by Linda Kage
If I was home in High Cliff, I could turn to just about any stranger and ask for some clarification. But not a lot of High Clifters dwelled in Far Shore, since Far Shore and High Cliff had been enemies until about two moon cycles ago. When Nicolette had taken over the reign, she’d immediately proclaimed High Cliff was now Far Shore’s ally. But that didn’t mean a stampede of them had come to visit yet.
I saw precisely no one else in the crowd bearing a mark like mine. So I guess I was on my own in figuring this out.
Raking a hand through my hair, I murmured apologies as I wove through people, trying to reach the girl. Being smaller, she would’ve squeezed through with much more ease than I.
“Dammit.”
Stopping, I spun in a circle and became an idiot, trying to use my eyes again to find her. But it felt as if that method should work faster.
Except it didn’t. At all.
I just about decked a couple when they inadvertently walked into my path. The frustration mounted, so I decided to stop and regroup.
Ignoring the zing in my blood that told me to keep with the chase and catch that girl because I was so close, I found a clearing among the throng and just stood there a moment with my hands on my hips, letting my brain clear so I could think.
Okay, so what had just happened here?
I hadn’t found the man from the market two days ago, but I’d found a little girl. And they both had lit up my mark like a fire to dry kindling. So either I had two true loves, and they just happened to be in the same village at that same time, or somehow the old man was now the little girl.
I blinked. A shapeshifter? I knew some people could turn into animals and back to humans again. Some animals could turn from one species to the next. But I’d never heard of a human switching between different human forms. Didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. It just didn’t feel like the answer in this situation.
“Hey, sugar,” a male voice cooed just before a hand slid across my chest.
I turned to find a prostitute before me, smiling with clear invitation.
“You look lost,” she told me, her masculine tone totally not fitting the delicately feminine features she sported. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ll help you find your way...” Her painted eyebrows waggled suggestively. “Right into my boudoir.”
“Oh! Uh, no, thank you, ma’am,” I told her, starting to turn back in the direction I’d seen that girl.
But the woman grabbed my arm, her grip strong. Stepping closer, she leaned in, lowering her voice. “If you’re not into the ladies, I could be a man for you.” With a wink, she confided, “Your glamour of choice, love.”
“Glamour?” I murmured the word, my eyes widening. “Son of a bitch, that’s it!”
My true love had been wearing a glamour, magically altering his—her? I had no idea which gender they were now—appearance to look like someone else. It’d been a good glamour, too. Quite believable. I hadn’t even considered I wasn’t seeing his true form when I’d first set eyes on him.
“Thank you,” I told the prostitute, reaching out to squeeze her hand in gratitude. “Thank you so much.” She blinked long, fake lashes at me, clearly confused as to why she was being thanked. I offered her one last smile before I took off in the direction that I knew my true love lay.
I had no clue if his or her true identity lay with the man or girl, or maybe neither, but I had to admit, I kind of rooted for the girl. She was the gender I preferred, anyway. Too young right now but, honestly, she had to be closer to me in age than the man had been. It’d be nice to be with someone who shared roughly the same lifespan with me, that way we’d have more of a chance to live our entire lives together before one or the other died.
And I wanted years to spend with her. Or him.
I frowned. It’d be really nice to know exactly who this person was so I could at least get the pronoun right. And so I could learn why they were hiding so stealthily.
One thing I knew for certain: they knew what I looked like, and they were fully aware I wanted to make contact with them. But for reasons unknown, they did not want to talk to me in return. So I was going to have to be even stealthier than ever, maybe find my own disguise. Except I’d never been one to hide anything about my appearance. Call it a strange point of pride, but I wanted people to see what they got when it came to me.
Twenty-four hours later, I realized my pride was stupid.
After catching up with my mate while he was posing as a male about my age but a little taller and bulkier, he caught sight of me, again. And thus, he got away.
Again.
I had no idea what source he was getting his glamour from, but it was damn impressive; all three identities had been the most detailed disguises I’d ever seen.
If I could’ve gotten my hands on my own glamour, I would have then, because there was no way in hell my true love was going to let me approach him as I was.
Making do as best as I could, I bought a cloak and whipped the hood up. The weather was a bit warm for such apparel, but I didn’t care. I just had to get close enough to make contact, and then they’d see…
They’d know there was nothing to fear from me.
Once again veering away from the village, I followed the tingling in my mark to a smaller settlement about ten miles out. For some reason, the black cat with the white paws tagged along. It had been with me since we’d met in the alley.
Sometimes it dogged my horse’s steps, sometimes it led the way along the path as if it knew exactly where we were going, and sometimes it darted off to the side after a field mouse to catch a meal.
After it ignored my initial attempts to shoo it back into town the first day that I left the village to follow the draw from my mark, I gave up and shared my meals with the cat—which it always greedily accepted—and I struck up the occasional conversation with it.
The cat was not a big conversationalist.
“What form do you think we’ll find my mate in this time?” I asked.
No answer.
I lifted my eyebrows as if it had, though. “Really? Not even going to dare to guess the gender or age? Smart,” I murmured. “Very smart. Playing it safe. Though, if you think about it, no one ever accomplished anything great by playing it safe.”
I eyed the cat, waiting for a response. It didn’t even rise to the bait.
“Hey, did you ever hear of the woman who hated negative numbers? She’d stop at nothing to avoid them.”
Still no response.
Hmm. Tough audience.
I thought that had been a damn fine joke myself.
“My great-grandmother,” I went on, returning to my initial subject. “Amelia. The one from Earth that I told you about yesterday. My friend Bison—also from Earth—said she’s known there as the most famous pilot ever.” I waved a distracted hand. “I’ll explain what pilots and airplanes are later. My point is, she didn’t play it safe. She stood up and tried something no person on Earth had ever tried before. They all think she died doing it, of course, but we know the truth, don’t we, cat?”
I had explained my theory about Replacements to the cat three days back.
Brow furrowing, I gave a subtle sigh. “Calling you cat just feels wrong, you know. We should give you a name.” Brightening, I asked, “What do you think of Mittens?”
The cat hissed at me.
Well, at least it was responding to me now.
“Okay, then. Not Mittens, I guess.” Fussy feline. “Whiskers? Felix? Oliver? Bella? Simba?”
This time, I got a low growl from the back of the cat’s throat.
“I’ll keep thinking about it, then.” I sighed. “Seriously though, what reason do you think my true love has for always running from me? I mean, you don’t think he—she—knows I’m their life partner, do you? Maybe they’re just so repulsed by the look of me that they want nothing to do with me.”
That would suck. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do if that were the case.
I’d want them to always
be happy and content, of course, and if they were happier without me, I wouldn’t want to force myself into their life. Then again, the mark was never wrong, and the mark knew which person out there could make you the happiest, so my mate should honestly give us a chance.
I just wasn’t sure quite how to convince them of that.
Needing some advice, even a meow, growl, or purr at this point, I turned my attention to my traveling companion, asking, “Cat?”
Not-Mittens had discovered a bird sitting on a low branch in a nearby tree and was taking up chase, completely ignoring me before it caught sight of a dangling vine swaying in the light breeze and began to bat at it.
“Wow,” I murmured. “So glad to see how much you care.”
Dismissing the cat, I began to hum to myself, a song Grandpa Atchison used to sing to me when I was little. He’d said it had been his mother’s favorite song.
“The sun’s in my heart,” I murmured under my breath. “And I’m ready for love…”
I was beyond ready for love.
“Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place.”
Suddenly, my skin began to tingle, and my heartbeat sped up as we neared the settlement, where about half a dozen homes had been built in a circle around an intersection to two main roads.
My mate was here.
Many other voyage-weary travelers had also paused in their journeys and were purchasing food and drink from a handful of vendors posted along the roadside.
My mate loitered among the venders and was back to being old, a female this time, with frail skin and a gaunt frame, and scraggly long white hair that snarled down her back like shriveled, dead snake skins hanging from her scalp.
Keeping a distance away, I hung back, huddled in my dark cloak, and paused at the end of a line of people who were waiting to purchase some ale. She had no idea I was there.
She didn’t sell bread this time but was peddling fish. Her trade seemed popular enough as she’d accumulated her own line of waiting customers, eager to purchase her wares. She’d smile at them like a kindly old lady, wishing them a good day as they left. Hope swelled in my chest. Maybe she wasn’t cantankerous after all.
But she must not have had much to sell because she ran out of stock about the same time I reached the front of the line I was in, where I’d just dropped some coin in a bucket and gotten a hearty swig of ale from the ladle offered to me.
She didn’t linger long after selling her last mackerel. Packing up her traveling case—no trolley this time—she turned away and hobbled down the road on foot, away from the settlement.
Since others were going that way as well, I lingered near them, so she’d think I was part of their group when she glanced over her shoulder to check her trail.
Reaching a curve in the road, I lost sight of her for a few minutes, and once I reached the place where I could see again, she’d disappeared. I frowned and scanned the trees on either side of me, wondering which way she’d gone.
The mark told me to veer left.
After slowing my pace to let the group I’d been clinging near move along and not catch me creeping from the main path like some kind of bandit, I slipped between the trees. My horse nickered softly as a low-hanging branch full of leaves brushed against her pelt.
“Shh,” I cautioned.
Not that my warning made much difference. The horse snuffled out a sound and shook her head, not a fan of all the trees touching her. The crunch of hooves tromping through all the foliage underfoot seemed to echo all around me, sounding more like a stampede of a dozen stallions, not one single mare.
There was no way to be completely inconspicuous on horseback while following someone through a forest. I glanced back toward the roadway. We moved far enough away that I couldn’t see it anymore.
Perfect.
Dismounting, I took the horse’s reins and tied her to a tree, leaving her a pouch full of grain to eat for a while until I returned. Then I started ahead on foot, only to realize the cat wanted to follow me.
“Why don’t you stay back with the horse?” I suggested.
It completely ignored me.
I rolled my eyes. “I know you can understand me. Mittens.”
The cat growled a warning and hurried a few steps ahead of me.
“Fine,” I grumbled, lowering my voice. “You can come along. Just keep quiet.”
Slowing back down so it was walking at my side, the cat didn’t make a sound, contentedly padding along on silent paws.
Together, we followed the sensation in my mark until I caught a whisper of movement up ahead.
“There,” I murmured, pointing. The cat leaped soundlessly onto a tree branch so it could see better.
Up ahead, my mate paused and slowly glanced back. I was near enough to the tree to blend into it without being seen. And the cat stepped in front of me, either blocking me from her or blocking her from me—I wasn’t entirely sure which.
Turning forward again as if satisfied she was alone, the old woman changed her gait from a bumbling uneven shamble to a faster, spry clip full of youth and vigor. This was no aged person in front of me. But she didn’t skip or dash like a child either.
I still had no clue about the gender, but at least I had a rough estimate for the age now. That was a start.
The woods thickened and the sound of running water grew louder. Closer. The woman approached a sudden break in the trees at the edge of a brook, where a horse waited, tied to a limb. She neared the horse, petted its flank in greeting, and plopped her pack down on the ground beside its saddle.
I watched in awe, easing closer as she bent to fish some jerky from her travel bags and then chewed on it while pacing around the small clearing. My lips parted as oxygen hissed from my lungs.
Now was as good a time as any to approach her. But I already knew she’d try to run again, and I wanted this moment to enjoy just being in her presence. My mark seemed to sigh as if appeased by the proximity too. Or maybe it was her emotions coming through that made me feel so much lighter.
She liked being away from everything and alone. At peace. I was kind of loath to ruin that moment for her with my presence.
After tugging something white from her pack, she flung the cloth over her shoulder and then hopped up onto a large boulder that jutted out over the brook. There, she climbed up toward the peak, making my heart leap with fear for her safety. But she was so surefooted I needn’t have worried. It was still strange to watch an old woman scale the rock with such ease and grace, though.
Once she reached the top, she scanned the area surrounding her, checking to see if she was alone. And then she began to shimmy out of the worn, brown cloak she wore.
My eyebrows lifted. I eased in closer.
Stripping completely bare, she hung the white cloth from a nearby tree branch and eyed the cool waters below. The glamour wasn’t complete, I realized. Under her clothes, the skin was merely a flesh-colored blur with no defined details. It looked really odd.
Naked, my mate dove into the water.
My smile spread. Now we were getting somewhere.
The one thing I knew about glamours was that they were susceptible to the elements. Too much exposure to fire, dirt, high winds, or water, and the glamour washed away completely.
No matter how good her glamour was, it wasn’t going to last after being submerged in the spring.
So whoever rose from those depths would bear my partner’s true image. And I, for one, couldn’t wait to see what he or she really looked like.
Chapter 5
Quilla
The water felt good: crisp, refreshing, and cleansing.
I swam around probably longer than I should have, my fingertips growing wrinkled and pruned in the process. But Melaina would return any moment, and she’d no doubt have something snide and degrading to say if she caught me in the water without any clothes on.
Knowing I should move, I lingered, anyway, floating on my back and closing my eyes as I turned my face toward the
warm beams of sunlight that streamed through the branches of the overhanging trees.
My mind drained of thought, and my bones went liquid and limp, enjoying the moment of peace. Yeah, this was nice. Lips lifting with a languid smile, I lifted my lashes and focused on the blue sky above.
He had blue eyes, my brain reminded me. I’d seen them clearly when he’d winked at me in the market when I was disguised as the little girl. They’d been such a brilliant, alive blue, too. Way too blue and pretty for a cold-blooded killer.
My brow furrowed.
The High Cliff soldier had been following me for a solid week now. I’d even shed three different disguises to avoid him, but he kept getting right back onto my trail. It was exasperating, and a bit frightening, if I wanted to be completely honest.
If this kept up, something was going to have to be done about it. I might actually have to kill the blue-eyed dreamboat. I shuddered over the mere possibility. I hadn’t yet been forced to kill anyone, and it wasn’t something I liked to think about. But now the thought was there, and it bothered me.
Tranquil time over, I flipped upright in the water and wiped wetness from my face before paddling toward the shore where the rock overhang was. Gripping a tree root, I hoisted myself up until my bare toes got a good grip on the natural stone steps that were worn into the ragged side of the rock. Then I climbed. Once I reached the flat, jutting top, I grabbed the hanging frock I’d left waiting for me, and I shrugged it on.
Then I perched myself above the brook and concentrated on wringing dry my long mass of hair. As water evaporated from my skin, I curled my legs under me and wiggled my bare toes in delight, giving them a little freedom.
No matter what disguise I wore, I usually had thick boots on underneath. It felt nice to have them out in the open air for a few minutes, able to breathe a little.
Behind me, a twig snapped. I froze with my hands still wrapped around thick locks of damp hair and forgot to exhale.