Shapeshifters

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  The man I had first spoken to, a white viper I suspected was the leader despite his refusal to admit it, said firmly, “Then we’ll respect that choice. Though if tomorrow you are feeling well enough, perhaps we might see something you enjoy.”

  Dinner ended when I was just reaching the sleepy haze that follows an excellent meal. Betia and I were offered a bed in one of the few shelters. It was a beautiful night for sleeping outside, but our host pointed out that it would be best if Betia and I were not seen by anyone who passed by—namely the mercenaries who had been following us.

  I spoke to Betia as we drifted into sleep—about dances, about the beautiful melos and about how I wished I could dance those steps without all the hassle that came with them. I told her of the Ahnleh and how it had come to me, and then of the history of the Obsidian guild, from the genesis of the serpiente to the modern-day position of Maeve’s kin.

  Betia leaned against me, snuggling closer, and I took it as encouragement to continue.

  “The white vipers have never acknowledged a Cobriana as their king,” I finished. “Some of my ancestors have tried to force them, and some have tried to make peace with them, but the guild stays as it has always been—a group of drifters. The white vipers are the heart of the guild, though sometimes other serpents join them.” I did not explain that these were usually former soldiers who had been branded traitors for refusing to fight during war times. Criminals who were no longer accepted by their own families and friends also went into the woods sometimes. Supposedly, justice among the guild was harsh enough that these criminals were forced to reform or else were kicked out of their last possible haven.

  Betia yawned beside me, and soon we both fell asleep. I felt safe and warm for the first time since I had found Urban unconscious on the cold cobbles of the northern hills.

  The Obsidian guild implored me to stay for a few days to recover my strength before traveling, and as eager as I was to get back to Wyvern’s Court, I knew they were right.

  Betia bounced back to perfect health like a puppy, and soon she was laughing and occasionally humming a melody I did not know. Though she remained in human form, she still had a tendency to pounce like a young wolf at play, sending us tumbling across the soft ground until we were covered in dirt and leaves but laughing too hard to stand up. Despite the horror that had led to this situation, and despite my fears of what I would find when I reached home, I was thankful to have this time. I had never had a friend who was completely unaffected by my status in Wyvern’s Court. It was nice to be a person instead of a title.

  As a result of the good food, the chance to sleep well and the healthy exercise, gradually I started to feel like myself again. The nightmares that had plagued me did not completely disappear, but I was able to shake them off during the day. My serpent form returned to me, which left me both relieved and heartsick.

  I could not imagine returning to Wyvern’s Court without my wings. I could not imagine facing pity from the avians, or horror from those who would now consider me even more a serpent. I could not imagine facing the ignorance of my serpiente friends, who would never comprehend what I had lost.

  But it was time. I had no place in this world if it wasn’t in Wyvern’s Court.

  On the last day we planned to spend with the guild, Betia left early in the morning to hunt with some of Obsidian’s people, and I remained behind, speaking with their leader. When the white viper pointed out that the winter solstice was only a couple of weeks away, I was reminded of how fast time was flying.

  We would be leaving the next day. I would be home in time for the Namir-da holiday, which celebrated the birth of the serpiente people. Thinking of it made me wonder about the group I was currently with. “Tell me of your people,” I said finally. “I know the stories as they have been told by my ancestors, but I would like to hear how you tell them.”

  He hesitated, his eyes searching the skies, and then agreed. “Long ago, there were thirteen high priests and priestesses, known as the Dasi, who were led by Maeve; there were also two groups, the Nesera’rsh and the Ealla’rsh, who were lesser priests and priestesses. Maeve and the Dasi spoke to the gods. They brought the rain, and peace and prosperity for their people. The Rsh spoke to the villagers. They made sure everyone was heard and no one was forgotten. They were the healers and judges, and they taught the common people the worship of Ahnleh. They answered to no one and nothing but Fate herself.

  “They believed,” he explained, “that every soul was connected to every other, and therefore that none was better than any other. They believed that each person was a part of the whole and led and followed as Fate decreed—and that the position of each person shifted through his life. They kept their true names between themselves and the gods, because in the wider world, we are all anonymous. When we call another person by name, it is just another name for ourselves.

  “Of course you know the story told in the Namir-da, of how Maeve seduced Leben in order to protect her people, and he gave to her the second form of a white viper, and to the rest of her people serpent and falcon forms.” He paused and finally said, “That is the entire story that the Cobriana tell. What they do not mention is that Maeve had a lover before Leben. They do not tell that part of the tale because that lover was one of the Dasi—Kiesha, the high priestess of Anhamirak.”

  My eyes widened. Kiesha had been the first cobra.

  “Kiesha was devastated by what she thought was Maeve’s betrayal. Even after Leben was gone, she refused to forgive Maeve. Instead, she took a mate and bore to him a son she named Diente. You know the rest of that story, because Diente was the first king of your line. As for our line …”

  “Our myths say that Maeve started practicing black magic,” I said when the silence grew long.

  “Ahnmik, the dark god who is Anhamirak’s opposite, grants the numb peace sought by a man or woman whose love has turned elsewhere. He whispers promises of rest and of release from pain, and Maeve succumbed to those lures. So Kiesha’s people drove her away.”

  “And then?”

  “The Nesera’rsh took her in. Gradually, she withdrew from Ahnmik’s numbness, accepting life once again. She took a mate. Her descendants are the white vipers of today. We follow the ways of the Nesera’rsh, as well as we can.”

  “Two generations ago, Maeve’s kin were pardoned by the Cobriana,” I said, broaching the subject tentatively. “The Obsidian guild was invited to join the rest of the serpiente. Only two white vipers came. I know your people have been treated poorly in the past, but surely the time has come when you no longer need to live like outlaws.”

  “Wyvern’s Court is already struggling to bridge one ancient rift. Now is not the time to fight to close another,” he pointed out. “Besides, my people would only follow someone who they knew understood and respected their ways. The Cobriana have not earned that trust; the Shardae line of hawks certainly has not.”

  “I wasn’t asking you to kneel to me,” I said, hoping I had not given that impression. “I was just offering you a place to call home. As long as you didn’t break any of our laws, no one would demand obeisance.”

  “You have had ancestors who promised pardons and delivered mass executions,” he pointed out. “Others have invited us to their land only to decide after a few years that we were not respectful enough. It did not help that one of the two vipers who went to serpiente lands was executed shortly after. I’m inclined to believe your father’s word that Adelina was guilty of treason, but my kin have learned not to be too trusting.”

  “Yet you took me in.”

  “You wear the Ahnleh,” he said, as if that was all that mattered. Maybe it was. “And I might have wanted to meet the wyvern who would be queen of this impossible realm. I do not trust easily, but that does not mean I have no hope for the future. When I was a young child, your uncle used to walk these woods. Anjay Cobriana would spend nights here sometimes, when he could get away from his guards. He would dance with us, and for a while we could forget that b
y blood we were enemies. If he had lived, we might have followed him. But that if speaks of the past. Now I speak to the child of Anjay’s younger brother, Oliza Shardae Cobriana, who has more pressing issues at the moment than my people.”

  Before more could be said, Betia and the others returned. Obviously impressed, her companions informed me that Betia could gather fish from the river as if her hands were made of netting. The mute wolf smiled proudly, holding up her catch.

  During dinner we made light conversation that turned deeper when one of the pythons of the guild sighed. “It’s a pity you don’t perform the rrasatoth dances,” she said.

  I shrugged a little, though I knew it did not hide my regret. “It’s a decision I’ve made. I don’t want to be pressured—”

  “That’s what’s so unfair,” the python interrupted. “If you were forty years old and had been performing rrasatoth since you were sixteen, all you would need to tell a suitor is that you aren’t interested. You shouldn’t be denied the dances just because you aren’t ready to choose a partner.”

  “I would think a child of Obsidian wouldn’t have such a passionate belief in fairness, considering how you have been treated in the past.”

  She gave a shrug that conveyed the same things that mine had earlier: acknowledgement and regret. “A dancer who cannot dance because her nestmates won’t respect her desire not to choose a lover is just as confined as an avian lady who is ostracized because she chooses to have one. That isn’t freedom. Perhaps it is no wonder your people have forgotten Anhamirak’s magic, if they have so obviously forgotten her lessons.”

  Some sense of tension I got from her made me turn to Betia then. Betia’s beautiful brown eyes dropped when I focused on her, but then she smiled. So I didn’t understand why she stood up and walked inside.

  I wanted to follow her, but my companion caught my wrist. “She’ll be back. I think I know what she’s after. She was working on it earlier.”

  Betia returned then and placed a soft bundle that felt like silk in my hands. The material slid across my fingers, and I caught my breath as I opened it.

  The melos was simple, a single piece of cream-colored silk with an uncomplicated boarder stitched in golden thread. There were no tassels, no chimes, no fringes or complicated patterns—and I knew that it would always be my most cherished possession.

  “Dance,” the python said. “No one here is going to tell Wyvern’s Court that we saw Oliza Shardae Cobriana dancing a melos. No one would believe us anyway.”

  I pulled Betia into a hug. She knew exactly what this meant to me. She didn’t have to speak it aloud: Dance.

  When was the last time I had let myself feel joy without reserve? I couldn’t recall. This would be one of those times.

  I stepped onto the dais. I knew the variation I would perform: hanlah’melos. And I knew who I would be performing for. I looked into the wolf’s eyes and heard the music begin.

  I felt as if I moved in a sphere of fire and electricity, and anything I touched would meet that charge.

  Why had I refused this feeling before? In that moment, I believed with all my soul that any trouble it might bring was more than worth it. I could survive with nothing else if I could just dance and have someone to dance for.

  At the end, I stepped off the dais and knew that every eye in the camp—far more than those of the four people who had been watching at the start—was on me.

  I saw only one person.

  I hooked the scarf across Betia’s shoulders and grasped her hands as if I could channel into her this incredible feeling of possibility. Maybe I did.

  We both jumped when a viper, one of the two professional-level dancers who traveled with the Obsidian guild, stepped toward us.

  “For someone who has never performed publicly, you were amazing. Actually, that was amazing even if you had been dancing for years. Something to be said for cross-breeding,” she said, joking. “I would love to share the dais with you someday.”

  “Thank you,” I said, snapping out of my trance. Betia’s hand was still twined with my left one, and I gave her an apologetic smile. She shrugged off the interruption, giving me a friendly shove toward the other dancer.

  The serpent laughed. “I think that was an order to do so now. Do you know the san’asi?”

  Literally, the name meant raising the gods; it was one of the most exotic of the sakkri, and Urban, Salem and I had performed it together on more than one occasion.

  “I know it,” I answered.

  The viper offered her hand, inviting me to join her and her companion, a man who had amused Betia and me the past several nights with stories and songs.

  The san’asi was one of the more complicated versions of the dance. I knew it well, but my ability to perform would be entirely dependent on how well I could sense and predict my partners’ movements and work seamlessly with them. I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself.

  I took the white viper’s hand, then glanced at Betia, who was seated in front of the dais, watching me and waiting. She flashed a challenging smile, the glint in her eyes daring.

  The three of us must have been quite a sight, all balanced effortlessly on the balls of our feet, forearms crossed before us, facing each other in a triangle so that our fingertips just touched: white viper, Burmese python, and me.

  If only Wyvern’s Court could achieve this. One little symbol, the Ahnleh my mother had given to me, had allowed me to join this mixed group. If only I could forge such a powerful talisman for my home.

  One of the Obsidian guild played the flute, the simple instrument that had always been the main accompaniment to the serpents’ dances.

  Breath attuned, heartbeats in sync, we moved into the ancient dance. There was nothing else beyond the dais.

  As the three of us moved, the air seemed to ripple. It was as if we were alone, two spirits in three bodies. The pressure grew, and abruptly I realized that something was wrong—

  Two? It should have been three, or one. I knew where the white viper was when I danced, but the python was a foreign entity.

  I wasn’t the only one who stumbled. Nothing touched us, but I found myself fighting off tremors. I pushed myself up and saw the white viper kneeling by the third dancer’s side.

  The guild’s leader spoke behind me. “Kiesha’s line hasn’t demonstrated any talent with the old coven’s magic since Maeve was driven away,” he said, his voice holding something that sounded like awe. “I didn’t imagine you would be the first, Wyvern.”

  “I don’t have magic,” I answered. My throat was dry. What had happened? I felt much the way I had when Hai’s power had overwhelmed me before I spoke to Marus and Prentice.

  Betia put a hand on my arm, questioning.

  “I’m all right,” I said softly. “It was …” Already the sensations were fading. I felt as if, for a moment, I had touched something incredible, but then it was gone.

  The white viper came to my side, her face glowing with admiration. “That—” She laughed. “I’ve read descriptions, of course, that say a true sakkri is too powerful even to be recalled by the mind without practice. But I never imagined—”

  She stopped when she saw the confused expression on my face. “Sakkri. These days they’re just a type of dance, but once they were powerful spells. No serpent has been able to spin one since Maeve’s time. And even if we could, I understand that the mind can’t see them or make sense of them without training. They fade away like dreams.”

  That was certainly one way to describe this lingering feeling; it was as if I had woken abruptly, just as my mind had reached for sleep and the land of dreams. Was this what Hai had tried to explain to me? The mind barely comprehends its own yesterday, but sakkri force on it other times, other places, other people, visions it tries to shake away because to hold them all would only court madness.

  “You seem much less confused by this than I am,” I said, trying to make sense of what had happened.

  “A white viper is no stranger to magi
c. We never lost ours the way Kiesha’s kin did. But Maeve’s position in the Dasi was as one who preserved balance, not as one who worked the higher magics,” the white viper explained patiently. “Even in the early days, we never possessed the sheer power that could be woven by Kiesha or Cjarsa.”

  Never in all my days in Wyvern’s Court would a serpent have casually said the name of the first cobra and the name of the falcon Empress in the same breath. Hearing them together now, in this context, made me feel a little lost. On the other hand, the connection did make me remember something Nicias had said.

  “A falcon once explained to me that their magic is disturbed by what is left of the magic the Cobriana once had. The remnants act like a spark. Maybe it does the same with yours.”

  One of the other vipers nodded thoughtfully. “That’s probably all it was, then. After all, it isn’t often that a cobra dances with a white viper. It seems to have taken a toll on you, though. Maybe you should lie down for a few minutes.”

  “Yes. Yes, I think I will.”

  Betia and I returned to the tent that had been set aside for our use. “I’m … all right,” I assured Betia, who was watching me with a worried expression. “I don’t think wyverns are cut out for magic.” I briefly described the unpleasant incident with Hai that had occurred while we were trying to deal with Urban.

  He would be walking again by now, I realized. I leaned against Betia with a sigh. “I wish there was some magic that would let me know what was going on at home. Being here, dancing, almost makes me forget how scared I am of what might be happening while I’m gone, but then it all comes flooding back.”

  The tent flap opened just enough to allow one of the Obsidian guild vipers to slither inside. The serpent returned to human form to explain swiftly, “Intruders, lions. They look like they might be the mercenaries who have been after you. We can deal with them, as long as they don’t know you’re here, so stay quiet for a little while, all right?”