by Amy Harmon
Birds of Jeru
Where’s your king?
If he is here, then you must leave.
Like a flock of starlings, the birds began to dive and roll, a perfectly orchestrated finale, out the cathedral doors, until once again, the house of worship was an empty shell. Feathers fluttered through the air and clung to the altar before continuing to the floor.
“What in the world was that?” I heard someone say, and the prior muttered something about evil and the powers of darkness, as he lit another candle and waved incense through the air.
“This has gone on long enough,” Bin Dar exclaimed, standing. Lord Gaul stood with him, and slowly the other lords rose as well.
“I agree.” The king’s voice rang out from the back of the church. “Let’s proceed, shall we?”
A collective cry went up, Tiras’s name on every tongue. The lords grew white and quiet, their eyes scurrying, their jaws slack, and I braced myself against the temptation to turn and verify the king’s presence. But I knelt with my back stiff, eyes forward, waiting for him to come to the altar as Jeruvian custom demanded.
I counted his steps as they echoed through the hushed cathedral, slow and steady, my heart beating double time to their rhythm. Then Tiras was kneeling across from me, his eyes burning, his palms upon the altar, his posture submissive but his expression that of the conqueror.
I wanted to demand answers, to berate him, to send sharp words between us, but mostly, I was so overwhelmed to see him that I stayed still, my eyes clinging to his.
“You are still here, Lady Lark,” Tiras murmured, his lips hardly moving as his eyes gleamed.
And you are still an ass, I answered, finding my voice, my relief making me weak, even as I fought to remain strong just a bit longer.
“Prior, please proceed,” the king commanded.
“Where have you been, Majesty?” the prior stuttered, and the king’s jaw clenched at his audacity.
“There are those who seek my life, Prior. Those who don’t want me to take a queen or continue my rule over Jeru. Are you one of them?”
“No Majesty. Of course not. Thank the Gods you are here,” he mumbled, performing the sign of the Creator in the air, as if seeking divine assistance. His gaze swung between the apoplectic lords and the kneeling king who waited impatiently for him to begin the ceremony. With another sign of the Creator, he squared his shoulders and began. He did not look at the lords again, nor did I.
My head was an ocean of words, my chest a storm of sensation, and I heard little of what transpired in the following moments. The prior spoke a blessing on the king, touching his eyelids, his temples, the lifelines on his hands, his wrists, and then performed the same blessing on me. I placed my hands over Tiras’s when directed, the brush and slide of my palms against his making my bare toes curl and my breath grow shorter.
When the Prior asked me if I would give my life to Tiras of Degn, if I would honor him by taking his name as mine and taking his body into mine, I could only nod, though I gave the words to Tiras.
I will.
When the prior asked Tiras if he would give me his name and give me his seed, he too nodded, but his voice rang through the cathedral, loud and bold, and my toes curled again.
“I will.”
The prior laid the Book of Jeru upon the altar, opening the pages to the list of kings, and handed me the quill.
I found the line next to Tiras’s, an empty space I was expected to fill, and with a firm hand, signed my name. I heard my father sputter and protest.
“She cannot read or write,” he argued. “She cannot even give her consent.”
“She can,” Tiras said, his gaze rising from my name and falling on my father. “And she has.”
“What have you done?” my father moaned, echoing the question I had posed to him, even as the prior pricked our fingers and pressed our bleeding hands together, a symbol of the merging of lives and bloodlines.
“So it is written, so it is done on the first day of Priapus, the month of fertility. May the God of Words and Creation seal this union for the good of Jeru,” the prior said, repeating the words of the crier when he read the bans. The prior placed a crown of Jeruvian ore on my head, a crown so heavy I could barely lift my chin.
“You may rise, Lark of Degn,” the prior prodded.
I rose on legs I couldn’t feel, willing the clothes on my body and the air around me to keep me upright.
“King of Jeru, behold your queen,” the prior commanded, his voice rising with his relief that the ceremony was completed. For what felt like a small eternity, Tiras gazed up at me from where he still knelt beside the altar. Then he rose, his eyes still on mine, and took my hand. Turning, he presented me to the people assembled and to the lords who looked at me with green eyes and yellow hearts, their bitter thoughts tinging the air around them.
“People of Jeru, Council of Lords, behold your queen,” the king proclaimed. The congregation dropped collectively to their knees, their eyes remaining lifted, as their king had instructed.
And it was done.
My head hurt and my back burned from holding my spine straight and my crown from falling, and when the wedding feast ended and the women retired, I walked up the winding staircase, a maid trailing behind me, my train gathered in her arms. It was not Pia this time, but a girl I didn’t know, a girl with gentle fingers and a shy smile who carefully removed my crown and the jewels from my hair and brushed it with smooth strokes as my neck bowed in weary relief.
She washed my body, though I longed for my bed. I fell asleep with my head against the edge of the iron tub, but awoke as she urged me to step out, drying my body as I swayed and tottered like Boojohni when he’d had too much to drink. She rubbed oil into my skin, the scent not unlike the oil from the earlier anointing, reminding me of the old woman’s counsel outside the cathedral.
Wait for him.
The words invoked an ache deep in my belly, an ache that felt like pleasure but lingered like pain. I wanted to wait for Tiras. I wanted to see if he would come to me again, if he would come without my beckoning, on two legs instead of red-tipped wings. He’d kept me close through the festivities, his hand on my elbow, his length at my side. I’d had so many questions and fears, but no chance to ask them.
When I’d commented on his clothing—the same clothes Kjell had been wearing when he escorted me to the castle gates—Tiras confessed. “Kjell is naked in the vestry. Better him than me. I sent a discreet member of the guard back with boots and a cloak.”
I laughed silently, but Tiras’s eyes were grave, even as his mouth twisted with mine.
“There was a trap set for me, Lark,” he supplied quietly. “A trap you managed to spring. And there will be more.” It was then that our careful conversation had been interrupted by merriment and a call for toasts, and I could only worry and wonder until I was too tired to do either and left his side for the relative safety of the royal chamber.
The maid helped me don a white nightgown of whisper-thin silk that felt like a caress, and I climbed on the bed, so weary I could only smile at her gratefully, relieved that the day had come to a close. She stoked the fire, though the room was plenty warm, and I didn’t bother to crawl beneath the covers. Exhaustion made waiting impossible, and I fell asleep almost immediately.
I slept for a time, but came awake instantly when I heard a whisper and a soft touch against my face.
“What do you want, little Lark?”
I opened my eyes to find the king’s face in the darkness where he loomed above me. The fire was smoldering but the moon was high, bathing the room in white and quiet. It took me a moment to disentangle myself from sleep, to make sense of his question and his presence beside me.
I was his queen. He was my king. And he was here with me in the dark. I was strangely at peace and unafraid of what this moment meant, and I stretched my limbs carefully, not wanting to pull away from his hand on my cheek. I liked when he touched me, and I didn’t think he knew how much
. I hoped he didn’t.
What do I want? What do you want, husband?
He smiled as if the title pleased him, though the smile fled almost immediately. His countenance was shuttered and his voice bleak as he answered without hesitation.
“I want to know that my kingdom is safe,” he whispered. “Our kingdom, Lark. That is why I chose you. You will protect her.”
He was so morose, and I put my hand over his to comfort him, even as I inwardly retreated. I was chosen to protect. A weapon.
But you will keep her safe, I soothed, believing he would. His shoulders drooped, but he still held my gaze.
“A bird cannot wield a sword.”
His words were so filled with pain that I had no response. My heart began to pound beneath the thin fabric at my breast, sympathetic and sad and suddenly frightened. As if he felt the change in me, Tiras pulled his hand from my face and slid it down my neck, across the pulse that fluttered there, and rested it, palm flattened, on my thundering heart.
“A bird cannot wield a sword, my queen. And before long, I will be nothing but a bird.”
I shook my head, resisting his dour prediction, and his hand curled in my gown, desperate, as if he needed something to hold onto.
“But not tonight . . . tonight I am still a man. Still a king. And you are my wife.”
His eyes grew fierce, and the hand at my breast flexed and flattened once more, as if he’d let go of his despair and traded it for desire.
I refused to look away from him, though my body said flee, and my heart begged for tenderness. I was not beautiful. I was not vivid or bold. I was small and scared, a wisp. Exactly as Kjell had once described—a tendril of pale smoke, hardly there at all. But the way Tiras was looking at me made me believe I was vibrant and brave. He made me feel powerful.
He loosened the tie between my breasts. I didn’t flinch or pull away, but I didn’t assist him in my disrobing. He opened my nightgown, unwrapping my body, and I felt the air whisper against my skin. Moonlight created a narrowing path from the window to the bed where I lay, and it continued up over the covers, across my newly-bared skin and up the wall, creating an outline of the king looming over me.
“Your skin is like ice,” he observed.
I don’t feel cold, I responded. My inner voice was calm. Level. I wanted to punch the air in triumph at my control. He would not know how much I wanted him, how much I longed for him. I would give him anything else. But not that.
He shook his head, arguing, and his hair swept his shoulders.
“No, it isn’t cold like ice. It is translucent. You are silver from head to toe.” He ran his flattened palm from my shoulders to my hips. I definitely wasn’t cold. I was liquid heat. I was terror and curiosity and denial disguised as indifference.
“You glow, Lark.” His hand climbed back up again and swept over my unbound hair. I swallowed, suddenly close to tears.
Then why does no one see me?
“I see you,” he said.
And he did. I was at his mercy, naked and vulnerable. His eyes lingered over each trembling inch, taking me in. Seeing me.
I fought the urge to cover myself, to turn away, even to avert my eyes. He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it to the side. His breeches followed, and he covered me, skin on skin, his forearms bracketing my head, his lips hovering over mine. I sent up a grateful prayer to my mother and the God of Words that my lips could not whimper or beg. Because I would have done both.
“Let me in, Lark,” he whispered.
I knew he didn’t just refer to my body or my mouth, though the heavy press of his flesh urged surrender, and the wet heat of his lips pled submission. He wanted me to give him my words.
Body. Not soul, I told him, rebellious to the end.
“Both.” His kiss seared his demand on my tongue, and for a moment I forgot to resist as our mouths moved and our bodies conversed, exchanging secrets without sound. My hands pulled him closer, and his fingers tangled in the length of my hair, wrapping the long strands around our bodies as he rolled to his back, taking my weight with him.
“Let me in,” he demanded, and I could feel his yearning rise again, the yearning that had an origin separate from us. From me. From him.
Tiras.Tiras.Tiras.
It was the only thought in my head, and it seemed to satisfy him, though I felt sorrow rise from his skin, like a cloud had drifted across the moon.
When I awoke the next morning he was gone, and my body felt like a wanton stranger. I was sore in places I had never been sore and happy in ways I had never known before. The act of consummation, both strange and wonderful, had literally consumed me, and I was no longer myself.
The pain had made the pleasure all the greater, searing the moment into being, imprinting Tiras into my heart and onto my body. I had felt his desire to claim, even as he kissed me softly and swallowed my hurt, soothing it with gentle hands and tender words. The words had risen from his skin even when he wasn’t speaking, and I had called them to me, collecting them like falling leaves, pressing them between the heavy pages of my memory so I could keep them.
My maids brought water for a bath, but after they filled the tub I turned them away, not wanting curious eyes on my skin. I felt different, as if I’d shed my old scales and was reborn, and I needed to be alone with this new me.
I braided my hair and pinned it around my head to keep it out of the water, and slid into the welcoming heat, closing my eyes and drifting off into the solitude behind my lids.
I didn’t hear the door or the soft tread of his boots over the thick rugs, but I felt him when he drew near, and I opened my eyes to see Tiras watching me, his brows drawn in a perplexed V. He crouched down at the edge of the huge iron tub so our eyes were almost level, and he reached out and pressed a thumb to the bow of my top lip.
“You pout even when you smile,” he commented softly. “It’s this full top lip.”
Does it not please you?
His own lips twitched, and his hand fell away, drifting across the point of my chin, down the long column of my neck to rest on the water lapping at my breasts.
“It pleases me,” he whispered. “You please me. And you surprise me.”
You are a fine teacher. I meant to mock, to protect my vulnerable heart with nettles and barbs, but it was the truth, and it rang as such. I swallowed and looked away, but his voice drew me back in.
“When I changed from bird to man yesterday morning, someone was waiting for me.”
I stared at him, waiting. When he seemed lost in thought, I urged him on.
Who?
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, as if clearing it.
“As I shift I am unaware. I can’t hear or see. It’s as if I’m not present at all, caught somewhere between the two sides of myself. I flew to the balcony wall and through the doors and began to change. That is all I remember. When I woke, I was naked in the dungeon, my hands and feet in chains.”
I could only gaze at him in horror, my mind tripping over who and how and most importantly, why?
“Someone knows about my gift. Someone knows when I am vulnerable. And someone knew where to wait for me,” Tiras added gravely.
The ramifications of such knowledge rendered us both silent, our eyes sightless, our thoughts heavy. Then I began to shake my head, not able to make sense of it.
If my father knew you could change, he would have exposed you immediately. He wouldn’t play these games.
“I know. The lords may have known something, but if they knew I was Gifted, they would not be wasting their time interfering with a wedding.”
A treacherous thought wormed its way to my consciousness, and I shared it without considering how it might be interpreted.
Maybe Kjell was trying to protect you . . . from me. What better way than to make sure I can never be queen?
Tiras gazed at me in stunned horror then closed his eyes as if pained by the thought.
“Do you believe it was Kjell?” he asked, and his vulnera
bility suddenly matched my own. I thought about his brother, his only friend. Kjell didn’t like me. But he loved Tiras. I had no doubt about that.
If it was Kjell . . . his motives are pure.
Swift relief rippled across the king’s face before his jaw hardened and his eyes tightened.
“If it was Kjell, he will answer for it.”
I hope it was him.
“Why?” Tiras gasped.
Because he would never harm you. If it was someone else . . .
“Our troubles are just beginning,” he finished my thought.
I nodded.
“There is a small grate high on the wall that leads to the courtyard, and through the slats I could hear the trumpets signal the procession, but no one could hear me when I called out, and no one ever came all the hours I was locked away.”
How did you escape?
“Every cage and every tree, set the birds of Jeru free,” he quoted softly.
You heard me?
“At dusk, the grate suddenly sprang open, and I could hear the birds shrieking outside. So many birds. I changed into an eagle, and the manacles fell from my talons and my wings, far too large for a bird. I flew out through the grate and became one of a thousand birds descending on the cathedral, heeding your call. I thought I was too late.”
I thought you couldn’t change. So I decided to wait . . . until you could.
“Stubborn woman,” he murmured, but the tightness in his features had eased, and his eyes were warm on my face.
I didn’t know what else to do. The lords were angry. The people . . . mocked me, and I wished to be invisible, the way I usually am.