The thought triggers the usual buzz of nerves and flash of trauma. Instead of seizing up, I try breathing into it. Through it. I survived it once. I could do it again. Perhaps my memory has even exaggerated its potency.
The effort only partially works.
When we can’t put it off any longer, Helos and I tell the others that we have to alter our forms for the duration of our stay. The entire group responds with stony silence. Resentment nips at my core as I watch the distrust return to their faces, as if the mere mention of shifting has slotted us back into the Prediction’s narrow box.
“Isn’t that risky?” Weslyn asks at last, looking between us.
Helos shakes his head. “We can hold it for a couple of days. Longer if we can sleep and make up for some of the time, but we’ll only be here the one night, right?” He doesn’t hesitate in his explanation, even when Weslyn’s brow creases. Not afraid to speak openly of his abilities. In contrast, I’m only listening, and still my back tenses reflexively.
“And you refuse to explain why.”
Dom goes so far as to fist his sword hilt. I almost wish he’d pull it, just to make something happen at last.
“Bad blood,” Helos says with a small shrug. I clasp my hands behind my back. “You’re just going to have to trust us.”
He omits the fact that Minister Mereth has seen our natural forms before. Seen, and expelled, with the promise of harsher consequences if we should return and jeopardize her people’s safety. I don’t know much about politics, but I’ve enough sense to suspect we can’t afford to lose her as an ally, should things end poorly with Eradain.
My brother adopts the form of one of his casual, pub-going friends, matching Weslyn’s weather-worn complexion, shortening his hair and darkening it to black, trading brown eyes for green, and shrinking until he’s bonier, more spindly. Since we’re doing this for Finley, I decide to mirror Evaline, one of his usual guards—shorter and stouter, widemouthed in a heart-shaped face, with thick brows and frizzy hair brushing the tops of my shoulders. A few other small adjustments and I’m unrecognizable from my natural form.
Carolette makes the sign with her hands to ward off bad fortune, a sight with which I’ve now grown thoroughly bored. I do feel a prickle of regret, though, when Ansley’s pained expression reminds me that I’ve just duplicated her former partner, who’s now happily engaged—to a different girl. So much for our tentative friendship.
Weslyn stares for a moment after I change, his expression difficult to interpret for once. Then he plows ahead without speaking, leading us down into the city.
SEVEN
After the relative solitude of our journey thus far, Niav is an explosion of sounds and sights and smells.
Residents tug on cattle leads and sweep the streets with wiry wooden brooms, their motions light and buoyant, voices unexpectedly cheery as they call out. The women wear blouses tucked into crinkled skirts that reach their ankles, and the men wear shirts that fall past their hips, most of the fabrics garishly patterned in vibrant shades like tulip yellow, sunset orange, fern green, and clay red. All together, the composite’s a jarring contrast to the grays, browns, and greens our party wears in the more muted palette characteristic of Telyan fashion.
Unlike Roanin’s twisty, cobbled roads, Niav’s streets of packed earth stretch wide across, even broader than the crowds, with the buildings to either side set a few paces apart. A layout no doubt meant to give the city an open feel, but I only feel on edge. Once we reach the bottom of the hill, the road swells alarmingly with vendor stands marketing patterned cloth and racks of sizzling beef. I find myself shrinking away from those hawking the city’s renowned metalwork—items of adornment, tools, and weaponry—my mind on the street fights and beatings back in Telyan, and the fact that Glenweil’s Prediction has produced the same words the last six years.
Weslyn glances back once or twice, like he can feel the tension emanating from my body. His guards are too preoccupied with cutting a path to care one way or another, but Helos smiles and squeezes my shoulder, and the connection relaxes me a little. The city’s clamor and closeness may overwhelm me more often than not, but my brother feeds off the energy like drawing water from a well, and I can’t help but feel safer in his shadow.
Descending into Niav, it was impossible not to notice the river coursing just beyond it. The one the humans swear by, the one we have to cross. From that distance, it looked almost peaceful, grayishwhite and gleaming innocently beneath the unbroken sun. No sign of the raging current, icy spray, or slick, muddy shore.
Though I had tried not to look at it, my eyes would not obey my brain.
Across that river lurks the vast wilderness, a realm of changeling wolves and nightwings. Caegars, marrow sheep, and, once, my home. A land impassive and unforgiving, one that sheltered my brother and me for years while slowly, simultaneously, guiding us to the brink of starvation and death. From my raised vantage point on the opposite shore, I could see the colossal peaks of the Decani Mountains, the slate-gray stone capped with snow even in late summer, set back deep in the Vale and stretching northwest all the way to the continent’s tip. The conifer woods blanketing the lower mountainsides spilled over the hills and around the hidden lakes crowded along the base of the range. Save for a few alpine meadows and a bare patch faintly visible from here, the tree coverage continued all the way south, where the region flattened out—and where a thick, gray veil of mist peeked out, creeping toward the river.
Helos and I always steered clear of the mist, but this time we’ll have to delve straight in. Somewhere beneath it lives the band of giants we’re seeking. As for whatever might be driving strands of magic across the river and into nonmagical bodies—I have no idea what disruption could be so forceful, or where we might find it, but we can’t just search the entire Vale for it. Not when Finley’s life hangs in the balance. We’ll simply have to procure the stardust first and go from there.
Chin up, Fin would say if he were here. Fear is just a story waiting to be told. Learn the story and remember every part of it so you can tell me.
You’ve always been the better storyteller between us, I argue in my head. You’re the one who gives them happy endings.
We pass a hulking bookshop with its merchandise spilling out onto the street, and Helos breaks away to check the metal stands. He catches up with us shortly after, waving a local leaflet from inside.
“Look at this,” he tells the group, handing it to me.
TROUBLE FROM THE NORTH
The headline screams from the top of the page in big, bold letters. Weslyn backtracks and grabs a corner of the parchment.
“They had the same Prediction again.” Helos’s mouth curls in distaste. “‘Two shifters death’ for the seventh year in a row. It seems the author felt that was important to mention alongside the rest. The article hints at a series of King Jol’s demands, though it doesn’t go into detail.” He pauses expectantly.
Weslyn’s fingers tighten around the leaflet as he scans its contents. “I’m guessing he has given Glenweil the same ultimatum as Telyan. Glenweil’s emissary suggested as much after Kelner stormed out.”
Trepidation claws its way up my throat. That would escalate the conflict beyond contention between two kingdoms. King Jol’s demands could result in a continent-wide war.
Of the eight weeks he gave King Gerar to accept or reject Eradain’s terms, one and a half have already passed.
“But what exactly—”
“Not here,” he interrupts, unbothered by the way Helos glowers. “Let’s move. I must speak with Minister Mereth.”
Seeking a quicker route to the palace, we round the corner onto an emptier street. A couple of officers pass us by, their straight-backed postures more rigid than the ones we saw in Grovewood. My hands close into fists. I’ve spent so many months fearing the rot of Eradain might bleed into Telyan, I’ve not thought enough about whether it has rankled here in Glenweil already.
Stupid. It’s your job to discov
er these things.
I track the patrol out of the corner of my eye, even though I know we have done nothing wrong. Old habits are hard to kill.
Beneath a bronze monument of some long-dead general on horseback, a man donned in an orange tunic is shepherding a line of sheep between the buildings. Streaks of silver and gold hair fall from the crown of his head, and his irises are a bright, metallic gray, like molten silver. He’s a whisperer—animal speaker—the first magical person I’ve seen since we arrived. He must be compelling the sheep with his mind.
Carolette huffs with impatience as we press against a wall, waiting for the herd to pass. Movement from above snares my attention, and my eyes dart to the flower boxes strewn beneath the windows.
My stomach drops.
The pink and purple blossoms are bending on their stems, angling down toward the sheep in the street like bees drawn to nectar.
One by one, the sounds of the city drop away.
Into an undertone, then a whisper.
And finally, into silence.
The rest of the group notices all at once, eyeing one another apprehensively. One of the sheep must have the Fallow Throes—which is new. In Telyan, I’ve identified only humans.
“It’s here,” Naethan whispers, disconcertingly loud in the muted quiet.
Dom watches Helos and me with open mistrust.
Though it’s not a huge surprise to find the Throes have spread beyond Telyan’s borders, it’s another thing entirely to see it for oneself. It may be my job to root out new cases, but probably, few in our group have experienced the sway and the silence in person.
Roanin. Grovewood. Niav. I cannot make sense of it, how an ordinary animal could harbor even a sliver of magic, considering magical beings are born, not made. It’s almost as if this sickness is following us wherever we go, except that makes no sense. Three hastily scribbled words taunt the back of my mind, but I dismiss the fear at once.
I won’t let myself believe the Prediction is about us. If it were, surely the messages would have stopped the year we arrived, when Queen Raenen broke her neck.
The herd moves on, and sound sweeps back in like the tide: jumbled conversation, a door snapping shut, the metallic jangling of the harnesses attached to horse-drawn carts. The whistle of wind tunneling through the alleys and the river’s distant roar.
Apprehension needles my spine. “Let’s keep—”
“OUT! Get out!” someone howls, the voice so close that gray feathers burst from my skin before I even draw breath.
Pain ignites along my collarbone, sudden and huge, as Dom slams into me with what feels like the force of a bear. My teeth rattle as he pushes me onto a side street half-swathed in shadows.
“Get off of me!” I say through gritted teeth, my heels scraping the ground as he forces me back. The feathers retreat beneath my skin as my fingers stretch into claws, long and curved and brutally sharp. Saved, I dig the points into his upper arms until I feel them pierce the skin.
Dom hisses and steps away, the manic glint in his eyes fringing on madness. With no warning, he looses his sword and swings it at me.
There’s no time to scream. Flinching backward, I only just manage to clear the blade, and now it’s a concentrated effort not to yield to my wildcat instinct. Every bit of it is screaming to defend, attack.
“What are you doing?” Weslyn demands, thundering down the alley toward us, his footsteps practically turning the packed earth to ash. “What are you planning to do, kill her?”
Just behind him, I see Naethan grab Helos’s arm when my brother lurches toward me.
“She could have given us away.” Dom snorts, spits, and swipes a hand beneath his nose, still pointing the sword at me. He’s mad if he thinks I’m going to die by his blade. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do it anymore. She puts you at risk. They both do.”
“Dom, lower your sword,” Weslyn says in a quiet voice, as I curl my clawed hands in warning. Just a moment, one single breath, is all it would take to give into the spreading numbness and shift to lynx. “Now.”
Dom wavers. It’s plain he wants to defy Weslyn, but he seems reluctant to disobey a royal command, no matter how quietly it’s uttered. He doesn’t put away his blade, though.
Losing patience, I look him straight in the eye and say, “You will lose.”
“We have a job to do, Dom,” Weslyn continues, as if I haven’t spoken. Back with the rest of the guards, Helos has stopped struggling, as if afraid any sudden moves might shatter Dom’s remaining control.
“But it’s not right, sir, working with them.” Dom’s features contort. “I took an oath to protect your family. If you cross that river with them, you will not return, I promise you that. It’ll be Her Majesty’s fall all over again. Look at her hands. She’s a monster.”
I flinch, then hate myself for it. The claws disappear.
Weslyn’s face has paled, but the severe set of his mouth doesn’t change as he watches me, unblinking, before focusing back on the guard. “You will lower your sword, Dom. Now.”
At last, Dom’s compulsion to obey wins out. He drops his sword and spits in my direction. “The river take you,” he mutters, murder in his eyes. Then he slams the blade back into its sheath and swivels back to Weslyn. “Apologies, sir. I meant no offense.”
“Wait with the others.”
After a long moment, Dom marches away.
In the silence that follows, Weslyn studies me with a furrowed brow. I can’t tell if he’s expecting me to thank him for stepping in, or weighing the senior guard’s warning in his mind. Sudden panic flares—that he might listen to Dom, might send me away after all. Instead, he asks a single question: “Why would you risk it?”
Relief mingles with dismay. I don’t know how to explain that it isn’t a choice, that this is just how the Vale raised me. How, while he was engaging with high-end tutors in matters of diplomacy, history, and geography, the wilderness was grinding different lessons into my bones—the amount of time fresh kills remain edible, the tells in animals’ postures that signify peace or aggression, the methods for maneuvering through ivy tunnels and muddy banks, the importance of responding immediately to the first sign of trouble.
“That voice,” I say quietly, realizing it must have come from a window above us. “I thought that she was shouting at us. It startled me.”
“Do not let it happen again.”
The force of his judgment is burning through me, searing my skin. Fight back, that rapidly fading part of me urges, implores. It’s not your fault. Fight back.
But the spark won’t catch, and my flicker of fire vanishes in a wisp of smoke, leaving me hollow and cold. A memory whispers victoriously in my ear. Another pair of eyes appraising my worth, judging me not enough. Seeing the darkness inside me and turning away while she still could. Close behind, another memory stirs—a head sinking beneath the torrential current, gasping for air.
Monster.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, but he’s already turned away.
* * *
Nobody speaks as we climb the hill that leads to the minister’s palace. There are no businesses lining this road, only elaborate homes whose doors have been thrown open to admit the river breeze. People stare openly, though not antagonistically, as we pass.
Still stung by Dom’s remarks, I stick to the rear and concentrate all my energy on keeping my emotions in check. Do not be a distraction. To our left, the river glitters in the sunlight like diamonds under flame, and I quickly divert my attention to the ground in front of us.
When we crest the hill, the road stretches straight toward Willahelm Palace, which is set back a good distance on the wind-tussled plateau. The iron gate cutting across our path is tall and wiry, with decorative spindles crowning slender rods twice my height. Two guards stand behind the bars, marking our approach with rather indifferent expressions. They’re dressed in the same fitted, green-accented brown uniforms, hands resting casually on the hilts of the long swords belted at their sides
.
Speaking in an undertone, Weslyn tells the guards who he is and requests an audience with the minister. “My travel companions,” he supplies, when the guards’ attention switches to Helos and me. I curl a lock of hair behind my ear and clutch the hem of my shirt, taking comfort in my borrowed form and Helos’s quiet surety.
Weslyn clears his throat, and the guards snap to attention. Seeming alarmed by the fact that they’ve held up a royal, they throw open the gate, eyes wide.
“If you please, Your Royal Highness.” The shorter one gestures for him to step through and leads the seven of us toward the entrance. I study her back in confusion.
For an instant, she had appeared … blurry around the edges, like a half-finished painting with the figure not quite filled in. The sight tugs at something in my brain, some memory that sets my heart scampering through my chest, but in the next moment, she’s already walking away and looking completely ordinary. It must have been a trick of the sun.
While Castle Roanin stands tall and elegant, limbs winding and wild as the forest surrounding it, the heart of Glenweil’s republic is heavy and grounded, its palace walls stacked with enormous stones easily the length of a leg each. The estate borders on barren, trim grass dotted with only a few young trees and low-cut hedges, all clearly planted rather than naturally grown.
Wind buffets our backs as the road gives way to a broader, paved courtyard, and a chill passes through me despite the season. Ahead, Glenweil’s standards snap a violent dance on matching posts just outside the double doors—deep green cloth boasting two black arrows pointed in opposite directions, with a gold-stitched rendering of the river winding between them. When Helos and I were here before, we never made it past those flag posts. Minister Mereth appraised us just beyond them.
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