The Fire King (3 page)

“That’s impossible.”

“Cocky woman. Trust me, it’s possible.”

She made a rude gesture. “In remote areas where native tongues are going extinct, outside influences are almost always to blame. But that does create some kind of universal commonality. Are you saying that this … person … has been so totally isolated that there’s
nothing
he understands? Not in any language?”

“Yes,” Roland replied, covering his eyes again. “Fuck, yes.”

Soria leaned backward, staring. “Is he a child?”

Roland shook his head, still not looking at her. Uneasiness made her stomach ache, and she twisted her empty sleeve in her fist. “Then who is this man?”

“We don’t know. But he’s not human. Not quite. And not being able to talk to him has limited some of what we can do. I need you to go and … speak his language. Evaluate whether he’s a danger to us.”

“To the agency,” she asked slowly, “or everyone?”

“Both,” Roland replied. “I wouldn’t have interrupted your new life if it wasn’t important. You’re the only one who can do this. The only one who can do it right. I promise … I promise it’ll be safe.”

“I’m not worried about safe,” she muttered, still fussing with her sleeve. “I’m just not certain I want to do this anymore.”

“Your mind works, doesn’t it?” he shot back. “You can still speak any language in the world, can’t you?”

Soria gave him a sharp look. “That’s not the point. I killed a person. I murdered a man in cold blood.”

Roland laughed bitterly, a familiar reaction that angered her now as much as it had a year ago. “Yeah. But he deserved it.”

Death offered no respite from Karr’s nightmares, and resurrection was little better. Not that he had expected tranquility—not while alive, and certainly not while dead. Actions made echoes, from birth into eternity, and he had known very little peace in his life.

Karr was in a small room. Not a tent, not a wagon. Four solid walls and stone beneath him. He had been here for a long time, and while he had no clear recollection of how he had arrived, the presence of a pure-blooded shape-shifter did not bode well. He had not yet seen her face, but he could smell her. Every time the door to the room opened, her scent lingered.

Close. She was very close. Which only made Karr wonder why she had not yet cut his throat. It was no less than he expected. No less than what had been done to others of his kind. No less than what his own hands had done.

A single white light burned overhead with an uncannily steady flame. It was not fire but something different, perhaps born of magic or some arcane tinkering, such as those fast-moving wagons. This was a new world, he had decided, and one he was ill prepared to confront. Though if shape-shifters were still declaring war on the chimeras, then some things had stayed the same.

We must kill them first,
Tau had told him often.
We must destroy them.

And Karr still remembered, so clearly, what he had always said in return.
They fear us. For good reason. So we will kill, but we will not destroy. We will have mercy. We will not be like them.

But he had, in the end. His worst fears had come true.

And he was alive again. Despite his friends burying him, despite bleeding to death in the catacomb.

The wound was fatal,
Karr thought, feeling his side itch as it had, unmercifully, for what felt like days.

He could not move to scratch himself, or to feel for a scar. He could not move at all, not one inch. Iron surrounded his body. His arms and legs were pinned in place by a series of cold, thick bars, and his hands and feet had been wrapped in a heavy cloth made of linked iron ribbons. An iron collar bound his throat to the stone floor he lay upon, and every time he breathed, his chest expanded against yet more cold metal.

A soft sheet covered his loins, but nothing else. Sores were forming on his hips, but the pain was no worse than the boredom. There was very little to look at but the shining light and smooth stone walls. Nothing else was visible beyond the confines of the iron hood that had been placed over his head.

Clever,
thought Karr coldly, forcing himself to be careful as he breathed. A small hole had been left for his nose and mouth, but the hood was already moist from his sweat, and hot. He could shape-shift, but his body would be too large for the restraints—he’d be risking impalement or a crushed skull. He had been lucky in that wagon; wood and leather could be broken or snapped, and nothing had covered his face. Here, now, a full shift would surely kill him.

Probably. Maybe. Death, apparently, was not so easy to come by. Karr wanted to know why.

So, patience,
he told himself. Waiting, in utter stillness, for just the right opportunity. Little different than hunting, really. Less painful than his other brief incarcerations before and during the war.

But always,
always,
he felt the shape-shifter close by.

That female. She stirred all kinds of unpleasant memories the longer he remained confined.

Until finally, again, something changed.

He had just been fed. Like a baby, fed, swallowing the mashed, tasteless food placed in his mouth, careful not to let any dribble past his lips because he knew his face would not be cleaned, his itches not scratched, his tears not wiped away when he slept, briefly, and dreamed.

Karr heard the door open and a tingle rode over his skin. With it, a familiar scent. Shape-shifter.

She moved slowly into the room. Quiet. He imagined the lashing of her tail, though he knew she walked on two feet. He could taste the feline in her scent, wild and musky.

Something else, too. Sunlight. Heat. She had been outside recently, or near someone who had. The new scent tasted sweeter than water, and he drank it in with restrained, careful greed.

The shape-shifter spoke to him. Her language was sly like her voice, and he understood none of her words. He did not need to. Karr found nothing reassuring in her tone, and when she finally stepped into view, allowing him to see her for the first time—and blocking out the light—her face was just as he had imagined: sharp and bony, and hard with a cold beauty that Karr suspected might frighten weaker men into instant obedience. Her hair was short and blonde, and a black patch covered one of her eyes. The other iris was golden but disfigured: the pupil was a slit, like a cat.

Caught between skins in a bad shift. Karr had suffered several of those himself, but had healed, in time. Time healed all, he had been told.

But not the heart,
he thought. Nor
that.

The shape-shifter was not young … but not old, either.
Well aged,
Tau might have said. Karr watched her carefully, tension finally pushing through his tight control. She reminded him too much of the old queens of the southern clans—unpredictable in their rage and disdain, and pleased to have a chimera as their slave and plaything.

Her clothes were odd. That she wore anything at all was strange enough, but she was covered from neck to ankle in tight black cloth, the weave so fine it could hardly have been made by human fingers. Her feet were bare.

She stood above him, and for one brief moment he saw raw flickering tension in her eyes.
Fear.
She hid it well, but he knew what to look for. He had seen it often enough in her kind.

Her right hand flared with golden light. Spotted fur rippled over her skin, her fingers lengthening into claws. Razor sharp. She flexed each one of them, slowly. Watching him. Tension still twisting through her.

Karr braced himself, but instead of attacking him she said another word. Somewhere on his left the door opened. He smelled that fresh scent again, stronger now, as though a slice of the sun and wind had been cut for him and braided into flesh. Human flesh. He could taste that, too, now. A woman.

Her footsteps were slow but almost as light as the shape-shifter’s. Careful movements. Cautious. Or just curious. He had suffered idle eyes enough in his life. Anger curled through him, but he swallowed it down. Not yet. Now was not the moment to lose himself. He had done that in the wagon and failed to escape. Strategy was the key now. Strategy and deception.

Karr’s gaze ticked sideways as the human woman finally entered his line of sight. The hole in the iron hood framed her face for him, as did two long black braids, frayed and unkempt. A similar rugged wildness was in her eyes, which only enhanced the delicate beauty of her features. High cheekbones, a small mouth, long throat.

She wore a man’s clothes, as all the women did in this place: black leggings, skintight, and a long, shapeless tunic made of blazing white cloth. Around her neck hung loops of lapis chunks, resting heavily against her olive-toned skin, a color that marked her as a woman of the desert or sea.

The desert,
he decided, staring into her dark eyes, drawing in her scent until his chest pressed hard against the restraints—holding her within him, holding her until he thought he might choke without air. He exhaled slowly, still trying to possess that sunlit scent, and her mouth tensed, as if in pain.

The shape-shifter spoke, a melodic one-sided conversation that was soft and cold, and infinitely menacing. The human flashed her a hard, angry look; brazen, defiant, without a shred of fear. Startling, utterly unexpected. Karr had never seen a human look at a shape-shifter as an equal. Not with such confidence, or disregard.

The human muttered several sharp words filled with scathing disdain, and the shape-shifter tilted her head, a dangerous smile touching the corner of her mouth. Karr tensed, certain he was about to bear witness to death, and pain, and humiliation. No shape-shifter would tolerate such boldness from a human. The woman would not be suffered to live.

Do not,
whispered the cold part of his mind.
Do not care. Do not involve yourself.
But the shape-shifter’s hand flexed, and he remembered screams—screams in the darkness where he had hidden the cubs, and the blood glistening on claws, on the mouths of the soldiers standing over him—and he tugged hard on his restraints. So hard the iron bit into his flesh.

The human woman gave him a sharp look, anger still bright in her eyes. No fear. Not even in her scent. He could not tear his gaze from her, not until he felt the shape-shifter throw him a cold, careless glance. It was a fleeting look that lingered and then sharpened. She gazed between him and the human woman, and her smile grew even deadlier.

It was too much. Karr threw himself against his bonds, fighting them in silence. The iron did not yield. Golden light spilled over his skin. Soft scales rippled, edged with fur, and the tender flesh of his wounds, incurred while breaking the leather restraints in the wagon, split open.

It hurt, but he did not stop. Not when the shape-shifter growled, baring her sharp teeth, dropping into a half crouch. Her musky scent grew stronger, bitter. Golden light trickled from her single eye.

The human woman stepped between them. She moved fast, with determination, and stood with her back to Karr, facing the shape-shifter. She did not say a word, but instead placed one hand against the shifter-woman’s shoulder, pushing her back. Firm, unflinching. Karr stopped straining against his bonds. Caught in the moment. Staring.

No one spoke. The human did not back down. Not even when the shifter-woman dragged one claw down her slender arm, looking past her, directly into Karr’s eyes. Karr kept himself very still, though the tension that rode through him could not be hidden; scales continued rippling over his skin and his muscles bunched against the iron. It felt good. So good he did not want to stop, even if it killed him.

The human glanced over her shoulder, meeting his gaze, and something wild fluttered through her expression: a fracture, small and pained. Without a word, she began shoving the shape-shifter toward the door. With urgency, determination. Anger.

He expected the shifter-woman to strike back, but instead she yielded gracefully, casting Karr a cold look that made his hackles burn. Whatever this was—this human, this shifter, this power struggle between them—he was still a prisoner. He was still
her
prisoner. And she wanted him to know it.

The shape-shifter stepped backward, followed by the human. Karr watched as much as he could, but the hood limited his peripheral vision. He heard the door open and close. Silence followed, though he could still smell warm sunlight. He strained for that scent. He listened painfully as feet scuffed the floor.

The human woman moved back into sight. Her cheeks were red, her dark eyes narrowed, her breathing just slightly rushed. But when she looked into his eyes again, there was still no fear.

Bold, striking. Few had ever fascinated Karr, but this woman did. He wanted to know what made her strong enough to compel a shape-shifter’s deference—and how she could look him in the eye without hesitation. When no one else ever had.

“Hello,” she said.

Karr blinked, staring.

“Hello,” said the woman again. It was not his imagination. Since his resurrection, he had not heard one word he understood. Not one. His brief attempts to communicate had brought him nothing but confused looks. Captivity was bad enough, but to be isolated in language was a burden he had wondered seriously whether he would be able to bear. Pain could be controlled. So could fear. But words, even the hostile words of an enemy, were still an anchor, a connection—the only thing, at times, that separated an animal from a man.

“Hello,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. His throat hurt. So did his heart.

The woman drew in a slow, deep breath and nodded to herself, her gaze solemn and thoughtful. She began to crouch, must have realized that would take her from his line of sight, and moved even closer, up his body, until she stood by his shoulder. Karr could see her better there. He looked straight up at her—and realized, stunned, that she was missing her right arm. He had not noticed before. She had kept that side of her body turned from him. But it was clear now; her sleeve was empty.

Karr looked back at the woman’s face, and found her staring at him with a steely directness that sent a thrill of unease and confusion down his spine. Her scent altered, too. He tasted more of her anger.