Shapeshifters

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  “She was too upset to have spent those hours enjoying herself,” someone said, an anonymous voice in a venomous crowd.

  “Nicias,” I shouted, trying to draw his attention to me.

  “I need to speak to you alone,” Prentice insisted when Salem came to the door. “Without your Naga, please?”

  Salem frowned, noticing the chill in Prentice’s voice and assuming something was wrong. “Yes, of course. Rosalind, would you mind giving us a moment?”

  The woman, who looked as if she had tugged on clothing as Prentice had waited at the door, gave Salem a playful smile. “I suppose.” She kissed her mate on the cheek as she left. “I’ll meet you in the nest, whenever you’re free.”

  Nicias’s voice was cold as he demanded, “You’re a serpent. Of all people, you know how serious a crime you are accusing Salem of. What proof do you have?”

  “What proof do we need?” Salokin replied. “I saw the look on her face—”

  “I saw no distress, only fatigue,” Nicias said. “I heard her tell her alistair she was fine when she met back up with him. I saw nothing that would found this foul a rumor.”

  “Salem’s a cobra,” someone else said softly. “You’re one of his guards. Of course you’re going to be loyal to him.”

  “I’m loyal enough not to accuse the Diente, who last night was beyond any suspicion, of raping the heir to the Tuuli Thea.”

  “Nicias!” I shouted, and this time he turned to me. “They don’t matter,” I said quickly. “Prentice has already heard. He—”

  Nicias had shifted shape and torn into the skies before I could explain that Salem was no longer in his room and Prentice was no longer in his; both were in a secluded spot.

  Shoving people out of my way, I raced up the hills, my lungs burning and my heart longing for wings. I stumbled at the edge of the forest as Prentice drew his blade.

  Salem dodged the first attack, shouting, “What is—” He rolled to avoid another attack. I could tell he didn’t want to engage in the fight because he didn’t want to harm his opponent.

  I reached their side and struggled against visions as I dove at Prentice, bearing him to the ground. Again I shouted to Nicias, telling him where we were, and felt him back in the air, diving.

  I threw Prentice away with strength I should not have had and ran to Salem’s side. I had arrived in time to stop Prentice from landing a lethal blow, but there was a scratch across Salem’s forearm that was already turning purple-black.

  “No!”

  Avian guards no longer used poison regularly, but Prentice had access to it. He had known he was up against a cobra.

  Nicias landed and caught Prentice’s wrists, but I was only barely aware. A’she, she—future, present—were blurring, blending, contorting and twisting—

  Salem Cobriana lay in my arms, dying. His body was cold; his red eyes had turned a tawny brown; his heartbeat raced, pushing the poison faster, deeper, while his lungs fought paralysis. I could barely feel him, his life, anymore. Slipping away.

  I knew I could save him; I had that power, always had. I could use my magic to heal the tissues and destroy the poison … but terror gripped me. I could ask the magic for that much, and she would grant the favor, but she would ask more than I wanted to give in return. I could swim her dark, still waters, but what if I drowned?

  “Nicias!” I shrieked, even though I knew what the result would be. He had taken the time to immobilize Prentice, to guard our backs, and now it was too late for him to make any difference.

  I covered Salem with my body, wishing I could give him my warmth, but did not reach out to him with the greedy magic that could save his life. I couldn’t. Please …

  I had fought so hard to stay in this world. Calling on my magic now could mean giving it all up and returning to the void darkness, where I would not even remember why I had fought at all.

  Nicias reached his fallen monarch’s side. He did what I would not, reaching out with his magic, but the attempt was clumsy. He had no training ….

  No.

  Not this time.

  I knew where Salem’s death led, and it was a darker path than Ecl.

  I felt his life slip away, and I grabbed at it. He was trying to follow Brysh into the darkness of death. I bid goodbye to Wyvern’s Court, and I dove after him.

  Leben appeared to the Dasi, and they knelt in misguided worship.

  Maeve leaned against the creature, whispering in his ear with a smile, as Kiesha watched from the lonely darkness. The priestess of Anhamirak hid her tears.

  Maeve wept as she was wrapped in the arms of the Nesera’rsh. She had done what she needed to protect her people, but she had lost … everything. Everything that mattered to her.

  Without her, the balance ruptured, and the Dasi began to crumble.

  Cjarsa, falcon priestess of Ahnmik, watched the first of her disciples fall to Ecl. Leben had given them wings, and he had given them madness. One was not worth the other.

  This had to be stopped.

  Kiesha shrieked as magic that should have called rain for the crops brought lightning and deluge. She cradled a drowned infant in her arms. Her people were dying, and everything she did to try to help them only made it worse.

  Araceli and Brassal, the priest of Namid, struggled; Araceli’s daughter was caught in the middle, and at the end she was limp and cold. Brassal backed out of the room with his hands held in front of him; he stared at them as if they were alien growths instead of his own flesh.

  The Dasi’s altars were scorched, frozen, shattered—only ruin left behind—and their priests and priestesses struggled against the magic that cut their bodies and souls.

  They cursed Maeve, who had enticed Leben into giving them these “gifts,” the magic of their second forms. When people began to die, the new serpents blamed the falcons—those who worshipped death, sacrificed to it.

  Magic and blades and fire and blood … so much blood, soaking the red sand.

  “You say you wish to end this,” Kiesha said, greeting the falcons.

  “Before more lives are lost,” Araceli said.

  The hawk child Alasdair screamed as half of Kiesha’s magic was shoved into her, and that scream echoed for generations: two thousand years of slaughter between the avians and the serpiente, which the falcons manufactured in an attempt to avoid the deaths of countless more.

  Years later, the hawk child Danica screamed as Anjay tore his knife into her alistair’s heart. A falcon mother screamed as that cobra was killed by another one of Alasdair’s descendents.

  I screamed as magic ripped into me and tore my wings away, and I fell from Ahnmik’s skies.

  Oliza screamed as the magic of her daughter, Keyi, destroyed her; and Nicias screamed as he fought the Mercy who had come to take Sive’s daughter, Aleya, and Salem’s son, Zenle, away—

  No!

  That much I could stop.

  The rest of these images were long gone, ash in the wind, but Keyi was still the future, and the future could be changed.

  With one final shriek, I slammed into Salem’s magic like a blade into water, gasping and choking as I forced myself deeper. The world swirled—violet, white, black, red. Distantly, I was aware that my body was somewhere.

  I could hear my breath and my heartbeat slowing … slowing …

  The shards of Anhamirak’s magic in Salem were searing, and I felt them slice into my mind as I struggled to retain my focus. The poison—

  There was a black cobra at the edge of my field of vision, but when I twisted to see, it was gone.

  The poison. Falcons had created it; I needed to destroy it. I concentrated, and brought into view the places where Salem’s undulating magic shuddered, the golden waves becoming black and charred.

  The poison consisted of two parts. The primary ingredient was a toxin, which would cause little damage in the bodies of most shapeshifters; we healed too quickly for that.

  However, there was a spell built into the poison, and I struggled to read
it as it devoured even more of the magic that made Salem a serpent. The patterns kept shifting, melding themselves with the lines of that which they destroyed.

  So vulnerable, I realized. The Cobriana had only half of the magic they had been created with; the other half had been used long before to form the avians. The falcons had cleverly fashioned the poison to meld with what remained of Anhamirak’s power. Once it ate away at the magic that protected serpiente flesh, the base toxins could stop the heart and end the life.

  I twisted about, wrapping that deadly magic around myself like spiderwebs. Strands ripped and shifted as I reached for them and altered the patterns to make the spell harmless.

  I shoved the energy that made Salem’s heart spasm into him. Again, again, again, until it beat on its own. I did the same for his lungs, making them rise and fall.

  I surveyed the damage, and it was vast.

  Left behind by the poison’s onslaught was a battered, crippled remnant of the magic Salem should have had, needed to have. His body was performing the motions of life now, but his soul …

  Was that lost?

  I could force animation of Salem’s body, but the poison had done so much damage that his mind and spirit had fled. I reached out as far as I could, trying to find him.

  Again I saw a cobra at the edge of my vision, and I spun about, shouting, “Salem!”

  Suddenly I slipped on a patch of black ice. On all fours, I scurried back as the ice began to crumble. Where—Salem! I screamed, but received no response.

  Nothing.

  Except a voice, an echo of the darkness I had once loved, whispering, You have tried and failed, my love, my sweet. You have done all you can do, so rest now. Sweet failure grants no future decisions. It is over; let it be over.

  Ecl.

  An icy breeze swirled through the illusion, and the skies darkened. Before me I could see a black castle, its dark and cold spires rising. Slipping, scrambling, I moved away from it, still reaching out with my magic …. I couldn’t find anyone, anything, not even Nicias.

  I had often wanted to return here since he had pulled me away, but I couldn’t, not now.

  Why, my sweet? They do not need you. You have done all you can do and it was not enough. Rest.

  I crumbled, feeling the world go cold as the walls of my ancient black palace grew around me. I slammed my fists against them, and for a moment they rang like bells. Images of Wyvern’s Court flashed in the darkness.

  People rioting and shouting. The serpiente screaming for blood, avians demanding justice, rumors rife, hatred stirred. I recoiled without meaning to.

  Then the sounds faded. Again I struck the black walls, but this time there was silence.

  A falcon circled overhead, flickering into and out of the blackness of the sky.

  I watched a woman cross the ice down below, her footsteps fatigued. She knelt by the gates. I tried to scream her name, but this land could hold no sound.

  Mother, I shrieked, but Darien heard nothing.

  She left behind pink roses, tucked into the chains that barred the door. Dimly I recalled that she had been here before; we both had been. This was an illusion formed of something less than memory—an echo of what once might have been.

  Beasts prowled the land outside, ripping themselves out of the ice when threatened and then fading back into the void when my attention wandered. They were attracted by Anhamirak’s warmth and held at bay only by my falcon magic. If I struggled, they returned, drawn like sharks to blood.

  Soon even they faded away, and there was nothing. Then I ceased to be.

  Ka’hena’she.

  We are not.

  Ka’hena’o’she-ka’hena’a’she.

  We never were; we never will be. We return to the void we never left, for Mehay is the center of all, and all is the center of nothing.

  Somewhere deep in that center, I glimpsed something quiet, a gentle vision of the world that still existed … somewhere.

  Sive was leaning against a post and trying very hard not to tremble. She was the heir to the avian throne now; she wasn’t supposed to lose control this way.

  Salem and Prentice, both gone. How could they both be gone?

  She had told the guards to take Prentice away. Now she had to strike from her mind the sound of his pleas, his begging her to understand that he had only been trying to protect her. Begging her to forgive him. Begging her not to let them execute him.

  “Please, Shardae.”

  Sky above, take the echo of those words from her brain. Take away the image of him kneeling before her, his hands bound and tears on his face, and let her rest.

  Someone walked up behind her and she tensed, wondering if the fiend who had plotted Salem’s death by planting those vile rumors had made plans for hers as well. She was alone here; that was why she had come here instead of returning to the Rookery after she had addressed her people.

  Silently, the stranger put his arms around her, holding her gently against him, as unimposing as he could be while still offering support. Suddenly Sive Shardae, heir to the Tuuli Thea, did something she had never done before.

  She turned around, leaned against him, and began to cry.

  Part of her was vaguely aware that he was a serpent, maybe a dancer, probably one of the many people who had loved and respected Salem Cobriana. But not, thank the gods, one of the many who blamed her for their king’s death.

  Tears fell silently from Sive’s eyes as she let him hold her, as she listened to his heartbeat and matched her breathing to his and tried to think nothing.

  To another, it might have been a tragic moment. To me, it held a quiet beauty. I struggled to see more, desperate to remember the gentle compassion and the way it had moved me, and again the ice trembled, this time allowing someone else’s magic to slip through.

  Hai.

  A thought returned to my drifting mind, that single word: Hai. Vaguely, I remembered … that was me ….

  Hai!

  I thrashed as if in a drugged sleep, and again images pressed upon my mind. Salem, poison, pain—no, I didn’t want that. Sive, and a friendly stranger holding her. Gentleness.

  Someone was calling to me, and I could not help looking as outside my black palace the beasts groggily pulled themselves to the surface, hissing and snarling at an invader who sullied the darkness.

  Echoes of what had been.

  A panther leapt, drawing blood from the invader foolish enough to try to walk here. The crimson stain made the ice resonate, and I squeezed my eyes shut and crumpled into a ball, trying to block out the pain.

  I had been here before.

  “I won’t leave you here!” the man shouted, but his voice was fading.

  Serpents coiled around him, choking away the breath that with every exhalation made the ice near him steam.

  I moved to the gates of my tower but was blocked by jagged ice before I could reach the interloper. He lifted his eyes to me, and they were as blue as opals. Nicias’s tears fell and the tower fractured allowing me another step.

  “Daughter of shm’Ahnmik’la’Darien’jaes’oisna’ona’saniet’mana’heah’shm’Ecl and Anjay Cobriana,” he said. “Beautiful dancer Hai.” I felt the words wrap around me as tightly as chains, and I moved forward once again.

  The serpents shuddered and moved away from Nicias, their bodies contorting as if burned by his blood, red on their black scales. The panther continued to snarl, the sound a silent vibration through the ice. Finally I knelt beside Nicias, and he lifted a hand to touch my cheek.

  “You cannot stay here,” he told me. “I will not let you.”

  Cold.

  I had never felt cold from him before, but the ice seemed to be seeping into Nicias as his blood flowed out. Too late, probably. At this point, it would be far easier to consign him to the void and follow him down.

  Rest with me, someone whispered. My own voice, stolen by the darkness.

  “Rest,” Nicias echoed. He tried to shake his head and trembled.

&nbs
p; Sive and her silent savior weren’t the only ones comforting each other. I tried to draw on the compassion I could feel beneath the fury in Wyvern’s Court, but blood was the only color in this land, the only heat, and it was feeding the creatures. They paced closer.

  What have I done?

  I had chosen this exile from reality; I had sought it, to escape the pain of my failures. I was meant to be here, but he was not. Nicias was light, and warmth, not this blackness. I held him against me as the monsters paced around us, and I felt the world quiver.

  It would be easier to let him fall.

  The knowledge tempted me too much.

  “Nicias,” I whispered. I kissed his forehead, trying to gather his warmth when everything around us was trying to take it away. “Nicias, my light. Please.”

  I shrieked into the darkness: “You cannot have him!” My voice faded into nothingness without so much as an echo.

  The panther snarled, and I wanted desperately to scramble back into the palace to hide, but I couldn’t give up on Nicias. If I fell now, Nicias would fall with me. I knew he would rather be dead than consigned to this void world.

  “Please, Nicias,” I prayed. “You’re the only one who knows the way out of here. Please …”

  I felt a sliver of awareness from him and tried to pull on it, dragging us both gruelingly across the sharp ice. Somehow, painfully, I found my way back to the she.

  And then we were on a familiar bed—Nicias’s, in his home in Wyvern’s Court. My hands were gripping his so tightly I did not wonder why no one had separated us.

  His skin writhed with my tarnished magic. Strips of power had lashed his arms, face, chest and back. His lungs barely moved and his heart barely beat, but I could fix that.

  I gasped, my body going into spasms and my back arching in pain, as I lured the first loop of cutting magic away from him the only way I knew how. My magic preferred its owner. It cut into my body instead of his.