by Lizzy Ford
Distressed by the reminder of her father’s cruelty, Tiana could not helping thinking of the vision again where she faced her father. How could she possibly confront him? Would it have to come to that? Or could they defuse the situation differently?
As soon as the fear crept into her, she recalled the deal she had made with Diving Eagle. He did not travel with cowards. She did not want to be a coward. She wanted to stop the horrifying suffering her family caused everyone. What form that would take, she did not know, but she hoped she could find it in her to face her father without fear.
Tiana paused behind the cabins and checked her senses. Diving Eagle’s presence was faint. She looked in the direction in which he was located. The forest between their parties was thick, and no path was visible.
“Want me to navigate?” Rocky asked, following her gaze.
“Yes.”
“Just let me know when we need to change directions,” he said. He began walking south of the direction she had indicated, and she spotted the trail ahead of him.
Tiana sneaked a glance at Marshall, who ignored her, and walked hastily behind Rocky. Marshall trailed her without speaking.
Rocky led them through the forest. Only twice did they run the risk of being spotted by a scout, and Tiana distracted them by using her magic to send the scout in the opposite direction her companions wished to go.
She was soon soaked by the drizzle rain. The trail was slippery with mud, and the gentle drone of rain left her feeling more tired than she already felt. Several hours later, dawn began to lighten the gray sky, and their visibility improved enough to avoid the puddles and deepest sections of mud in their paths.
They took a break soon after dawn. Tiana sat on a rock and checked the pup in the pouch. Its eyes opened when the light hit it. She smiled at the puppy. It was warm and dry, unlike the rest of her body.
She fed it from one of the bottles she had packed and then stood.
“How far?” Rocky asked.
Tiana tilted her head and then turned to face the north. “He is right over there,” she said. The Native was invisible to her eyes but not to her senses. “Twenty feet away. He just arrived.”
Rocky tensed, gaze pinned in the direction of Diving Eagle. “Why isn’t he coming closer?”
She smiled.
Rocky shook his head and grinned. He relaxed.
“I know I am important to him but I want him to know my friends are important to me,” she explained. “I do not want any of you hurt on my part.”
“Hanover’s do not possess one conscience among them,” Marshall said bitterly.
Tiana bowed her head without answering. She did not think anything she said would help him see she was nothing like her father.
“You’re learning,” Rocky said. “That’s good.”
“Until she realizes she doesn’t need any of us and murders us all,” Marshall replied.
“She’s not mad like her father,” Rocky replied. “Tiana’s a good girl. Come on, before Diving Eagle gets too angry.” He motioned them forward, where he could keep an eye on the distrustful Marshall.
Tiana went and Marshall trailed.
“Did you not ever wonder how every Hanover ends up mad?” Marshall asked her quietly. “My father said they did not start out that way at all, that your father was once a good man.”
She glanced at him. Coldness slithered through her. She had often wondered that herself, but about Arthur, before discovering she was her father’s rightful heir.
“Your deformities will poison you. Using them will poison you faster,” Marshall said.
Tiana’s heart was pounding at the confirmation of her dormant fear. How much power did she have to use before it consumed her? Was she close? Would she know if she were?
“Is that true, Marshall?” she whispered.
“Have you ever heard of a sane Hanover leader?”
“No.”
“Then I would say it is. You and Arthur were not born mad, but the power does not manifest until later.”
“Enough,” Rocky said firmly from behind him. “Tiana has one advantage the other Hanover leaders did not.”
Marshall snorted derisively.
“What?” Tiana asked.
“Has any Hanover leader ever been a woman?” Rocky asked with a smile.
“Never,” Marshall replied.
“Maybe only the men go mad.”
They fell into uneasy silence. Tiana was uncertain what to think of the possibility perhaps she would be spared the madness, but Arthur would not have been, had he been born with her deformities.
Diving Eagle melted from the forest, and she stopped in place. Whenever she saw him, she had the urge to fold in on herself but also to step closer to catch a whiff of his scent. The opposing instincts baffled her after the time apart to the point all she did was stare at him. He wore war paint across his features and was dressed for stealth rather than extended travel.
“Free my men, Hanover,” he said with his usual bluntness.
She released the invisible wall she had created.
“I had thought you would not use your abilities against us.” Diving Eagle’s look was penetrating.
“I did not want you to slaughter Chases Deer’s village on my behalf,” she said in a hushed tone. “They were going to refuse your demand, and you would have ambushed them and left no one alive. If I will not allow the skinwalker to do this, why would I let you?”
“I imagine that’s how it starts. Sounds innocent enough, even benevolent, until she burns entire families at the stake,” Marshall said.
I will never become like him, she vowed silently but could not help the uncertainty unfurling inside her.
After a moment that grew too long, and caused her face to flush with heat, Diving Eagle turned and gave a few hand signals to the second-in-command nearest him. A shout went up and was passed down the line of warriors, echoing through the forest. She was unable to count the amount of people she sensed but believed he had brought every able-bodied warrior in or near the hunting village, enough to crush Chases Deer’s smaller outpost.
Diving Eagle stepped aside and motioned for them to walk down the trail flanked by his tribe’s warriors. Tiana did. Diving Eagle relayed orders to two men and then trotted ahead of her, assuming the position of leading them back towards his village.
Relieved to have avoided the massacre she envisioned, Tiana checked her pup and shivered in her soaked cloak. Rocky had taken up his position behind her and Marshall behind him. Tiana was grateful for her assassin buffer and then just as quickly ashamed. Her father had destroyed Marshall’s family and probably stolen every last one of his birthrights and wealth. She did not deserve to be spared his anger or pain.
Diving Eagle was right. She had the power to stop all of this – and the weak heart of a coward.
Tiana bowed her head and focused on her feet, less interested in watching her step than trying to sink into herself and think. Her mind drifted to Arthur and Aveline in the city and the quiet promise she had made to Aveline to fetch her friend, if she were in danger.
The more she thought, the more she began to realize the truth of her situation. There was only one real threat to anyone for a thousand miles, and it was not her father or the skinwalker or anyone else.
It was she, if her cowardice won, and she did not stop the one person she feared the most.
Of all the thoughts running through her mind, she could not help wishing to talk to Arthur. Her older brother had always understood the world, and conveyed it to her in a way she understood, and with such confidence, she never doubted he knew exactly what to do at all times.
They reached the hunting village some time later. Tiana sensed the skinwalker’s agitated magic half a mile from the village and was not surprised to find him waiting for them, standing at the cages where her brother and Marshall had been imprisoned.
She sneaked a look over her shoulder, concerned about Marshall.
His eyes were on the ground,
his features drawn. He appeared despondent, lost, and her heart felt as if it broke anew to recall what her father had done to him. Blinking away tears, Tiana returned her attention to what lay ahead. The skinwalker did not have to tell her aloud or telepathically he was waiting only for her; she felt him beckon her with his energy.
“Please do not place my friend in a cage again,” she said quietly to the Native ahead of her.
Diving Eagle glanced back. “He will be treated as a guest, alongside the engineer.”
“Thank you.”
With a brusque nod, Diving Eagle left the column to speak to several other warriors in hushed tones.
She wiped her eyes and continued walking toward the skinwalker. Rocky trailed her silently, and she paused a safe distance from the form changing Native. At his feet was the basket of pups.
“What is that sound?” Marshall asked loudly.
Tiana turned to see him standing in the middle of space between the tree and forest. He twisted around once, features in deep consternation.
“I hear nothing,” Rocky said. “You feeling well?”
“Someone keeps calling my name.” Marshall leveled another glare on Tiana. “If you are toying with me, Hanover …” He let the threat die.
“I am not,” Tiana said. She glanced towards the skinwalker, who lifted the pup. “But perhaps one of them is.”
Marshall frowned. “Who?”
Black Wolf approached him and lifted the covering off the basket.
“Ah, the babes,” Marshall said, peering into it. His expression softened. “They’ve grown so much already.”
“Which one speaks to you?” the skinwalker prodded.
Marshall hesitated before selecting the brindle one. “The sound I hear. It is him?”
“They are growing old enough to begin speaking, to call to the souls they were sent to lead,” Black Wolf replied.
“I did not know your family suffered deformities,” Tiana murmured to Marshall.
At the sound of her voice, Marshall’s features shuttered once more. “You know nothing of my family, Hanover.” He held the pup to his chest, turned, and stalked away.
Black Wolf appeared amused, while Tiana’s heart tumbled a few feet lower than it had been. She sighed and waited as the skinwalker returned to the tree.
“You were right,” he said. “I do need your help.”
“I know,” she replied.
“I’m leaving today. I believe you will leave tomorrow. They don’t entirely trust us together,” he said, eyes on Diving Eagle.
“They should know we are not willing partners.”
“Maybe they know something they have not shared.”
She studied him. “What would that be?”
“The form we saw in your vision. The person in rags. It’s a skinwalker,” Black Wolf replied.
Her brow furrowed. “Why would there be a skinwalker in a vision of me fighting my father?”
“I don’t know, but I have the feeling those around us might have an idea.”
She followed his gaze, which rested on the chief’s tent.
“We are all his pawns,” Black Wolf said.
“He is not wrong to do what he must to protect his people,” she murmured. “My father has murdered more people than even you.”
“You will become like him,” said a faint voice.
Tiana’s heart skipped a beat, and she glanced at the vengeful spirit that had materialized beside the basket of pups. The child squatted beside the spirit guides.
“I will not,” Tiana said, voice trembling.
“Maybe you should,” Black Wolf suggested. “Maybe that is how you finish this.”
She shook her head. “No. I do not care what you or your vengeful spirit say.”
“If you do not die, you will be alone forever. None of these is for you,” the spirit said and looked from the basket to the skinwalker.
“Leave, spirit,” he growled without looking at it.
Tiana frowned. “Is that your fear? Being alone?” she asked.
“My spirit wolf was my companion for a hundred years.”
Though he expressed no emotion, Tiana understood the vengeful spirit’s purpose enough to pity the skinwalker. How was it possible for a man who murdered everyone he met, without regret, to miss his companion? The sense she would not ever understand anyone disturbed her. People were complex and took great pains to hide who they really were.
Understanding anyone was impossible.
“What you should be focused on is what your father might want with a skinwalker,” Black Wolf said. “The half-breed is in the city.”
Unease slid through her. She had enough reason to worry about Aveline without the added connection to her vision. “Do you go there to help her, too?” she asked.
“I’m hoping for a glorious death,” he replied with a wry smile. “There’s no better guarantee of dying than going to your city.”
“But some part of you wants to save the last remaining member of your tribe,” she insisted. “You helped her once. Will you let her die in the city now?”
He shrugged. “If helping her is in my power, I will. If my fate is to walk into the city and die on the spot, then I will do that, too.”
“Your life has climaxed in this place and time. I cannot imagine what you survived to reach this point. You do not strike me as someone who is content to let fate decide what happens.”
“I’m not letting fate decide what happens to me,” he replied. “I’m letting you decide what happens. I will do everything in my power to murder your father, but if I fail, you will determine what happens next, whether he survives or I do, and what happens to those you care about.”
She listened. No part of her wanted to humor the claims of a mass murderer with no conscience … except that he made sense. His wisdom, rarely dispensed, was nonetheless irrefutably sound. That a skinwalker could be the smartest person she had ever met, and her father had once been a good man, left her wanting to scream out of frustration from trying to relate to those around her.
The skinwalker looked past her and pushed himself away from the tree. He snatched the basket and reached in to pluck one of the pups from its depths.
“This belongs to Diving Eagle. He will not admit to possessing magic and refuses to claim his spirit wolf.” He handed the pup to her.
Tiana took it, and the tension slid from her at the feel of the soft, warm pup in her hands.
“Make sure he has his wolf before he comes to the city,” the skinwalker said. “I’m leaving now.” He walked past her.
“What about the other spirit pups? You are not taking them with you, are you?” she asked, turning to watch him go.
“We are all destined to go to the city, even the remaining spirit guide,” he replied without stopping or turning.
Tiana could not help thinking Diving Eagle’s father was not the only one carefully guarding his secrets. She glanced at the pup with a smile and placed it in the pouch beside its sister before looking around for the Native who would not claim his pup.
Diving Eagle was surrounded by several warriors, deep in discussion.
“We should rest,” Rocky advised. “I think we’ll be gone in the morning.”
“Back to the city,” she whispered.
“Back to the city,” he confirmed. “You wouldn’t happen to have a plan, would you?”
She shook her head.
“We’ll call it an adventure,” he said, smiling. “Come on. Let’s check on Jose and find some food.”
Tiana trailed him. She hoped they weren’t relying on her to know what to do, because she did not. Diving Eagle would. She rested a hand on the pouch containing the pups and allowed her eyes to find the Native again.
He was watching her from across the village center. He did not hold her gaze long but returned his attention to the others.
Tiana’s eyes lingered a beat longer as she considered the promise she had made to him – not to be a coward – and what might happen if
she were not strong enough to do what everyone wanted her to.
Diving Eagle was not likely to be forgiving, no matter what Rocky believed about the Native liking her. He had given her a choice, and she made her decision.
I hope things do not become as bad as I think they will, she thought as she followed Rocky towards the tent he and Jose had shared.
With any luck, the skinwalker would murder her father before she reached the city.
Seconds before she reached the tent, she heard her name and turned.
Diving Eagle approached, his hard features difficult to read and confident stride quick. She dropped her gaze, as she usually did around him, and noticed the bracelet around his wrist.
It was identical to the one his father had given her. Curious, she debated whether or not she should ask him about it and decided to wait to see if he were irritated with her about anything.
“I am leaving with Black Wolf,” he told her when he reached her. “You will travel tomorrow with the bulk of our army.”
She looked up at the mention of the army. “Do you not want me with you to ensure the skinwalker behaves?”
“He has accepted his fate,” Diving Eagle responded. “We will be scouting for any traps and assessing our ability to enter the city undetected.”
“You know if he accompanies you, it is for his purpose, not yours,” she murmured.
“As long as he goes.”
Familiar concern trickled through her. “What is your plan?” she asked. “Exactly.”
“I will do whatever I must to remove your father from power.”
“I know that. But what about the people of the city? The skinwalker cares for no one’s life but his.”
“What about them?”
She released a breath. “Thousands of innocent people live there.”
“If they stay out of our way, they will not be harmed by me or anyone with me.”
Tiana studied him. Her insides either felt like they were twisting or fluttering when he was around. Dared she believe him on his claim?
Had she met anyone yet she would trust with the lives of a hundred thousand people?
“Do you swear to honor these words?” she pressed. “You will harm only those who prevent you from reaching my father?”