Shapeshifters (65 page)

I was not the only citizen of Ahnmik who had chosen this exile. Nicias Silvermead was the acknowledged heir of Lady Araceli, who was heir to none other than the Empress herself. Yet the beautiful royal peregrine had chosen to stay in Wyvern's Court to serve the now abdicated wyvern princess, Oliza.

My loyalty to the Empress Cjarsa kept me from the white island, but my connection to Nicias kept me in Wyvern's Court—and indeed, in this reality.

I had languished in my silent madness for years before Nicias found me hiding from the pain of a shattered body and ruined dreams. His vows to the Cobriana line and royal falcon blood helped him pull me from that void, and for that salvation, I both loved Nicias and hated him. Ahnmik's reluctant prince had given me the world … or as much of it as I could hold. Visions of Ahnmik, shards of Wyvern's Court, fragments of pasts and futures other than my own.
I still felt trapped within Ecl's numbing ice, able to watch others live but not quite able to feel that life—except sometimes when I beheld Nicias's love for this land and its people. His passion for Wyvern's Court drove me now from Gren's candle shop to the marketplace, to see what would happen next.

 

Before I had even descended the northern hills, I could hear shouting.

I took another step forward, and suddenly the noise was replaced by absolute silence. I looked over the market that had just been filled with anxious, frightened and angry avians and serpents, and saw nothing but mist and the pale shimmer of falcon magic.

I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to clear the vision from my mind before it could overwhelm me. This time I succeeded in chasing away the
sakkri,
and I was grateful for that. Too often I became lost in other times and places, especially when I walked through the center of Wyvern's Court. Anhamirak's magic swirled so thickly there among the avians and the serpiente, it frequently robbed me of any scraps of control I might have had.

The shouting returned, and I entered the market.

Salem Cobriana and Sive Shardae were at the heart of the chaos. Salem, Oliza's only full-blood serpiente cousin, had stepped down off a nearby dais and was talking intently with the serpents, who had all but mobbed him. Sive, Oliza's young avian aunt, was struggling to keep some space to herself, but it was a losing battle, one that was obviously making her alistair, Prentice, very nervous. Oliza's parents, Zane
and Danica, the current Diente and Tuuli Thea, both looked pale and tired, but they were trying to deal with the shocked crowd.

Oliza herself did not seem to be present.

Nicias, however, was nearby. He was moving from group to group, sometimes speaking to other guards or breaking up fights, but most often trying to hold the crowd back so they wouldn't completely overwhelm the royal family. Though I would have liked to go to him, I knew better than to attempt to distract him while he was working. I could more easily have swallowed the sea.

Instead, I waylaid a serpiente I knew, a flautist named Salokin. “What is going on?”

The red mamba quickly confirmed what the falcons had told me: “Oliza has announced her abdication.” His voice was breathy and dazed, and his gaze was unfocused. “She stood on that dais and …” For the first time, he looked at me, as he said, “You weren't there. The Diente and the Tuuli Thea and Nacola Shardae and Salem and Sive and Prentice were all there.”

“Apparently I don't merit an invitation to royal functions,” I said without much shock. As Maya had said, my having cobra blood mattered to the serpiente. It did not, however, matter enough to make me family.

“But she
abdicated.
She must have spoken to you about it.”

“Why would she have?” I asked. I had meddled too much in this drama already, helping Oliza spin a
sakkri
of her own after mine had foretold her abandonment of the throne. I had not been able to see that second vision, but I imagined that it was what had led to Oliza's abdication.

Which one was it?
I wondered. I had seen many futures for Wyvern's Court, most of them ending with fire, as Anhamirak's magic burned out of control, or with ice, as the falcons wielded Ahnmik's power and tried to salvage what they could from the wreckage.

Salokin's eyes widened. “Why would she … She
abdicated.
”

“So you've said, a few times now.”

“The serpiente Arami just stepped down from the throne,” he said, as if rewording might make the facts different.

So did the avian heir to the Tuuli Thea,
I was about to say, before I realized what was troubling the mamba. “Salem will rule the serpiente well,” I assured him.

“Salem is … very much a dancer.” The words, though formed like a compliment, did not sound like one. “He was not raised to be king. He wasn't even in line to inherit. How could the Arami abdicate and not even
inform
the woman who, if not for falcon treachery, would have been heir in the first place?”

Falcon treachery. Is that how they're explaining my history these days?
My father had never even known I had been conceived. Even if Anjay Cobriana had not been killed within hours of his return to serpiente land, he would not have been informed of my existence. Had Nicias not spied me in the Halls of
shm'Ecl,
Wyvern's Court would have been ignorant still.

Some, I supposed, would consider that treachery. After all, according to serpent laws, I should have been my father's heir.

“I would have to be more than half cobra to be heir to the serpiente throne,” I pointed out. “Certainly I would have to be less than half falcon, since most serpents still hate and fear my mother's kind.”

“Oliza was only half cobra herself,” Salokin said, “and
she was beloved as Arami, despite the fact that we warred with the avians,
her
mother's people, much more recently than we did with the falcons.”

I smiled slightly, somewhat amused. “Fine, perhaps it was … rude,” I allowed, “but though Oliza and I are cousins, we aren't close. I imagine she had larger things on her mind than the guest list when she planned her abdication.”

“Maybe.”

My gaze drifted back toward the crowd, to where Salem had regained the dais. The cobra reached down to pull a lovely auburn-haired dancer up with him.

At first, the dancer's face seemed to be streaked with tears. She was dressed in a gown of dark plum, the serpiente color of mourning, and her skin was pale and blotched from weeping.

Then the brief vision faded, and she was vibrant and beautiful once more.

“Rosalind,” Salokin said when he saw what my attention had turned to. “I imagine she is the one Salem will name serpiente queen.” He shook his head.

“He will be a fine king,” I said. The words were mostly empty comfort; what did I know of kings? “It isn't as if he will be without guidance. The Diente and the Naga are both still alive.”

“I suppose.”

“Hai!” The anxious voice that cut through our conversation belonged to Sive. The hawk had somehow struggled away from the near mob around the dais and now came to my side, perhaps out of courtesy or perhaps to take advantage of the space that most serpents gave me, wary of the “black magic” falcons could wield.

Sive would become the next avian queen, and though
she was young still, she was too old to be called a child. Her alistair, Prentice, hovered beside her, as protective as a mother hen.

“Hai, how are you?” she asked me. She reached out and took my hand in greeting, betraying her frequent contact with the serpents.

For a moment I could not answer, because at Sive's touch I saw her, several years older, glowing with joy as she held her infant in her arms. The beloved queen presented her child to her people and said her name: Aleya. She handed the babe to her alistair, and as their hands touched, I could feel the love that stretched between them.

In contrast to the earlier visions I had had, of Wyvern's Court after its destruction and of Rosalind's tears, this one was comforting.

“I … You will be a beautiful queen,” I said, still half within the vision. “Aleya … the name means ‘given to us.'”

Sive recoiled from me, breaking the trance.

“Th-thank you,” she said, but I could see the fear in her eyes.

I was glad she stopped me, because I knew what I would have said next:
You are very much in love, but there is sorrow in your heart, too. You remember the man who was your alistair when you were a child. He often frustrated you, but you loved him despite his awkwardness.

Prentice … gone, to where?

Right then he came forward, guarding his pair bond from whatever threat he felt I projected.

I started to reach out for the rest of the vision and barely managed to resist. Sive could rule peacefully with or without this man. I did not need to know when or how they would separate.

I shook my head, backing away.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Are you all right?” Salokin put a hand on my arm, and that was enough to trigger another vision of Wyvern's Court, this time in flames.

I shuddered, pulling back mentally and physically, trying to fight the
sakkri.
There was too much going on in the market. In the language of Ahnmik, Oliza's abdication would be referred to as a
sheni'le,
a decision that drastically altered the path of Fate. I had foolishly come here to see the present for myself but was on the verge of being swamped by futures.

I turned abruptly, not bothering to beg leave of the heir to the Tuuli Thea or explain myself to the flautist. I needed to be somewhere quiet.

If only I had not lost my falcon form long before, I could have grown my wings. Within minutes, I could have been beyond the bounds of Wyvern's Court, beyond the influence of Anhamirak's magic, and beyond the pulse of these visions.

Instead, I walked—agonizingly slowly, step by weary step—back to the small house I kept at the edge of Wyvern's Court, and there I collapsed into sleep.

“Ahnmik, I have always been yours, your voice, your tool. Help me now, I beg you. Give me the strength to do what must be done today.”

The falcon Cjarsa whispered the prayer as she pushed open the doors of the temple. Araceli was deep in meditation and did not notice the intrusion, even as a shaft of sunlight fell across the altar—a simple black silk
melos
scarf draped across cold gray stone, with a single alabaster statue, symbol of the god Ahnmik, on it.

The rest of the room was equally stark, except for one corner, where a three-year-old child with fair hair slept upon a soft violet cushion. Araceli had found the girl abandoned in the jungle, far from the desert lands of their home, and had named her Alasdair.

Protector.

“Araceli, it is time.”

 

Kiesha, the cobra high priestess of Anhamirak, stood in the doorway to her temple, holding her head high despite her obvious
exhaustion. Cjarsa remembered this woman as having mahogany hair, sun-touched skin and brown eyes, but Anhamirak's fire had dyed Kiesha's body as surely as Ahnmik's ice had dyed Cjarsa's. Kiesha's warm earthen eyes had become lakes of blood, and they were no longer kind but eerily piercing as she beheld Cjarsa, whose power had once been the opposite—the balance—of hers.

Many things had changed since Maeve had abandoned their coven. Once, they had been the protectors and leaders of their people, priests and priestesses of the eight great powers, led by Maeve and kept in balance by her guidance. Now the powers were unbalanced.

The stain left on Kiesha's hair and eyes was nothing compared to the terror of the uncontrollable magics that had ripped through each of the Dasi in Maeve's absence. The serpents had blamed the falcons for the first assaults, saying that their worship of death and darkness had led to this destruction; Cjarsa's followers had retaliated, spitting their own accusations against the chaos-worshippers.

“You say you wish to end this,” the cobra said to Cjarsa and Araceli in greeting.

“Before more lives are lost,” Araceli said.

They had been fighting for years. What else could they do? Anhamirak's domain was wildfire and war. As long as her magic was left unbalanced, there could never be peace.

“Yes,” Cjarsa whispered. She had seen the future, seen the final fire that would consume them all. She knew that this had to be stopped. “Come forward, child,” she said.

When Alasdair stepped out from behind Araceli and held up a curious hand, Kiesha knelt down and let the tiny fingers wrap around her thumb. “Yours?” she asked Araceli, her expression softening.

“No,” Araceli said, blinking back tears. “Brassal killed my
daughter last night. Odd that it would be a priest of Namid, giver of life, who would destroy a child.”

The python had crept into Ahnmik's temple, probably hoping to kill Cjarsa. Instead, he had found Araceli and her young daughter.

Araceli was convinced that he had killed the child intentionally; Cjarsa believed it had been an accident. Like all their powers, Brassal's magic had grown beyond his ability to control it.

“Now,” Cjarsa whispered, throwing out her own magic like a net. Araceli, Syfka, Servos and Cjarsa had spent the past three years concocting this spell, and now it drove Kiesha to her knees. The cobra screamed.

And the child screamed as well.

Oh, gods … hearing that scream, Cjarsa wanted to leave this world. The spell the falcons had created shredded Kiesha's magic, tearing it into two. One half of Anhamirak's power remained in the cobra; the other half burned its way into the child's soul. As it had painted Kiesha garnet, so it stained the child, darkening her white-blond hair and pale blue eyes to the color of beaten gold.

It was too late to bring back the balance, and no one could control Anhamirak's chaos, but they hoped that this would cripple the serpents' magic before it could destroy even more.

Araceli was the one who took the little girl's tiny hands in her own and whispered gently, “Now you'll be able to fly, like we can.”

“Don't be kind,” Cjarsa said. “If you are kind, we will never be able to do what must be done.”

“Come, Alasdair,” Araceli said, taking the young hawk's hand before Kiesha could recover and realize what they had done. “You have much to learn before we take you back to your people.”

 

No, this wasn't me. This wasn't my time. All this had happened long before to Cjarsa, before she had raised
the island from the sea and become Empress of the white city. I'd seen it before; the first time, I had screamed with Kiesha, screamed for days until Cjarsa had helped me escape the vision.

Where was I … oh, there …

 

Even generations later, the Cobrianas' garnet eyes had not faded. As Anjay rode in a fury to the Hawk's Keep, they burned with the same intensity that had made Cjarsa cringe when she had faced Kiesha in the temple of Anhamirak.

Some of Anjay's soldiers had followed him, and they fell by the dozens as he thrust forward into avian lands, but no bow or blade seemed able to pierce his pain and hatred.

The cobra had returned from falcon lands only hours before. He knew nothing of the child he had sired, and if he had been lingering on recollections of the falcon lover he had left behind, those had been shoved aside by the news of his sister's assassination.

Anjay did not dismount as he reached the courtyard of the Hawk's Keep, but boosted himself up to stand on his horse's back; a raven tried to stop him from grasping the balcony floor above, and Anjay quickly drove a blade into the man's ribs.

As Anjay hoisted himself over the balcony rail, a young hawk girl shrieked the raven's name with enough pain in her voice that Anjay knew that the man he had just killed had been her mate. Fine; he would end this hawk's pain, too, as her people had ended the lives of so many he loved.

All the while, the falcon Darien shadowed him, and she let out a cry that echoed the girl's as the youngest avian prince defended his sister, Danica, by driving a soldier's blade into Anjay's back. The avians had lost scores of their own people to this mad rush, and now they cheered as a serpent's blood flowed over the child's hand.

No, no. Why was I forced to watch this, again and again, every time I closed my eyes? I shared Anjay's blood. Did I need to share his death?

And now, finally, I remembered who I was: the unwanted child of a doomed cobra prince, and a falcon sworn to the Empress Cjarsa, who had ripped Anhamirak's magic in half. Had the avians and the serpiente known, all those years as they had warred, that they had slain the other halves of themselves? Was that why peace came with such difficulty: not because they hated each other, but because they could not forgive themselves?

 

I was a young child, dancing the skies above the white city, lost in the endless tides of magic that whirled through this land like storm winds. The wings I spread showed the taint of my father's blood—the color of tar and lava. Anhamirak's stain.

My father's magic was not powerful; a cobra did not have enough power on his own to be a danger. But when what remained of Anhamirak's magic needled the falcon magic I had inherited from my mother, Ahnmik slashed back. I spent most of my days struggling to control these combinative powers, but in the middle of this sky-dance, I lost that battle.

The two magics fought, tearing and slicing, ripping at my body and my wings. Dark flight feathers cascaded to the ground even before I fell screaming.

Cjarsa caught me before the crystal-hard ground shattered my plummeting body, but though she mended my flesh, she could do nothing with my ravaged wings. As for the rest of me … the agony from my magic was as deep as my blood, and even my Empress could not heal that.

She cradled me in her arms as I shivered and cried, my magic striking her blindly no matter how I tried to keep it in check.

“Sleep now,” she whispered to me. It was all she could do.

 

Yes, I would have liked to sleep, to rest, to finally be away from the sharp edges left behind by that ancient rending. But … I had made a promise. I needed to find my way back to
here
and
now,
in Wyvern's Court, such a strange and unlikely place. The two halves of Anhamirak were trying to shove themselves together, but it was like trying to return blood to a wound.

Back to Wyvern's Court …

 

Salem Cobriana, the heir to the serpiente throne, lay in my arms, dying. His blood felt cold on my skin; his red eyes had turned a tawny brown. His heartbeat was so faint that even with my cheek pressed to his chest I could barely hear it.

I knew I could save him; I had that power, always had. I could use my magic, patch his bones, slow the bleeding, force his heart to beat and his lungs to stir the air … but terror gripped me. I could ask my magic for that much, and Ahnmik would grant the favor, but the white falcon's power ultimately came from the void, from Ecl, and that dark goddess would ask even more in return. If I swam her dark, still waters, I would drown. I shrieked for help, but none came.

The mob was seething. How had the crowd turned so vile so quickly?

An arrow pierced my back, slicing under my left shoulder blade. I covered Salem with my body but did not reach out to him with the greedy magic that could save his life. I couldn't. Please …

Another arrow sliced through my arm before burying itself in his side. “Hai!” Someone shouted my name. At that moment, I felt Salem die, felt the last spark go out as Brysh, goddess of death, claimed her own.

No, not her own. This wasn't natural; this was a travesty. I screamed and then let the magic free, lashing into the crowd.

Hai!

Shm'Ahnmik'la'Hai. Kiesha'ra'la'Hai.

Pain. Fear. Not from me or from Salem but from someone else, someone who knew all my names.

Stay here, Hai. Stay here, with me.

Only one person ever called me by both sides of my blood: Nicias. He named me
shm'Ahnmik,
a falcon, and
Kiesha'ra, a cobra.

I wanted the serpent throne no more than Nicias wanted his throne on Ahnmik. We would never claim our royal birthrights, but our magics would forever tie us to them. The words—his bond to me, and mine to him—drew me back to the real world.