The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Zyr laughed, heartily, throwing back his head. “Zynda doesn’t need anyone’s protection, much less a mossback’s.”

  I winced a little, hearing the derision in his tone, quite sure I’d once said it the same way. I finished shaking the sand out of my hair and slipped my arm through Marskal’s. “Be nice. He’s my lover.”

  Zyr laughed. “For a night, yes?”

  “No.” I hesitated over how to explain what even I didn’t understand. “More than that.”

  Zyr’s angled black brows lowered, as if he were the panther still, putting back its ears and sizing up his pretty as he looked Marskal up and down. “Really?” He drew out the word dubiously. “I’m not seeing it. He can’t possibly be compatible.”

  I glared at him. “My apologies for my brother’s rudeness. Marskal, this is Zyr. Zyr, Lieutenant Marskal, leader of the Hawks, the high queen’s personal guard. Don’t mess with him.”

  “Clearly your time among the mossbacks has degraded your sense. What in Moranu are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that my sex life is my business and that I thought you had better manners than this.”

  “This is stupid, even for you.”

  “Don’t speak to her like that,” Marskal said, voice tight.

  Zyr threw him a viciously irritated glance. “Stay out of this, mossback. If you need a female on your arm that badly, I can round up a few more shapeshifter girls for you—maybe you’d like to try a few more of us, broaden your sampling of the exotic.”

  “Zyr!” My brother could be an ass, but this was excessive, even for him.

  “What!” he yelled back in the same tone, slipping into Tala. “This isn’t like you. Why are you letting him act like he owns you? Don’t you know who this guy is? He was at Ordnung. He killed, imprisoned, and tortured us. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Marskal gave me an inquiring look, sensing the aggression easily. I translated and Marskal studied Zyr, then said in Common Tongue, “I thought you looked familiar. You were captured at the Assault of Ordnung, weren’t you?”

  “Caught, but not held,” Zyr snapped back, showing his teeth, which retained a hint of the panther’s fangs.

  “Fought, but honorably,” Marskal replied evenly. “It was my duty to defend Ordnung. And I never tortured anyone.”

  “Bah!” Zyr flipped a hand at him. “You all look alike.”

  “Zyr,” I intervened. “That stuff is history. We won our queen. King Rayfe brought Queen Andromeda home and—and,” I said more loudly when he made a scoffing sound, “our king and queen signed a treaty. Marskal is not the enemy. None of them are and we have a real enemy to fight together.”

  He growled, low in his throat. “He’s not good enough for you. Look at him. I could take him apart in a moment.”

  Marskal pulled away from me, relaxed in that perfectly alert and ready way of his that meant his attention had gone into precision fighting mode. “Care to test that theory?” he invited.

  “Happily,” Zyr replied, grinning in a way I knew well. He wasn’t playing.

  “No,” I said. They both ignored me.

  “Are you confident enough to set your blades aside?” Zyr asked in a lethally soft voice.

  Marskal smiled at him, not at all friendly. “Sure. If you don’t use fangs or claws.”

  They circled each other, assessing.

  “Don’t do this,” I commanded.

  “Stay out of this, Zynda,” Zyr snarled, “and don’t use your magic to help, or I’ll know your mossback truly is too weak for you.”

  Marskal caught my eye, an opaque glance, but a speaking one. He wouldn’t take kindly to my interference.

  “Your blades. My fangs and claws,” Zyr declared.

  “Done,” Marskal replied, drawing his sword and long dagger.

  ~ 21 ~

  Zyr flashed into grizzly bear form, roaring mightily and lunging with lightning speed. A massive paw bigger than Marskal’s head swept through the night, razor claws gleaming. Terror burst through me, chilling my blood. But Marskal dodged, coming up and under, sword slicing the underside of Zyr’s foreleg.

  He roared, moving fast, catching Marskal on the hip with his claws. Marskal winced, but leapt back out of the hug that might have crushed him. I stood back, the need to shift, to fight, pounding in my temples. If Zyr killed Marskal, I’d—

  But Marskal turned the tables, spinning behind the bear to hamstring him. Zyr fell in a howl of pain and rage. Marskal followed in with a wicked sweep of his sword, the short blade poised for a killing strike. If he killed Zyr, then—

  Zyr flashed into the cat, springing up with elastic grace. Marskal didn’t hesitate, adjusting his defense instantly. I’d seen him fight the fish-birds, but he’d been on the defensive, protecting me. Now he went on the attack, as vicious and hard-edged as any fighter I’d seen. Nothing like Ursula’s enhanced speed, but as fast as Jepp, and stronger. He used the length of the sword to advantage, wielding it one-handed to keep Zyr well back.

  Frustrated, Zyr sent up a ululating wail that sent a scree of warning down my spine. He swiped at Marskal in fury, catching his paw on the keen edge for his trouble. For his part, Marskal looked calm and cool, despite the blood I could scent on the air. He fought with meticulous intelligence, outmaneuvering the cat.

  Zyr leapt and Marskal raised his short blade to impale—and Zyr became an eagle mid-leap, dodging the blade and raking Marskal’s cheek with his talons. Marskal lost no time, wheeling and bringing the sword in an arc that cleaved the eagle’s wing.

  Zyr crashed to the sand with an avian scream. I realized I had my hands at my throat, as if keeping myself from screaming also. Marskal advanced, on guard, but with concern in the lines of his body. I relaxed, as I should have from the beginning. As I should have trusted. Marskal would no more kill my brother than he’d hurt me. Family was everything to him.

  “Enough?” He asked the eagle, speaking to him as a man, remembering as he always did with me that he spoke to a person, not an animal.

  Zyr flicked into human form, now wearing only short pants, and clutching his arm though it had healed when he shifted. Marskal would have remembered that, too, going for debilitating wounds to maim his shapeshifter opponent, knowing he could heal from it. Zyr glared at him. Then burst out laughing.

  “Moranu, that hurt!” He added a few more curses, then flexed his arm, checking that it moved cleanly. Marskal straightened from his crouch, sheathing his blades. Then extended a hand to help Zyr up.

  “Truce?”

  Zyr shook back his hair, flicking me a look. Then shrugged. Taking Marskal’s hand, he yanked with shifter speed and tumbled him to the sand. “Truce,” he agreed. “Well fought. Zynda—bring the wine, would you?”

  I took a deep swallow to settle my nerves. Apparently mossback and shapeshifter men shared certain bewildering behaviors. Snagging a skin and two more mugs, I brought them and settled into the sand with them, making a point to the triangle.

  “Are you bleeding badly?” I asked Marskal, filling a cup and handing it to him first.

  He grimaced. “Not too much, but if you have a Tala healer handy, I wouldn’t say no.”

  Zyr surveyed him. “We can round someone up for you. I don’t know why you people aren’t easier to kill, with the way you can’t heal yourselves.”

  Marskal returned the look steadily, much the same as he studied me, I realized. “Maybe we work harder to learn to fight well, because we know we can’t heal midfight. We do heal ourselves. It just takes longer.”

  Zyr laughed. “All right, I’ll grant that.” He narrowed his eyes. “But are you implying I don’t fight well?”

  I tensed, ready for them to go at it again, but Marskal grinned easily. “You fight very well—but you fight like an animal. If you fought like a man in animal form, I wouldn’t have been able to beat you.”

  Zyr growled a little and I summoned my magic. I’d had enough of standing by and watching them beat on each other. But then he laughed, drinki
ng deeply of his wine. “Maybe you can give us pointers, mossback.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Marskal replied. “We’re allies after all. Your strength is my strength.”

  “Allies in what—sharing trade goods? Our food goes over the pass and you send back things,” Zyr sneered the word, but without menace.

  Marskal glanced at me. “Things might get bad, Zyr. There is a foreign enemy, called gelyneinioes in the old tongue, called Deyrr by the mossbacks. They’re using reanimated animals to penetrate the barrier. Maybe people forced into shapeshifting.”

  Zyr stared back at me, appalled, but also with a glimmer of recognition.

  “Have you been seeing anyone like that?” I asked.

  He nodded, draining his mug. “The king and queen will hear about this?”

  “Yes, Ursula is telling them now.”

  “They might put it together without me, but I’ll remind them of a few incidents,” Zyr replied, a faint frown for the news.

  “We appreciate all intelligence on this,” Marskal put in. “You know far more about this that we do, obviously, so we’ll rely on you for help.”

  Zyr studied him, then glanced at me. “Well, he’s interesting. And he’s a decent fighter. Still, Zynda, a mossback? Is he that good?”

  “I’m sitting right here,” Marskal said, and Zyr flashed him a rakish smile.

  “As if you didn’t try for one yourself,” I replied to Zyr with relish. I’d been saving up this tidbit, and he deserved it, after taunting me about Marskal. “Though Dafne turned you down, didn’t she? Poor, rejected Zyr. I bet that stung.”

  Astonishment gave way to chagrin, then humor. “She told you, huh? Yes, that tasty little librarian turned me down. Once. But I haven’t given up. Is she with you?” He craned his neck, scanning the laughing, dancing throng on the beach.

  “She married the King of Nahanau,” I informed him. “She’s a queen now and out of your league—but then she always was or she wouldn’t have turned you down.”

  “You are never going to let me live this down, are you?”

  “Nope.” I grinned at him. “How the mighty have fallen. Struck down by a mossback girl, too.”

  Even Marskal laughed at that, then looked between us. “You look remarkably alike.”

  “Womb companions,” Zyr replied.

  “Twins?” Marskal clarified.

  “That’s your word for it,” I replied. “We don’t have the concept so much, since womb companions might have different fathers. But Zyr and I look enough alike that we likely do have the same father.”

  “Moranu shield him in her shadows, whoever he may be,” Zyr added cheerfully, refilling Marskal’s mug and springing to his feet. “Here, have a drink. There’s food over there. I’ll get a healer to come over. Come on, Zynda. Enough of terrible futures. Let’s play for a bit.”

  I resisted Zyr’s tugging hands. “No, I’ll stay here a while longer.”

  Zyr only grinned at me. “Don’t be silly. This party is dead boring. Let’s go play.”

  He didn’t have to emphasize it like that—I knew what he meant. “That’s all right, I—”

  “What in Moranu is wrong with you?” Zyr demanded, all humor fled again.

  Marskal, following along just fine, apparently, though we’d lapsed into the Tala tongue, put a steadying hand on my knee. “I think Zynda would prefer to stay at the party a while longer. There are many people here excited to see her.”

  I threw him a grateful look—marked contrast to Zyr’s scowl. He paced a tight circle, and I could imagine his tail lashing. Then he stopped and leveled a long stare at me. “What’s going on with you? This is more than your lust for the mossback.”

  My heart sank into my gut. I’d have to tell him. “I can’t…” I started. And stopped. This wasn’t how I’d imagined talking about it.

  “Because of him?”

  “No!”

  “Then why?” Zyr threw up his hands. “Why won’t you just—”

  “Because!” I screamed it at him, venting all the frustration of standing helplessly by while they fought, and clenching my fists. “Because I can’t shapeshift! I’m done. I’m broken, and I’ll never get it back.”

  One advantage of having a grand weeping fit, as I had the night before—I seemed to have spent all my tears. I’d worried I might break down telling Zyr the awful truth, but I didn’t. Other than a little shouting—and Zyr and I had always lost our tempers with each other—I didn’t do too badly.

  He, however, was completely stunned. He shook his head. Stared at me. “What?”

  “I know you heard me just fine.”

  Zyr looked to Marskal and back to me, then sat heavily again. “Explain.”

  So, I did, as concisely as I could. For all his mischievous charm and temperamental nature, Zyr listened very well when he decided to. Finally he raked his hair out of his face, and looked to Marskal. “You. You carried her down the volcano as a hummingbird and hand-fed her sugar water.”

  Marskal nodded, eyes going to me. “I did what needed to be done.”

  “Well, I’m an ass,” Zyr sighed.

  “Do you hear me arguing?” I said, trying for sass, but he only shook his head at me, seeming weary. At least he wasn’t pitying me.

  “Zynda.” He took a breath. “You shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, no one has been able to do that, ever,” he insisted.

  “Zyr. I know,” I ground out.

  He stared at me, as if he didn’t know me. “I mean, it’s not poss—”

  “Zyr!”

  He held up his hands and grinned. “Yeah, yeah—couldn’t resist. Turns out my sister is some kind of heroically gifted shapeshifter sorceress. All the girls will want to try for my babies now.”

  “As if they don’t already,” I retorted, but he only smiled happily, waggling his eyebrows.

  “True, Moranu bless them.” He sobered. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, honestly, the misery returning.

  Zyr hugged me. “Don’t worry, gruntling. I’ll always be your brother.”

  That made me a little weepy after all, and I nodded, sniffling.

  “I realize I’m the mossback here,” Marskal said, “but she’s alive and healthy—isn’t that cause for celebration?”

  Zyr blinked at him. “Well…” He looked back at me. “I mean, yes, better she’s alive than dead, but…” He closed his mouth, looking pained.

  I shook my head. “I’ve tried to explain. He doesn’t understand.”

  Zyr shrugged, elaborately, and I saw myself in him. “How can they?”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Marskal set his jaw against a comment. Good man. “You were going to ask him for help,” he prodded me, in a tight voice.

  Zyr’s eyes opened wider. Moranu take it, after Zyr’s reaction I’d decided not to ask. If he’d thought he could help, he would have said that right away. Instead he’d commiserated. He knew as well as I that I’d lost the ability forever.

  I took Marskal’s mug, which he still held, untouched, and took a long drink. “Never mind, Zyr. It’s all right. I’d just kind of thought that…” I couldn’t finish past the regret lodged in my throat.

  “I am the best teacher,” he asserted, brow furrowing. He drank from his own mug thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It depends on why it’s gone.”

  I rolled my eyes at him and laughed. “Oh, thank you for that brilliant insight.”

  He pinched me. Or tried to—I was too fast and wise to his ways, ducking him easily.

  “You’re still fast,” he observed.

  “And strong as ever,” Marskal added. “I think it’s still in her.”

  Zyr gave him a long look. “Do you, now? You have a good eye. Hmm.” He stared at me so ferociously I began to get restless.

  “Let’s forget about—”

  “Meet me in the morning,” Zyr interrupted me, rising to his feet. We did likewise
, Marskal putting an arm around my waist. “I’ll cancel the children’s classes and we’ll try.”

  “Zyr, I don’t—”

  “We’ll try,” he repeated. Then grinned and tossed back his hair. “Even the mossback thinks you can. Don’t be such a gruntling.”

  “I am not a gruntling.”

  “Uh huh. Look like a gruntling to me.” He turned to survey the party. “If we can’t play, I’m going to find me a mossback girl and find out what’s so wonderful about them. I think I spotted one with a long braid the color of sunshine.”

  Only Zyr could have noticed that while harassing me. Ursula must have gotten her way with letting the others off the ship, which—why had I ever doubted it? “Karyn. She’s Dasnarian. And a virgin saving it for marriage, as is the way of her people. You won’t be able to seduce her.”

  Zyr grinned at me. “Challenge accepted!” And he went off, whistling along with the musicians.

  “Are you all right?” Marskal asked me, turning me to face him and holding me by my shoulders.

  I mustered a smile. “That actually went better than I feared.”

  His lip curled and he shook that away. “I hate to imagine what you feared then.”

  “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this is about who we are.”

  “And pride,” he added.

  “I won’t argue.”

  “A miracle.” He grinned, then kissed me before I could retort. A kiss that quickly went deeper and hotter than I expected.

  “It could be it goes back to this thing,” I said when I could speak again, “that you were all talking about on the ship. Maybe it’s conditioned. The only useful Tala is a shapeshifter.”

  “But you have those who can’t.”

  “Yes. And they are… lesser.” It bothered me that I’d always seen it that way. “Anyway. If anyone can help me, Zyr can. And we’ll try in the morning. Can we not talk about it anymore tonight?”

  “Of course. Besides, you have a welcome home party to attend.”

  I surveyed the crowd with some dismay. “I’m not sure I’m up for more conversations. And you need a healer.”

  “It’s a shallow set of scratches. He barely nicked me and it’s stopped bleeding for now. I wouldn’t worry about it except that I’d prefer to be in top form.”