“Always the protector.”
He nodded, crisp and serious, then gave me the Hawks’ salute, fist over heart and bowed deeply. “My job, Lady Zynda.”
I laughed and he grinned at me. “How about dancing then?” He asked.
“Dancing?”
“I believe I owe you.” He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it, a courtly gesture. “If my lady would favor me with a dance.”
I had to laugh. “You know it won’t be like at Ordnung’s court.”
He cocked his head at the Tala dancing in wild swirls of silk and flying hair, weaving among the torches and bonfires. “I’d noticed. But good thing. I didn’t exaggerate when I said I don’t dance. I’m really not good at it—and in the court at Ordnung I’d never presume to dance with a highly ranked lady such as yourself.”
Winding my arms behind his neck, I snugged up against him, moving sinuously. “You’re an excellent lover; dancing should be just the same.”
“Think so?” he murmured, then kissed me.
“Yes. Let’s stay here. Keep it smooth and easy.”
“I can do that.”
I let myself sink into it, moving with the music and taking him with me. He followed along, hands moving over me, becoming part of the dance as he caressed my curves, stroking over the silk and making his own patterns with each part of me I offered. I held on to him—as I’d gotten in the habit of doing, though I couldn’t make myself worry about it in that moment—leaning against his strong chest, drifting on the sweet waves of music, Marskal’s loving hands, and the scents of the redolent night-blooming flowers of Annfwn.
For the time being, I forgot about my vows and what the future held, and just savored the moment. In my heart, I soared.
In the morning, I rose and pulled on the dress I’d already treated badly by almost drowning in it. I could hardly do more damage to it. And I left my hair pin on the window ledge. I’d be going back to the childhood basics of shifting, which meant that—if I did manage to shift—then Moranu only knew what I’d be wearing, if anything, when I returned to human form.
Looking out the open windows of the balcony room, I watched the sea take on its distinctive turquoise color as the sun rose over the cliffs above. Even this borrowed room in the royal house felt closer to sleeping outside as any I’d ever been in. Using the comb Marskal had made sure was placed in my trunk brought over from the ship—the man was forever prepared, taking care of mundane details—I worked the few snarls out of my hair.
Maybe I was getting better at the chore. Which was a good thing, if I ended up trapped in human form, but the thought still depressed me. Not a good thing, as I needed to concentrate on an optimistic perspective for working with Zyr.
I turned to find Marskal watching me from the bed. With hands folded behind his head, his arm muscles showed off his masculine beauty, along with his furred armpits and chest, his tanned skin dark against the white sheets. His cuts—a bit more than scratches—had been easily repaired by the healer and he was back to fine health. Tempting to crawl back in and indulge ourselves some more.
But even I could recognize that opting for pleasure over the pain ahead would be taking the easy path.
“I might be a while,” I said.
He dipped his chin, unsurprised. “Take your time. Whatever you need to do.”
I laughed a little, both of us acting like this wasn’t a deciding moment for me.
“You can do whatever you like. Explore. If you want anything—food, drink, something that catches your eye—just tell them my name and it will go on my account.”
With a strange smile, he huffed a laugh. “Now I’m the kept man, lying abed while my lady goes off to manage her business, but promised whatever treats I wish to occupy me until she returns.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” The trial ahead must have been making me emotional—although I seemed to be a ball of emotion these days—because I felt oddly stricken by that. I wasn’t any good at this thing with Marskal, whatever it was.
He held out a hand to me. “No, that was my fault. A bad joke. Come here.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, taking his hand and holding on, probably too tightly. I didn’t care.
“I’ll need to check in with Her Majesty,” he said, all matter of fact, his standard planning approach. “My bets are that she and Harlan will head to Ordnung today. I’ll find out if there are updates on her plans and strategy. I’ll also report on our progress, which means I’ll have to tell her what you’re up to.”
“You’ll tell her that I’m working with Zyr on regaining my abilities.”
He nodded, perfectly neutral, just another part of the plan. “Yes. And I’ll let her know that we’ll send messages on our next steps. If you’re wanting to go to Windroven, we’ll need her permission and to smooth the way with Queen Amelia.”
I let out a breath, not letting it be shaky. “All right.”
He squeezed my hand and let it go. Then tangled his fingers in the ends of my hair. “I can come with you, if you like. I just assumed that this needed privacy. Tala secrets and all,” he teased gently.
“And concentration,” I agreed. Then I kissed him, wishing I could linger over it. “But thank you for offering. Will you do something for me?”
“Of course.” He said it gravely, and it felt like he was telling me he loved me.
I pulled the Star on its chain over my head and gave it to him. “I need you to keep this for me.”
He enclosed it in his fist, but watched me with sober brown eyes. “I will, but shouldn’t you have it with you? You’re its guardian now.”
I shook my head, my hair sliding over my bare arms. “I’d have to set it aside while I attempt to shift, as I can’t be sure of taking it correctly with me and bringing it back again. Better for you to keep it.”
His fist tightened, along with his jaw, though he didn’t otherwise move. “Is this that dangerous?” he asked softly.
I shrugged—then stopped myself. He deserved an honest reply. At least what was most true in this moment. “Yes. It’s possible I’ll manage a partial attempt and muff it up.”
“And die, is what you’re saying.”
I held his gaze. “That could happen. If it does, I don’t want you to think badly of me, that I didn’t tell you the truth.”
He sat up, slowly, and set the Star on the bed next to him, then enfolded me in his arms. I leaned into him, and we sat like that for a long few moments. Finally he kissed my temple. “Thank you for your honesty,” he said in a rough voice. “But I’m finding it very…” He dragged in a breath. “I don’t want to say goodbye, and I’m feeling like I should. Just in case.”
“No—don’t.” I pulled back and framed his face in my hands. He had on that remote expression, the one that covered strong feelings. “With this kind of thing, intention matters. Thinking of the best outcome will help. I wouldn’t have even given voice to the worst outcome, if not for…” I ended with a shrug, unable to do otherwise.
“If not for the sensitivities of your mossback lover,” he finished for me with a wry grin. Then he sobered, searching my face with grave eyes. “Is it worth it, Zynda?”
A rush of emotion whirled through me, so much threaded into it, sucking me under and spinning me out that I almost couldn’t answer yes or no. Maybe he read it in me because he took my wrists in his hands, holding them tight.
“Is it worth risking your life to get this ability back?” he pressed.
I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. But there are more important considerations at hand than my own life—and those things require me to do my utmost.”
He nodded once, hooding his gaze as he released. Then he picked up the Star and looped the chain over his head, the topaz glowing tiger-gold over his heart. “I’ll keep this for you then.”
“Thank you. Ah, if necessary, give it back to Queen Andromeda. I trust you to do that,” I added.
He smiled, but with a haunted look in his eyes. “I’l
l give it back to you when I see you later today.”
“That sounds good.” I smiled and stood, shaking out my hair, resisting the urge to wind it up with my pin. If—when—I returned, I’d want it. “I will see you later.”
“Zynda.”
I looked back to see him still sitting in the bed, the sheet barely draped around his hips.
“Remember your promise to me,” he said, with grave insistence.
Confused, I frowned at him. “Even if I were with child, I wouldn’t know by now. Most likely.”
He shook his head a little, with that huffed laugh. “Not that one—though I’m glad you remember it. The other one.”
I promise to do everything in my power to stay alive. I had sort of forgotten that one, as irrational as it was. Oddly like the promise Queen Andromeda had extracted from Ursula, however. I suppose these are the sorts of promises people who love each other make. I wasn’t at all certain how I’d wound up making so many promises to Marskal.
“Oh, right. Yes.” I nodded. Because he seemed to expect something more, I added, “Everything in my power.”
He enfolded the Star in his fist, holding it there, close to the Hawks’ salute, but different. Somehow intimate and just for me. “I’ll wait for you.”
~ 22 ~
Annfwn bustled with activity. Many Tala have First Forms that are crepuscular, so they wake up hours before dawn, busying themselves with their projects before taking a long midday nap. There are, naturally, nocturnal types, but they tend not to live in the cliff city. Those sorts prefer to live more in the wild, forming communities in the forests or more remote cliffs and meadowlands, according to their nature.
The royal residence sits near the top of the cliff. After the discussion of the day before, speculating on the strategy against attack from the sea, it occurred to me for the first time that this could be the safest location for the king and queen. More practically, it meant I could use the household back paths up to the training arena on the flat top of the cliff.
I had been there only rarely since my own childhood lessons, having had little reason to go there. I’d been a proficient shapeshifter from my earliest days and hadn’t had to take lessons for very long, as I’d quickly surpassed the skill of my teachers. But my feet knew the way and the chalky dirt felt familiar on my bare soles. Sense memories awakened in me, along with the sight and scent of the periwinkle blossoms that bordered this trail at the top in the hot sun, and the sound of the waves lapping the sand far below, and I suddenly and viscerally remembered being that girl again. So alive and full of magic. Zyr and I running up the cliff trails, changing form along the way, always challenging each other.
It had all seemed so easy and simple then. No dread or fears of the future. No complications. No pain. Only the joy of shapeshifting and being alive.
Maybe that’s what Marskal meant by needing a better reason. Or Moranu by saying that it wouldn’t be all pain, that there was loving. I’d loved shapeshifting once, before I’d had to use it to save my life. Connecting with that feeling again could be the path I sought.
Optimism coursing through me that this could work, I rounded the last curve, the walled arena in sight ahead.
Where the Shaman of Moranu blocked my path.
Shaman is wildly unkempt, even by lax Tala standards. Working with magic has bleached his hair white and darkened his Tala blue eyes to almost black. For the most part, the deeper blue or gray a shapeshifter’s eyes, the purer his blood. But there’s something about the immersion in the rites of Moranu that deepens the color, too. The waning to the new moon. Shaman espouses a purity of intention in shapeshifting, which means he doesn’t bother with vanities like unsnarling hair or manifesting with clean garments when returning to human form.
Shaman also has forsaken his name as belonging to the frivolous world, so though I’d known him all my life, I knew him only by his title. Shaman wore furs, a combination of many sewn together. His dark hair fell in knotted ropes around his shoulders, braided with carved stones significant to Moranu, along with teeth, claws, scales, and feathers. All of it, including the furs, I knew came from his various animal forms—during rites in which he cut off parts of his animal selves before returning to human form. Sacrifices to Moranu always curdled some deep part of me in horror. In his costume, though, I now recognized an imitation of Moranu as she’d appeared to me, in her endless shifting.
The full moon silver disc of his office rested at his collarbone, and the Sword of Moranu rode at his side. He’d come when I asked, to crown Ursula as high queen in the name of Moranu, and had also performed the mate binding on King Rayfe and Queen Andromeda, consecrating them to their roles as leaders of the Tala and to each other.
“Zynda.” His voice carried the resonance of wind-tossed forests and a storm at sea, giving me shivers. “I’d expected you to come see me. Though not as this,” he added, disappointment in his eyes. “I expected perhaps too much.”
“I’d been planning to come see you,” I said, “but I hoped to solve a small problem first.”
“I am not interested in your problems.” Shaman said, lined face stern. “Only in your solutions to the grave fate awaiting the Tala. Did you meet with the dragon or not?”
“I did, Shaman.”
He studied me, seeing into me, face dark. That dread, ever present since the incident, as Marskal put it, coiled up like a cobra spreading its hood.
“The dragon is called Kiraka,” I told him. “I don’t know if she’s one mentioned in your histories.” He didn’t offer any response. Not that I’d expected or hoped for it—he never revealed what sources he drew his information from. “She was able to speak in my mind with clear words, and could hear what I thought to her.”
He didn’t say anything, but the sense of heightened alertness intensified. If he’d been in mammalian form, his ears would have pricked. I picked my way through my own words, knowing I couldn’t avoid the pit at the end, but the cowardly part of me wished to.
“I put our plight to her. She was critical of our ancestors’ choices to expand the Heart to allow us to live inside the barrier.”
He stirred, then stilled himself. I continued under his remorseless regard. “In the end, she agreed to teach me to take the Final Form. However, she—”
“Then why are you not returned as a dragon?” he demanded, mouth contorted in outrage. “While you fritter your time away, dallying with a completely inappropriate mossback lover, our babies are dying. With every moment you waste, we lose countless lives.”
“I…” It all felt too huge to explain. And what had made sense only last night no longer did.
“You were not so selfish when you left Annfwn. Your time among the mossbacks has changed you. And you of Salena’s purest blood. She would be ashamed of you.”
I felt it keenly in my bones, how Salena would be ashamed of me, of my many failures. A shapeshifter who couldn’t shift. Queen Andromeda had said Salena would be proud, but this felt so much easier to believe. Shaman’s lip curled in scorn as he surveyed me. And all of this without telling them I might not even be able to shift into Final Form, even if I satisfied Kiraka’s other condition.
Setting my jaw—a gesture I must have learned from association with Marskal, as I didn’t recall ever doing it before—I forged on. “Kiraka first tested me. Now she requires a gift, so I set out to deliver that to her.”
“And that is…” Shaman asked, though more of a demand than a question.
“She asked me to free her dragon kin from the volcano under Windroven.” I wanted to laugh at how simple I made it sound, Shaman would not appreciate the irreverence.
Shaman scowled at me. “Windroven is not Annfwn. It is none of our concern.”
I snapped my mouth shut on the retort that he could go tell Kiraka as much in person and find out her opinion on the matter. “Regardless, we are the beggars and that is what she requested.”
“What was the test?” Shaman asked, eyeing me keenly. Could he see it
in me, how I’d been broken and barely pulled myself back together?
“Personal,” I replied. The most personal challenge I’d ever had to meet. I had no desire to open it to his scrutiny.
He didn’t like that. Shaman chewed on his lips. “You will go back to Kiraka,” he decided. “Tell her we will send other acolytes to free the dragon, if she will send you back in Final Form.”
Oh, that would go over brilliantly. I barely contained my snarl. “I will not,” I replied, as evenly as Marskal might, though I surprised myself with my disobedience.
Shaman pulled his power around him, the air thickening to the oppressive levels of a thunderhead about to strike lethal lightning. With a shiver of astonished relief, I discovered he didn’t frighten me. I’d been immolated by a dragon and survived. A mere shaman of my own people could barely scratch that agony. I stared him down, feeling my own magic settle around me like a cloak. Just as Salena had always looked to me. For the first time, I thought of my powerful aunt as a woman like myself. Perhaps she’d pulled magic around her like this because she’d felt this way, too. Perhaps she, too, had needed the comfort of a strong defense.
“The will of Moranu is that you obey me,” Shaman intoned.
“I don’t think so,” I answered him, giving him an easy smile. “At least, She didn’t mention you during Her visitation with me.”
I stunned him with that. Shaman grunted, closing his hand over his silver disk of office, lowering his lids. After only a moment, his eyes snapped open. They were midnight black and full of stars.
“So be it,” he said, and in his voice, I heard a resonance of Moranu’s. “Do what you must. We await your return in Final Form.”
With that, he turned and walked away. Then he paused, and looked back. His black eyes glistened with emotion, and in that moment, he was only a man. One who carried a weight of grief. “So be it,” he repeated. “But… so much rides on this and you are the only one. Come back as soon as possible.”
The Shift of the Tide Page 26
