The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “You may recognize these,” She said, showing me an endless array of portals, but with truncated or missing hallways. Already some were misshapen, straining to change and grow, but unable to. “They cannot thrive.” Her voice held a universe of sorrow.

  “I know.” I remembered the grief of it and wanted to reach out to those countless babes and comfort them. The Goddess kept me wrapped in Her embrace.

  “It’s all right. They’re Mine,” She murmured through me. “I hold them close to Me for the time they live, and then they go on their way again.”

  There was one I’d held, in another life, her little tongue licking up my tears.

  “I was with you,” the Goddess hummed, rocking me, as if I’d been that babe. “And the little one came away with Me.”

  “Is she here?”

  “No.” The Goddess sounded pleased. “She has gone on again. Will you, too, go on?” Both the dark and the bright of Her eyes were luminous with remorseless compassion. I didn’t want to leave the sanctuary of Her embrace, but I agreed, turning to the array of portals, those young bodies, fresh with potential.

  “Not those. You would have to grow up again, and there isn’t time for that.” She directed my gaze back, along the way I’d come. A glittering trail followed me, full of pain and deteriorating bits of mortality. A broken body lay in a hallway, one that extended forward as with the young bodies, but only partly resolved. Wavering. Dissolving.

  There was nothing to that form. A pile of ash and shards of burnt bone.

  “How?” I asked.

  “You have My gift. Find the shape again.”

  “Will it hurt?” The agony blared harsh in the distance, coming closer. I winced, though it had nothing to do with light or sound. “Yes,” I answered my own question.

  “Yes,” the goddess said with me, in harmony.

  Moranu and I said it together. Though She held me still, the pain of my old body reverberated through me again. Fire. Agony. Death.

  “I died,” I said, trying to understand.

  “Yes and no. My presence was invoked, so I lent your body—already strong with the gift of My blood—more of My strength. That form may yet be reshaped by you. If your will is strong enough.”

  How?? The question howled through me, the pitiful pile of my remains revolting and terrifying.

  “Only you can find the way,” Moranu said, insistent, but without reproach. “I shared My gifts with you, but only you can know how you will use them.”

  “And if I fail?”

  “Then you fail. But if you do not go back, then you have already failed. This is your choice.”

  “Send me back.” I said it with resolve, ignoring the brass warnings of suffering to come.

  “It doesn’t work that way.” Moranu swirled around me, then moved back, leaving me uncovered as if I’d lost a warm cloak in winter. An old memory, from many lifetimes. “It’s your choice. You go on your own or not.”

  I was so afraid. But I couldn’t let that stop me.

  “Will I remember this?” I asked, but She didn’t answer. She’d returned to the dark form, hugely present, but unseen. My focus narrowed on that broken pile of abandoned flesh left behind me.

  I moved toward it, and it seemed I swam against a strong current. I bent my will to it, trying harder, flying against a headwind. Pushing against my own terror. I needed to get back into my dead—no, dying—body, but I didn’t want to. I thought of those suffering souls. It wasn’t enough.

  Fire and death. Pain. The animal in me clamored to flee, to escape this terrible captivity.

  “I’m not strong enough,” I confessed. “Will you help me, Moranu?”

  “Remember who awaits you,” Moranu murmured through me. “It won’t be all pain. There also is joy. There is being loved. I promise you that. There is loving and being loved.”

  Who? My mother had loved me, but she’d been gone for so long. Anya, yes. My brother Zyr. Oh, and my friends. Jepp. Dafne. Ursula. Marskal. It confused me, that last. Not my friend. But the sensation of his fingers tangled in my hair. It’s dangerous. I remembered his words and how they’d seemed to say something else.

  As if it had anchored and drawn me still, the memory of that touch drew me in and down.

  Into seared flesh.

  Into unbearable agony.

  ~ 7 ~

  It took more will than I’d ever thought to muster, just to stay in that body. The flesh kicked at me, resisting my efforts to shape it. It felt like those early days of intense study, trying to control a shift and direct it with my conscious will, rather childishly letting whatever form take me with it. That formless time with Moranu had distanced me somehow, too, and I couldn’t quite recall how to make my body anymore. Hair, nails, limbs, brain. No. Too much.

  I billowed out of it, banging against that corridor of time. In the one direction all those memories reeled out. Dancing on the beach. Playing with Anya and Zyr. Holding Anya’s baby. Zyr’s homecoming. Meeting Andi. Annfwn. The joy of completing a new form. Swimming. Flying. Seizing the Star from the priestess of Deyrr, the taste of Ursula’s blood in my mouth, fear in my heart. Nahanau. Marskal feeding me.

  That last one was so new. Just a bit down the hall. His fingers, tangled in my mane, in my hair. No reason that it should loom so vividly.

  The human body felt too big to wrestle, too much to shape. And there wasn’t enough of my former body left to work with. Desperate, losing my grip, I condensed as I tried to hold on. Not to Birth Form—that was beyond me—but to First Form. Almost as natural as Birth Form, and so much easier, so much less of it to wrestle. Small and simple. I curled into it, drawing the meager bits of flesh together. They formed around me. Heart beating. Lungs drawing air. Mind working but quiet. All there.

  I hoped.

  I’d done my best, given all I had.

  Exhausted, I slept.

  I was cupped in a warm embrace, comforting and solid. Moranu’s arms? The Goddess held me once again, which meant I’d failed. But no—flesh held me. A strong rough hand. And pain—pain ran through me. Physical trauma wracked me, the nerves singing with it, heart struggling to pump blood through my small body. Too fast. Too much obstruction in the blood vessels, the tissues not healed or made well enough.

  And weakness. I couldn’t move, even to lift my head or open my eyes.

  Someone spoke to me, sweetness flowing down my throat. That helped. Energy sang into my blood, good and strong. I shifted. Not to a new form, but again into a solider First Form.

  Better. Less pain. Healthier body. Blood flowing. Feathers growing.

  Blessed relief. I let go, drifting away again.

  Bright flowers catch my eye. Want. I flutter, trying to reach them.

  “Soon. Not yet,” a warm voice soothes. “Drink this, Zynda.”

  Zynda. I’d been that name. Once upon a time. I drink the sweetness, cuddle into the warmth. Bright flowers. Want.

  “She keeps trying to fly to the blossoms.”

  “Can she?”

  “I don’t know. She has all her feathers, but I don’t know if she can fly.”

  “We don’t know if she is even in there anymore.”

  Voices voices voices.

  Bright flowers. Want.

  “Here, give her this.”

  Bright flowers. I look. Bright bright bright. No nectar. My beak finds nothing. Must fly! Can’t. Try harder. Must fly.

  “Just let her go.”

  “What if she falls?”

  “Then she falls. She’ll burst her heart from the stress if you keep restraining her.”

  Freedom! Wings stretch and buzz. Bright flowers. Want. Yes.

  Full at last, I go back to my nest. Warm. Safe.

  “We’ll have to face that she may never shift out of this form again.”

  “How can you be so callous?”

  “I’m being realistic. We have no idea how to help her. Dafne refuses to speak to Kiraka—”

  “Absolutely.”

  “—even if
Nakoa would allow it, so—”

  “It’s my choice, not his.”

  “So, the only people who might help her are in Annfwn. We have to take her there. As soon as possible. Tomorrow.”

  Annfwn. That name is like bright flowers. Like sunshine. Like home. Want.

  “She’s awake.”

  Faces. Those faces that give me the sweet. Something more bothers me. A greater recognition. I need. Reach. Stretch the wings. I fly, but I hadn’t always flown.

  “Zynda,” someone says, insistent, gentle. Drawn, I land on the finger.

  “She responded to her name.”

  “Instinct. She’s going for the food.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know she’s implied that a shapeshifter stuck in animal form for very long loses her human ability for higher thought.”

  “Implied isn’t—”

  “It makes sense.”

  “None of this makes sense!”

  “Enough. Arguing with each other solves nothing.”

  Quiet. A bright bowl. Delicious sweetness to sip. The words around me mean something something something. I almost understand.

  “She’s so beautiful.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen this form before. Back at Ordnung.”

  “Same coloration, too, so maybe it’s a familiar form, one she knows well. Maybe that’s a good sign.”

  “How long do hummingbirds live?”

  Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.

  Sun is rising. Time to fly! Bright flowers. Sweet. Good.

  Replete, I sit to rest. Someone is there. The bringer of the bright bowl and the sweet. Not moving though. There is a thing that needs doing. More flowers? No—too full. What then?

  Niggle niggle. I am restless.

  Who am I?

  I am… supposed to be and do and… something.

  I fly down to the someone. I know this someone. More than just the bringer of the bright bowl. More more more. Eyes open and I fly up. Not away. Hovering. Watching. Maybe there is the more here.

  “Zynda.”

  It means something, this sound. I fly closer.

  “Zynda. You have to come back now. Shift back to human. We need you. I need you.”

  A finger, so I light on it. It’s like a warm branch. Safe. Feeder of food.

  “Please shift back. I love you. I never said, because you never even saw me and it makes no sense, not even to me. Especially not to me. So I won’t bother you with it. But you need to come back to us. You are loved.”

  There is being loved.

  The many-faced goddess with eyes of moonlight and darkness. I don’t know how to want it, but the want is there, all around me. Pulling at me. Fingers tangled in my hair.

  The niggling niggles. Something to do. To be.

  I reach. Reach through. It hurts and I pull back.

  But the wanting is stronger.

  Zynda.

  There is being loved.

  The pain pulls me apart. I shatter. I’m dying. I’m born.

  “Zynda! Thank the Three. Zynda, can you hear me? Wake up. Look at me.”

  I open my eyes. The light is too bright. My wings are broken. I cannot fly.

  I am also held, hands running over me. Remember this. Skin on skin. A scent I know. A light slap on my face, and it hurts, oh, it hurts, my skin like new born. I whimper and he shushes me. Comforts me. Safe.

  “It’s all right. You’re all right. You’re alive. You’re you again. Zynda. My Zynda.”

  The chanted words anchor and comfort me. Safe. Safe but wingless.

  “Zynda? Can you talk. Are you in there? Say something. Anything.”

  Brown eyes. Intent and serious. I know this man.

  “It’s dangerous,” I say.

  I fall asleep to the sound of his ragged laughter.

  I awoke to the sound of the sea and sun on my face. Sheets against my skin. A vase of bright flowers on the table beside the bed. Smelling so sweet, looking so tempting. I lifted a hand to touch one. Too far.

  “Here.” Someone lifted the flower and put it in my hand, wrapping my fingers around it. So fragrant. And bright. I licked it, not sure why.

  “Not that. Have this.” An arm behind me and then something against my mouth. Water, cool and fresh ran down my throat. I discarded the blossom, seizing the glass. My clumsy hands bobbled it, splashing me, but the woman put her hand over mine, steadying me so I could drink it down. I was parched. Mutely I held out the empty glass and the lovely woman signaled, another someone pouring more water into the glass. I drank it, too, and the woman laid her fingers against my wrist. “Careful. Go slow. Much sick.”

  My mind felt sluggish, not quite understanding her words. “I am sick?” I asked her.

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Common tongue, please. Remember that language, Zynda?”

  Zynda. Me. I’d spoken in Tala and she was… Inoa. Nakoa’s sister. On Nahanau. And I had… I dropped the glass, water splashing across the bed, the glass tumbling to the floor and shattering. Pain. I’d shattered, too.

  Ladies were speaking to me, words like Tala and not, someone holding my wrists. Then hard arms wrapping around me. “Hush, Zynda, shh. You’re all right. You’re safe.”

  “Safe?” I repeated the word, tasting it on my tongue. So harsh and strange. The Tala word came to my mind and I said that instead. Better.

  “Safe,” Marskal echoed, holding me, stroking my back.

  Marskal? Why was he here? I pushed at him and he let me go, turning his face away, lines carving around his mouth, lips fluttering before he compressed them. He dashed the heel of his hand against his face.

  “When did she wake up?” he was asking. He spoke faster than Inoa, and she scowled at him.

  “Told you I’d send a girl when she awoke. I just sent, yes?”

  “Marskal?” I looked at him, Inoa, and a cluster of Nahanaun ladies—one sweeping up the broken glass—then around the room. Netting hung over the windows, tied down all around, puffing slightly in the breeze off the ocean.

  “Yes.” He smiled at me, an odd look on his face, lightly stroking hands up and down my arms. I flinched and he lightened the touch even more. “Sorry. Your skin is still so sensitive. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I only laid down for a bit…” He trailed off, the strange smile dimming. He looked terrible, with deep circles dark under his eyes, his color sallow and those lines around his mouth carved in deeper than before, his jaw sharp, face gaunt.

  “Why are you here at all?” I wondered, not understanding, and he dropped his hands, then stood, stiff and awkward.

  “I—,” he began. “I, ah—”

  “Zynda!” Dafne burst through the doors, a whirlwind of copper hair and tears. She flung herself at me, but Marskal caught her.

  “Careful, Your Highness. She’s tender yet.”

  Ursula strode in on Dafne’s heels, her consort Harlan behind her. The names came easier now. My cousin looked strained, too, though not as bad as Marskal. What in the Three had happened? I tried to think, mushy as my brain felt. Pain. No, don’t go there. My eyes kept going to the flower lying beside me. So bright. Want. I picked it up, then couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to.

  “Zynda.” Someone clicked fingers in front of my eyes. Dafne, her brow crinkled. “Can you hear me? Do we know if her mind is all there?”

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” Ursula asked, holding up three.

  “She doesn’t have a concussion,” Dafne snapped.

  “It’s a test for brain damage,” Ursula shot back in the same tone. Marskal, grave and silent, simply watched me. He looked dead on his feet, swaying slightly.

  “If I may?” Harlan rumbled, his words mild but the question cutting through. Dafne moved away and the big Dasnarian sat next to me, the bed sinking under his weight. His pale gray eyes stared seriously into mine. “Welcome back to us, Zynda.”

  “Thank you, Harlan,” I replied in the same tone, though I couldn’t match the deep baritone. Why that ma
de me want to laugh, I didn’t know. But it felt good to want to.

  He lifted a finger to my chin, touching it lightly, then turning my head side to side. I kept my eyes on him. He asked me to stick out my tongue, and—after a moment to remember how—I did, curling and wiggling it as he instructed. I pressed back on the palms he held up, curling my fingers to tug back, repeating similar movements when he turned back the light blanket to do the same with my feet. Someone had put a white silk bed gown on me and I plucked at the soft texture in wonder.

  “What do you remember, Zynda?” Harlan asked.

  Remember? For some reason an image of a long hallway came to mind, stretching forward and back, crowded with memories in both directions.

  “She gets—” Marskal started to say, stepping forward, then stopping when Harlan held up a finger. Ursula put a hand on his shoulder, drawing him back and speaking quietly into his ear. He shrugged her off, irritably, and that struck me as being as strange as his smile before, though I had no reason to think so.

  “Zynda?” Harlan called me back to the question, gentle and insistent. He took my hand, massaging my finger bones, then pressing into my palms, my wrist bones. “It’s a beautiful day,” he said conversationally.

  “Yes,” I replied, though it was hard to tell, with the windows screened. I’d like to be outside. Flying in the blue sky.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  He possessed healing skills. I remembered that suddenly, like a bubble popping. Not magical, but for warriors, for helping the wounded. I’d been wounded in battle. Whatever he was doing helped center me. Grounded me in my body. My human body, which had… I gasped, the room spinning. Harlan held firm.

  “Steady,” he said in exactly that way. “You are Zynda, a Tala woman. You are in a human body and it is healthy and whole. You are here with people who love you and you are safe.”

  Safe. I looked to Marskal. His mouth was set in a fierce line, but he nodded at me.

  “How long was I a hummingbird?” I asked.

  Ursula’s set grimace broke and she rubbed a hand over her face. Dafne began weeping silent tears, which she pushed away impatiently. “Three days,” she said.