The Changespell Saga

by Doranna Durgin

  She swept out onto the main road, startling a man who’d stopped his cart to get out rain gear—though the clouds had produced nothing but ominous darkness and blinding flashes of light, followed close on by rattling claps of thunder.

  Lady ran from it. She ran to Carey and Arlen and Home, stopping only once to drink far less than she truly wanted at a creek that ran muddy from hard rain somewhere upstream. She found the shortcut down the hill and recklessly flung herself over its brim and down the steep hill. Trees brushed hard against her side; their limbs stabbed her, scraping away hair and flesh.

  She felt none of it. Carey. Home. Run!

  After the hill she had to slow, shifting to a ground-eating trot and then maintaining the pace while the storm followed her. The first hard drops of rain hit her back, shockingly cold against her sweat-soaked skin.

  She stopped, then, and shook herself off—and for a moment, she simply stood. She wasn’t far from home—but she was tired, and she needed to gather herself, to stand with her nostrils flared wide and her sides heaving.

  Finally she shook off again, snorted softly to herself, and walked on. She even paused to snatch a mouthful of grass here and there, ignoring the rain that dripped off her forelock and down her long, fine-boned face.

  Without warning, the storm opened up around her. Stinging rain bounced off her back, sparking renewed pain in her bruises, and she bolted a few thoughtless strides at the white flare of nearby lightning. Thunder followed instantly, and Lady shifted to a steady gallop, her ears flattened and her neck stretched out. Water splashed up on her legs and belly from a road too dry to absorb the sudden deluge, and she rounded the bend before Arlen’s hold at full speed, intent on the sight of familiar pastures.

  She almost missed the lone figure walking along the side of the road, head up as though the rain didn’t even exist. She skidded to a stop and called to him, then trotted forward to meet him even as he turned, squinting through the rain.

  Carey. Of course it was Carey. Walking alone and in the rain as if it suited his mood to do so.

  Lady shoved her head against his chest and nickered, gravely inhaling the scent of him, gently lipping along his arms and shoulders and the nape of his neck, while he laughed out loud at her and ran his hands along her arched neck.

  “Lady,” he said, wonderingly, and laughed again; lightning played across the sky behind her and flickered against his features. “No, you’re no quitter.” He lifted her forelock and planted a kiss at the little cowlick at its base, and suddenly Lady had had enough of waiting to change to Jess. She bumped her head against him, rubbing the braid and its spellstones along his arm.

  “Here?” he said, blinking as the rain hit his face and lashes. It was lifting some as a cloud break moved in from the south, and the sky was no longer so imposingly dark.

  She shoved him with her head, not quite as gently. He frowned at her, and said, “No, not here. Come with me.”

  She stood for an instant, looking after him and his slightly off-kilter jog, then jogged after him. She realized where he was headed—the small tack shed between the training corrals. Halfway there she overtook him, flagging her tail on the way past. When he finally reached the shed, she snorted resoundingly at him, an impatient noise, and stretched her neck out to present the spellstones.

  “All right, all right,” he said, but there was still laughter in his voice, and relief on his face.

  When Ander did this for her, he politely turned his back, releasing the spellstone as it was triggered. Usually, Carey did pretty much the same. But now, rushed, trying to wipe the rain out of his eyes and clearly as impatient as she was, he simply took hold of the stone and triggered the spell.

  The feeling of being Jess flooded over her. She closed her eyes and threw back her head and felt the blur of changing, the way her feelings and thoughts and sensations tangled together, until suddenly she was standing, barefoot and nude, with her wet hair streaming against her back and rain washing the sweat from her upturned face.

  “Jess,” Carey whispered, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  She looked at him; blinked at him, still feeling the transition. Then abruptly she felt something else—something unfamiliar and hot and driving. She threw her arms around him—and not with the gentle touch of lips Mark had once used as an introduction of kissing, nor the tender kisses Carey frequently planted on her cheekbones and forehead. Not those things at all, but an embrace driven by passion.

  Startled as he was, Carey instantly tangled his hands in her black-streaked dun hair and pulled her closer, spreading his kisses to her jaw, her neck, and the curved line of her collarbone, never minding that she had pushed him up against the shed. Any vestige of rational thought deserted Jess, leaving her lost in the same unthinking response that drove Lady when she was frightened or angry—or in heat.

  “Jess,” he gasped, his response changing as he understood. His hands stopped pulling her in and started instead to gently push her away. “Jess, this isn’t—Jess.”

  She acquiesced to the pressure on her shoulders, shifting back—but not far, staring into his eyes from inches away, panting from her run and from her fervor. “Yes.”

  Carey held her back, as breathless as she was. “No. Not now.”

  “Yes, now,” she said, frustrated, tossing her wet black forelock out of her eyes; the rain had eased to a sprinkle. “Why not now?”

  Carey closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You think I can’t tell a mare in heat when she trots by?”

  “There is nothing wrong with being in heat,” Jess said, moving up against him again.

  “No—I didn’t mean that—I mean—” Carey covered his face with his hands and groaned. “Guides-damn, it’s hard to think.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “That’s just it!” Carey burst out, coming out from behind his hands. “You’re not! I can’t let you do this now, when you’re dealing with this—when it may not be what you really want!”

  Of course it was what she wanted. It was what she’d wanted for a long time. She frowned, but he didn’t leave her room for words. “Jess,” he said, talking fast, his bright hazel eyes fastened on hers. “Take my word on this. If you do this now, later you might wonder if you truly wanted to, or if it was just because... Lady went into season.”

  Jess took a small step back. “I don’t wonder. Do you?”

  He shook his head. “Listen to me. I care too much to let you make a mistake about something this important. When it’s important to me, too.”

  “But those women you used to bring next to my stall,” Jess said. “You didn’t stop them.”

  His eyes flickered away from hers, and closed momentarily. He took another deep breath, steadying himself—but he still didn’t sound very steady. “It’s not the same,” he said. “You—we’re... you’re far too important for me to chance making a mistake.”

  Well, then. Jess looked at him for a sad moment, recognizing that not even Carey, who’d been human all his life, could always be certain of just what he should do.

  “It’s easier with Rules,” she said. “You’re the only one with Words for me, Carey. You should never doubt that.”

  His were the lips that had uttered her Words from the very start—Whoa, Easy, Stand... and her very favorites, Words she seldom heard as Jess. Braveheart. Good Job. But from the way he looked at her, with that little furrow between his brow and his deep-set eyes puzzled, he didn’t understand. She sighed, and felt sudden tears prickle close.

  “It’s all right, Jess,” he said, as awkward and befuddled as she. “We’ll get it worked out.”

  She nodded mutely and shivered, suddenly feeling the chill—still soaked, and cooling too fast from her long run. His smile faded. “Stay put,” he said. “There’s bound to be a blanket in the shed.”

  He opened the door with a hand on the lock keyed to his touch. She stood numbly, starting to process the things she’d experienced as Lady—the words that suddenly made sense a
nd the expressions that just as suddenly had more meaning, most of them caught by her excellent equine memory.

  You’re no quitter, Carey had said to her, standing out in the rain, planting a kiss beneath her forelock.

  Now she looked after him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes and said, “Damn straight.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jaime moved idly down the stairs from the third floor, her hands full of leather lacing samples and her face full of scowl.

  She thought she’d dealt with this. She thought she’d moved on. She’d thought herself lucky when Arlen arranged for her to testify privately at Willand’s supplicant’s hearing—although deep inside, she knew she’d never get past the fears and nightmares until she faced her fears head on.

  Faced Willand.

  But in the meantime, she wasn’t doing anyone any good. She wasn’t home, running her barn. She wasn’t carrying messages for Arlen—too risky—and Carey was too ragged update her on his prospects in training. Dayna remained, for the most part, deeply closeted away with her changespell team members.

  So Jaime had been reduced to such tasks as inspecting equipment for wear and making sure the horses had enough water in this entrenched draught. At the moment, her big project was choosing the contrast color for Sabre’s new bridle.

  Heaven help her, she was on the verge of asking Ander if she could exercise the Kymmet horse Jess had left behind.

  She didn’t have anything against Ander, not really... he just rubbed her wrong at times. Too much self-assurance, too cocky.

  Except for the last several days, when his bleak expression came close to rivaling the ongoing misery in Carey’s eyes.

  Jaime hit the bottom of the stairwell and moved into the well-lit stable hall, holding the lacing up to compare the scarlet with a slightly deeper, scintillating shade of red she’d never seen before.

  Abruptly, her focus snapped beyond the lace and to the two figures coming up the hall. Carey and—

  “Jess!” she gasped, stuffing the laces into her pocket. “Jess!”

  Jess, very much the worse for wear. Jess, in dry clothes but her wet hair soaking her tunic, her face red from effort and exhaustion, her eyes wary and hurt. And her face... on the angle of her jaw, halfway between chin and ear, there was a brutally split bruise of almost as many colors as Jaime’s lacing samples.

  “Jess!” Jaime repeated, and threw her arms around her friend, not surprised at the sudden rush of tears to her eyes. But even as she blinked them away, as Jess’s arms came up to clutch her in a grip of near-panic strength, she realized that Jess had instantly dissolved into sobs so hard as to be soundless.

  Carey looked at her over Jess’s shaking shoulders with astonishment in his eyes. “She was fine a moment ago,” he said, his voice low, his hand hovering and then finally landing on the back of Jess’s neck, massaging gently.

  Jaime said, “Go clear the duty room.”

  After an instant of indecision, Carey left, and Jaime made generic soothing noises, stroking Jess’s back with some care and the thought that there might be more than the one bruise, until Carey reappeared and gestured her onward.

  Jaime guided Jess down the hall and around the corner. When they finally made it to the duty room, she looked at Carey’s hovering presence and jerked her head at the door.

  “What?” he said. “No—”

  “Git,” Jaime told him. “Go tell Arlen she’s back, but don’t you dare bring a crowd rushing back down here!”

  Carey still hesitated, full of irritation and reluctance and concern. Jaime didn’t blame him—but Jess had made this choice, and still hid her face in Jaime’s shoulder. Resignation joined the emotion on Carey’s face. “I won’t be long.”

  Alone in the small room, Jaime took them to the small desk and sat Jess at its chair, where she sniffled quietly, looking at the floor. Jaime leaned against the desk and asked, “Do you want to talk? Or have you got it all out of your system?”

  Jess flashed her a miserable look. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I cried so hard. I thought I was happy to be back, and I... I was happy to be with Carey. But when you... then I... all of a sudden...” she bit her lip, and looked away again.

  “It’s all right,” Jaime said, as matter-of-fact as she could get. “You’ve had a terrible experience, I imagine. It’s normal to cry, even when you don’t expect it.”

  Jess looked up at her again, her expression pensive behind her reddened eyes and runny nose. She was, Jaime knew without asking, thinking of when she had been the one to find Jaime, broken and crying in the aftermath of torture at Willand’s hands.

  And at the sight of her battered face, Jaime couldn’t help but ask, no matter how she feared the answer. “Jess... your face... they didn’t... I mean, did they—?”

  “Mostly they ignored me,” Jess said, although her eyes took on the spark of a darker emotion. “It was Shammel who betrayed me, and Shammel who beat me—beat Lady.”

  “More than your face,” Jaime said, her heart sinking. There was so much of Lady at the heart of Jess, and to beat a sensitive, intelligent horse...

  Sometimes the horse was ruined. Sometimes it nursed hatred and anger. And sometimes, she told herself, a good horse can recover and get past it.

  Jess’s hand went to the juncture of neck and collarbone, hovering over the material there. Without saying anything, Jaime reached for the neck of the tunic, letting her hand hover until Jess met her glance and nodded. There would be no handling Jess, not now.

  She let her breath out at the livid bruising, the wounds split and seeping fluid. Carefully, she released the tunic, reclaiming her seat on the desk. “Did Carey see that?” she asked. Jess mutely shook her head. “What did Shammel use?”

  “It was a rope,” Jess said, anger sparking in her voice. “He knotted a rope. And if he gets near me again—”

  “I don’t imagine he ever will,” Jaime said, before Jess could finish the thought. “Carey changed you, didn’t he? And he didn’t notice those? Are there any more?”

  Jess nodded, but her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. “It was raining,” she said. “And he was... distracted.” She looked away again, and Jaime realized with surprise that there were fresh tears making their way down her cheeks.

  “Jess, what? Did he say something to you? What happened?”

  “There are so many human things I cannot understand,” Jess said, her voice breaking. She took a deep breath and looked right at Jaime. “I know the things that should happen between a man and a woman who love each other. But Carey—” she shook her head in frustration. “Why does he stay so far from me?”

  Ah. So Jess had noticed. Neutrally, Jaime asked, “What happened?”

  And Jess spilled a torrent of words about being Lady for too long and going into season and finally escaping and finding Carey and wanting him and being pushed away and was there something wrong with her and—

  “Whoa, Jess!” Jaime laughed, and then shook her head when Jess did just that, accepting the Word for what it was and stopping short. “Jess, I... well. Carey is trying very hard to do what’s right for you. I think he’s not sure of himself, and that makes him fumble. He’s not used to being unsure of himself, you know.”

  Jess snorted. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  “But in this case... he may be right. When someone’s been through what you have, and especially if they’re in the, um, physical state that you are, it’s easy for emotions to get confused.”

  With a touch of irritation, Jess said, “I’m not confused. I know what I want.”

  “Good!” Jaime said. “Then go after it!” But not right now, please. “But do it when Carey can be sure it’s right for the two of you, and not because of what you’ve been through. You have to think about how he feels, too.”

  Jess blinked. “That makes sense.”

  “I’m glad,” Jaime said, though she couldn’t help but feel there was something yet untouched, something lurking t
hat Jess hadn’t yet faced.

  Jess, however, was trying out a tentative smile, one that turned into a wince as it stretched her jaw—and then Carey knocked, sudden and loud, at the door, calling to them.

  Jess stiffened at the sudden noise, her head raising in her ears-back gesture. Jaime pretended not to notice. No point in making a big deal out of it—several dramatic Arabians had taught her that in the early days of her riding career. “We’re fine,” she said, shifting on the desk. “Come in.”

  She’d expected Carey and Arlen, but had somehow completely forgotten about Ander—and neither she nor Jess needed to deal with the two couriers prickling at one another. She gave Ander a clear, stern look he completely ignored, pushing by Carey to reach Jess.

  It was the wrong thing to do. Jaime knew it instantly, and knew it by the expression on Jess’s face. She flung her leg up to block Ander’s way and snapped, “Give her some room!”

  Carey must have seen Jess’s slightly wild-eyed expression as well, for his hand landed on Ander’s arm, then fell away at the look the taller man gave him. “You all right now, braveheart?”

  Jaime didn’t pretend to understand the wistful expression that crossed Jess’s face, but it was enough to make her speak up, deliberately drawing their attention. “She’s got some terrible bruises,” she said, a no-nonsense tone. “Shammel beat her as Lady.”

  “Shammel,” Arlen repeated in surprise. “Well, that’s one piece of the puzzle. He had no great fondness for her.”

  “He hated her, you mean,” Carey said, his voice hard. “I should have made it clear that I would have dismissed him regardless of her offer to ride. He was trouble from the start.”

  “Klia said she’d seen him,” Ander said thoughtfully. “It was a couple days ago. I just figured he was hunting for work, but if he got a look at the job board—”

  “He’d have known she was taking the peacekeeper run,” Carey finished, exchanging a look with Ander.

  “I should have—” Ander started, but Carey cut him off.