The Arrows of the Heart Page 21

  “Just enough fresh water for you,” Zyr said. “I can go a while without it.”

  “We’re crossing salt water. What if you do need it and we’ve run out?”

  He gave me a cocky grin that didn’t reach his eyes, the blue still muddied with worry. “There’s ways around that.”

  “Such as?” I persisted, feeling mulish, but his tendency to leave out details couldn’t be good.

  “Same solution to if I tire before we reach land—I’ll have to land on the water and shift to porpoise form. I can sleep in that form—and keep swimming—as well as drink and eat. If that happens, you know now how to hold on, yes?”

  Oh. That swim I’d thought so spontaneous—even a joyful connecting—had been simply another lesson. I’d very badly misinterpreted everything about Zyr. This was the reason for rules and etiquette. If I’d stayed within propriety, I wouldn’t have made any of these blunders, wouldn’t be so knotted up in my heart and mind…

  “Karyn?” Zyr frowned.

  “Sorry—I mean, yes, I can do that.” I didn’t ask my myriad questions: what happened when my strength gave out, how I would sleep in the middle of the ocean while holding onto a porpoise. More than ever it made more sense for him to leave me behind. And I felt compelled to say so. “But I want to say something. Hear me out and don’t be angry as I truly mean no insult. You should go across the water as the porpoise. Then you don’t have to worry about food and water, or having the strength to take flight from this beach. I’ll be fine here and you can come back for me. I don’t see how this doesn’t make the most sense.”

  His eyes glittered with irritation, but he kept his reply deliberately reasonable. “You’re forgetting two things. In porpoise form I can’t read the mapsticks, so I won’t be able to course-correct. And second, you’re needed on this mission. Queen Andromeda said so. You’re supposed to be with me, wherever we end up.”

  “You believe in her that much?” I replied, with some impatience. So much to stake on magical visions of a future that didn’t exist because it hadn’t occurred yet.

  “I do. If you don’t trust me to take care of you—and I don’t blame you for that—trust in her multiple visions of the future in which you play a critical role.”

  Stricken, I knotted my hands together, wishing I had something to do with them, wanting most to reach out and touch him, to soothe the hurt he didn’t show. “I do trust you,” I told him as earnestly as I could.

  He snorted, something between a huff and a growl. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I checked all the things hanging from my belt. If Zyr had to change form, I’d be the one to keep our supplies. “Yes.”

  He’d warned me it would be a rough start, but I still wasn’t prepared. It didn’t help that the fog hadn’t burned off. To get the lift he needed, Zyr picked a clear stretch of beach and started running. At first, he kept his wings swept back, half-mantled and streamlined against the wind of our passage as he galloped faster and faster. As he’d bid me, I lay flat and low against his neck, the feathers sleek against my skin, and it seemed we ran through nothingness. The lion’s body ran faster than I could’ve imagined, and seeing the ground rush past seemed so much worse than flight. If I tumbled off at this speed, I’d surely break my neck.

  Finally I closed my eyes to it, beseeching Moranu to assist Her shapeshifting son, and tried to imagine myself as light as possible. I felt the wind resistance change as Zyr spread his wings, the gradual lift as he poured on speed. Then, as the tumbling thud of his paws against the gravel ceased, the massive surge of his shoulder muscles beneath me as his great wings labored to gain the altitude we needed.

  We skimmed over the water, his chest heaving to draw breath to fuel his muscles. Zyr had warned me about this, too, that he’d go for the water because if we crashed, it would be a softer landing. And that he’d take his time to gain height as he felt he could. Still, the spray of mist against my face reminded me of that other flight when the Deyrr creatures drove us to the beach, and my heart hammered in remembered fear.

  At any moment, I expected Zyr to falter, for him to drop—gradually or abruptly—into the hungry, misty waves. But, so infinitesimally that I didn’t perceive the change for quite some time, he left the water behind, and had turned so that we paced the coast. I’d expected a more stark moment of relief than that—a sudden realization that we’d made it—instead of the gradual relaxation and alleviation of the fear of immediate crashing.

  Remembering my one job, I pulled out the relevant mapstick, watching for the landmark we’d identified. Zyr had told me to keep it and let him know, mostly so I’d feel useful, I rather thought.

  We came upon it much sooner than I expected, a spur of rocks into the water that wasn’t quite as dramatic as the mapstick depicted, even with the wood rounded from all the hands, claws, and talons that had held it. In fact, I almost doubted, thinking maybe we should go on a bit to see if there might be a bigger one. Though that would add on to Zyr’s time in the air. It would’ve been much easier if the sun had burned off the fog and given me a better view of the rest of the coastline.

  But Zyr had left it up to me to decide—and this long line of jagged boulders seemed to be pointing in the right direction. A strange landscape feature along the otherwise smooth and curving stretch of beach. Hoping I wasn’t making a mistake, I tapped Zyr on his furry shoulder and pointed at the line of rocks. He nodded, oriented his flight to the direction they seemed to point, and headed out over the open sea.

  We flew for hours. When the sun burned off the fog sufficiently—or Zyr flew high enough to leave the fog behind, as tendrils of it still swooped and swirled below us—I soon regretted wishing for it. The rays seemed to beat down on us with greater intensity than I’d remembered. Zyr’s body grew wet with sweat, especially where I sat or lay against him, so I tried to adjust my riding position to give airflow to different places.

  As hot as I felt, I could only imagine how it was for him, doing all the work. Occasionally I ate a bite of fish, sipping at the water judiciously. I needed to make the water last, yes, but I also had absolutely no intention of peeing on Zyr’s back. One humiliation—and insult to my host—that I could avoid with a bit of planning. Occasionally he ate some fish, too, turning his head to take a piece from me, remarkably careful with that sharp beak that could easily sever my fingers.

  Perhaps I felt the heat so because of remaining dregs of the fever. Weariness plagued me, and I fought to stay awake. All we needed was for me to drift off and plunge into the ocean. Then we’d be forced to travel porpoise-style and I didn’t relish that prospect a bit. As the sun crossed the sky, we seemingly stayed at the same fixed point, with no sign of land in any direction, and only endless water beneath. I knew it had to be an illusion. I’d been out of sight of land before on the Hákyrling. Something about being on the sailing ship, however, had given me a sense of forward momentum. And my traveling companions had been able to point to maps and say where we were.

  Here the mapsticks failed me. They had no features to reveal. Perhaps the number of them indicated the relative distance, but we had no way of knowing what. I fervently wished Zyr hadn’t told me the ones we’d identified so far hadn’t been directly proportional to our distance traveled. What if we had to fly for days? Even if Zyr’s strength held out, it seemed it would corrupt his mind to stay in gríobhth form so long.

  By midafternoon, a headache formed behind my eyes and at the base of my skull. I tried to ignore it, but the one thing that helped, closing my eyes against the burning sun and glittering sea, dragged me down into beckoning sleep. So I forced my lids open, counting Zyr’s wingbeats, matching them to my pulse, and relentlessly revisiting every bad decision I’d ever made—beginning with agreeing to go on this mission in the first place.

  Who was I kidding? I wasn’t made of heroic material. I’d been born to be an ornament and I should’ve stuck to my strengths.

  Zyr flew on tirelessly, so I tried to emulate his determination.
All I had to do was sit there. It shouldn’t be all that difficult. As the sun set, however, with no sign of land, I began to seriously fret. I wouldn’t be able to stay awake. And Zyr had accelerated. At first I hadn’t been sure of my senses, but counting his wingbeats against my heartbeats confirmed it. He’d sped up because he, too, worried that we wouldn’t make land.

  After a while, well after full night had fallen, he did begin to tire. I could feel it in him. His breathing had grown labored and his head drooped from time to time.

  Now would be the perfect opportunity for an attack, if the agents of Deyrr had some way to track us, although the previous attack had seemed a matter of opportunity on their part and bad luck on ours. Dinner conversations between my brothers and father came back to me, how they chortled over running some enemy troops ragged, staying just close enough to keep them from pausing to eat or rest. Then, when their opponents could go no longer, our side would swoop in on them and dispatch them all. The despair of exhaustion, my father had said, did more to defeat an enemy army than any weapon.

  I finally understood, deep in my weary bones, exactly what they meant.

  Zyr faltered under me—not hugely, but just enough to bobble in the air and shock me to full alertness.

  “It’s time to take porpoise form,” I shouted. In the moonless night, illuminated only by the fantastic wheel of stars above, I could see only the silhouette of his head as he shook it, refusing me. At least he understood my words. I’d worried maybe he’d become all beast. But a wise beast would stop flying, wouldn’t it? I didn’t know if the gríobhth would think of becoming a porpoise. “Zyr,” I wheedled, trying another tactic, “can’t we go down to the water? I’m afraid I’ll fall.”

  But he ignored me.

  Sighing to myself, I gave up counting and looked at the stars. Up in the sky like this, it seemed as if we flew through a globe of stars. Once I’d seen a crystal globe with glittering flakes of mineral floating in the fluid inside, like gold and silver snowfall around a fairytale castle. This could be like that, only the stars came in every color. I’d always thought of them as a pure white, but they weren’t. The more I looked, the more I perceived their jeweled array of light. They even twinkled in reflection off the sea below, as if we flew through an endless night sky.

  I’d never seen anything more beautiful. And it was me, foolish Karyn, riding on a mythical beast through a sky no one else had ever seen like this. A feeling of joyful peace settled over me. Even if I didn’t survive, I’d at least lived long enough to see this.

  Despite my best efforts, I must’ve dozed off, because I jerked awake when Zyr dropped sharply. I cried out, grabbing ahold of him, and he rebalanced enough that I didn’t fall. He breathed heavily, and his great heart pounded so hard that it seemed to throb against my calves where I clasped his sweat-soaked torso.

  “Zyr, you have to rest,” I begged.

  He shook his head again, sharply, then seemed to be pointing his beak. I couldn’t see anything different… But wait. There—was that darkness among the stars? Land. And then I smelled it. I never knew what the stories meant about the scent of land, but after so long with only the sea-salt saturated air around us, the scent of earth and green leaves stood out like beacons.

  “Land!” I shouted, as if I’d been the one to discover it. Zyr wheezed out a sound of agreement, clearly all he could muster from an exhausted body. “You can make it,” I told him, patting his shoulder. Silly of me, because of course he’d know that better than I, but I felt I had to contribute something. “You’re incredible. So strong and brave, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. No one else could’ve made this journey.”

  Perhaps it was my imagination, but he seemed to fly faster, gradually descending, his breathing still labored, but his flight smooth and steady once again.

  At the end, though, it seemed to my admittedly lean experience that we came in too fast. I couldn’t see the ground well in the darkness with my human eyes and only hoped the gríobhth had sharper night vision. There were rocks, for sure, because I could hear surf crashing against them.

  Zyr came in hot, mostly gliding on arched wings, only closing them in a downstroke occasionally, mostly to slow us, I thought. Still too fast, though, like when the Deyrr birds had chased us, not his artful, graceful landings at other times.

  I braced myself to tumble, angling for my uninjured side so I could maybe avoid reopening those wounds, if I didn’t crack my head open.

  We hit ground with a mighty thump, Zyr trying to run to scrub off the speed, wings flapping and arched forward, but he stumbled. Caught himself. Not enough. He stumbled again, then went head down, almost somersaulting with a great crack of something. I went flying—but did manage to land on my good side, rolling several times on something blissfully soft.

  I hadn’t quite gathered my wits or my breath, but I struggled to hands and knees, driven by concern for Zyr. He should’ve been in man-shape by now, coming to haul me to my feet and tease me about being worried.

  Wherever we were, it was pitch black, the kind of matte darkness of trees around us, blotting out the glitter of starlight. Listening, I made out the pained wheeze of Zyr’s breathing and crawled toward it. That way I’d at least be less likely to stumble and fall. My hands found his wing first, and he gave a harsh cry, half raptor, half lion. Gentling my hands, I traced my way along the big, feather-covered bone, gasping when I hit spiky shards, and he cried again, piteously this time. He’d shattered it—and bent it backward, because I had to reverse direction to make my way to his body. My eyes must’ve been adjusting to the darkness as I could make him out better. Being able to see didn’t help, however. In fact, despair rushed back in at the sight of him twisted back against those beautiful wings, his long neck at a wrong angle. He hissed at me, clacking his beak—so I stayed carefully clear of it.

  “Zyr, you have to shift back to human,” I told him. “You’ll heal. Just shift and it will be fine.”

  His eyes rolled, showing the white, and his head dropped to the ground. Heedless of being bit, I rushed to his head, lifting it and laying the surprisingly heavy weight in my lap. Feeling useless, I patted what would be cheeks on a human, as if I could revive him. Nothing. How did one save a dying gríobhth? The question sounded like a riddle from a terrible myth.

  Fortunately, the water flask secured to my belt had survived the fall, the metal only a little dented. I still had half left, so I dribbled some into the crack of his beak. He didn’t move, and I was afraid to pour so much in that I made him choke. Why didn’t I at least have some healing skills?

  All right, think, I instructed myself. No brilliant ideas came to me. I looked around, as if some sort of miraculous cure would present itself, then realized—my exhaustion-muddled brain finally catching up—that I could see better because dawn approached. We’d flown all day and nearly all night. We’d made it to land, only to have Zyr be hurt so badly he couldn’t shift back.

  What had he said about Zynda becoming the hummingbird to save her life? Marskal had fed her sugar water and she’d eventually shifted back to human, but she’d almost been a bird too long. But she’d at least been a healthy hummingbird, right? Not the broken thing wheezing in my lap. I needed help and there was none to be had.

  Zyr had saved my life, but I wouldn’t be able to return the great gift. I cursed myself in Dasnarian, disgusted with yet another failure to be even remotely useful.

  “I’m pretty sure the lap of the virgin thing only works with unicorns,” an amused voice said, also in Dasnarian. “Though stranger things have happened.”

  ~ 19 ~

  A group of armored Dasnarian soldiers surrounded us, somehow having snuck up on me in the pre-dawn dimness. Lowered helms obscured their faces, broadswords drawn and leveled at me and Zyr made their intentions clear. I knew that well-trained Dasnarian warriors could move silent as the grave when the situation called for it, but I should’ve been more alert.

  Twice, thrice the fool me, for being so dis
tracted, so distraught—and so certain we’d be alone in the midst of nowhere. This couldn’t be mythical n’Andana, not with Dasnarians present. Though surely we couldn’t have flown all the way to Dasnaria. I didn’t have much sense of distance—especially measured by gríobhth wing—but it had taken us days to sail from Jofarrstyr to the barrier. Then more days upon days around the Nahanaun Archipelago, let alone the trip to Annfwn.

  “What’s the matter—cat got your tongue?” The lone woman with them—the one who’d spoken before—cackled at her own wit. “Though it’s not exactly a cat, is it?”

  She walked around us in a leisurely stroll, the ring of soldiers rippling as they stepped back to allow her circuit, then closed in again. Crouching close to me, she peered at Zyr’s head thoughtfully. Her fair hair shone in the rising light, Dasnarian blond. She clucked her tongue and looked at me. A dread chill ran down my spine at the sight of her dark eyes, the matte black that came to the highest magic practitioners of Deyrr. Not that I’d ever met one to speak to or look into their eyes, but the stories were all clear—and the evocation of the dead gaze of Deyrr often used to caution ill-behaved children.

  I may never have met one, or spoken to her, but this close I recognized the High Priestess, the very one who’d chased the Hákyrling from Jofarrstyr and attempted to kill Her Majesty High Queen Ursula. They’d all been on the Tala ship while I, often forgotten, stayed on the Hákyrling. But I’d seen the brief, intense battle from my hiding place—how she’d used her magic to freeze them and casually gutted the warrior queen while they all stood by helpless to prevent it. I’d been certain they’d all die, and myself, too, if only because I’d be taken back to Dasnaria to face execution.

  Somehow, though, they’d defeated her. The High Priestess had taken something from the queen, from her entrails, a jewel that shone like the sun itself—before Zynda, in the form of a seabird, grabbed it back, and Jepp had somehow shaken the spell and they’d blinded the High Priestess and defeated her.