The Shift of the Tide

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “I apologize for that, Your Highness.”

  Horse forms make for excellent 360 degree vision, with the exception of small slices dead ahead and exactly behind, so I easily observed the chagrined flush beneath the tanned skin of Marskal’s face. Had I been able to, I would have chuckled. As it was, I blew out a sound between my thick pony lips, and he slid me one of those narrow glares.

  “Well, I was a soft librarian commoner and an unwelcome burden back then. I knew that very well,” Dafne said. “My point is that I’m no more a queen now than I was then, just because I married well. I put up with the titles in the palace because I have to, but when it’s just us, you’d be doing me a favor by—oh, Zynda. Can you slow a bit? We’re not in a hurry and you’re making poor Marskal jog uphill.”

  He looked fine to me, but I slowed to an exaggerated stroll.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said, as much to me as her. “I’m perfectly able to sustain that pace, even go faster.”

  I quirked my ears forward. A challenge? My pony instincts loved the sound of that. I quickened again.

  “Oh, Goddesses, no,” Dafne groaned. “Curse my pride, I’ll admit it. Zynda, you’re making me queasy. If you don’t want me to barf on your pretty white hide, go slowly.”

  “Perhaps you would be better walking,” Marskal said, all solicitous gallantry.

  “You wouldn’t tell on me?” Dafne sounded hopeful.

  “Not at all. I have five sisters, all with at least two kids—one with seven—so I’m familiar with the tolls of pregnancy. Walking is almost always better for them than riding, no matter what overprotective husbands think.”

  Dafne’s laugh was full of relief. I stopped and Marskal helped her down. “I can carry the satchels, Lady Zynda,” he said, once again addressing me directly, despite my animal form. “If you’d prefer to shift back and join the conversation.”

  I wagged my head in a no, and started walking again.

  “It’s better for her if she doesn’t shift too often,” Dafne told him.

  Had I been human, I would have shot her a warning glare. The librarian paid attention to detail, and was ever curious about my abilities. Generally, however, she remembered to be discreet.

  “Oh?” Marskal laid a hand on my neck, combing his fingers through my mane as they walked on either side of me. It felt nice, making me want more just when I couldn’t have more. “You met Zynda in Annfwn, yes?”

  He knew that. He’d been in charge of the base camp when Ursula, Harlan, and Dafne had climbed Odfell’s Pass and crossed the barrier. He had to be digging for information on me. If I weren’t meeting a dragon shifter intent on putting me in my place, I’d shift back to forestall further confidences.

  “Yes,” Dafne agreed. “So, do your sisters live near Ordnung, that you’ve observed so much of their pregnancies?”

  I lipped at her skirt in a thank you and she stroked my nose. Yes, I should have trusted her discretion.

  “I grew up in the township outside the walls,” Marskal told her. “With the exception of one brother who moved to Carienne with his wife, my family is all still there.”

  “Has your family been in the region a long time?” Dafne asked it casually, but I had to work to keep my ears from pricking.

  “Since it was Castle Columba, yes,” he confirmed quietly. “We had farmland in the region and swore loyalty to your family.”

  “Ah,” she breathed, though her stride didn’t falter. “I’m surprised your family survived—though glad they did.”

  “My grandfather was a renowned coward,” Marskal said wryly. “He handed over everything to the Duranor armies and fled. When we returned initially, it was to the township, because Uorsin had taken over the old manor house and lands.”

  He sounded diffident, but his fingers tugged at my mane in hidden distress. I didn’t know the details of the history, but Dafne had been a daughter of the ruling family in Castle Columba, which fell early on to Uorsin’s pillaging. Not strange, I supposed, that she and Marskal should share this old commonality. Odd to me was that they hadn’t known it until now. But the mossbacks didn’t meticulously trace and memorize family connections the way the Tala did. They didn’t have to, as they didn’t have our problems with inbreeding and the malformed babies it produced.

  Dafne had been orphaned as a child, and Marskal had to be somewhat older than she, so he’d remember those days. They didn’t speak of it further, dropping the painful topic by mutual accord and instead discussing the lush flora of the island, Dafne giving us the Nahanaun names of the flowers and trees we passed, when she knew them, picking specimens to tuck in her satchels on my back when she didn’t.

  Before long, even at Dafne’s slower pace, we reached one of the lower meadows—which was still well above most everything else on the island. With Kiraka’s emergence, the volcano itself had quieted, though it was far from cool and dormant. It didn’t rumble, belching smoke, flame and ash, as it had on our first trip up. Where there had been bare rock, coals and layers of ash before, green foliage flourished. Lush ferns arched with lacy grace and a kind of blooming moss formed a cushion so deep and soft that my hooves made no sound.

  I hadn’t been there since then, when I’d watched the legendary dragon take life before my very eyes, knowing in my heart that Final Form was within my reach at last.

  Dafne paused, looking around—as if the dragon could possibly be missed. “Usually she’s here when I arrive.”

  I smelled Kiraka before Marskal called the warning, pointing at the sky. Ponies apparently also retained an atavistic terror of dragons, and I had to clamp down on the instinct to flee. Having learned my lesson there the night before, I didn’t try to fight the animal. Instead I reverted to human form, shouldering the satchel and basket, watching Kiraka’s wheeling flight.

  She glittered bright gold, like a second sun in the sky, only far eclipsing it in size—and growing larger as she descended at high speed, then braked with a booming snap of her great wings. The first time I saw her perform that maneuver, my heart had leapt in instinctual horror. Not afraid of her, but in terrible, sympathetic fear that she’d shatter her wings. They must be stronger and more resilient than any I’d ever had, because they held, the dreadful dive converting into a soundless glide. Light as a petal drifting on water, she landed on the far side of the meadow, wrapping her tail around herself and settling her wings as fastidiously as a cat arranging itself for a nap in the sun.

  “Well? I hope you don’t plan to dawdle all day. Unless you’re afraid. Come here, little pony.”

  I started forward, definitely afraid, but obeying automatically, when Dafne told Marskal, “She’s reminding us that you have to stay here.”

  Interesting—had the dragon been able to speak to both of us at once, saying different things?

  “I am capable of a great deal. But we’re here to discover what you can do. Hopefully in this millennium. I may be immortal but my time is yet valuable. To me, at least.”

  “I can be closer and still be respectful,” Marskal argued. Something tugged my hair, and I glanced back, absently pulling at whatever had snarled it—only to find he had ahold of it. Had he kept his fingers tangled in my mane when I shifted and thus had them still in my hair? Rarely was anyone ever so close to be able do that when I shifted. I would have said it wasn’t possible—a mane might be somewhat equivalent to the hair of my human form, but these things weren’t exact. It wasn’t as if I converted my hair to a mane and back again. The magic didn’t work that way. I frowned, both for the puzzle and the man’s presumption. I didn’t care to be tethered.

  Marskal was giving me an intent stare full of some sort of wordless communication.

  “I have to go,” I told him, trying to be gentle. Moranu knew, if Kiraka’s immense and world-shattering presence threw me off, it must be that much worse for a mossback.

  “It’s dangerous,” he said with quiet force, still saying something else beneath the words.

  I shrugged, giving
him an easy smile I didn’t feel, and extracted my hair from his grip. He seemed surprised that he’d been holding it. “The dragon is dangerous whether you stand here or close enough to be reduced to ash by one sneeze.”

  “I can’t protect you from here.”

  “You can’t protect me there either.”

  “That doesn’t reassure me.” He spaced out the words, still keeping his usual quiet tone, but a frustrated snarl coiled beneath.

  “If you hadn’t insisted on coming along, you wouldn’t be so concerned.”

  “Completely untrue.”

  “Kiraka has never harmed me in any way,” Dafne inserted, and we both glanced at her, having somewhat forgotten in our private battle that she stood right there. She gave me a strange look, then laid a hand on Marskal’s arm. “You’re here to make sure no one else disturbs or harms us, and we greatly appreciate your service.”

  “I do swear I’m aging during this endless delay.”

  “The dragon summons us,” I informed Marskal, who still looked as if he might lunge out of his skin. Relenting, I touched him, a pat of reassurance, the contact with his muscled shoulder making my fingers itch to feel more. I snatched my hand away. Focus. “Thank you for guarding our backs.”

  His lip curled, his eyes dark with frustration and some longing that echoed the one that stirred in me. For a moment I searched for other words that might soothe his ire, but came up empty. Instead I looked to Dafne and she and I turned to walk across the meadow together. Kiraka watched us, her chin resting on one great taloned foot, eyes glowing. I risked a glance back, to be sure that Marskal had stayed put. He inclined his head, a wry twist to his mouth.

  “What was that all about?” Dafne asked in a voice that wouldn’t carry.

  “He’s a stubborn mossback soldier with delusions of grandeur,” I replied. “I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.”

  “Can’t you?”

  Well, I could—but he’d picked the wrong woman to be interested in, and his timing was terrible. Kiraka loomed larger, the very air growing hotter and drier as we approached. “Let me rephrase. I have no interest in trying to puzzle out what his thoughts might be.”

  “I’ve heard you call non-shapeshifters ‘mossbacks’ before, but never as an insult,” she remarked, as if we were out for a stroll.

  “I’ll be hard-pressed to keep him from getting his fool self killed.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “Is it?” I couldn’t worry about the man’s well-being. I had my task to think about, what Kiraka would demand of me and whether I’d be able to do it.

  “I can honestly say I’ve never heard you be so dismissive of anyone before,” Dafne replied.

  “You are accustomed to the ways of mossback men—and they are accustomed to being the protectors, physically stronger and larger than the women in general. Among Tala, among shapeshifters in particular, we have no such distinctions. Your mossback men see themselves as heroes, forever seeking a helpless damsel to rescue. I have no patience for it.”

  “I think that’s a dramatically unfair assessment of Marskal.”

  “Regardless, the man gets under my skin.” That human skin twitched with irritation. “He asked me why I left Annfwn and all but accused me of harboring an agenda of my own.”

  “Are you?”

  I took my eyes off the dragon for a moment to find Dafne scrutinizing me with her keen gaze. For all that she was no warrior, her intelligence made her formidable in her own way. I thrust aside the guilt. I wanted to help my friends, but my mission took priority.

  “That’s up to Kiraka,” I replied, and turned my attention back to the dragon.

  ~ 5 ~

  The dragon’s ruby eyes shone—not reflecting or refracting, but with their own light which shouldn’t be possible—mesmerizing me. The dragon’s nostrils, tall enough for me to walk into standing, flared as she drew in my scent. Was that her primary sense?

  “All senses are acute in this form,” she replied. “It’s one of the many reasons it’s the ultimate form.”

  That could be hyperbole. Or calculated propaganda on her part. I had a snake form and the taste/scent sense was excellent, along with fine-tuned proprioception for vibrations and infrared heat sensations. But sight and auditory other than body-felt long wave sounds fell short. Not to mention the loss of sensitive skin with all those scales. A dragon should be like a snake with legs and wings. Four legs and two wings, though, which was two more appendages than any other creature besides the arthropods. And the wings looked like a bat’s, which was mixing mammal with reptile, where avian would have been a closer relative and more likely. As likely as such things went, anyway.

  But then, I’d been a mermaid, and I knew full well the “maid” half of that combination had little to do with being human. Or the other half with true fishes.

  Dafne stepped far closer to Kiraka than I would have, seeming completely unconcerned, greeting the dragon with affection and taking the satchel and basket from me. She unpacked them, shaking out a blanket on the brightly flowering moss, relating greetings from King Nakoa and speaking of how the babe progressed.

  I felt as if Dafne and I occupied two different worlds. I’d used that metaphor with Ursula once, to explain shapeshifting. Magic allows many things to exist at once, I’d said. Some Tala groups believe shapeshifting isn’t truly changing forms at all, but rather exchanging a form we exist in, in this world, for one in another. Those who subscribe to this theory suggest that, for example, in a parallel realm I am always the pony. When I shift here, I trade places and my human body goes there. I don’t subscribe to that belief system, because that’s not how shifting has ever felt to me.

  And yet…

  And yet, this close to Kiraka, I could almost sense a kind of… echo. A sensation that she simultaneously existed in several worlds at once. And that the dragon Dafne knew and trusted, who called her daughter and taught her to read ancient N’andanan, wasn’t quite the same as the shapeshifter whose immense presence studied me, weighing me on an insubstantial level according to her own arcane measure. I felt as if I stood under the merciless scrutiny of the goddess Moranu, Herself.

  And that I came up far short of expectation.

  “It’s true that you’re much too young,” Kiraka said, though she sounded less caustic than she had the night before.

  “So you mentioned, Lady Dragon,” I replied, shaping my address carefully.

  “No more with the ‘withered bitch’?”

  “I apologize, Lady Dragon. I was overwrought and failed to show you the proper honor and respect.”

  “Amazing how you ornery younglings remember such things when you are within reach of my flame.” She snorted, twin clouds of smoke billowing out of her nose, hot enough to make my breath sear my lungs when I took a breath.

  Impossibly, Dafne seemed not to notice, seated on the blanket with her quill and paper out, apparently also conducting a conversation with the dragon. I wondered what Marskal saw from his vantage, but dared not look.

  “They see what I want them to. My Daughter loves you and need not be distressed by this meeting between us. This is the realm of shapeshifters, not hers.”

  “Why have her involved at all?”

  “She is my… anchor. The one who reminds me of my humanity still, just as her mate cools my fire. Be glad of her presence. Without it, I might forget myself and kill you in a fit of draconic irritation.”

  Forgetting her humanity and losing herself to dragon instinct. It’s what we all feared from being trapped in one of our forms. I’d thought, however, that the ancients settled on the dragon form for immortality in part because it retained the human mind best of any.

  “Yes and no. All is relative. Stay as a fish for more than a day and that will extinguish cerebral comprehension. Stay as a dragon for tens of centuries and the same might occur. Or rather, you become more dragon and less human with each passing decade.”

  An appalling thought, to be trapped in a single for
m and feel your very sanity erode. A wave of nausea rolled through me. In my mind, absurdly, Kiraka laughed.

  “I shouldn’t worry, if I were you. You’re highly unlikely to face the problem.”

  “Why is that?” I pushed back the persistent sense of imminent failure. For years I’d trained for this moment. I’d sacrificed, given up my home, companionship, so much.

  “Sacrificing such minor worldly things isn’t enough,” Kiraka snapped. “Goddesses save me from petulant children. It’s not enough to want a thing, or even to work hard for a thing. Anyone can do that. You haven’t done enough.”

  “What do I need to do?”

  “I wish I knew. I only know you’re not ready. Not even close to ready. No—you won’t do.”

  “My people need someone to take Final Form. We need you to teach us. To teach me.”

  “What is this Final Form?”

  “Like you. I want to learn to be the dragon.”

  “This is not a simple thing.”

  “I know. This is why I need you to teach me. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

  “Younglings always think that, but they don’t understand what’s required. Better to send another.”

  I swallowed down my hurt pride. Later I would feel sorry for my inadequate self. Making sure my mental tone stayed even, I replied to her calmly. “There is no other to send.”

  “Then wait until there is.”

  “We cannot wait. Our need is urgent. And it’s unlikely anyone else will eclipse my abilities.”

  Smoke wisped black from her nostrils, a scorched scent rising with it, her eyes glowing hotter as she looked into me, as if she suspected I lied. “There must be someone better. Who is your queen—who holds the Heart?”

  “Andromeda is queen. She holds the Heart.”

  “Then she is the one. Send her and I’ll find out.” Kiraka flipped her wings, dismissing me, and even Dafne looked up in surprise at the movement.

  “Lady Dragon, I don’t wish to contradict you—”

  “Then don’t.”