Shapeshifters (59 page)

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.”

“And how have you been?”

“Managing,” she said. “I refuse to be chased off by a bunch of ruffians causing a ruckus. Sive comes by most mornings and buys breakfast for herself, and speaks highly of me to her associates, so that helps some.”

Our conversation was cut short by an avian woman, who cried out with an uncharacteristic display of relief, “Milady Shardae! Finally, you're back. We all feared we might never see you again.”

“Princess, how wonderful that you're home,” an older
avian gentleman said. “At last, you can put a stop to this madness.”

“I am going to—”

“He isn't talking about fights in the marketplace,” Arqueete interrupted. “I've been listening to him preach since the day you disappeared. He is convinced that those three birds they arrested are innocent.”

“Innocent?” I echoed, staring incredulously at the avian man. “They
confessed.
”

“Of course they did!” he said. “With an alistair to the Shardae line accused, what good man
wouldn't
step forward to protect—”

Arqueete offered, “I would believe they confessed to protect Prentice. I would believe he is
guilty.
Everyone knows—”

“It was an absurd accusation,” the avian woman who had greeted me a moment before said. Voices were beginning to rise as everyone tried to talk over everyone else. “It is obscene to think that Lady Sive's alistair—”

“Lady Sive's alistair,” Arqueete shouted, “would rather lock his mate up in a golden tower than let her have a life.”

“Prentice only wants to protect her.”

“Protect her from
what
? Salem would never let any harm come to her. He watches her like she's his own—”

“The cobra watches her a little too closely for anyone's comfort.”

I imagined that this group had been having this same argument for more than a month; certainly nothing would be settled by my adding to it. I hoped I could lay some of this debate to rest after I spoke to the criminals myself.

I was just about to announce my intentions when Betia stepped deliberately into the middle of the argument. With feigned obliviousness, she nodded thanks to the serpent for
her breakfast. I smiled as I realized that she had positioned herself just right: close enough to the serpent to seem friendly, but far enough from the avians to seem polite by their standards.

I took advantage of the moment of peace she had brought to say, “I have plans this morning to speak to the three men who were convicted of the assault. If a mistake was made, I will fix it. If indeed they are guilty, I hope you will trust the judgment of your Tuuli Thea and her heir. Now, if you'll excuse me …”

I understood now how my mother could have feared that a serious punishment would turn criminals into martyrs. I heard similar concerns about Urban's attackers as I continued through the market, as well as questions about my own absence. Repeatedly I assured people that the rumors surrounding my disappearance had been exaggerated, that the culprits would be found and that the mercenaries would be taken in for questioning as soon as my guards returned with them. Among the avians, there was no doubt that a group of guards with wings would succeed in finding a group of lions on the ground.

As in the nest, I saw nobody who was afraid, or intimidated or angered by my return—at least not visibly. Avians were better at lying with tone and expression than the serpiente were, but even so, nothing here felt faked.

Betia stayed by my side the whole time, appearing interested in all the goings-on of the market and never wandering off out of boredom as I had the same conversation again and again with my subjects. Just as she had accepted the closeness of the nest, she seemed comfortable among avians.

I thought of her as a forest spirit, a woman from a world completely different from mine, who could flutter among
dancers or merchants as if her feet never needed to touch the ground. No matter where we were, she radiated calmness and acceptance.

The wolves had a harder life, yes, but I realized suddenly that they also had a simpler one. They were a people of the seasons, who followed the migratory herds, traded with every culture they encountered and lived at the whims of Fate. The difference between the southern and northern hills of Wyvern's Court, a dissonance that had been the focal strain of my life, was to her as easy to accept as the changing seasons.

I wished that the people of Wyvern's Court could accept each other so easily.

The wolf I liked least stepped through the crowd. I saw him just in time to reach back for Betia's hand.

Velyo's blue eyes widened a little when he saw Betia, and then more when he saw our hands clasped together. Her knuckles were white from gripping my hand so hard, and I could feel her pulse racing where we touched, but she stayed by my side.

“Oliza.
And
Betia,” Velyo greeted us, his tone amused. “Well, this explains a lot.”

“What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm so that we would not attract more attention than we already were. The two avian guards drifted a little closer, keeping an eye on the stranger close to their princess, but they responded to my apparent calm and did not make their presence obvious to Velyo.

“I heard an interesting rumor,” Velyo replied, “about you and one of my wolves.”

“I would love to discuss rumors with you,” I said as I
moved past him, keeping my body between him and Betia, “but I have other obligations.”

“You might want to be careful of the company you keep,” Velyo warned. I paused, glancing back, even though I knew better. “You're the princess of this land, soon to be queen. You have a reputation to maintain.”

“My reputation is neither in trouble nor your concern. Now, if you'll excuse us—” I felt Betia's grip on my hand loosen as she tried to pull away. “Betia, it's all right. He can't hurt you.”

Velyo chuckled. “Maybe it would be best, Betia, for you to come back with me, before you cause trouble for your … friend.”

“She's no trouble,” I said, nearly growling. Nearby avians were starting to look concerned, and I struggled to keep my composure.

Before Velyo could make any more snide comments, Nicias dropped to my side and returned to human form. “Oliza, Valene's lesson should be over in a few minutes. You wanted me to come find you.”

“Thank you, Nicias.”

Perfect timing. Finally I would be able to do something productive. I wanted to put an end to the destructive rumors I had heard that morning. My mother was a wise woman, and I trusted her judgment; I doubted she would have been fooled by a false confession. Also, as much as I disliked Prentice, I knew that he had enough honor never to have let other avians sacrifice themselves to protect him.