The Arrows of the Heart Page 12

  It would be a great twist on my life’s story if I ended up losing my so carefully guarded virginity in some remote place, weeping and protesting as the virile shapeshifter had his way with me. I didn’t think Zyr would be cruel, but I also didn’t think he understood our Dasnarian ways. He saw sex as a fun recreation, not what would determine my identity and fate for the rest of my life.

  Even if I managed to hold him off, it would anger him and he could strand me forever in this increasingly remote wilderness. The Tala didn’t want me in Annfwn. Jepp and Kral had to have been relieved to be rid of me without effort or shame on their part. My family already considered me dead.

  Absolutely no one would come look for me. No wonder I felt so gloomy. Without realizing it, I’d stumbled to the precipice of my life. Tonight would change me irrevocably. I faced either death—fast or slow—or my final fall from grace as an honorable woman. That was the way of things, so I must prepare myself for either eventuality.

  As if in sync with my thoughts, Zyr slowed, then handed the mapstick back to me. I’d had another possibility ready, but he refused it and began a gentle circling descent. I put the stick with the first, carefully apart from the untested ones, and braced myself for landing—and the night ahead that would set the course of the rest of my life, however long that ended up being.

  Instead of landing immediately, however, he flew inland a ways. Seeking higher ground to launch from in the morning, I realized. Oh, and fresh water it occurred to me, as he headed for a pretty rise above a small lake. I’d been so preoccupied choosing between death or loss of honor that I hadn’t thought about basic needs. Now that I glimpsed the water, though, I became aware of my thirst. And my hunger, as I’d eaten nothing since breakfast. Neither had Zyr, and he’d been the one doing all the work.

  He brought us in so gradually, that I barely felt a jolt as we landed on soft grass under a gracefully branching tree. Nothing like that morning’s precipitous landing in the surf. Zyr crouched for me to dismount, then simply lay down with a heavy sigh, his head drooping. Poor exhausted thing. I scrambled down, suppressing my own groan at my body’s protesting, locking my knees against the wobble in my legs. You’re not the one who’s been flying nonstop for hours, I scolded myself. Working quickly, I unfastened the packs, pulling them off him.

  Unburdened, he stood again, shook himself. Then he hopped off the rise, flew up—and dove into the lake. I gasped as he went under, putting a hand over my startled heart when he popped to the surface again as a man. A naked man this time, by the look of his bare shoulders as he tossed back his long, water-slick hair and grinned at me.

  “Moranu, that feels good!” he called to me. “Come join me.”

  I waved in lieu of answering, able to ignore that command, couched in such friendly terms, and set about unpacking our things. We’d need to build a fire for warmth as the evening continued to cool, and to heat our food. My thirst could wait and I hardly needed to bathe again, as I had just before we left and had barely exerted myself since then. This night might see the end of my virtue, if I couldn’t resolve myself to fight him off and face final abandonment. No need, however, to hasten the event.

  By the time he climbed the rise—once again as his post-shift, cleaned-up self in the blue shirt with his dry hair tied back—I’d made a tidy ring of stones around a dip in the ground for a firepit and had a decent pile of logs assembled, with kindling set.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said by way of greeting, smiling at me easily. “But you should’ve come swimming. Aren’t you thirsty?”

  “I had some water in the packs. I’ll go refill the flasks in a moment. But we have a problem—there’s nothing to start the fire with. I hope you know the trick of starting one with two sticks, because I don’t and it will be a cold supper for us.”

  “I don’t know such a trick but it sounds dreadfully tedious.” He glanced at my little pile of kindling and it burst into flame. Astonished, I jumped back, and he grinned wider. “So much easier,” he told me.

  “You did that… with magic?”

  He crouched by the little fire and added a log. “It’s one of the simplest magics. Even those of us without much sorcery can usually do that much, make a little flame.”

  “It seems like a major magic to me—few elements are as powerful as fire.”

  He lifted his gaze from the fire, regarding me thoughtfully, his eyes very nearly the same color as the purpling sky behind him. “I never thought about it that way. I suppose I call it ‘simple’ because it comes so easily in childhood. And even our elderly who’ve declined enough to lose most of their magic can still call a flame. First to come and last to leave, we say of it.”

  “Useful, too,” I commented, gathering my supplies to make our meal. “It won’t take long before supper is ready.”

  “I’ll cook. You go have a swim and relax.”

  I glanced up, ready to laugh at his joke, only to find him perfectly serious. “I couldn’t possibly allow you to wait on me,” I ventured.

  He cocked his head, as if he hadn’t heard me quite right. “I wasn’t offering to wait on you. We can share the chores. You did some; I’ll do some.”

  “You did all the flying,” I pointed out. “You have to be exhausted.”

  “Some.” He shrugged cheerfully. “But cooking dinner doesn’t require a lot of effort—especially since you already assembled everything—and when I shapeshift back, it restores my body quite a bit. Something you can’t take advantage of, and I know riding that many hours has to be hard on you. Go swim. Work out the kinks. I won’t peek.” He winked at me with jaunty lasciviousness, taking the food from my hands.

  “I can’t just play while you’re working,” I tried a final time, truly torn between obeying the direct command and allowing a man to serve me.

  “Truly?” He raised a brow as he added another log, distributing the flame better for cooking. “I thought you’re some sort of Dasnarian Imperial Princess destined to be empress. Don’t you sorts have armies of servants to do everything for you?”

  He wasn’t wrong there, though something in his tone made me feel less than admirable about that aspect of my upbringing. “Of course,” I replied stiffly, “but female servants. A man never waits on a woman. It’s unthinkable.”

  He gave me a slanted grin, indicating the pot in his hands. “But not undoable.”

  “Please let me do that,” I held out my hands, wishing I had the temerity to wrench the pot from his grip.

  “No.” He held it away from me, making it clear he wouldn’t relinquish it easily. “You have weird ideas about men and women.”

  “I do not. That’s just the way of things.”

  “It’s the way of things,” he mimicked me—not well, in a voice much too high to be mine—eyes sparkling at my indignation. “I’m thinking Dasnarians have buried themselves under that saying. You people are the mossbackiest of mossbacks.”

  “We are not!” I protested, stung into indignation before I considered exactly what I argued for. “I don’t think that’s even a real word: mossbackiest.”

  “I’ve been speaking Common Tongue much longer than you have. Besides, it has to be real, because I used it.” He added the rest of the water to the pan and set it in the ashes next the flame, then handed me the flask. “Go make yourself useful and refill this. You’re losing swimming time with this silly argument.”

  Affronted—and worn down by all the commands I found it so difficult to disobey—I took the flask and stood. I’d get a drink, refill, and be back directly.

  “Take your bow,” he directed me. “Animals come to water in the evening like this. Yell if anything happens, but be ready to hold something off, just in case.” His face had an uncharacteristically serious cast, and I knew he thought of the battle with the sleeper spies that morning.

  “I won’t swim then,” I told him, relieved to have that excuse.

  “It’s an enclosed body of water,” he pointed out. “One I chose pretty much at random.
I seriously doubt a sleeper spy is lurking in it. Besides, I shifted into a fish and checked it pretty thoroughly. If an attack comes, it’ll be from land or air. Get cleaned up, Karyn,” he said, with a certain gentleness. “You’ll feel better for it.”

  I realized his intent then. He wanted me clean for him. No jasmine-scented baths and elaborate cosmetics for my loss of virginity then. No fasting to make me clean inside as well as out. Just lake water and inevitability. Because I would give in. A stronger woman than I might choose death over dishonor, but I’d already given up so much in order to live.

  I would choose life.

  ~ 11 ~

  I restrung my bow as I walked down the little hill, the act so practiced it required no thought, leaving my mind free to assimilate what would happen between Zyr and me. What I knew of the actual act.

  Because I’d been betrothed to Kral so young—and the guarantee of my celibacy clearly spelled out from the initial proposal to my father—I hadn’t had the education in pleasing a man that my sisters received. My mother, showing rare initiative and her innate compassion, decided I’d be happier not knowing of those intimacies, to spare me wanting what I might never have. Should Hestar—Sól forbid—have passed away and his sons with him, allowing Kral to ascend to the Imperial Throne, she reasoned I’d have time to be taught what I needed to know. Likewise, if Hestar had lifted his ban on Kral siring children, my admission to my husband’s bed would not have occurred without due warning. And extensive preparation.

  In retrospect, my father likely never knew of my mother’s deliberate omission in this part of her daughter’s training to be a woman. We may not have had as cloistered a seraglio as some, but women still took care of female concerns, just as men took care of the male ones. It seemed my father must have known about Kral’s ambitions to supplant Hestar. Kral had confessed them to me, out of an odd integrity that had encouraged my affection for him, young as I was. He’d wanted me to know his hopes. More likely he told me to test my loyalty to him. If I’d blabbed his secret, he could’ve had me killed easily enough.

  At the time, however, I’d been proud that he’d trusted me. Proud that I had been selected, of all the potential brides, to be his first wife. And thrilled to be part of such a potent political secret, admitted to such a rarified society. When Kral asked how I’d feel about being empress—and if I thought I could stand the trials and keep his secrets—I’d answered that I’d be honored to reign at his side.

  I’d been such a naïve girl, full of vanity and ambition. Despite having the conditions of my marriage-in-name-only explained to me, I’d nurtured girlish fantasies that it wouldn’t stay that way. Imperial Prince Kral—so handsome, ambitious, general of the Dasnarian armies, so dashingly older than I, and brother of the emperor!—had dazzled me. My father had been so proud and pleased. I couldn’t have climbed any higher in Dasnarian society than that.

  And now I’d fallen out of existence entirely, about to lose my safeguarded virginity at last, as a wild shapeshifter’s rekjabrel. Punishment for that girlish hubris, perhaps.

  Or for being a traitor. I’d betrayed my emperor by agreeing to keep Kral’s secrets. Not even eighteen and I’d established myself a person of no honor. No wonder no one could trust me. I had no loyalty to anything. How loathsome a creature I was.

  The urge to wash myself clean at least on the outside became unbearable.

  Carefully studying the landscape for movement first, I laid my bow and quiver on a dry rock at water’s edge, then filled the flask and drank from it. I’d been thirstier than I thought, drinking it all down with gratitude before refilling it again and setting it beside my bow. Glancing up the hill, I spotted our campfire easily—the evening had grown quite dark—and Zyr silhouetted beside it, his back to me as promised. Perhaps his kind didn’t require their women to undress completely. Though Sey had been naked that morning. Still, I might be able to convince him to take his pleasure of me by simply lifting my skirts. I might not know all the sensual tricks, but I understood enough of the mechanics to know he could take me that way.

  Regardless, I had no plans of stripping completely now—perhaps ever, if I could avoid it. I took off my overdress, and the underpart, along with a couple of the petticoats, leaving on just two layers of shifts. Wading into the water, I found it delightfully cool and refreshing, the mud squishing between my bare toes. Zyr had been right to recommend this, as self-serving as his motives might have been. I struck out swimming, my body lengthening and loosening with the different exercise.

  I stopped to tread water and unbind my long braid. Sea water makes for stiff hair and I’d take advantage of this opportunity to rinse it with fresh. Tying the ribbon from my braid around my wrist, I let my hair float free, combing it loose with my fingers. I had no soaps, no scented oils, but I used my undershifts to scrub at my skin. Then I swam a bit more, letting the cool water glide over my skin, rinsing me clean.

  Swimming at night wasn’t something I’d ever done. Even rambunctious country girls came inside before dark, dressing for dinner, and keeping to the safety of the seraglio. Being suspended in the lake, the darkness of evening blurring the difference between air and water, I felt my own edges soften.

  Maybe it didn’t matter who I’d been. I’d chosen life, which meant I could become anyone now.

  I struck back for shore, orienting myself by the firelight. Back on dry land, I wrung out the shifts as best I could, then pulled on the layers of dress over them. The underthings clung clammily to my skin, but nothing to be done for it. If Zyr required me to strip, I’d lay them out to dry by the fire. A compensation of sorts. The night was warm, so I dried my hair more carefully, wringing out all the dampness, fluffing and finger-combing it, encouraging it to be dry enough to braid again.

  “You all right?” Zyr called from above.

  “Yes!” I shouted back, chagrined that he’d had to summon me. “Be right there.”

  Hurrying, I let my hair fall as it would and I climbed up the hill to the fire.

  “Feel good?” Zyr inquired, then stared at me, an arrested expression on his face.

  “What—do I have mud on me?” I swiped a hand over my face and examined it in the firelight for evidence of smudging.

  “No.” He breathed a laugh and stood, approaching me slowly, like he thought I might startle and run. I made myself stay still, wanting to flee, knowing that he could easily catch me and I had nowhere to go.

  Picking up a long lock of my hair where it streamed damp over my bosom—carefully, so his fingers didn’t brush me—he rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. “I’ve never seen you with your hair loose,” he mused, eyes wandering over my face. “You look different. Wilder. Like a Tala woman but painted in gold.”

  Why that made me flush, I didn’t know. Something about the way he looked at me… I shifted, uncomfortable, and stepped out of his reach despite my resolve to endure his attentions. Perhaps I’d do better with it once I ate. “I’m famished,” I told him, making my movement seem as if I intended to check the food. “Shall I finish the cooking?”

  “There’s nothing to finish.” He waited, head tilted a little as if listening to something beyond my ken. “It’s done,” he clarified, likely because I seemed confused.

  Oh. What next? “I’ll dish it up then.”

  “No, no. Allow me. If I’m going to serve, I might as well complete the job.” He smiled, sly and close-lipped, clearly enjoying my discomfiture.

  Gathering my poise around me, I sank to the grass and accepted the bowl full of meat stew. The dried meat had softened nicely and Zyr had put some sort of crunchy root in it that I didn’t recognize, but that leant a fresh, bright taste. I was hungrier than I’d thought, the food hitting my empty belly and my body responding with greed. I tried to observe good manners, but in my haste I smeared some of the rich gravy on my upper lip. Casting about for the napkins we didn’t have, I instead surreptitiously lifted the hem, ducking my face to dab at my mouth.

  I’d thought
Zyr was occupied with consuming his own meal—much delayed by my dallying—but when I peeked at him, I found him watching me with that wicked amusement in his eyes. “Taste good?” he asked, somewhat pointedly.

  “It’s excellent. Thank you.” I held my head high with dignity, though I kept my gaze demurely lowered.

  He didn’t reply immediately. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the sound of him scraping the bowl clean. “There’s more,” he said.

  I realized I’d emptied my bowl. Why hadn’t I eaten more slowly? Though delaying wouldn’t change much. “You have more. I can have whatever you don’t finish.”

  With a gruff sound of annoyance, he dumped more stew into my bowl, then into his own. “Why do you do that?” he asked conversationally, though still with the edge of irritation in his voice.

  I glanced up from the bowl cautiously, not sure what I’d done wrong. “Why do I do what?” Lord Zyr, I added mentally. I still felt… impudent, even asking as deferentially as I could.

  “That. Exactly that.” He pointed his eating knife at me. “Defer,” he added, loading the word with scorn.

  I blinked at him, then realized I was staring in confusion and consternation, so I looked down again. My stomach growled, demanding more food, so I took a bite and chewed slowly, hoping that would allow me some time to think of a reply.

  “See? You’re still hungry. I can hear your stomach growling and it’s obvious you wanted more. So why did you say, ‘Oh, Zyr, you go ahead and eat it all. I’ll just sit here and be meek and hungry?’” He used that falsetto voice that he liked to mock me with.

  My head snapped up of its own accord. “I did not say that and I do not sound like that.”

  He grinned at me, clearly delighted to have tweaked my nose. He sprawled on the grass like a big cat soaking up the warmth of the flames, leaning on one elbow and taking up the entire other side of the campfire. “Gotcha,” he purred.