The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “No. Completely wrong.” Zyr’s criticism flayed my already flagging confidence.

  I pushed the hair off my sweating face, inexpressibly weary. Every cell of my body seemed to throb, as if I’d been trying to tear myself apart from the inside out.

  Zyr wiped his face also, the midday sun beating down on us. He was covered in dust, also grimy, also exhausted. We’d been working for hours and I hadn’t budged from human form. As set in place as any mossback ever was.

  “You’re going about it backwards,” Zyr said—unnecessarily as that much was painfully obvious—bristling with frustrated impatience. For the first few hours he’d maintained his sunny teacher’s calm. He’d coaxed the most intransigent children into finding at least First Form. That I’d pushed him past his patience spoke volumes. Putting fists on slim hips, he glared at me. “You’re overthinking! And you know better. You of all people know that this is instinct, underneath thought. Stop trying so thrice-cursed hard.”

  “And how in Moranu am I supposed to do that?” I’d meant to snap back at him, but I only sounded tired and pitiful. I sat back on my heels, tired of kneeling in the dust, like some mossback child pretending to be a pony. We’d switched to trying for that form when my least attempt at First Form sent me into near paralysis with terror.

  “How did you always do it?” he demanded. “You were the one who never needed lessons. You’re a better shapeshifter than I am. I don’t understand this.”

  “I don’t understand it either and I don’t know how I did it before. I just… did.”

  You’ve lost your nerve. Jepp’s flatly pragmatic diagnosis whizzed around my mind in dizzying circles, like the hummingbird I might never be again. Just that thought brought out a fresh outbreak of cold sweat, dripping down my ribs to soak into my already saturated dress.

  With a sigh, Zyr dropped to the dust beside me. He put his head in his hands, then looked at me, blue eyes dark with compassion and weariness. “I think that’s part of the problem. You had so much innate talent that you never had to learn or practice. Shapeshifting was always so easy for you. Now you’re trying too hard and entirely the wrong way.”

  I set my teeth. “Then what is the right way?”

  “I’ve been trying to show you but it’s like you can’t hear me,” he snapped back.

  “I’m trying to hear you!”

  We glared fiercely at one another, then he put a hand behind my head and leaned his forehead against mine, as we hadn’t done since we were little kids.

  “I can’t help you,” he finally said. “I thought maybe I could, but whatever is blocking you is something I can’t undo. I’m not sure anyone can. For what it’s worth, I think your mossback lover is right—it’s still in you. You’re not like the kids with barely enough of the right blood. I can sense it in you. You’re practically bursting with magic wanting to move you into different forms, but you’re…” He shrugged.

  My skin crawled with the need to shift, my blood burned with it, so I believed him. But lots of those who could never shift felt the same. It drove them mad, too. “Don’t call him that,” I said, rather than half a dozen other replies. “His name is Marskal.”

  “Attached, are we? How mossback of you.”

  “Oh, shove it. I’m not in any mood to have you chew on me.”

  “Just pointing out the obvious, sister dear. You can’t have anything long term with him, unless he’s willing to love you from afar while you confine yourself to shapeshifter men of adequate bloodlines long enough to get with child. I suppose you could fuck him while you’re pregnant. That could be fun.”

  I glared at him, then saw through his harping. “Ah, did Karyn turn you down? Two rejections from mossback women. No wonder you’re bitter.”

  He glared back at me, sulking. “Virgins. Meh. These mossbacks have too many rules. Anyway, you’re trying to change the subject. Which is you, who can’t change. Funny, huh?”

  “I have to,” I snarled at him, completely unamused by his games. “I have to take Final Form.”

  He gazed at me, serious now. Surprised. Maybe a little horrified. “You’ve been working with Shaman? I thought you gave up that idea.”

  “I’m the only one. Unless you want to do it.”

  “No, thank you. Even if I were good enough, I wouldn’t. ‘Only one.’ That means nothing. There’s no predestination. No one swooped down at your birth and declared that you would be the one to save the Tala. I should know—I was there, too.” Zyr grinned at me, but it lacked its usual sparkle.

  I smiled back, also weakly. “If not me, then who?”

  He shrugged, elaborately. “Maybe Stella, when she grows up. Or one of King Rayfe and Queen Andromeda’s kids.”

  “I don’t think we have the luxury of that much time. Queen Andromeda can’t take the Final Form—we need her more as queen.”

  Zyr stood, waiting for me to do the same. No offer to help me up like Marskal would. How quickly I’d become spoiled. “We’ve waited centuries—what’s another few decades?”

  “Maybe the end of us.”

  “Yes, well.” Zyr stared out at the sea. “Maybe it’s meant to be. If you believe in fate and the working of the goddess’s hand, then you also have to believe that Annfwn and the Tala—like all things—are meant to come to an end. Everything dies, yes? We die, our bodies dissolve, and new beings grow from the fertile earth. We learn that first as children. Like the moon, we wax and wane.”

  I nearly said those last words along with him. My frivolous flirt of a brother had it right—and the truth had been coiled in everything I’d gone through—the fate of the Tala and Annfwn mattered far less than the rest of the world as a whole. I had to try, but maybe my time among the mossbacks had changed me. My world had grown bigger.

  “Thank you,” I said, hugging Zyr with fierce gratitude.

  “But I didn’t help,” he said, surprised, but holding on.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see the queen.”

  “Better clean up,” he called after me, “you look like a sweat-soaked, dusty gruntling.”

  I made a rude hand gesture, smiling to myself when he laughed.

  Marskal wasn’t in our room when I went to clean up. He wasn’t the type to hang about with nothing to do, vows to wait for me to return or not. The sun had slipped to mid-afternoon, and it belatedly occurred to me that it would have been a long day for him of worrying about me. A strange responsibility for me to have. I’d never asked him to care about whether I lived or died, but it seemed that doing what I could to make that easier for him was the price I paid for all the caring he gave me that bolstered me through this.

  So I washed quickly, including my hair which took far too long. If it wouldn’t disappoint Marskal so, I’d have cut the lot off by now. But I used the hair oil and comb he’d left out for me, and it wasn’t as grueling as in the past. The oil worked really well, smelling of a flower I didn’t recognize.

  Meanwhile, I called on a staymach to search for him, coaxing it into bird form and sending it to look. That sort of magic took so little effort, like the shapeshifting used to. Before I met the dragon. Whatever is blocking you is something I can’t undo. Had Kiraka done something to me? Or the goddess, Herself? No—because I’d shifted after meeting them, first to the hummingbird, then back to human. Though I didn’t exactly recall doing either, just that red haze of agony that made me wince away from remembering.

  Glumly, I considered Jepp’s harshly concise assessment. I’d lost my nerve. The only one blocking me was me, and I had no idea how to undo it.

  Fear is a powerful force. More than I ever knew. But then, I’d never had much to be afraid of before.

  Marskal turned out to be on the beach, drilling and sparring with the other Hawks, Karyn, and some Tala shapeshifters. The latter surprised me, but they seemed to be enjoying the game of using weapons, so I supposed Marskal—and perhaps Zyr—had cleverly convinced them to treat it like play inste
ad of work. I watched them in glimpses as I wended my way down the walking paths, pausing here and there at a balcony to observe.

  They were shifting into animal forms—darting, leaping and flying about in dizzying patterns—then returning to human with a weapon in hand, attempting to surprise a Hawk, strike them, and shift back in time to duck retaliation. They’d been at it for some time by the look of it, both shifters and mossbacks seeming to find the game quite hilarious. Karyn looked to be using arrows with some sort of blob on the end that made them bounce off harmlessly, but left a telltale dye mark behind.

  Not wanting to distract them, I made sure to descend to the beach from the angle that Marskal faced, walking so he would spot me from a ways off. I knew the moment he did, by the way he straightened, then relaxed again, though he didn’t pause in his running commands to the fighters.

  He studied me as I approached, nothing obvious, but the heat of his assessment warmed me. Once I was within earshot, he called a halt, giving everyone a break. With happy shouts, humans shed clothing and dashed into the sea, chasing after the shifters who’d beaten them there, needing no such considerations. Unlike the Hawks, male and female alike, who stripped bare with no concern for modesty, Karyn kept on several layers of underdress.

  Old habits die hard, I suppose.

  Marskal opened his arms to me and I slid into them, enjoying the simple groundedness of human contact and his unconditional welcome. I sighed, realizing that I felt right again for the first time that morning. All those jumbled feelings, the demands and failures—none of it mattered with him. We could just be together. He expected nothing of me, not even that I return his love, and I began to be aware of what a gift that was.

  He didn’t ask questions either, seeming happy just to hold me and lightly comb his fingers through the long fall of my hair. Finally I lifted my head and he smiled at me.

  “You smell good.”

  “That oil you left for me. I don’t know what it is.”

  “An import from Elcinea. A thing I found in the market and thought you might like. Priced dearly, but bought with my own coin.” He raised his brows. “I’m not exactly a pauper.”

  I laughed, unutterably pleased that he’d thought to buy me a gift. “Elcinean perfumes in the Annfwn market—how things have changed.”

  “Good changes,” he said. “It’s good for us all to be blending like this.”

  “Oh yes. Shapeshifters have to embrace change.” I managed a smile, even through the awareness that I was a shapeshifter who couldn’t change. “That looked like an interesting exercise.” We turned to watch the erstwhile trainees frolicking in the surf, Marskal sliding his arm around my waist.

  “Productive, too. I’ve gained an insight or two from you, and Zyr, on how to both add Tala talents to our forces and motivate your kind.” He gave me a wry half-smile. “You’re not the sort for regimented discipline, but given a challenge to your trickster natures and you can’t resist.”

  “You think you know me so well.”

  “I’ve made a serious study of the topic. I ought to.”

  We stood in comfortable silence for a bit, as if we had no greater concerns than watching happy people at play. A few shapeshifters in dolphin and sea turtle form were giving Hawks rides through the surf. Karyn stood hip-deep in the water, experimenting with the swells, but apart.

  Finally, I let out a breath. “It didn’t work.” Oddly, it didn’t hurt too much to say so.

  He tightened his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “So, it’s good that you’re training other shapeshifters. We’ll need them.”

  “Yes, we undoubtedly will. But we need you, too. I need you.”

  “I know that it probably makes you happy,” I ventured.

  He pulled back enough to give me a strange look. “Why would I be happy about something that makes you so miserable?”

  “Because it means I can’t take Final Form.”

  He turned me, putting his hands on my shoulders, very serious. “Zynda, I love you. I want to be with you, yes, but I could never rejoice in you losing such a profound part of who you are. That was never what I meant about taming you. I only wanted to find a way past your claws.”

  Moved, I swallowed down the emotion that rose in my throat. “Well,” I said, as lightly as I could, “now I don’t have any, so you’re in luck.”

  He smiled, barely. “Quicksilver girl, you have claws enough to shred the entire world if you wish to.”

  I looked at him and he returned my stare, calm and unshakeable. “I have to go talk to Queen Andromeda, and give the Star to her.”

  He nodded, let me go, and dug the Star out from under his vest. Holding up the chain in a circle, he waited for me to bow my head so he could slip it over. Then he lifted my hair out from under the chain, arranging my hair and the jewel as if it mattered how I looked.

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  I shook my head. “Better if not. But it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Meet you in our rooms for a quiet dinner then? I’ll make arrangements.”

  I cupped his cheek and lightly kissed him. “That would be very nice.”

  ~ 23 ~

  Because I wasn’t expected, I waited a bit on the public balcony outside the council chambers. The king and queen were closeted with various advisors, but would expedite meeting with me, the page informed me. As Marskal had predicted, Ursula and Harlan had left for Ordnung early in the day, riding hard and fast with only a small escort of Hawks.

  Various friends and relatives said hello as they passed and spotted me, but none asked me any hard questions. A group of cousins who’d been at the party the night before stopped to gossip. One, a younger woman named Sey, pulled me aside.

  “Anya sends her love,” she said, raising her brows. “She’s upcoast and asked me to tell you.”

  Ah, then Anya was pregnant again. I wished I could ask how far along Anya was, but that would be bad luck, if Sey even knew.

  “I just came from there and I’ll go back. The countryside is lovely,” Sey added.

  I squeezed her hands. “Give Anya my love. I’m glad you like the scenery there.”

  Sey shrugged, elaborately. “I have nothing better to do. But she wanted me to ask—Anya seems to think you might be bringing something with you, to help.”

  I resisted closing my eyes against the pain and guilt. Anya knew I’d planned to take Final Form. Unlike Zyr, she’d been all for it. But then, Zyr didn’t have to face losing his babies. Perhaps Marskal had a point about us not sharing this pain with the males.

  “Tell her I don’t have it yet, but I hope to soon.”

  Sey glanced over her shoulder at the other cousins, watching us curiously. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Soon,” she emphasized. “And if you do have something… well, obviously we all want it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I replied, keeping my voice steady.

  She shook her hair back and smiled with sunny cheer. “Best news!”

  They moved on and I was regathering my equilibrium when I saw Karyn trudging up the winding road. I had no idea where they’d quartered the Hawks, but it was no surprise that Karyn would pass by. There’s really only one way up and down the cliff—not counting vines, tunnels and side paths, because they all begin and end on the main road. She had her head down, eyes on her feet. Hopefully Zyr had not been unkind to her.

  I called out. “Karyn!”

  She jumped, as if caught doing something wrong, flinching and swiveling her head. I waved a hand and she relaxed somewhat, smiling half in relief, half with suspicion, and came over to me.

  “Lady Zynda,” she said, curtseying deeply.

  “You too?” I teased, laughing. “Has Marskal been at you?”

  “My lady?” Her brow furrowed and she braced, as if for a reprimand.

  “Plain Zynda is just fine. I have no rank. The Tala don’t care for—” I caught myself and rephrased. “Other than our king and queen, we’re all on equal footing
.”

  She remained puzzled, but her concern faded. “It’s so different from Dasnaria,” she confided. “I apologize. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. This.” She waved a hand at the people passing, the road, a troop of children who thundered past, some on bare feet, the rest on hoof. “I can’t wrap my head around it.”

  How would Marskal handle this young woman? Gently and with firm calm, no doubt. “I’m sure it’s odd to be around magic and people who shapeshift.” There, I said it without undue emotion.

  She looked surprised, eyes widening. They were a lovely blue, like the summer sky, her thick gold lashes a striking contrast. No wonder she’d caught Zyr’s lustful attention.

  “Not that!” She blushed. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to speak so forcefully. I only meant that, yes, that is strange, but in a gorgeous, wild way. It reminds me of home, which makes no sense, since my family estates are nothing like this.” She gazed about, bemused.

  “What did you mean?” I asked, trying to be encouraging.

  “Oh! I apologize. So much to take in. I meant, wandering about like this on my own, no one telling me what to do or where to go. Unprotected.”

  “You have your knives, and your bow.” I indicated the weapons she wore. “You’re very good with the bow, and Jepp mentioned she’d been training you on the knives and you have a deft hand.”

  “Yes.” She blushed deeper. “Everyone is so kind. I’m sure I don’t deserve it. I’m sorry—I don’t mean to imply that I’m unhappy.”

  “I never thought that,” I said, feeling oddly gentle with her. I’d never heard anyone apologize so many times in one conversation. “It’s good to have some wandering time. See the sights.”

  “Is it?” Her expression crumpled a little, though she forced on a smile. “I know I’m privileged to be here. It’s just that—it’s funny. All those years I longed to see the world, to do more, even though I knew I never would. And now I can and I find myself wishing someone would tell me what to do. I was so grateful when Lieutenant Marskal called us to training. Now he gave us free time and I’m… I don’t know what to do with myself.”