The Arrows of the Heart Page 9

  Perhaps the answer lay in exactly that: a man who knows his animal nature also knows he must strive to control it.

  Though I was an unwelcome bystander to the royal marital conflict, my observations gave me a bit more insight into their concern over Zyr’s earlier aggression. They clearly feared he could lose control of his inner beast. Because of me? But in that case it made no sense to saddle him—literally!—with me. Ah, well. I hadn’t been raised to question the decisions of those in authority over me. They held my continued wellbeing in their hands, so I would serve as they required of me.

  Zyr prowled up the beach, still in the form of the massive black panther. As I watched, he shapeshifted midstep, continuing forward in the same liquid gliding motion, but as a man. Uncanny.

  “The Deyrr creatures are all truly dead,” he reported, dropping bonelessly to the sand beside me, giving me a casual glance that didn’t fool me—he made sure I remained unharmed in that quick assessment. He also seemed oblivious to the tension between his king and queen. Or didn’t care. “Three injured, two dead—all Hawks.”

  “Who?” I asked, though it wouldn’t change their fate for me to know it.

  Zyr gave me a regretful look. “Not that Tays bastard, unfortunately. I didn’t recognize their faces.”

  “We’ll find out, as soon as Andromeda is recovered, and pay our respects,” Rayfe said, regret in his face, too.

  “I’ll have to inform Ursula.” Andi gazed at the recovery efforts as if she could see that far. “At least I can tell her the Deyrr sleepers are neutralized.”

  “And they’re decomposing already,” Zyr said. “Fast. Like they’ve been dead a while. I don’t know if that’s their nature or something else at work.”

  “Andromeda performed a sorcery,” Rayfe told him, his gaze darkening again on his wife.

  “Aha!” Zyr sat up straighter. “Then you can defeat them. What did you do?”

  “Since you asked,” Andi replied sweetly, giving her husband a vicious glare that bounced right off of him, for all the interest he showed. “I’ve been studying the creatures Deyrr has been sneaking through the magic barrier and—”

  “When have you been doing this?” Rayfe demanded.

  “Constantly,” she bit out, then softened. She held out a hand and her husband took it, lacing their fingers together, more like a reflex than anything. It told me a great deal, however, that even though they fought and were angry with one another, under it all they remained connected. Kral and I had enjoyed all the perfect civility of our emotionless marriage, and absolutely nothing of this kind of connection. Suddenly I understood a great deal more of why he’d fallen in love with Jepp instead of with me. Even if I’d had the temerity—or bad manners—to disagree with Kral, I wouldn’t have because I’d never cared enough.

  “You have to understand, my wolf,” Andi was saying. “The barrier is so much a part of my mind that I’m always aware of it. I think the n’Andanans designed it that way, to be an extension of the queen’s magic. Once Ursula asked me to pay special attention to the portion of the barrier where it crosses that spur of Dasnaria, where Zynda theorized the barrier is permeable, I became sensitive to the feel of the Deyrr creatures as they tested it. I found I could explore something of their natures even at this distance.”

  “You didn’t tell me this,” Rayfe said quietly.

  “I didn’t want you to worry. It’s…incredibly distasteful, I won’t lie. Also, I wasn’t sure if what I sensed would translate to anything useful. I didn’t want to raise false hopes, especially if I couldn’t do anything with the knowledge.”

  “But you did,” Zyr put in. “You killed these sleepers.”

  Andi shook her head and tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear with one hand, her other still firmly in Rayfe’s grasp. “No, they were already dead. It’s more like I cut their strings, separating them from the magic that animated them. I could do that much.”

  Zyr and Rayfe exchanged a frown. “I don’t understand,” Rayfe told her.

  “I’m not sure I do either, entirely.” She slid me a glance. “Perhaps our Dasnarian guest can illuminate some for us.”

  They all looked at me—though with expectation rather than suspicion. Oh wonderful.

  “I don’t think I can.” I ventured. “The Temple of Deyrr and its practitioners are not an above-board group in the empire. Not a topic of polite conversation at all. Certainly no honorable families associate with them, or even acknowledge their existence.” I ignored Zyr’s snicker at that. “I know mostly what you do, that Deyrr is an old god—no longer worshipped as all right thinking Dasnarians acknowledge Sól as the one true god and the emperor his divine avatar.”

  “You really believe your emperor is divine?” Zyr scoffed.

  I met his scorn with a level stare. “That is the way of things in Dasnaria. Did I scoff at you when you told me your sister died and spoke to a goddess of yours?”

  He opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again. “You’re right. Go on.”

  Rayfe and Andi seemed surprised but said nothing, nodding at me encouragingly. “There’s not much more to say. Deyrr is an old god worshipped by one of the tribes in the lands that eventually formed Dasnaria, before it conquered its neighbors and became the empire. Those people lived in warring nomadic tribes and worshipped Deyrr as the god of the hunt, but also of hunger through starvation. They saw him as ruling over the transmutation of the living animal into death and death cycling back into life through consumption of the meat. That’s all I know of fact—the rest is all stories.”

  “Would you tell us one?” Though Andi posed it as a question, it felt like a command, her gaze intense and expectant.

  I stumbled a bit mentally. “They’re merely tales meant to frighten children.”

  “Nevertheless.” She softened the demand with a smile. “Please. Sometimes stories hold the purest truth.”

  “All right. This is the best-known story.” And my favorite since I was a girl. “Once there were three princesses, each more beautiful than the last, daughters of the king of all the lands. One day, as the eldest walked in her garden, a witch approached her. The princess couldn’t know the woman for a witch, because the witch had disguised herself as a young maiden, with hair straight and brilliant as spun gold, and a face as lovely as morning. Only her eyes showed her true nature, for they were windows to the empty pit where her soul had been, filled with blackness. The witch greeted the princess and said it was a beautiful day. The princess agreed it was. And she forgot to ask how the witch had entered her garden.

  “The witch offered the princess a kitten, soft and purring, and the princess gathered it to her bosom, delighted with her new pet. The witch asked the princess if it wasn’t the loveliest, softest, most loving and adorable kitten she’d ever beheld, and the princess agreed it was. Then the witch took it back, saying the princess could only have the kitten if the princess came to live with her, and wouldn’t she like that better than her father’s castle, where her sisters were only jealous of her, and no one loved her anyway? The princess agreed that was true, and off she went to live with the witch.

  “The middle princess began to miss her older sister, wondering where she’d gone. So one day she set out on her horse to search the forest where no one ever went, and where her father had forbidden her to go. Something spooked her horse and they fell. The witch appeared and helped her to her feet. Being raised to be polite, the princess thanked her, and the witch smiled to have her gratitude.

  “The witch observed that the princess must be a wonderful horsewoman, to have such a well-trained horse that hadn’t run off. Flattered, the princess agreed that she was. Then the witch offered the princess a puppy, warm and wriggly, and the princess gathered it to her bosom, delighted with her new pet. The witch asked the princess if it wasn’t the noblest, strongest, most loyal and adorable puppy she’d ever beheld, and the princess agreed it was. Then the witch took it back, saying the princess could only have the puppy if the p
rincess came to live with her older sister and the witch, and wouldn’t she like that better than her father’s castle where her younger and most beautiful sister got all of the attention? The princess agreed that was true, and off she went to live with the witch.”

  Andi had a very odd expression on her face, so I paused in my story. “Should I stop?”

  “No…” She sounded thoughtful. “Tell us the third piece.”

  “Well, it goes as you might imagine. The youngest and most beautiful princess, while vain and sometimes shallow, was also pure of heart and loved her sisters truly and missed them terribly. She ventured out, over the mountains, and traveled to the witch’s palace, so high on a mountain peak that it could see in every direction. Though the journey was arduous, the youngest princess persevered. By the time she reached the top of the mountain, her rich gown was in rags and her soft feet bled, leaving red footprints in the snow.

  “She knocked on the door and the witch answered, smiling at the princess. ‘I know you,’ said the witch. ‘You are the most beautiful of all your sisters.’ ‘No,’ replied the youngest princess, ‘for beauty can be measured in many ways and no kind is better than any other.’

  “The witch didn’t like this, because she had no power over those who didn’t agree with her. ‘Come in then,’ the witch said, ‘and warm yourself, eat at my table, drink of my wine.’ ‘I will come in,’ said the youngest princess, stepping inside, ‘for that is why I journeyed here. But I won’t eat at your table or drink of your wine. I want nothing of yours.’ The witch didn’t like this, because she had no power over those who wouldn’t accept her gifts.

  “‘Then why have you journeyed all this way?’ the witch asked. ‘I’ve come for my sisters, whom you stole from me,’ the princess replied. The witch smiled at this because now she had the key to the youngest princess’s heart, for the witch could use her heart’s desire to bind her will. The witch summoned the other two princesses. When they arrived, the youngest princess saw that though years had passed, her sisters looked exactly the same as the day they’d disappeared. Except that their eyes had gone as dark as banked coals, and though they recognized her, they did not embrace her as they once would have.

  “‘Release my sisters from your chains,’ the youngest princess commanded the witch. But the witch only smiled. ‘They are free to leave. Freer than they were when they arrived,’ the witch said. So the youngest princess said to her sisters, ‘Come home with me.’ At first the older two princesses didn’t wish to leave their new home, but the witch gave them leave. ‘Take your pets with you,’ the witch told them, ‘and you will always be able to return to me.’ So the oldest princess beckoned, and a giant tiger wearing a collar strolled into the room and sat by her side. The middle princess whistled, and an enormous wolf wearing a collar strolled into the room and sat by her side. ‘We are all ready,’ the older princesses told the younger.

  “‘Aren’t you going to thank me for my generosity in giving your sisters back to you?’ the witch asked the youngest princess. ‘No, I won’t thank you because you’ve taken my sisters’ hearts and turned them against those who truly love them,’ the princess said, and the witch didn’t like this, because she had no power over those who wouldn’t express gratitude to her.

  “The three princesses, the tiger, and the wolf journeyed home. When they reached their father’s castle, the eldest princess commanded the tiger to slay the king, and she took his throne. The middle princess commanded the wolf to slay her younger sister, and took her pure heart to sacrifice to their god, who was pleased with them.”

  A thick silence fell while they all waited expectantly, Andi with a most peculiar expression on her face—and Rayfe watching her with an odd intensity.

  “That’s it?” Zyr demanded with hot indignation. “You can’t tell me that’s how the story ends.”

  “How else should it end?” I asked him, perplexed.

  “Happily,” he declared. “Stories should end happily. That’s a horrible tale.”

  I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “Most Dasnarian stories end tragically. That’s the way of things.”

  “I’ll regret hearing that tale for the rest of my life,” Zyr muttered. “What does it have to do with Deyrr anyway?”

  “The eyes,” Andi put in, still sounding thoughtful. “Illyria had eyes like that. I’d never seen anything like it. So that’s a sign of possession by Deyrr.”

  “So we learned nothing new from that terrible story,” Zyr complained.

  “That’s not true,” Andi countered. “We learned many interesting rules for dealing with the practitioners of Deyrr. The witch bound the will of the elder two princesses by getting them to agree with her and to be beholden to her. She gave them pets—which could correspond to the sleepers, possibly shapeshifters—and those animals followed their bidding. I can match that to what I’ve sensed from the sleepers we’ve encountered. I think the Deyrr magic animates them through their own spirits which maintain channels to their previous bodies. The bodies have died, then were pulled back from death and transmuted, with the spirits held prisoner with magical bonds.”

  “What are you saying?” Zyr asked, sounding horrified. I squelched the impulse to reach out and take his hand, to offer him the same comfort our companions shared.

  Andi sighed. “I’m guessing—and some of this is from what Zynda was able to tell me—but it seems likely that it goes this way with the sleepers: a person with the ability to shapeshift is forced to shift into a form, dies as that animal, and their living essence captured and attached to a well of magic. Let’s call it the god Deyrr for simplicity’s sake. Employing that enslaved spirit’s connection to its body, the practitioners of Deyrr can then direct the actions of that body, making it appear animated. They’re working from some distance, so the creatures tend to be dull and equipped with simple missions.”

  “So you deanimated these sleepers by liberating the captive spirits?” Rayfe asked, though I could tell he only hoped for that truth. Indeed, his queen shook her head, misty regret in her eyes.

  “I severed the connection from the practitioner animating them to the bodies. It’s similar to how my connection to the barrier works, so I thought I might be able to do that much.”

  “Then the spirits of those shapeshifters…” Zyr trailed off, unable to voice it.

  “They remain with the followers of the dark god. I can sense them. And I’ve seen them in visions, not knowing what I saw.” She sounded deeply unsettled, even horrified, and Rayfe edged closer to her, putting an arm around her. She leaned into him.

  “Can you describe it?” he asked softly.

  She nodded. “It’s… horrible, though.”

  “Then better to share,” Zyr spoke up. “Things always seem worse in our heads than in the bright light of day.”

  I glanced at him curiously, wondering if he meant his imprisonment. Which, I’d point out to him, he hadn’t wanted to talk about. Indeed, he avoided my gaze.

  Andi had closed her eyes, lines crumpling her high forehead, and showing strain around her mouth. “I’ve seen a vast globe, colorful but wrong in a way I can’t explain. It’s full of people, though they’re somewhat formless, some more clear than others. I think the globe is formed of them. There are…extrusions coming from the people, extending like stems from a flower to the globe, but working in reverse. They don’t draw nutrients, they feed the globe. The glow of their life energies flows up the tether, running into the sphere, which spins with thousands of the threads. Another connection, like a great rope—or umbilical cord—flows into the distance.”

  Silence fell over us. I rubbed the chill off my arms, one that had nothing to do with the balmy weather.

  ~ 9 ~

  “You can’t release them?” Rayfe asked, though we all knew the answer.

  Andi opened her eyes, cloudy with her vision. “If I do, I think they will cease to be entirely. I can only cut them off from their old bodies. The globe holds them captive.”

  “
Then we have to make sure Deyrr doesn’t take any more of us,” Rayfe said with grim determination.

  “Where is Deyrr obtaining these people with the ability to shapeshift?” I asked, and they all turned to me with bemused frowns. “There are no shapeshifters in the Dasnarian Empire,” I pointed out. “Of that much I’m certain.”

  “Shapeshifting can be a latent ability,” Rayfe explained, though thoughtfully, still thinking through the ramifications. “Theoretically, anyone with some Tala blood carries that potential. Back when Salena was queen, and before that, the Tala came and went more or less freely through the barrier. In those days no one worried about leaving partblood children in the greater world. Add that to the fact that those with Tala blood seem to be deeply attracted to one another on a subconscious level.” He slanted a wicked grin at the queen, who unaccountably blushed. “You end up with families consolidating and concentrating those latent abilities outside Annfwn.”

  “Like Uorsin,” Andi mused. I’d noticed they all had the habit of speaking of the former High King by name only, no honorifics, not even that of ‘father,” from his daughters. “Driven by Tala blood he never knew he had.”

  “I’m sorry to disrupt this theory,” I said, feeling that I should point out the fallacy in their logic. “But Dasnarians know very little of your people. I don’t think this is just me. How could the practitioners of Deyrr possibly know about these partbloods in order to target them?”

  “Kir.” The queen said the word with peculiar emphasis and particular distaste. Rayfe’s expression hardened, but Zyr seemed as perplexed as I. “He used to be the high priest of the Church of Glorianna under Uorsin’s reign,” she explained to me. “And had been long involved in tracking down Tala partbloods, like Ash’s father, who was burned at the stake at the priests’ hands.”

  I hadn’t met Ash, or Queen Amelia, who’d taken the commoner as a lover—quite scandalous to my mind—but Zynda and Jepp had discussed the pair quite a bit. Queen Amelia had taken her twin toddlers, one heir to Andi in Annfwn and the other heir to the High Throne of the Thirteen, to Castle Windroven in Avonlidgh. Coincidentally—or not?—where Zynda and Marskal planned to travel, to liberate a dragon. All very muddled to me. The apportionment of heirs most of all, including why the heirs weren’t near the thrones they were meant to inherit, in case of sudden death. If the Emperor knew, he’d surely take advantage of that choice information.