We’d come to stand before the god, the High Priestess asking me something. I’d been so determinedly not listening to her that I didn’t know what she’d said. The whine of terror filled my mind, keeping me from making any plan, my gaze helplessly riveted to that unholy cock.
“Karyn.” The High Priestess spoke my name sternly, the magical command in it coiling around me like the blood-scented burning torch oil. The priests and priestesses chanted, I noticed now, a thrumming, low, and driving heartbeat of sound. “Raise your eyes to the loving face of your husband.”
I obeyed, to preserve appearances and for lack of any alternative plan. The god had been sculpted so he appeared to be looking down at me. His eyes were made of inset jewels, glittering black beneath heavy golden lids, so lifelike I imagined he studied me. Andromeda’s eyes had looked full of light—Moranu’s presence, she’d said—and for the first time I believed in Deyrr. I believe the god existed and used this obscene idol as a vessel to work his foulness upon the world.
From my peripheral vision, I observed the High Priestess, who looked up at the god’s face, her own a study in wonder and terror, a mirror of my heart. Had she been initiated this way, too?
“I’m afraid,” I whispered to her, and her expression when she turned her face to me was filled with sympathy.
“It won’t hurt long,” she murmured, and kissed me on the cheek with her cold lips, her breath a waft of damp grave. “A moment of pain, and then you’ll be filled with the joy of Deyrr. You’ll be with me. With all of us, bathed in our love. You’ll never be alone again.”
“Do you promise?” I asked. “Have you been through this, that you know?”
She smiled, but the sweet curve of her mouth held ageless grief, finally matching her depthless eyes. “I have. We all have. Once your blood joins ours, you will be part of our family, one you can never lose. Now, look on the face of your husband, climb up, upon his thighs, and speak your vows.”
Vows. The choice is yours. I looked up at that terrible, mocking face, those eerily living eyes—and saw that beyond, outside a high window, Moranu’s moon shone full and bright. She guides us both in this. Moonlight glinted off the idol’s teeth, each a lethal blade in its own right. The male priest who’d sat across from me at lunch stepped up on my other side, taking my arm in a firm grip.
“Do you, Karyn af Hardie,” the assembly chanted, still in that thudding heartbeat rhythm, “accept Deyrr as your god, as your eternal husband?”
The High Priestess and the priest urged me to climb up, he lifting me and she raising my diaphanous gown as I straddled the metal thighs that spread me wide over that instrument of torture. The position of the metal arms made me slide in close against the statue’s chest, the shape of it and the angle of the god’s head making me arch back, exposing my throat to those blades of teeth. Blades. The moonlight shone on one tooth in particular, on the strangely alive eyes in the grinning metal head.
“Do you offer your loins, your throat, your life blood to Deyrr?” The assembly chanted. “Speak your vows and accept the great gift of eternal life.”
I hung there, poised, my mind gone clear and bright as the moon, sharp as those teeth. Once again I stood in the emperor’s painfully bright throne room, certain I’d refuse Kral’s offer of annulment, determined to continue on my path of obedience.
“You know you want this,” the High Priestess cajoled. “Say yes and start your new life.”
So much easier to go along with this.
I made my choice.
~ 23 ~
“No,” I said.
I said it quietly, so under the thundering chanting no one could hear me. That didn’t matter, because I knew the choice, the truth in my heart.
And the god heard. Those uncannily living eyes burned with fury. Wrapping a length of my lace sleeve around my hand, I seized the blade of tooth the moon had highlighted for me. It came loose, and I turned it, anchoring the blunt end against the heel of my hand. And I drove it into the god’s eye.
It gave, like living flesh, black-oil blood squirting out to spatter my white gown. The world screamed, frantic magic coursing through me as if I burned alive. For a nightmarish moment, I fancied that I’d dreamed all of this in that cell in the Imperial Palace, that I’d been tied to Hestar’s stake and now burned as he’d sentenced me to do. But the moon cut through the burning-blood smoke and I seized the second tooth it showed me.
I plucked that, too, and drove it into the god’s other eye.
The screaming cut short—the silence enough to stun me. I knew I couldn’t fail to act, so I extricated myself from the unmoving grip of the idol. It burned with fury, magic boiling from it, but finding no purchase in my mind, or heart. Only in my arm, where the inked-on talons sang with searing agony. Ignoring it to the best of my ability, I swung one leg over, to remove my vulnerable sex from that angry and bloodthirsty cock. The metal thighs seemed to vibrate beneath me, as if some creature trapped inside sought to break free of its casing. A creaking sound filled the silent temple, metal grating against metal. Revolted, terrified, I scramble to escape.
A sharp pain lanced my thigh, opening a bleeding slice from just grazing the edges of the god’s cock. I managed to get down, belatedly wishing I’d thought to grab one more tooth to defend myself with—but all the priests and priestesses lay collapsed on the floor.
Not dead, or even unconscious, they writhed in silent misery, clutching at their eye sockets. I wouldn’t miss another opportunity to escape, but I forced myself to crouch at the High Priestess’s side. Black tears poured down her face and I made sure to avoid them as I curled my fingers around her pendant and yanked hard enough to break the chain.
I fled, picking my way through them, holding the dripping lace high in case any retained enough wit to grab at me. Once clear of them, I ran out the doors of the temple, as fast as my bare feet could carry me.
At first I ran blindly, intent on getting as far from that horrible temple as possible. The lights of the palace had all been doused, the halls silent—the servants likely all asleep or wisely hiding–but my guiding moon shone brightly through the many windows. She seemed to make a silver path for me and I followed it for want of a better plan.
After a few turns, the hallways began to look familiar. And it occurred to me that the moon couldn’t possibly be shining in every window I passed. Magic. She guides us in this. Fine—I’d take whatever help presented itself and save trying to figure it all out later. Perhaps this place had been Moranu’s home, in some incarnation. Let’s just say an old friend left it to me, the High Priestess had said. I’d known that tone well—from my mother and her friends, from the women of the Imperial Seraglio, from my hateful mother-in-law—that sugary voice that covered poisonous spite.
I felt sure that, whatever Moranu and the High Priestess had been to each other, they hadn’t been friends.
When I reached that long gallery with the immense windows, I breathed a prayer of thanks to Moranu, whoever She might be. The moon rode lower in the sky, a shining beacon, and I ran with renewed vigor. Toward Zyr.
When I reached the first barrier, I held out the pendant and hurled myself through, as if speed would help. It buzzed as I crossed it, the same as it had that morning, but I made it through. The second barrier burned, but nothing like the clawing agony in my arm. The noise of the animals greeted me, a welcome cacophony of natural sound, so unlike the chanting and screaming of Deyrr. Even the scent of wet earth and excrement, of animal bodies, filled me with reassuring comfort.
Life smelled like this—full, rich, dirty, and warm. Deyrr offered nothing more than the cold facsimile of living.
Zyr waited for me in his cell, crest full and alert, his gaze sharp and predatory. I skidded to a stop, gazing at him and his chains in dismay. I’d have to go in his cell, but all of this would be for naught if I couldn’t cross back. Even if I could get the chains off of him, the jewel might not let us both back out again. What was the point of having a choice if I’d
only end up with no way to bring Zyr with me?
They’d be coming for me. I knew it in my bones, maybe in the shiver of moonlight. I had no time to dither. I’d always detested dithering in others and now I found myself doing far too much of it. An archer learns that early. You never draw the bow then aim. You aim, then draw and release in one movement. Hesitation is the enemy. Think, I commanded myself.
The High Priestess had said the barrier on the cell would burn my flesh off if I touched it, but she’d also said Zyr couldn’t see through it and he had. Whatever she tells you, ask yourself what purpose it might serve her for you to believe her. Tentatively, refusing to be afraid, I bent my left arm and nudged my elbow against the cell barrier. That arm already hurt so much as to be useless, anyway, and searing that elbow wouldn’t change that significantly.
It burned, yes—more than the other barriers—but when I pulled back my elbow to check, it looked the same. Zyr watched, head cocked. All right then. I could go in, but what if it only worked one way? We’d be trapped inside together.
I didn’t see a way to test that, so I concentrated on his chains. What had the High Priestess said about those? She said they were to keep him from hurting himself. That wasn’t useful. She’d said, too, that she hadn’t taken him as a pet because she was saving him for me. That seemed highly unlikely. Maybe she couldn’t. There’d been longing in her voice when she spoke of not seeing a gryphon in so long. And Zyr had said his gríobhth form was inherently magical, like Zynda’s dragon.
Maybe the barrier couldn’t truly hold him in and if I removed his chains, he could leave. Zyr was watching me, gaze intense, communicating something. “Is there a key to your chains?” I asked.
He fluffed his wings and shook his head. Curse it. But he continued to gaze at me meaningfully. I had no idea what to do. The chains, the chains… the High Priestess had said something about how I’d be able to take them after my first lesson, yes? And I’d had that lesson. Even though Andromeda had ripped the taint from me, I’d been through that conditioning, that so sweet absorption into their fold. I had to leave just enough for her to believe she has you in her power still, and because you will need it.
Perhaps the chains would answer to me, to the bit of power she’d given me, that still coiled into my blood through the scar on my arm, seeking its way to my heart.
But I couldn’t know unless I went into the cell and tried. It could be I’d go in there and be unable to move the chains and be unable to exit again. The choice is yours. And it was an easy one this time. What point in escaping if I left Zyr behind? I’d rather die with him—my true friend, the one man I’d ever loved, however misguided I’d been in offering him my heart—than live without him.
Taking a deep breath, holding out the pendant, I flung myself through the barrier.
It burned. Oh, how it burned! It seared the breath from my lungs and made me briefly dizzy. I fell to my knees, staring at the smooth floor, bemused by the spattering of fresh blood. Had Zyr hurt himself again?
No, I realized, as his beak lowered, caressing my cheek with the rounded curve of it—the blood came from my hands, lacerated from those blades, and from the bleeding wound on my thigh. Zyr made a sound of distress, soft and trilling, surprisingly gentle from such a ferocious looking raptor. The purr welled up beneath it. The gríobhth, neither bird nor cat, yet somehow both. He seemed to match me in that way, neither Dasnarian nor Tala, yet somehow belonging to both.
I managed to sit up despite the dizziness and grasped his head in my hands, smoothing the fine feathers at his beak and around his bright eyes. “I’m all right,” I told him. “And I’m getting us out of here. You didn’t think I’d leave you behind, did you?”
His beak parted slightly, and his eyes sparkled. In my mind, I heard the man laughing at my joke. The High Priestess had twisted that truth, too. Zyr was the gríobhth, but he was also a person as much as anyone. How did one parse such things anyway? We all had bodies of flesh and blood, of relative intelligence. For beauty can be measured in many ways and no kind is better than any other.
He slowly raised his head and I held on, letting him draw me to my feet. Waiting patiently, he let me recover my balance. I clung to him for a moment longer than I strictly needed to—or could afford, with the priests and priestesses likely to come after me far too soon—but the living creature comfort of his warmth and strength, even his animal scent, made me unwilling to let go.
But I made myself do it. Fight now so you can be happy later. I let go and stood on my own two feet, willing the dizziness away. Zyr cocked his head, making that distressed sound, but I shook my head. “Small wounds. A bit of blood loss is all. Now hold still so I can see if I can remove these chains. Unless you know how I can do it, what she did?”
He wagged his beak back and forth in despondent negation, and once again I remembered how much this imprisonment must grate on him. I caught his head again in my hands. “We will get you out of here.”
I examined the chains—they all attached to the collar around his neck to the various bolts in the floor. The simplest solution would be to remove the collar. Anything else would require multiple steps and possibly leaving the heavy chains dangling on him, dragging him down. No good if we had to fly and I saw no way around that.
The collar, though, was seamless—no lock or hinge presented itself. It ringed his neck at the joining of bird to cat, sitting on his shoulders, not constricting, but too small to go over his head. “How did she get this on you?” I muttered.
Zyr lifted his wings, half-mantled, in his gríobhth shrug. I studied him. “Were you unconscious?”
He nodded, clacking his beak in irritation.
I wondered though… “You definitely can’t shapeshift?”
He gave me a look and I fisted my hands on hips in the same aggravation. “Work with me here—I’m trying to problem solve. I know that if you could shapeshift, you would, so you could at least talk to me, but I’m working backwards through this. The High Priestess has you locked in this form, yes?”
With a heavy sigh he nodded, then nosed his beak through my hair in apology. “It’s all right. We’re both on edge. Do you know how she locked you in this form?”
He cocked his head, giving me an intent stare with one blue eye, then waggled his head ambivalently.
“Yes and no?” I guessed, and he affirmed that. “I remember you saying that a punishment for criminal Tala is to lock them in their forms, so that means you know how to do it.”
Eyes bright, he nodded vigorously. “So maybe you don’t know exactly how the High Priestess did it, but it’s probably a similar mechanism.” Maybe to do with the jewel.
He nodded slowly, then caressed my cheek with the round of his beak. My reward, I supposed. “What I’m thinking is, what if she can also force you to shift? If she can lock you in this form, it seems she could also work it the other direction. So what if she healed you by forcing you to shift, put the collar on you, then made you shift back again?”
Zyr lifted his head and gave me a long and penetrating look, then nodded reluctantly. I kissed his beak, smoothing the small feathers around it the way he liked, the only comfort I could offer him regarding what must feel like a profound violation.
“If you can’t shift, and if I can find a way to do what she did and shift you out long enough to take the collar off, do you think you could shift back to gríobhth again and fly us out of here?”
His crest rose in question. I wasn’t sure to which piece, so I took a guess. “I don’t know if I can, but I’d like to try. But I do think we have to fly out. We’re in high mountains and it’s very cold outside. I’m not sure there’s a better way.”
He nodded, then shrugged his wings and folded them again. Might as well try. I still had my hands on his head, so I closed my eyes, focusing on the magical crawl of the mark of Deyrr on my arm. I thought about that feeling of togetherness the High Priestess had infused in me, about the luminosity of Andromeda’s eyes and how she’d spo
ken to me mind-to-mind. She’d taken a risk in showing me the Heart, in telling me that we couldn’t lie, because the gain would be worth it.
Truth and lies. Beauty comes in many forms. I teased at the threads of it.
And I said a prayer to Moranu.
I imagined the moonlight of the many-faced goddess of shapeshifting flowing into me. Zynda claimed the goddess had sent her back from death, so I appealed to Her to guide me. I imagined Zyr as I’d known him, a long-limbed man with flowing black hair and penetrating blue eyes. I pictured him teasing me mercilessly, kicking back in his chair with restless grace, telling me stories by the campfire, caring for me with exacting tenderness, enticing me into a kiss that had devastated my heart.
My fingers tingled, my left arm burning with the bite of Deyrr. Then emptiness.
I gasped, my eyes flying open. And Zyr stood before me. Zyr the man.
Not his perfectly groomed self, but naked and rumpled, his hair hanging in ragged tendrils, circles of exhaustion under his eyes, lines of strain around his mouth. In distress, I clapped my hands over my mouth to suppress the cry that might alarm him. He didn’t look right at all. I’d brought him back, but not fully.
The toll of remaining in gríobhth form too long.
Then he pulled the collar over his head, dashing it to the floor, and smiled at me—and though it was a shadow of his cocky grin, I could see him in it—and I dropped my hands to smile back.
“We have to—” I started, but that was all I got out before he seized me, mouth descending on mine in a kiss so ferocious it wiped my mind as clean as Andromeda had done. He kissed me like a starving man, making low sounds in his throat, desperate, full of need. I opened to him, wanting, needing to give him everything. Taking what I offered, his tongue plumbed my mouth, his hands roving over my body. I became crucially aware of my near nudity—of his obvious excitement in his unclothed state—how my skin responded to his touch through the sheer openwork lace. Arousal flooded me.
The Arrows of the Heart Page 27
