Albion walked back to his chair and sat again. I stayed where I was, but never let him out of my sight. He reached for his tea again, then seemed to decide against it and folded his hands in his lap. “I’m curious about what caused her current condition. It seems Bernard didn’t get many details from you when you met.”
I shrugged as well as I could.
“So you don’t speak in animal form.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t try to answer. “I don’t, either. I need to ask you some questions that might help me decide what to do here, but I suppose you’ll need to change first. Will you need clothes?”
I nodded.
“I’ll find you something suitable, and see if I can keep everyone else from disturbing us for a while. I won’t be lying if I say I’m working on something to help her, will I?”
When he was gone, I used one foot to pull the blankets down a little and rested my head on Rowan’s chest just above her heart. She felt colder than she had the last time I touched her, but other than that, her hair, and the thin white nightgown she now wore, nothing seemed to have changed.
Albion returned and set a pile of clothes on the bed. Pants, a belt, a shirt. He also brought a plate of sandwiches. When he left again I changed and dressed quickly, and examined Rowan’s hair. Definitely a magical change. A minor thing compared to the rest of her troubles, but I wondered what she’d think of that when she woke. My human eyes picked up things I hadn’t noticed before. Hollows under her eyes, the paleness of her skin, the shine of whatever Emalda had put on her lips to keep them from drying out. These people were doing what they could for her, but I doubted Rowan could stay like this for much longer. I brushed my fingers over one oddly-colored eyebrow. She didn’t move. Her face was a perfect mask.
Albion returned a few minutes later, lit a few lamps, and sat on a sofa across the room from the window. He appeared far more relaxed than I felt.
“Sandwich?” he asked.
“Thank you.” I was too hungry to refuse.
We ate in silence, and I watched him, trying to figure him out. He was more intimidating now than he had been when I was an eagle. It wasn’t physical. He was shorter than me, and looked like a strong wind would send him flying. Part of it was how relaxed he seemed. If he wasn’t threatened by me, he had to think he was more powerful than I was. He could have been right. I felt the magic in him, familiar and yet not, ready for when he needed it. I didn’t trust him.
He poured two glasses of a yellow drink. “Now, questions. I imagine you have some as well?”
“I do, but I think yours are more likely to help Rowan. What do you need to know?”
“Quite a lot. I received a letter from Arnav telling me about her situation, but there are many details missing. A few weeks ago I heard about this… turmoil, I suppose, in your family. You disappearing for the second time in a month, and this time with something that belonged to your brother.”
“She never belonged to him.”
“No, of course. This is just what I heard. Very confusing reports.”
I set my drink down on the low table. “You have people watching us?”
He smiled, and leaned back in his chair. “Not exactly. That would be dangerous, wouldn’t it? But I do have people who live in your land and keep their ears open, and tell me when something interesting happens. And this was interesting. From what I’d heard before, you were one of your brother’s top advisers.”
“He has others. But I would have been his Second one day.”
“It’s a lot to walk away from, isn’t it? Did you know that Severn has had twenty-seven people hanged since you disappeared with her?”
“No.”
“A few who were supposed to be watching you the day you left, but most were people who were already in the jails or prison for crimes that deserved rather less than execution. Your brother has quite a temper.”
A quick flash of pain shot through my shoulder as I remembered my own experiences with it. “Rowan learned that, too.”
I told him about the night Severn appeared—catching her, the deal I’d made with him, the destruction that followed. Albion’s brow furrowed. He was beginning to look familiar to me, but I couldn’t think why.
He shifted in the chair and crossed his legs. “Do you have any thoughts on why this happened? Why she let that magic go when she knew it would kill her? Or how she did it?”
“I don’t know how. These bindings are supposed to be unbreakable. As to why, she must have been terrified and didn’t know what else to do.” I squeezed my eyes closed. “She did it for me. She shouldn’t have, but she did. Does that tell you anything helpful about the situation?”
“No, but it is interesting. As is the fact that while you were talking…” he nodded toward Rowan.
Her head had turned slightly toward us. It could just have been her muscles relaxing. There was still no expression on her face, and no other movement.
Someone called to Albion from somewhere else in the house. “Can you come back tomorrow?” he asked. “The old lighthouse is well-stocked, if you’d like to sleep there. Slightly dusty and drafty, perhaps, but better than the woods. I have evening lessons now. Did you know we took in students?”
“I did. My father never trusted it. He thought you were raising an army.”
Albion chuckled. “Not exactly, but I—”
Footsteps approached in the hallway. I stood and ran to the window, changed without stopping, and threw myself out the window and into the air as the door opened. I flew hard toward the forest, and no one followed me.
It wasn’t the most comfortable night, but I wasn’t about to complain. I needed to spend time in my own body. One of the great dangers of transformation is becoming too comfortable in another form, until eventually it becomes impossible to become fully human again. I slept on a lumpy cot under a pile of blankets, and in spite of the cold I woke several times covered in sweat, shaken by nightmares.
I was awake to welcome the sun when it rose, and I changed again so that I could perch on the railing outside of the lamp tower, warming my feathers as the gulls took flight below me.
After a quick pre-flight preening I plummeted from the lighthouse, spreading my wings at the last moment to cut through the salty spray of the waves before turning back toward the house and Rowan.
I found my clothes from the previous day neatly folded and waiting at the end of the bed, and a breakfast of fruit and cold meats waiting on the table. I ate quickly, then sat on the bed and talked to Rowan while I waited for Albion. I held her hands, touched her face. Anything to get her attention.
“Please come back,” I whispered. “The world needs you. I need you.”
There was still no one there in that cold, beautiful body.
The door creaked behind me, and an orange fox nosed its way into the room and stood waving its tail back and forth. A moment later Albion stood in its place, fully clothed in the loose brown robes he’d worn the day before.
“Good morning,” he said, with a respectful nod that made me uncomfortable. He should have displayed his power and kept the advantage, not treated me as an equal.
“No change overnight?” I asked.
“No. Emalda is taking care of her body as well as she can, but hasn’t been able to reach her mind yet. Have you had any ideas?”
“Not yet. But if you think she can hear me, maybe I’ll just stay here.”
“By all means,” he said. “I’d like to stay as well. I do have some more questions, and you said you did, as well. Perhaps I could explain how I change into clothes when I change forms, if you’re having trouble with that.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Sure.”
He explained a theory about “essences” that made little sense at first, but that I thought I might be able to sort through later. Magic is very much an individual phenomenon, and he couldn’t give me instructions on how to do anything, only tell me how he shaped his own thoughts to make it happen for himself.
He answered my q
uestions as well as he could, and we discussed magic theory for a while. I expected him to ask me about my own experiences, perhaps to gain information about my power or about my family, but he didn’t. He seemed to have no agenda other than to offer help, and to keep me there until Rowan showed some sign of hearing my voice.
He had to go for lessons before lunch, leaving me alone to talk to Rowan again, and he brought food and drink with him when he returned. While we ate, we talked about dragons and the scale that Rowan had destroyed.
I found myself growing comfortable with him, but suspicious of his motives. It made no sense that he should be so open and trusting. When the meal was over I asked, “Why are you being so kind to me?”
He paused with a glass of cold tea halfway to his mouth. “I’m sorry?”
“You shouldn’t want me here. I’m glad you want to help Rowan, but this isn’t at all what I expected. My father is no friend of yours, and I think your family has reason to hate me. I assume that your wife doesn’t know I’m here. I was surprised when I was able to get onto the island, and then into your home, and now you’re feeding me, talking to me like a friend or a student. I’d like to know why.”
He leaned back in his seat and scratched at his beard. “No, Emalda doesn’t know. She won’t be pleased when I tell her, which I should do soon. It’s unfair of me to keep secrets, but I thought it was worth the risk. Perhaps she’ll see it that way. I knew you were coming before you crossed the water. If you’d come with ill-will, you wouldn’t have made it. I allowed it because you came for her, and I was at a loss when I tried to think of anything else that might help her. As to why I’m being kind to you…” He shrugged, and his lip twisted up at one corner. “Perhaps I’m just a nice person.”
“I appreciate you taking Rowan in more than I can say. But letting an enemy into your home for a purpose is one thing. Treating him as a guest is another.”
He sighed. “Did you know that your mother was from Belleisle?”
“Was she?” That was news to me. Another reason for Severn to mistrust her, I supposed.
“Oh, yes. Lovely girl. Somewhat rebellious, of course, as one must be to run off with a man like your father. Still, a part of you belongs here. Not that it changes anything about what or who you are.”
“No.”
“But thus far you’ve behaved respectfully and given me no cause to treat you badly. And I would very much like for this girl to wake and tell me her story. There’s much I’d like to know about what she’s experienced. I don’t want to chase you off if you’re the key to bringing her back.”
“Do you think that I am?” I wanted to be. I wanted her to need me.
“It’s possible. My son, Bernard, mentioned something yesterday, some old stories where a princess was somehow cursed into a long sleep. Do you know any of those?”
“I’m familiar with the concept. Why? Does your son consider himself a heroic prince? Does he want to kiss her and break the spell?” I couldn’t keep the disdain from creeping into my voice.
Albion looked away and smiled sadly. “Not precisely, but in the absence of any other options, he thought it might be worth a go. He hasn’t tried, but you can see why he’d want to. Bernard has no magic. Perhaps he thought that if he woke her she would fall in love with him and they’d be married, just like in the stories.”
“How terribly romantic.” The thought of him touching her made me ill.
Albion shrugged. “There are practical considerations, as you well know. He has no magic himself, but if Rowan’s magic returned to her, their children could be quite amazing, given his family background.”
That was something I could never give her, along with safety, an end to her pain, and the kind of love she’d grown up waiting for. As she’d said herself, I didn’t even know what that word meant.
I turned to look at her again. This was never going to work, I thought. I was never what she needed. I’d wanted to help, and had done nothing but hurt her. I’d thought things could be different this time.
The room seemed to be becoming smaller, the air thicker. It was time to leave, at least for the day. “I’m sure you have other things to do today,” I said.
“I do, in fact. Is something wrong?”
“No.” I needed to get outdoors so I could breathe. “Please tell your wife that I mean no harm to you or your family. I just want Rowan to come back, and then I’ll leave.” Though I felt uncomfortable doing it with a near-stranger in the room, I stopped on my way to the window, leaned down, and kissed Rowan on the forehead.
Albion gasped. “Do that again,” he said. “Her finger twitched.” I did, but nothing happened. “Try again. Kiss her on the lips.”
“This is rather awkward, I’d rather not—”
“It’s important.”
He was actually suggesting that it might work like in the old fairy tales, just like his idiot son.
This is ridiculous, I thought. I took a deep breath, leaned in, cupped her face in my hand, and kissed her cold lips.
Albion waited a moment, then sighed. “Nothing I could see,” he said. “I’ll have Emalda check her over, anyway. It was probably a silly idea.”
I looked down at Rowan. She looked so peaceful. A real-life fairy-tale princess if ever there had been one. “Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe I’m just not the prince she’s waiting for.”
I changed and flew out the window. Albion said something, but I wasn’t listening. I was too busy trying to decide whether it would be better if I didn’t come back.
Chapter XXXVI
Rowan
IT WAS SO PEACEFUL THERE.
Time didn’t seem to exist. There was no night or day, and the light filtering down through the forest canopy never seemed to change. I drifted off to sleep sometimes, but couldn’t have counted how many times it happened, even if I’d thought to try. It wouldn’t have meant anything to me, anyway.
I was curious about the place when I first arrived. I had no idea how I’d gotten to the forest, or what might have happened before I was there. But once I’d taken in the details of what was around me—the shimmering surface of a narrow river, the damp, earthy scent of its banks, the delicate ferns and the ancient, mossy trees that surrounded me—I completely lost track of the idea that there had been a “before.” There was only the forest.
A path ran through the clearing where I rested. In one direction it curved between the trees, leading toward a place that seemed brighter. In the other direction it seemed to lead deeper into the woods. It was much darker that way. Bare branches and brambles choked the path, and arching tree roots waited to trip unwary travelers. It seemed like I’d eventually have to choose to go one way or the other, but there was no hurry. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I wasn’t bored, though nothing ever happened except for an occasional breeze ruffling the highest leaves in the canopy.
The voice came so gradually that at first I didn’t notice it as being something apart from the forest. It was nothing more than a whisper in the breeze that sounded like words in a language I didn’t understand, and I forgot about it as soon as it stopped. When it happened again, it was clearer and more familiar. I lifted my head from where it had been resting on my arms, trying to find where the sound was coming from, and trying to figure out why it seemed to mean something. And then it was gone, but not quite forgotten, a lingering whisper clinging to a back corner of my mind.
The voice was clearer the next time I heard it, and for the first time since I’d settled in the forest, I remembered that there was something beyond that sheltered spot by the river, that there had been a before, and that there had once been other people.
I wandered around the edges of the clearing and up and down the river bank as far as I could, trying to tell where the voice was coming from, but it was no use. The sound was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
The wind began to blow stronger, and for the first time, the light around me grew dimmer. The wind whispered my name. I’d forgotten that I had on
e.
A warm gale swept through the clearing. It twisted around me, blowing my hair into my face and sending a strange energy through my body, and then it disappeared completely. The voice disappeared, too, but it had done what I thought it came to do. I remembered that there was somewhere else I was supposed to be.
I sensed that my time in the forest was over, and I needed to choose a path. I just didn’t know which way I was supposed to go.
Chapter XXXVII
Aren
EMALDA WAS WAITING WHEN I flew in through Rowan’s window early that evening. She wore a black dress and a scowl, and the way she had her graying hair pulled back into a tight knot at her neck only emphasized the severity of her expression. Her pale blue eyes could have been cut from a mountain glacier.
I perched on the end of the bed and she watched me for a few minutes, then frowned and looked away while I changed and dressed.
When Emalda turned back, she waited for me to speak. I didn’t try to read her thoughts. I didn’t need to. The hate was obvious, the disgust and the pain. She poured three cups of whatever she’d prepared for Rowan and passed one to me, careful to not let our fingers touch.
“My father was a beekeeper,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “He always told us that what’s good for the queen is good for the hive. I’ve been hoping this would do something for Rowan, but it certainly won’t hurt us. Drink.” She took a sip from her cup, and I did the same. The tea stung my mouth and made my eyes water, but the taste wasn’t terrible. “What do you think?”
I cleared my throat. “I think it could probably wake the dead.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?” She finished her drink in a single gulp. “Would that I could have brought my sister back. Did you know she was a low-level Sorceress?”
“No.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you? She had a special talent for reading people’s bodies and determining what their troubles were, so her abilities complemented mine perfectly. We did good work in our town when we were younger. Long after I married and moved here, someone back at home irritated your father, and you were sent out to take care of the problem.”
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 177
