Droë didn’t know he had removed his fingers from her brow until she collapsed to the sand. The blaze inside her lingered, but died down, the pain fading gradually. She couldn’t tell if the Arrokad remained or had left her. She didn’t care. The wind, the sand, the threadbare shift she wore – all of it chafed her. She couldn’t imagine ever knowing comfort again.
In time, she sat up and brushed the sand off her face. Qiyed stood over her, as still as stone, silhouetted in moonlight. Droë gasped at the aching in her chest. She started to reach a hand there, but stopped herself, gripped by… Fear? Hope? Excitement? She looked down, stared at the gentle curve in the shift she wore.
She climbed to her feet, muscles protesting, movements awkward. This latest push had made her even taller, but that was nothing compared to the rest. She had breasts. Her hips felt odd. Running a hand down her side, she realized that they had widened.
Womanly.
A word she had uttered with distaste in speaking about others. She had never thought it would describe her own appearance.
“Am I an adult, then?”
Her eyes widened at the sound of her own voice. It was deeper, somewhat gravelly. She liked the sound of it.
Qiyed shook his head. “Not yet. You are more woman than girl, but you have a few years of human development left before this process will be complete.” He paused. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible. I hurt all over. I’m sickened, and…” She trailed off. She felt odd below her stomach. Something heavy and hot weighed on her there, as if she had swallowed molten lead. “I just feel bad,” she went on, aware that the Arrokad watched her.
“This will pass.”
“I know that. It did last time, too. That doesn’t help me much now, does it?”
“I do not suppose so.”
She hadn’t meant to speak to him that way, but she couldn’t bring herself to apologize. This was his fault. Or was it hers? Too hard a question. She shied from it.
“What do I look like?” she asked, running her hands over the contours of her face. Even that pained her.
“You look like a human girl of perhaps fourteen years, with the pale eyes of–”
“That isn’t what I mean. Am I beautiful still? I was. All Tirribin are. Or have these changes stolen my beauty?”
He considered her, eyes narrowed. “The process has not altered your countenance much. I believe it will take another push for you to grow into your features completely.”
Droë scowled. “I don’t know what that means. Am I beautiful or not?”
“With this, as with everything else, you are in between. Patience, Droë of the Tirribin. One more push and you will have much of what you want.”
She said nothing, but glowered at him. I’m tired of being patient, she wanted to say, though this process had been faster than she expected. She didn’t want him calling her “Droë of the Tirribin,” but she didn’t know why this bothered her. She was angry and in pain and had no desire to treat with the Arrokad anymore.
“I think I should take my leave,” he said, perhaps reading her thoughts. “We should wait another ha’turn, I believe.”
“Why so long?”
“Because I fear that trying this again sooner might harm you. And because I sense that you need time to grow accustomed to the changes we have wrought this night.”
She looked down at her body again. She couldn’t argue.
“Very well,” she said.
He waded out to sea, his skin as pale as bone under the moon.
She lingered on the strand. Regret at having been so rude gnawed at her. He would have heard her had she apologized, but again something stopped her. Pride, perhaps.
Once he was gone, she glanced about, making certain she was alone. Then she touched a hand to each breast. The skin felt tight, sensitive, but even through her tatters she sensed their shape, their fullness. She touched her hips again and then allowed her hands to settle on her abdomen, which still felt heavy and cramped. She tried to stretch, though that brought new discomfort to her back and shoulders. This new skin didn’t fit right. It needed to expand, to grow. Maybe that was what Qiyed meant.
She didn’t want to feed, but neither did she wish to remain here alone. Mostly, she wanted to find Strie and Kreeva, but she feared what they might say, the way they would ogle her. After this night, they wouldn’t accept her evasions. They would know that she was drawing upon magick to change herself.
She started back to Barleyton. Halfway there, she tried to move at Tirribin speed. She stopped after only a few steps. She could do it – that was reassuring. But it hurt, everywhere. She would try again another night.
By the time she reached the town, she was too weary to search for her friends. She returned to her lair, and soon fell into a dreamless slumber.
“Droë? Are you there?”
She opened her eyes to a dark, cloud-covered sky, and whispers outside her cave. The male Tirribin. Droë sat up, winced at the pain in her legs and chest. Hunger pulled at her belly, a welcome change from the night before.
Somehow she had slept past dusk, which she rarely did.
“Droë?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but stopped herself. They would hear the difference in her voice.
They’re going to see the difference in how you look.
She didn’t want that.
“I smell your years, Droë.” Strie’s voice. “They’re changed, but I recognize them anyway. What’s happened to you?”
Droë sighed. Unless she intended to leave Barleyton, this was not a conversation she could avoid forever. Best to get it done.
When she emerged from her lair, they gaped. She towered over them. They peered up at her face, but then studied the rest of her, their interest lingering on her chest and her middle.
She tolerated their stares for a tencount before saying, “You’re being very rude.”
“Sorry,” Kreeva said, but his expression didn’t change, and he didn’t stop gawking at her.
Neither did Strie. “What happened to you? You’re… you’re big.”
In spite of everything, this made her grin. “Yes, I know.”
“How?”
“Magick,” Kreeva said before she could answer. “That’s the only explanation.”
“I can’t tell you much.”
“Tirribin can’t do this,” Strie said to his friend. “Neither can Shonla or Hanev.”
“Arrokad, then.”
Droë’s cheeks warmed. She didn’t deny it. “I can’t talk about it. The… the Most Ancient One wouldn’t be pleased.”
“Why did it do this to you?”
She hesitated. “I wanted him to. I told you, remember? A bargain freely entered and fairly sworn.”
“You don’t want to be Tirribin anymore?” Strie asked. He sounded offended and sad.
“I’m still Tirribin. I sense your years. I’ll feed tonight on years. But I… there are other things I wish to experience as well.”
Kreeva gazed up at her, appearing lost. “Like what?”
Not so long ago, she had been this innocent. All of their kind were. Maybe she wasn’t Tirribin anymore.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m still your friend, and I would still hunt with you, if you’ll allow it.”
“Do you need more years than you used to?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t hunted since this latest change.”
“Latest change?” Strie repeated.
Heat crept up her neck again. “This wasn’t the first time.”
The two Tirribin glanced at each other.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “I didn’t feed last night.”
They nodded, but waited for her to start toward the wharf before falling in behind her.
This push left Droë even stronger and faster. She sped after her first prey – a man of some years – and, without thinking, leapt at him when she was still several paces away. She slammed into him and followed him to the ground. When she finished
feeding, she rose to find Strie and Kreeva ogling her again.
“What?”
“You were…” Strie trailed off.
“That was magnificent,” Kreeva said, pale eyes wide. “You were like a Belvora!”
“Kreeva!”
Droë wrinkled her nose.
“Without the smell, I mean. And the thick-headedness.” They all laughed.
“What I meant was, you seemed to fly.”
“Well… thank you.” Droë tried to mask her pleasure. She wasn’t sure she succeeded.
Her chest was still tender, and she needed more time to grow used to her new form. Still, she felt far better than she had the previous night, and she was more eager than ever to complete her bargain with Qiyed.
The ha’turn that followed stretched on for an eternity. Droë hunted with her friends each night, but soon tired of their company. They were kind to her, and treated her with deference. But she longed for companions with whom she might speak of something other than trifles. She would have welcomed conversations with Arrokad or Shonla. Perhaps even grown humans. She wondered where Tobias had gone, and whether Mara was with him. At times, jealousy was an acid in her blood, eating away at her insides. On other nights, she simply longed to speak with them, even if they were together as a couple in love.
Her pain abated. She grew accustomed to this new body. One rainy night, as she and the Tirribin crept through the town, she passed a trough filled with water and caught a glimpse of her reflection. She slowed, then halted and scrutinized her face. Her jawline was longer than she recalled, her eyes more widely spaced. She had lost the childlike perfection of her kind. Yet what she saw pleased her. She was as attractive as any of the novitiates she remembered from the Travelers’ Palace.
After a few moments, Strie and Kreeva urged her on, and they resumed their hunt. That glimpse of herself, though, took root in her memory.
She kept a careful count of the nights, and when a ha’turn had passed, she told the Tirribin that she would be gone the following evening. She didn’t have to explain why.
“Magick again,” Strie said.
“That’s right.”
“What will you look like when you come back?”
She shivered in the mild night air. “I don’t know.”
The three of them stood in silence until Strie hiked a shoulder and said, “All right.”
The next evening, Droë woke at dusk and followed the same path to the shoreline. She called for Qiyed, and after a short wait spotted him far out to sea, swimming toward the shore.
She waited in the fog and wind, bumps raised on her skin. Once more, Qiyed refused to cover himself with scales. She didn’t care. This night would complete her transformation. Nothing else mattered to her.
“You are ready?” he asked as he sloshed from the water.
“I am.”
“These past days – have they brought doubt?”
She shook her head. “The doubt came earlier. I want to be grown. I tire of this process, and I grow bored with my kind. Whatever I am to be, I wish to become it. We have a bargain, Qiyed of the Arrokad. Fulfill your part of it.”
His smile was cold. “So be it.” He beckoned her closer with a waggle of his fingers.
She approached him, conscious of his scent and of the cold brine swirling around her feet.
“One last time,” he said, and touched his fingers to her brow.
CHAPTER 22
3rd Day of Kheraya’s Fading, Year 634
His magick coursed into her, cold then hot, rampant. It stole her breath, buckled her knees. Pain flared everywhere, as if he had filled her with boiling water. She couldn’t help but give voice to the anguish, and though she resisted the urge to pull away, she writhed against what he was doing to her.
It ended abruptly, sooner than she expected. She dropped to her knees.
She opened her eyes to a world that tilted and spun, but this, too, passed quickly.
“That’s all?”
“You had been through the worst of it. It would have been too much to take you all the way forward during our last encounter. But you did not have far to go.”
“And I’m there, now?”
He raised an eyebrow, saying nothing.
Droë stood and studied herself. These latest changes were far less dramatic than the previous ones. Her body was more womanly, but that appeared to be all: changes of degree rather than kind.
Already the pain had abated. She felt much as she had before he touched her.
“Are we finished then, you and I?”
“Not at all,” the Arrokad said. “You still owe me a boon. That is, if you are pleased with the result. And I believe you will still have use for me in the days to come.”
She frowned. “Explain that. Please.”
“I think I will not for now. Suffice it to say that while your transformation is complete, elements of what you seek require further attention.”
Her frown deepened. “That’s even less clear than what you said earlier.”
He offered no response.
“Very well. Do you wish to hear more about the misfuture? Or is there some other matter of time you care to discuss?”
“No, not this night. We will speak again soon. You need not wait any particular interval. Your questions will come soon enough. And if I have need of you, I will reach for you. I ask only that you remain within a league of the sea.”
“Yes, all right.” Questions filled her mind already, surfacing one after another like a school of fish. Arrokad were known among the Ancients as ruthless negotiators and impatient partners in any sort of commerce. She had thought that the moment Qiyed completed her transformation he would demand payment from her.
Of course, she had no idea what that payment might entail, and perhaps that was the point. Maybe he had yet to decide.
Still, his indifference with respect to compensation alarmed her.
“Goodnight, Droënalka. I predict we will see each other again soon.”
She raised a hand in farewell and waited as he returned to the sea, her doubts redoubled by his parting words. Not just their cryptic nature, but also the simple fact that for the first time since they met, he had called her “Droënalka” rather than “Droë of the Tirribin.” Was she so changed?
Droë walked back to the town at human speed. Though hungry, she was in no hurry to see – or be seen by – Strie and Kreeva.
She hadn’t been back in Barleyton for more than two spirecounts when the Tirribin found her. They blurred into view and halted before her. Even after taking in her new appearance, neither of them spoke.
“You’re staring,” Droë finally said, exasperated and frightened. What had the Arrokad done to her? “You’re being rude.”
“You’re all grown,” Strie said, his tone hushed. “Your years are more difficult to read. It’s like you’ve aged beyond my ability to sense them.”
He glanced at Kreeva, who shook his head.
“I can’t read them either.”
A shudder went through her. She crossed her arms over her chest, found it more ample than it had been after the last push. “Am I still Tirribin?”
“I don’t know,” Kreeva said. Droë saw her own fear mirrored in his eyes. “Can you sense our years?”
“Yes. How different do I look?”
“Very,” Strie said. “You’re all grown. And you’re… well, you’re beautiful.”
She blinked. “I am?”
Both Tirribin laughed.
“Of course you are. You look like an Arrokad, but your hair’s the wrong color.”
“And your eyes are still Tirribin,” Kreeva added.
“So I’m not… I’m beautiful?”
She didn’t wait for a reply, but strode toward the waterfront. Before reaching it, she halted and headed in a new direction. The wind would roughen the water’s surface, but that trough of water in which she’d seen herself previously might work.
She blurred to Tirribin speed, relieve
d that she still could. A fivecount later, she stood at the trough. Strie and Kreeva arrived an instant after she did. She took a long, steadying breath, and stared down into the mucky water.
A gasp escaped her.
Golden hair, oval face, high cheek bones, full lips, eyes as pale as a frost moon save for a tinge of gray. Her body was that of a grown human woman, but it remained lithe, the way men and women seemed to prefer. The Tirribin were right. She was a beauty.
Thank you, Qiyed.
The thought brought a smile to her lips. She didn’t know that she reached out for the Most Ancient One until he answered in her mind.
You are welcome. I am glad that you are pleased.
She didn’t reply, and she made a point of closing her mind to his.
“Droë, are you all right?”
She started, tore her eyes from her reflection. “Yes, I’m sorry. I was… It’s odd to see myself this way.”
“You wanted this,” Strie said. “You said so yourself.” “That’s true, I did. Still, it feels strange.”
Kreeva glanced up and down the lane, distracted, clearly uninterested in their conversation. “Can we hunt now? I’m hungry.”
A younger Droë would have accused him of being rude, but more than ever she felt the difference in their years. Young Droë might also have asked the same question.
“I’m hungry, too,” she said. If Kreeva noticed the indulgence in her voice, he showed no sign of it. “Let’s hunt.”
They turned back in the direction of the waterfront, intending to hunt for sailors from one of the docked ships. Before long, Kreeva and Strie caught the scent of years nearby and stalked them. Droë walked on, pursuing prey of her own. A man of some thirty years, heading toward a vessel.
She tried to keep to shadows, as she always had. But as she followed the man onto the wharf, she stepped on a loose board, drawing a creak from the wood.
The man spun. “Who’s that?”
Droë was used to prey commenting on her size, her youth. What’s a wee thing like you doing in the city so late? She’d heard the question, or some version of it, more times than she could remember.
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