Chapter 17

 

Zora couldn’t eat with them, due to the fact that she had to stay veiled in public. She considered going down to the temple to eat with the priestesses but decided not to. She was afraid they might have heard about the boundary incident, and she didn’t want to be questioned about it. By the time she got a chance to eat, alone in the antechamber after the Queen and king had retired for the night, she was both extremely hungry and almost too anxious to eat. She forced the food down, knowing that she would need the strength for what she planned to do next.

After locking the door to the hall, she slipped quietly into the bedchamber. Lina and Kyril were both sound asleep, which didn’t surprise her at all, given the day they’d had. Slipping out of her clothes and laying them out on the chest nearest the window so she could dress in a hurry if she had to, she perched on the windowsill, changed into bird-shape, flew across the garden and then followed the river north. Just inside the boundary, near the stone marker she remembered from her journey here in the late winter, she checked for any signs of people who might see her. Finding none, she changed back into human shape and walked up to the boundary stone.

This is it, she thought. Time to see if I can cross the boundary now. She took a deep breath for courage and stepped forward.

It was like walking into a wall of semi-solid water, except it wasn’t wet and she could still breathe. It was cold, however, much colder than the air on her bare skin had been a second before, and while it—whatever it was—had enough flexibility not to hurt her, it was too solid for her to proceed. She looked down at her bare feet and discovered that they were planted firmly inside Diadem.

I guess I still can’t cross the boundary, she thought, easing back. In fact, this is worse than when I first got here. The wall may not be as hard—or maybe it’s just that I’m not running at it—but it feels much colder. Lina can cross it, while I haven’t been able to since the moment I arrived here. I think that’s probably a bad sign. For Lina, at least. I just hope Kyril can’t cross now. Of course, he probably isn’t going to try.

The air now held only the usual night chill, but Zora still felt cold. She considered changing to wolf-shape to warm up, but remembered in time that wolves were not native to this area. Fortunately, foxes were, and they also had warm fur, so she changed into a fox.

I can’t cross the boundary in human shape. Can I cross it as an animal? She walked up to the stone again. Standing next to it, she leaned her head forward. Whatever had stopped her before was still there, and she recoiled, sneezing violently. Her nose was cold, and running her tongue over it failed to warm it.

I guess the Goddess really wants me here. What scares me is that she doesn’t seem to care whether Lina is here or not.

Before the chill could take over her entire body, fur and all, she turned and ran back toward the palace as fast as her four legs could carry her, trying not to think about the questions that circled relentlessly through her mind. If I can’t cross the boundary, and Lina can, which of us is really supposed to be Queen? What is happening to me? Am I changing, or was I always like this? I remember not being able to cross back over the boundary when I first got here, but I expected that to be temporary, until I found out what the Goddess wanted. So what is it that the Goddess wants from me? She was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the cat until it knocked her over and pinned her down on her side.

As Zora struggled to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her, she studied the cat. Aside from its initial attack, it was not being aggressive, and she was pretty sure that it was a larger version of the one she had seen follow the Companions into the garden that afternoon. It was also heavier than a natural cat its size should be. Zora was much more solid than she looked in fox-shape, and it had used the precise amount of force needed to knock her over without hurting her. Not only was the cat obviously a changer, but whoever it was, it knew that Zora was one as well.

The cat let her up and gave her a nudge in the direction of the city, and Zora allowed herself to be herded to the city walls. At the walls, the cat stopped, shrunk to normal size for a housecat, and waited for Zora to match her shape. They went up the wall together and across the roofs to the compound that held the training yard and the guards’ barracks. Zora wasn’t surprised to find herself following the cat first into Catriona’s office, and then into her quarters behind the office.

“You promised me that you would stay safely with the rest of the priestesses,” Catriona reproved her as she returned to human shape.

“You were there this afternoon,” Zora replied, returning to human shape and wrapping herself in the blanket Catriona handed her.

Catriona dressed quickly, then pulled bread and cheese out of a cupboard and cut some for both of them. Zora was so hungry she had to remind herself to chew the food before swallowing it.

“I heard the Companions say that the king crossed the boundary,” Catriona said, “but that doesn’t explain why you decided that you had to try it.”

“It wasn’t the king,” Zora said bleakly. “It was the Queen.”

Catriona gaped at her. “That’s impossible!”

“Obviously not.” Zora sighed. “I did what I could to minimize the incident, and Kyril says he’ll spend more time with the Companions and try to act normal and reassure them. But Lina shouldn’t have been able to cross the boundary—even on horseback. So I went out to see if I could cross it—and I can’t, not even in animal shape.”

Catriona was momentarily speechless, so Zora took another helping of bread and cheese. She needed the food now, and she suspected that what was to come would be even worse. She thought of various things she had heard during the past months. Lina’s “If we’d been switched at birth, then you really would be Queen!” contrasted with Kyril’s comment that nobody would confuse a newborn with a baby almost four months old. But was I born in Diadem? Zora wondered. Druscilla was here at least part of the time she was pregnant with me, not at Eagle’s Rest as I thought when I was growing up. And she vowed me—or her daughter?—to the Goddess when she was afraid she was going to lose the baby. Akila told me once that it was one of those ‘please, let my baby live’ bargains. And Zora suddenly remembered something that she had known for years but never really thought about.

“Druscilla spent the last four months of her pregnancy flat on her back in bed,” she said aloud. “Akila told me that. But the temple records say that she was present to witness the birth of the new Heiress.” She looked up and met Catriona’s eyes. “Who took her place?”

Catriona winced. “I did,” she admitted. “I was in Diadem with my mother when she was arranging the grain shipment from Lord Ranulf’s lands.” She stirred up the fire and stared at it, as if looking into the past. “I was thirteen and the family failure. I wasn’t as good a changer as everyone else, and, despite my family’s best efforts to teach me, I had virtually none of our father’s magical ability.”

Another memory flashed through Zora’s mind. “I may not have much of my family’s magical ability, but I have enough to see your true shape no matter what you shift into.” Catriona had said that to her last spring.

“My sister Ertha and I were put into guard training that spring,” Catriona continued. “She hated it—she was a mage. I liked it, and I was actually good at it. It was the first time in my life I’d been good at something, and it made it easier for me to change shapes, too—Uncle Ranulf had been training me in that.”

“Did you know that Druscilla was pregnant?” Zora asked.

“Yes. Mother, Ertha, and I all knew. Ertha and I were still at Eagle’s Rest when Briam came home after Druscilla was dragged back to Diadem. Because the Queen was so sick with her pregnancy, Mother was working with Druscilla to coordinate the food shipments and storage. It was going well at first. Druscilla was over the worst of the morning sickness and not really showing, and she was very good at dressing to hide the changes to her figure. Also, she was spending most of her time at the house Lord Ranulf bought for us, because that’s where the work was being done. Then one day she started bleeding, and my mother put her to bed. We could have worked around that, but the Queen went into labor that evening and they sent for Druscilla.”

“And Druscilla couldn’t get up and witness the birth without the risk of losing her baby.”

“Not to mention having everyone find out she was with child,” Catriona added. “I wasn’t very good at copying a human shape, and I didn’t have time to learn. My mother and sister had to stay and take care of Druscilla, so my sister did a force-change spell on me.”

“Like the one you did to get rid of my collar?”

“I’m surprised you remember that.”

“It was excruciatingly painful,” Zora pointed out. “That’s probably why the memory stuck.”

“You’re right about its being painful.” Catriona winced at the memory. “Ertha changed my shape to match Druscilla’s. I was the one who witnessed the birth of the Queen’s child, and I was the one who took her out on the balcony and presented her to the people.” She smiled at the memory. “I thought we’d both go deaf from the cheering. She was such a beautiful baby, and so good...”

“What happened next?” Zora asked when Catriona had been silent for several minutes, apparently lost in her memories.

Catriona sighed. “I spent the next few months changing from body to body—Druscilla when she had to be at court, myself for guard training, and Druscilla for morning and evening rituals.”

“But you can’t do the rituals,” Zora protested.

“True,” Catriona agreed, “but the Queen was still too ill to do them, so I learned the words and did them with the baby in my arms. Nothing else went wrong, so I figured the Goddess found that acceptable. After about six weeks the Queen recovered enough to take over the rituals again, and two weeks after that was the Choosing.” She frowned. “The king that year was a prince, a younger son. There was speculation that he made the choice, not the Goddess.”

“You mean he thought he could marry the Queen and take over?” Zora asked incredulously.

“If you don’t know about the Sacrifice,” Catriona pointed out, “it’s not that crazy an idea. And while he was publicly devoted to the Queen, none of us liked the way he treated the Heiress. He kept bringing her playthings small enough that she choked on them, and he fed her food that was fine for him but made her sick because she was too young for it. So ‘Druscilla’ and the Shield-Bearer got together and persuaded the Queen to let Druscilla and the baby stay at Lord Ranulf’s house, where the king would have no reason to go. The Queen was still doing the rituals, so we finally had something approaching peace—all we had to do was keep the guards and the baby’s wet nurse confused and away from Druscilla.”

“So you had to be Druscilla in front of everyone else and make sure they didn’t see the real Druscilla.”

“It wasn’t as easy as you’re making it sound,” Catriona protested.

“I know it’s not easy,” Zora sighed. “I’ve been switching bodies like a pea in a shell game, and this morning Kyril got dragged into the mess as well.”

“What?” Catriona looked appalled.

Zora sighed. “I was the Queen, the Queen was the king, so he had to be me—there really wasn’t any choice.”

Catriona shook her head. “If anyone but the king impersonated one of the priestesses, the Goddess would probably strike him dead.”

“Probably,” Zora agreed. “I’ll have to point that out to Lina before she tries this again. But getting back to when we were born, what happened?”

“I’ve got to give Druscilla credit. It’s not easy to give birth without making any noise, but she managed it. My mother was a competent midwife, and my sister had healing abilities, but Druscilla lost a lot of blood and was sick for weeks after the birth. And her milk didn’t come in properly, so she couldn’t feed the baby.”

“And you couldn’t bring in another wet nurse or expect the one you had not to notice the difference between a newborn and a baby who was nearly four months old...” Zora shuddered. I was one of those babies. “Another force-change spell?”

Catriona nodded. “Ertha did it, but nobody had ever done the spell on such young children before. As far as we could tell, it permanently changed the true shape of the newborn.”

“Kyril said that Lina and I are absolutely identical, even more identical than his twin sisters. That’s why, isn’t it?”

Catriona nodded. “Once Ertha did the force-change, the only way to tell you two apart was by temperament.”

Temperament? Oh. “The infant would be physically fragile and would need extra food to catch up with her older sister. Didn’t the wet nurse notice?”

“She said that some babies went through fussy periods,” Catriona said. “You know how people tend to see what they expect to see.”

Zora nodded. “But once the babies were identical, how did you keep from mixing them up?”

After a long pause, Catriona admitted, “We don’t know that we didn’t mix them up.”

Zora was silent, trying to absorb the implications. I was one of those babies, and nobody knows which one. For all we know, I could be the Queen—it would certainly explain why I can’t cross the border and Lina can. But I wasn’t the Queen at the Choosing and I am not the one the Year-King married... Goddess, what do I do now?

What she actually did was to dress in a spare guard uniform, put on the hooded cloak that Catriona handed her, and allow Catriona to escort her back to the garden below the Queen’s window. She changed briefly to cat-shape to climb up the wall and through the window, then changed back to human and collapsed into her bed.

~o0o~

Lina was still herself the next morning, but she seemed to sleepwalk through the morning ritual. Zora wasn’t in much better shape. Even a large breakfast was no substitute for several shape-changes and not enough sleep. Fortunately there was no court that morning, so the Queen went to the garden to mope over her needlework, attended by her ladies, and, of course, Zora.

Less than an hour later, Lina rose from her seat next to Lady Esme, dropped her needlework unheeded to the ground, and fled the garden, sobbing hysterically. Zora hurried after her, but Lina had enough of a head start that Zora heard the comments of the people she had passed.

“Not again!”

“I thought she was over this...”

“She was doing so well for a while...”

By the time Zora reached Lina’s bedroom, Lina was facedown on the bed, sobbing into a pillow. She raised her head to glare at Zora. “Do you know what Lady Esme said to me?”

“Something nasty, I’m sure,” Zora said, “but she has a wide variety of nasty things to say. Which one was it this time?”

“She said that I shouldn’t be cross with the king for going off with his Companions...that he’d be dead soon enough, anyway, so I should try not to be so attached to him.” Lina gulped. “And she added that I should make sure not to get with child, because if I had a child, the Sacrifice would go on for another generation. And then she said that if I was with child, she could make me a potion to get rid of it!”

“Well, we know she can do that easily enough,” Zora agreed. “That’s why neither of us eats or drinks anything she could have drugged.”

“She says I should die with Kyril,” Lina sobbed. “She says it’s the only way to end the Sacrifice.”

“I have heard her say that before,” Zora said. “I should have warned you—I think she’s trying to persuade you to commit suicide.”

“During the ritual?” Lina looked shocked. “Is she insane?”

“Yes,” Zora said sadly. “I really think she is.”

And I’m really scared, but I don’t dare confide in Lina. She’d love the idea that she might not be the Queen’s daughter.

~o0o~

By flatly refusing to change back to her true shape, Zora managed to persuade Lina to remain Queen. She also warned Kyril that the Goddess was likely to be angry if he imitated the Queen again, and had seemingly casual conversations with Lina about how Kyril would need all his energy for the shape-changing practice necessary to survive the coming Sacrifice. But her efforts were successful, and Zora started to feel things might work out after all.

Kyril reported that he had progressed upstream to the area right under the waterfall and was choosing the best place to go into the water beneath it. Lina was still nervous, even though Zora repeatedly told her that no, Kyril was not just saying that to reassure her.

“He really can survive this,” Zora said firmly one afternoon as they sat together in the chapel. “His father did, after all.”

“What if the Goddess wants him to die?” Lina asked. “Lady Esme talks as if his death is a certainty.”

“Lady Esme is trying to persuade you to join him,” Zora pointed out, “which you are not at all likely to do if you actually expect him to live. I expect him to live, and I’ve known him longer than you have.”

“Could you survive it?” Lina asked intently.

“If I had the chance to practice the way he has been doing, yes, I could,” Zora said. She hoped this would be enough reassurance so that Lina would stop her near-constant fussing over the matter.

“So you could take his place, and he could pretend to be you.”

Oh, Lady, not again. “You’ve forgotten that we discussed this before. And Kyril would never agree to it, even if I did,” Zora said firmly.

“Why not?” Lina asked. “Do you think he doesn’t love me enough?”

“Lina, you have got to stop listening to Lady Esme!” Zora said in exasperation. “He loves you, and he loved you even before the Choosing, which means it’s not just part of his being the Year-King. He went to the ritual that morning deliberately, despite your attempt to keep him away—he wanted the Goddess to choose him so he wouldn’t have to watch you with another man all summer! He knew what he was getting into. His father told him about the Choosing and the Sacrifice before he came here. Kyril knows what to do, and he has to be the one to do it.”

“Is it really that important?” Lina asked desperately.

“Yes. It is absolutely that important,” Zora replied firmly. “He is the Year-King, you are the Queen, and you both must do what the Goddess wishes.” She patted Lina’s arm. “Don’t worry so much. I think the Goddess really is trying to end the Sacrifice—or at least the deaths. Kyril’s father says that any time there’s a shape-changer at the Spring ritual, the Goddess will choose him. He even says a man can be chosen more than once—he came back again years later, and he said he could still hear the Calling, even though he was a wolf at the time.”

That got a giggle from Lina. “That would have been an interesting marriage.”

“Probably a bit more than the people here could accept,” Zora agreed.

To her great relief, Lina appeared to give up the idea of having Zora take Kyril’s place. Not that I would do it, but not being nagged about it gives me one less thing to deal with.