Shapeshifters (22 page)

Silence.

“It will be months before the child is born,” I whispered, pleading not only with Danica, but with whatever powers might be. “We don't have to make this decision, not yet.”

Danica nodded, but still she said, “One queen cannot rule two worlds, even if she is of both.”

D
ANICA AND
I
WENT OUR SEPARATE WAYS
that evening, each needing time to think. I dined with the remnants of my family: my sister Irene and her babe, Salem. My brother-in-law, Galen, had been bitten by a petulant five-year-old mamba that afternoon, and although the poison was not nearly as deadly as it would have been to a human, he had asked to be excused from dinner.

Irene had recounted the tale with a forcedly light tone, obviously trying to keep the mood up unless I decided to share what was on my mind.

Salem lay cradled against Irene's left arm in a shawl-like carrier made of bright silk and lined with fur. She negotiated the infant and her food easily, occasionally humming softly to him when he woke, and otherwise engaging in pleasant conversation.

“Would you want Salem to be Diente?” I asked abruptly as Irene turned back from one of her interludes with the laughing child.

She glanced at me for a moment, but kept most of her
attention on Salem, who had just decided to shapeshift. Serpiente children were born able to take their serpent form, though they didn't have much control over it for the first several months and their poison did not develop for four or five years. Luckily my kind had a high tolerance for all natural venom, or childlike tantrums such as the one Galen accidentally stumbled into that morning could be deadly.

Another potential problem for Danica, I realized, before brushing the pessimistic thought aside. That was the least of our problems and could be dealt with easily enough.

After Salem had calmed down, Irene answered, “I don't know. Though these last few months have been wonderful, I've seen what you have gone through as Arami and Diente. You and our brothers.”

I swallowed tightly. Irene, Salem and I were the only Cobriana left. Avian soldiers were fierce fighters, and they had made every effort during the years of war to end the royal serpiente line.

“Hopefully, if Salem took the throne, he would not have to rule over war.”

Irene nodded, running her hand lovingly over the black scales. Salem shifted back into human form, reaching his tiny hands up to his mother.

“I would worry for him, but I would not argue with you if you named my child your heir. I do not think Galen would object either, though he too certainly knows the difficulties that Salem would face even in peacetime,” she answered plainly, either not hearing or not wanting to acknowledge how painful the question was for me to ask. “It's a bit early to worry whether Danica's child will be female or male, though I've heard that hawks have a tendency toward girls.”

I had not even considered that issue, though Irene must
have thought it was the reason for my worry. Traditionally, the position of Diente was male—if only because enemy soldiers would strike first at the king, leaving a queen and any child she carried marginally safer. However, it was not unusual for a woman to be named heir if she had no brothers of age to take the throne. If she took the throne as Diente, her mate was named Nag, and the succession considered exactly as it would if she were male.

“I don't care whether my heir is male or female,” I answered. “We aren't at war anymore, so I don't see that it matters. My main worry at the moment is whether people will want any child of mine to rule at all.”

After that I spoke quickly, sharing with Irene the fears that had been raised earlier—what I had seen and heard in the marketplace, my fury at Ailbhe's proposal and my shock as Danica seemed ready to agree with it.

I finished, “Was I such a fool to think that things would get easier after the last arrow fell?”

Irene was again looking down at Salem—her pure-blooded cobra child. “I remember the day Anjay died, and you became Arami,” she said. “You wept at his pyre, but when you first spoke as heir to the throne, you did so very clearly. You took Gregory and me aside, and you told us that we would see peace if it took your life's breath and blood and soul to find it. And now here we are.”

“And Gregory?” I challenged.

She answered without hesitation. “Gregory's last sight was the golden hair and eyes of your mate, who sang to him and comforted him so he would not die alone. I think he was the first of us to see the peace you promised.”

I drew a deep breath and walked away from the table—too much energy, too much agitation.

Irene watched me pace. Softly she said, “You once thought you could only hate avians. Now you love your avian mate more than life. I think this will be harder for you, but if it is the only way to preserve peace, I know you will do it. And perhaps the result will be as happy.”

I shook my head.

Irene refused to back down. “Your firstborn child is a precious thing, but you won't be giving her over to death, Zane. Only to a different life than you might have wished for her. I know it would kill me to give up Salem, but I would rather lose him that way than cling to him until hatred tore him away.”

I sighed. As usual, my sister was far more practical than I. Unfortunately, her practicality made the words no less painful.

Danica and I would likely have more than one child. Perhaps, even if the first was raised to be Tuuli Thea and given an avian alistair, the second could be raised to be Diente.

Of course, raising the second child as a serpent would require doing to Danica what would be done to me with our first.

Knowing there would be more children would not lessen the pain of losing my first one—and lost it would be. Even if I saw her frequently, even if she ruled in peace and visited the palace as often as Danica did, she would be lost to me. Avian children were not raised to be as close to their parents as serpiente children were. They were not raised with dance and a passion to live, but with a chaste sense of duty and modesty.

Danica had been raised avian, but now she lived in the serpiente world almost as much as I did. If this child was raised avian and forced to take an avian alistair and remain as Tuuli Thea at the Keep, she would never have that chance.

Irene interrupted my thoughts, placing a hand over mine. “Zane, you of all people know that you need to try before you decide you will fail. You have months before the child is born—if there is another way, you will find it.”

 

I tried to keep my sister's words in mind as I prepared for sleep, alone because Danica had not yet returned to our bed. Instead I found myself counting my fears, until I finally reached the painful end of the thread of indecision: Irene was right. We could try to change the world and convince our people to accept our child's rule, but if we failed, then I would have to let her go to the Keep.

Losing her to peace would be better than losing her to war.

That thought filled my dreams during the scant hours when I managed to sleep, and it twisted into nightmares.

I dreamed Danica's death. In my nightmares she was torn apart by wolves. She fell from the balcony of the Keep, unable to spread her wings because she had to carry a serpent child.

I dreamed that the child was born dead, and I woke with a silent scream deep in my throat. I reached for Danica, but found myself lying alone.

I pulled myself out of bed and went to seek my queen. My guard followed at enough of a distance to afford some semblance of privacy, in case I wished it.

The day had recently dawned clear, and the earliest merchants were setting up their stalls in the choice spots of the market. I passed by an avian jeweler, who was in the midst of setting out his wares with the help of his daughter and her
alistair. She ducked her head shyly as I passed, but her father said a polite “good morning.”

The scent of baked breads rose from the next stall I passed, this one owned by a serpiente merchant named Seth.

He greeted me with a tired smile. “I don't often see you wandering here this early. Restless night for you, too?” he asked.

I nodded. “Too much so. What troubles your sleep?”

The merchant hesitated, gaze going distant. “Many things … nightmares.”

I waited a moment, giving him the opportunity to continue if he wanted to speak, or change the subject if he thought it better left to silence.

He sighed. “There is a rumor that the falcons' Syfka is here, searching for someone?”

The skin on the back of my neck began to tingle with apprehension. I answered cautiously, “That is true. Is this … a concern for you?”

Again he looked away, and this time I realized what he was doing: searching the skies. He explained, “I respect your efforts, and I'm glad I can sell my goods instead of wielding a blade—I was a soldier until you and your mate ended the war, you see—but that doesn't mean I'm not nervous when I see wings in the skies.”

“I see.” He was lying; of that I had no doubt.

He shot me an apologetic look, turning his eyes from the dawn and back to me. “Sir, I—” He broke off and turned back to his cart. “Syfka isn't—”

The slowly filling market jumped at a falcon's screech; the merchant went white, drawing back under the awning of his stall as if to hide himself from the circling falcon's view.

Syfka banked, dove and returned to human form not far in front of me. She glanced dismissively at the merchant, then said to me, “Diente, I need to speak to you.”

Instinctively, I stepped between Syfka and the vender, though suspicion about his origins made me hesitate to turn my back on him. “More plots to overthrow the Cobriana line?” I challenged.

“If I truly wanted to plan treason, I would be more careful than to do so when you are standing close enough to hear,” she replied tautly. “I wanted to speak to you about our missing falcon. I'm afraid the one I'm looking for might be a little more hidden than I first thought and my patience is wearing thin. I'd like to arrange some kind of test.”

I sighed, irritated that she was still going through the motions of asking for permission when I doubted my answer mattered to her at all. “So long as it doesn't endanger Danica's people or my own, or interfere with the workings of the palace guard or the Royal Flight, I don't care what you do.”

She nodded. “Then I hope to be free of this backward land by sundown.”

The thought occurred to me suddenly, and I asked, “Where is your escort?”

“Sleeping,” she replied offhand. “Deeply. Consider it similar to the heavy slumber you find yourself in after too much wine.” She brushed aside the topic, glancing at the merchant, who had been slinking away. “You were foolish enough to speak my name—not just once, but
twice
—knowing I was in these skies. You don't think I'm going to ignore you now, do you?”

Again I stepped between them, as foolish as it might have been. I did not trust any falcon, but if this man really had once been a soldier in the serpiente army, I owed him some
thing for that service. “I thought you said you hadn't found your criminal?”

“The one I was sent for—no, I haven't. This one is … a nobody, half gyrfalcon and half peregrine, void of any magic and hence of any value to you—”

“Or any value to you,” I interrupted. If she was insistent on taking people out of my market, I wanted at least to know why. “What is his crime?”

“That is none of your business,” Syfka snapped. “And you have larger problems than one
kajaes
falcon.”

“As do you,” I pointed out.

She tossed her head. “At least I seek a flesh-and-blood, pure-blooded peregrine who I know exists. You—and your delusional hawk you call Naga—seek a fanciful dream of harmony as impossible as a western sunrise … and as volatile as Anhamirak's temper.”

“I've seen my dreams come true,” I replied, unchallenged by her words. “I've seen an end to useless hatred and killing—”

“An end to hatred, oh?” she challenged. “Can you tell me the future,
Kiesha'ra?”

“No man can.”

“Actually, any fool who can spin a proper
sakkri
could show you your fate. But even you, with your stunted magic, must be able to predict what is about to happen on the other side of your own market.”

I turned just in time to see the young, optimistic serpent from the day before catch the arm of the jeweler's avain daughter. Her alistair looked up just in time to see his pair bond pulled aside by his serpent competition.

The young lady's face went dead white in response to whatever her serpiente companion had whispered to her.
Her soft reply caused him to turn abruptly to look at the girl's protector.

“Jenna?” the unfortunate young serpent asked, voice small and hurt.

The first tears rolled from her eyes, and though she hastily brushed them away, trying to compose herself as an avian lady is taught always to do, her alistair saw.

The alistair left off his conversation with the girl's father, striding through the crowd—which rapidly parted to allow him to approach the serpiente.

Another serpent, who was closer than I, sized up the situation instantly and stepped between the two. He might have avoided trouble, but he made the mistake of grabbing the wrist of the angry alistair.

Abandoning Syfka, I pushed through the crowd just in time for the would-be peacemaker to be shoved at me as the alistair pushed past him; before I could wrestle around the shocked serpent, I heard the impact of flesh against flesh, followed by Jenna's cry as her jilted serpiente sweetheart threw the first punch at his avian opponent.

Someone tried to call me back as I waded between the two, narrowly avoiding the bird's retaliation. I caught the avian's wrist before he managed to strike the serpent, who recoiled as he recognized me. The avian swiftly dropped his gaze before it fell upon Cobriana garnet, and he yanked his wrist out of my grip.

I directed my angry question to the girl, whose opinion probably mattered most to her competing suitors. “Is there a problem here?”

She shuddered and shook her head. Then she cast a longing, apologetic glance at the serpent before taking a tentative step toward her alistair, who took her hand and kissed the
back of it. I suspected that the show of perfect devotion and forgiveness was done for the serpent's sake, to keep him from getting any ideas about the future.