A dog with a missing tail and a mangled ear followed me for a bit before I made him stay. He sat on his ragged rump and watched me disappear. I felt his need, and the word alone was present in his whimper.
I know, I soothed. I’m sorry. But I had no home to give him, and I could only offer commiseration. I kept walking, darting from one dark street to the next, trying to enjoy my brief freedom and the night that held it, but the joy was already leaching from my skin, and I stopped at the edge of an orange grove, feeling foolish and lost.
A bird flew overhead and released a mournful shriek, a sound that before now I’d only heard in the distance, and it pierced my heart.
I am lonely too, pretty bird.
It circled above me in a graceful descent that narrowed until he came to a quivering stop on a low branch so close I could have reached out and stroked him. I smiled in recognition.
Look at you! Where did you come from?
I took a few steps forward and stopped again, tilting my head so I could study him further. He looked exactly like the bird in the forest near my father’s keep in Corvyn, like the bird who’d perched on the balcony wall, the one I’d been sure was just a piece of a dream.
Home.
The word rose from the bird, a warm sensation, and my lips trembled in empathy. I didn’t cry easily. It was a badge of honor, of toughness. I was a slip of a girl, a woman with little to offer and nothing to say, but I had my dignity, and tears were undignified.
Home, he said again, and I felt the urgency and the sorrow, as if he’d lost his and wanted me to know.
I don’t have a home either, I said to the eagle, and closed my eyes to deny the wet that wanted to spill over.
I felt his distress echo mine, a shot of alarm that split the word home into a warning and a wail, and with a sudden flare of his wings, the eagle left the branch and landed softly on my shoulder. I staggered in surprise, and my eyes snapped open as I steadied myself against the tree I stood beside.
I was afraid to move, fearful that I would make him fly, and I didn’t want him to leave. He was so big that if I turned my head, my cheek would brush his breast, perched the way he was. His wings were pinned back and they trailed along the length of my right arm, the very tips brushing my hand.
Home.
I cannot take you home, my friend. But I will stay with you for a while.
I didn’t know if he understood, but he nudged me with a brief bob of his silky head and lifted off as suddenly as he’d landed. He flew a little ways, landed on another branch, and waited for me to come to him. I tipped my head in question and he mimicked the gesture.
Home.
We continued on this way. The eagle would lift off, fly a little ways—always within view—and flutter to a stop on a gable or a gate or another branch. He would wait for me, watching me walk toward him, then he’d do it all again. I followed him, enchanted, not knowing where I was going, traipsing along the shadowed paths and the forested outskirts of Jeru City, as if the world belonged to the two of us. I walked until I neared the western wall, at least two miles from the king’s castle. When I heard the call of the night watchman, I hesitated and turned around, suddenly unsure and more than a little lost.
We weren’t far from the road, but the houses had grown sparse and mostly disappeared. If not for the night watchman’s call and the wall that rose up in the distance, I would have had no clue as to my whereabouts. I felt silly and small and started back in the direction I’d come, hoping I could find my way back to the castle.
The eagle soared above my head, so close that I felt a gust of air above me and the brush of his wings, drawing my eyes and demanding my attention once more. There, just among the trees, not far from the wall, was a little cottage with a thickly thatched roof and sturdy walls, nestled in the trees, almost blending with the landscape. It boasted a window with a real glass pane and a dark-colored door, the hue undecipherable in the shadows.
The eagle landed on the highest point of the steep roofline and waited for me to approach. The cottage was too tidy to be abandoned and too still to be occupied. I could feel no life seeping through the walls, no tangled thoughts or peaceful dreams. If someone lived here, they weren’t home.
Home.
I felt the word again, and the bird dipped and plunged before extending his giant wings and lifting up and away, a silent stretch of black that disappeared into the dark, leaving me in front of the little cottage in the woods.
I tested the door brazenly, emboldened by the sense that the bird had brought me here for a purpose. It came open with the barest of groans and a waft of quiet welcome. I left the door ajar and took a step inside, my eyes sweeping the little room that contained a big hearth and a pot for cooking, a small wooden table, and a bed that was made but slightly rumpled, like someone had sat upon it to pull on their boots. It was comfortable and neat, lived in yet . . . not. It didn’t possess the detritus of a family or the residue of an oft-used residence. It looked like a hideaway or a trysting spot, and my hands rose to my cheeks, embarrassed by the direction of my thoughts.
A lantern with a thick wick sat on the center of the table, but I had nothing to light it with. It didn’t matter. I was tired. Weary and woe-begotten all at once. I sat gingerly on the bed, my eyes clinging to the quiet corners. I would stay here for a few hours. I would let the sun rise, and then I would decide what to do. Maybe I would go back to the castle. Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe Tiras and my father could find a new pawn, and Tiras could leave for Kilmorda without me. I suddenly cared very little about what was to come.
I left the door open. I wasn’t afraid of beasts or bugs, and the only person who might enter in the next few hours—the owner—wouldn’t be dissuaded by a closed door. Sleeping in the one-room cottage without seeing what or who was coming, even at the very last moment, made me nervous, and I’d been cooped up behind closed doors long enough.
I curled up on the bed and stared out the open door into the forest, finding the twinkle of a few brave stars glimmering down through the foliage. I sent up a message, a prayer of sorts, a spell that was more a request than anything.
I see you, stars. Do you see me, peeking up through velvet leaves? Keep me safe from mice and men, invisible to all but friends.
So far my spells had been completely useless when I attempted them on myself. Still, I felt safe and see-through as I fell asleep on a borrowed bed, dreaming of my two friends—Boojohni and the black-winged bird, who’d perched on my shoulder and begged me to go home.
The cottage faced east, and as the sun rose and light seeped over the treetops, I began to wake, conscious of the murmuring trees and the caw and twitter of early risers. The eagle was back, perched on the stoop just beyond the open door, and I smiled drowsily and welcomed him with my thoughts. His wings shuddered and he hopped forward, entering the cottage like he owned the place.
He was a bird.
Then he was not.
Huge wings dissolved into broad shoulders and long arms attached to human hands and flexing fingers. Feathers dissipated into a torso that grew and elongated from the breast of a bird to the chest and abdomen of a man. He crouched over legs that simply uncurled beneath him, lifting him until he stood, head thrown back, body arching like he’d just awakened from a deep sleep. His palms turned up and his arms stretched wide, like he worshipped the sun that bathed him in light. Or maybe the sun worshipped him. Every inch of him was golden and warm—even his white hair reflected the burnished hue of sunrise.
He was completely unclothed and breathtakingly beautiful, and for a moment I could only stare, forgetting that the moment he turned, even slightly, he would see me, lying across the bed, watching him. As if I’d called his name, his head snapped toward me, and his arms fell to his sides. I watched as the black irises of pale avian eyes spread and became the narrowed, dark gaze of King Tiras.
I gazed at him, not even breathing, battling disbelief, and I watched as several emotions played across his face—doubt, shame, con
cern—before his supreme confidence won out, and he jutted out his chin and glared at me, ever the king, ever undeterred.
“You ran away.” It was such a peculiar thing to say, delivered with such perfect condemnation that I rubbed at my incredulous eyes and remained in the darkness I’d created behind my hands, certain I was still asleep.
If you are not a dream, will you please clothe yourself?
“And if I am a dream, would you like me to remain as I am?” he said wryly, but I heard the sound of movement and the rustle of cloth.
I nodded, then shook my head, then nodded again, my hands sliding to my burning cheeks, to my tousled hair, then to the wall for support, as I rose, refusing to look at him at all. I breathed deeply—once, twice, three times—then tried to dart past him out the cottage door, needing space, desperate for air, but he stepped in front of me and held out a hand like he was calming his horse. His tone changed to one of quiet pleading, as he pushed the door closed behind him.
“Don’t run away from me, Lark.”
I was pleased to see that he now wore breeches. He held a tunic clutched in the hand not extended toward me, and when he seemed satisfied that I wasn’t going to bolt, he pulled it over his head and tucked the billowing ends into his breeches. He then proceeded to pull woolen socks on his bare feet and shove them into a pair of boots I’d missed in the darkness. I could have sworn they were boots I’d seen before.
You’re a bird.
“Sometimes.”
You’re a Changer.
“Yes.”
Gifted.
“Yes.”
Like me.
“Like you.” He hesitated. “Do you see now? Do you understand?”
I stared at him blankly, lost in the maze of my unconnected thoughts. I didn’t understand at all . . . but I knew one thing.
You were the eagle in the forest . . . in Corvyn.
“Yes.”
You were injured. You had an . . . arrow . . . sticking out of your chest.
“The light helps me change, and change heals me. I just had to make it until dawn. When I changed from eagle to man, you were still lying there beside me.”
A few things started clicking into place, and he seemed to follow the train of my thoughts.
“I stole the clothes from the stable boy and a horse from your father. I rode back to where the army was camped, realizing that I’d almost died. Had it not been for you, I would have. I came back to find you, convinced you could heal me. When I realized who you were, and that you were unable to speak, I simply reacted, killing two birds with one stone, as they say. Your father has been plotting my death for as long as I’ve been alive. It was sweet justice that his daughter could save me.”
But I can’t.
“No. You can’t heal me from this. You comfort me. You help ease the agony, but you can’t heal me.”
I can’t heal what isn’t broken.
His eyes widened, and he took another step toward me. I wasn’t sure where my sentiment originated, but it seemed to stun him.
“I feel broken,” he confessed bleakly. Then he shook himself and squared his shoulders, readjusting his cloak of superiority.
“Changing used to be something I could control. I would feel it happening, and through will alone, I could beat it back. But in the last year it has become painful—resisting the change—and I give into it more than I used to. I don’t feel as much pressure to change in the daylight hours, though I can whenever I need to. I can when I am poisoned by plotting lords.”
I remembered him collapsing in the hallway. When you don’t resist . . . does it hurt?
“There is some pain, but it is fleeting, like the stretching of stiff limbs or the flexing of sore muscles. The second time you came to help me, it was overpowering, and I changed before you arrived in my room. When dawn broke, I thought you would see me, that you would see me become a man again. But Kjell heard my call and intervened.”
But you were sick . . . after.
Tiras nodded. “I had to fight to change back. For the first time ever, the sun rose and I didn’t become a man again. When I finally did, I was sick.”
Have you always been able to change? I’d never known anyone else who could change. Or maybe everyone just pretended to be normal.
“The night after your mother died, I changed for the first time. It was as if she recognized it in me. She knew.”
You will lose your son to the sky.
The prediction took on a whole new significance, and Tiras nodded as if he heard the words echoing in my memory.
“For several years it was a rare occurrence, and I grew accustomed to it. I almost convinced myself I was dreaming, though that became impossible after a while. It happened so infrequently, I believed I could hide it . . . from everyone.”
I couldn’t believe he wasn’t hiding it from me. He continued without pause.
“Kjell was the first to find out. Then my father. I hid myself here, in this cottage for a month, afraid of what he’d do. I’d seen firsthand how the Gifted were treated. I thought he would kill me. But my father died instead, not long after. And I became king.”
Why are you telling me this?
My voice sounded sharp in my head, whistling between my ears, and I wasn’t the only one to wince.
“I want you to understand, and I don’t want you to feel alone.” His voice was gruff, as if it made him uncomfortable to be kind.
And you want me to come with you to Kilmorda. You want me to help you. I thought of the conversation I’d overheard between him and Kjell.
He had the grace—or the arrogance—not to deny it.
“You can do so much more than move haystacks and scale walls.”
My eyes snapped to his, and his mouth quirked. “I saw you. Being a bird has its advantages.”
The thought made me sad, as if I’d been betrayed by a friend.
“If you run, Lark, I will bring you back. I need you,” he said without apology. “Jeru needs you.”
I need you. The words were so seductive. So tempting. I need you. No one had ever needed me before. So why did I feel so bereft that this king simply had need of me, nothing more?
I have always wanted to be of use, I admitted. He waited, clearly feeling the words I wasn’t saying. But when I didn’t give voice to them, he nodded, dismissing the questions in the air.
“Then you will come with me,” he said, brooking no argument. I sighed, and he immediately tensed. But I nodded, giving in.
I will come with you.
True to his word, Tiras and his army left for Kilmorda that very day, and true to mine, I left with them. The lords and their retinues left as well, heading away from Jeru toward their own provinces, to await the news of his failure or success. Lady Ariel of Firi—her father, the Lord of Firi, who was too ill to travel and had sent her in his stead—rode with us for a full day, talking gaily to Kjell as if we were heading to a celebration instead of war. She watched me curiously, and I felt her questions but refused to expose my ability to answer them. Firi was west of Kilmorda, and the region had taken the brunt of the influx of refugees from the besieged province. Lady Firi and her guard would part ways with us at the fork, but she seemed to enjoy the protection of the army and the attention of Kjell and the king while it lasted.
Does she want to be queen? I asked Tiras, breaking the companionable silence between us.
He grunted in response, though the sound lifted on the end like he didn’t know who I was talking about.
Lady Firi. Does she want to be queen?
“Most likely,” he answered.
I almost laughed at his conceit, though I was certain he was right.
Kjell is in love with her.
“I doubt it is love. But he is taken with her,” he admitted. “So she will never be queen.”
She isn’t of use to you?
“She isn’t of use to me,” he replied simply. “And Kjell is my only friend.”
We traveled for four days, slowed
by the carriages filled with supplies that brought up the rear. I grew sore and begged to walk, my tender flesh unused to hours on the back of a horse. Tiras acquiesced, but only because of my very real agony, and I walked each day for a little while, Tiras constantly doubling back to make sure I hadn’t slipped off.
I have nowhere to go, I would reassure him.
“You have no reason to stay,” he would shoot back.
Boojohni would roll his eyes and whistle pointedly, and Tiras would spur Shindoh back to the front. At night, I slept beneath the stars with the men. We wouldn’t make camp or pitch our tents until we arrived in Kilmorda. It took too much time and effort when the goal was to move as quickly as possible. I had a pallet and Boojohni at my side, and I found I liked the open air.
The first night Tiras slept nearby on a pallet similar to my own. The next two nights he retreated at sundown, and I didn’t see him at all the third day. When someone asked where Tiras was, Kjell would always answer as if Tiras was simply out of sight. “Up front,” he’d say, or “in the rear,” or “just ahead” or “over yonder.” But that day, I rode Shindoh alone, Boojohni trotting alongside us, following the army at a small distance. On the fourth day, Tiras was asleep on his pallet at dawn, and there were shadows beneath his eyes when he woke. When he lifted me on Shindoh and climbed up behind me, the final leg of our journey ahead, I asked after his wellbeing.
Are you able to rest?
He was silent for a heartbeat, then answered, his lips near my ear as if he were afraid others would hear.
“Eagles aren’t nocturnal birds. I am able to sleep if I find a safe spot. But we are nearing Kilmorda, and I flew ahead to see the lay of the land. Forces from the provinces retreated to the ridge above the valley and have kept them from gaining ground, but the Volgar have nested in the valley, in the abandoned village there. Their numbers have grown.”
How many?