My scream fell out of me, as if left behind on the ledge above. Along with my heart and stomach. We were falling, falling, falling. My eyes squinched closed, my hands fisted the mane, I screamed in a long, unstoppable wail of sheer terror, expecting the imminent thud of death.
The great wings pumped. Muscles flexed under my squeezing thighs. Then again, almost lazily.
I cracked one eye open and saw ocean spread below us, so clear that I could look through it and see the white sand beneath, then the reefs of coral and the darker abysses between. Beautiful—so different than how it looked from a boat—and so far below. Dizzy, I swayed, and Zyr compensated, tilting one way, then another.
Then he zoomed straight for the beach, dropping in a diagonal. My breakfast rose from a gut roiling with terror, and I swallowed it back, though saliva filled my mouth in dire warning. Zyr landed in a plume of sand and I flung myself off his back, on my hands and knees, puking, no longer caring that I humiliated myself.
Human hands held my shoulders, drawing my braid back, and I became aware that Zyr crooned some sort of song. Soft and liquid, the words made no sense, but they spoke to something deep in me, the childish part that woke in the night, afraid and full of dread.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand—not easy because I was shaking so hard. I sat back on my heels and drew a deep breath.
“Karyn, I’m so sorry!” Zyr sounded genuinely stricken.
“No, it’s fine.” I couldn’t look at him. I shoved sand over my sick and pushed to my feet, both embarrassed and grateful that Zyr steadied me when I staggered. Escaping his entangling hands, I scuffed through the thick sand to the water, bent to cup some of the salty sweet stuff into my mouth, so I could rinse and spit. The gentle surf lapped around my bare feet, wetting my hem, but I’d grown accustomed to that. The Tala seemed to spend as much time in the water as out of it, and no one looked sideways at anyone for being disheveled.
When I turned to find Zyr watching me, worry on his face, I noted that he’d gone back to his cleaned-up look: hair sleek and neatly tied back, clothes pristine. It irritated me, foolishly perhaps, to be so utterly discomposed compared to him.
“Why do you always look exactly like that when you shapeshift back to human form?” I demanded, sounding angrier than I thought I’d felt.
He blinked, reconsidering what he’d been about to say, surprised by my question. “Habit,” he replied. “We drill in it, so we have a form and appearance—clothed, just in case—that we can return to without thought.”
That made sense, I supposed, but it also made me uncomfortable. Shapeshifting. Flying. All of that was just unnatural. Certainly for me. Imagining otherwise had been a grave mistake. Friends. Zyr and I had nothing in common.
I looked up the beach to where the Hawks had assembled, then to the cliff where my rooms sat halfway up. I still didn’t have my bow, or even my daggers. If only I’d stuck to my resolve and not let Zyr distract me. That would be the challenge for me. Bereft of the clear laws of behavior I’d grown up with, I’d behaved like an undisciplined child. Better to recognize the error of my ways and correct them. Starting now.
“I really thought you’d like flying,” Zyr said, sounding contrite and humble. “Maybe if you…”
He trailed off as I started walking. The morning’s drills would have to be without my weapons. Perhaps I could borrow some.
“When I teach the kids shapeshifting, and they mess up a form, I encourage them to try again,” Zyr said hopefully, catching up. “That way fear doesn’t set in. I can still take you up—”
“No.” I said it with all the certainty Zynda could have wished for.
“I think if you—”
“Zyr, please.” The shaking had stopped and my stomach had settled, but my heart still pounded and the whole incident had left me inexpressibly weary. I turned to face him, and his expression went from boyishly hopeful to wary at whatever he saw in mine. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
He didn’t say anything. Did I imagine hurt in his eyes? I turned my back on it, on him. Resumed walking.
Then a bird shot past me into the sky, and Zyr was gone.
Good. Maybe now I could think straight.
As I headed up the beach, I passed some of the other Tala shapeshifters I’d worked with the day before, exchanging polite greetings with them—and wondering why they weren’t with the Hawks.
Indeed, the group was all Hawks, with no shapeshifters present. One of the older male Hawks, a man named Tays, with a silver beard and a hard face, was addressing the others as I walked up. He frowned at me as I joined the group, and I cringed a little at the implicit censure. The walk hadn’t taken long, but the combination of shuddering weakness and my water-weighted skirts had made me work up a sweat. I was no doubt red-faced and shiny on top of my general dishevelment. How easy to simply pop into animal form and come back all clean and fancy.
“You’re late, Karyn,” Tays informed me. “You’ve missed half the briefing.”
“I apologize, sir,” I told him, feeling my face grow even hotter, ducking it in submission, but locking my knees so as not to shame myself by falling to them again. Curse Zyr for all his bad influence.
“Address me as Lieutenant Tays, now,” he said.
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant Tays.” The other Hawks shifted around me. The worn boots of one of the female Hawks—Wren, I thought—edged into my field of vision.
“As I was saying,” Tays drawled, “before Lady Hardie decided to grace us with her assistance in the urgent business of creating a defense of the Thirteen Kingdoms, Lieutenant Marskal departed this morning and left me in command.”
“Glorianna preserve us,” Wren muttered beside me.
“You have something to say, Karyn?” Tays demanded.
“No, sir, Lieutenant Tays,” I hastily assured him, having no intention of correcting him on his error.
“Eyes up on me.” He waited until I complied, and I found his expression stern, even mean. “You all know we face a dire threat. Deyrr and their creatures could launch an attack on Annfwn without warning.” He paused significantly, and I kept my face composed, though his mispronunciation of the Dasnarian word put my teeth on edge. “Lieutenant Marskal authorized me to share some details that have been only rumor for most of you thus far.”
“Five gets you ten that he didn’t know until Marskal told him either,” Wren said from the side of her mouth. Fortunately Tays was still talking and didn’t hear this time.
“There have been incidents of animal attacks that seem to be reanimated by Deyrr magic much as happened to many of our unfortunate comrades at Ordnung, wrought by the evil Dasnarian sorceress.” Tays frowned at me, as if I’d been personally responsible, even though I hadn’t even been there. The Hawks cursed or made signs to their goddesses, murmuring to each other. They sometimes told tales of those dark days, and it seemed all had lost at least one friend or relative. It surprised me that I’d known this much, from Thalia, but also from being on the Hákyrling with Jepp and Kral.
Tays scanned the group, nodding. “The current theory is that these creatures are a sort of sleeper spy planted by the practitioners of Deyrr to undermine our defenses.”
“Why isn’t the magic barrier keeping them out?” one of the Hawks asked.
“Apparently it’s not all that the Tala made it out to be,” Tays bit out, sounding personally aggrieved. “Regardless, we can’t trust in that. We have to be braced for attack, which it’s believed will most likely come from the sea. Right here.” He swept a hand at the peaceful and pristine beach. “Her Majesty High Queen Ursula will be sending reinforcements, but until then, it’s up to the Hawks to stop any attack.”
“And the Tala,” one of the Hawks pointed out.
“And the Vervaldr,” another chimed in. “Harlan left a crew of his mercenaries behind.”
“They are not us,” Tays emphasized. “They are not Hawks! They don’t have our discipline and training.”
“I thought Lieutenant Marskal wanted us to continue drilling with the shapeshifters like we did yesterday.” Wren nudged me with an elbow. “Right? You came up with that fun game of tagging the shapeshifters with dye from your arrows and—”
“We are not here to have fun,” Tays cut Wren off. “The Hawks operate best as an independent group. We know each other and those skills pay off in the crisis of combat. On my watch, we drill alone.”
“Lieutenant Marskal said we have to change our old ways, that—”
“This is not a democracy. I know you’ve become accustomed to Lieutenant Marskal’s lax mode of leadership, but I’m the one he promoted, knowing full well what I’d bring to the table. We are at war, soldiers.” Tays glared at Wren. And me, though I’d said nothing. “Time to start behaving like it. Are we Hawks?”
The warriors all snapped to attention at that, clapping their fists over their hearts in their Hawks salute. Imitating them, I did the same, only to find Tays’ outraged scrutiny on me.
“Lady Hardie,” he snapped. “What in Glorianna’s name do you think you’re doing?”
Desperately trying to blend in and failing. “Lieutenant Tays, sir?” I asked.
“You are not one of the Hawks,” he enunciated clearly, as if I might be deaf or stupid. “You haven’t earned the right to that salute. This is an elite fighting group, hand-picked by Her Majesty High Queen Ursula herself—have you the least clue what that means?”
Probably not. I certainly didn’t have the least clue how to answer that. “No, sir, Lieutenant Tays,” I replied, as deferentially as I could.
“Oh, come on, Tays,” Wren protested. “Karyn is a foreigner here. Cut her some slack.”
The wrong thing to say. “An excellent point,” Tays agreed, jumping on that. “Lady Hardie is Dasnarian, in fact, from the empire which happens to be plotting to attack us. Seems like a thrice-cursed coincidence in timing to me. Are you a spy, Lady Hardie?”
The improper address grated on me, and only the tireless instruction of my etiquette tutor kept me from correcting him. But I worked so hard to repress an imperious reply that I couldn’t find another.
“No answer to that?” Tays asked, with considerable menace. “Perhaps we—”
“Hey!” Wren cut in. “Jepp personally vouched for Karyn, and Marskal wanted her to train with us. You have no business—”
“You have no business, Wren!” Tays rounded on her. “How dare you break discipline.”
“Oh, knock it off, Tays,” another Hawk drawled, as if everyone hadn’t gone tense. “You know perfectly well we operate best as a team, which Her Majesty herself encouraged when she was still a scrawny teenage princess and we only called her captain. We’ll follow your lead, as Marskal directed, but don’t be letting the power go to your head.”
Tays pointed a crooked finger at the Hawk who’d spoken. “You’ll follow my lead, Issop, because I outrank you. And because I’ll drum you out of the Hawks for disobedience.”
They fell into a sullen silence, which seemed to satisfy Tays. “Good. Now, today we’ll drill basics of hand-to-hand. If the enemy land on this beach, I want us ready to drive them back into the sea. Work in the surf, one-on-one, with that objective.”
They all saluted and I carefully kept my hands by my side.
“Come on, Karyn,” Wren said, “you can work with me.” I smiled back at her. Older than I, but not by a lot, I thought, Wren was named for a Thirteen Kingdoms bird I’d never seen. Plain, but with a lovely song, she’d told me once, which fit the freckle-faced woman who fought with the grace of a bird in flight.
“Lady Hardie will work with me,” Tays interrupted.
“She doesn’t have much hand-to-hand,” Wren protested.
“All the more reason for her to learn.”
“Jepp taught her some knifework, but Karyn’s proficiency is with a bow and …” Wren trailed off at Tays’ baleful glare.
“Are you done?” he asked softly.
Wren lifted her chin, glaring back. A head shorter than Tays and she didn’t look the least bit intimidated. Remarkable. And dangerous. “I cannot wait until Marskal returns,” she bit out.
Tays’ lip curled in a sneer. “The lieutenant is besotted with his unnatural shapeshifting lover. I doubt we’ll see him again, so better get used to my command.”
Wren threw up her hands in disgust, tossed me an encouraging smile, and stalked off. Tays sized me up and smiled, not at all nicely. “All right. Let’s find out what you’ve got, Lady Hardie.”
“I apologize, Lieutenant Tays, sir,” I said, cursing Zyr with every word, “but I’m afraid I don’t have my weapons this morning.”
“I didn’t imagine you did, unless you’d had them stuffed up under all those skirts.” His smile took on a taunting edge. “Guess you’ll learn how to defend yourself when unarmed. Over here.”
I had no desire to be a hand-to-hand fighter—even Jepp had suggested it wasn’t my strength and she’d been surprisingly patient with me—but I also had no wish to be useless. Zyr might joke about living on plucked fruit, but I knew what happened to women who didn’t make themselves useful. Especially those without a father and brothers to protect and feed them. Not a fate I wished on anyone.
But I was a Hardie till the day I died, and a Hardie doesn’t back down from challenges.
Tays had me wade thigh deep into the cool water, refreshing after my overheating. That small relief didn’t last long. Though I’d learned to swim in my country youth, that had been in still lakes and slow-moving rivers. Swimming in the ocean with its swells, even these gentle ones, seemed to require a new set of skills.
Going deeper, Tays crouched down in the waves as if swimming in. “Stop me from reaching shore,” he ordered, and came at me. He didn’t seem as hindered by the drag of resistance, surging out of the water with swift strength. Though I’d been braced, he tumbled me easily, dunking me and holding me under for a long, panicked time.
Sea water ran from my mouth and nose when he dragged me up by way of a bruising grip on my arm. “Worthless,” he sneered. “Are you a rug? You just stood there and didn’t even try to stop me. Again.”
My dress hung on me as if made of wet sand, but I squared myself, doing my best to obey. Tays came at me and I swung at him with my fist, the way Jepp had taught me. Though weaponless in deference to my own empty hands, he easily batted my hand away and punched my cheek. The pain startled me, flashing hot and bright. Then I went down, choking on the salt water as he held me there. Sputtering as he dragged me up again.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “I barely tagged you. You’re no fighter. Toughen up. Again.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I only hoped he’d confuse them with the salt water, for surely he’d mock me for that, too. I tried to sink into my legs as I would when shooting targets, weighting myself against the surge of the swells. Tays crouched, a grin of ferocious glee on his face. When he came at me, I barely managed to swing at him before his fist plowed into my gut, sending me underwater again.
He held me under and I tried not to panic and sob in the water.
Then, miraculously, Tays was gone. I struggled up, gulping air, my head swimming with humiliation and frustration.
I blinked my stinging eyes at the extraordinary sight of Zyr holding Tays clean out of the water. Zyr’s hands locked around Tays’ throat, while the lieutenant struggled weakly, kicking his feet in the air. Zyr seemed to spark with feral magic, like a panther in human form.
“Tell me, mossback,” he hissed, and I swore his teeth looked like fangs, “what’s it like to be at the mercy of someone stronger than you, hmm?” Almost playfully, he shook the bigger man, wading onto the sand, but still holding Tays high off the ground with laughable ease. I’d thought I’d understood shapeshifter strength, but this…
Tays gargled, plucking wildly at Zyr’s hands. And I was petty enough to enjoy the sight. For a moment. Then I waded out of the water, too, my skirts dragging. “Zyr, no!” I called. “Stop. Put him down.”
Zyr barely glanced at me, wild blue eyes taking on that glow in a face subtly altered. The cheekbones broader and the teeth definitely sharp as a cat’s. “I’m practicing fighting mossbacks, Karyn,” he said in a deceptively cheerful tone. “Isn’t that what we’re doing here?” Tays flailed, face going a darker red.
Wren came running, sword unsheathed, mouth set. “Put him down, shapeshifter!”
Zyr only smiled, lazy as a mountain cat on a ledge, and just as lethal, I felt sure. “Oh goody. More mossbacks to practice on.”
“Zyr.” I pulled on his upraised arm, his muscles an iron bulge beneath. “Please. It was an exercise. He didn’t hurt me.”
“Lies,” Zyr ground out, his gaze flicking over my throbbing cheek. “He hurt you. I saw.”
“All right, he hurt me, but it was to teach me.”
“And what did you learn, hmm? I’m a teacher,” he said to Tays conversationally, as if the other man’s eyes weren’t bulging out of his head. “I know the difference between teaching and bullying.”
“Zyr, please,” I begged him, acutely aware that the Hawks had encircled us, and all had blades drawn. “We’re all supposed to be on the same side.”
“Is that so?” Abruptly Zyr released Tays, dropping him to the sand where the man crumpled into a gasping heap. Zyr bent the arm I held, trapping my hands in the fold between biceps and forearm, reaching over with his other hand to pat me soothingly, eyes on my throbbing cheek. None of the other Hawks advanced. Zyr swept a glare as slicing as any blade around the circle. “Let me remind you stinking mossbacks that this is our realm. If you’re too stupid to know it, let me explain: you are sheep surrounded by wolves. We have chosen not to eat you, so far, but if we change our minds, your flimsy blades won’t save you. You’re in Annfwn on our sufferance, and don’t forget it.”
A huge black raptor plunged to the sand, immediately becoming His Highness King Rayfe, raven hair rippling around him like a cape. He fastened unamused dark blue eyes on Zyr. “Funny,” he said mildly, as everyone but Zyr bowed deeply. “I thought, since I’m king here, that it’s on my sufferance.”