The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  I threw a hard and accusing look at him, which he returned with bland unconcern.

  “However,” Dafne said, “King Nakoa KauPo has officially decreed that no one is to go up the volcano until he lifts the ban.” She held up a hand when I straightened. “Let me tell you the whole thing. This is done already, so arguing is trying to change a book that’s already written.”

  I relaxed into my chair, trying to appear languid and unconcerned. The king could issue his edicts, but he didn’t own my fealty. The needs of the Tala race exceeded politics.

  “Kiraka has been silent since the … incident, and I have not tried to speak with her, but I will if she shows any inclination to visit. Or further aggressive behavior.”

  Marskal and Ursula exchanged flinty glances at that, but remained quiet.

  Dafne sighed and Nakoa ran a big hand over her hair, surprisingly tender for such a warlike man. She leaned into it. “That said, we don’t believe anything of that sort is likely to recur. Kiraka has been nothing but careful with us. She’s tutored me for weeks without expressing any harmful intent. We believe this was a unique event, somehow triggered by you, Zynda, and that without your presence, it won’t happen again.” She met my gaze, no longer my quiet librarian friend, but fully a queen, resolute in the protection of her realm. “King Nakoa KauPo has tasked me to ask you what happened up there and why.”

  Apparently taking the mention of his name as a cue, Nakoa leaned his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together, and focusing all of his intent on me, reinforcing that the demand came from him.

  I returned his intimidating stare, giving up all pretense of being languid. Salena would not have been afraid of this man. He might have considerable strength, and the magic to bring rain, but I possessed greater skills of sorcery. I shrugged carelessly, meeting Nakoa’s rigidity with Tala indifference. “Kiraka and I spoke at some length about private matters. She decided to incinerate me.”

  “Private matters?” Ursula asked sharply, then belatedly nodded to Nakoa who lifted a finger, allowing her intrusion. Likely he regarded me as more her problem than his.

  She was not, however, my monarch, so I gave her a lazy smile. “Obscure are the ways of dragons.”

  “This is not the time to play cagey shapeshifter, cousin,” she warned. “You gave us to believe you conferred with her about the map-sticks.”

  “Shapeshifters are cagey by nature,” I replied, “and the private matters are private, thus none of your business. Cousin.”

  Her face grew lethally taut, and—though Dafne hadn’t yet translated for him—Nakoa glared at me. Dafne tapped her fingers on his arm, murmuring something to him, then to Ursula. Then she gave me a long, considering look. “Zynda. I know the Tala ways are not ours. Of everyone here, besides you, I’ve spent the most time in Annfwn, and I know how things are done—and not done there. But here you are in our realm, by King Nakoa KauPo’s sufferance.”

  “I know that,” I replied, feeling unexpectedly defensive. Under the table, Marskal’s knee brushed mine.

  Dafne softened. “I know you do. But you are also our friend, and I think I speak for everyone in saying that we’ve believed we are your friends. If you can’t confide in us, who would you then?”

  She said it gently, but that last was a direct—and deliberate, I felt sure—quote, flinging my own words back at me from when Jepp and I had teased her about her love life. Entirely different, and yet… I shifted, uncomfortable in the chair, bored of sitting with the night-dark beach calling, wanting to flee entirely. It occurred to me that they’d moved this little meeting into the open air out of consideration for me. They were my friends, indeed, and deserved consideration for that. As much as I could give.

  Telling them would change nothing at this point. I looked around the table. “I believe Kiraka intended it as a test.”

  Ursula closed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face, while Dafne recovered, translating for Nakoa, who absorbed the information, then gave me a long, slow nod.

  “A test of what?” Ursula asked in a reasonably even tone.

  “Her abilities, I’m guessing,” Dafne supplied when I didn’t immediately reply, interrupting her low-voiced conversation with Nakoa. “Only a shapeshifter of surpassing skill could have done what Zynda did. I knew shapeshifters could accomplish some healing by changing form, but not to that degree.”

  Not without a goddess’s intervention, anyway.

  “So you passed the dragon’s test.” Ursula tapped her fingers on the table in satisfaction. “Salena would be proud.”

  I smiled at her for that, not caring to disabuse her of the assumption—in either case.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now I need to go back to Kiraka.”

  “You can’t,” Dafne said, darting me a look and returning to her conversation with Nakoa.

  “I have to.” I said it loudly and firmly enough to gain their undivided attention. “Begging your pardon, King Nakoa. You may own this island and this archipelago, but you do not own Kiraka.” And you do not own me.

  Pinning me with his dark stare, he replied, speaking directly to me. Dafne hastened to translate. “He says that you’re wrong. That he does not own these islands, no more than he owns the dragon. That he simply guards what belongs to all. He will not stop you from seeing Kiraka.”

  He added something pointed to Dafne and she replied, color high. Finally she cut him off. “We’ll finish that argument in private.”

  “He’s forbidding you to go?” I guessed.

  “He thinks he can.” She darted a mean look at her husband, which bounced off his impervious hide. “But this is mine to know.” She tapped her breastbone for emphasis, directing that remark at him. I swear a smile twitched his stern mouth.

  “Besides,” I put in, “Kiraka would never harm you because you are the Dragon’s Daughter, and you carry the child she’s waited for.”

  “The first of many,” she murmured, her eyes unfocusing on something only she could see. At least the pang I felt at that sat small in the turbulence of my greater pain.

  “We, however, are not finished,” Ursula inserted crisply, pulling my attention. “I can forbid you to go, and I can enforce my edict as you are my subject, Zynda. Annfwn is under my domain by agreement with King Rayfe and Queen Andromeda. They’ll back my actions, particularly as your well-being is so obviously in danger. You barely survived this test, and—you may not want to acknowledge it, but it’s obvious to everyone here—you’re greatly weakened. What guarantee is there that you could survive another attack? I won’t condone another meeting with the dragon without more information. Especially regarding whatever it is you’re keeping from me.”

  ~ 10 ~

  “I don’t need your permission,” I replied as evenly as I could, resisting a glance at Marskal. If she thought to use the warrior to physically prevent me…

  “Perhaps you believe that, but you do need to convince me not to tie you up and lock you in a cabin on the first outbound ship. Don’t even think to push me on this!”

  I fumed, but withdrew my planned retort in the face of her steely resolve. We’d never truly tested the hierarchy between us. I would win, no matter what she believed, but I had no desire for such a battle to come to pass.

  “The security of the realm is absolutely my business,” she continued, iron in her voice. “How dare you jeopardize information we need to defeat Deyrr? I want to know what you thought so important that you’d commit this sort of deception.”

  The glint of betrayed grief in her eyes bled my anger away. She was right that I’d deceived them. I’d have to tell them at least some of it.

  Starting to run my hands through my hair, I encountered the elaborate braids. That, I could do something about. So, I began plucking the silver hummingbirds from their nests, making a little pile in front of me, undoing the braids as I spoke.

  “I am not being deliberately difficult,” I told them. “And I did not act counter to your interests—ju
st in parallel. There is much that is… private. The Tala are a cloistered people and we do not share our pain, or weaknesses, easily.”

  “Then this is not political,” Ursula interrupted. “Nothing to do with orders you might have from the King and Queen of Annfwn.”

  I shook my head, smiling at her relief. She and her sister Andi had been too much at odds in the past. I could resolve that concern. “This is not political, at least not within the Thirteen Kingdoms”—I nodded to Nakoa—“or however you’re counting all of your subsidiary kingdoms these days.”

  She returned the smile without humor, gesturing me to continue.

  “Dafne, I’m asking you to be judicious in what and how you translate. Consider this more of your diplomatic dancing.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me, and I shook out my hair, finally free of the braids, my scalp tingling as I rubbed it. “I did talk to Kiraka about about N’andana, too, and can give you some information there. We’ve known all along—or some of you suspected from events—that Deyrr has sought the Star of Annfwn.” Harlan’s eyes glinted at that painful mention. “You also have discovered that the Star has certain properties that affect the barrier, which tie into what we refer to as the Heart of Annfwn.”

  Ursula’s gaze sharpened, a hawk focusing on prey, and Dafne looked fascinated, even as she translated.

  “I remember discussing some of this before,” Ursula said, partly in question, and I nodded in confirmation. Andi had told her some of it when Ursula and Harlan came to Annfwn to rescue Ami and the twins.

  “I don’t,” Dafne inserted, giving Ursula an accusing look. “You didn’t tell me.”

  Ursula raised her brows. “I had to swear that what they told me would be information I held secret and would use only for the greatest good.”

  Those had been almost her exact words at the time. No matter how my cousin might aggravate me with her pushy ways, she clearly memorized and held inviolate the vows she made.

  “None of that has changed. In truth, I shouldn’t be discussing it now.” I glanced at Marskal, who regarded me opaquely. “But you’re all sworn to secrecy, for better or ill. Besides, I have no intention of telling you more about it than that the Heart, the Star and the barrier—which is an extension of those two—were originally developed by Kiraka’s people, the N’andanans in an effort to fight Deyrr. Only she referred to them as gelyneinioes. From context, however, I believe that’s who she meant. Bending it a little, in Talal that would mean essentially enemies of life.”

  Dafne held up a finger to Nakoa, so excited by the new information that she couldn’t stand it. “The N’andanans deliberately pulled the magic into Annfwn, to what—starve the practitioners of Deyrr?”

  “So we believe, though we’ve had little evidence until recently.” I considered how to proceed while Dafne caught Nakoa up. “It was so long ago, and even then the effort was shrouded in secrecy. Plus tales change over time, fluctuating with the teller. Even,” I said pointedly to Dafne, “if they’re written down.” She gave me a distracted grimace.

  “But yes, they were losing to Deyrr—Kiraka did confirm some of this—so the ancient N’andanans worked a spell to pull all the magic to a center point, and they walled away some of their people behind it, to create a bubble in space where their race could continue.” An equivocation, but I still hesitated to damn the Tala in their eyes.

  “And locked themselves out,” Dafne inserted, “killing off the dragons along with everything else that subsisted on magic. Why didn’t they go inside the barrier, too?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Ugh—this was the trouble with equivocations and untruths of all kinds. Too easy to get stuck in the net of them. Also, Dafne had gotten a thoughtful look like she did when she’d nearly resolved a puzzle. I doubted she believed me.

  “It didn’t work, not completely.” Ursula shared a look with Harlan. “A poor strategy that stranded their most powerful shapeshifters outside and yet allowed Deyrr to continue to thrive.”

  “I wouldn’t say they thrived,” Harlan said in his deep voice. “They found refuge in Dasnaria at some point, perhaps coming from elsewhere, but they only gained power in recent decades.”

  “Right around the same time Uorsin grew to power and Salena left Annfwn,” Dafne said, her fingers twitching to make notes. Nakoa gestured to a servant standing well out of earshot, the young woman returning with paper and ink so quickly they must have had it ready nearby.

  Dafne flashed her husband a grateful smile, sketching something on the paper. “Just when I want to kill him…” she said to us with a wry grimace. Though he shouldn’t have understood, Nakoa stroked a hand over her hair again, saying something in Nahanaun that had her blushing.

  Funny this, to be openly discussing these secrets, these ancient terrors, with my friends, trading inside jokes and affectionate digs. There is also being loved. Was this what Moranu had meant? My friends did love me, and letting them inside my own barrier of secrets did help ease some of the burden.

  “Here’s the timeline.” Dafne turned the paper for us to see. “Uorsin rose from simple captain in Duranor’s losing war to be general of their armies at this point in time. That’s the siege of Castle Columba, a battle they were losing until then.” Nakoa rubbed a hand down her back, and she gave him a look blazing with emotion. Not the kind I’d expected, though. Dafne had been a child and the lone survivor of the fall of Columba. Something had happened that she now looked happy about that horrible event that orphaned her. How interesting. “We can assume this also marks the moment Salena left Annfwn and made her bargain with Uorsin.”

  She glanced at me and Ursula for confirmation, and we didn’t disagree.

  “So, Salena throws in with Uorsin,”—she held up a hand as Ursula opened her mouth—“I know that’s an oversimplification, just to save time, all right? We know this because suddenly Duranor starts winning, and can’t be defeated. Columba falls and tales emerge around this time of shapeshifters, wizards—and a half-wild sorceress wife assisting Uorsin. Harlan, do you know when Deyrr first appeared in Dasnaria?”

  He sipped his wine, pondering. “I don’t have your memory for history. And Deyrr himself is a very old god of the hunt. The salient change came when the Practitioners of Deyrr rose as a new sect emphasizing one of Deyrr’s more obscure faces—that of transmutation of the living animal into death and death recycling back into life through consumption of the meat. That happened… maybe four decades ago, at a guess.”

  Ursula snorted. “Your guesses are better than most people’s histories.”

  Harlan smiled and tipped two fingers to his forehead in his private salute to her.

  “There are Dasnarian histories in the library,” Dafne observed, frowning at her timeline, “so I can verify. Still, the timing is coincidental. It makes sense that these gelyneinioes appropriated the Dasnarian god for their purposes. The question is, were these Practitioners able to work actual magic outside the barrier?”

  “Illyria did, at Ordnung,” Ursula pointed out, “before the barrier moved.”

  Nobody spoke up to correct that to “before Ursula moved it,” which would be more accurate. Only Ami or Andi would have that much spine, as Ursula steadfastly maintained she possessed no magical ability, despite having the same blood as her sisters. It made me wonder, however, about these Tala ancestors who expanded the original barrier around the Heart to the much larger one. Tied to the Star and tied to Ursula—which implicated Salena’s line.

  “Though Salena’s decline during her tenure at Ordnung has been solidly blamed on her starving for magic,” Ursula was saying.

  “That and a broken heart,” Dafne muttered, then glanced at Ursula in chagrin, but the High Queen only nodded. “So,” Dafne continued in a brighter tone, “the question is: did the barrier start leaking magic?”

  They all looked at me, and I shrugged. “I was inside. No idea.”

  “All right,” Ursula said, “finish your tale, Zynda. I know that’s not all of
it.”

  I grimaced and she smiled, in her thin-lipped predatory way. “The Star and the Heart,” she prompted. “The N’andanans implementing the barrier to starve Deyrr when they could not defeat them. Centuries or more elapse. We come to recent days, and…?”

  And she accused Harlan of remembering everything. I laced my fingers together and laid my hands on the table. “You called it a poor strategy, and we could debate that all night. We can’t deny, however, that the Practitioners of Deyrr—Harlan is correct that we should differentiate between the god and this sect that twisted one facet of his being—failed to take over the world. In that, the gambit was a rousing success.”

  “Take over the world,” Ursula echoed, stricken. “Was that their goal?”

  I held up my palms for her naivete, Dafne’s translation for Nakoa a low-voiced murmur in the background. “What else? And it still is, as evidenced by their collusion with the Dasnarian emperor.” Jepp had brought back that much information from her spying mission. “And with your High Priest Kir,” I added.

  “Not mine, nor of Glorianna’s Church,” Ursula replied absently, thoughts elsewhere. “Ami had him excommunicated. He moved against her, and against the Tala, which was triggered by Andi’s marriage to Rayfe. That’s what brought Deyrr—the sect, that is—their attention to my realm.”

  “Surely you don’t hold that against her.” I tensed, ready to engage in that argument. We’d needed Queen Andromeda badly in Annfwn, and her arrival had been the first step toward saving the Tala.

  “No.” Ursula brushed that off. “It’s ancient history at this point, regardless. Though I can’t help but wonder—if Salena foresaw all of this, why did she leave Annfwn and sire her daughters with Uorsin? If she hadn’t, I might not have moved the barrier.” She met my eyes, bleak guilt in hers. I’d been wrong. She knew very well what she’d done, consciously or not. “The Practitioners of Deyrr might have remained asleep. I don’t understand how Salena could have seen and still knowingly loosed such a terror on the world.”