Irik was Calban’s latest fancy, a young princess from the southern continent who possessed the rare magic of being able to shape-shift into a leopard.
“Now, I haven’t heard any complaints, mind you, but the wind may have whispered in my ear that you are restless. I might have a better job for you.”
“What is that?” she asked, trying not to sound embarrassingly eager.
“As you know, I brought Irik here because I’m trying to learn the secret of shape-shifting. She’s been through the process of becoming a shape-shifter herself, but she’s not entirely sure how it works. I suppose only the sorcerers of the Kaalsons know for sure. But we’re going to crack it. We’re working on it now. If I’m going to tell you anything more than that, you have to swear secrecy. I would rather you not talk about this to your father.”
“To my father, even? Why not?”
“Because, you’re an adult. You need to be independent from him. And to prove you are independent from him, you have to be able to keep secrets. Everyone who works for Lord Jherin must be able to keep a secret.”
Parsons was intrigued. A little disturbed—but intrigued. “Fine.” She picked at her nails.
“We’ve been experimenting on prisoners. If the magic works, it’s a good deal for them. We will let them work for us, rather than stewing in prison. The problem is that so far, the magic hasn’t worked. The first prisoner died. So we’ve tweaked the spells to try again.”
Died? Parsons couldn’t imagine how she would fit into this. She wasn’t a sorceress.
“The way the magic works is, the prisoner must kill the animal she wants to transform into. After this is done, she is wrapped—”
“She? The prisoner is a girl?”
“Girls weigh less,” Calban said. “Which is important in this case, because we want to turn her into a bird. She is wrapped in the bird’s wings and hung in the tree where the bird had its nest, caught in a magical sleep, for one lunar cycle. And what do you do, you might ask? Well, Irik has to check on our little bird girl in training. But Irik herself has an uncomfortable tendency to turn into a leopard and forget who she is. I just want someone there to watch over her. Someone who can’t bleed to death if she gets shredded.”
“Oh.” Parsons could hardly hide her disappointment. “So that’s it. I just…babysit Irik until she turns into a crazy leopard and tears me into fluff.”
“It’s a test assignment, my dear. If it goes well, I’ll give you another and another and another, and one day, well, maybe they’ll call you the Doll General. No, no, don’t make a face. By then, you’ll wear it with pride.”
Chapter Four
“Thank you for coming with me.” Irik tried to give Parsons a smile as they grabbed supplies in the potions storeroom, under the careful eye of the potion keeper. Parsons knew Irik was nervous around her. They didn’t create Fanarlem in the southern nations.
Of course Parsons wouldn’t refuse a special job, but that didn’t mean she had to smile about it. She shrugged.
Parsons was charged with carrying the spells, because if Irik turned into a leopard she might go running off without her clothes. They had a teleportation stone, a powerful healing balm, and an attack spell. The potion keeper tucked them in an enchanted pocket that was larger on the inside than the outside, so it could be inserted into the normal-sized pocket in Parsons’ dress.
They weren’t allowed to discuss the mission in front of the potion keeper, but proceeded to a designated teleportation room, which had a padded floor in case they popped back in at a bad angle.
“We must hold the teleportation stone together,” Irik said. “It should be quick. I know exactly where we’re going.”
“Calban said the last prisoner died?” Parsons looked at Irik sharply. “I hope we’re not going to find a corpse in that tree.”
Irik’s eyes plunged to the ground. “The last prisoner didn’t die. She killed herself. If she hadn’t done that, we probably could have saved her and fixed the spell.”
“‘Fixed’? How did it go wrong, exactly?”
Irik’s eyes flashed like she didn’t want to answer questions. “You do understand that Lord Calban is sending ships full of food to my people in exchange for what I’m doing? Saving thousands of lives?”
Parsons shrugged again, but this time in slight acknowledgment of the point.
“It was—not good,” Irik said. “She had wings and talons and a beak. But a girl’s eyes and hair and…” She motioned from her breasts down to her thighs.
“Ugh.” Fates, that would be even worse to see than a corpse. “Let’s just get it over with, then.” She held out the teleportation stone.
The stone was white and polished, like a piece of clouded crystal. Irik placed her hands on it and shut her eyes. Parsons knew how teleportation stones worked from books. Irik needed to visualize the place where they would travel and twist the stone in her hand. Books hadn’t prepared Parsons for the horrible jerking sensation, like someone suddenly grabbed her and shoved her through a dark door, only to emerge into the woods. The recent snowfall, which had mostly melted in the city, lingered under the shadows of trees. The sound of it dripping and melting was everywhere.
Despite that sound, Parsons immediately noticed the quiet. It was so quiet here, and the smell of the air was so clear, that she knew she must be far from the city.
This is the woods where Els and I wanted to run away… The woods where people were discouraged from walking, and now Parsons knew why. There were secrets out here, much bigger secrets than the old ruins of spirit houses.
“All right. Which tree is it?” Parsons asked, nerves turning her voice even more brusque.
Irik gazed at her a moment, and her eyes also betrayed nerves. She almost looked like she wanted to confess something.
“Not these,” she said. “Up past the creek, here.”
Maybe Parsons imagined the fear in Irik’s eyes. She was a princess, and probably very homesick, but just as surely good at hiding her feelings. It was no wonder Calban liked her. He loved people who wore a mask. Irik had a stately bearing that made you forget she was an ocean away from home, even though she didn’t look like anyone else in Nalim Ima. She had dark skin like an Islander, and Islanders were already a minority, but Irik’s features were quite different. She had long, slinky limbs reminiscent of the leopard she could become, slightly slanted eyes, prominent cheekbones and full lips.
“Not these,” Irik said, regarding a clump of evergreens. “Up past the creek here.”
Parsons had no idea how Irik could tell the difference between trees. Everything looked the same.
“This one here, I think. Yes.” Irik stroked the lowest branch of an evergreen that reached to the sky, easily twelve feet tall. Maybe a lot more. Parsons wasn’t the best judge of distance.
She was feeling very queasy all of a sudden, watching the way the tree gently swayed in the wind at the top. “This isn’t going to go well, is it? I thought Calban was trusting me with a good job. I should have known better.”
“Best not to think of it.” Irik’s tone held a note of pleading. “This girl would have spent her whole life in prison if she hadn’t agreed.”
“What did she do?”
Irik shook her head with uncertainty.
“Experimenting on prisoners just feels…” No, Parsons promised she wasn’t going to question the mission. “Let’s get it over with.”
Irik bent underneath the canopy of needles and pinecones to get to the trunk where she could climb up.
“Someone was just here,” she said, just as something leapt out of the top of the tree and into the next evergreen over.
“What? There!” Parsons cried.
The figure leapt again.
It looked like a man. Even more strange, like a man with another person clinging to his back.
But he was fast, and he could leap distances with unnatural agility.
“What is that!?” Parsons grabbed Irik’s dress to yank her out from u
nder the tree.
“Damnit!” a man’s voice said as he burst out of the base of one of the trees. He started running, so swift and graceful that Parsons barely saw a flash of black hair—the girl clinging to his back.
“Follow them!” Parsons exclaimed. “We need to follow them! It could be a bandit—or a spy.” If they caught a spy, Calban would certainly give her better jobs in the future.
“He’s so fast,” Irik said. “I would have to transform. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to change back.”
“You have no control over your transformations?” Parsons could hear the man putting more distance between them. Soon, the window of opportunity would be lost.
“It hurts…and I might hurt you.”
“We don’t have time. We need to know who is snooping around in Lord Jherin’s woods. You can’t really damage me. That’s the whole reason I’m here.”
Irik looked thoughtful, like a part of her was eager to change despite the pain. “All right. But—look away.”
Parsons turned her head aside, and Irik made a small gasp of pain before Parsons heard her clothes fall to the ground. Almost immediately, she started to thrash, as if she had been waiting for someone to give her permission to shift into her other form. When the agonized moans of a girl started turning to the snarling grunts of a large cat, Parsons turned around and saw the last contortions of her transformation. When she was fully formed into a leopard, she shook herself off a little and regarded Parsons with golden eyes.
Parsons climbed on her back. Irik the girl was tall, and she was the same size in her animal form, but seemed stronger. She immediately leapt forward, almost unseating Parsons, who lowered herself, clutching Irik around the neck.
She was a little afraid Irik might not know her anymore, but she seemed to retain enough of her girl-self to do what needed to be done. She sniffed the ground where the man had run off, and then she started running herself.
“Ah!” Parsons exclaimed, surprised by the speed, but thrilled by the wind blowing back her hair.
She would never tell Irik how good this felt, tearing through the woods. Jealousy was not a productive emotion, but—just imagine being this fast and strong, you could live anywhere…
They tore through the woods. The winter air bit Parsons’ face, invigorating and clean. Irik came to a stop before a sheer cliff face. She sat down and looked up. Parsons stepped off her back and followed her line of sight.
Somehow, the man had gotten to the top of the rock face. That fast? Fates, how did he get up there at all? It was a vertical drop.
“Is he a Miralem?” Parsons murmured. “Can he fly with telekinesis?” She raised her voice. “Who are you?” But she wasn’t sure he would hear her with wind rushing through the trees. She wasn’t sure she should be trying to talk to him at all. He was an intruder on Lord Jherin’s lands. They should probably summon the guards. It was useless, anyway. If he didn’t want to talk, that was that. Even leopards couldn’t climb sheer rocks.
“We should probably hurry up and grab the prisoner,” Parsons told Irik, putting a hand on her back. Hopefully Irik understood.
Irik arched her back and pranced in a half circle, like a house cat.
“Come on,” Parsons said. “Irik, we don’t have time for this.” She forced herself onto her back. “Do you understand me?”
Irik started trotting back the way they had come. When she was back under the forest canopy, something seemed to stir her memories and she bolted. Parsons had to hug her knees tight to Irik’s body and clutch her arms firmly around her neck just to hang on.
Back at the tree, Irik sat down again.
Parsons didn’t want to be the one to check on the prisoner. This was not her job. “Can you change back?” The leopard licked a paw. “Irik? Please. Here are your clothes.” She threw them at Irik’s head.
Irik shook the clothes off her head, backing up.
Parsons heard something crack in the woods. She glanced around. Could the man and girl have gotten back here this quickly? They had some sort of supernatural power, that was certain.
“We need to hurry,” she muttered. “Irik? Damnit. Fine.” She ducked under the tree, looking up into the branches. They were spaced neatly apart. Easy to climb. Parsons had never been one for tree climbing, though. She plucked her gloves from her pocket to protect her hands and grabbed one of the branches.
“I’m getting sap on my clothes,” she told Irik, who was obviously indifferent. Parsons reached above her head and searched a secure place to hook the heel of her boot as she climbed.
A white shroud was hanging in the top of the tree, with the form and weight of a person, except around the middle, where the girl was wrapped in the dead bird’s wings. This is so creepy… But Parsons was already halfway there. She snapped a small stick off one of the branches as she passed, and when she got to the top, she poked the shroud.
The shroud swung slightly; it was hanging in the tree like a hammock. It felt like pliable living flesh was beneath the fabric, but the prisoner girl herself didn’t move. The whole tree was swaying a little. Parsons clutched the trunk, waiting for a gust to pass.
Very gingerly, Parsons climbed a little higher so she was above the shroud, and peeled the fabric away from the girl.
She had the face of a girl, pale and sleeping, not a bird.
Parsons pulled the fabric aside more and saw black feathers springing from the girl’s shoulders. The wings had become a part of her body. She no longer seemed to have arms. A shudder passed through Parsons. She had never seen magic like this.
Parsons used the stick to lift the shroud back over the girl. So what, she tried to tell herself, but the girl looked so young. She didn’t look like a criminal. She would wake with no arms, just the wings of a dead bird molded to her body.
“No luck,” she called to Irik, trying to sound nonchalant. “She’s still half-formed and it’s been a month. All we have is another failed experiment.”
Stupid Irik was still a leopard. She was slinking around under the tree and Parsons was never sure how much she understood.
Parsons hurried back down. “You have no idea how to replicate shape-shifting magic, do you? You, or your family, duped Calban. And how many people are you going to harm before you admit the truth?” The leopard was pacing a circle in the snow, her body tense. “Look at me! Change back into a girl, damnit. It’s your fault that the first one died, do you realize that?”
Irik suddenly lunged at her with a growl, but Parsons had seen the warning signs. She managed not to scream. Parsons wasn’t that protective of her body, outside of her face. She’d grown so reckless playing with Els that her instincts had adjusted. She knew that she only felt pain in brief flashes and her skin was easy to replace. Most aggravating was the melting snow soaking through her dress when Irik knocked her down.
Irik shifted back violently. Her body spasmed like all her bones were breaking, her leopard tail flicking before it drew back up into her tailbone, and she lay naked in the cold wet snow for a moment. Parsons stared at her, offering her no privacy. Irik reached for her clothes with one weak hand.
“What do you want me to do?” Irik’s voice was weak. “Tell Calban I give up? What will become of me then? I made a promise to Calban and I will keep it. I don’t know why the shape-shifting doesn’t work here. Maybe this was the wrong animal. Maybe the wrappings are wrong. Maybe the prisoners are too reluctant. I just don’t know. But she has wings. If we can keep this girl alive, maybe we can find out how to finish the transformation.”
“You’re making this up as you go along, and nothing works.”
“Well—I’ll cut her down.”
Something rustled in one of the nearby trees. Parsons looked around.
Her mind buzzed like someone was attacking her with telepathy. What was going on? She heard things moving around her and she couldn’t seem to lock her eyes onto them, couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
She heard a man’s boots, and she clawed at
whatever was attacking her from the inside. Stop! Get out of my mind!
The same man from before dashed into the scene. He didn’t have the girl on his back now. He grabbed Irik just as she was trying to climb the tree. He tossed her into the snow and then started climbing himself. He was obviously here to rescue the prisoner, and Parsons wondered if she ought to just let him do it.
But what is he? He was fair-haired like a Miralem, and moved so fast.
Irik shape-shifted into a leopard again. Although she probably intended to protected herself with teeth and claws, it was so painful for her, maybe it did more harm than good. Once back in cat form, she seemed like she could barely move.
In another moment, the man dropped back to the ground with the shroud over his shoulder. Irik pounced on him, and it was all a bit of a blur. He was too fast for Parsons’ eyes to follow. He fought Irik, obviously not afraid of her at all. Irik was the one who had to pull back, bleeding from a neck wound. Parsons put her hand in her pocket, running her fingers over the spells to locate the attack spell. Each spell had a different shape so they were easy to find quickly.
The man was bleeding too, but Irik had wounded him in an incidental way. He was holding a knife in his free hand.
Everything went still. He didn't even seem to see Parsons. His eyes locked on Irik, sniffing the air. Sniffing? Was he some sort of shapeshifter himself, with animal senses?
Some invisible force knocked Parsons back.
The telepath was back at it.
Velsa dropped out of one of the trees, hitting the ground hard before scrambling to her feet.
Velsa! Parsons should have known the presence of another flesh-born Fanarlem girl was too strange to be true. So, she was a telepathic Fanarlem. Parsons had heard a rumor that her mother was a Halnari, but it was getting harder to believe by the moment. Velsa didn’t look or act like a Halnari, not in the least.
Irik let out an animal scream, and Parsons realized the man was biting her. It looked like he was drinking her blood.
The Vampire's Doll (The Heiress and the Vampire Book 1) Page 5
