FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  If he hadn’t been holding the only thing in the world that mattered to me, I’d have pushed him off of the bridge right then. Instead I held my tongue, took a step back, and asked, “Will he be able to help her?”

  He shrugged, causing Rowan’s head to rock to the side. Her hair danced in the sea air, appearing bright red in the hazy sunrise light. “I don’t know. Perhaps if you’d brought her here sooner it would have been easier. Still, my father is a powerful man.”

  You’re not though, are you? I thought. There was no magic in him. I hope that hurts. I hope it burns you.

  “There may still be hope,” he added. Not to encourage me, certainly, only to remind me that Albion would do what I obviously couldn’t.

  I decided that when I died I’d come back and haunt this man’s nightmares until the end of his life, and I’d enjoy every moment of it. He turned and walked confidently back over the narrow bridge as though it spanned a garden stream instead of a wild and windy stretch of ocean. I could barely see Rowan, save for the top of her head and her boots. I realized I hadn’t said goodbye to her.

  I considered falling off of the bridge then and letting the waves consume me, but a lifetime of fighting for self-preservation had left me with an aversion to suicide.

  Severn and his people will be here soon enough, I thought. Maybe I’ll even welcome them.

  I turned and made my way back to the forest, and turned the horse in the direction we’d just come from, back to the place where it had all ended.

  We passed by the clearing without stopping. There was nothing there for me. We followed the path Rowan had left through the snow back to our campsite, and I gathered the things I’d left scattered when I went after her. I changed into my own clothes when I found them behind a tree, and packed up bedding that was now damp and frozen.

  “What now?” I asked the horse.

  He flicked a massive ear at me and went back to excavating a hole under a tree.

  There was nowhere for me to go, and nothing to do. For the first time in my life I was completely without purpose or direction. True, I’d thought I was lost when I first betrayed Severn and took Rowan away from him, but then I’d decided to help her find the answer to her problem. It had been difficult and only somewhat successful, and had led me far from the course I’d expected, but it had been a direction.

  Now what did I have? I couldn’t go home to Luid, to my rooms in the palace, to the university libraries that were my second home, or to any of the places I was familiar with. Mariana and Arnav weren’t going to take me in again, and I had no way of finding Kel and Cassia, wherever they’d gone. I could try to leave the country, but Severn would have people watching for that. Even if I could have slipped away somehow, the thought of being that far from Rowan made me feel ill.

  No, there was only one place I wanted to be. I had to at least try to see her again, to make sure she was with the right people.

  And what if I could help, and I’d given up too easily?

  But I couldn’t just cross over the way I was. I’d have to fly again.

  The horse carried me back to the cave entrance, and I left my things there. We wandered westward for the rest of the day, and in the evening I found a farm where a young family agreed to let me spend the night in their barn in exchange for the horse. They seemed suspicious of my generosity. In fact, I was just glad to have found a good home for him. Rowan would have been pleased.

  I slept in the hay loft on an itchy blanket that kept me alert, but I didn’t use magic to protect myself. Instead, I let my reserves recover in anticipation of what was to come.

  The next morning, the thought of transforming again made my stomach churn, and memories of nearly losing myself crowded my mind.

  This is Tyrea, I reminded myself. There’s more than enough magic here. I’ve done this a hundred times before, this is no different. I laughed at myself. Hadn’t I just been thinking that I had nothing left to live for, no purpose to speak of? If I truly didn’t care whether I lived or died, I wouldn’t have been so nervous.

  So stop whining and live.

  A moment later I had done it, and was climbing toward the sky on wings that felt as weak as my human arms had.

  The clarity and detachment that always came with my eagle’s body were missing. My thoughts stayed with Rowan, and my concern for her and the need to see her again only grew as I flew closer to the island.

  By the time the island came into view, I felt as though the turmoil within would tear me apart. In my desperation I ignored my mind’s warnings that there would be protections around the island. I flew on, not caring what happened to me. If I went to her, I could be killed. If I didn’t, I’d surely go mad. For the first time I truly understood why my father was so afraid of love.

  There was nothing, not even a whisper of protective magic as I passed over the water to the forested lands beyond. The road from the bridge ran through a tiny community, but no one so much as looked up as I passed over. I soared high, hidden in the clouds, descending occasionally to check my course, gliding as often as I could to save my strength. I had seen a few old maps of Belleisle, and thought I could find the capital city if I followed the road.

  Forests passed under me, bare branches and pines, small lakes and ponds, swamps and towns, grasslands, hills, like a miniature version of my own country.

  The sun was setting behind me when a city appeared beyond a high, grassy hill, surrounded by a low wall that appeared to be more for definition than for defense. In a trick of the light the buildings seemed to shine, bright and clean. Green-copper roofs contrasted with red and white stone walls, and the cobblestone streets flowed in a rough pattern of concentric circles near the center of town, breaking formation as they spread toward the ocean on one side and the hills on the other.

  I settled in an old oak tree next to the outer edge of the wall to wait for morning.

  Chapter XXXIV

  Aren

  DAWN LIT THE CITY. HORSE-drawn carts entered by the gates nearest me, and their occupants set up booths in a street market that quickly filled with customers, many of them laughing as they bartered with the vendors. I wondered whether life here was always so pleasant. It wasn’t unlike the life of people in Luid. Not my life, of course, but I’d seen it. Not at all what I’d expected from people who were supposed to be so different from my own.

  The largest building visible from my perch was wide and white, with a tall clock tower rising from one end. The governor’s home and offices, if I recalled correctly. Not Ernis Albion’s home, though. If this had truly been a smaller version of Tyrea, he would have ruled, and I would have found Rowan there. Albion had never taken that office, though no one could have stopped him if he’d wanted to. It was one of many things my father had never understood. Power was a game to him, and anyone who refused to play wasn’t to be trusted.

  I flew around the outside of the city walls, past a busy and well-guarded harbor and several more gates, over farms and a smaller village that sat apart from the city proper. I caught sight of a building that looked like a hospital, and a school with children rushing to the doors as a young woman rang an over-sized bell to call them to class, but nothing that I could identify as the home of the island’s most powerful Sorcerer.

  A flash of light-colored hair caught my eye as I passed by a small gate, and I dropped closer to investigate. There was no doubt, even from a distance, that this was the man who had taken Rowan from me on the bridge. Even had I not been able to recognize his features, the haughty tilt of his chin would have given him away. He attached a full burlap sack to the back of his horse’s saddle, mounted, and rode west on the road out of the city.

  I followed, staying well back and out of sight. He turned north and continued toward the shore until he passed through the iron gates of a well-kept property at the end of the road. He stopped to close the gates behind him, then disappeared around the back of a red-brick house, larger than any I’d seen in the city.

  I kept to the co
ver of the trees, gliding just over their tops, and made my way around to the back. I settled into an orange-leafed elm with a wooden bench encircling the base. The position gave me an excellent view of the property, and the leaves would shelter me from the wind.

  Their lack of security troubled me. There should have been something to keep intruders away, some warning of approaching danger, even if most people wouldn’t recognize me as such. Perhaps they didn’t usually need such precautions here, but I was proof that that could change very quickly. I began to worry that I’d made a terrible mistake, that this Albion wasn’t as powerful as everyone thought he was. Elegant and well-kept as this place was, it was hardly extraordinary.

  The sounds of mid-day meal preparation coming from a door below me were nothing special, though the odors that wafted up reminded me of how long it had been since I’d eaten.

  The young woman who walked toward the whitewashed barn didn’t see me. Neither did the middle-aged woman who went to the low-walled vegetable garden and picked slugs off of the plants, tossing them to a small flock of brown hens that followed her up and down the rows.

  The next hours were among the most tedious of my life as I waited for some hint that I’d come to the right place. I saw no sign of Rowan, heard no one speak of her. Every time the door opened I hoped it was Rowan coming out, or someone carrying her clothes out to the wash-line, or a few people discussing a new addition to the household, but there was nothing. Around mid-afternoon an older man appeared. He looked like the descriptions I’d heard of Ernis Albion. He was tall and slim, with short, graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard, wearing glasses that someone as powerful as him shouldn’t have needed. He passed near, spoke quietly to a pair of young girls who were returning from a horseback ride in the woods, and returned to the house without so much as looking up.

  This is wrong, I thought again. He should know by now.

  The older woman was back in the garden, and Albion seemed to be following her instructions as they picked vegetables.

  Where are their servants? I shifted on my branch, lifting my feet and stretching my stiff toes. The woman started toward a bench inside the garden, but Albion gestured toward the bench beneath my tree. I froze.

  “I just thought we might get out of the wind for a few minutes,” he said as he eased himself down onto the bench.

  “Whatever pleases you.” The woman sat and began snapping the ends off of beans.

  “How’s our patient today?” he asked, and took a handful of beans to work on.

  The woman gave him a sidelong glance. “No change. I thought Bernard would have told you.”

  “I suppose he must have. Perhaps I’m becoming forgetful in my old age.”

  She picked up a gardening glove from between them and slapped his arm with it. “Not if I can help it. Maybe I should put you on the regimen she’s on, eh?” She sighed. “Not that it’s doing much good so far.”

  That would make her Albion’s wife, Emalda.

  Albion patted her knee. “Give it time. I have complete faith in you.” He looked upward and spent a minute studying the back of the building. “Have you thought about moving her to this side? The morning sun might do her some good. I believe there’s a guest room available.” I followed his gaze to one of the small balconies that jutted out from the building at regular intervals on the second and third levels.

  “Hmm,” Emalda said, not looking up. “If you think it would be better, I’ll have Marie put fresh linens on while supper’s cooking, and we’ll move the girl after. It’ll free the infirmary up for students, and she’ll be closer to my rooms that way. Yes, that will do nicely. Excellent plan.” They sat in silence as they finished their work, then stood together to go back to the house. Emalda stopped and looked up at the window. “Ern?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How long will we keep her? She’s certainly no trouble, but how long do we keep trying?”

  He took her arm. “I don’t know.” He turned back and looked straight up at me. My heart jumped. “I suppose we’ll just wait, and pray that something happens to change the situation.” He turned away before Emalda saw him looking at me, and they went into the kitchen.

  I waited for my feathers to lie flat and my heart to slow, then stretched my wings and flew toward the forest. I passed over the trees and came to the coast, where a white lighthouse perched precariously at the top of a steep cliff. A fat brown rabbit sat near the base. I killed and ate it. I doubted I’d find a better meal any time soon.

  If Albion knew what I was, surely he knew who I was. He didn’t seem eager to be rid of me, though, or alarmed at my presence. Perhaps he was so confident in his own power that he wasn’t concerned. His attitude toward Rowan seemed appropriate. She was getting help. But apparently they couldn’t cure her.

  What to do, then? I had to see her. Perhaps then I would know better.

  He had been very clear about where and when she was to be moved, and it would make for an effective trap if that was his intention. I told myself that I’d need to carefully weigh the risks of going back, but I already knew what I was going to do.

  The sounds of clanking dishes and animated conversation flowed from the kitchen windows when I returned to the house. Something broke, and several young voices laughed. I searched for a different hiding place, but the other trees were all too far from the house. I settled back into the elm on a high branch that reached toward the balcony, nearly touching it, but I stayed well back, hidden.

  A tall window swung open with a soft creak.

  “She’ll need fresh air, Ernis,” said Emalda, leaning out over the tiny balcony and breathing deeply. “We should leave this open, unless it gets too cold. Bernard, get some more quilts from downstairs, will you?”

  The blond man passed close to the window a few minutes later and spread blankets over a lump in the bed, which was mostly hidden in shadows.

  Don’t you touch her. I supposed I should be grateful to him for bringing Rowan here safely and for leading me back to his home, but it was all I could do to keep myself from flying in through the window and ripping his eyes out.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts. This was so unlike me as an eagle.

  Albion came to the window, and looked past me at something in the fields. He smiled to himself, with an expression I didn’t understand. I found reading emotions difficult when I wasn’t human. It didn’t look like a dangerous smile, but I had no idea what the man was thinking.

  A clinking noise drifted from the room, metal striking glass. When I edged along the branch to get closer to the window I smelled peppermint and a few other herbs. I risked moving closer to the window to try to see Rowan, but the angle was all wrong. I shuffled back toward the trunk and dug my claws into the branch so I wouldn’t soar through the open window to her. Patience, I told myself. They’ll have to leave some time. The door opened again, then closed, and finally the room was silent.

  I waited and listened for a few more minutes. I heard voices and sensed presences in other parts of the house, but not in that room. I pushed off, landing on the wide stone railing on the balcony. My wings made too much noise as I flapped to catch my balance, but no one came to the window.

  And there she was. Not in trouble, certainly. She looked clean and comfortable, resting under several warm quilts that lay flat over her body, pulled up to her shoulders. It meant she wasn’t moving at all. Any time I’d seen her sleeping before, the blankets had ended up twisted around her legs and the bed sheets creased from her tossing and turning. I couldn’t see her face, hidden as it was in the shadows. I had to get closer.

  She didn’t stir when I flapped into the room, or when the bed’s footboard creaked as I settled onto it.

  “So,” said a voice behind me.

  My head snapped around. Ernis Albion rested in a chair in the corner of the room closest to the window.

  “What are we going to do about this?”

  Chapter XXXV

  Aren

  MY TALONS
SCRATCHED THE HARD wood of the bed as I turned to face him.

  Albion made no sudden movements, did not speak. My skin prickled, fluffing my feathers, and I lifted my wings slightly. I had no real idea what he was capable of, or what he was thinking. He had been waiting for me, and I’d let my need to see Rowan make me careless. I deserved whatever I got for it.

  His hand twitched, and I spread my wings farther to the sides, ready to fly out the window, or straight at him if I had to. That strange smile came to him again and he moved his hand more slowly, lifting a tea cup from the table beside him.

  “Calm down, boy,” he said. “I think I know why you’re here, and I’m not going to hurt you for it.” He took a sip from the cup and grimaced. “I thought I might try what my wife has been giving to your friend, to see if it might wake me up a little. Probably a good thing she can’t taste this.” He set the cup down and stood slowly, keeping his arms spread and his hands open, non-threatening. I settled my wings, but every muscle in my body remained tense, ready to fly or to fight.

  Albion moved toward the bed, moving in a wide arc around the end where I perched. He took a handful of Rowan’s hair and let it fall through his fingers. “Was it like this before? I don’t imagine it would have been easy for her to hide this at home.”

  I hopped onto the mattress and side-stepped into the shadows at the head of the bed. I narrowed my eyes, and moved closer again. The strange tint I’d seen in her hair on the bridge hadn’t been an illusion. What I saw now was a complex color built from shades my human eyes would never pick up. To them, it would all be an unnatural, deep red. I shook my head from side to side.