FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I’m not.”

  “All right, then.”

  I knew he’d been trying to help, and he had. He’d showed me my magic. But the way he’d done it was horrible. What if he had been wrong about me, and he’d died? I leaned forward to rest my forehead against my mare’s strong neck. Her mane smelled like clovers.

  That would be a good name, I thought. Clover. Getting attached to animals seemed like a bad idea, but I couldn’t help it. She was the closest thing I had to a potential friend at that moment.

  What followed might have been the most awkward hours of my life. At least, they were uncomfortable for me. The silence didn’t seem to bother Aren. He was either used to traveling alone, or to having people angry with him. He didn’t even speak when we stopped around midday and he wandered off behind a cluster of boulders, leaving me holding his horse’s reins with no explanation of what he was doing. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. A familiar avian shape appeared at the top of the tallest rock, feet scrambling to hold onto the steep surface. He gave up and glided toward me, then past me, and crashed into a patch of low scrub bushes. I laughed.

  “Nice. Very graceful.”

  He backed out on foot and shook his feathers out, and I dismounted. He looked toward the sky.

  “You’re leaving?”

  He shook his head.

  “Hunting?”

  His head bobbed up and down, and he shuffled closer, until he was almost standing on my boot. I sighed and sat on a rock. “Just because you look different, that doesn’t make it easier to forgive you.” Still, I couldn’t help reaching out to touch the soft, golden feathers on his head. He arched his neck under my hand.

  I pulled back, and he shuffled away. “Nice try, though.”

  He dipped his head toward the ground, then pushed off and climbed into the air until he was only a black dot against the blue sky.

  I didn’t know what the plan was, but it seemed like there was enough time to let the horses rest. I gathered wood for a fire in case we were stopping, then watched the horses graze while I waited for Aren to come back. We’d have to talk when he was human again. I needed to make a decision.

  As I saw it, I didn’t have a single appealing option. Go home, knowing what I was… and what? Marry Callum and hope he never found out, and risk ruining him if my secret came out? Not likely. Go home, quietly break off the engagement, adopt some cats and move to a small town where no one knew me, shut people out forever? Also not appealing, but the other option was staying with Aren and trying to fix whatever was wrong with me.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease the tension and the pain. Maybe I hadn’t given him any choice. I hadn’t exactly been open to listening to him.

  He never said he was a nice person, did he?

  A snapping noise startled me, and I turned to see Aren approaching, dressed and carrying a pair of skinned and cleaned partridges. He lit the fire, and warmed himself by the flames. He looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, we can talk,” I muttered, and moved closer to warm fingers that were going numb in the cold air.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Better than last night. How’s your arm? And your hand?”

  He held up the hand he’d burned on the lock. Had I not seen the injury, I wouldn’t have believed it had happened. He rolled up his shirt sleeve, revealing a thick scar twisting up his arm. I grimaced. “That’ll fade,” he said. He spitted the birds and set them over the fire. “I’m glad your head’s not too bad.”

  “Does any of this affect your theory about my magic being bound? I thought I wasn’t supposed to be able to use it.”

  He shrugged. “This is why we need to look for answers. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re too strong for whatever they did to you. But there’s magic, you didn’t know about it before, and it’s hurting you. And we’re going to find help.”

  My anger melted. “Aren, why was all of this so important to you? You didn’t give me a good answer before.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” He looked down and studied his hands, turning them over, brushing invisible dirt from his palms. “Taking you off of that ship was the most foolish thing I’ve ever done, but once we were off, there was no turning back.”

  “You could have left me on the boat, though. Let Severn have me.”

  “Could have.” He shrugged. “I don’t understand it, myself.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  He sighed. “Regret is pointless. I don’t know why I thought I had to help you. Maybe I just thought that a Sorceress deserved better.” He shifted uncomfortably and squeezed his eyes shut. “No, that’s not all of it. I don’t know. You showed me kindness, and you helped me because you cared, not because you wanted something from me. I hadn’t experienced that in a long time. Maybe I just couldn’t let him destroy that.” For a moment he seemed vulnerable, open. It disappeared quickly, replaced with the stern, closed-off expression that seemed to be his default.

  “Oh. Well, thank you.” I wanted to reach out to touch him, but didn’t know how he would react to that. I let it go.

  He took the birds off the fire. It seemed too soon, but the meat was cooked and falling off the bones.

  “What will you do now?” I asked.

  “Why, are you leaving?”

  “I don’t see what other choice I have. I appreciate everything you’ve done. Well, almost everything.” He winced, and I smiled in spite of myself. “But I have to go home. Try to get by.” I broke a leg off of my bird and bit into it. The meat was dry and unspiced, and perhaps the best thing I’d ever tasted.

  Aren finished his food first, then watched as I picked the last of the meat off of the bones and licked the grease from my fingers. “We should keep moving,” he said. “We’re not far from the border.”

  We led the horses to a cool stream that flowed through the field and let them drink, then filled our water bags and rode on.

  “You could keep going,” Aren said. “I meant it when I said I’d help you find answers. If there’s a way to undo this binding, you could do great things. You deserve better than your people can offer you. I mean, you’re not perfect. You talk too much, you’re ridiculously uncooperative, and I don’t know if you ever think before you act. You’re completely blind to your people’s cruelty—”

  “Says the man who comes from a family that’s too horrible to talk about. What’s so bad about mine compared to yours?”

  He looked steadily at me. “I didn’t say anything about your family. But as a people, the Darmish are ignorant and cruel. Even that dragon you met would die defending her young, but your people let their babies be killed if they’re born like us.”

  “That’s not true! We value every child that’s born. We have so few of them.”

  “And fewer that survive the first year, if I recall correctly.” He frowned. “You really think they’re taken by disease, or by magic?”

  “No, it’s—”

  “I know what they’ve told you. Think for yourself, Rowan.” Not an order or an insult, but a plea. “Does it seem likely that you’re that unusual?”

  I thought back to the wanted posters I’d seen, and the few magic-related trials I’d sat through when my father needed an extra clerk. Were they all like me before they died? Were we all born that way? A lump formed in my throat. It can’t be.

  Aren shook his head. “I don’t think the mothers usually know what happens, but it gets taken care of one way or another.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” He reined his horse in, and I turned mine to face him from the opposite side of the path. “You really think your little cousins’ deaths were accidental?”

  His words were like cold water thrown in my face. “That’s not true. It’s the magic still in the land that makes babies fragile. My mother had a baby before me who died from it when she was a few weeks old, and…” I trailed off as a lump formed in my throat. “No one’s killing them. It’s just a sad fact of life.”


  “Really?”

  “Really. People who need more children so badly that they’d practically force us into marriage to make sure we have them would never throw away a human life.”

  “And what about a monster’s life?”

  I shuddered. The idea that someone would have hurt Ches and Victoria’s children because they were like me was unthinkable. My aunt and uncle’s grief-stricken faces flashed before me.

  No, it’s impossible. No one could be that cruel. And if someone was killing those babies, they knew the truth about magic. At the very least, the king and his magic hunters were lying to the rest of us. No wonder they thought fairy stories were dangerous. But not Callum. He had just started. He couldn’t possibly know.

  My stomach roiled, but I forced my food to stay down.

  Aren watched, his expression more compassionate than I’d ever seen it. “I know this is hard,” he said, and smiled sadly. “I understand what it means to throw your life away and start over. It’s not pleasant, but there is a certain freedom in it.”

  He turned his horse and started down the road again, and we stopped at the top of a small rise. In the distance, smoke rose from a group of buildings.

  “Is this the border?” I asked.

  He nodded. “This is as close as I’ll be getting to those people. If you want to go to them, you’re free to do so. I’m sure your future husband’s name will be enough to ensure your safety until he comes to get you.”

  “What?” I couldn’t follow his thoughts while mine were still reeling from what he’d just told me. “You say you’ve thrown everything away to help me, you almost kill yourself to make sure I understand what I am, and now you’re telling me to forget it and leave?”

  “I don’t want you to leave,” he said quietly, “but I didn’t think all of this through before. I wanted to help, but all I’ve done so far is put you in danger and cause you pain. I’ve done everything I’m willing to to convince you to see this through. You’re not a prisoner.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he continued. “Maybe you can hide what you are and have the life you were expecting, marrying a wealthy magic hunter and having lots of babies to support the pure and normal population of Darmid. Maybe you’ll be really lucky and none of them will be freaks like you. But you should have so much more than that.”

  I hated him a little when he called me that, using my people’s words against me, reminding me again of how they hated what I was. It seemed impossible that anyone would murder infants, but when I thought about how passionately the people I’d met in the city spoke against magic and how they pushed for its complete extermination, I could see it.

  I might manage to never use magic again, and perhaps Aren was wrong about the pain getting worse. I could manage. But what if someone I loved got hurt? I would never let someone die to protect my secret. I would try to heal them, and then I’d find myself arrested. In court. Convicted. Dead. And my family shamed forever.

  I glanced at Aren. He was looking down the path, which curved away from the border-guard station. Toward Tyrea.

  There were no guarantees of what would happen if I went that way with him, either. Even if we found someone who could help me, what then? There would be no returning to Darmid. Physical pain gripped my chest at the thought of never seeing my aunt and uncle again, or Felicia. My parents and Ashe. Tyrea would be dangerous for me on my own, and worse if I was with Aren, with Severn hunting him. He’d helped me, but he’d hurt me. And I didn’t want to let him leave.

  Aren urged his horse forward at a slow walk. “What will you do if I go?” I asked.

  He stopped. “I’ll take my chances in Tyrea. I don’t want to rush you, but Severn or his people will likely be here soon. You’ll be safer with those guards.”

  “They won’t find you? Severn, I mean.”

  “He will, eventually. But I still don’t regret any of this.” He nudged the horse, and they continued down the path. He didn’t look back before they disappeared into a patch of trees.

  If I listened carefully, I could make out the sounds of laughter coming from the border-guard station. Aren had brought me far closer than was safe for him. He was right. I’d be much better off with the guards than I’d be on the road with him, with his horrible brother trying to capture us. Perhaps there would be a cure for me among the doctors in Ardare. Or I could just break off my engagement quietly and live far from magic hunters and cities. I could find a life somewhere that didn’t involve magic, or running from a Sorcerer who wanted me dead. I could forget about all of this, forget about Aren and what I might find over the border.

  I took a deep breath, and decided.

  “Wait!” I called, nudging Clover into a swift trot that was far from comfortable for me.

  He’d moved to the side of the path and stopped. Clover leaned her head toward Aren’s horse and snorted.

  “I hope I don’t regret this,” I said as we started forward again.

  “Me, too.” Aren didn’t look at me, but he smiled, and something in my chest slipped a little.

  Don’t be stupid, I thought. He’s not your friend. He’s barely even not your enemy. But that relaxed grin suited him, and made me feel far better than it should have.

  We came to a place where the trees thinned, then disappeared, leaving us at the top of a hill that rolled down toward an uneven landscape littered with boulders, long grass, and stunted trees. Far to our left, the main road flowed down the hill toward a few small farms surrounded by a patchwork of gold and brown fields, and beyond them a tidy-looking town. The buildings looked like dollhouses from where we sat.

  “Welcome to Tyrea,” Aren said.

  A shiver flowed through me that was part apprehension and part excitement, and I followed him toward the road.

  Chapter XVIII

  Rowan

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE mountains.

  How many times had I wished for exactly this? It didn’t seem so different from the land I was familiar with, really. The same rugged beauty, the grasses turning brown as winter approached, the rocks beneath pushing through at the high points.

  Well, what did you expect? A flock of fairies handing out magical guidebooks? I smiled and breathed in not the ocean-and-seaweed smell of Lowdell or the pine forest air of Stone Ridge, but air that was fresh and cool and pleasant, nonetheless.

  Aren smiled. “You like it?”

  “So far, so good.” Now that we were past the border and my decision made, I was beginning to enjoy the journey.

  You’ll have to watch that, I reminded myself. You’re still in more danger than you’ve ever been before. The headache was growing stronger, and I took a few strands of heartleaf bark from my pack. “Just out of curiosity,” I asked, “is this stuff magic? They’ve banned it back home.”

  “In a way. Plants like that certainly have properties they wouldn’t have without ambient magic.” He took a strand of the dry bark. He rubbed it between his fingers. “This is weak,” he said. “You’re probably used to that. I assume the magical plants in your land are less potent than the ones in most of Tyrea. Sara would have been able to tell you more about that than I can.”

  “Sara works for you?” I remembered her wariness and her warning that it was better not to cause trouble.

  “No, for Severn. Why?”

  “No reason.” A pair of hawks wheeled slowly through the air above us. One dropped, then plunged to the ground not far from us. “Can I ask you something else?”

  “I can’t stop you.” He didn’t sound keen on talking, but I still needed answers.

  “Why an eagle? I don’t suppose it’s easy to learn to do something like that. Is that the only thing you change into? Did you have a choice about your form?”

  “It is, and I did. Why not an eagle? I grew up with hunting birds, and was able to study their physiology. I can get myself where I need to go more quickly flying than I can on foot, and usually without being noticed. I can fight if I need to. It’s been useful for hunting
, hasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  I remembered the beak and talons that I’d been so cautious of, but also thought of how little that body weighed when I picked it up, how fragile the bones seemed, and how impossible it was for him to get away when he couldn’t fly. A wolf might have been a stronger choice for survival and fighting, or maybe a dragon if he needed to fly. I wondered what form I would choose if I had the chance—but that could never happen.

  Or could it?

  With that thought I suddenly understood the full meaning of what had happened the night before. I had magic in me. Yes, it had hurt me. But if Aren was right about finding a way to break the binding, I might be able to do anything. It was too much to think about, like trying to look directly at the sun. Excitement and happiness lifted me, warming me to my toes.

  The town was farther away than I’d thought, and it was late afternoon before we arrived. A boy stopped his game of marbles for long enough to direct us to an inn down a side street, a wide, white building with a handsome stable around back. A groom took the horses and promised to treat them to the best night of their lives. Aren started toward the inn, then stopped and held out his hand.

  “What?”

  When he spoke, he sounded apologetic. “They should probably think we’re together. It makes more sense than an unrelated man and woman traveling together for no obvious reason, and we don’t want to be memorable if we can help it. Two rooms would cost more than we have available, so we just got married.”

  “Oh. Well, congratulations to us,” I said. “They’re going to remember us anyway, if someone asks. We’re not exactly disguised.”

  Aren stepped in front of me and pulled the hood of my cloak up so that my face wasn’t hidden, but shadowed. He held it and looked into my eyes for just a moment longer than he needed to. My mouth went dry.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Just act like everything is normal. Happy, even. And try to stay quiet.”

  I took his hand and walked beside him through the front door of the inn. His long fingers were cold, either from the weather or the blood loss. I sat in a plush armchair while he paid for a room.