Hand and Talon (World of Kyrni Book 1)

by Melonie Purcell

  When at last she shoved the rest of a half-eaten roll into her pocket and pushed the empty bowl away, Sorin scooted his own bowl to the side and once again leaned across the table.

  “My name is Sorin,” he began, his tone abrupt but not unkind.

  Krea nodded. “I figured that out.”

  “I imagine you did. You have a name, I assume?”

  “Krea.”

  “Okay. Krea.” Sorin shifted and crossed his arms. “Do you know who I am?”

  She glanced up, then looked away. “You are the master of this estate, obviously. I’m guessing you’re a steward of the Lady, or something like that. You’re also a...” Krea broke off. Was it an offense to call a sorcerer a sorcerer?

  “I’m also a what?” Sorin prompted when Krea fell silent.

  Krea glanced at the door. It was close, but not close enough to get a solid lead. Why was she forever in these situations? Sorin shifted in his chair, and she turned so one leg was to the side of the chair, ready to run before she answered. “You’re also a sorcerer.”

  She waited for him to hurl a ball of fire at her, but Sorin only frowned. “No, child. You missed your guess there. I’m not exactly a steward of the Lady, either. I’m more like a steward to the Empress. Do you know what I am?”

  A steward to the Empress! Krea dragged her eyes away from the rigid man and grabbed her mug. She didn’t know what was in it, but she had a feeling she would need whatever it was. “If you’re not a sorcerer, I don’t know what you are,” she said, taking a long drink.

  His piercing eyes held her as he dropped his hands on the table again and leaned in toward her. “Then let me ask you this. Do you know what you are?”

  Her heart jumped in her chest. He had been there in the alleyway. He had to know what she was, so why was he asking her? Was he trying to humiliate her? Krea focused on keeping her expression blank, but her voice betrayed her. “I’m a changeling,” she admitted in hardly more than a whisper.

  His disapproval was obvious. She wasn’t surprised. No one liked a changeling. Everyone knew that when the faerie inside decided to show itself, death would follow.

  “Tell me where you came from.”

  She was suddenly exhausted. Part of her wanted to tell the strange man everything. His tone and demeanor seemed to beg her confidence, but her more cautious side won out. Krea sat back in her chair and surveyed her situation. She had just eaten the first real meal she had touched in weeks. Running tonight would be a waste of time. She didn’t know where she was, and the moonless night was as dark as any she had seen. No. She needed to leave early in the morning, but she would have to watch for Kole.

  With her decision made, Krea met the man’s level gaze and told her story, or as little of it as she thought she could get away with. “I don’t know where I came from. My earliest memory is of a Norwist trader who was going to sell me to a farmer for supplies. I hid in a dumping ground outside of the town for two weeks, and then I ran. I think I had seven or eight years when that happened. I moved from one town to another, until I came to Trasdaak. I’ve lived here for five years now.”

  “So you never had a caller?”

  Krea scowled. “What? You mean like one of Nordu’s chosen?”

  Sorin nodded. “That is exactly what I mean. Do you ever remember having a caller?”

  “I’ve never even seen one up close. Only from far away when they come to visit the regent. Why would I have a caller? I’m nothing. I’m just a…I’m just Krea.”

  The man peered at her in the lamplight. When he finally spoke, his tone seemed almost sad. “Krea, you are much more than nothing, and you are not a changeling. You are kyrni, and apparently you are a kyrni without a caller.”

  Krea blinked at him for a second before getting her bearings again. He thought she was one of the magical kyrni? The man clearly suffered from a mental disease of some sort. Since he was also a sorcerer, despite his claims otherwise, staying the night might not be an option after all. She gauged the distance to the door once again. Maybe, if she could just get a bit closer to it, she could make it before he caught her.

  “Ah,” she said with a nod. “That explains it. I’m a kyrni. You found me out.” She stood, dragged her torn sleeve back onto her shoulder, and began edging toward the door. “It would probably be best if we kept this between us. My thanks for the meal. I can find my own way out.” With her heart racing, she continued toward the door, hoping to appear far more confident than she felt.

  “Think about it, Krea. Think about your life. It will all fit.”

  “You’re right,” she said, almost there. He hadn’t thrown a spell at her yet. That was good. She pressed forward. “It makes perfect sense. My thanks also for clearing that up.” But even as she reached for the handle, a small voice nagged at her to consider his words. She shut it up immediately. Whatever he had was quite possibly contagious. She wasn’t ready to lose her mind for one good meal. Before another doubt could enter her thoughts, she twisted the handle and bolted through the opening.

  Very few lights lined the corridors, and she was turned around before she knew it. According to her memory, she should have been outside already, but instead she found herself standing in the middle of a giant feasting area of some sort. An oil lamp from the corridor cast pale yellow light into the room, but it barely reached beyond the doorway. She could just make out two massive tables with legs like tree trunks. Judging from the musty smell, the room saw very little use. At the other end, light leaked in around massive double doors that clung to the walls with huge iron claws. There was no point in even trying to open those monsters, so she spun back around. She didn’t get far. Sorin stood near the doorway, watching her. The dim light masked his expression.

  “Just think about it, child,” he insisted in the same patient tone he had used in the breakfasting room. “I know you have questions about yourself that you can’t answer. Things happen that you can’t explain. Where are your parents? Why can you see and hear things long before anyone else can? What is that wild thing within you that nearly escaped in the alleyway today? The reason you have no answers is because you are not human. You are kyrni. You are one of the protected of Nordu.”

  Krea backed up until she felt the biting wood of the table at her back. The man was serious. He really believed her to be a kyrni. He thought she could transform into the mythical beasts of the old world. She stared back at him and frowned. Sure, there were things in her life that didn’t make sense. What had happened in the alleyway was one of them, but how could she be a kyrni and not even know it?

  “What would you know about the kyrni?” she demanded, unsure what else to do with the whispers of doubt that threatened her resolve.

  Sorin cocked his head to the side and sighed. “I know about the kyrni because I am a caller.”

  “No, you can’t be right.” She scooted along the table, but her mind chewed on his explanation despite her efforts to refuse it. Magic terrified her. She dreaded the day when a sorcerer’s magic would release the fae hiding inside. His theory just wasn't possible. “I can’t be a kyrni. The kyrnis’ faces are marked with the pattern of their beasts. I have no markings, not even a birthmark. Besides, how could I be able to transform into a dragon or something, and not know it?”

  “It is called a counter.” When Krea only stared in confusion, Sorin stepped into the room and clarified. “The animal that the kyrni shifts into is called their counter, not their beast. As to your markings, a kyrni doesn’t reflect the skin pattern of their counter until after their first complete shift. Thank the goddess, you have not yet shifted. You have no pattern. Yet.”

  Krea’s hand fell on a chair and she stopped. “What do you mean? How can you be so sure I haven’t shifted? Maybe I’ve shifted lots of times. Maybe I was trying to turn into a faerie in the alleyway.”

  “Because you’re not a changeling. There is no faerie living inside of you. And because if you had shifted without a caller to bring you back, you would remain in your coun
ter form forever.” Sorin paused. “But you came very close to shifting today. Krea, come away from the table so we can talk about this. How many years do you have?”

  Krea held her ground and shrugged. “I don’t know. I have set myself a birthday that gives me fifteen years, but I don’t know for sure.” Her confession of a self-assigned birthday suddenly made her feel stupid, but Sorin didn’t seem to notice. He only nodded.

  “That’s probably about right. You probably have closer to sixteen years, actually, but you are close either way. The kyrni usually shift around their sixteenth year.”

  Another stretch of silence filled the room as both of them tried to make sense of their conversation. At last, Sorin crossed his arms and leaned back against the door frame. “You must go see the elders. They will know what to do. And the trip can’t wait. We need to leave tomorrow.”

  “Why do I have to see an elder? What did I do?”

  “Krea, please. If you won’t come over here, at least stop walking away. This conversation is for you and me, not the entire household.”

  Reluctantly, she pulled out a ponderous chair and dropped into it. The sound of the wood dragging along the floor echoed in the cavernous room. Sorin ducked around the doorway and reappeared shielding a burning lighting stick. Her guess at the room’s lack of use was confirmed when he had to dip the wall lamp’s wick into the oil several times before it would stay lit. Finally, he nursed the flame until the lamp threw a yellow glow across a good part of the room.

  Two tables ran the length of the room, and at the end opposite the giant doors was a raised dais with yet another smaller table at its center. Intricate carvings adorned the front, and if the light wasn’t deceiving her, maybe even curtains. She had been right about the giant doors at the far end. She would never have managed to move them, but closer to the dais was another door, a smaller door, and she would bet her boots that it opened near the kitchen. She had run in a circle. How typical.

  Sorin finished adjusting the lamp and turned back to Krea. “What do you know of the kyrni?”

  Krea shrugged. “Nothing. Just stories.”

  “Then you don't know that you aren't one, do you?”

  That gave her pause. “I know I'm not half dragon. I know I hate magic and it hates me.”

  “You know nothing.” Sorin crossed over to the table. When Krea started to get up, he held out his hands and slowly pulled out the chair next to her. “Be still and listen. The kyrni unite with a caller when the kyrni has ten years and the caller about seventeen. The caller is responsible for teaching the kyrni the necessary magic before the first shift.“ Sorin slipped into the chair and continued. “You are probably months, maybe even weeks away from making your first shift, and you know nothing. You are in a dangerous position, and I don’t know how to help you.”

  “But you helped me today,” Krea said, pulling at her torn tunic again. “I don’t know what you did, actually, but somehow it helped.” The idea of going to see an elder scared her. Elders ruled over courts, and courts sentenced people to death. No matter how she looked at it, going to see an elder was a bad idea. Apparently, Sorin didn’t think so. He was shaking his head.

  “I called you back to keep you from making the shift, aye, but had you been fully mature and ready to shift, I could not have done it. We are not bonded. And I wasn’t there to meld before you started. Besides that, shifting should never be done without training. You need a caller.” The man watched her with disturbing intensity. “You need to see the elders.”

  Krea looked at her hands, then her feet. Her torn breeches and tunic hung over a perfectly human body—a skinny body, she had to admit—but human nonetheless. She ran her fingers through her short wheat-blonde hair. No scales. No feathers. Just dirt and a strand from a spider’s web. She was human, yet she knew she wasn’t. She had always known she wasn’t.

  For the last two years, strange things had been happening to her and she had finally decided that she must be a changeling. She waited every day for the evil faerie living inside her to show itself. Now, here was this man telling her that she was not a dreaded changeling at all, but one of the sacred kyrni. She couldn’t even imagine such a thing. It was too much to hope for.

  No, he had to be tricking her somehow, and her best course of action was to put as much distance between him and the village of Trasdaak as she could. She clearly wasn’t getting out of the house tonight, so tomorrow she would leave before the sun touched the sky.

  “I’m tired,” Krea announced, and it wasn’t even a lie. “Can I sleep in your barn tonight? I won’t take anything, or bother the animals.” Now that, she admitted to herself, may have been a stretch.

  A knowing smile crept across the man’s weathered face, but what he knew was anyone’s guess. Did he doubt her ability to keep her thieving hands off his property, or had he guessed her intentions? His expression remained unreadable. He simply stood and motioned toward the door. “Esmeri has prepared a room for you, I think. And hopefully a washbasin. I will take you to it.”

  A real room in a real house! Krea could hardly believe it. Getting out of the barn without Kole catching her would probably have been easier, but there was no way she was turning down a room with a bed. She made it as far as the doorway when an ugly thought suddenly seized her. With a quick sidestep, Krea was back against the table, glaring at him. “Is it your room?” she demanded, afraid she already knew the answer.

  Sorin acted as if she had punched him. Disgust rippled across his face before he managed to bring his reaction under control. Relief and hurt battled for Krea’s attention as she marked his reaction. So he was no different than the captain of the guard, after all. To him she was a vile vagrant of society, worse than any disease, kyrni or not. That was fine. She would take advantage of a real bed and the warm food and probably anything small and valuable she could manage to lift before she took her leave.

  Doing her best to hide her anger, Krea slipped past him and ducked through the doorway. When his hand fell on her shoulder, she jumped away.

  “Krea, this is going to be difficult. So many things you should know, that you need to know, and I am not even sure how to start teaching you. But this, at least, I can clear up. I can feel your anger and confusion, so let me just…there is nothing wrong with you. Please understand that even if you weren’t kyrni, I would no more bed you than I would my grandchild, if I had one. I know it is hard to believe it when you look at me, but I am a very old man and you are a child. But more than that, you are kyrni. You are one of the magical race, and to mix human blood with the blood born in magic is contemptible in the eyes of the goddess. It is unthinkable.”

  “Then how are the kyrni made?”

  “That is a story for another night. Right now, you look ready to drop. Come to the room Esmeri set for you. No harm will come to you that you don’t bring on yourself.”

  Whatever that meant! She waited and then fell in step behind him as he led the way through the barely-lit corridors of his manor.

  Like the rest of the house, the room he took her to was simply adorned, but designed for comfort. A bed rested below the window for the summer months, and two pillow-lined chairs sat next to the unused fireplace. In the far corner next to a small chest was a huge tub of water large enough for her to climb into and probably even sit down in. A smaller cauldron of boiling water hung by a swinging arm over a small fire.

  “Esmeri must have raised the house staff,” Sorin commented, taking in the bath. “Be sure to snuff the fire as soon as you are done, or it will get too hot in here to sleep. You’ll find something to sleep in on the bed and a change of clothes in the chest or wardrobe; I’m not sure which.”

  Krea nodded, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the tub.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” Sorin said just before he closed the heavy door behind him.

  She listened for a lock to click into place, but the only sound was the man’s soft footsteps disappearing down the hall.

  With near rev
erence, Krea walked over to the tub of water and dragged her fingers across the surface. She had never had a bath like this before. The closest thing to warm water she had ever washed in was the shallows of the stream in midsummer. In a matter of seconds, she shrugged out of what was left of her clothes, snuffed the fire, and swung the arm holding the small pot over the large tub. She poured half of the boiling water out into the bathing tub and then stepped into it with a sigh of pleasure.

  The tub was just large enough for her to sit in if she kept her legs pulled to her chest, and that was exactly what she did, enjoying every second. Not until she had to add the last of the hot water to the cooling bath did she actually wash. When the temperature and color of the water finally forced her out, Krea was exhausted, but exhausted in the most wonderful way she could ever remember.

  Cool night air blew in the open window, carrying with it the scent of horses and flowers. She made quick use of the small towel hanging by the bath. As soon as she was dry enough, she snatched the sleeping gown off the bed and rubbed the soft cotton across her face. She wanted nothing more than to slip into the delicate nightshirt and disappear under the covers until the heat from the afternoon sun drove her out of them. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. With a sigh, she dropped the nightshirt over the chair and pulled open the wardrobe door. Just as Sorin had promised, folded in a neat pile was a clean pair of dark-brown wool breeches, a light-green linen chemise, and a soft tan woven tunic. A pair of sandals topped the pile, but Krea set them aside. She preferred her boots to sandals any day. Besides, she had nearly died getting those boots, and she wasn’t giving them up now.

  To her surprise, the clothes were a decent fit. A little big, but soft and tailored. She guessed they must have belonged to the stable boy or someone of similar rank, because they were well-made but designed to be durable. Either way, they were far better than what she had been wearing and were more comfortable. Krea tied on her old belt with her small knife, pulled her boots on over the stocking loops, and gave herself an appraising review in the dim light of the reflective glass. She had never looked so good. Her wheat-white hair, cut in rough layers to her shoulders, hung in silky chunks that seemed oddly tame thanks to her finger-combing effort. Her creamy skin glowed in the lamplight. The contrast of the dark-brown breeches and the light shirt made her vivid green eyes seem brighter than usual and helped hide her skinny body, but when she turned sideways for a final appraisal, she had to sigh. Her days of being able to pass for a boy were far behind her.