She swore softly and shoved it into her pack on top of everything else. The hell with it. This was all about instinct and her instincts said to take it.
She tugged on her boots and stood up to tie a compact sleeping bag to the bottom of her pack. It didn’t look like much—which was why she thought they might let her keep it, even though it was actually designed for much colder temperatures than anything she was likely to encounter. And then, she added one final item. Shifters could see as well in the dark as in full daylight. Amanda had excellent vision…for a norm, which meant her night vision was severely limited, and Harp’s forests were full of dark places, even in daytime, when the sunlight sometimes had to fight to reach the ground through the thick canopy. As a result, she always carried a small flashlight, especially if she thought she might get caught out after sunset. Little more than a penlight, it had a halogen beam that was surprisingly bright for its size. She slung it around her neck on a leather string, pulled on her hooded jacket and shoved her gloves into a pocket. She was ready.
Settling the familiar weight of the backpack over her shoulders, she picked up the bow Rhodry had secured for her months ago. She’d put in hundreds of sweat-filled hours building the strength necessary in her arms and hands to use it effectively, and she had the scars on her fingers and forearm to prove it.
The weapon went over one shoulder. She did a final tug of straps and buckles, and walked out to face the Guild.
When she emerged from her apartment, the sun was barely over the horizon. Up on the hillside, above the main town, the white stone of the palace gleamed gold in the first light of morning, its face so bright that for a few seconds, it was as if twin suns battled for dominance in the Harp sky.
The morning air was fresh and cool as usual, the streets damp from an overnight ground fog that still lingered between the buildings and amid the trees that grew everywhere. Moisture clung to her cheeks and hair, easing wisps of curl out of the tight braid along her neck and washing away the last tendrils of worry. She wanted to run down the streets and shout out her excitement, to wake the neighbors and share the glory of this very special morning. Instead, she slipped unnoticed through the quiet streets.
The science compound was visible from here, a squat, utilitarian building whose concrete walls almost disappeared into the gloom, making the large solar arrays on its roof seem to float in the dense fog.
She took the now-familiar dirt path to the Guild Hall, then stopped short, hanging back among the trees on the edge of the open yard, all of a sudden keenly aware that she was alone. Two shifters crossed the yard while she stood there, and as she watched them disappear into the depths of the hall, she realized how stupid this was. Here she stood, ready to challenge nearly five hundred years of Harp history, and yet too timid to walk into the building in full view. Great. A promising start.
Gathering the courage that had gotten her this far, she turned back toward the path, nearly shrieking out loud when Rhodry was suddenly standing in front of her. She fought to control her reaction. How such a big man could move so quietly…
“Where’s Fionn?” he demanded.
She gave him a narrow look. “Well, good morning to you, too. And how the hell would I know where Fionn is?”
“He’s your lover. He should be here to walk you in.”
She stared at him impatiently. What was it with the men in her life? She didn’t have time for this crap. “Fionn is not my lover,” she said with forced slowness. “I don’t have a lover. You’re all way too much work! Besides,” she said, trying to get around him. “He hates the idea of me joining your precious Guild, just as much as you do.”
He stepped closer, blocking her from leaving. “Amanda, I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt,” he said quietly.
Her heart sighed at the sincerity in that deep voice. Which only proved that her heart was an idiot. He’d had months to have this little heart-to-heart, and suddenly he was knocking on her door in the middle of the night, and waylaying her on this particular morning? Oh hell, no. She shrugged, pretending to be unaffected. “A life without risk isn’t worth living,” she said, cringing inwardly at the trite words.
She waited for him to shut her out like he always did, for the mask to close over his face, and his eyes to go cold. And they didn’t. He didn’t. He just stood there looking so gorgeous, his golden eyes filled with concern. And suddenly it hit her. He was right. They were all right. This trial could kill her.
She dropped her pack to the ground, closed the short distance between them, then went up on her toes and kissed him. She half expected him to reject her. To push her away, or to stand there like a stone. What she didn’t expect was for him to band his arms around her, and kiss her back.
It was a ravenous kiss, hungry, like he was a starving man—a starving cat—and she was the last piece of steak in the world. She reveled in the strength of that powerful body, her lips open in welcome, her arms tightening around his neck as the kiss went on and on…
A door slammed from the direction of the Guild Hall, and he broke away sharply, as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. He stared at her, breathing hard, his massive chest heaving in and out. He licked his lips, and his eyes closed briefly, as if savoring the taste of her.
“You walking her in, Tonio?” he asked, and she spun around in time to see Tonio Garza step out from among the trees.
“You’re not?” Tonio asked, seeming surprised.
“My presence won’t win her any friends in there,” he said, then stepped in close again, his body like a furnace in front of her. He stroked the back of his fingers over her cheek, and said, “Be careful out there, acushla. And make sure you come back.”
He exchanged an alpha-manly look with Tonio, and then he was gone as silently as he’d arrived.
Great. She didn’t know whether to be thrilled at what had been the best kiss of her life, or furious at his lousy timing. Damn him!
“He likes you, you know,” Tonio said, with a half grin.
“Yeah? Well, he has a funny way of showing it. What was that about walking me in?”
Tonio strolled over, his long legs covering the ground with that uniquely shifter grace. He slung a friendly arm around her shoulders. “No candidate walks into the Guild Hall alone. They’re accompanied by at least one relative, a male relative obviously.”
Rhodry’s unexpected appearance took on a whole new meaning. He hadn’t wanted her to walk in there alone. “What’d he mean about not winning me any friends?”
Tonio didn’t bother asking who he was. “Rhodry’s a good guy, a great hunter. Regrettably, his grandfather made some enemies a while back, and certain people have long memories. Where’s Fionn?” he asked, changing the subject.
“You’re the second person to ask me that this morning, and I still don’t know, or why I’m even expected to,” she said, grinding her teeth.
He swore beneath his breath. “I assumed that asshole would step up for once. Guess you’re stuck with me, huh?”
She should have been pissed at Fionn. He’d known about the tradition, and hadn’t cared. And she didn’t care, either. His absence was more than made up for by Rhodry’s appearance. Even if he wasn’t the one walking through the door with her. She gave Tonio a quick hug. “Thanks.”
“You ready for this?”
She drew a deep breath and nodded. “I am.”
They crossed the clearing and quickly loped up the stairs to the porch. The wide front door stood open, and their soft-soled boots made barely a sound on the smooth planks as they entered the main building. And there her feet stuttered to a halt. She was surprised to find the big hall empty, silence echoing off the tall ceilings where giant tree trunks crisscrossed two stories overhead.
She realized with a start what that meant. Everyone was already outside, waiting for her. She closed her eyes and drew in a fortifying breath, catching the familiar combination of musk and spice that was shifter, and beneath it, the smell of varnish and old wood, slightly must
y in the damp morning. Someone had prepared breakfast in the kitchen and her stomach growled. She’d been too nervous to eat anything this morning, making do with a tasteless protein bar, even though this was probably her last chance at a decent meal for days, if not weeks.
She opened her eyes and took in the faded tapestries, the mezzanine circling the second level, its wide bannisters scratched by generations of shifters, and beyond that, the long, dark corridors lined with door after door, marking the rooms where several of the younger shifters lived full-time. They probably had a full house today. The annual trials were a big deal. Visitors would have come in from the mountains and other outlying areas for the event.
She gulped…and started moving again, suddenly in a hurry to get through the silent hall. She stepped out onto the broad back porch, and was glad there was nothing more in her stomach than half a protein bar. The yard was filled with shifters—big, brawny shifters who were all staring at her.
She took the stairs slowly, feeling Tonio at her back, grateful for his support as she surveyed the silent crowd. She knew most of those gathered by sight at least, if not by name. Conversations gradually resumed as she made her way to the judge’s table. Some of the shifters she passed acknowledged her. Most simply stared, and even among the friendlier ones, she saw no support for what she was about to do.
Fionn appeared out of the crowd, intent on getting between her and Tonio, but he refused to give ground, regarding Fionn with the thinly veiled hostility so common to interactions among shifters. Fionn’s head lowered, his eyes narrowing, and she felt Tonio tense beside her. These testosterone games weren’t unusual among the alpha male shifters. She even found them charming sometimes. Today, she had no patience.
She sighed, disgusted, and stepped away from both of them to approach the sign-in table, surprised to find no other candidates in line ahead of her.
“Missed the rush, I guess,” she joked to no one in particular.
The judge sitting on the other side was Orrin Brady, the same older shifter who’d approved her initial application way back when. She’d seen him around the Guild Hall since then, but they’d never spoken. He finished whatever he was writing before looking up at her. “The others will come in a month or so. For now, we’ve just the one, and that would be you, I’m thinking.”
She jolted a little in surprise. No one had told her she was being tested separately. She wondered how many had known. As far as she knew, this had never happened in the Guild’s history, which fit, because she’d never happened before either. She kept a smile on her face with effort. “Well, then,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“You sure you want to do this, lass?” Orrin said in a low voice. “No one would think less of you if you didn’t.”
I would think less of me, she wanted to tell him. She kept that defiant thought to herself and simply shook her head. “I’m ready,” she repeated.
“Very well,” he said on a long sigh. He stood, towering over her, big like they all were, and still strong despite the gray in his braid that made him old enough to be her grandfather. One more genetic bonus from that long-ago ancestor—or maybe this particular gift had come from the science of their human creators. Shifters lived a healthy twenty or thirty years beyond their normal human counterparts.
Orrin lifted a tall ceramic jar from the table. Holding it with two hands, top and bottom, he shook it up and down, making a terrible racket and proving definitively that it wasn’t empty. According to custom, the jar was filled with stones in four different colors, each color representing a direction on the map. He stilled the rattling, held the jar in the palm of one big hand and removed the lid with the other before holding it out to her. “Choose your path,” he said formally.
She drew a deep breath, cast a wish to the winds in the treetops, and stuck in her hand. She didn’t waste time fishing around, just grabbed the first smooth stone her fingers touched, curled her hand into a fist, and pulled it out.
Orrin moved methodically, replacing the lid on the jar, setting it on the table, and then finally stretching out his open hand to her. She held her closed fist over his palm for a beat, and then opened it, watching fixedly as a black stone tumbled out. Orrin closed his fist over the stone in turn, glanced at her quickly, then displayed the stone in two fingers over his head for everyone to see, and said a single word.
“Darkward.”
Rhodry’s jaw tightened almost painfully when he heard that fateful word. All around him, the clearing erupted in a low mutter of speculation, while his eyes remained fixed on Amanda. He’d been watching her from the moment she appeared on the back porch with Tonio Garza looming behind her. He’d seen the brief hesitation in her eyes and in her stance when she’d first stepped outside. He’d also seen her chin lift defiantly before she’d marched directly over to the table as if she had every right to be there. And now she stood calmly, seeming completely unaffected by what anyone else would consider a piece of truly foul luck. It made him wonder if she understood the full ramifications of drawing the black stone.
The format of the final Guild trial was simple. Every candidate chose from the jar of stones, which determined the direction of their trial. Using one of the solar-powered hovercraft, they were escorted deep into the Green until they reached a site that the escort considered sufficiently remote and challenging. Every trial was different, depending on the individual, his weaknesses and strengths, the weather conditions and the luck of the direction chosen. Only one thing was certain—once the candidate was abandoned, he was on his own. Not even the shifters on patrol would help him out, unless it became a matter of life or death. And if it reached that point, the trial was a failure anyway.
Rhodry had been to other trials—his own, of course, and those of his many cousins. And he knew the Hall was usually a lively place while everyone waited for the candidates to straggle back in. Guild members would come and go, food and drink would be plentiful, and betting was not uncommon. It was more spirited than usual with Amanda’s trial, which the powers that be had apparently decided to single out from the others. Even shifters with homes in the city were hanging around.
The betting odds against her would skyrocket now that she’d drawn the least favorable of the four possible directions. Darkward meant north toward the glacier.
Cold, inhospitable and, depending on how far north one traveled, never feeling the warmth of direct sunlight, the glacier was buried beneath a layer of ice deeper than anyone had ever bothered to measure. She wouldn’t be going as far as the glacier itself; the trial candidates were always dropped inside the Green, since the goal was to test them, not kill them. Nonetheless, it would be much colder and far more challenging than it would have been if she’d drawn another direction.
He eyed her woefully inadequate clothing. High-tech fibers or not, she’d need more than what he could see if she was going to stay warm.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of movement, as shifters shuffled to form a rough circle around her. He’d seen shifter candidates quail at this point. Not Amanda. She raised her chin and forced a smile onto her face, meeting their scrutiny without flinching.
“Darkward it is,” Orrin said from behind her.
“Should have fattened up a bit, lass, keep you warmer. You’re with the big boys now,” someone taunted. The others laughed and she laughed with them. It was all part of the ritual, subjecting the candidate to insults and verbal challenges before he—or for the first time, she—set out. “Will you put ribbons in your braid then, little girl?” someone else shouted.
Rhodry frowned at the foolishness of their so-called insults. They expected her to fail, and their taunts reflected that. He knew Amanda better than they did. She wouldn’t cave after the first cold night, she’d push herself until something truly catastrophic happened, and by then it might be too late.
“Do the trees sing to you?” he demanded. It was the only question that truly mattered. The one that could mean the difference between life and death,
and it dropped into the crowd of shifters like a stone, spreading an uneasy silence rippling outward. It was the issue on everyone’s mind, the one never before raised in a trial, because every shifter could hear the trees from the moment his heart first beat in the womb.
Amanda recognized Rhodry’s voice, and her stupid heart raced when she found his face in the crowd. He stood there watching her with those beautiful golden eyes. The shifters she’d met all had some trace of the cat’s gold in their eyes when in human form, usually flecks or streaks. She’d never met another shifter with eyes that were pure gold like his, eyes that were staring at her, waiting for an answer. And she didn’t flinch.
“They sing to me in strong voices,” she responded, loudly enough for everyone in the yard to hear her. “Before I ever set foot on the planet, from the moment I hit atmosphere, they sang their joys and sorrows. They sing to me now, calling me to join them.”
Those golden eyes never wavered, his closed expression telling her everything she needed to know. He knew she could hear the trees, and he still doubted she could do it. That infuriated her more than anything he could have said, more than any imagined hurt that his reluctance might have caused. She stared back at him, daring him to challenge her.
“How about your claws, Amanda? Show us your claws.” Tonio’s familiar voice broke the standoff, and she blew her breath out in a long release, unaware until then that she’d been holding it. She glanced to the right, smiling. “I’ve claws enough to handle you, Tonio,” she said, to loud guffaws of laughter.
“Forget the claws, I’d like to see her fur,” someone muttered loud enough to be heard, and an entirely different sort of male laughter filled the clearing.
“Better check with your wife first, Nando.” That was Fionn, and his voice had a hard edge to it. He was still angry from his earlier confrontation with Tonio, or maybe just not happy at the sexual suggestion in Nando’s jest. Whatever the reason, it silenced the crowd of shifters for good.
Shifter Planet Page 13