The Shifter would have been there. Helping Rokan put his kingdom back together, reassert his authority, maintain his legitimacy. Helping him deal with the currents and waves after the death of the true king, with the imprisonment of dozens of minor nobility, with the sudden appearance of the other true heir to the throne. The Shifter would not have let her own feelings keep her in her room, sleeping and sobbing and staring at the walls until everything had died down.
She spoke to Rokan only once, briefly, to explain what had happened to her and who she truly was. Rokan listened without visible disappointment, leaning against the wall of her room while she sat stiffly in one of the chairs near the bed. She kept her senses purely human, not wanting any inkling of what he really felt. Besides, purely human senses were all she had a right to.
When she was finished, Rokan pushed away from the wall and said, “I’m truly sorry, Isabel. Even if it meant you were able to save my life. I know being human was never what you wanted.”
Damn what she had a right to. Isabel shifted her face expressionless, shifted away the moisture that welled up in her eyes, shifted away the burning in her throat. She sat still as a statue, hating the pity in those intent dark eyes.
When it became clear she wasn’t going to reply, Rokan cleared his throat and said, “Owain disappeared. Nobody knows where he’s gone.”
Isabel drew in a breath and leaned against the back of the chair. “I’m not surprised,” she said in the steadiest voice she could manage. “He’s the sort to always plan for things going wrong, and then plan for that plan going wrong, too. I don’t think he’ll come back, though.”
Rokan’s eyes never left her face. “You were right, you know. You and Clarisse. I trusted Owain right up to the coronation. Clarisse couldn’t make me listen, so she tried to find out his plans without telling me what she was doing. She didn’t tell me she was going to stay behind to try to thwart them, either.”
She didn’t tell you a lot of things, Isabel thought.
“I thought he was an honorable man,” Rokan added in a tone so bewildered she didn’t have the heart to remind him that there was nothing dishonorable about deposing an imposter.
She said instead, very quietly, “And Daria?”
Rokan’s eyes skittered away from hers, then back. “I sent her to live with one of the northern dukes. Duke Samar—he’s a minor nobleman whose estate abuts Owain’s. It’s a poor land, and he has barely enough soldiers to hold it.”
He also had a thirty-year-old son, recently widowed and reputed to be quite charming. Isabel didn’t mention that.
Rokan smiled ruefully and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in black tufts all over his head. “I suppose you think I should have executed her?”
“I don’t think you could,” Isabel said. “You love her.”
Rokan studied her for a long time, but when he replied he focused on the wooden floor instead of on her face, his hands clenched at his sides. “I don’t. I don’t think I ever did.”
Isabel couldn’t look at him, either. She shrugged. “Maybe you don’t anymore. That doesn’t mean you never did.”
“I was lonely. After my father died, I…all right, I loved her.” His chest moved once with a quick, shallow breath, and he looked up, the pretense stripped from his face. “But Isabel, it was different from—I mean, it wasn’t like—” He stopped, something like a plea in his eyes.
Isabel braced her hands on the chair cushion, refusing to meet his eyes. She had seen that plea once before, right before she betrayed him; she couldn’t bear to answer it now, so soon after she had betrayed someone else. Not when that betrayal was the reason she finally could answer it. “What about the rest of the northern dukes?”
“They’ve mostly slunk quietly back to their estates.” His voice was dispassionate again, but his eyes matched neither his words nor his tone. “Clarisse thinks we should do something public and messy to the ones I still have in custody, but I don’t see the point. There were too many people involved in the conspiracy to punish them all. Clemency is a better strategy in this case.” He paused, then said carefully, “Do you think I’m right?”
Human though she might be, she knew enough by now of the intricacies of the northern alliances to be almost sure he was right. She opened her mouth to answer, but then he leaned forward eagerly, and suddenly almost was nowhere near good enough.
“I can’t—” The words came out bitter, burning her throat. She gripped her knees. “I can’t help you the way you want. I’m not what I was. Not the Shifter. I’m sorry.”
“I know what you are,” Rokan said. “And it’s your help I want.”
She shook her head and laughed, a short, harsh sound that made Rokan flinch. “I’m nothing but a girl who once was the Shifter.”
“A girl who once was the Shifter,” he said, but his inflection gave the phrase an entirely new meaning, imbuing it with wonder instead of bitterness. “A girl who remained herself despite being the Shifter. Smart and funny and loyal and brave. There’s nothing ordinary about you.”
“You thought that was part of who I was. Now it’s all I am. You need me to be the Shifter.”
Rokan shook his head. His eyes were very intent on her. “That’s not what I need.”
She leaned back, laughing again. “You just haven’t accepted the reality of what I am. That never was your greatest strength, was it?”
“That’s not—”
“In the meantime,” Isabel said, her voice emerging harsher than she had intended, “I just want to be alone. Please.”
After a moment he nodded shortly and walked past her, his shoulders bowed. When he reached the door he hesitated, but he didn’t turn his head. He walked away, and he didn’t come back, though she spent the next half a day listening for his footsteps.
She had to emerge for the coronation. She stood next to the throne in a blue silk gown, no expression on her face, and passed the crown to Rokan so he could put it on his head. The crowd erupted into cheers. She stared out at them, forcing a smile, and didn’t even look at the new king. Her presence was proof that the last of the old royal family believed Rokan should be there.
Afterward she sat at Rokan’s side during the banquet, staring at her plate, making monosyllabic replies to his hesitant, hopeful attempts to talk to her. As soon as she thought it wouldn’t be noticeable, she went back to her room.
Clarisse was waiting there for her.
Rage flared up within her; this room was hers, her sanctuary, where nothing of her past or present or future was supposed to touch her. But the anger died before it got past her eyes. A part of her was still hundreds of years old, far too old to believe such foolishness. She closed the door behind her and said, “Why are you here? To tell me again that Rokan shouldn’t trust me?”
“I’m here to find out why you’re treating him this way,” Clarisse said. She stood with her back to Isabel’s bed, her elaborate ivory gown framed by the closed green canopies. “Can’t you see how unhappy he is?”
“Am I supposed to believe you care?” The pins on her head were pulling her hair too tight, and had been for hours. Isabel started to shift the pain away, then changed her mind and began pulling out the pins instead.
Clarisse lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “He’s my brother. Sometimes I do hate him, but he’s still my brother. You don’t understand that, do you?”
“Oh,” Isabel said softly, “I think I do.”
Clarisse was silent for a moment, shrewd green eyes assessing her. “Would you have killed him with your own hand in the end, if you had to?”
The smart thing would be to say yes. Kaer was already dead. But Isabel wasn’t sure she could get away with it. The knowledge of what was happening to her seemed to have sped up the process; already, it took a great deal of effort to shift her voice. She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Clarisse smiled faintly. “That’s what Rokan said. I told him you would have.”
Isabel dropped her hands to her sides. Her head no longer hurt, but there were curly tendrils of auburn hair tickling her face. “Do you want me to thank you?”
“No. I just want you not to tell Rokan that you weren’t sure.”
“Rokan is not an idiot,” Isabel said.
Clarisse took a few steps forward—the better, Isabel thought, to judge her reaction. She concentrated on keeping her face still, though a part of her wasn’t sure why she even cared. “Do you hate him for killing your brother? Is that what it is?”
“I don’t hate him. He did what he had to do.” Speaking the words aloud, Isabel suddenly knew they were true. She didn’t hate Rokan; she could never hate him. It wasn’t his fault that she had made her choice because of him. She spoke carefully, knowing Clarisse would repeat what she said to Rokan. “I just can’t bear him being grateful to me for letting him.”
Clarisse grimaced. “You think that’s what he’s feeling—grateful?”
“He should be. Everything worked out wonderfully for him, didn’t it?”
“You really don’t understand humans, do you?” Isabel looked at her blankly, and Clarisse sighed. “I suppose it did work out. Rokan doesn’t have a Shifter anymore, but then he doesn’t need as much protection. The rival prince is dead, the conspiracy broken. And with the one remaining member of the old royal family on his side, Rokan’s rule is nearly secure.”
There was a way to make it even more secure, but Isabel didn’t say anything, just as she had said nothing when Rokan went over the political situation with her. It was too obvious to miss; Clarisse, and Rokan, would have thought of it already. It was odd, in fact, that both of them were studiously not mentioning it.
“He doesn’t need the Shifter, does he?” Isabel said sourly. “He has a knife-throwing sister to protect him.”
For what was probably the last time, she caused surprise to flicker across Clarisse’s face; but this time she hadn’t intended to. Isabel straightened slowly, astonished at how stupid she had been. If she had spent more than one second this past week thinking instead of crying, she would have known.
“You can’t throw knives,” she said. “That was a spell.”
Clarisse shrugged. “Spells are useful things. Why would I have wasted my time training with knives?”
Isabel remembered the dozens of times when she had sensed something, when Clarisse had appeared disoriented or unsteady, and Isabel had dismissed it as too much wine. Remembered the princess alone in her room, without a single maidservant or lady-in-waiting to see what she was doing. “Rokan got his spells from you.”
“Of course. Did you think my father actually trusted Albin? He had a rogue sorceress begin training me when I was ten years old.”
“I’m surprised he trusted you,” Isabel said.
“He didn’t. But my father understood emotions, even though he didn’t have any. He let me take care of Rokan and made sure we faced an array of common enemies…nasty governesses, sadistic guards. Rokan was so small and helpless.” For a second Clarisse’s mask slipped and there was something real on her face. “My little brother. I used the magic I learned to protect him.”
And then the Shifter had come, and Rokan hadn’t needed her protection anymore. Isabel understood, suddenly, the light in Clarisse’s eyes at the coronation, when the Shifter had stood back and let Rokan be taken.
She wasn’t the Shifter anymore, but Clarisse was still watching her with that banked hatred in her eyes. Still afraid that Rokan would put her first? Isabel skittered around that thought, focusing instead on the implications of Clarisse’s revelation.
“So it all came from you,” she said slowly. “The trans-location spells. Rokan’s sword at the coronation. The poison that disappeared from the goblet. The knives—”
And the one other piece of untraceable magic.
Isabel almost stopped breathing. She saw by the expression on Clarisse’s face that the princess knew she had figured it out.
“You,” she said, too stunned to be angry. “You killed Ven.”
Clarisse started to step backward, but stopped in mid-motion and lifted her chin. “Who did you think it was? Rokan never realized how dangerous you could be. I did, from the start, but of course no one would listen to me. That stupid boy told you the truth about the bracelet, and he was about to tell you the truth about Kaer. He would have turned you against us.”
“I already knew about Kaer.” Isabel shook her head, remembering how she had forced Ven to answer her. “You killed him for nothing.”
“I didn’t know that. But I knew what you were capable of. I had to protect him.”
“Protect yourself.”
Clarisse pulled her shoulders back, ready to attack—an attack that, for the first time since Isabel’s arrival, would not be completely ridiculous. Clarisse could use her magic openly now, and Isabel was—almost—just a powerless girl. Isabel moved into a fighting stance and hoped Clarisse didn’t realize that.
But Clarisse merely smiled, leaving Isabel to wonder whether she had been planning to attack at all. Her smile was sharp and hard-edged, and her voice was almost calm. “What difference does it make?”
“It will make a difference.” The sound of her own voice—low, steely, icy—was alien to Isabel. “I’m part of the court now. I’ll be here for a long, long time. I know what you did, and I am very patient.” She stepped forward, and Clarisse stepped back. But still the princess’s expression didn’t change. “If you’re smart, Clarisse, you’ll leave now, and make sure I never hear from you again.”
Clarisse smiled, a real smile, and tossed her hair back. “But I’ve never been that kind of smart, Isabel.” She broke their locked gazes and raised one eyebrow. “And I’m not very good at staying out of trouble.”
“Have it your way.”
“I usually do.”
“Back when we first met,” Isabel said, “you said that you always do.”
Clarisse walked past her, opened the door, and stepped into the hall. Isabel watched her go, and stood for a long time staring at the empty doorway before she shut the door again.
Rokan came to her room early the next morning. Isabel, who still made the effort to listen for his approach, was sitting up in bed wearing the green and white riding outfit he had given her the first time he saw her.
He took a small step into her room, then another; he stopped and opened his mouth. His eyes locked on hers, half-afraid but determined. Like her riding outfit, his expression reminded her of the day they had met, when he had ridden into the Mistwood to summon a magical creature who might be his death.
He crossed the room in a few sudden, decisive strides and pulled himself up on the foot of the bed, a few feet away from her. He set his chin and said, “You were wrong.”
She kept her back straight, meeting his eyes but keeping her expression veiled. “Wrong about what?”
“I don’t want you to be the Shifter.” Rokan’s voice was quiet, and her human sense of smell told her nothing about how he felt. “I haven’t wanted that for a long time. Since before I knew it was possible for you to not be the Shifter.” A pause, and then—so quietly that even she could barely hear him—“Since before I knew I loved you.”
Without warning—though the Shifter would have seen it coming—he leaned forward and took both her hands in his.
The contact went through her with a shock. She hadn’t felt his hand around hers since that day in the Mistwood; she had forgotten the firm, callused warmth of his fingers. For a moment she almost gave in to the urge to rest her cheek against his tunic and feel his arms around her. She had wanted to do just that for so long. He was perfectly still, hardly breathing, waiting for her.
She drew in a deep shuddering breath and pulled her arms back. Rokan dropped her hands as if she had shifted them to fire. She averted her eyes, not quite quickly enough to avoid seeing the hurt in his, and struggled to find her voice.
Before she could, Rokan said—in that same quiet voice—“Is it because I killed him?”
“No,” she whispered. “You had no choice.”
“I wish I could have done it differently.” He clenched the blanket, holding his hands there with an effort. “I wish it could have happened in a way that didn’t hurt you. I wish that more than anything.”
Isabel lifted her eyes to his face and made her voice gentle. “I need a horse.”
He went absolutely still. “What?”
“I have to go to the Mistwood.”
“Isabel—” He stopped, closed his eyes. He unclenched his fingers one by one, pressing them down, before he opened his eyes. They were dark as night and watched her with a hopeless intensity. “Of course. If that’s what you need to do.”
His face was so bleak her heart twisted, and she couldn’t help herself. She slid closer to him and placed her hand gently against his cheek. She could feel the faint stubble that meant he hadn’t been shaved yet that morning, the taut line of his jaw. He lifted his hand to hold her fingers there, then let it drop back to his knee and held her instead with his eyes.
“Come back,” he whispered.
Isabel couldn’t speak. She nodded her head slowly, once, never moving her eyes from his.
He smiled then, the smile she loved—wide and unrestrained, alive with joy, as if he were free. And this time she finally did what she had been too cautious to do before, what she had wanted to do since that first day in the Mistwood.
She ran her hand down his arm, twined her fingers with his, and smiled back.
The next morning Isabel rode to the Mistwood.
The trees seemed less hostile this time when she rode into them. They still weren’t welcoming—not as they would have been for the real Shifter—but now she knew why. She rode to the center of the woods, dismounted, and carefully hobbled her horse. She knew she wouldn’t be returning as a wolf.
She waited for hours, sitting cross-legged in a bed of ferns, soaking up the power that had, she strongly suspected, given birth to the Shifter in the first place. Then she shifted.
It was hard. Not impossible, as it had been in the castle, but harder than the last time she had been in these woods. She shifted into a cat—because she had lied to Clarisse back in the beginning; it was her favorite form—and stretched luxuriously, arching her back and digging her claws into a pile of dead leaves.
She became a wolf, and then a bird. One last time she soared above the treetops, stretching her wings to catch the wind sweeping in from the south. She circled back and dove, landing on a low tree branch. She had planned to be a bird last, but on impulse she shifted into a squirrel and ran down the trunk. And then, finally, she became human again.
The mist swirled around her briefly and dissipated. Isabel stood for a second watching it, wondering what happened to each bit of the Shifter that had been slowly seeping out of her for weeks. Did it dissolve back into wind and fog, conscious-less and purposeless, nothing more than a breath of air? Or here, in the woods where the Shifter had been born, was it coalescing slowly, reforming, shifting back into what it had once been—or into something altogether different?
The Shifter wouldn’t have wasted time wondering about it. Isabel lifted her chin, felt the breeze caress her face, and smiled.
Then she mounted and nudged her horse lightly with her heel. The horse was all too happy to get out of the woods and broke into a full gallop as soon as he was able to. Isabel let him. Her hair, red-brown and tangled, whipped out behind her as she leaned low over his neck. When they had passed far enough beyond the last tree, she reined him in and looked back. The mist wreathed among the trees. It was probably only her imagination that made it look stronger, more alive, than it ever had before.
Her horse nickered and pulled at the reins. Isabel let him have his head, and they set off for the castle at a gallop.