“I’m not,” I said, meeting his gaze with some surprise.
“But you are,” he insisted softly. “You’re one of the saddest people I’ve ever met.”
Our gazes locked and held for an endless moment before I wrenched mine away. “Explain this stick. I’m flying over a coastline.”
“And these ridges are how it looks from above.” His long finger traced the uneven edge on one side. “These are bays, inlets, rock outcroppings, river deltas.”
He seemed so concerned I understand that I nodded. “And the other side?”
“That’s the best part—those are islands!”
I gazed in incomprehension, not getting his excitement. “Islands,” I repeated. There were a lot of islands out there. We’d sailed around them for weeks in the Nahaunan Archipelago.
“See.” He was losing patience now. “I can shapeshift into a bird and carry this stick in my talons. If I can match this side to a known coastline, like somewhere in Annfwn, then I can find the islands represented on the other side.”
“Because you want to find more islands?” I ventured.
“Because we can find n’Andana!” He said it with such explosive excitement that I smiled and nodded. Hopefully that would be enough. But it wasn’t. He frowned at me. “Haven’t you been paying attention to anything?” he asked, with enough preemptory dismissiveness that it put my back up. In my realm, a man of his rank wouldn’t dare speak to me that way, even though I was a woman.
“Which things?” I asked icily. “The war-planning sessions I’m not admitted to? The conversations in Tala I can’t understand? Oh! Maybe you mean all the secret meetings I’m not privy to? You’re right—I really need to make up for my lack of attention.”
I must’ve surprised him—either with my vehemence or the different perspective—because he stared, as if seeing something new in me. We stood in front of a rambling set of apartments near the top of the cliff that must have been his, because he started in. When I didn’t follow, he looked back, cocked his head at the open doorway. “Come on in.”
“I’ll wait out here.”
“Karyn.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “How can we be friends if you don’t trust me?”
So much for that. I followed him into the bright interior. Much of the ceiling was open to the sky, making me wonder what he did when it rained.
“Zyr?” A naked Tala woman emerged from the next room, her long hair falling around her like a cape, hiding very little. Her heavy-lidded eyes looked sleepy as she spoke to him in their language, glancing at me with a warm smile. She came up to me and—before I realized her intention—gave me a lingering kiss on the mouth. Stroking my braid, she said something, including Zyr in it.
For his part, Zyr looked…chagrined? Embarrassed as I’d never seen him. He set down the box, speaking rapidly in their language, then took her hand and led her away from me, explaining all the while. The woman pouted, shaking back her hair, then leaning into him. Setting her firmly away, he said something that seriously annoyed her. With a last sharp set of words, she condensed into a crow, flapping mid-air, cawed at him a final time, and flew out the open ceiling.
Zyr slid me an assessing look. “Sorry about that. I forgot Sey was here or…”
“Or what?” I asked, genuinely curious, and not at all sure what he was apologizing for.
“Well, I wouldn’t have brought you here,” he replied defensively. “I had no intention of throwing another lover in your face or for her to…” He trailed off again, watching me warily.
“For her to assume you’d brought me here to join you in bed play?” I was developing an affection for watching the confident Zyr flounder when I put him off his game. “It seemed a natural assumption for her. Likely you’ve done so before.”
He cocked his head, no ready words for that. “You know…about…”
Heavens. The man couldn’t finish a sentence. “I’m a virgin, not ignorant,” I replied, quite tartly. “The women of Dasnaria receive extensive training in bed play, which includes satisfying multiple partners. Men very often like to enjoy several women at once, isn’t that so?” I gestured to him and the next room.
Zyr regained some of his composure, regarding me narrowly. “I’m surprised you consider this a proper topic for mixed company,” he retorted.
“Yes, well.” He had a point, but never mind that. “You’ve made it clear you have no respect for such conversational boundaries.”
He grimaced ruefully. “I deserve that. But I’m surprised you’re not angry.”
I considered him. “Why would I be?”
“Because I’ve been courting you but obviously just had sex with another woman.”
“Isn’t that the Tala way? Very little monogamy. Much free trading of partners?”
He actually looked uncomfortable. “Yes, but…”
I waited and he didn’t finish. “It’s much the same in Dasnaria,” I explained gently. “Men rarely confine themselves to one woman. It’s not their nature. Everyone understands this.”
His arched brows drew together, a vertical line between them. “Then why wait for marriage—what’s the point if you all sleep around anyway?”
“The men do,” I clarified. “The women are monogamous. At least, wives are.”
“How is that even fair?” he burst out.
I lifted my shoulder and let it fall. The word “fair” always struck me oddly in Common Tongue. The closest translation to Dasnarian that I knew was a legal concept that explained the equal division of property among a man’s sons. “That is the way of things,” I told him.
“That’s fucked up,” Zyr replied with some bite, a bit of that predator behind it.
“Is it?” I gestured to the inner room where Sey had been waiting in his bed for his return. “Isn’t that what you do?”
“Yes, but—” He flung up his hands. “Sey does it, too. It’s fair when everyone gets to.”
“Though ‘everyone’ doesn’t want to,” I pointed out.
He fumed at me, momentarily wordless. “You,” he finally said, pointing an accusing finger at me, “make rational argument impossible.”
The words hit me hard, thudding into me like so many well-aimed shafts. What in Sól’s name was I thinking? Arguing like this with a man—even one not of my rank and culture—not at all who my parents had raised me to be. Abject shame seized me and I fell to my knees, putting my forehead to the stones.
“I apologize most sincerely,” I babbled. Then realized I’d spoken in Dasnarian and had to search through my frantic thoughts for the right Common Tongue words. “I’m so very wretchedly sorry. I’ve shamed myself and my family in offending you.”
I had my eyes tightly squinched shut against the onslaught of shame and guilt, so I only realized Zyr had fallen to his own knees before me when he ran a hesitant hand over my hair.
“Karyn,” he said quietly, voice breaking a little on my name. “Don’t do that. Sit up. Look at me.”
Knowing I must obey but reluctant to, I sat up, finding a balance between looking at him without meeting his direct gaze. He didn’t say anything for a moment or two, the silence of our mutual chagrin settling around us like dust motes from a scuffle soon ended.
“I’m discovering,” he said finally, and wryly, “that I must watch my words with you very carefully, which anyone can tell you is not my strength. Will you forgive me?”
Nonplussed, I flicked a glanced at his eyes, finding them full of remorse. I had no idea what to make of this beautiful, feral man, kneeling on the floor, his hair spilling around him, gilded by the morning light flowing in from above as if the sun himself caressed him.
“I wonder what you are thinking,” Zyr murmured, searching my own eyes. I seemed to be unable to look away, much as I knew I should. Applying force of will, I lowered my gaze, staring fixedly at his wickedly curved lips, which didn’t do anything to restore my poise. “If you were any other woman, I’d kiss you right now,” he said, his sensuous mouth shaping the
words.
I stared at them helplessly. “Zyr,” I breathed. “I can’t.”
“No, I know.” He shook himself, took my hands and drew us both to our feet. “I shall have to find my way with you through a maze of words, it seems.”
With nothing to say to that, I stepped back, the sunlight warm on my head. Which finally penetrated my brain. I glanced up at the sun, now completely risen over the cliff’s edge. “I’m late,” I gasped. “I should’ve been down to the beach by now.” Now maybe I would get thrown out of the Hawks.
Zyr strode to the window, looked out, then shook his head. “Just a few of them there. You have time.”
I moved beside him, this window part of an outthrust of rock that overhung the path and afforded a dizzying view straight down to the beach. The people there looked like ants to me. “How can you possibly see who is who?”
Zyr turned sideways, cocking his hip to lean against the window ledge, saucy grin on his face. “Trade secret.”
Fine. “Well, regardless, I’ll be late because I have to stop by my rooms and get my bow, then walk all the way down there again.” I’d forgotten more than my manners on this strange morning.
“Really, there is no ‘late’ in Annfwn. The Tala don’t care for such things.”
“I, however, am not Tala—and neither are most of the Hawks.” In fact, I wasn’t even one of the Hawks. They tolerated my presence, but barely. “I have to go, Zyr. Right away.”
“But we never finished our talk,” Zyr protested.
“We can finish it later?” I said, desperate enough for him to let me go that I made such a wild proposition.
He studied me, thinking. “I want to share something with you. Something special, as friends, to make up for before. If I give you a ride, we can stop at your rooms, get your bow, and get to the beach in time for me to explain a few things and you’ll still be on time.”
“A…ride?”
“Yes!” He grabbed my hand and pulled me back through the room, then out the door to the path. “Time for your first flight.”
And he shapeshifted.
~ 4 ~
I stared in shock—and not a little fear, my fingers itching for my bow—at the beautiful and terrifying creature before me.
As black as Zyr’s shimmering hair, gleaming with glints of blue, like nothing I’d ever seen or imagined, it towered over me half again as tall, immense wings half furled. Beneath the feathered wings—streaked with blue and gray underneath, revealed as he idly stretched them—his long body looked like the panther’s, complete with curved claws. A long whiplike and tufted tail snaked in the air, waving like a pleased and proud feline’s.
The head, however, that was all raptor, with a large beak as wickedly curved as Zyr’s lips. A plume of feathers rippled arrogantly in the ocean breeze as he arched his neck. And the creature had Zyr’s sharp blue eyes, dancing with mischief. He actually preened, then lifted a wing and pointed his beak significantly at his back.
I folded my arms. “Absolutely not.”
He ducked his head and leveled a glare straight into my face. Oddly enough, I returned it without qualm. In this form, he wasn’t a man so much, so I found it much easier to defy him. I turned my back and started walking. “Goodbye, Lord Monster. I have somewhere to be.”
Zyr caught up with me in human form again, the blue shirt fresh and unwrinkled, laced, his hair once again tidily tied back. Interesting.
“Oh, come on—it’ll be fun!” He tugged on my braid and I snatched it out of his hand, snorting.
“I have no wish to die a virgin.”
“Well, we could take care of that, too.”
“I thought you promised to stop flirting with me,” I pointed out. Going downhill was at least faster than the climb up had been.
“No,” Zyr drew the word out, shaking his head. “I agreed to friendship without sex. Friends can flirt.”
Impossible man.
“Karyn, wait. Stop.”
Unable to disobey the direct order, I dragged my feet to a halt. But I wouldn’t look at him. I folded my arms again and stared steadfastly at the sea. “I am not getting on that creature, whatever it was.”
“It was me.” Zyr moved around in front of me, full of disingenuous charm.
“I know that,” I snapped. Then threw up my hands in the air, waving them in my frustration, realizing I imitated his gesture. “How can you become things that aren’t even real?”
“Aha!” He held up a correcting finger. “In point of fact, the gríobhth must be real or I wouldn’t be able to turn into one.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that an actual rule of shapeshifting or did you make it up?”
He laid his hands over his heart. “An actual rule—and you know it must be one, because the Tala are not so much for rules.”
“So… you’ve actually seen one of these greepthva.” I mangled the Tala word, but he didn’t laugh at me.
“No.” He shook his head very seriously. “We don’t have to see an animal to become it, it just has to have been real at some point in time. It’s like it exists out there, in the in-between place—”
“The place that doesn’t exist, but where you can still lose things,” I cut in, surprising myself that I’d dared interrupt him. But something had changed between us in that moment on his floor. I didn’t know what. Maybe that he hadn’t reprimanded me. Or that he hadn’t even understood my apology. We both knew something had happened, though, because he’d said he wanted to make it up to me. Some men would give you jewelry. Zyr wanted me to risk my neck riding a mythical creature.
“Exactly,” he agreed, ignoring my sarcastic tone.
“Jepp said she saw Zynda become a mermaid,” I offered. I hadn’t been sure if the warrior woman was teasing me at the time. She had an odd sense of humor. But it had made me curious.
Zyr rolled his eyes. “Yes, my sister thinks she’s so special that she can do that form. But she can’t do a gríobhth, so we’re even.”
“If they’re all in this in-between place, why can’t you do them equally well?” I thought of Thalia telling me she could ‘only’ become a songbird.
He shrugged elaborately, holding up his empty palms. “No one knows. Some of us who can do multiple forms keep adding to them over time. Some can only ever do one form, the same way some have a gift for painting or music and others don’t.” A shadow of his earlier sadness crossed his face. “Some reach for the impossible, at great risk to themselves, like Zynda.”
I stilled. I really needed to go, but he looked so distracted, even worried. “Is this the secret you were going to tell me?”
“Yes. I’ll tell you now. We’re nice and private up here, and I’d love to confide in a friend. But then you’ll be really late.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Especially if you insist on walking the whole way.”
Torn, I glanced down at the beach far below. More ants. I couldn’t afford to be seen as less than useful, not with my few friends disappearing one by one, off doing actually important things. On the other hand, Zyr had piqued my curiosity with this secret. Also, it bothered me to see him grieved, about Zynda, who I liked. I shouldn’t worry, as a trickster like him hardly needed sympathy, but if it was a secret, perhaps no one else knew to give him the support.
“Did you tell Sey about this?” I found myself asking, then cringed at how it sounded.
But Zyr snorted, wrinkling his nose in a way that oddly reminded me of the gríobhth’s sharp, curving beak. “Her? No way. She’d blab it all over Annfwn.”
Arrested, I considered him. “Why do you think I won’t?”
“You’re not like that,” he replied easily. “I think you’re someone who would never betray a confidence. Even if you could speak Tala,” he added with a wink.
I let that go by, mulling. Flying. I’d never really conceived a wish to do so, but… it might be incredible. “Do you promise I’ll be safe on your back—what if I fall off?”
“I’m very good at balance in that form,”
he answered in all seriousness. “I would never let you fall, Karyn. If for some reason you did fall, I’d always catch you. Trust me in that.”
“If nothing else?” I replied, full of sass all of a sudden.
He grinned back. “In all things. I’m resolved to be trustworthy.”
“So full of resolutions this morning.”
“I know. Very strange.” His brow wrinkled, then cleared. “Comes of getting up so early, no doubt. I shall have to watch that in the future.”
I laughed. “All right, I’ll ride the grevepth—”
“Try this. Gah-reeb-vha-tha,” he coached, and I repeated the syllables slowly. “Yes, now slide them all together. Gríobhth.”
I couldn’t manage his lyrical pitching and liquid ease, and I ended up laughing.
“You’ll get it,” he told me, smiling back, all sorrow forgotten.
“So many things to learn.” It felt like a confession. I hated being this person who understood so little, who had no real place in the world.
He didn’t answer immediately, pressing his lips together, eyes focused on some distant thought. “I think,” he finally said slowly, “that maybe we all have many things to learn, only we pretend to ourselves that we don’t. It’s only when we finally figure out how much we don’t know that we can start learning.”
I regarded him in some surprise. The playful, irreverent Zyr, waxing philosophical?
As if reading my mind, he gave me a rueful smile. “The thing is, my sister has gone off to take Final Form. That’s if she survives liberating the dragon under Windroven, which is nearly as insane. And which means that she may never return. Or if she does return, she will not be…recognizable to me. It hurts my heart.”
I held still, recognizing the depth of his feeling, if not the sense of what he’d said. “Is ‘Final Form’ a kind of death?” I asked, hesitant to apply that hard-edged word, but not knowing any more pleasant euphemisms in Common Tongue.
“No,” he replied immediately, then considered. “Eh, what is death? I don’t know if Final Form is even real—and neither does Zynda, so she should know better than to chase her tail after a myth. It’s that cursed priest who’s filled her head with nonsense. ‘Sacrifice yourself to save the Tala.’ Well, what good is that, I ask you?”
The Arrows of the Heart Page 4
