Shifting Loyalties

by Melissa McShane

  18

  She ran. The need to flee, to escape the horror before her, took control of her legs and propelled her away from the settlement, toward the distant mountains. Nowhere was safe. Another howl pierced the night, but she was already gone, her lights trailing behind her like comets chasing the moon.

  She reached the forest and plunged into it, welcoming its shelter. It couldn’t find her here. A nagging pain tugged at her midsection, an ache she didn’t have time to fill. Hunger. It was hunger. Not an ordinary desire for comforting food, but a driving emptiness that only one thing could fill. She didn’t know what that one thing was, but when she found it, she would sate herself on it and everything would be all right again.

  She stumbled and fell, scraping her hands on the rough earth and pine needles underfoot, pushed herself to her feet and ran again. The terror that had propelled her into the night hadn’t faded; something pursued her, something that crashed through the trees and breathed too heavily to be human. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry, because those were weaknesses that would open her to the Thing that followed her, would sap her strength and steal her breath and leave her helpless in its path. Her chest ached with a sharp, stinging pain, her feet hurt, but she kept running, praying that the Thing would lose interest if she ran far enough.

  The lights had vanished, unable to keep pace with her. It was full dark under the trees, and she darted out of the way of one tree only to slam face-first into another. It knocked the breath out of her, and she clung to it, trying to suck in air and struggling to find her footing. Then she stopped moving and listened. The Thing was gone. Its heavy footsteps and labored breathing had vanished. Sobbing finally, she pressed her abraded cheek against the rough tree bark and tried to remember who she was. She had a name, she was sure of it, and she would remember it eventually.

  When she felt confident she could stand without falling, she let go of the tree and stood rubbing her hands together. The ache in her stomach was growing. She peeled a strip of bark off the tree and bit it, wondering if this was the food she craved. It was bitter, and resinous, and she spat it out and went looking for something else. Dirt wasn’t the answer, and neither was moss. She contemplated a couple of tiny stones she found beneath the moss before deciding they were inedible. She rubbed her stomach, wishing the small pressure could ease the hunger pains. Nothing worked.

  She turned until she was facing west, then wondered how she knew which way west was. Something exerted a pull on her, telling her the way north, and it was easy to work out the other directions if you knew one of them, but where did the pull come from? Magic, she thought, and froze. Was she in the habit of thinking her thoughts in words? Yes, she was. Whoever she was, she could do magic and she carried on conversations with herself. She was strange.

  She began walking westward, sniffing the air in case her craving manifested itself that way. Nothing smelled particularly appetizing. Nothing smelled nasty, either, which was probably for the best. She didn’t like nasty smells, though she guessed most people didn’t and that wasn’t going to help her recall her identity. Magic, conversations, pleasant smells. It wasn’t much to build a personality on.

  Why was she going west? She vaguely remembered having fled eastward, and that there were people in the place she’d left behind. Maybe one of them would know her. That felt right. Other people, friends—

  Memory struck. Her name was Sienne, and she had friends, and a lover, and she’d run terrified into the woods away from all of them. Her stomach burned with hunger. She sped up, nearly ran into another tree, and stopped. Conjuring some magic lights, she took a look around. How far had she gone? She trotted on, fast enough to appease the part of her that was desperate to return to Alaric but not so fast that she collided with anything.

  She came out of the forest and saw the settlement in the distance, with lights coming on at most of the windows. It was too dark to tell if all the bodies had been removed. She stumbled onward, feeling incredibly weary but unable to stop moving. She felt she might die of hunger. Maybe one of these people in the cottages would give her something to eat. She still had no idea what would assuage her burning need, but the hunger was great enough she didn’t care.

  She put on a final burst of speed and fetched up against a wooden door. Pounding on it with both fists, she called out, “Is anyone there? I’m so hungry!”

  She heard wood scrape across wood, then footsteps crossing a creaky floor, and the latch slid open. A middle-aged man peered out. “Who are you?”

  “Sienne. I helped kill the howler. Please, is there anything to eat?”

  The man smiled. “You’re one of our heroes! Come in, come in. Where are your friends?”

  Sienne shook her head. “Somewhere. I need food, please, anything will do.”

  The man opened the door wider, and Sienne entered. Immediately she knew she’d found the right place. A delicious scent filled the one-room cottage, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It smelled like nothing she’d ever smelled before, but every other memory of good smells was dim and flat by comparison. It warred with the homelier scents of rabbit stew bubbling on the hearth and the piney aroma rising from the log walls. Sienne inhaled deeply, and the ache in her belly stabbed her once, making her double over.

  “Miss? Are you well?” the man said, putting his arm around her shoulders for support. Sienne nearly choked on the delicious smell. It came from the man himself.

  “Very well,” she said, turning to bury her face in his side. The man jerked away, startled. Sienne followed him.

  “Miss, I don’t think…miss, you need to stop that, you’re scaring me,” the man said, once more edging away. Sienne wiped away a trace of saliva trickling from the corner of her mouth. She needed to eat, was desperate for it, and if this man could sate her craving, so much the better.

  “Just one bite,” she said, and lunged for him.

  The man let out a cry somewhere between a shout and a squawk and ran for the door. Sienne beat him there. “I’m so hungry,” she said. “Just let me feed.”

  Someone knocked on the door. “Sir? Is our companion within?” Perrin said.

  Delight overrode the demands of her stomach long enough to let her turn and open the door. Of course they’d come looking for her. Perrin probably had a location blessing just for that. She flung herself on Alaric, who held her tightly. “Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered.

  “She’s sick. Something’s wrong with her,” the man said. “She said she wanted to…to eat me!”

  Alaric’s arms went rigid. Sienne burrowed into his embrace. He smelled even better than the man did. “I’m so hungry,” she said, drew her knife, and stabbed Alaric’s thigh.

  The big man yelped and let go of her. Sienne raised the knife for a more direct hit. Someone grabbed her from behind, immobilizing her arms, someone who smelled delectable. Someone else broke her grip on the knife and took it away. That made Sienne panic, because how was she supposed to get food if she didn’t have her knife? Her stomach hurt so badly it felt like it was caving in from hunger.

  Tears slid down her cheeks. She stomped her heel on the foot of whoever was holding her arms and heard Kalanath shout. She twisted, and his hands slid just enough to let her get one arm free. Then Alaric had her again, but this time his grip was rough and merciless. She kept fighting, though she knew there was no way she could break free of his grasp.

  “Tie her,” Alaric said. “She can’t get free again.”

  Sienne screamed and thrashed as rope went around her wrists and ankles, trussing her securely. She managed to smack Kalanath in the face with the back of her head, but he just grunted and wrapped more rope around her wrists. Sagging, defeated, Sienne wept hot tears of fear and pain and tried once more. “I’m so hungry. Please. I just need to eat.”

  “We’re sorry about this, sir,” Alaric said to the settler. “She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

  “No. Just sniffed me and said some crazy things. She’s not going to turn
like the were-creature did, right?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Alaric said grimly. He hoisted Sienne over his shoulder and ducked out of the cottage’s low door, carrying her away down the makeshift street.

  The delicious smells were coming from every one of her friends. She just needed one of them, and then…wait, then what? If their flesh was what would satisfy this horrible hunger, didn’t that mean she’d have to kill one of them? “No,” she shrieked, “no, I won’t do it! I won’t! I’m starving!”

  “Is it too late?” Dianthe asked.

  “If she is still hungry, she has not fed, and there is still hope,” Perrin said. “At least, that is my understanding of what Swift said.”

  “But what about…” Kalanath began, and fell silent.

  “There’s nothing we can do for Wit,” Alaric said, his voice still flat and emotionless. “We have to save Sienne now.”

  Sienne, slung over Alaric’s shoulder like a rolled carpet, couldn’t see where they were going, so it was a surprise when they entered another house. This one was larger than the other man’s, but not by much. Alaric deposited Sienne to lie on the room’s one bed and stood back, hands on hips, examining her. “Sienne, how hungry are you?” he said.

  The scent coming off him was overpowering. Sienne closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing, which was coming in quick, sharp pants. “It hurts, Alaric, please, it hurts so much. I need to eat. I need it, don’t you understand? To eat and eat and eat until I’m full.”

  “That’s bad,” Alaric said. “What can we do?”

  “What we did for Wit,” Perrin said. “Wait until morning, when I can pray for a blessing that might remove the curse. Keep her from feeding.”

  “But if she’s that hungry, couldn’t that starve her to death?” Dianthe’s eyes were red, as if she’d been crying.

  “Do you have a better solution?” Alaric asked. Dianthe turned away. In moving, she revealed something Sienne hadn’t seen before: Wit, bound as she was as well as gagged, lying on the floor under the window. His eyes observed the room brightly, and Sienne shuddered, because there was no human intelligence behind them anymore.

  Alaric crouched beside Sienne and stroked her hair. “Sweetlove, the howler turned Wit into one of its own,” he said, “and Wit’s howl touched you the same way. So long as you don’t eat human flesh, you’ll recover. It will be all right.”

  Tears spilled over Sienne’s cheeks and dampened the blanket under her face. “But I’m so hungry,” she whispered.

  Alaric’s own eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I know. You can’t eat. Tomorrow everything will be better. We won’t leave you alone tonight, I promise. You just have to be patient.”

  “Alaric, you are still bleeding,” Perrin said. “Let me bind the wound. I fear I have no healing blessings left.”

  “Make it quick,” Alaric said. “And then everyone should get comfortable. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Sienne closed her eyes. A howler. She was this close to becoming a howler. She noticed Alaric hadn’t said anything about Wit getting better. Was there any hope for him? She opened her eyes and found Wit staring at her. His inhuman eyes gleamed with malice, and she could almost hear him thinking at her: You and I, we will hunt together. Feed, and we will be one. We will share the big one. She shuddered and looked away, to where Perrin was bandaging the knife wound she’d given Alaric. “I’m sorry,” she said, and felt almost relieved at the pang of guilt she felt. It was a real, clean emotion that had nothing to do with the hunger that claimed her.

  Alaric smiled at her. “It’s just a scratch. I’m glad I haven’t taught you how to strike with a knife for real. Then we might have had a problem.”

  Sienne tried to smile, but her momentary feeling of relief had passed, and dread once more consumed her. Her stomach screamed at her to feed it. She struggled against her bonds once, and her friends all went still, watching her. It made her feel self-conscious and stupid and bitterly angry. Alaric was right, this was going to be a long night.

  How long, she couldn’t have guessed. The hunger kept her from sleeping, drove her to alternating bouts of shrieking at her friends to free her so she could feed on all of them and sobbing fits in which she cried hard enough to forget the pain briefly. Sometimes she varied the pattern by begging them to kill her. At one point, she tried untying her bonds with her invisible fingers and got as far as freeing her hands before they noticed and bound her more tightly.

  Alaric never left her side. When she cried, he spoke quietly to her, reassuring her; when she shrieked, he ignored her curses and vicious threats and waited patiently for her to cycle around to crying again. To her babbled apologies he said only, “It’s not you, sweetlove. This will pass.” Her heart ached, her throat was raw with screaming, and still the hunger wouldn’t let her sleep. Whenever her eye fell on Wit, the hunger redoubled, as if he had some way of intensifying it, but she couldn’t stop watching him. Nobody else paid attention to him, a thing she thought, in her more coherent moments, was a mistake. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he looked bigger than before, more muscular. Whatever had happened to him, she feared it wasn’t something Averran could fix.

  She was looking at Wit during one of her bouts of sobbing when her eye was drawn to the window above him. The night sky was fading, turning pale rose and gold. Morning.

  Alaric noticed the direction of her gaze and looked to Perrin. “I don’t know how much longer she can endure this,” he said. “I know it’s early, but…”

  “I will try,” Perrin said. “Were I a priest of Sisyletus rather than Averran, I am certain my request would be answered immediately, as Sienne has demonstrated tremendous endurance these past hours. But Averran…” He shook his head. “I will do this outside. I fear I would be distracted here.”

  That made Sienne feel even more guilty. Despite Perrin’s words, she didn’t think she’d shown much endurance, what with the screaming and the crying and the begging. She closed her eyes, tried to ignore the hunger, and prayed, O Averran, I can’t take much more of this. Please wake early, just this once.

  Peace touched her heart briefly, startling her so much she forgot to think about her hunger. She drew in a surprised breath, and Alaric said, “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. For a moment, I felt…better.”

  Alaric brushed hair away from her face. “Everything will be all right. I swear it.”

  “Should you swear a thing you cannot control?” Kalanath said. He sounded as weary as Alaric.

  “I will turn this world upside down to find a cure for her,” Alaric said.

  “We still don’t know what to do with Wit,” Dianthe said. She jabbed a thumb in his direction. “If he can’t be cured…”

  “Then we’ll let Clever deal with him,” Alaric said flatly. “She has the right.”

  “It’s her brother,” Dianthe said. “Isn’t that cruel, to make her…dispose of him?”

  “Crueler to pass the duty to someone else,” Alaric said.

  The door opened. All eyes turned to Perrin, who was sweating, his long hair falling loose around his face. He was also smiling. In one hand, he held what looked like a flat orange cake. He crossed to kneel beside Sienne. “Help her sit,” he said.

  When she was upright, he brought the cake to her lips. “You must eat it all,” he said. Sienne shied away from it. It smelled greasy, like rancid oil. “No, do not flinch,” Perrin commanded. “Eat, and you will be free of this curse.”

  Sienne looked at Alaric, who nodded encouragement. She opened her mouth, and Perrin held the cake so she could bite into it. It tasted worse than it smelled, not only of rancid oil but of dust and raw meat and mold. She gagged on the first bite and made herself swallow, then, breathing heavily, took another bite. If this was Averran’s sense of humor at being roused just after dawn, she didn’t want to be around when he was truly angry at someone.

  Nothing changed. Her stomach still burned with the need for human flesh, and
the gagging didn’t help. She controlled her tears and took another bite. Crying wouldn’t help and it would just make her friends feel worse. She caught sight of Wit, who for once didn’t have that malicious gleam of humor in his eye. In fact, he looked afraid. The sight gave her strength to take another bite, and another, chewing more rapidly as the end neared. Finally, she let Perrin put the last of the cake in her mouth, and swallowed it almost without chewing.

  Orange light filled her vision. She cried out, but it didn’t hurt, just blinded her briefly. A feeling of peace swept over her, clearing away the pain and terror and filling her with happiness. She realized the aching hunger was gone, leaving her not only free from the nagging lust but from the aches of having her arms and legs bound. She closed her eyes and breathed out a long sigh of relief. “It’s gone,” she said. “The hunger…it’s gone. I feel wonderful.”

  Dianthe produced a knife from somewhere and swiftly cut Sienne’s bonds. The instant she was free, Alaric took her in his arms and held her so tightly she squeaked. “I won’t apologize for that,” he said.

  “Don’t let go.”

  “I won’t.” He kissed her forehead, then looked up at Perrin, who stood watching them both. “You look grim.”

  “Averran was quick to grant my request for curing Sienne,” Perrin said. “But no amount of pleading produced a similar solution for Wit. I am afraid it is too late for him.”

  Wit once more had the cunning, hard look about his eyes. There was nothing left of the man they’d come to know. Sienne buried her face in Alaric’s shirt so she wouldn’t have to look at Wit. “That means he has to die, doesn’t it,” she murmured.

  “He’s a howler,” Alaric said. “Wit is already dead.”

  19

  The following morning, just as dawn turned the eastern skies rosy, Sienne and her friends stood at the edge of a new clearing and watched the werebears bid farewell to their fallen kin. The pyres lay close together, enough that walking between them when they were burning high would be impossible. The weres had died in bear form, and hadn’t reverted to human when they died. Sienne wasn’t sure why she’d expected that. It wasn’t as if one form were more natural to them than the other.