The Lost Princess Returns Read online

  We rounded a corner and entered an arcade of blossoming vines trained over a trellis to make a tunnel of sweet scent and blazing color. “It’s amazing that things like this survived the assault,” I commented in wonder.

  Ochieng squeezed my hand. “Sometimes beautiful things survive to blossom and grow.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re going to wear out this analogy.”

  We emerged from the floral bower and back into sunlight bouncing off the white sand beach. The brightness made me blink—as did the sight of Zynda in dragon form. Though I’d seen the dragons—both the shapeshifted and the permanent variety—during battle, it was something else to take one in during a calm moment of consideration.

  “Who would’ve imagined we’d ever be privileged to see such a creature?” Ochieng breathed, and I nodded, struck speechless by the sight.

  She was enormous. Once upon a time, the elephants had looked huge to me, but Zynda was immense enough to hold Violet in the curving talons that tipped prehensile tarsals at the ends of her forelegs. Surely “paws” was the wrong word, even if “hands” seemed wrong also. She shone like a dark sapphire in the sun, her scales glinting with rippling light. With her wings spread, they dwarfed her body, the supple blue membrane nearly translucent.

  She had snaked her head around to watch Marskal attach some kind of harness, reminding me very much of the elephants when we tried a new armor arrangement on them.

  “I’ve always known that the elephants have intelligence much like ours,” Ochieng said with interest, and a hint of the same reverence I felt, “but seeing human intelligence in animal form like this…”

  “Confirms it?” I asked, and he flashed me a rueful grimace.

  “I wonder what Violet would be like if she could shapeshift to human form?”

  “Very much like Zalaika,” I replied wryly, making him laugh. Ochieng’s mother and the elephant matriarch did have a great deal in common.

  We were crossing the beach, trading theories on the human appearance of our various elephant family members, when an even more astonishing creature plummeted from the sky, landing with a puff of sand near Zynda. This I had not seen before, and I halted, as if understanding what I was seeing taxed my mind so much I couldn’t walk at the same time.

  Because the golden-haired Karyn rode the monster’s back, I knew this must be Zyr in gryphon form—gríobhth form, I reminded myself. And no wonder Rayfe had referred to the gríobhth as mythical. It looked like nothing I’d ever seen before, or even imagined.

  His body reminded me of those lions of Nyambura, but in glossy black, with shimmering sapphire highlights. A whip-like tufted tail matched the lion, too, but the taloned paws belonged more to a raptor—and matched the elegant eagle’s head, with lethally curved beak and feathered crest. The feathers flowed smoothly into wings, also like a great bird’s, all in shining black sapphire.

  “Is it odd that brother and sister share similar coloring in animal form?” I wondered, then laughed at myself, that this was the first observation I could articulate.

  “They’re twins, even,” Harlan said, coming up beside us. “Fraternal twins, not identical like Leo and Loke.”

  Shaken from the spell, we resumed walking. “I wonder what they’re like now,” I said, “the twins.” They’d been so adorable as toddlers, tawny-haired and green-eyed, always into mischief. It was hard to think of them as leading armies. Of dealing death and being cruel to their wives and rekjabrel.

  But then years had passed, and we all had changed.

  Harlan was shaking his head. “I have no idea, either. You’ll have to tell me, when you see them.”

  ~ 6 ~

  The yearning in Harlan’s voice only confirmed what Ursula had said. I supposed I should resign myself to the reality that she knew my brother much better than I did now. She’d been big enough to want to send Harlan with me, so I could be generous enough to accept the gift of his company.

  “We’re ready when you are,” Marskal called to us and, thus prompted, we began walking again.

  Karyn inclined her head as we approached, and I read in her body the tension of a suppressed formal curtsy. Sisters under the skin, she and I, both exiles of Dasnaria, women wandering the world without permission from our fathers and brothers. An impossibility nearly as great as her gríobhth lover. Perhaps that’s why she’d been drawn to the Tala shapeshifter, finding another odd soul. I’d have liked to ask her about Kral, but there wouldn’t be time.

  Besides, I’d find out soon enough for myself.

  “Can you climb the rope ladder, Ivariel?” Marskal asked, and I measured it with my eye. Much like mounting an elephant, if exponentially taller. “If not,” he added, “Zynda can assist.”

  She nodded her great head, smoke wafting lazily from her nostrils.

  “I can do it,” I said, eyeing her and wondering what form that assistance might take.

  “Excellent. I’ll mount first, then you follow, and Harlan last.” He climbed the swinging rope with swift agility, Zynda watching his ascent with loving attention.

  I turned to Ochieng. “Look, I’m telling you goodbye to your face.”

  He laughed and embraced me. “An old joke,” Ochieng explained over my shoulder to Harlan.

  “Though it wasn’t funny, in the beginning,” I corrected.

  “No.” He kissed me and let me go. “And you won’t be gone for long. I’ll see you back here in a few hours.”

  “True.” I gave him one more kiss. “If I fall off, don’t you dare laugh at me.”

  “I would never,” he replied with fake solemnity.

  “He’s lying,” I told Harlan. “He laughed at me every time Violet shook me off and dumped me in the lake.”

  Harlan grinned and shook Ochieng’s hand. “I would love to hear some of these stories, when we return. Heart-brother,” he added.

  Ochieng gripped Harlan’s hand in both of his, clearly moved. “Take care of her.”

  “I will,” Harlan promised, “though, as you noted, we’ll only be gone a few hours.”

  I went to the dangling rope, found the foothold, swinging a bit in the open air until I reached her side—and sending a prayer of gratitude to Danu for the strength I’d developed that allowed me to make the climb. I had to take a moment once I reached Zynda’s side, just to run a hand over those shining scales. They looked like they’d been carved from sapphire, but they lay soft and supple as snakeskin. Remarkable.

  A blast of brick-oven heat chased the air from my lungs, and I jerked, twisting to find Zynda’s dragon head unsettlingly close—a giant blue eye examining me. “I’m fine,” I told her. “I was just… You’re incredibly beautiful, and so extraordinary.” A translucent lid wicked up from the bottom of her eye and down again, and she cocked her head, obviously preening.

  “She’s terribly vain,” Marskal called down to me, “so if you start with the compliments, we’ll never get out of here.”

  Zynda lifted her head and bumped him with it—very gently—and he laughed, stroking her soft snout, then kissing her there. “Yes, yes, you are very beautiful. You dazzle me, quicksilver girl.”

  Back on task, I climbed with more alacrity, feeling much more at home using the rope lattice to scale her side. Marskal gave me a hand when I reached the top, and—having learned not to refuse the offer of help—I took it to steady myself as I swung in behind him. Harlan followed a few moments later, settling in behind me.

  “Remember when we rode like this, through the mountains?” Harlan asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.

  “Yes.” I sometimes dreamed about that, the terrible pain, feeling the blood leaking out of me from between my legs, and the white-blindness of the blizzard. Harlan was so much larger now at my back. And I’d grown too. “You’ll be reassured to know I’ve since learned to ride.” I realized he’d spoken in Dasnarian, and I’d replied in the same, the old language surprisingly easy on my tongue again.

  Zynda flexed her wings and Marskal patted her shoulder. D
own the beach, Zyr galloped with surprising speed, Karyn folded close against his neck like someone racing a horse. His wings opened and he seemed to labor, skimming close over the gentle surf, then gradually gaining altitude. I was watching them so closely that I wasn’t prepared when Zynda launched into the air, leaving my stomach behind. A long shout ripped out of me, echoed by Harlan, and he gripped me around the waist. I deeply regretted joking about falling off.

  Marskal turned his head. “Zynda says to tell you she would never let you fall,” he shouted over the wind of her passage, leaving me to wonder how she knew my thoughts, and how she’d spoken to him.

  We had no opportunity for conversation on the flight. The wind rushed past so fiercely that we could barely hear each other, even shouting. Besides, I was enraptured with the astonishing sensation of flying. We’d quickly left land behind, striking out over open sea, the brilliant turquoise of Annfwn deepening to a cobalt blue.

  It reminded me of that first ocean journey, when I’d escaped Sjør aboard the Valeria, sneaking out of my cabin when I thought I’d be undetected, watching the ocean change from the stormy gray of Dasnaria, then morphing through all the colors and moods of the various seas on the way to Ehas. I’d been so alone—for the first time in my life—and the ship and sea had felt like my only friends. Until Kaja found me and handed me the keys to being alive and in the world again.

  The skies darkened and the winds grew chillier, the ocean below tossing with the fury of a storm. Despite my leathers, which had felt far too warm for Annfwn’s gentle heat, I was grateful of the bulwark of the two men before and behind me. Then we passed into an area of calm, like the tranquil center of the spinning storms that lashed the coast of Chiyajua. It had a magical quality, Danu’s high sun shining from clear blue skies, while all around the thunderclouds circled. It was magical, I supposed—and remarkable to think of Dafne’s dragon king making this with his mind.

  Below us sailed several ships. The largest, unmistakably Dasnarian in design, also looked like so many of the sailing ships that had been docked at Sjør—and like the ships I’d learned to watch for and avoid when I’d been on the run and hiding. Funny, in a way, that I still flinched inside at the sight, even though I went toward this one of my own free will.

  Zynda circled, spiraling down through the now warm and still air. As we neared the ship, which surely must be Kral’s Hákyrling, it became clear that the dragon’s great size dwarfed even the stately sailing vessel. “Where will we land?” I called out, the slower glide of descent allowing for conversation again.

  Marskal laughed. “No, you will not use Kiraka’s method!” He twisted to be able to talk to us. “Kiraka once dumped Zynda and me into the ocean to solve that problem. But Zynda will be gentler with us. But be quick, because it’s hard work for her to hover long.”

  She winged closer to the surface of the water. The people aboard the Hákyrling were observing our approach, some waving, others working the sails to steady the ship’s course through the sea. A skiff had been launched, two sailors rowing it out a short distance from the ship.

  Marskal unfurled the rope ladder he’d tied up, letting it dangle as Zynda moved into position over the skiff. Her immense wings billowed as she hovered. Marskal grinned at me. “Want me to go first?”

  “I got it,” I replied, hooking a boot into the foothold and telling myself I simply climbed down from Violet’s back. Ten times over and swinging precariously over the sea. I descended as swiftly as I could, aware of Harlan just above me. Strong hands grabbed me as I reached the skiff, lifting me off the ladder and lowering me into the boat. I turned to thank them, the words dying in my mouth as I faced strange Dasnarian men.

  The impulse to flee seized me—immediately followed by the fiercer need to draw my blades and cut them down.

  Then Harlan was beside me with a steadying arm. “Sit. It’s better for the balance.”

  I thumped my rear end down, and gave myself a stern talking to. This would be a disaster of a journey if I panicked every time I met a strange Dasnarian man.

  Marskal leapt into the skiff and the rope ladder vanished—as did Zynda. I gaped at the empty sky. “Where did she go?”

  “She’s still there. Just much smaller,” Marskal replied with a wink as he sat. A moment later, a jewel bright hummingbird whizzed up and landed on his shoulder. “And here she is. She’ll need a moment to rest before she rejoins us in human form.”

  It was a short row to the Hákyrling, and we climbed one more rope ladder up the side of the ship. Harlan went first this time, no doubt to test Kral’s temper, and Zynda zipped up to the deck. Enviable, to be able to skip the ladder. My shoulders were feeling the unusual work, and I reminded them that we’d have to climb at least once more.

  I took my time, to baby my climbing muscles, to let Harlan say whatever he planned to say, and to absorb the fact that it seemed I recognized the scent of Dasnaria. The Hákyrling had been sailing outside of Dasnaria for some time from what they’d told me, so it shouldn’t smell like my homeland. And yet… it did. In some gut-penetrating combination of memory and subconscious sensory recognition, the very wood of the side of the ship seemed achingly familiar.

  It struck my heart with a thousand emotions at once, none of them I could afford to have. I had a job to do. Later I could wallow in my feelings about it.

  I reached the railing and Harlan waited for me, offering a big hand to help me over. Though I didn’t need assistance—my shoulder muscles weren’t that tired—I grabbed hold and let him pull me up. It felt good, steadying, to have the physical contact with him.

  “You’re pale,” he said quietly. “How are you holding up?”

  “Just stop me if I lose my nerve and try to hurl myself overboard,” I muttered back.

  He chuckled. “You have more courage than a hundred Dasnarian warriors. If it helps, Kral is nervous, too.”

  I didn’t know if that helped, but I forced myself to walk the few steps with Harlan and lift my gaze to Kral’s face.

  Though I’d known better, I’d had his image in my mind still as the cocky and arrogant seventeen-year-old imperial prince with his eye firmly fixed on the throne of the empire. He still possessed plenty of arrogance—perhaps tempered to confidence—but he’d lost the cockiness. Disappointment had aged him, showing in the frown lines of his forehead. His square jaw looked sharper, especially clenched with tension, and his icy blue eyes that had always held such disdain were muddied with emotion. A dark-skinned woman with the athletic build of a knife-fighter and close-cropped hair hovered protectively beside him. In her large, black eyes and the strong lines of her face, I recognized Kaja. This had to be Jepp.

  I didn’t know who to greet first—or what to say—but Kral saved me the trouble. He drew his sword, then dropped to his knees so swiftly I didn’t have time to flinch or draw my daggers. Jepp had her blades in each hand, reacting with lightning speed, but stayed where she was. Kral held up his broadsword on open palms, bowing his head.

  “Jenna, my sister,” he said in a carrying voice—and I became aware that all activity had stilled to observe the moment. “I offer the bjoja at satt. I owe you a life. For all the wrongs I’ve done you, I offer my life to you.”

  I almost couldn’t breathe through the shock. I knew of the bjoja at satt, the ritual offering of recompense—mainly from the epic ballads we’d sing in the seraglio—but had never witnessed it. Men only offered this level of reconciliation to another man. According to the tales, if I accepted his offer, I could take his sword and use it to behead him and he wouldn’t lift a finger to resist. Never mind that I couldn’t swing a sword of that weight with any grace—I could use it well enough to kill him.

  Jepp looked alarmed, and justifiably so. Her sharp gaze met mine, and I wondered what she’d do to me if I took Kral’s life. Harlan went to her, speaking softly in her ear, and she visibly sagged, resigned grief filling her. She met my gaze again, pressed her lips together, and inclined her head in acceptance.

/>   “It’s your right,” Harlan said to me, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Kral has made the bjoja at satt, the traditional offer of reparation, and you are within your rights to accept. No one will blame you if you do.”

  I gazed down at Kral, who hadn’t moved, though holding up the weight of that sword at that angle had to be a strain. Vengeful Jenna stirred in me, full of vicious, agonizing hate, ready to seize the blade and exact revenge. So many times I’d imagined a vengeance like this: Kral groveling in apology, at my mercy. So many times I’d awakened from nightmares of blood and Dasnarian soldiers falling to my blade and fury.

  Some of the dreams had been real.

  I didn’t have clear memories of the night I killed my late ex-husband and of his men. Fragments emerges in those bad dreams, however. Some of those images I knew must be brutalized Jenna’s fantasies of revenge, as she craved more murder. It sickened me to know I carried that inside me.

  It also filled me with anger, though a cleaner kind of rage this time. Danu’s high sun beat down on me. The goddess of the bright blade and unflinching justice had come to me through the woman who was the long-dead mother of another warrior woman, staring at me as I held her husband’s life in my hands. There were no shadows to this decision. Danu’s clear sight filled me, and I took Kral’s offered sword.

  It was heavier than I’d imagined, the balance all wrong for me as I wrapped my hands around the thick hilt. But I had the strength now. All the years of training served me well. No longer weak, I lifted the blade. No one moved to stop me, the only sounds the snap of a sail, the creak of the wood, and the calls of the seabirds chasing the ship.

  I took a step to position myself, and Jepp tensed, then forced herself still. Summoning all the strength I’d trained into my body, I braced, raised the sword higher—and hurled it over the side and into the sea.

  ~ 7 ~

  “Get up,” I said to Kral, my voice as imperiously icy as Ochieng had ever accused me of being. No princess, Kaja’s voice echoed, and as I met her daughter’s eyes, I remembered how that advice had been to hide me. Now I was done hiding, and sometimes being a princess was necessary.