The Bird and the Sword (25 page)

Body. Not soul,
I told him, rebellious to the end.

“Both.” His kiss seared his demand on my tongue, and for a moment I forgot to resist as our mouths moved and our bodies conversed, exchanging secrets without sound. My hands pulled him closer, and his fingers tangled in the length of my hair, wrapping the long strands around our bodies as he rolled to his back, taking my weight with him.

“Let me in,” he demanded, and I could feel his yearning rise again, the yearning that had an origin separate from us. From me. From him.

Tiras.Tiras.Tiras.

It was the only thought in my head, and it seemed to satisfy him, though I felt sorrow rise from his skin, like a cloud had drifted across the moon.

W
hen I awoke the next morning he was gone, and my body felt like a wanton stranger. I was sore in places I had never been sore and happy in ways I had never known before. The act of consummation, both strange and wonderful, had literally
consumed
me, and I was no longer myself.

The pain had made the pleasure all the greater, searing the moment into being, imprinting Tiras into my heart and onto my body. I had felt his desire to claim, even as he kissed me softly and swallowed my hurt, soothing it with gentle hands and tender words. The words had risen from his skin even when he wasn’t speaking, and I had called them to me, collecting them like falling leaves, pressing them between the heavy pages of my memory so I could keep them.

My maids brought water for a bath, but after they filled the tub I turned them away, not wanting curious eyes on my skin. I felt different, as if I’d shed my old scales and was reborn, and I needed to be alone with this new me.

I braided my hair and pinned it around my head to keep it out of the water, and slid into the welcoming heat, closing my eyes and drifting off into the solitude behind my lids.

I didn’t hear the door or the soft tread of his boots over the thick rugs, but I felt him when he drew near, and I opened my eyes to see Tiras watching me, his brows drawn in a perplexed V. He crouched down at the edge of the huge iron tub so our eyes were almost level, and he reached out and pressed a thumb to the bow of my top lip.

“You pout even when you smile,” he commented softly. “It’s this full top lip.”

Does it not please you?

His own lips twitched, and his hand fell away, drifting across the point of my chin, down the long column of my neck to rest on the water lapping at my breasts.

“It pleases me,” he whispered. “
You
please me. And you surprise me.”

You are a fine teacher.
I meant to mock, to protect my vulnerable heart with nettles and barbs, but it was the truth, and it rang as such. I swallowed and looked away, but his voice drew me back in.

“When I changed from bird to man yesterday morning, someone was waiting for me.”

I stared at him, waiting. When he seemed lost in thought, I urged him on.

Who?

“I don’t know
.
” He shook his head, as if clearing it.

“As I shift I am unaware. I can’t hear or see. It’s as if I’m not present at all, caught somewhere between the two sides of myself. I flew to the balcony wall and through the doors and began to change. That is all I remember. When I woke, I was naked in the dungeon, my hands and feet in chains.”

I could only gaze at him in horror, my mind tripping over who and how and most importantly, why?

“Someone knows about my gift. Someone knows when I am vulnerable. And someone knew where to wait for me,” Tiras added gravely.

The ramifications of such knowledge rendered us both silent, our eyes sightless, our thoughts heavy. Then I began to shake my head, not able to make sense of it.

If my father knew you could change, he would have exposed you immediately. He wouldn’t play these games.

“I know. The lords may have known something, but if they knew I was Gifted, they would not be wasting their time interfering with a wedding.”

A treacherous thought wormed its way to my consciousness, and I shared it without considering how it might be interpreted.

Maybe Kjell was trying to protect you . . . from me. What better way than to make sure I can never be queen?

Tiras gazed at me in stunned horror then closed his eyes as if pained by the thought.

“Do you believe it was Kjell?” he asked, and his vulnerability suddenly matched my own. I thought about his brother, his only friend. Kjell didn’t like me. But he loved Tiras. I had no doubt about that.

If it was Kjell . . . his motives are pure.

Swift relief rippled across the king’s face before his jaw hardened and his eyes tightened.

“If it was Kjell, he will answer for it.”

I hope it was him.

“Why?” Tiras gasped.

Because he would never harm you. If it was someone else . . .

“Our troubles are just beginning,” he finished my thought.

I nodded.

“There is a small grate high on the wall that leads to the courtyard, and through the slats I could hear the trumpets signal the procession, but no one could hear me when I called out, and no one ever came all the hours I was locked away.”

How did you escape?

“Every cage and every tree, set the birds of Jeru free,” he quoted softly.

You heard me?

“At dusk, the grate suddenly sprang open, and I could hear the birds shrieking outside. So many birds. I changed into an eagle, and the manacles fell from my talons and my wings, far too large for a bird. I flew out through the grate and became one of a thousand birds descending on the cathedral, heeding your call. I thought I was too late.”

I thought you couldn’t change. So I decided to wait . . . until you could.

“Stubborn woman,” he murmured, but the tightness in his features had eased, and his eyes were warm on my face.

I didn’t know what else to do. The lords were angry. The people . . . mocked me, and I wished to be invisible, the way I usually am.

Tiras lifted his hand from the water and touched my jaw with the tips of his fingers.

“You
are
easy to overlook. Slim and pale and so quiet. But now that I’ve studied your soft grey eyes and traced the fine bones of your face, now that I’ve kissed your pale pink mouth, I don’t want to look anywhere else. My gaze is continually drawn back to you.”

Without hesitation I gave him another truth.

You . . . are . . . impossible . . . to overlook.

His breath caught, and
for the first time, I was the one who leaned in, the one who pressed my lips to his, the one who cradled his face in my hands. He allowed me to lead for several long seconds, letting me taste him and test him. Then he rose and brought me with him, scooping me from the water like a nymph from the sea.

And I was consumed once more.

M
y father left Jeru City without a word. Maybe he was resigned to the fact that he would never be king, or maybe he simply went home to plot and plan beyond the king’s easy reach.

The lords from Enoch, Janda, and Quondoon left two days after the wedding, but Lady Firi, Lord Gaul, and Lord Bin Dar remained in Jeru City for a week, making everyone uncomfortable and making Tiras take precautions with my safety and his own that he would not otherwise take.

Why must we tolerate them at all?
I asked Tiras, sitting at his side, watching Jeruvians dance and minstrels perform the evening’s entertainment, wishing I were free of my crown and the secret looks and the words that slid around the lords like snakes.

“They are members of the council. They are lords of Jeru. Lords of lands that have been passed down through their bloodlines since the children of the Creator came to be. Do you want me to murder them in their sleep, my bloodthirsty wench?” Tiras murmured with a smirk.

I thought of Tiras, chained and naked in the dungeon of his own castle, and was tempted. Tiras asked Kjell if he’d been the one to lock him in the dungeon on our wedding day. I was not present, but I’d felt Kjell’s flood of betrayal and outrage rise up through the walls, even as he pledged his loyalty to his brother. Tiras believed him. I believed him. I wished I didn’t.

They want to oust you.

“I am king, but I am subject to the support of the provinces. If the provinces rise against me, against Degn, then my kingdom ceases to be. They will put a puppet on the throne. Someone they can easily influence and control.”

Like my father.

“I have a powerful army. I have loyal soldiers. But they come from every province, and they are sworn to protect all of Jeru, not just the king.”

We were interrupted by Kjell, accompanied by the ambassador from Firi. She curtsied before the king then curtsied to me, giving us both a brief glimpse of her beautiful breasts. Kjell moved to Tiras’s side, and the ambassador extended her hand to me.

“My queen, will you join me?”

I looked beyond Ariel Firi to the long line of ladies assembled to engage in a traditional dance, and immediately started to shake my head.

“It is custom,” she said, dimpling prettily and grabbing my hand. “You must.”

I don’t know how,
I pleaded with Tiras to intervene.

“You are Jeru’s queen, of course you must participate in the dance,” he said, his grin wicked. “Lady Firi will take good care of you.”

Drawing more attention to myself with my hesitation than I would by simply going along and blending into the bright fabrics and spinning women, I stood and followed Lady Firi to the floor.

“Have you done the dance before, Majesty?” she asked innocently.

I shook my head.

“Follow me. It’s quite simple.”

The music began, a song I’d known once, long ago, a song my mother had sung, and her mother before her, and her mother before that. It was the maiden song of Jeru, a song of celebrations and rituals. A song for women. But there’d been so few opportunities in my twenty summers to celebrate or sing, tucked away from the world where I would not harm or be harmed, that the song was like a long-lost sister—part of me, but a stranger still.

I did my best to copy the graceful sway of hips and arms, the steps and the turns, but my mind was captured by remembrance, and as the words to the maiden song were sung, I knew them, though I couldn’t have pulled them forward on my own.

Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,

He is coming, do not hide.

Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,

Let the king make you his bride.

I heard the words in my mother’s voice, lilting and sweet, as if she sang my future from my past. I spun without knowing the steps, and danced without knowing what came next. My eyes found Tiras, visible in slivers and pieces as I whirled with Jeru’s daughters, and the voice in my head became a voice of warning.

Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,

Wait for him, his heart is true.

Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,

‘Til the hour he comes for you.

It was a silly song, an ancient song, a song of being rescued by a powerful man, of becoming a princess, as if a princess were the only thing a Jeruvian daughter might want to be. But it disturbed me, as if my mother, a Teller of considerable power, had made it all come to pass. She had sung me to sleep with that song
—Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter, ‘Til the hour he comes for you.

‘
Til the hour.

Curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour.

‘Til the hour he comes for you.

The maiden song and the curse my mother whispered in my ear the day she died became one in my head.

“Are you unwell, Highness?” Lady Firi touched my arm lightly. I realized I had stopped dancing, making the line bunch around me.

I fanned myself, signaling a need for water and air, and she nodded agreeably.

“Let’s step into the garden, shall we?”

I followed her gratefully, keeping my chin high to keep my crown from sliding around my ears and over my eyes. I knew it made me look haughty, but haughtiness was preferable to bumbling.