to wane toward her dark face. Those who don’t follow Moranu, or who know little of her worship, believe she’s at her peak when her bright face is full. This is a misconception, born of a bias for daytime and thus bright light. Danu is at full strength at her brightest—high noon—and Glorianna at the crepuscular verges of the day, sunrise and sunset. Moranu is at the opposite pole from Danu, strongest at the dark of the moon.
For all that Ursula followed Danu’s path and adhered to the warrior goddess’s strict discipline of the sharp blade and clear-eyed justice, she never seemed to note that I was her own opposite, her dark shadow. Of Salena’s three daughters, Andi belonged most to Moranu, bearing the mark of the Tala, but she still remained a child of both worlds.
I might not be Salena’s daughter, but I embraced her legacy of sacrifice and would serve my role as the dark face. No matter the dragon’s test, I’d make sure to pass it, and prove my worthiness to take Final Form. I would not allow myself to fail.
Another advantage of animal forms was that, as the owl, any regrets or apprehension I might harbor floated a distance away. Animals simply weren’t equipped to worry about the future or chew over the past as humans did. Sharper, more alert than some others, my brain in owl form allowed for a fair amount of calculation. It was, however, somewhat more driven by the predatory instincts than the dolphin. I had to exert considerable willpower to keep myself on task. No chasing after the enticing rustles of prey. Instead, I turned away from land and the drive of hunger—I should have eaten when I stopped in at the palace; would have, had I not been so eager to answer Kiraka’s summons—and winged up and over the sea, the sky full of dusky violets, indigos, and all shades of shimmering grayscale. And so much more full of light than my human eyes had perceived.
Thermals spiraled up as the cooling night air sank, as easily perceptible to my owl senses as if I saw them, though it wasn’t exactly the same as using vision. Catching one, I curved my wings into a relaxed arch, not unlike surfing a muscular wave, and practiced bringing the talon holding the map-stick far enough forward for me to look at it while still in flight.
I bobbled the maneuver the first time, losing the thermal and plummeting through the air ungracefully. If I’d been in the water, I’d be like an erstwhile surfer ignominiously dunked by the wave and tumbled. A real owl would have been able to ride the air currents with practiced ease, and would never do so badly. Recovering, I pumped my wings hard to regain the spiraling current—glad that none of my brethren, either shapeshifter or true owl, had witnessed my clumsiness—and settled in again.
Owls can look at their talons, but do it mainly when perching or stooping on prey, which are both different body alignments. Being a shapeshifter means sometimes contorting the animal form, which is exquisitely tailored to perform like a champion athlete, into something far less efficient to serve an entirely different purpose. We rely on the instinct laid into the muscles, sinews, and nerves of the forms we assume, to perform in ways our human bodies cannot understand—like using wings to fly—and then, if we’re proficient enough, we bend the shape to follow our will, also. To do things it would never occur to the actual animal to try.
I am of Salena’s line, and a proficient shapeshifter. Surely demonstrating that proficiency was part of the dragon’s test.
It worked, just as I’d suspected. I was able to hold the map-stick against the coastlines of the darkening islands dotting the sea below, and match it up as if it had been designed for this express purpose.
A shapeshifter had created this map, and Kiraka had known it. Had she only wanted to test if I could take a form, manipulate it to grasp the map, and think through the symbolism of map to land? Seemed too easy.
“Such arrogance.”
The acerbic alien voice thundering through my mind with the power of centuries sent my avian heart pounding with the atavistic urge to fight or flee. At least I retained enough self-possession not to bobble in my flight this time. Though I’d known Dafne could hear the dragon’s thoughts as clearly as speech, I’d never experienced such a thing—actual words, rather than feelings and images—though the old tales spoke of powerful sorcerers having the ability. Did Final Form convey the ability, or had the sorceress possessed it before she transitioned?
“Lady Kiraka.” I formed the thought carefully, adding a mental genuflection of the kind I’d give to the Shaman.
“Hmm. Your mental discipline is quite muddy. Are you truly the prodigy chosen to apprentice to me?”
The indignation stiffening my wings might be residual from the day. First Marskal taking me off guard with his suspicions and now this … dismissive questioning of my abilities. I was the best of my generation—and the one before and after. I might not match Salena’s powers, but I was—
“Immature yet. So I perceive.” A mental sigh, like scales coursing over hot rocks. “But you were chosen?”
The way she used the term “chosen” implied extensive testing and competition. That, of course, had not happened. Though I had more years than Ursula, High Queen of at least fourteen kingdoms, and was of an age with Dafne and Jepp, both accomplished in their respective fields, it could well have been my immaturity that made me mulishly dig in my heels and balk at the dragon’s dismissive tone. Attempting to clear my mind, I tried to reply with the proper deference.
“I volunteered.”
A long pause, along with the eerie sensation of sinuous scales snaking through my thoughts and memories.
“Soooo….” Her mind-voice sounded like a hi
ss. “Not chosen, after all.”
Had I teeth, I would have set them. Instead, I turned more fully into the headwind, using the exertion of pumping my wings to gain ground against it to vent my turbulent emotions. I had been chosen, in a way—albeit from a paltry few candidates. And I’d been the only one willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. That hadn’t been an easy choice, but I’d made it—and persevered this far.
“Foolish youngling. Sacrifice is only the beginning.” Kiraka’s voice had become a wisp of regretful sorrow, a trail of thin smoke from an extinguished fire. “When I took the sleep, I expected to wake to a changed world. But I did not imagine I’d find my people so diminished, the blood so thinned and so much lost.”
My owl form couldn’t handle these emotions generated by my conscious, tangible self. The sense of failure—not only my own, but extending into some kind of collective memory well of grief—nearly swamped me. I struggled to form a reply. “Much has been lost, yes, which is why I’m coming in the name of my people to ask for your help. I am a proficient shapeshifter and I can learn.”
“You don’t know what proficient means. And your control is easily shaken.”
Kiraka’s mind clamped down on mine, and I plummeted through the air.
For the first time since I’d been a green child, when I’d whimsically shifted according to mood rather than by design, I felt my control of the form I wore falter. Warning tremors shuddered through me even as I strained to regain my position in the air. Even though I’d long since turned back for the main island and the palace, if I wavered any more, I’d be plunging into the sea.
At least if I died this way, neither my teachers nor any of my people would know of my catastrophic failure.
“I would.” Kiraka’s voice was smug, taunting. “And I’d tell.”
Fuck you, you withered bitch. I didn’t channel the thought at her. It sprang unbidden to my mind—another indication I was losing control—but she heard it anyway.
“Temper, child. Here’s your invitation. Come and see me. If you can make it. Hurry back to land, little groundling. You’re losing form.”
At least land was in sight. My muscles wept with exhaustion, all of my mental energy going to sustaining the winged form. I briefly considered going into the sea and shifting to dolphin or fish—but I wasn’t confident I could execute the change with the precision required for going from animal to animal without returning to my Birth Form in between. And then I’d have to evade predators, along with Kiraka stripping at my control. Either way, I’d drown, like that mindless shark. No, better to keep on the wing and strive for land.
The quiescent volcano loomed, a fiery orange glow against the moonlit sky. Kiraka’s lair would be there. I’d nearly made it. Dread filled me at the prospect of facing her in my current state. Much of that came from owl instincts to avoid such a large and lethal predator, but a great deal of it was mine. And I couldn’t not go. Another test, perhaps.
In my mind, the dragon’s laugh scraped over stone. “If you work up the courage—and if you decide you can show me better than you have thus far—come see me in the morning. My Daughter will need to attend, and she needs her rest, broody as she is.”
I welcomed the reprieve with relief, though there would be no going to find out what Jepp wanted me to see. I’d be disappointing Ursula, which had never bothered me before, and yet…
“Tell your queen she can wait on my convenience.” Kiraka was all smug, imperious indifference. “She can try her sword against me if she cares to make the challenge. See me in the morning, or never.”
She blessedly released her crippling hold on my mind, and I found it in me to home in on the lights of the palace. I landed on a palm tree frond in a shadowed clump not far from the perimeter of the spilling torchlight. Taking only a moment to rest, lest I become too tired to shift back—and that way lay disaster—I plopped to the sand, taking back my human form with a rush of gratitude that I was able to.
Moranu seemed to gaze down on me, and I made an elaborate gesture of thankfulness, the deep bow taking me to my knees in the sand. To my surprise, hot tears spilled down my cheeks. At least Kiraka was leaving me alone for the moment. I needed time to recover.
“Are you all right?”
The voice had me leaping to my feet, spinning, ready to lash out with the razor sharp beak and talons I no longer possessed.
Marskal jumped back, stumbling a little in the sand and drawing his sword out of reflex. Then lowered it, his face still contorted with astonishment. “Danu! I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.”
“You haven’t spent much time with shapeshifters then,” I said, my voice a caustic echo of Kiraka’s, my mind still disoriented from my precipitous shift, physical exhaustion along with that of mental sparring with my ancestress, not to mention the dull ache of guilt.
“I’ve spent time with you,” he returned evenly, sheathing his blade.
“And I’m usually careful not to alarm you mossbacks,” I replied. More than I should have said, but I was not yet fully myself. The ravenous predator in me combined precariously with my physical body’s hunger. I wanted to snap and rend.
“All right.” Marskal sounded wary, but not alarmed. “How can I assist you?”
“Why are you even out here?”
“I was watching for your safe return.”
“And you are suddenly my keeper.”
“I am. Her Majesty assigned me the duty.”
I’d known that, and yet I’d been asking unnecessary questions. I blinked, reassessing. The night grew no brighter. Human eyes. Get a grip on yourself. “I need a moment.”
“Take what you need.”
Stepping a few paces away, I breathed deeply, reorienting. Upright spine, soft feet on the sand, hands, no claws, no beak. Weak. So hungry. I finally turned back to Marskal.
“Better now?” he asked, staying a careful distance back.
His caution tweaked my sense of humor. Happy to feel something other than fear and failure, I laughed. “I’m not as likely to eat you now.”
He surveyed me, his quiet face serious. “In truth, for a moment there, I thought you might.”
“I’m very hungry,” I confessed. “Can we discuss these orders of Ursula’s later?”
“I’ll do you one step better,” he said, offering me a crooked elbow. “Let me feed you.”
I eyed his arm, bent in such a strange way. “What am I meant to do?”
“Take my arm, Zynda,” he replied. All seriousness, no teasing in it. “You’re weaving on your feet.”
I’d thought it was the soft sand. Or the lingering twin sensations of swimming and flying. Too much shifting, too many forms, too fast, fighting a mental battle with the dragon with not enough rest, not enough nutrition. I should have known better. I’d grown arrogant in my time among the mossbacks, thinking myself so invincible. All along I’d known I might fail to find a dragon, then when Kiraka miraculously awoke, I had to face that I’d perhaps fail to gain an audience. It had never occurred to me that I wouldn’t measure up. My will and legs weakened, the sand beckoning.
“Zynda,” Marskal urged softly, “let me help you.”
“I don’t need help.” Rather, I didn’t want to need it. Another failure.
“Of course you don’t. Think of me as a servant. A handmaid assigned to brush your hair and empty your chamber pot.”
I snorted at that image, but found myself taking his arm. The contact immediately bolstered me, his masculine strength speaking to something in me. I leaned into him, surprised to find that I wanted his warmth, the solid feel of human flesh. Some shapeshifters needed this, the reconnection with human form through sex, especially after shifting through several shapes, but I never had before. Of course, I’d never before taxed myself quite so severely.
And I wouldn’t contemplate it now. I could be within a day of taking Final Form—if I passed tomorrow’s tests—there would be no more lovers for me. I edged away, but he tightened his arm, lightly pinni
ng my hand against his side. “Don’t pull back—I’ve got you.”
We’d reached the steps where they plunged into the sand, and I vaguely wondered how deep they went. Better than surveying the long climb up. I retained too much owl instinct still, because the bright lights repelled me. I wanted to flee again into the dark.
That’s another complication and peril of shifting through too many forms or tiring oneself in the doing. To the stranger’s eye, we appear to shift completely from one form to another. In reality, assuming a different body involves many layers, not all of them tangible. Otherwise I wouldn’t gain owl instincts along with the form. Imagine a human in a bird body with no idea how to work it. We’d be no more coordinated than we were in our infant bodies.
Lying there, waving our limbs while our senses struggle to make sense of the world is hardly useful—and not too far from how I felt just then.
Shifting back too rapidly, without the proper buffering time and energy to realign myself to human form meant that impulses intended to work an owl body stayed with me. I could no more climb those steps than an owl could.
“On second thought,” I said, keeping my words relaxed and easy, “I think I’ll stay on the beach. Such a lovely night.”
Marskal studied the steps, not looking at me. “And food?”
“I’ll get some later.”
“I’ll get some for you while you rest.” He settled into his usual quiet, bolstering me while I held myself together enough to make it to the shadows behind the curve of the steps, which felt infinitely safer. Sitting there in the cool dark, I let my mind relax.
Moranu’s nourishing gaze helped, her reflected light and shadows filling me, realigning my thoughts with my bones. Kiraka might scorn who the Tala had become, but we were still Moranu’s children, the last of them to carry the goddess’s blood in our bodies, her sacred vessels, and she rekindled the vitality in me with generosity and palpable love. I floated on the nourishment from the great mother.
“Here, drink this.”
I mustered the will—and aggravation—to turn my head and give Marskal a baleful glare. “I thought you were leaving.”
The Shift of the Tide Page 4
