Shapeshifters

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Finally I woke fully enough to realize that I was inside some kind of covered litter. The walls and the top were leather, and they were attached so firmly to the heavy wood floor that in my weakened state I could not pry them away. I still worked at it, trying to ignore the way my stomach rolled with every movement, and I nearly collapsed as the vertigo hit me.

  The drugs were in the water, I decided. I had to stop drinking it, to clear my mind so that I could make a plan instead of continuing this useless scratching.

  Eventually it occurred to me that mercenaries worked for payment. Surely Wyvern’s Court could offer the lions more than their current employers—and if prizes would not work, a pride of lions was not stronger than the serpiente and avian armies.

  “Tavisan!” I shouted again. “You know who I am. Talk to me. We can work something out.” I waited but heard no response. “Tavisan, you were in Wyvern’s Court the day before I was taken. When my people find that I am gone, they will quickly discover your role in my abduction. Is the payment you have been offered enough to risk the wrath of Wyvern’s Court?”

  I heard whispering among the lions carrying my litter then.

  “Tavisan, she has a point. Wyvern’s Court—”

  “I know what I’m doing.” The leader’s voice was certain.

  “But what if—”

  “Do not question me,” he snapped.

  “Tavisan, you are destroying your own people,” I argued. I had a vague memory of arguing with him before. How many times had I woken, in my drugged state, and perhaps said these exact words?

  “Oliza, I apologize for your rough treatment. I wish it had not been necessary. Even so, you are wasting your breath.”

  I continued to call to him, alternating between threats and promises, sometimes trying to bargain with Tavisan and sometimes appealing to his people, but I received no more answers. Eventually my throat was again too raw to continue shouting, and I dared not drink to soothe it.

  I avoided the drugs long enough to clear my mind, but after two days without water, the cramping in my body became so severe, I knew that dehydration might kill me. I curled up in a ball in the corner of the litter, trying to concentrate on something productive.

  They had clipped my wings. They had clipped my wings and then fed me a poison to force me back into my human form. I knew the process because it was one of the most severe punishments meted out in avian society.

  It permanently locked someone out of both her half- and full-avian forms. Locked me from my wings. My serpiente form would be unaffected, but my hawk was gone.

  Grounded, forever. There was no cure; there never had been. That was why the avians used it as a final punishment, and only for the most extreme crimes.

  Stop it, STOP IT! I tried to force the thoughts away.

  Suddenly the ground was tilting, and I heard yelling, mostly in a language I did not know. Howls, shouts, sounds of fighting. My litter swayed again as whoever was holding it stumbled.

  Instinctively, I threw myself to the side that was tilting. The impact of my body against the wood made me see stars, but I did it again, and again—

  Until my litter tipped and hit the ground hard, one side splitting as the wood broke with a crack as loud as a thunder-clap. I blacked out for a moment but was too frantic to do anything but drag myself up afterward. I crawled through the split, gasping at the cold outside. Instantly soaked, I forced myself to move. Water, on my hands; I licked it off gratefully.

  I didn’t know who was fighting, and I didn’t waste time looking. With the drugs slowing me down, I rose to my feet, sprinted, stumbled, rolled as I fell and fought to my feet again. Woods.

  The forest looked like a haven and I scrambled into it, cutting open my hands, knees and arms on brambles in my mad flight.

  Later I collapsed, choking on my own heavy breathing; body cramping, demanding water, food and sleep. I could give it two of those. There was water everywhere; I scooped it up in my aching, frozen hands. Cold.

  Sleep.

  I hoped I wouldn’t be found. I curled up to conserve as much heat as I could, but I wasn’t even shivering anymore. That was good, I decided. Not so cold now.

  Sleep.

  It felt as if days had passed, but all I knew for sure was that the sun was out when I opened my eyes and sneezed on fur that was across my face. There was some animal next to me, giving me its warmth. I had enough clarity of mind now to realize that the creature—a wolf, I realized as I turned—was the only reason I had woken. I must have been on the verge of freezing to death when I had fallen asleep.

  Snow. That was why there was water everywhere. I had seen snow once, when I had gone with the Vahamil pack far to the north, but that had been nothing like this. This was deep and thick and still falling from the gray sky above.

  I looked at the wolf, not for an instant believing that it was a wild beast, though unable to tell if it was from the pack with which I was familiar.

  “Thank you,” I said, shivering.

  The wolf tilted its head, questioning.

  I could feel the human in it—in her—and I knew that my savior was a shapeshifter. But she was looking at me without any human comprehension. “My name is Oliza. You saved my life, I think.”

  The wolf stood up and started plodding away from me. I stayed where I was, and she paused, looking back. She didn’t need to speak; her warm brown eyes seemed to laugh at me, saying, Follow.

  Where was I? I could remember only the last couple of days with the lions, after I had stopped taking the drugs, but the change in weather was drastic enough to make me think that we had traveled weeks away to the north. Weeks that I had been away from home, weeks during which my people should have come after me and found me.

  I was too lost, and too weak, to travel on my own. So I followed my silent guide, though my steps dragged and my stomach rumbled. The drugs still felt thick in my system; I was perspiring even as I shivered, the winter air slicing through my clothes and freezing my sweat. The world kept turning to fog around me, but whenever I drifted, the wolf was there, bumping into my legs and guiding me in the right direction.

  When I stopped, unable to move any farther, the wolf nudged me into a hollow where the snow was not so thick and the wind could not reach. She brought down a rabbit and we shared it, the raw meat disgusting to the “civilized” part of my mind but a welcome meal to the sensible, starving one.

  My guide did not let me sleep. I suspected that she was worried I would not wake. After our meal I dragged myself back to my feet and we kept walking.

  I spoke to the wolf as I walked. My stories were disjointed and often trailed off as I forgot what I had been saying, but my mute guide didn’t complain. She made no indication that she understood, but the words helped keep me focused.

  “I walked away, that was the last thing I did,” I said, thinking of Urban. “He was hurt because of me but … I couldn’t stay …”

  Why had no one come for me? They had to know that the lions had taken me.

  “My Wyverns. Gretchen, and Nicias—did I tell you about Nicias?” I thought I had. I had talked about magic … or something, earlier …“My best friend,” I whispered. “The only man in Wyvern’s Court not related to me who I can be alone with without causing a scandal. Shouldn’t be a scandal.” I had never been tempted to do anything scandal worthy. Oliza Shardae Cobriana, her mind always on her throne. It might have been nice to be a carefree child for a while, chasing butterflies in the summertime.

  I envied Salem and Rosalind. What I wouldn’t have given to look at someone with—“they love each other so much.” Had I said the beginning of that thought aloud?

  I was getting confused. I was repeating myself at times, but other times, I knew I was saying only fragments of sentences.

  “I need sleep,” I said. “I’m so tired.”

  I stumbled, going to my knees in the snow. My legs were numb. At least they didn’t hurt.

  The wolf nuzzled my shoulder with a whine. I put a
hand on her shoulder and pushed myself back to my feet.

  “It would be nice to be in the nest now,” I mused. “A fire to keep warm. People around. Sometimes it drives me crazy. Serpiente don’t believe in privacy, and it gets so that even your thoughts don’t feel like your own, but it would be nice to be warm. Nice if Marus and Prentice didn’t look horrified when …”

  I realized I had stopped walking again only when the wolf bumped against the backs of my knees. She whined, trotted ahead a few paces and tossed her head in a way that made me look at the horizon.

  The fires burning in the distance were the sweetest signs I had ever seen. Desperation gave way to hope, and I started moving faster, stumbling forward because I couldn’t run with legs that had gone numb hours before.

  Someone saw me and called out, and in that moment, my energy fled me. I had held on to it only because the wolf had demanded I keep walking. Poison, malnutrition, dehydration, exhaustion, cold and injuries caught up to me just in time for me to collapse into the arms of a young man I had never seen before.

  I woke warm and dry, if still a little woolly-headed. A fire was crackling, and as I opened my eyes, I found myself inside a small cedar hut decorated with furs, leathers and odd silver and bead ornaments. I sat up slowly, glad that the world did not spin too much, and looked around for the owner.

  He sat in the corner, wrestling with some bit of leather that refused to do what he wanted. Intent on that project, he had not yet noticed that I was awake.

  What if I wasn’t safe? For all I knew, this was the mercenaries’ destination. If Kalisa’s rivals were responsible for my abduction, it would have made sense for them to place me in the power of their own allies—who were probably wolves.

  I didn’t know what I would do if these people were unfriendly. I thought about the weather outside.

  And the wolf who had saved my life.

  “Hello?” I said tentatively.

  The man in the corner looked up and smiled. His striking amber eyes—which I had only ever seen on wolves—gave away his breed. Remembering how the wolf outside had not talked to me during our journey, I wondered if these people spoke a language I knew.

  He paused a moment before answering. “Hello. Are you feeling better?” He had a heavy accent, but I could understand him easily enough.

  I tottered to my feet a little unsteadily, but once I was up, the ground stayed solid. “Much better. Do I have you to thank?”

  He gave a little shrug. “You have Fate to thank, for taking you to the edge of our camp. You were half-frozen, and poisoned. It is not all gone. Our doctor is not sure what it was. Eat well, stay warm, rest for a few days.” He shrugged again. “You will be better.”

  “What about the wolf?” I asked. He looked amused, so I clarified. “Another wolf. I was farther away. One of your people saved my life; she brought me here.”

  “Ah,” he answered. There was a long pause, and I did not think he would say more, but then he sighed. “That was Betia, perhaps. She is … feral?” he said hesitantly, as if unsure that he had translated right.

  I nodded, unnerved. When a shapeshifter went feral, it meant that she had spent too much time in animal form. Eventually the human characteristics eroded, along with the memory of her original form. Usually a feral shapeshifter was volatile, without an animal’s sense of balance or a human’s sense of morals, prone to attack those who had been closest to her.

  “Has no one tried to bring her back?” I asked. “She did not seem too far gone to me.”

  He shook his head. “Betia was my sister. I have tried all I could think of, but she lets no wolf speak to her, or touch her. She had a falling out with the alpha’s son, Velyo,” he confided, “and she ran away. I do not know what the fight was about, only that her animal mind associates our kind with pain now. So she will not let us near.” Again he shook his head, admitting, “It should be my job to hunt her down like an animal for the safety of the pack. But I can’t, and so far our alpha has not forced me to.”

  The door opened, letting in a gust of cold air and an older woman who was speaking swiftly in a language I did not recognize.

  The woman was plump in a comfortable sort of way and carried a bundle that smelled wonderfully like food. The man I had been talking to winced and nodded as she seemed to berate him.

  Finally he turned to me. “My mother says that she is glad to see you awake, that I should not have let you get up, that she has brought breakfast, that I should have offered you something to eat and that she is sure my manners are terrible and I have not introduced myself or told you where you are.” He smiled and then continued obediently. “I am Pratl; I am head huntsman. This is my mother, Ginna; she is doctor, advisor and anything else she believes is her role. Right now, you are in the huntsman’s hut of the Frektane tribe. I believe it means blue eyes in your language.”

  I knew the name. Wyvern’s Court had never traded directly with the Frektane, but the Vahamil occasionally brought their wares to our market. I wondered where the pack’s name came from; I had never seen a wolf with blue eyes.

  Another round of commentary from Ginna, and Pratl sighed. “Now I am talking too much. May I ask your name?”

  I had to conclude that these people were friendly; they had given me help, and I had certainly needed it. So I answered honestly. “Oliza Shardae Cobriana. Arami, and heir to the Tuuli Thea.”

  Apparently Pratl’s mother had understood at least some of that, because her eyes widened and she stared at me. Then she shrugged—and continued talking.

  Pratl laughed. “My mother says we are flattered to have you in our camp, even if you did …” He paused, working on the wording. “Did get dragged in from the blizzard looking like a winter rat. What brings you to our camp in such a condition?”

  “Honestly, I am very lost,” I answered.

  Pratl frowned. “You weren’t with that group of lions we intercepted?”

  “Were you the ones who attacked them?”

  He bristled. “Of course. They did not ask permission to hunt on our land, they were loud enough to scare away all the game for miles and their reputation is as foul as their mange-spotted coats. If you are with them—”

  I held up a hand, shaking my head. “No, not like that. I was brought here by them. Against my will. I escaped when something attacked them—your pack, I assume.” His vehement response comforted me. If this pack had been involved in hiring the mercenaries, Pratl at least had not known the plan.

  He nodded, content now. “I believe that. I did not know who you were when we first found you, but I did not think any bird would be with them,” he said, gesturing toward the feathers on the nape of my neck that must have made him assume I was avian even before I woke.

  “How far am I from Wyvern’s Court?” I asked, dreading the answer. How many days had I been traveling, semi-conscious, while people from home had been searching for me?

  Pratl conferred briefly with his mother before turning back to me and shaking his head. “The Frektane visit Wyvern’s Court rarely, though some of our people winter with the Vahamil. It is probably not a long flight.” He considered. “Maybe three weeks, traveling by land.”

  “Three weeks?” I gasped. I had feared that I had been drugged for that long, but I had hoped otherwise.

  The lions had asked to trade in our market after they had delivered Kalisa’s message. Had they been hired by someone while they had been in Wyvern’s Court? I still did not know who had attacked Urban. What if the same culprit was responsible? And how could I take three weeks to get home?

  “Lions travel quickly—faster than you would if you walked. But by air the time will be much less.” He was right. I could probably travel that distance in a day, two at most … if I had my wings. I didn’t have my wings.

  Ginna interrupted with some sharp words to her son and started opening the bag she had brought.

  “Breakfast,” Pratl said simply. “She is concerned that if you get weak, the poison will make you sick a
gain.”

  “Tell her thank you, please.”

  Pratl conveyed this, and then Ginna left us as Pratl and I sat down to eat.

  “And thank you, for acting as translator,” I added. “How is it that you know our language so well?”

  As I ate with an appetite I had not expected, Pratl explained, “Among my pack, there is someone who studies each culture we might deal with, so that we can speak with them. Mostly we deal with Wyvern’s Court through the Vahamil, but it is best to be able to speak for ourselves if we need to. My sister had that post, until recently. She taught me most of what I know. Our alpha’s son saw your feathers, so he had you put here. He and his father are the only others in this area who speak your language besides me. Frektane will expect me to be able to tell him who you are, why you are here and how long you wish to remain with us.”

  From dealing with the wolf tribe near Wyvern’s Court, I knew that the leader of a pack was formally addressed by the pack name. The formality was often dropped among Kalisa’s people, but apparently Frektane’s alpha did not allow such familiarity.

  “Frektane does not like strangers, but his son argued that it would be unwise to leave an unknown guest out in the snow. Now that we know who you are, I think Frektane will listen to his son.”

  Pratl’s mother returned then with a bundle of clothing and a pair of fur-lined boots. She said something brief to him, and he nodded.

  “Your clothes are not designed for this area, or for travel,” Pratl told me. “These were Betia’s. They should fit you, and you may keep them when you leave.”

  “How long has she been lost?” I asked.

  Pratl winced. “Four months.”

  “So there’s still hope for her.”

  “No,” he sighed, and stood without elaborating. “Frektane is expecting you. Dress, and I will be back to take you to him.”

  I was happy to have the warm, dry clothing. The base of the outfit was a pair of wool pants and a loose, comfortable shirt of the same material. A heavy jacket, lined with some kind of fur, laced over the blouse. I pulled the boots up over the pants to just beneath my knees; they too were fur lined, amazingly warm and comfortable. Once I was ready, Pratl escorted me to the largest hut at the center of the camp, to meet with the leader of the Frektane. I could only hope that Pratl was right and I would be allowed to stay; I did not know what I would do otherwise.