“Oris will be Theran like I am Theran. The rest of the princes will only be changed in that they will be as I am. You were changed because that is what is supposed to happen next and my mother and grandfather are the only ones left with Tempris abilities. You expected me to change things to build an army. I gave you another way to fight that puts your life in less danger. I’m not supposed to leave when this is done, though I think none of you will be happy with the choice that needs to be made at first. You will get used to it.”
She was back to looking like smooth marble. Joron couldn’t keep up with the confused girl that kept popping through with the cold girl that had appeared since she sat in that chair. She explained why she was acting this way and he hoped the more she sat on the throne and got answers, the Lisana he had come to know would come back. He saw both Volaris and Terros open their mouths like they were going to demand to know which prince she had chosen. He knew they all wanted her to choose their sons. They were interrupted when Esylle flew across the room and nearly knocked the girl over to embrace her.
“I’m glad you changed your mind about leaving,” she said into her hair.
Joron was surprised when the girl returned the embrace and held her mother tightly. “I’m supposed to stay when this is over. I still don’t know how to rule, but that is what is supposed to happen. Are you going to let me do what I need to or are you going to frighten me again waking up next to you about to take your last breath?”
Joron could tell Esylle was crying that the girl was now returning her embracing and doing it like she had finally accepted her and may care for her the way Esylle cared for the girl. “After what I saw you go through at the doors, I thought you were being hurt again and would have risked my life to stop it. I don’t like this change in you, but I won’t stop you from learning. Promise me whatever you learn in that chair, you stay the girl I’ve gotten to know.”
Joron thought Esylle and Lisana were having a breakthrough and meant to walk over and join their embrace, but he watched the girl pull away, as she had done every time Esylle had embraced her before.
“Everyone yelled at me before. I did things to endanger everyone we traveled with. I’m acting this way because I don’t want to lose control again with this light. I don’t know if that is a change that is supposed to happen. You may never get that girl back. If you expect me to rule, maybe I need to be this way!”
Volaris spoke before Esylle could. “I may not have liked it, but I came to understand why you needed to leave sometimes. Until you gifted us so that we could be near you, you may have burned us. You may not think I understand, but I fly to clear my head like you need to run.”
Joron hoped the girl would see they all loved her as she was before and this strange coldness from her now was new to them and they didn’t like it. He hoped she would see and do what she needed to do without changing. But her face became stone again.
“We’ve wasted enough time. You need to call the princes in here and you need to go learn from each other,” she told all of them, turning her back and walking away.
Oris
Oris was pacing one of the rooms with Neptis and Sono. He knew she wanted them next, but had no idea what she had planned. He didn’t like this change in her. She wasn’t the same girl who was innocently excited when he was teaching her new ways to mate. He knew he told her he only wanted one night with her and she wouldn’t hurt him if she left after this was over, but he wanted her to choose him now more than ever. He didn’t like that Sono was with her when she woke up after the doors. Oris thought he should have been there for her after what he saw her go through. He didn’t want to let Neptis take her after she fainted when she sat in the chair. He didn’t like not knowing what was going on with her and Neptis and Sono weren’t really interested in sharing information with him because they were angry with him about his night with her. He kept his promise and refused to talk about that night, even though it angered his father, but they all had their suspicions.
Both Sono and Neptis looked worried, but were not speaking. The three had been good friends growing up, but were divided now over this girl. Oris knew she did what she wanted and what she wanted right now was to go home to Idric. He didn’t think anything he could say to her would change her mind. He thought about their night together often, but knew if he tried to get her alone, she probably wouldn’t agree to it again. She was different when she came out and they performed the ceremony. Almost like she knew exactly what she needed to do now. She seemed like she wouldn’t have time for Oris now, nor Sono and Neptis.
Oris’ thoughts were interrupted when all four kings barged into the room and said she was ready for them. He went to his father to ask what she had done and what she intended to do to him, when he realized he couldn’t get close to his father because there was heat coming off him like the girl. When he looked at him, he saw flames flickering in his father’s green eyes, like hers. He looked to the other kings and they had an underlying smell of ember to them. He was even more confused when Joron approached Terros and tried to get him to calm himself and he could smell almost the same thing he smelled when he first smelled Soryn. The resin smell was not on Joron, but he now had the smell of all four tribes.
Terros wouldn’t tell him what happens. “Go, before I can’t control myself,” he told his son. “If she doesn’t change you the way she promised, I’ll kill her, no matter who she is supposed to be.”
Oris was confused and didn’t know what he meant about Soryn changing him, but he couldn’t ask because the other three kings descended on Terros trying to get him to calm down and screamed at the princes to leave and go to the girl. None of them spoke as they walk to the corridor and towards her. Oris could tell things were intense between Esylle and Soryn, but neither of them were speaking and the look on her face told him he couldn’t ask her. They all filed in and surrounded her and he didn’t think anyone would say anything, but Sono strode towards her and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“What did you do?” he asked, looking down at her. “Terros makes fire like you and he said he would kill you if you changed Oris in a way that you didn’t promise. What did you do to my father and what will you do to us?”
Oris watched her shake him loose, like the two of them had not spent days gathering food together and he was with her when she woke up after the door. Sono looked surprised that she was angry with him.
“All of you pushed me to learn to change Gritt and the humans. You get upset with me when you are meant to change too. You knew I was here to bring change!”
She turned her back on all four of them that were waiting on her and there was no heat coming from her this time. Oris didn’t know if that was why Sono risked trying to touch her when she seemed angry. Oris was surprised both when he touched her and pulled her back to them and she allowed it without burning him. She didn’t look angry when he could see her face again. She looked cold, which was not a look Oris was used to seeing from her.
“I’m not upset with you,” Sono told her, trying to reassure her. “If you know this is supposed to happen, I will accept it. I only asked what happened before with my father that upset Terros. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.”
She didn’t bend to Sono, nor did she explain to them what she had done. She didn’t explain to them how she intended to change them. Oris knew whatever it was, it had upset his father. He didn’t know if she intended to make him Tempris like his father or she would change him like Joron, where he was more like her. Esylle was already sitting and she told them where to sit. She sat in the middle of the circle and placed her hands on the carvings in the floor. Like when she was in the chair, her eyes began to glow white again and then Oris couldn’t see her anymore. Whatever she was doing to him felt like he was floating, but it also felt like the night he spent with her where they had stayed up for hours together.
He felt more powerful when the feeling left him. When he was able to open his eyes, he saw her go to stand up to leave t
he circle, but she fainted again. Oris’ senses were heightened from whatever she had done to him and he was able to leap to his feet and catch her before she hit the stone floor. They all looked to Esylle for answers since she was there when Soryn did whatever she had done to the kings.
Esylle sighed and looked at them. “Whatever this light she has now that allowed her to gift you, it seems to have its limits. I only hope she has been acting the way she has because she was tired and trying to hold on long enough to do what she thought she needed to do and not because it’s changing who she is. Oris, carry her to the bedroom and she will wake when she’s ready. The real Lisana came through several times when she was changing your fathers.”
Whatever she had done to him, his sense of smell was stronger. The resin smell on her was stronger than it was before and he could pick up something if he tried hard enough that smelled old and made his heart race. Whatever that smell was, it had caused her to faint. Before he could carry her off, Neptis asked Esylle if she could at least explain what she had done before she fainted.
Esylle looked like she just wanted to get Soryn away, but she stayed and explained how the girl had changed both their fathers and the princes. Oris now understood his extra senses and understood a little more how she was the way she was. He didn’t know if it made him feel better or worse that Esylle informed them that she said she would not be leaving when this was over and she knew what choice she had to make and none of them would like it. Esylle said the girl would not clarify what that meant and was not giving out a great amount of detail about what she learned in the chair, only that after she changed the princes, she needed to sit again.
Sono and Neptis seemed confused if they wanted to let Oris carry her off or if they wanted to explore their new gifts. When Oris started to walk off with the girl, Sono flew over his head as a sparrow and Neptis moved to the door like he was going to the water. Esylle still seemed upset with him about their night as she led him to the chambers Soryn slept in. He laid her gently in the bed when Esylle turned on him. She had not confronted him about that night yet, but he could tell she wanted to.
“She won’t talk about it, but I demand you tell me what you did when you took her away from us.”
He sighed and sat on the chair next to the bed. “She asked me not to talk about what happened. My father is angry with me because I won’t tell him. He was hoping we did something to make her choose me. She told me that night she didn’t want to choose and wanted to go home if she survived. I didn’t do anything to try to change her mind, even though I still want her to choose me.”
The room started to get warm and Esylle began to pace, ranting at him that if they were both refusing to talk about what happened, she must have done something she knew she wasn’t supposed to and Esylle blamed Oris. Oris knew he shouldn’t, but he argued back that everything had been kept from her and everyone knew things about her that she didn’t. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to have her own secrets?
Esylle nearly exploded on him. “I’m her mother! She shouldn’t keep secrets from me!”
“She only just met you again. You’re going to lose control and burn the room if you keep getting angry about that night. She may choose to tell you when she’s gotten to know you better.”
“You refuse to tell your father and you weren’t taken away from him!”
“She asked me not to!” Now they were both getting angry. “If she stays and chooses, she’s not going to pick me if I break her trust. She doesn’t want anyone to know what happened that night. If she wants a secret, I’ll help her keep it!”
Esylle didn’t reply and still seemed irritated, but the heat in the room slowly started leaving. She checked on Soryn, who was still sleeping. The smell he didn’t know that he suspected was making her sleep was getting fainter and he suspected she may wake soon. When he told Esylle this, he thought she would ask him to leave until she woke, but she laid in bed next to the girl and continued to talk to him.
“I still think you both did something you shouldn’t have. She said she knows what choice she has to make now, but no one will like it. She said all of you will get used to it. I don’t know what it means and she hasn’t seemed to want to clarify anything she’s said since she woke up from the chair aside from giving orders. The girl you think you love may be gone, even though I’m hoping she’s not.”
“I don’t just think I love her. I really do. The smell is getting faint and I think she will wake soon.”
“The only reason I’m allowing you to stay is because you can smell things I can’t. I doubt you really love her like you think or you wouldn’t have taken her from us when she was like that.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love her. I would be out exploring what she had gifted me like Sono and Neptis. We all accept the ceremony when we stop being able to choose our form because is a part of who we are, but being able to change like she does, the way we did as children, is a huge gift. I don’t understand why she gifted us that instead of giving us Tempris gifts like our fathers. We could be close to her when she’s angry when she chooses if she gifted us that way.”
“I haven’t understood anything she’s done since she woke up from that chair. I’m like she is now in that I can choose any form, but we were supposed to stay and teach each other and not come back here. I don’t know if she was trying to hide how tired this was making her and that was why she has been acting so differently.”
Oris thought he knew of a way to make Esylle more accepting of him since she was angry. He asked her to get out of bed and he would teach her what it was like to be Theran. Maybe she needed to experience her first change before she could smell what he was smelling. He pulled her over to the side of the room and tried to teach her to change.
“It’s in you now, you just need to find it. Think of a Theran, something small because we are here. Concentrate on that form. Imagine what it’s like to think as that animal. Breathe and feel yourself drawing in and the change will happen.”
He was holding her hands and her face was screwed up on concentration. She was thinking too hard and not letting it happen. He could feel the heat rising around her. He told her to push the heat away and just let the animal take over. When she told him she couldn’t pick, he suggested a simple house cat since they were in a bedroom. He worried he may have to have his father teach her when the air around her stirred and he looked down at a cat sitting on the rug. He knew her senses would be like Soryn’s and his now and maybe she would be able to smell what he was smelling.
Esylle leapt from the floor to the bed and onto Soryn’s chest. She must be smelling the smell he didn’t know now because she was sniffing the girl all over. When she finally smelled enough, she hopped back onto the floor and looked back up at him with amber cat eyes. He told her to focus on herself now and who she was. Draw herself outward and feel herself growing larger. He was relieved to see Esylle standing in front of him shortly after.
“There’s too many smells now,” she complained. “It’s overwhelming. I can’t concentrate on what you are saying is causing her to sleep”
He laughed. “You’ll get used to it.” He tried to explain to her what the girl smelled like to all of the Theran and how they knew she was the one. Esylle didn’t know the resin and couldn’t separate it from the new smell that was keeping her asleep. As Oris tried telling her as she met the other tribes and learned to pick out smells, it would be less overwhelming, Soryn took in a huge sigh and they were both on her.
When her eyes fluttered open, she was the girl he spent the night with again and she smiled when she saw him. “The two of you are supposed to be learning, not hovering over my bed. You know I wake up when it’s time,” she said, sitting up. She didn’t seem angry with them and she no longer looked cold and formidable. “I need to sit in the chair now,” she said, trying to get up.
Esylle was flittering over her and managed to convince her to stay in bed just a little while longer. He had set her in the center of the lar
ge bed and when Esylle laid on one side of her, he ignored her looks and laid on the other side. Soryn relaxed into the pillows while Esylle stroked her hair. He took her hand and held it.
“Please tell me you were only acting the way you were before because you were tired and trying to hold on to do what you thought you needed to do.”
“I told everyone why I was acting the way I was. If I’m supposed to stay and rule, I can’t do it the way I was before.”
“You still have time to be taught. I’d rather teach you to be a gentle ruler than lose you. It will still be a few years before you rule.”
She didn’t argue. She looked at Esylle like the girl they all knew. “Leodos didn’t ask me to change him, so I changed you. You need to have more children like me. I didn’t want to have a child like me, but that is what is supposed to happen. That is why the princes needed to be changed. They can’t fight against the humans. They are needed for the peace that is to happen next.”
“I don’t understand,” Oris said, finally speaking. “Why did you change us like we were before our ceremony instead of making us all like you if you will choose and have more children like you.”
“I’m not going to talk about the choice I will make because none of you will like it at first. You will have to learn to like it. You were changed as you needed to be. Do you not like it?”
“I haven’t been able to use the new gifts you gave me because I’ve been here with you and teaching your mother to be Theran,” he said, risking kissing her cheek. She was driving him insane now that she said she knew her choice, but refused to discuss it. He knew someone had to be happy with it and had no idea why she kept saying none of them would like it. He briefly thought she may have decided to choose none of them and would choose another partner, but she said she changed them for a reason.
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