Shapeshifters (76 page)

I thought about all the times I had seen Nicias on Ahnmik … had seen
myself
there, though I had never imagined that I could be the woman—the pure-blood falcon—I had often seen by his side. Now I understood.

 

“Milady.” The falcon did not kneel to me, but he bowed his head, his downcast eyes unable to conceal the terror within. “Please, forgive a foolish man his ill-conceived words.”

Not incorrect, simply ill-conceived. If Nicias had not been nearby, his crass comments about
quemak
falcons would never have elicited any kind of stir.

“Do you apologize to me,” I asked, “or to my prince?”

Ahnmik's magic would not let him lie, no matter how much the mongrel in question wished it would. The man looked at his prince and cringed. The
aona'ra
was not in a forgiving mood.

Perhaps too late, my mind made the crucial connections between the many
sakkri
I had spun in my life. I knew what would follow if Nicias and I went to Ahnmik now. How many times had I seen it, dreamed it,
wished
I could be that woman beside him?

The royal house would welcome us with open arms. Cjarsa would personally greet me. My mother would watch proudly as I took the trials—and passed, of course. I would be given a rank, and at last I would be able to begin formal study of the
jaes'Ahnmik
magic.

Someone would be able to heal my wings; now that the cobra's taint was gone from me, anyone powerful enough would be able to force-change me and give me back the sky and, with it, everything I had ever wanted. I would dance at the triple arches once again.

And Nicias … ah, my prince. He would be beside me. It would bother him at first when people were polite to me only because I had both his favor and Cjarsa's, but I had faced such disdain all my life, and I would convince him to ignore it and let things be.

My mother—my Empress and I would convince this lovely peregrine to accept many things.

I cringed, and though I wanted Nicias's company very much, I said, “You don't have to do this for me.”

“I will return to Wyvern's Court after you make your decision, no matter what you do,” Nicias replied. “Ahnmik isn't my world and I don't want it. I just don't trust them to let you decide without coercion. If you want to go alone, that is your choice, but I hope you will let me go with you—if only to allow me the comfort of knowing that you are not forced to stay.”

What if they try to force you to stay?
I asked, keeping the words from the ears and minds of the Empress's Mercy.

Cjarsa's orders to Araceli to let me live my own life aren't likely to have changed,
he replied.
And if they have, I doubt your mother will fail to move Ecl and Mehay to get her way—as always.

As always indeed. But my mother wanted Nicias on the island.
I
wanted Nicias on the island, too, but it was a selfish desire. I could not take him without eventually losing him.

In the end, Nicias was the only master of his fate; he would, or would not, go to the white city of his own volition. All I could hope to do was keep him from destroying himself for me.

If I went, I would miss him. I would miss Wyvern's Court, and even the Obsidian guild. I would regret not seeing Sive Shardae grow into the beautiful queen I knew she would become, and I would miss the cobra king to whom I had so recently offered my allegiance.

“Enough,” one of the falcons snapped as I hesitated. “There is no room for negotiation. Hai is one of the Lady's subjects, and so is answerable to the Lady's commands.”

“As are we all,” Darien answered, and everyone knew exactly what she meant.

Why?
Why did I delay?

This world of snakes and birds was filled with such impossible, contrary fools; they struggled daily against the tides of Fate, even when it would be so much wiser to give in.

They burned with an incredible, desperate passion, which perhaps only Anhamirak's followers could truly comprehend. Certainly there was no equivalent among the long-lived
shm'Ahnmik.

In the white city, there was enough beauty to make the most hardened heart weep. There were music that resonated in the soul and colors that the eye could hardly comprehend.
Pure and crystalline and lovely, Ahnmik was clear of the grime and sweat of Wyvern's Court.

Without intending to, I let out a small sound. Nicias put a hand on my arm, but his eyes stayed on the Mercy, as if he was tying to discover what they had done to me.

“I want to go home,” I said softly. “I want to speak to my—” I almost said
mother,
and that was what I meant, but I was not thinking of the mother who was standing before me. “My Empress.”

“And if she chooses to see you, then you may,” the impatient falcon replied. “Assuming we ever get back to the city.”

Darien asked me, “You want to speak to her
now
?”

“The Empress does not grant audiences at the whims of a—”

Darien half lifted her hand and, without even turning, tossed enough magic at her fellow guard to make him stumble to his knees. Closing her eyes, my mother drew a half breath; I could feel her power reaching out with a petition.

To the magic of falcons, distance meant little. The many miles between Wyvern's Court and the island of Ahnmik were bridged by power, until suddenly my heart began to pound and I blinked back tears.

I was still in Wyvern's Court physically, but mentally I stood before my Empress.

“My Lady,” I whispered.

“Darien has informed me that I must speak to you.” There was some wry amusement in her tone; few people ever “informed” the white Lady of anything, much less told her she must do something.

“My Lady … you gave so much to me when I was a child, even though I was born
quemak.
I—”

“You are the only child of my favored companion, Darien,” Cjarsa interrupted, her magic wrapping me almost like an embrace, gentle and comforting. “Your father's blood was not your fault. How could I do less than twist Fate herself to give you the chance to come home, whole and pure?”

The words differed a little from what she would have said to my mother, but I recognized the argument I had heard in my recent
sakkri.

She must have sensed my slight withdrawal, for she continued to make her point.

“It is little enough,” she pointed out, “compared to your machinations to save Wyvern's Court.”

“My Lady …”

I thought about what my mother had told me when we had argued about Oliza.
Cjarsa has more power than you and I combined, but the void frightens her. She fears drowning in its illusions, so she holds back.
My mother's words had frightened me then, but I had not taken the time to understand the full implications of them.

Now Cjarsa had chosen her words carefully, avoiding stating any fact that Ahnmik's magic would reveal to be false.

“You never even looked to the future, did you?” I had nearly drowned trying to save Wyvern's Court. She had let me struggle on my own, and now she tried to take credit for all the incredible twists of Fate and Will that had led to this moment. “You would have seen the dangers of Oliza's reign if you had only
looked,
but you never even tried. You just let me …”

“I let you become queen,” Cjarsa said.

“You let me tie myself to this realm,” I said. “Do you wish me home, my Lady?”

“You are one of us,
shm'Ahnmik'la'Hai.
Your place is here.”

Coldness seeped up my spine, as she neglected to answer the question.

“Lady, you know I would do anything you wished. From my earliest memory, you are there, teaching me to dance. You …”
You were the one who caught me when I fell and my wings were scoured from me.
“You were everything to me.”
You were the one who healed what you could.
“Please, my Empress.
Do you want me to return to you?
”

She hesitated, and in that hesitation I heard the echo of all my last illusions shattering.

You were the one,
I thought,
who held me … and you were the one who told me to rest. You were the one whose voice carried me into Ecl.

“All you ever needed to say was that you wanted me,” I said. “That day under the arches, if you had only given me a word of encouragement, I would have stayed in this world. I could have used my magic to heal my wings before they set so twisted I would never have them again. I could have …” My voice broke. “But instead, you told me to rest. I would be there still if Nicias had not come for me.”

I waited, though I knew it was useless. Cjarsa did not continue to argue with me. I loved the white city, but there I was a mongrel, something to be tolerated. Even with “pure” magic, I would never be unblemished. I gathered myself together, drawing in a deep breath rich with the scents of wintertime in Wyvern's Court.

“I may finally be a falcon in your eyes, white Lady, but it is another land that holds my heart. I have no desire to return to Ahnmik. I … I have a place here,” I said. I wasn't
exactly certain what that place was, but over the past few days, I had started to discover a connection to this land that I had never had to Ahnmik.

Oliza did not trust me or like me. I made Sive nervous. The old Diente and Tuuli Thea, Zane and Danica, would probably never forgive me for what I had done to their daughter. And here, too, I would always be an outsider, a mixed-blood falcon.

But here, for a while, I had been needed.

Shaking with fear, I said, “Lady Cjarsa, I respectfully request your permission to stay here, as a citizen of Wyvern's Court and not as one of your subjects.”

Such bold words. How could I have said them? How could I, who had been raised by the Lady's hand, even imply that I could be released from her authority?

Brazen, as a cobra cannot help but be.
Somewhere in
sakkri,
I had heard Cjarsa say those words, about my father.

Cjarsa sighed, and I struggled not to tremble in the face of her disappointment. “Is this really what you want?” she asked.

“My Lady, if you tell me that you
want
me home, that you
want
me beside you, that I have ever been more to you than a nuisance, then I will fly to your side in an instant. But you won't, because Ahnmik will not let you lie that way.

“I saw the fear in your eyes when I was a child and I began to spin
sakkri
of the Dasi. You do not want me in your empire; you tolerated me for years to try to win back my mother's favor, but you never wanted me. Please, grant me permission to leave now.”

Time stretched and seemed to slow as I waited for her reply.

“Permission granted.”

I had tears in my eyes as I pulled myself out of the trance and away from the last time I would ever see the woman who had raised me.

I would probably love her all my life, as a child must love her mother. I certainly would not be able to hate her. I understood her fear too well to not forgive her.

“I don't understand,” Darien said, standing beside where I knelt with one hand pressed to the soil of Wyvern's Court. “You told her no?”

“You said it would be her decision,” Nicias pointed out. “Cjarsa has honored—”

“I never thought she would actually
choose
this!” Darien replied. “Hai, what do you have here? What place does any falcon have in a serpent and avian land?”

“Darien,” Nicias said, intervening, “she made her decision.”

I pushed myself to my feet, to face my mother. Looking into her Ahnmik silver eyes, I felt as if I was looking at a stranger.

“I have never been a falcon, not in your eyes, or the eyes of Ahnmik, or my Empress's or even my own. I was always … tainted. I'm cobra blood, Darien.”