“It’s possible,” Dafne said slowly, “that Salena didn’t see that far ahead, to awakening Deyrr and the sect’s practitioners. It could have been an unintended consequence. Everything I’ve read about the gift of prognostication indicates that it’s an uncertain tool.”
“One that can be affected by the intentions of people around you,” Ursula confirmed, “we ran into that in the search for Ami.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “And each small change in response to a glimpse of the future ripples through in thousands, millions or billions of unpredictable ways.”
“Andi says that some events are more certain than others,” Ursula said, a grim set to her jaw.
Kiraka’s words came back to me, damning my people for their selfishness. It must have shown on my face, because they all looked at me, waiting for the answer. Expectant silence fell, Dafne having finished translating Ursula’s last words.
I stared at my hands, unable to meet their eyes, guilt coiling in my belly. A tug at my hair and I looked down to see Marskal’s fingers tangled in one of the long locks under the table. I raised my gaze to his, finding only his quiet brown eyes, free of judgment, offering his strength.
No more equivocating. I’d have to come out with it.
“I think she would have done anything to save the Tala because we were dying,” I said, laying it out there simply, but the grief sighed out of me. “That’s the flip side of the questionable strategy.” Harlan returned my wry glance with grave sympathy. “We were never meant to be inside the barrier. All magic was supposed to be contained in the Heart, and only in the Heart, but the original Tala expanded the barrier enough to encompass Annfwn, so we could continue to live and grow there. It’s our fault that Deyrr has had enough magic to survive and grow strong again.”
They all sat in silence, assimilating that. Harlan picked up the wine jug and refilled for everyone.
“You can’t accept the guilt for this,” Dafne finally said. “Salena, you, all the Tala—you acted to save your people and your land. Annfwn and the Tala are bountiful and magical treasures of our world. There is no crime, no guilt in trying to preserve that.”
“Thank you for that,” I told her sincerely, “though others may disagree. Including Kiraka. Still—it may be important to remember that the barrier was probably never intentionally planned to have specific boundaries.” I nodded to Ursula who acknowledged that with a dip of her chin.
“There’s something to that. Something important, yes.” Dafne frowned at her timeline. “The pieces are all there, but I can’t quite see the whole picture.” She made a thoughtful sound, reaching for more paper.
“It’s a question of geography,” she said, almost more to herself than to us. “The barrier corresponds to geography, what it covers, what it doesn’t. Who was inside, who was out.” She drew a map on a clean sheet of paper, Nakoa watching over her shoulder with interest. The Annfwn coastline, the rest of the continent with the original twelve kingdoms, the span of the Onyx Ocean and the sprawl of the Nahanaun Archipelago. Sketching in an arc with dotted lines, she spoke absently, “we know the original barrier—the one we all knew for most of our lives—went through here, at Odfell’s Pass.”
Ursula leaned in, too, tracing with a broken-nailed finger. “Here in Branli, down to here, and through Avonlidgh, thus.” She caught my surprised stare. “I traveled most of it.”
Marskal tapped the impromptu map. “Not quite. It cut through in this range, and then somewhere in the middle of this chain of lakes. This is a rough drawing, but the lakes are up in this part of Branli. If you want to be precise.”
“I need to sit you down with a better version,” Dafne said.
Marskal dipped his chin. “My first assignment is to the Lady Zynda, but otherwise I’m happy to oblige. Or Her Majesty can show you.”
“Marskal knows it more precisely.” Ursula waved that off. “He kept the maps and notes on our journeys.”
I raised my brows, looking between them. She shrugged, denying the significance, but he met my gaze. “Looking for a way in,” he said quietly, letting me sit with that.
Of course they had. We’d been in enemy camps then. But I still felt strangely exposed.
“So, if you extrapolate that it’s a circle, spreading concentrically from the Heart,” Ursula said, “that puts the Heart about here and the rest of the barrier out to here.”
“Or a sphere,” Dafne replied, putting in the dotted lines and a star where Ursula had almost uncannily pinpointed the location of the Heart.
“How did you guess this?” I demanded, feeling my native territoriality in the growl rising in my throat, and Ursula gave me a half smile with some of that warrior fierceness in it.
“I know how to read a map and respect enemy borders,” she answered.
I might have been certain I’d win any contest between us, but in that moment I was glad the Tala were no longer her enemy.
“This will be better on the big map,” Dafne said, breaking the tension, “but we know the barrier now extends approximately here, keeping it as a sphere intersecting the surface of land and water as a circle.” She drew another line of dots through the Nahanaun archipelago, Nakoa taking the pen to correct her in places. “Extrapolating to something about like this.”
It was a big circle. Ursula nodded, confirming her part of the world. Harlan frowned, putting a hand on her shoulder. “May I?”
“I love it when you pretend to ask for permission.” She waved a hand at the map.
He flicked her an opaque look. “You’ve left out Dasnaria,” he said to Dafne.
“Well, it’s a small rendering and the empire is well out of…” she trailed off, frowning.
“Except for this peninsula,” Harlan said, finishing the thought.
“I need to get to the big maps.” Dafne’s face burned with excitement and she popped out of her chair. An abbreviated movement, as Nakoa pressed her into it again with a big hand and zero effort. She argued with him, which he received with stoic silence, replying in one word to her dozen.
Finally she turned back to us. “I’m reliably informed I’ll be doing it in the morning.”
“The morning is soon enough.” Ursula looked amused, exchanging a look with Nakoa. “Rest is good for you.”
“I’m pregnant, not made of glass,” she muttered, then yawned mightily. Nakoa set his hand on her belly, speaking to her warmly and quietly, her glare softening.
“I hate to interrupt,” I said, “but where were you going with this, Dafne?”
She frowned at me, then at the circles. “It’s the answer… to the riddle I’ve been working on.”
Marskal breathed what might have been a laugh and Ursula and I exchanged puzzled looks. “Perhaps you’ll explain to us dull kids, oh wise tutor,” Ursula suggested.
Dafne rolled her eyes, a gesture worthy of someone a quarter her age. She indicated the space in between the two sets of dotted lines. “Look, we’ve wondered—or I have, Nakoa never wonders about anything—” She threw him an affectionate glance and he smiled broadly, an astonishing expression on his normally brooding visage. He must understand more Common Tongue than he let on. “I’ve wondered how it could be that Nakoa and I were connected. Fated, if you like that word, to be mates and to free Kiraka. My family was here at Columba.” She put a finger on Ordnung. “And Nakoa was here. See?” She traced a finger along the arc, following it from Ordnung down and around to Nahanau. “If I drew another circle…”
“You and Nakoa would have been on the same arc.” I couldn’t quite assimilate it.
She nodded at me. “It will be easier to see on the big map, with Marskal’s help, I hope.” She gave him a sunny smile. “The point is, what if the barrier was bigger at one point, so we were both included inside, along with the Tala. It would explain a great deal about why some cross-breeding works better than others, and how these connections were forged. How can a girl at Castle Columba be connected to a dragon in Nahanau?” She sketched the arc
again and beamed at us. “Circles and spheres. And look what else is along that arc.” She tapped Windroven, raising her brows at Ursula who scowled.
“I thought it was a bad idea to wake that dragon before Kiraka tried to kill Zynda. I’m certainly not authorizing it now.”
“I’m just saying it’s a line of connection,” Dafne explained mildly.
“And a tangent from the current discussion,” Ursula replied with a thin smile. “I know some geometry. From circles to lines to the point at hand, which is Zynda and her true reason for visiting the dragon. Something to do with continuing Salena’s quest to save the Tala. Out with it.”
I had to give my cousin credit. She perceived patterns very well.
“Wherever the boundaries of the barrier were,” I explained, “they ended up around enough land to live on, but a relatively small area. And we were trapped inside of it for a very long time. Over the centuries the magic intensified, turning back on itself, warping the land and the people. It exacerbated the toll of inbreeding, changing our babies in the womb.” I had to stop, the image of Anya’s doomed babe rising in my mind, making me want to weep all over again.
“Salena’s babies died,” Ursula said into the hush. “Her first husband suicided over it.”
“Yes.” I wiped away the tears I’d hoped to restrain. “Many did. We had…no hope, you see. If Salena hadn’t left, hadn’t seduced Uorsin and made her devil’s bargain to gain a new queen for the Tala, we would have died out in another generation. And that hasn’t changed enough. We still face that final death.”
“We saw children in Annfwn.” Ursula held up a hand to Harlan, who took it, wrapping her bony fingers in his big fist. “They showed us the tunnel slides, the shortcut to the beach from the cliffs.”
I laughed, but it came out watery. “Then you saw all of our children. They’re all in the cliff city, to be taught and protected.” Even now, even knowing I was among friends, it made me feel vulnerable to admit that, to show our soft underbelly.
Ursula sobered, mentally counting, then inclined her head. She’d been trained well as a monarch, understanding what a population required to remain viable.
Dafne had a hand on her belly, sorrow in her eyes. “You’re too far gone in numbers. Even with the barrier expanded and Tala partbloods returning home to have children, there’s not enough time.”
“So our scholars have determined. And with every outbreeding of purebloods with partbloods, we lose more of who we are. We’re still doomed.” I scrubbed my hands through my hair, catching on the tug of Marskal’s fingers. He only twitched a smile in response to my inquiring look. Strange man. “The Tala face extinction and it’s my job to prevent that.”
They all stared at me for a moment in silence. Marskal’s gaze felt especially hot on my face.
“Prevent it,” Ursula repeated, while Dafne stared at me with a strange expression on her face. “Do you mean to somehow save the Tala race?”
“Thus you sought help from Kiraka, thinking she might have answers, since her people set up the problem to begin with.” Ursula frowned. “This is why you left Annfwn?”
“What help?” Dafne asked, eyes narrowed and brain clearly working furiously at the puzzle. “What information did you think Kiraka could give you?”
I took a deep breath. “I would do that by taking what we call Final Form. I’ve asked Kiraka to teach me, as only a dragon can teach how to become a dragon.”
I’d stunned them beyond silent, the air growing thick with their shock and tangled emotions.
“Danu save us,” Ursula breathed.
“A dragon?” Dafne demanded. “You want to become a thriced dragon?”
“Yes. Virtually immortal. Good for maintaining the consciousness and thought process of being human. Capable of hibernation and… particular magical gifts, especially magic-dampening properties and encouragement of fertility.” I pointed a meaningful look at her swollen belly, the growing child inside the womb she’d thought too aged to bear children.
“So, you’d take dragon form to encourage conception, then dampen the magic around Tala mothers, in the hopes that the babies will be born whole and healthy.” Dafne’s agile brain had raced far ahead.
“Yes.”
“How do you even know that will work?” She patted her belly. “Besides this, of course.”
“Our oldest tales have suggested as much.”
“And you can’t shift back from the dragon?” Marskal asked, a hitch in his voice.
“It’s called Final Form for a reason. Something about the magic dampening prevents shapeshifting out of it again.”
“When would you do this?” Ursula asked, her face a neutral mask, though her eyes glittered.
“As soon as possible. Tomorrow, if Kiraka is willing.” And if I could shift. I set that anguished uncertainty aside.
“All along this has been your aim.” Dafne looked pale. “You knew about the dragon.”
I inclined my head, not really a nod of agreement, unable to look Dafne in the eye. “When we heard rumors of volcanoes quickening with the possibility of dragons beneath, we connected that to the old stories, yes.”
“And you didn’t tell us,” Dafne accused. “You let me go through all of this and said nothing.”
I accepted the guilt of that, too. “All I had were wisps of old myths, knowing no more than any of us about the dragons. There was nothing solid to tell. Also, we had no evidence Kiraka was anything but a mute beast until you brought her out of her reptile brain.”
“How did you know that part?” Dafne asked, paling. “I hadn’t told anyone about that.”
I tossed her a hummingbird charm by way of explanation and her eyes widened. Then she threw it back at me, unusual anger from her. I caught it, but my heart hurt.
“You said she tested you,” Ursula said after a moment, the pause making me wonder if she’d noted my loss of composure and given me time to get it back. “For what purpose of hers?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe to test if I could manage that extreme level of shapeshifting. She didn’t explain.” We’ll burn away the weakness and see what’s left. What if all I had left was this weakness? Marskal poured me wine and wrapped my hand around the stem. I drank without acknowledging the gesture, though I was profoundly grateful.
Ursula narrowed her eyes. “If that’s the case, if you confront the dragon, she might choose to immolate you again.”
“If she does, she does. I won’t get her help by not asking. None of you can stop me.” I reached down and pulled my hair from where it was wound around Marskal’s finger, throwing him a defiant look that he returned with no sign of emotion.
“You don’t even know that taking this Final Form will work,” Dafne bit out.
This time I met her gaze, letting her see my sorrow that I might have destroyed our friendship, but also my resolve. The need was greater than all of that. “Do you have an alternate suggestion for saving the Tala babies?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
I stood, and Marskal rose with me. “Thank you, all. I’m truly sorry if I’ve caused hurt or damaged the effort to stop Deyrr. If you still want me to, and I’ve not yet taken Final Form, I’ll go see Jepp tomorrow, after I meet with Kiraka.”
Ursula nodded crisply, clearly deep in thought. Then exchanged a signal with Marskal. Subtle, but I caught it. She met my gaze. “Marskal will, of course, go with you.”
I glanced at him and, catching the obstinate set of his jaw, didn’t bother to argue.
~ 11 ~
Marskal and I went up the volcano in the morning, in the still misty pre-dawn, quiet of human activity and chorusing with bird song and the peeping of the tropical frogs who clung to the trees like living jewels.
Marskal fairly bristled with weapons, which I found laughable as none of them would work against Kiraka’s least incendiary hiccup. But I tolerated his presence in silence, if not with good grace. In my current state, mossback politeness was beyond me.
I wouldn’t let on, but each step up the mountain intensified my nerves and reminded me of my weakened state—physically and emotionally. Certainly I couldn’t reveal either to Marskal, as he already had developed the habit of assessing me every few minutes.
“I need to stop and rest a moment,” he said, after about an hour of walking.
“You do?” He hadn’t needed to on the previous trip.
“Some of us are not magically gifted shapeshifters.” He sat on a boulder of solidified lava, looping in blacks and grays, studded with silvery lichen, and opened his pack. “Besides, I missed breakfast.”
I stretched, then lowered myself next to him. Might as well rest while he did. He handed me a flask of water and I drank, but my suspicions sharpened when he offered me a flaky pastry slathered in honey. “No, thank you,” I told him.
“It’s what you liked last night.”
“I don’t need to be coddled, Marskal.”
“All right.” He shrugged and set the bread down on a cloth, digging something else out of his pack. “Meatroll?”
Just the smell of the cooked meat turned my stomach. I snatched up the honeyed bread and took a bite, just to shut him up. More gracious than I, he didn’t comment, eating the meatroll while thoughtfully scanning the landscape. From this vantage, the smooth aqua sea of the Nahanaun islands spread out to the horizon where it melded with no discernible line into the arc of the sky.
“It’s understandable to be nervous,” he said, after a while. “You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t.”
I raised a brow at him. “I’m not human. I’m Tala.”
He made a scoffing sound. “Surely you don’t believe that.”
“That I’m Tala?”
“That Tala aren’t humans.”
“Of course I do. Can humans shapeshift?”
“Tala interbreed with humans,” he pointed out, “thus we’re the same species. Don’t laugh like that. On the farm, that’s the definition—if you can crossbreed two animals then they’re the same, no matter the minor details.”
The Shift of the Tide Page 12