by Jean Johnson
Thinking about her father didn’t hurt quite as much anymore. She still missed him, but the pain of her grief had eased. With the sun shining through the broad gaps in the clouds, with everything freshly washed from the rain and drying out in the bright light, Tava felt refreshed and renewed herself.
Ready to try being a butterfly, in fact . . . but I think I’ll want a fellow shifter and some food and water on hand, just in case becoming a butterfly is like becoming a hummingbird. And I do have to fetch that wild chive and get back to Siinar and Sinya’s geome before the stew cooks dry. Yes, I’ll ask Kodan to help watch me this afternoon. I think we can get a free hour in which to practice . . .
The grass around the cistern had been trampled down to bare earth, testament to how many people had come and gone in the weeks the Family had camped in this one location. It was also a bit muddy, thanks to the overnight rain. Picking her way carefully down the slope to the bushes outlining the docklike covering of long timbers, she found she wasn’t the only one wanting to descend the former cellar steps.
A line of four other women had formed at the top of the steps, while the sounds of splashing water echoed up from the opening. Tava detoured around the women so that she could reach the wild chive growing near the planks covering the cistern walls. Some of the planks looked brand-new, taken from the lumber traded from the villagers back at Five Springs, while others were old and weathered, though not quite in need of replacing just yet. Her lessons from Priestess Soukut had included instructions on how to repair and plaster similar such cisterns across the Plains, as well as how to dredge new retention ponds, and which bushes to plant around their edges for both food and shade, limiting how much water might evaporate on hot summer days.
“Hurry up down there!” one of the older women ordered as Tava stooped to start snipping off choice stalks of chive.
“Have patience!” a familiar voice snapped.
Tava recognized it belatedly as Rahala’s voice. She emerged a few moments later with two full buckets. The other shifter also limped slightly as she mounted the worn stone steps. The sight of her uneven footsteps made Tava frown thoughtfully.
Odd . . . she’s a shifter, like me. Admittedly, I hadn’t realized for the first few years of experimenting that a shapeshifter could shift a wound healed, but if she’s strong enough to assume all of those shapes, surely she’s strong enough to shift her thigh whole and sound again? From what I was told, even the weakest of shifters can manage partial healing, but the strongest ones can heal themselves very quickly. Even I picked up the trick of it quickly enough, once I knew it could be done.
It didn’t take more than four or five body lengths from the path to the cistern before two young men showed up, asking Rahala if she needed help. Tava watched the other shifter princess hand over the buckets. Without their burden weighing her down, she walked normally enough that Tava wondered if Rahala had faked the injury just to ensure she’d have such offers of help.
Be charitable, Tava, she admonished herself, snipping a last few pieces of chive into the bowl she had brought. Just minutes ago, you were telling yourself to be kind and generous, like a true princess of old. Or at least the kind found in adventure tales. At least the men of the Plains do offer to help their women with such chores. Father stopped helping me fetch water from the well once I grew big enough to carry a full bucket on my own, and I never had a young man courting me, back in the Valley.
Let her enjoy her suitors. She didn’t get the one she wanted for a husband, and she has to help feed the maidens of her geome, just one more unmarried woman among the rest. I have a mother-in-law and a new kin-family waiting for me, as well as the husband I wanted.
“Kodan?” Tava asked.
“Akodan,” Siinar corrected her as his eldest son looked up from his bowl of stew and dumplings. “He did marry you, you know.”
“Akodan,” she corrected, rolling her eyes slightly. “How long does it take a new shifter to get the hang of shift-healing their wounds? Not speed-healing in the midst of battle, just regular healing.”
“Not very long at all,” Kenyen answered before Kodan could. Like the others, he was seated on the cushion-strewn floor of Siinar’s geome at a low, rounded table. The older couple kept the table stored under the frame of their rope-bed, a practical solution for the limited space they possessed.
“Even the weakest of shifters, like Torei, can pick up the trick of it within a few hours,” Siinar agreed. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I never really got injured as a child, not seriously, so I never really thought about changing my shape to change the state of any wounds,” Tava admitted, shrugging. “But then, I didn’t grow up a Shifterai, and didn’t realize it was possible for the first few years. I was thinking about it just now because I saw Arahala limping up out of the cistern when I went to get the chives for the dumplings, and I wondered how long it should take her to learn how to heal the cut she received yesterday.”
“She’s Shifterai. Even a non-shifter knows the basics of how we heal ourselves,” Kodan said, scooping up another spoonful of stew. He paused and frowned. “Are you sure she was still limping? I saw her walking in the distance earlier this morning, and she seemed fine.”
“She stopped limping once a couple of her suitors came by to carry her buckets for her,” Tava admitted. “She may have been exaggerating her injury to get their sympathy . . . but I think she was still limping a little bit anyway as they headed back to her geome. Or at least she was walking slower than those two men were.”
Kodan almost dismissed her concern. He had to remind himself that Rahala was a fellow shifter and a member of Family Tiger. If she hadn’t mastered the art of shift-healing herself, it was the responsibility of the other shifters in the Family to make sure she learned. That meant the ultimate responsibility for such instruction was his, particularly if no one else had thought of instructing her yet. I really should go over the basics with Tava, too, to make sure she also understands how we do it.
“We’ll go visit her after lunch, and make sure both of you have lessons in how to shift-heal,” he decided. “It’s mostly instinctive, but sometimes the pain can overwhelm the body’s memory of how it normally should feel when whole and well. Sometimes a multerai can use the same hands-on techniques for shift-healing as for shapeshifting.”
“That reminds me, I wanted to try a new shape this afternoon,” Tava said, scraping up the last of the stew in her bowl.
“You’re still working on an eagle, and you want to try a new shape?” Siinar asked her.
“Which shape?” Kodan asked, curious.
“A butterfly.”
Four sets of brown eyes stared at her. Kenyen lowered his spoon. “A . . . butterfly?”
“Yes, a butterfly,” Tava agreed. “I’ve always felt like I’ve been trapped for most of my life, back down in the Valley. Like I was a caterpillar stuffed into a cocoon for years on end, bound and restricted by the ways of Mornai society. But up here . . . I finally feel free. I feel like I can flutter my wings and fly, and go wherever I want. Do whatever I want. I can say and be whatever I want. I no longer have to restrict myself to being drab and blending in with the leaves of the forest. Up here on the Plains, I can be as colorful as I want. I feel like a butterfly—and isn’t feeling like the animal half of a shapeshifter’s battle?”
Siinar blinked. “It’s . . . not a particularly practical shape to shift . . . but then, neither is a hummingbird. And yet I’ve never heard of anyone successfully shifting into something as small as a hummingbird, yet clearly you could.”
Kodan reached over and rested his hand on her forearm. “If you really want to try, I’ll do my best to help you. I’ve never even considered shifting into an insect, but I can at least watch what you do and make suggestions as you try. We can do it after we’ve visited R . . . Arahala.”
“Arahala, Atava—it’s not that difficult to say!” Sinya scolded her son, whapping him on the shoulder. The blow was a light one, but pointed all the same.
“Show your respect for others, Akodan! You’re not just the Lord of Family Tiger, anymore; you’re also a Prince of the People now. You have a responsibility to lead the way in courtesy as well as in everything else.”
“Yes, Mother,” he replied, attempting to sound meek. Sinya whapped him again for rolling his eyes. Letting it pass, Kodan glanced at his wife. “Are you finished, Atava?”
Tava ate her last spoonful of stew and nodded. “I’m ready.” “You are not leaving me to wash the dishes on my own,” Kenyen protested as his brother rose.
Kodan smirked at his sibling. “As our beloved mother has just reminded me, I am the Lord of Family Tiger . . . and I delegate you to wash the lunch dishes for me.”
Tava bit her lip in the effort to suppress her giggle, but earned a dirty look from Kenyen anyway. Ducking out of the geome, she caught Kodan’s hand and laced their fingers together. He smiled and matched his stride to hers.
It took a while to get from the South Paw to the Right Flank. The distance wasn’t actually all that much, but Kodan’s time and attention were in demand. Every few lengths, one or more people would come up to him, wanting to talk with him.
Some of them wanted to talk to Tava, too, ranging from elderly men and women wanting to give her a piece of advice to young children who would blush, giggle, ask a question or two, then skip off to attend to some early-afternoon chore. It felt strange to be the center of such friendly, admiring attention, and yet it wasn’t unpleasant. She felt even more grateful to Kodan for rescuing her into this new life, even if she hadn’t thought it was one at the time.
All the more reason to make sure I repay the great favor he’s done me, by being the best Shifterai I can be . . .
“. . . I said no! I don’t want your help, and I don’t want you in my quarters! Now, get out!”
The owner of that particular strident voice was easily discerned. A young woman of about fourteen or fifteen ran out of the maiden’s geome. She spun once she was clear of the door, poked her thumbs in her ears, waggled her fingers, and raspberried the hidden occupant that had banished her from the canvas-wrapped structure. Turning around again, she pulled up short at the sight of Kodan just a few feet away.
“What was that about, Dannika?” he asked, hands going to his hips.
The girl folded her arms defensively across her yellow-clad chest. “Oh, she was just being stupid because I saw some paint on her stomach and asked her if she wanted me to bring a wash bowl,” Dannika muttered. “And then she yelled at me for it.”
“No, I meant the rude . . . Wait. What did you say?” Kodan asked, abandoning his disapproval of the girl’s unseemly gesturing.
“I offered to bring her a wash bowl, and she yelled at me,” the Shifterai maiden repeated, glancing briefly at Tava. “Just because she’s a princess doesn’t give her the right to be mean when someone offers to help.”
Tava narrowed her eyes. “You said you saw paint on her stomach?”
“Yes. Right about here,” Dannika said, gesturing at her abdomen. “She was changing the bandage on her leg.”
Exchanging a quick look with Kodan, Tava held out her hand. “Come with me.”
The girl eyed the two of them and shrugged, accepting Tava’s hand. “. . . Okay.”
Since they seemed to be on a mission, only a few people approached Kodan, delaying him only a moment or two each time while Tava and Dannika waited for their business to finish. The three of them headed for the center of camp and the spot behind the ageome where Kodan had set up his own quarters. Leaving the younger woman outside, Tava fetched the book from the night table. She found some of the illustrations as she returned to the doorway, and turned the book so that Dannika could read it.
“Did the paint on Arahala’s stomach look like any of these marks?” Tava asked, tapping one of the tattooed figures in the drawing.
Peering at it for a moment, Dannika nodded and touched the oval one circling the man’s belly button. “Yes. This one. Or . . . more like this one, actually,” she corrected herself, pointing at the female figure next to him. “But it’s hard to tell, since the drawing doesn’t show all of it.”
Kodan approached, waving off another questioner before they could divert his attention again. Tava quickly flipped a few pages farther into the book as her husband stopped and peered over Dannika’s shoulder. The younger woman nodded, tapping the next illustration that showed a bared female middle.
“That’s it. That’s what I saw. This curlicue bit here kind of reminds me of the petals of a greenthorn flower,” the girl offered. “Yemii was just teaching us yesterday how dried greenthorn petals can be brewed into a tea that helps ease the pain of a toothache, and that’s why it caught my eye. Now, why do you ask?”
“I thought I’d seen something similar myself,” Tava replied smoothly. She didn’t have to look at Kodan to know this was something that had to be handled delicately. There was a chance her suspicions weren’t true, which meant it would be wiser to keep gossip to a minimum.
“Thank you for answering my wife’s curiosity. I’ll have a word with Arahala about her rudeness, don’t worry,” Kodan promised the young maiden. “Go and tend to your afternoon chores now.”
Nodding, the girl headed off.
Tava closed the book and hugged it to her chest. She spoke softly, moving closer to Kodan. They weren’t surrounded by others, but she didn’t think talking loudly about their discovery would be good for the Family. “This is a delicate matter, isn’t it?”
“Very. Rahala is popular with at least half of Tiger. To suggest that she isn’t . . . well, she doesn’t smell like a mage, because mages smell like pepper to me, and I would have noticed that. But then, most Painted Warriors technically aren’t mages, from what I’ve heard.”
“No, they’re not,” Tava agreed. “At least, they’re not born mages, though how they empower their tattoos isn’t widely known. So, what do we do about her?”
“Go find my brother,” Kodan instructed her under his breath, mindful of how close they were to the center of the camp and the people passing through it. “Tell him to start with South Paw and work his way west and north. He needs to find the members of the Shifter Council one at a time and tell them to gather quietly and privately in the Shifter geome within the hour, and that they are not to let anyone else hear about the meeting, including Arahala. I’ll head east and south from North Paw, covering the rest of the camp. Bring your Truth Stone, as well as that book, and wait for us in there.
“We’ll summon her for questioning after this matter has been brought before the Council, so that she doesn’t have time to conceal the truth somehow. Or flee.”
Nodding, Tava returned the book to their quarters before heading off to find Kenyen, guessing it would be better if she avoided making people think about why she might be carrying it around, until it was actually needed.
FIFTEEN
Rahala stepped into the vertically striped geome and stopped for a moment, looking around at the thirty-plus men gathered inside, with Tava the lone female in their midst. Like Tava, she was wearing a bone-carved pectoral collar draped in an arc from shoulder to shoulder. Unlike Tava, who wore her blue replacement chamsa, Rahala was wearing a rose pink tunic cut from linen, not wool.
“Oh . . . you’re already assembled.” She continued forward, clearing enough room for Siinar to enter behind her. “What is this meeting about? The Shifter Council doesn’t meet for another two days.”
“An allegation of misconduct on the part of a shapeshifter has been raised. Please have a seat,” Kodan added, gesturing at the empty chair on his right.
Siinar politely offered his hand, assisting Rahala into her seat. His other hand came up just as she seated herself, clamping a hinged bracelet around her still-outstretched wrist. Rahala blinked and started.
“What the . . . ? You’re using bluesteel on me? I’ve done nothing wrong!” she protested. “I’m a princess!”
“That remains to be seen,” Kodan told her. “Ple
ase cooperate with the Council’s inquiries. Your compliance or lack thereof will be taken into account, should their findings result in the need for a judgment.”
“—A judgment that could be biased?” Rahala scoffed. “Just because I was persistent in the past regarding my pursuit of your affections is no reason for you to persecute me here in the present!”
“There will be no persecution in this hearing,” Deian stated flatly. He held up the white marble disc of a Truth Stone. “Merely a vigorous pursuit of the truth. If you are innocent, the Stone will prove it, and you will have nothing to fear.”
Her eyes widened at the sight of the Stone. Mouth tightening, Rahala glared at Kodan. The Lord of Family Tiger merely gestured for his friend to begin.
“Hold this in your hand—your other hand,” he corrected as she turned up the palm of the one with the cobalt-hued bracelet on her wrist, “—and state that your name is Agatha.”
Taking it in her other hand, Rahala complied. “My name is Agatha.”
“Display the Truth Stone, please.” He waited until the blackened marks made by her fingers faded from the purified marble, then asked, “Did you proclaim to this Family a few days ago that you had discovered you could shift your shape while you were off on your trip west across the Plains?”
“Yes.” Flicking the stone, Rahala displayed its unblemished sides. “I can shift my shape. I don’t see what my being a shapeshifter has to do with an allegation of misconduct.”
“Did you, or did you not, announce to several members of Family Tiger your intentions to apply your sudden, new shapeshifting skills to the Princess Challenge this winter, in the specifically stated hope of becoming Ailundra’s own apprentice?” Kenyen asked, speaking up from his seat on one of the benches scattered around the tent.
“Of course I did,” Rahala stated, eyeing him warily. She paused, then drew in a deep breath and admitted, “I’ll admit I was jealous that Akodan chose someone else over me, when I had tried for so many years to ensnare his affections. I felt humiliated, and I didn’t want to stay in a Family where I’d be constantly reminded of . . . of my failure.” Lifting the Stone, she showed its all-white sides, then let it drop back into her palm, gripping it. “Is there something wrong in wanting to remove myself from a source of pain? Is that suddenly a form of misconduct? I would think you would be dancing happily at the thought of being rid of me, Akodan.”
