The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Yes.” He chuckled, then kissed me again and let my chin go, smoothing his hand over my hair. “At least Her Majesty understands putting personal loyalty above all else. Still, I don’t look forward to the conversation.”

  “You don’t have to do that for me.”

  “Yes, I do.” He sounded resolute, unwavering. The Marskal I’d learned not to argue with so I didn’t. “Say what you were going to, about celebrating life.”

  I twitched my shoulders, restless with myself. “It won’t be a revelation to you. Normally my celebrating would have been shifting through all the forms I could, reveling in every perception of the world, all the ways of being and doing. Now that’s lost to me, so it feels like there’s nothing to celebrate.” At least I didn’t weep again, my voice as dull and lifeless as I felt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, a world of understanding in the way he held me. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

  “No, I might as well finish. Anyway, Anya had her baby—a little girl, seemingly full of life—and I was so happy.” Transcendently happy. Moranu take it, my voice broke again. “But she was… she was—”

  “Not healthy?” he supplied gently, when I didn’t finish.

  I knuckled away the tears. Maybe this night of endless weeping would at least get it all out of me. “Not healthy,” I agreed, laughing a little at the euphemism. So pleasant, the way non-Tala phrase things. “Sometimes a child is born part or mostly animal. Like they’ve partially shapeshifted in the womb. In this case, several different animals. Much of the time it means that their mind is distorted, too. Even if they live, which is rare, they are never able to care for themselves.”

  “She didn’t live, Anya’s daughter?”

  I appreciated him calling her a daughter, instead of thing or worse. Their sideways use of language did help in ways. “She lived a few hours. Anya…she was hysterical, wanting to suicide, so we dosed her to sleep it off. And I took the baby and held her while she lived.”

  He was quiet. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”

  “I mostly cried.” I laughed at myself, watery with it. “I thought I’d never weep again like that, but look at me tonight. She was so sweet. Powerful magic in her that I sensed. I hoped—again that word—I tried to help her, to coach her into shifting. If she could have taken a form that was one thing, you know, that might have…”

  “Like you did, becoming the hummingbird.”

  “Yes. Only… most of the time, when we take that step, it truly is a last resort. Almost no one ever comes back from that animal form. But at least they live, and they become part of the family.”

  He huffed a laugh, then choked it back. “I don’t mean to make light of that. I apologize.”

  “No.” I nudged him with my elbow. “I want to know what you were thinking.”

  He shook his head a little, hugging me. “I was just imagining one of my siblings being the family dog, you know, or…” He made another choking sound. “It’s terrible of me to find that funny.”

  I found myself grinning. “Humor in tragedy, yes? This is what I’m telling you—we joke and dance because the weeping becomes too much to bear. Speaking of family dogs, I’ll confess something.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I have this habit—a little game I play—where I imagine with my mossback friends what your First Form would be, if you could shift.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “You? Wolf. Ursula, too, but a different kind. You’d be a timber wolf, mostly a loner, alpha when you need to lead the pack. Mostly you prefer to roam on your own.”

  “The lone wolf, huh?” He sounded somewhat consternated. “I’m a cliché.”

  “No. Not that. Never that.” I turned in the circle of his arm, cupped his scratchy face in my hands and kissed him. “Thank you for talking me through this.”

  “It’s what people do,” he murmured against my lips.

  “And I like that you can laugh, even at terrible things.”

  He smoothed the hair back from my face. “I like the way you laugh, too. That first time I saw you—you were laughing. You were riding beside Dafne, the sun shining on your hair, the breeze blowing it around your face, and you laughed at something. I don’t even know what. But you looked so excited and alive.”

  “I was excited,” I said, remembering that day. “Leaving Annfwn. At last going on my great adventure. I thought I was going to do heroic things. Looking back on that day, I see myself as a foolish girl, full of naïve ambition. I was going to save the Tala, and I’ve barely managed to keep myself alive.”

  “I don’t think you’re being fair to yourself.”

  I shrugged. Then laughed. “I thought our relationship was that you chewed on me and I pretended not to care. Now you’re reversing things?”

  He slipped his hand behind my neck, holding me there for a kiss so fierce it made my head swim. Then he leaned his forehead against mine. “I’m not pretending. And if you need me to kick your ass to help you do what you need to do, I will.”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “It all feels so huge. I don’t know what I need.”

  “Think about it then.” He was silent for a bit. The water made soft lapping sounds and a night bird called. “This is something I’ve been thinking about. If the sleeper spies might be people forced into animal form by the Practitioners of Deyrr—would that be similar to what you’re talking about, coaxing an infant to shapeshift?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it exactly that way, but maybe that was in the back of my mind. I’ve never heard of anyone being forced to shapeshift—only helped into their natural inclinations, but…”

  “But the two might not be separated by much?”

  I sighed. “It’s turning out that a great deal of what I thought was distantly separated might not be so much.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.” Marskal’s voice was so warm with feeling—with that impossible love he nurtured for me—that I didn’t correct him to say I hadn’t meant the two of us. Besides, he might be right about that, too. Something else for me to ponder.

  “Marskal?”

  “Yes, quicksilver girl?”

  I laughed a little. “Do we have to go back to the palace tonight?”

  He shook his head, lips brushing mine as he did. “Not unless you’re still hungry. Both ships leave on the dawn tide and we need to be on board ours. Otherwise…well, we’re all accustomed to you disappearing and turning up at the last moment. They’ll assume I’m with you.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. So, I focused on the relief that we could stay outside a little longer. “Did you mean it, about sleeping outside—I mean, would you be all right with sleeping right here?”

  “With you? Anywhere.”

  “Good.” I reached for the laces of his shirt, and he stopped me, hands closing on my wrists.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting you naked,” I replied, very reasonably, I thought.

  “We’re not having sex tonight.”

  “No? I seem to recall a deal where I get my way this time. Bed or no.” I stopped his sigh with a kiss, drawing him into it, delighting in his rapid arousal despite his half-hearted attempts to fend me off. Getting my hands inside his shirt, I hummed in pleasure at the feel of his skin, nipping at the strong edge of his jaw when he broke from the kiss.

  “Zynda,” he said, gripping my shoulders and setting me away from him. “You almost died just now.”

  “I’m feeling better,” I purred. “And you were the one to chastise me about celebrating life.” I slipped his hold and, moving faster than he could stop me, ripped his shirt off.

  “I’m going to run out of shirts, you minx.” But he was laughing as he scolded me, tumbling me onto my back, pinning my wrists by my head, a knee between my thighs. I struggled, but couldn’t break the hold this time.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Have you been practicing Dasnarian wrestling tricks?
”

  “The Hawks and the Vervaldr have traded a number of useful techniques, yes,” he replied.

  Lifting my hips, I rubbed my sex against his hard thigh where it pinned my groin. “Those Dasnarian men, so clever.”

  “Don’t start.” He closed his eyes a moment, mastering himself. “You and I need to talk.”

  “Oh, Moranu, save me from mossbacks! We’ve been talking. Sex now. No more nattering.” I strained up to reach him with my mouth, but he kept reared back, expression set. Never had I longed more to shift form and take him by surprise. He’d find himself wrestling the tiger and we’d see how his Dasnarian tricks worked then.

  “This is important,” he insisted. “Lie still. We need to talk about babies.”

  That did it. Few topics could more immediately dull my lust. But I still wasn’t discussing it. “If that’s how you want to be, let’s go back to the palace.”

  His voice gentled, but his grip didn’t. Not a stupid man, by any stretch. “I didn’t think of it before, because the women in the Hawks all use certain herbs to prevent babies. It was careless and stupid of me, but I made an assumption. Our conversation tonight made me realize… Zynda, could you get with child, being with me?”

  I shrugged as best I could, which wasn’t much. “Unlikely, as you are a mossback. And I’m probably not fertile. If I ever have, I miscarried before I knew about it.” On any other night, I could have made it sound like I didn’t care. Not this one, not with so much jumbled emotion already.

  Marskal unbent enough to kiss my forehead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Though, of course, it mattered. More than could be voiced. “Anyway, you needn’t worry about being saddled with a partblood child.”

  “Why not?” He sounded careful. “Are you taking precautions?”

  I nearly gaped at him, then had to laugh. “Haven’t you been listening? No Tala tries not to have babies. If I get with child by you, it would be a goddess-gifted miracle.”

  He still didn’t release me. “Would you tell me?”

  Dangerous territory here. “Let me up.”

  He considered it, then shook his head. “No. I want a straight answer.”

  I sighed and turned my head. “I’ve tried to tell you I’m not the right woman for you—and not only because of Final Form. Tala and mossback ways don’t mix. Even if I don’t take Final Form, I could never be exclusive to you. Shapeshifters sleep around in part to find a compatible mate in the hopes of making a child.”

  “I’ll worry about that part later. You’re saying no, you wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Fine. That’s a no, I would not tell you.” I relented a little. “Maybe, if I were sure you were the father, and if …” I had to take a deep breath. “If the child survived the first couple of years, I would maybe bring them to visit you.”

  Stony silence met that. This is what comes of honesty.

  “You say that like we wouldn’t be together.”

  I laughed, tossing my head in the sand, ignoring how he glared at me. “This is all academic if I take Final Form.”

  “But not if you don’t. Why couldn’t we be together in that case?”

  “Maybe I’d be sleeping around, looking for a compatible father.”

  “This is if you quickened with my child, then we could be together and you wouldn’t need to look at other men.”

  The possessiveness in his tone made me both tingle and want to kick at him. “Where would we be together?”

  “There’s no longer a barrier around Annfwn. If you want to live there, I’m willing to do that.”

  “You would not fit in.”

  He set his jaw. “You can’t know that.”

  “You’ve never even been there.”

  “Wrong—I traveled through Annfwn with Her Majesty to board the Tala ship to come to Nahanau.”

  “Marskal! I met you there and I know perfectly well that you were all blindfolded and escorted through in the middle of the night.”

  “I’ve still been there,” he replied, obstinate as an ox.

  I blew out a long breath. “Can we maybe not argue about where we’d theoretically live if we—against all probability—decided to continue this affair, assuming I don’t take Final Form, if—again, against all probability—I, who am likely infertile, should conceive a child with you, an incompatible mossback?”

  He considered that, then laughed a little, shaking his head. “You have a point.”

  “Thank you. Can I be allowed to move now?”

  “Not yet.” But he bent down to kiss me, seductive and sweet. Oh yes. Much better. “I want you to promise me something.”

  Here it was. I braced myself.

  “Promise me that if you have any idea that you’re with child, you’ll tell me.”

  Moranu save me. And him. “What if I don’t think it’s yours?” I asked bluntly.

  But he didn’t flinch. “Even then.”

  “Why?” I asked it plaintively. “It makes no sense.”

  “It makes sense to me. I want to know, to be there for you.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to do anything.”

  “Shh. Leave that to me.” He kissed me again, coaxing now, increasing the fire. I moved against him, but to no avail. “Promise,” he murmured.

  “Fine. Though it will never happen, I promise to tell you if I think I’m with child—if we are still in contact.”

  He hesitated slightly, then nodded. “I’ll take it.”

  ~ 19 ~

  “You lied to me.”

  My eyes snapped open. I lay naked in Marskal’s arms, his sleeping breath warm on my shoulder where he wrapped up close around me. Amazingly, my jolt to wakefulness didn’t transmit, because he continued to sleep deeply, his arm and thigh draped over me, surprisingly heavy for a such a lanky man.

  Of course, I wasn’t at all sure how either of us had slept through an enormous dragon landing on the beach and settling down a snout’s length away. Though my heart hammered in panic, I made sure to appear outwardly languid.

  “Good morning, Kiraka,” I thought at her. The sky remained dark, but dawn scented the air. Soon the horizon would pinken and we would have to head for the harbor anyway. Detained by dragon would be an unassailable excuse for tardiness, however. “In what way did I lie?”

  “Ah, now I know you must be kin, however distant. You do not quibble over whether you lied. You only wish to determine which lie I detected.”

  “Makes it easier to give you an intelligent reply anyway.”

  She snorted, steam billowing from her nostrils in the cool predawn air. Marskal stirred, then tensed. I put a hand on his arm around my waist. “It’s all right for the moment,” I murmured. “She and I are talking.”

  “This never happens with the mossback girls,” he muttered into my hair—making me laugh—but stayed still. Which was good, because Kiraka had continued speaking in my head and I didn’t want to screw up because I was talking to them both at once.

  “You claimed the man wasn’t your lover and he clearly is.” The dragon had a tone to her voice I couldn’t quite decipher.

  “He wasn’t then. Now he is. Time has passed and our relationship changed.” It had changed, it occurred to me, and not only because of sex.

  She seemed to mull that over, the twin puffs of steam reminding me of the older nobles at Ordnung, puffing on their lung-healing herbs over wine after dinner. “Time.” She sighed the word through my mind, an endless loop of shuffling scales. “It becomes difficult to track. Centuries pass in moments. Moments endure for years. If you wish to become a dragon, keep that in mind.”

  My heart hammered so hard, I felt sure Marskal would feel it through the press of our bodies. “You will show me the way then?”

  “Can you shapeshift?”

  I resolved not to quail before the question. “I will soon. I’m working on it.” There. I would make that be true.

  “If you can learn, I will teach you.”

 
At last. I should have felt exultant. Shaman would rejoice. And yet… I felt a strange sorrow.

  “However,” she said. “That must perforce come later. I have considered the matter and I’ve decided on the gift I require.”

  “What can I give you, Lady Dragon?”

  “Release the other dragons. I need company. And they’ll be helpful in the war.”

  “That might be a compelling argument. I have to tell you—after you… attacked me, my people are less than enthusiastic about having more of you around.”

  “Convince them,” she replied with airy disinterest. “One would think I’ve provided you with sufficient motivation.”

  “I only know for sure of one other.”

  “Start there.”

  “Any suggestions for how?” I’d have no local barbarian king to sexually kindle the magical connection. Amusing that the method sounded relatively convenient.

  “This would be your problem,” she replied with acerbic emphasis. “You were there when I awoke. Do the same thing.”

  I mentally sighed, but suppressed it.“Understood.”

  Then, silently as she must have arrived, she slithered back into the sea. For a few moments, her dorsal spines showed, like a school of sharks, then she disappeared entirely into the mist.

  “It’s safe now,” I said. “I think.”

  Marskal let out a breath and rolled me over, pulling me close. “I’ve been awakened by a man standing over me, lowering a mace to bash in my brains, and it didn’t galvanize me like waking up to see her breathing smoke on you.”

  “It was steam.”

  “Oh, well then.” He laughed and kissed me on the forehead. “No need to have worried.”

  “Kiss me for real.” I lifted my lips to him.

  “My mouth is stale from sleep. Let me rinse it.”

  “Do mossback girls care for such things? I don’t.” I slid my thigh between his, stroking against his erection. “Remind me I’m flesh, Marskal, and not ash.” Cheating a bit, to play on that, but it worked. With a sound of concern, he kissed me, tasting not stale—whatever that might mean—but like himself. A flavor I was beginning to know well and miss when I didn’t have it.