The Arrows of the Heart Read online

  “I just said goodbye to Zynda and Marskal,” Zyr told me, sounding less annoyed now. Maybe even kind of sad and weary.

  I nodded, covering my surprise. I’d known Lieutenant Marskal hadn’t planned to stay long. All of the leaders had been in strategy meetings the last couple of days and were dispersing to handle their missions to prepare for war. I supposed I’d thought Lieutenant Marskal would take the Hawks with him. Which kind of included me. No one had made that clear, of course. For all that the folks of the Thirteen Kingdoms at least observed some kinds of military and royal rank, they still had a casual attitude toward assigning people responsibility. They seemed to think I’d go and do whatever I wanted to. Utterly bewildering.

  Oh. With a sinking stomach, I realized what must’ve happened. Lieutenant Marskal had taken the Hawks with him, and because I wasn’t really one of them I’d been abandoned in Annfwn.

  The lieutenant had given me coin, those precious wages, so I could buy food, but now he’d left me here without a word. Kral and Jepp had sailed the Hákyrling back to the magical barrier protecting the realm, watching for more attacks by Deyrr. They had to be delighted to be rid of me. Jepp had suffered my company far too long—and had been much kinder to me than any Dasnarian would have been to her deposed rival. Not that I wished to be married to Kral still, but I’d at least been sure that he wouldn’t let me starve. Now I had no protector, no way to earn more wages. I’d already spent so much of them and now I would starve. Alone in a foreign land. Why had I been so stupid? Panic stole my breath.

  How much coin did I have left? I shouldn’t squander it on breakfast. I needed to hoard it, make a plan. But what? I couldn’t think.

  “What in Moranu is wrong with you?” Zyr had gone back to impatient, and I realized he’d been talking to me. He’d even set down the wooden chest and taken me by the shoulders. “Talk to me—are you ill?”

  “Lieutenant Marskal left,” I managed to reply, the command spurring me to answer.

  “Yes, that’s what I said.” Zyr sounded puzzled, ducking his head to try to look into my face. “Explain why that has you looking like you’ll faint.”

  I had to catch my breath, my lungs too tight to draw air. “He… didn’t take me… along and now… I’m all alone… in this place…and I’ll starve… and die!” I finished on a wail that robbed me of the last of my breath and would’ve had me melting in embarrassed horror if I didn’t feel like I might fall into a puddle of faint instead.

  Zyr cursed in his language, which would have sounded pretty if he weren’t so annoyed. He backed me up to the balustrade and made me sit, forcing my head down almost to the ground. “Deep breaths. Slow and even.” He spoke slowly and gently, rubbing a hand down my back. Far too familiar a touch, but it felt good and I could hardly throw him off. “That’s it, gréine. Calm and easy. Breathe.”

  And I found I could. Being upside-down made my head feel funny, but I no longer felt like I’d fall the dizzying drop to the beach.

  “You’re not all alone,” Zyr said, spacing out his words as if talking to a child. Which, I supposed was fair, as I was acting like one. “Only Zynda and Marskal left, on a private, stupidly heroic mission. The rest of the Hawks are still here, and you’ll keep training with them. My cousin Ursula, her royal high whatever, is sending more Hawks and troops here to Annfwn, to reinforce defenses in case there are more Deyrr attacks—remember? No one is going to let you starve. All right?”

  I nodded.

  “An actual verbal reply would be helpful, so I know you’re with me.” A hint of his usual teasing in there, but he still sounded gentle. Soothing. Totally unlike the Zyr I knew.

  “All right,” I answered.

  “Better now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you sit up?” He helped me straighten, and I caught a glimpse of his concerned expression before I averted my gaze. “Also, you wouldn’t starve anyway. Watch this.”

  I did as he told me, watching as he reached up a long arm to an overhanging tree limb, plucked a fruit and handed it to me. Bemused, I held it, the smooth globe cool from the night, the sweet scent almost like flowers.

  “No one starves here.” Zyr tapped the fruit, then put a finger under my chin, lifting my face so that keeping my eyes averted became more difficult. “Your cheeks are all pink now,” he noted.

  “From being upside down,” I pointed out, more tartly than I would’ve if I’d been feeling fully myself. Your impulsive tongue will get you in trouble someday. My mother’s words echoed in my mind as if she stood right there. By now she would’ve heard that my impulsive tongue had made me ask His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Dasnaria for an annulment of my marriage with Kral. She likely believed me dead. Just as well, as I’d never see any of my family again.

  Zyr broke into my mournful thoughts, his fingertips feathering over my cheek, as if testing the color, sending a shivery sensation through me I didn’t know how to handle. “Your skin is so pale and clear all the blood shows through.”

  “That’s disgusting!” I yanked away from his touch, shocked by his words and mortified that I’d let a strange man touch me. Even if it had felt nice for a moment. And not lonely.

  “How is that disgusting?” he asked, laughing and not caring at all. “People have blood in them and have skin to hold it in. This is true of animals, too. The Tala understand this—don’t Dasnarians?”

  “Yes, but we don’t discuss such things in public.” I smoothed my braid, refusing to look at him, no matter his antics. “It’s not an appropriate topic for mixed company.”

  “Mixed, as in Dasnarians and Tala?” His tone held plenty of mischief.

  “Mixed as in men and women.”

  “So, are only conversations about blood not allowed, or all bodily fluids?”

  I nearly choked, so I stood, straightening my skirts.

  “I guess that’s all bodily fluids,” Zyr observed, uncoiling to his feet with that odd animal grace. “You come from a very strange people.”

  “At least my people keep one body,” I replied, annoyed enough to be outright rude.

  “There, you sound better now. Your usual prim and offended self.” He retrieved the wooden box and started walking, so I had to go along. “And you’re blushing even more now, by the way. Is that what bothers you about me—that I’m a shapeshifter?”

  “It doesn’t bother me.” I looked out over the sea, bluer now with the rising sun that hadn’t yet tipped over the rim of the towering cliff above. “Zynda is a shapeshifter and I like her.”

  “Then you don’t like me personally.”

  “I don’t have an opinion about you one way or the other.” I kept my tone as neutral as I could manage. This man made it impossible to be polite.

  “But you won’t consider taking me as a lover,” he replied with that easy openness of his people.

  I pressed my lips together, mortified to be in this conversation, my face burning hot.

  “I’m an excellent lover,” Zyr continued, uncaring of the group of Tala girls who passed us carrying baskets. They giggled, several of them calling out what sounded like agreement. Zyr replied in their language, obviously flirting with them.

  I considered simply leaping over the balustrade and ending this. Instead, I quickened my pace, striding ahead while he dallied. Perhaps he’d forget about me and run after them.

  But no, he immediately caught up. “I’m not bragging,” he insisted, ducking his head to catch my eye. “Well, I’m bragging a little, but I can back it up. You’d enjoy yourself in my bed.”

  I stopped so fast he went a step past me, before whipping around. That was uncanny, too. These shapeshifters moved so fast they almost blurred, back in front of you before you realized they’d changed position. “Your bed?” I squeaked out, astonished and horrified enough to look him directly in his eyes.

  They widened, searching my face, his expression abruptly serious. “Why do you say it that way—is that an insult?”

  No. No, it couldn’t
mean the same thing in Common Tongue. “It’s nothing.”

  “I don’t think so. We must talk about this,” he said.

  “Nooo.” I shook my head emphatically, drawing out the word so he’d hear it. “We will not discuss this. In fact, this whole conversation is over. I never should have talked with you in the first place. I’m going for my breakfast now.”

  Head held high with all the dignity of the Hardie family, I walked on.

  There, Zynda. I’d told him.

  ~ 2 ~

  “You’re paying too much.” Zyr’s voice came so close to my ear that I jumped and dropped the change the Tala merchant had handed me. The coins clattered to the stones, making a merry racket.

  Zyr swiftly gathered them up, speaking rapidly in Tala. The woman behind the counter grinned and shrugged elaborately. The Tala had a way of doing that, shrugging with their whole bodies, kind of rippling in a way that made it clear they didn’t care at all about your opinion. Or for anything like an objective standard of law.

  Zyr pointed a finger at her, going on at length, his words severe enough to make her pout—though that didn’t stop her from replying in rising tones as she waved her hands at me in implicit accusation. A group of Tala sitting at a nearby table watched with great interest, murmuring to each other as they stared at me with animal bright eyes. I wanted to shrink inside my skin.

  “Zyr—please,” I begged, weakly, and far too quietly for either of them to hear me over their escalating argument.

  Then they were done. The Tala woman grudgingly gave me my original coin back and Zyr handed her one of the smaller ones. She set out my tray with a pot of tea, two mugs, and two sweet rolls, giving me a brilliant smile as she had the morning before, and as if nothing had occurred. Zyr took the tray before I could, and I realized he didn’t have his box. He carried the tray over to a table on the edge of the balcony, forcing me to follow, where—mystery solved—the box sat.

  “Here,” he said after setting down the tray. He held out a hand and I cupped my palms so he could pour the coins into it. He pointed to one. “That’s how much your half of breakfast is worth. Don’t ever pay more than that.”

  “The gold coin is what I paid her before,” I grumbled.

  “What?” Zyr paused in mid-pour, blue eyes blazing as if on fire. I quickly looked away. “How many times?”

  “Just yesterday,” I managed, the intensity of his anger making me timid.

  He growled—actually growled, like a wolf—and was gone. From where I sat, I could hear him loudly berating the merchant woman, who argued back at the same volume. I sipped my tea, grateful for both its sweet warmth and for something to do while I pretended I didn’t know him.

  When he came back, he slid into the chair in a flurry of tossing hair and bright silk then settled immediately into a pose as languid as if he’d never argued with anyone a day in his life. He placed another gold coin on the table, tapping it. “See this one, with my cousin’s unbeautiful face?”

  She did have a sharp profile, with a strong nose and chin. But I’d seen the High Queen of the Thirteen Kingdoms in person and I’d never call her “unbeautiful.” Definitely not pretty, like a milk-bathed Dasnarian girl. Still, she had a force of personality that made such considerations irrelevant, as if a woman like that couldn’t be defined by something as frivolous as physical beauty. “Her Majesty High Queen Ursula,” I said, hoping he’d take the hint and use her proper title.

  “Yes, yes.” He waved that off. “These coins are shiny and new, which are both things Tala like.”

  I laughed and coughed it back. “You make your people sound like magpies.”

  “Some of us are,” he replied in utter seriousness. “Remember that. You are also new—and shiny, though in a different way—so you won’t know that we haven’t had foreign coin, or foreign goods, or delightfully beautiful foreign women, here in Annfwn for very long at all. We lived for centuries in isolation, and it hasn’t even been two years since that changed. These merchants aren’t even trying to cheat you, exactly. They just want to collect these coins because Ursula is half Tala and she’s Queen Andromeda’s sister and they see her as heroic and I don’t know what all. The point is, Marskal and Ursula had bags of these things and they handed them out like love potions at summer festival. But they’re worth a lot. You can get a hundred days of breakfast for one. Another reason you won’t starve. Understand?”

  I covered the coin with my hand and slid it into my little pouch, deciding not to try to explain that I still wasn’t sure how to handle money in general. I’d recognized the smaller coin he’d pointed to as being the price of breakfast, though, so I could remember that. Unlike most Dasnarian women—and thanks to an indulgent father—I could at least count. But he wasn’t so indulgent that he’d violate the law that Dasnarian women couldn’t handle money. So I’d never used coins before, or purchased anything, as everything I needed had been given to me.

  “May I ask you a question?” I ventured, since he seemed to have wound down, and he also didn’t seem to mind me questioning him.

  “You just did.” He grinned when I flicked a glance at him. “Oh, come on—Dasnarians don’t have a sense of humor?”

  “No,” I replied primly. “But we do answer questions when asked.”

  “Seems I’ve asked you a few questions you’ve declined to answer.” He plucked his roll from his plate, unwinding it and licking the sweet icing from it as he exposed each new bit, lolling back in his chair, long legs outstretched.

  I wanted to tell him that wasn’t the proper way to eat it, but even I could recognize that particular trap from a distance. So I quietly ate my roll in polite fashion, cutting neat pieces from it with my eating knife, hoping to set a good example for this wild man.

  He eyed me. Licked off the last bit of icing. Then sighed dramatically. “Ask your question already, gréine. And for future reference—just ask, don’t beg for permission.” He had the roll entirely unwound and licked clean. Now he tipped his head back and fed the long rope of it into his mouth, bite by bite. His lips closed over it in a way that made me think of kissing, and his graceful throat… What was I thinking, staring this way?

  I decided to pour more tea, keeping my gaze firmly on my cup, and mentally scrambled for my question, which no longer felt relevant at all. “Why do you refer to Her Highness Queen Andromeda by her title, but Her Majesty High Queen Ursula you call by any number of irreverent nicknames?”

  “Irreverent nicknames,” he echoed, sounding vastly amused. “Because, my sweet Dasnarian, Queen Andromeda is my queen, Queen of the Tala. No matter how many documents my mossback cousin might draft declaring her majestyness, Annfwn and the Tala don’t belong to her and her cluster of acquired realms.”

  “But Annfwn is the thirteenth kingdom of the Thirteen Kingdoms,” I pointed out. “That’s the law. Doesn’t such irreverence make you a—” I glanced about, to be sure no eager ears lurked nearby to overhear. “A traitor,” I whispered.

  “A traitor?” Zyr shrieked, clutching his hands to his heart. He’d popped his chair up onto its two hind legs, so it wobbled wildly with his gesticulations, threatening to pitch him over the edge. “Oh, no! Save me, someone—the big, bad mossbacks are coming to get me!”

  “Shh!” I hushed him, though no one seemed to be paying attention, despite his loud calls for help. “It’s not a joke.”

  He let the front legs of his chair smack down. Quick as a snake he reached across the table and grabbed my hand, eyes dancing with mischief. “Call me irreverent again—it makes me feel so naughty.”

  “Absolutely not.” I extracted my hand pointedly but he seemed unbothered. “And you wouldn’t find being in prison so amusing, should it truly happen to you.”

  Abruptly he sobered, as if a shadow passed over the sun. I even glanced at the sky, but it remained clear, the first rays of full day shooting over the sharp edge of the cliff. “You’re right,” he replied, easily enough, but with something under it. “I have been, and am
using it wasn’t.”

  “You’ve been in prison?” I was aghast, and—though I kicked myself for my imprudent curiosity—dying to know more. I’d never known anyone who’d been imprisoned. “What happened?”

  “Nothing much,” he retorted. “Prisons are notoriously boring. Fortunately, shapeshifters are notoriously difficult to keep in prison.” He shot me a smile, but he wasn’t as cavalier as he wanted me to think. “Answer my question about the bed thing.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you have a fit when I said you’d enjoy being in my bed?”

  My face went hot, and I picked at some crumbs, wishing I hadn’t eaten my breakfast already so I’d have something to do. “Because I don’t want to be your lover,” I said quietly, desperately hoping no one was listening.

  “No, I know you say that.” He waved that off as easily as he did formalities. “I don’t believe you, by the way. This was different than your usual virginal protestations. You were shocked by my saying that exact phrase. Why?”

  Unspoken words tumbled in my mouth, fighting each other to be first. “You don’t get to not believe me,” I told him, finding myself furious. “I am a virgin and will remain untouched until I marry.”

  “You were married to Kral and stayed a virgin.” He’d gone back to sprawling in his tipped-back chair, but something in his relaxed posture reminded me of the big cats that liked to lie on wide tree limbs in the older orchards back home. Still in the shadows, apparently asleep, they pounced without a sound on the unwary that passed beneath. Could Zyr shapeshift into that kind of cat? The thought made me shiver and Zyr seemed to note it. Those blue eyes—almost feline, now that I thought of it, with that same uncanny illusion of seeming to glow—keen on me. “I bring that up to point out the flaw in your logic,” he added, as if being helpful. “That virginity and marriage aren’t necessarily equivalent.”

  I curled my hands together in my lap. “That was a different situation, and this topic is not appropriate—”