We ate, cleaned up the house and set it to rights again. It seemed empty and expectant as I stepped outside, bundled in my new fur cloak, and I made a mental promise to come back. If we survived, we should replace at least the food, in case other travelers needed the refuge.
It occurred to me that the former occupants might be living in that dreadful landscape beneath the palace. I knew Zyr didn’t want to dash my hopes, but I still nursed the idea that they might return.
Zyr, in gríobhth form, turned his head to look at me expectantly. He’d shifted a bit ago and taken a test flight, to be sure he could. Something else he hadn’t spoken aloud, how his confidence had been shaken, but he’d casually told me to wait inside and stay warm while he stretched his wings, and I knew he’d wanted me to be safe if he failed.
But he’d returned, black fur and feathers gleaming with blue highlights in the frosty sunshine. The chill wind off the high peaks ruffled his crest, and his gaze glittered with some of his old fire. I buckled a harness onto him that he’d found, suggesting that I could use it to anchor myself to his back. In case of another aerial battle.
Climbing on, I fastened the straps around my calves and thighs. The fur-lined leather pants Zyr had found for me were ideal for this arrangement. I threaded the final buckle around my waist. As Zyr had said when he found the harness—in the same armory where he’d gotten the bow and where I dug out more arrows and, bless Moranu, a crossbow, too!—with the smallest adjustment, the harness seemed perfectly designed for this purpose: to allow a rider on the back of a flying animal to stay secure and hands free for fighting.
I couldn’t decide if that was a good omen or bad, that we followed in the footsteps of the disappeared or captive previous occupants of the well-fortified house. With my new bows at the ready and several quivers stowed in various places, I patted Zyr on the shoulder. He’d had his head turned around, watching with interest. “I’m ready if you are,” I told him.
He nodded, giving me a long look, so much of him in it. Then he faced forward, his strong body gathering beneath me, and ran across the stone terrace, leaping off with wings spread. I let out a whoop of pure joy and triumph.
If we died today, it would be on our terms. On the wing and armed to the teeth.
For a while we flew in circles. He felt sure that, despite his fragmented memories of our escape, that he hadn’t flown more than an hour. It had seemed endless to me, but I believed him. Neither of us had any clue about the direction. Still, I’d assured him the palace had to be easily visible, high on that mountain and with all those shiny windows.
We’d debated approaching by night, but the gríobhth vision worked best in bright daylight and Zyr hadn’t been confident of doing a partial shapeshift for night vision in that form. Besides, I had a feeling that Deyrr and his followers were no weaker at night and could be stronger, creatures of darkness that they were.
The vantage from Zyr’s back at midday showed the sprawling landscape of n’Andana that we’d missed before. The high mountain peaks that surrounded the palace and that housed our temporary refuge did go for some distance, but then quickly fell away to lower, green and rounded hills. A blue glint in the distance showed the ocean not all that far away on some of our loops.
Spotting a tumble of white stone on the coast that looked more structured than most, I nudged Zyr to investigate. He obligingly flew in that direction, and it soon became clear it was indeed a city, and far more vast than the cliff city at Annfwn. Built partially into the hillsides, but also on top of them, the buildings stood in orderly tiers, as well maintained as our refuge had been.
And equally as empty.
Zyr landed on a parklike hillside above the city proper, and I unbuckled the straps so I could get down, taking my bow and quiver with me. I stared at the silent city with chill horror. “Did she take them all? Even the children, the eldsters, the sick and the weak?”
He nudged me, then took a few steps, settling his wings.
“If you’re going to shift,” I said to him, “I can take the harness off.”
The look he gave me was pure gríobhth arrogance, and still shaped the expression on his face when he became a man, in his perfectly groomed mode. He held up his wrist, showing me the ribbon, as crisp and perfect as when I’d tied it on him. “I’ve been practicing keeping things,” he replied, with that same sneer he’d used for the word in the past, but his eyes danced with mischief. “It’s not as if it’s difficult. Part and parcel of keeping company with mossbacks, I suppose.”
I thumped him on the arm and he laughed, making me smile. Something he’d done on purpose, I knew, to help me feel better. He put me in front of him, wrapping his arms protectively around me, as we both surveyed the deathly still landscape.
“There aren’t even any natural animals,” he observed. “No songbirds. No sign of life in the sea.”
“She took everything. Every one of them.”
“Building her army.”
“Yes.”
We stood quietly a moment longer. “We can fly over the city, if you like,” he offered. “Maybe some people are in hiding.”
“If so, why would they reveal themselves for us? No.” I very nearly told Zyr we should make a break for it, fly out over that deceptively tranquil ocean, that we could risk drowning rather than returning to the palace. But that would be the coward’s way out.
I sighed, then squared my shoulders. “Let’s go get that jewel, if we can’t kill her. It will at least slow her down, rob her of some power.”
“Dropping her from a high place would slow her down more,” he observed with glittering relish.
“If you can make that happen, I’ll love you forever.”
He spun me around and kissed me. “You already promised that.”
“I promised to love you to my dying breath—it’s not the same thing.”
“It is to me. Tell me again. Tell me as often as you like.”
“Yes, well. It bears repeating.” I kissed him back. “I’ll love you forever, Zyr.”
He held me very tightly, as if he’d never let me go.
We flew inland again, taking up our previous search pattern. Zyr spotted the palace at the same time I did, swiveling his head to stare at the glittering point on one snow-covered peak. The spires rose high like crags of their own, and a darker road showed in places beneath it. “That’s it,” I shouted.
With a dip of his head in acknowledgement, he struck out at an oblique angle, powerful wings pouring on the speed. The only other time I’d felt him fly this fast was when we’d been trying to outrun those birds, and I’d been distracted then. Lying low on his body to lessen the resistance, I exulted in the sheer freedom of racing through the air like this. Expecting to die made everything—flying, sex, love, even laughter—all that much sweeter.
Zyr looped behind the peak, climbing as he did—then, coming around, he dove. We’d come in fast and hard, and hope to take them by surprise.
No such luck. A flight of birds rose from behind the castle towers, all sizes and varieties. They swarmed toward us and Zyr took evasive action, folding his wings in a searing dive, then cracking them open to bring us around nearly horizontal. If I hadn’t been strapped on, I would’ve fallen. As it was, I took full advantage of having my hands free. And I knew Zyr’s body as well as my own from having him moving inside me, knew the flex and play of his muscles, even his intentions, it seemed.
We moved as one being, the crossbow all I’d hoped, my arrows flying straight and true before I knew I’d aimed. I dropped the biggest from the sky, while Zyr used tail and claws to keep the smaller ones from harrying me. It helped to battle Deyrr’s creatures in the air, because we didn’t need to prevent them coming at us again in their eternal drive to reach us—only disable them so they couldn’t stay aloft.
It would be different on the ground. A fast-approaching prospect as Zyr, with his trademark single-minded intensity, continued on to the castle, refusing to be distracted by our attackers.
He poured on the speed—enough so that he left the clumsy Deyrr undead behind—and drove straight for the palace.
The alert had gone out, clearly, as more fighters, human and animal, poured out of the gates, thronged the walls and crowded the turrets. Some of the humans fired arrows at us, but not well, and Zyr dodged the missiles easily. Shooting us out of the sky wasn’t their primary objective anyway. We’d have the real trouble on our hands when we touched down and they mobbed us to take us captive—or we died stopping them.
Thus we wouldn’t land. At least not where they expected.
Zyr folded his wings, tightening his profile, accelerating the dive, and protecting them from injury. I pulled the hood and cloak over my exposed skin, unstrung my recurve and put it in against the protection of my body, the crossbow ready in my lap, and buried my face against Zyr’s silky fur. My part had finished. I’d described the position of the High Priestess’s atrium and how it looked, next to the glassed-in arcade that led to the massive expanse of glass that was the zoo. The zoo would’ve been easier to hit but breaching that would sentence most of the animals and shapeshifters within to a wintry death.
But we both knew we’d take that if we had to.
Zyr purred in reassurance and warning, and I inhaled his scent. He’d tease me for being typically and tragically Dasnarian, but if I had to die, I viciously celebrated that I’d die bound to him. His plan might work or it might not.
Regardless, I’d made my choice and I regretted nothing.
We hit the glass and time slowed. The shattering, the scream of metal twisting under the impact of our mass hitting it at Zyr’s maximum acceleration. A thousand stings made their way through the heavy cloak and we seemed to drift timelessly.
Bracing for impact, I felt Zyr disappear out from under me, tucked my head, and rolled. It still stunned me, slamming the breath from my body. Still dizzy, I fought my way free of the cloak, dropping my crossbow at my feet for backup, stringing my thankfully unbroken bow, and nocking an arrow—beyond glad for the long habit that let me do these things without thought.
Only then did I scan the room, searching out Zyr—who lay on his back, in human form, perfectly beautiful in his blue silk shirt, the High Priestess crouched over him. She bled black oil blood, her face contorted in a snarl of equally black rage as she held his skull, staring into Zyr’s eyes, chanting as he convulsed.
I shot her through the neck. Not an ideal shot, but the closest I could without risking hitting Zyr. The force of it tipped her off him, and then I followed up with an arrow through her black heart.
She knelt there, looking up at me, golden hair spilling around her gold-clad body, and laughed at me.
“Oh, sweetling.” She tsked, giving me a derisive smile. “Surely you didn’t think I’d be that easy to kill?”
I shot an arrow through her mouth, sending her back to the floor with the force of it. “No,” I replied evenly, “but I figure chopping you into pieces too small to move will accomplish the same thing.”
I reached down and yanked the jewel from her neck, tossing it to Zyr, who’d climbed to his feet. He moved slowly, disoriented, but he caught it—and immediately swallowed the pendant. There’d be no easy reclaiming of the thing.
“Did you have to shoot her through the mouth?” he complained. “I want to hear her scream as I dismember her.” His fingers lengthened into long, lethal claws as he stalked toward her. Then he froze, midstep.
I couldn’t move either. The High Priestess yanked the arrow out of her throat and sat up, leaving the other two piercing her as if they were nothing more than decorations. “Oh, you silly bean,” she hissed. “You stupid, stupid girl. Did you think I needed that paltry jewel to transmit the magic of Deyrr?”
She stood and prowled over to me, leaned in and sniffed. “And you wasted your maidenhead on this filthy beast. You could’ve had so much more. I offered you a place at my side and you scorned it. For shapeshifter cock.” She shook her head in disgust, slipping my bow from my fingers and sending it skittering across the floor.
The doors flew open, soldiers streaming into the room, animals on leashes with them, snarling and slavering to reach us. Winged creatures poured in the broken windows, barring that escape, even if we could’ve moved.
“Did you think that would save you?” the High Priestess asked, her attention on me. “Deyrr is happy to take you on his lap, virgin or not. You’ll just never reach the rank and power that you might have. But you will be his. And you will be mine.” She squeezed my breast, then passed her hand between my legs, smiling sweetly, her eyes lightless pits. “You’ll be my slave, which will be even more fun. Now watch while I cut my necklace out of your pet.”
Against my will, my head turned, fully in her power, and I saw Zyr staring at me in helpless rage. Though I couldn’t smile at him, or change my expression in any way, I did my best to show my love for him in my eyes. I’ll love you forever.
He looked back at me, and I thought I saw the same in his wild blue eyes.
“Hold still now,” the High Priestess crooned, trailing a finger down his chest, parting the silk to bare him. “A pity to mar such a magnificent form. Maybe I’ll heal you after. You and your slut can perform for me. Or I’ll just have you fuck me while she watches. That would be a fitting punishment for her.”
The scream nearly choked me as his flesh began to part, as easily as his shirt had. So loud it rang in my skull that I didn’t realize the roaring came from outside. A searing blaze of heat washed over me, and I stumbled, nearly falling with the ability to move again.
Zyr recovered faster, seizing the High Priestess by the throat. And the mob of soldiers flew at him, covering him in a mass of bodies. I ran for my crossbow, and another roar and wash of heat had me spinning to the windows.
A dragon hovered outside. Enormous and blue-black in the sunshine, gleaming like a jewel. With a man riding on its back.
The dragon spouted flame, gentle as a blown kiss, melting away the twisted metal frame, clearing the Deyrr creatures from the area just inside the windows, and landed with a grating scrape of immense talons. The man slid down its leg, sword drawn and ran straight at me where I gaped in shock.
Lieutenant Marskal. “With me, Hawk!” he snapped as he ran past.
I spun to follow his charge. Zyr had become the gríobhth again, rearing up to use both sets of front claws and that whipping tail to decimate his enemies. I couldn’t see the High Priestess anywhere. Marskal engaged his attackers with cool, calm decision, employing his sword as meticulously as he had in drills. The dragon—Zynda, surely—snaked her head on her long neck, plucking off a bear lumbering for Zyr’s back. She didn’t dare use her flame, I realized, with Zyr in the midst of the fray.
I shot a human soldier through the eye, knocking him back, and scanned for the High Priestess. Feeding her to Zynda’s incinerating breath would be enough for me.
But I couldn’t see her, and more soldiers poured in the doors. We’d be overwhelmed soon, even with our rescuers.
“Zyr!” I shouted, knowing he’d hear me.
His head swiveled my way, sharp beak dripping blood both red and black. Shaking off a wolf doggedly chewing his wing, Zyr seized Marskal and half-leapt, half-flew with him to me. Marskal vaulted to Zynda’s back, reaching down a hand to me, to pull me up behind him. Zyr flew to her back and shifted into man form behind me.
Zynda roared, spewing flame across the gallery. But it seemed to hit an invisible wall, evaporating into nothing. Beyond that barrier, the fighters parted, allowing an enormous naked gold man to stride through, the High Priestess by his side. The golden idol of Deyrr, come to life.
“Go!” I screamed and Zynda backwinged off the terrace, dropping low, and angling through a narrow cleft to the far side of the mountain.
She put distance between us and the palace, then wheeled until the setting sun warmed our backs, and flew into the clear blue sky. Taking us home.