The Shapeshifters: The Kiesha'ra of the Den of Shadows

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  “No,” I answered. “Someone known by both groups. A serpiente who won’t be lost without constant company, who won’t panic if I ask for a moment of privacy. Or an avian willing to learn to dance, and who won’t be challenged by …” I let out a frustrated cry. “In short, a man who doesn’t mind abandoning the culture that raised him, and is submissive enough to let me drag him about. That doesn’t exactly sound like a good basis for a loving, equal relationship, does it? And what kind of king could such a man make?”

  Nicias shook his head, but before he could say more, he tensed; his hand moved to rest on the knife at his waist as he took a step past me, toward something he had heard that I had not.

  A moment later, we glimpsed a flash of white. Nicias unsheathed his blade and moved in front of me.

  “If I meant harm, I would not be foolish enough to show myself to a loyal falcon.” The voice was familiar to me. I put a hand on Nicias’s arm to draw him back as the leader of the Obsidian guild stepped forward.

  “Ciacin-itil.”

  “Cincarre, Obsidian,” I said. “Nicias, it’s all right.”

  Nicias’s expression was doubtful, but he stepped back a little.

  “Don’t worry, falcon. I do not plan to stay long. I am simply escorting a friend.” He looked behind himself and called, “It’s all right, dear.”

  Tentatively, another figure emerged from the woods. My breath left me in a rush when I recognized her.

  “Betia.”

  I pulled her into my arms as gratitude overwhelmed me, washing away the dread in the pit of my stomach. Betia was still in human form; she hadn’t gone back to her wolf.

  She balked when I tried to draw her into the clearing, and I spoke quickly. “Betia, this is Nicias; I know I told you about him. He won’t hurt you. Nicias—” But Nicias had already relaxed and put his weapon away.

  He bowed slightly. “Betia, it’s an honor to meet you.”

  Betia gave a little nod, still watching him warily. However, she let me bring her forward.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “I was so worried about you! I will never let anyone hurt you, I swear it. Do you believe me?”

  Her gaze flickered from me to the woods, but she nodded again, leaning against me in a way that betrayed her fatigue.

  “Oliza,” she whispered.

  It was the first word I had ever heard her speak, and I spun her about joyfully and then hugged her tightly to myself, not even releasing her when the white viper spoke again.

  “She came back to us shortly after you left,” he said. “It was obvious that she regretted leaving you, but she did not want to travel alone through wolf territory to find you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much. Please, if you need anything before you go on your way—”

  He shook his head. “I will be fine. You two …” He looked past me, at Nicias, as if debating whether to finish, and then concluded, “You should be together.”

  “Do you want to see Wyvern’s Court?” I asked Betia. “Or first, how about a hot meal and a place to sleep?” She smiled, still holding on to me. Her body felt frail; she obviously had not been eating or sleeping well since she had fled from Velyo once again. “I’ll take care of you,” I promised.

  I looked up, intending to thank the white viper once more, but he was already gone. Unsurprised, I turned to Nicias instead.

  “For tonight, I’m going to take Betia to Wyvern’s Nest. It’s public enough that you don’t have to worry about my safety, and I don’t doubt they’ll take her in. Tomorrow I want to speak to the men who attacked Urban, perhaps when they have their meeting with Valene.”

  “I can come find you shortly before their lesson ends.”

  “Would you please let Hai know that I would like to speak to her as well, at her earliest convenience?”

  “I will let her know.”

  “Betia, how does an evening in the dancer’s nest sound?”

  She nodded groggily, already half-asleep in my arms. I scooped her up to carry her, and she leaned her head against my shoulder. She was so terribly light.

  Nicias blinked in surprise. “Would you like a hand?”

  “You need your arms free in case we run into trouble,” I said. “I can carry her.”

  He shrugged, smiling a little. “I’ll speak to Hai. You take care of your friend.”

  The three of us reached Wyvern’s Nest without trauma. Betia found her feet again as we neared the entrance, though she put her hand in mine as Nicias left us and we stepped inside.

  We had barely reached the door when we were greeted by a rush of dancers with Salem at the forefront.

  “Oliza, thank the gods! I was starting to worry I was going to have to give up this life of hedonism and pick up some real responsibilities.” He grinned and hugged me tightly.

  “Well, you can relax now. Your future is secure.”

  He stepped back and regarded me with great seriousness before saying, “First I heard that you had abdicated, then that you had been kidnapped. There were rumors that Prentice—well, they were rumors. There were just as many people up north saying I was responsible, according to Sive. That’s the burden of the second heir. But really …” His solemn expression cracked into a smile as he gestured at the melos at my waist. “If you were going to go off and elope, you really should have warned someone.”

  “I did not abdicate,” I said loudly, so that everyone could hear me. “I did not leave of my own free will, but I have returned safely.” I did not mention my inability to shapeshift; I would wait to see whether Hai could work this miracle she had implied was in her power. Because I knew that, like Salem, many of them were more curious about the melos than about the state of my health, I added, “And I have not yet taken a mate. The melos was given to me by a dear friend of mine, who saved my life more than once these past few weeks.” I saw skeptical looks, but most seemed to accept that I was telling the truth, especially when I glanced at Betia to make it clear of whom I was speaking. “Salem, this is Betia. Betia, this is my cousin, Salem.”

  “Welcome to Wyvern’s Nest, Betia,” Salem said. “Thank you for bringing our Wyvern home.”

  She nodded in greeting, a little wide-eyed as she took in her surroundings. Wyvern’s Nest was always filled with warmth, movement and music, but right then the air was also thick with preparation for the Namir-da. The holiday was only days away, and there was no force on earth that would stop serpents from celebrating.

  Betia jumped as someone else swept in front of us—Urban. Seeing him walking again brought tears to my eyes.

  “Oliza, thank the gods,” he whispered, hugging me tightly. “When you disappeared, I thought … But you’re back now. That’s what really matters.”

  “It’s good to see you up. How have you been?”

  He grimaced. “A little stiff, but the doctor assures me I’ll get over it. I still take an escort from the Wyverns whenever I go into the northern hills, even though the crows who attacked me were caught. Avians are being just as careful over here.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s odd. There were never a lot of birds around the nest, or out in the market with us in the evening, and we complained about the few who did show up. Now almost all the avians vanish at sunset, and I kind of miss them.” He glanced back at someone I couldn’t see over the crowd, and added with a half smile, “But then, I seem to have compensated.”

  “Oliza?” At the excited cry, Salem, Urban and the other serpents stepped aside to reveal one of the last people I had expected to see there: Marus. His jaw was darkened by a bruise that couldn’t have been more than a day old, and he looked tired, but that wasn’t half as shocking as the fact that the big clothes he was wearing had obviously not come from his home. They were serpiente clothes—a dancer’s clothes—borrowed to cover an avian’s more slender frame.

  He stared at me with as much shock as I felt looking at him. When he realized he was doing so, he started to try to control the reaction, and then he shook his h
ead as if recalling that members of the nest were made nervous by avian reserve.

  “Marus, what are you—”

  “Doing here?” he finished for me. “I seem to have moved in.”

  Urban stepped forward. “I know you two will need to catch up—when you have some privacy—but first, Oliza, Betia, come in, sit down; Betia hasn’t even been introduced to anyone. You both look exhausted and hungry. Betia, welcome to Wyvern’s Nest. My name is Urban; I’m a friend of Oliza’s. This is Marus, another friend. You’ve met Salem. No one else really matters.” A few people objected to the quip, but Urban continued, “Sit down, sit down.”

  Within moments, half of Wyvern’s Nest was sitting or lying somewhere near me, many leaning against me, Betia or Urban. The wolf didn’t seem to mind the familiarity. Marus had claimed a spot at the edge of the crowd. The serpents seemed reluctant to sit too close to him. I was still just amazed that he was there.

  The time for questions would come later. For now, bread, wine, fruit and meat were passed around and shared by every member of the nest; Betia ate well, and I found that my appetite had also returned.

  After the meal, the request was made: “Come, Betia, convince your lover to dance for us,” someone teased. “It isn’t fair at all that we taught her, but she’ll only let you see.”

  My face felt hot. “She’s not …”

  Betia laughed a little, shaking her head. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek as she grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. Her brown eyes glittered with a devil-may-care recklessness that warmed me to my toes. If it would make her smile that way, I would dance all night.

  The dancers and my mischievous wolf companion all but dragged me onto a low dais at the back of the nest.

  I must have danced a half dozen times, performing a few sakkri and then moving on to simple one-scarf melos dances before, finally, someone called for a harja—specifically, Maeve’s solo from the Namir-da.

  “Absolutely not!” I said, laughing. A melos could be innocent; a harja never was. The intre’marl from the Namir-da was representative of Maeve’s seduction of Leben; the metaphor was not hard to recognize.

  There was a sound of disappointment from the audience.

  “Someone else perform,” I insisted, sliding off the stage near Betia. She swung me about in a fairly good mimic of one of the moves I had performed earlier. “I thought you were tired,” I pointed out.

  She laughed, but the sound was cut off by a yawn that she tried to stifle, turning it into a little squeak.

  “That’s enough, people; you’ll dance your princess to death at this rate,” one of the elder dancers said. “Oliza, Betia, everyone else, get some sleep.”

  There were some grumbles, but people began relaxing, lying down in twos or more. Someone dragged a blanket over Betia and me, and several dancers curled against our backs. I remembered how often a serpiente nest had been compared to a pile of kittens or puppies, and wondered if the wolves ever slept this way. Betia seemed just as comfortable with the crowd as she had alone with me.

  Despite having danced myself into exhaustion the previous night, I woke early. Loath to disturb Betia, who was still sleeping deeply, I extracted myself carefully from the pile. Bodies shifted instinctively to compensate for the sudden chill, closing the hole without anyone waking.

  I found Urban sitting by the fire, munching on bread and cheese. He offered some to me.

  “Morning, Oliza. Beautiful performance last night.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened, before,” he said hesitantly. “You disappeared, and all I could think was that the last memory I had of you was—” He broke off, then blurted out, “I’m sorry for pressuring you. I didn’t realize …” He glanced over his shoulder at Betia, and I suddenly understood why he believed I had pulled away.

  “Just a friend, Urban. Really,” I said.

  He raised one eyebrow. “After that little display last night? I’ve never seen you act that way around a man, Oliza.”

  I blushed. “I’m royal blood, Urban. I’m in line to the throne. And a royal pair bond has to produce heirs.”

  Urban cursed, and my mind returned to the argument I’d had with my parents. The dancers would hate any decision that they thought had been made for political reasons instead of love, which meant I couldn’t discuss my indecision with any of them—especially Urban. I had walked away from him once, and there would be no undoing that.

  My gaze drifted to Betia, who was still sleeping, curled in the arms of a dozen dancers, and from there to a more solitary form.

  Urban saw who I was looking at. “Marus approached me the first time I left the nest, a couple of weeks ago. Between his objections to my behavior at Festival and the fight at Salem’s coronation, he felt he shared responsibility for what had happened to me, and then for your leaving. He was in bad shape about it and wanted to make amends, so I invited him back to the nest.”

  “And he moved in?” It seemed a little extreme.

  Urban looked down. “He came by a few times. But when I went by his house to meet him one day, his parents forbade him to go with me. They argued, loudly enough that I could hear it from the next room. His mother kept shouting about how it would look, how he would never be considered a suitable alistair by any lady who knew he associated with serpents—dancers, especially—how their friends would be horrified … I’d never heard avians raise their voices that way. Marus and I left anyway, and when he went back later that day, they wouldn’t let him in. That was about a week ago.”

  “He’s been staying here ever since?” I wondered if talking to Marus’s parents would help any or only hurt the situation more. They had both been soldiers during the war and were very conservative, as were many of the avians of their generation.

  “Not all of the dancers welcomed him with open arms,” Urban said. “I think a lot of them still believe he was one of the avians who attacked me. More of them think he’s here just to impress you. But Salem and Rosalind have championed him, and no one has the guts to accuse him of assaulting me when I keep saying I trust him.”

  I realized that Marus had done exactly what I had told Nicias my mate must; he had crossed Wyvern’s Court. He hadn’t been accepted by everyone, but here he was anyway, in the dancer’s nest.

  “Looks like someone was less forgiving,” I commented, recalling the bruise on Marus’s cheek.

  Can I love Marus? I wondered. I looked at my raven suitor and tried to imagine spending every day with him. Tried to imagine someday looking at him the way my parents looked at each other. I knew he was kind, and well-spoken. Perhaps he even had the traits he would need to be a king. But even as I tried to let my imagination run wild, I felt no attraction to him. I had never felt the urge to do any of the crazy things that I had seen my peers do in their attempts to impress the ones they loved.

  Such as getting onto a dais with professional dancers of the Obsidian guild, or performing a melos in the nest in defiance of all the potential difficulties, and dancing for hours.

  Urban grinned, not privy to my thoughts. “One of the others made the mistake of harassing Marus while Salem was around. Salem is such a dancer that sometimes it’s easy to forget that he’s a cobra, but he has a protective streak a mile wide, and when you trigger it … well, he never needed to raise a hand to the other guy. Just stared him down with the kind of Cobriana glare that they say used to make opponents in the battlefield drop dead from terror.” He shook his head, still looking amused.

  Once Betia was awake, we left the nest so that I could show myself to the rest of my court before my meetings in the Rookery. That early in the morning, the crowd was primarily avian, so our greeting there was much more subdued. The relief in the avian population was apparent in their smiles and in the warmth they allowed into their voices when they welcomed me home, most of them sparing no more than a passing glance for Betia. Wolves in this market were common enough.

  Serpiente tended to have late evenings
and late mornings, but there had always been a handful who were early risers: a flautist, who had discovered that, though they did not dance, avians did enjoy music; a baker, who sold spice rolls and meat pies; a weaver, famous for his melos, who had found a morning niche creating more subdued designs that had since become fashionable as cloaks and shawls in the avian court. That day, there were so few serpiente in the market that I might as well have been in the Hawk’s Keep.

  Two of my Wyverns, a crow and a sparrow, were taking turns circling above to keep an eye on things. I knew they would keep their attention on me as long as I was in the space they were guarding. Their movements were what drew my attention to Arqueete, the baker, who had drawn her stall off to the very edge of the market.

  She smiled tiredly at me. “Oliza, good morning; you are a sight for sore eyes, even though you look as if you’ve lost a stone of weight since I last saw you. No matter; we’ll fatten you up soon enough,” she promised. “And is this the wolf I’ve heard so much about?”

  News always traveled fast—none faster than gossip carried by dancers.

  “Yes, this is. Betia, this is Arqueete; she has been feeding me every morning I’ve been home for as long as I can remember.”

  “Someone needs to; you eat like a bird. Betia, you’re staring longingly at one of my pheasant pies. Go ahead and have one; no one else is eating them. Consider it my thanks for finally convincing our Wyvern to dance the rrasatoth.”

  “Where is everyone?” I asked as Betia nibbled at the meat pie Arqueete had shoved into her hands.

  She shrugged. “Most of them stopped coming out here right after Urban was attacked—and a good thing it was, since there were dozens of fights over the next couple of days. Then about a week ago Salokin stepped away from his stall for just a minute and came back to find that someone had ruined weeks’ worth of work,” she said, referring to the weaver. “The rest of the serpiente refused to come out here before noon after that. They all get enough work helping prepare for Namir-da, fortunately.”