“They were my men,” said Bael. “All of them.”
Tyrnan snarled at him but it was Chance who spoke. “You told me they belonged to this ‘Albhar’,” she said, letting the quotes drop neatly around the name.
“No-well, they were my men, but they were acting on his orders,” he said emphatically. “I swear, not mine.”
“Swear on what?” asked Kett idly. She turned her head and looked down the table at him for the first time since they’d entered, and put steel in her voice. “Swear on what?”
She’d called the meeting at Nuala’s house, rendezvousing with Chance and Dark at the gate and summoning Lya from the guardhouse. Kett wasn’t entirely sure why she wanted the kelf there, but she couldn’t shake the idea that the symbols she’d seen scrawled in that cave were still important.
A shapeshifter, a Nasc and a ritual. It had to be related.
Her head throbbed with conflicting details. Bael had been strung up in the cave, but to what end? Was the ritual to benefit him-or to kill him? Were those men acting on his orders or Albhar’s?
He saved your life. But he also put it in danger.
A lifetime of distrust swirled around inside her head.
They’d ended up in what the butler had called the Second Breakfast Room, although Kett wasn’t sure if this was because Nuala habitually ate two breakfasts, or just liked to have a choice of rooms in which to eat one meal.
Her father, protesting that she was his bloody daughter and this was his bloody house, had invited himself. Kett, who knew full well it was really Nuala’s house, had let him. She’d have preferred to have Jarven present, if only to up the quota of People Who Weren’t Bael, but while her friend was conscious he was still very weak, and even if Nuala had let him out of bed, Kett didn’t want to risk it. Angie had come instead, wrapped in thick socks and a sweater, looking pale and tired. She’d gone white with shock on seeing her first kelf when Lya entered, but adjusted to her presence much more quickly than Kett had expected.
Striker had put in a not wholly unexpected appearance, being his usual unhelpful self. She could tell his presence made Bael uncomfortable, and was perversely glad.
“I’d swear it on my own life,” Bael said. His eyes met hers but she quickly looked away.
“Your life don’t mean much right here, right now,” Kett said. “Are any of those men still alive?”
He shook his head. “Var took care of them,” he said, and Angie’s knuckles went white. “But there are more of them. I had about twenty knights and probably a hundred more men who could be called to arms, and that’s just at the Vyiskagrad house.”
“How many houses do you have?” asked Chance.
“About a dozen. One less than this time last year,” he said with a tight smile. “Not all of them are so well staffed, but if Albhar wanted, he could probably pull together…maybe a hundred knights, and five times as many indentured men.”
“Why do you need so many armed men?” Tyrnan asked. His expression was hostile, and had been ever since Kett had announced to them that Bael’s men had been the ones to attack Jarven’s ranch.
A stab of guilt plagued her. She probably shouldn’t have said it with such certainty, but she was so hurt, so angry and so upset she couldn’t think straight.
“Man’s got to defend what’s his,” Bael said, his eyes on Kett. She could feel his gaze, even if she wasn’t looking at him. “My parents were rich. My mother especially. I have no brothers or sisters, everything came to me.” He was silent a moment, then said, “I was raised by a man named Albhar Danziran. He’s a human Mage of relatively small talent, but he was a friend of my father’s, and brought in to try to tutor me in magic.”
“You got any skill in magic?” asked Tyrnan critically.
“No,” said Striker, before Bael could answer. He was staring right at Bael, and Kett was annoyed to see Bael wasn’t even squirming. “He’s got potential but no skill. No practice. A blunt instrument.”
“Surprised you didn’t suck power from him,” Chance said.
Striker shrugged. “I would have, if he’d had any.”
“I didn’t come into any power until I was a teenager,” Bael said.
Dark was frowning. “You have magical power? What is your animal?”
Bael took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s everything,” he said. “Var changes with my mood. He can be whatever I need.”
Bael closed his eyes, tensed, and his shape blurred. From it flowed another creature, a small domestic cat who sat on the table.
It was perhaps a measure of the weirdness of the people in Kett’s life that not one of them seemed to think this was odd.
The cat blurred and became a rabbit. Then a small dog. Nothing big, Kett realized. Nothing threatening. Maybe Var was too weak and tired to be anything bigger. Or maybe he was doing it on purpose.
“You really are a Mage,” Chance breathed. Bael gave a bare nod. He reached out to stroke Var, who climbed into his lap and pressed close like a frightened puppy.
Tyrnan didn’t look impressed. “I thought being able to change your animal was something only Nasc children could do,” he said.
“Children and Magi,” Dark rumbled.
“It’s really the only Mage power I have,” Bael said.
“I didn’t think there were any,” Dark said. “After the death of…they were your parents, weren’t they?”
Bael nodded again. He glanced in Kett’s direction. “Albhar told me a shapeshifter killed my mother,” he said.
“Can’t make his mind up, can he?” Kett replied tonelessly, determined not to lose her cool like she had in the bar. “I’d never even met your mother.”
“Yes, I know that now, but then, I didn’t-”
“It doesn’t matter,” she cut in. “It ain’t important. What’s important is that your men killed half my villagers.”
Here Angie flinched, and Chance touched her hand reassuringly.
Kett went on relentlessly. “And they hurt plenty more. And Jarven.” Her fingers curled into her palm. Jarven might be a taciturn old bugger, but he was family. She’d known him longer than she’d known anyone else at this table.
“Did you know they were going to attack?” Chance asked Bael.
“No. I swear I had no idea. I thought we’d lose them once we got off-Realm. I didn’t honestly think they’d be able to trace me much farther than they could see me. I only stopped to heal Kett. Apart from that, I was moving pretty fast and leaving no tracks.”
“Then maybe this Albhar’s got more talent than you give him credit for,” said Striker.
“Or maybe you were lying,” Chance said, looking very much like her father. “You told us to warn as many Nasc as we could find. You knew we’d be a long way away from the mountain ranch, that the only person there capable of defending himself was Jarven who, let’s face it, is not in the first flush of youth anymore.”
“I didn’t attack anyone!”
His queen’s eyes were glacial. “No, you sent someone else to do it, like a coward.”
“I didn’t send anyone,” Bael cried. “Your majesty-you believed me before!”
“Before,” Chance said, her beautiful face hard and cold as a statue. “Before you violated the bond between you and your mate.”
Bael’s eyes closed and his lashes looked damp. “She’s not my mate,” he said quietly.
“Too right,” growled Tyrnan.
“What was it even for?” Chance demanded ruthlessly. “Gain Kett’s sympathy? Play the hero? Or were you just out for revenge?”
“Was it Jarven?” Kett asked, before Bael could answer.
His eyes flew open. “No! Why would I attack Jarven?”
“Jealousy,” Tyrnan said.
“What? No! For fuck’s sake, I didn’t know they were going to attack the village. I had no idea. Thingy, you,” he pointed wildly to Angie as Var growled anxiously on his lap, “you said they were looking for Kett.”
“They said they were looking for a shapeshifter,” Angie whispered.
“Why did they want Kett?” Tyrnan asked.
“For this ritual of my father’s,” Bael said wearily. Var licked his fingers comfortingly. “Albhar’s obsessed with it. That’s why he told me a shapeshifter had killed my mother,” he added, “so that I’d bring one in.”
“The ritual demands a shapeshifter?” asked Chance.
“A shapeshifter and a Nasc.” Bael looked at Kett again. Again she looked away. “That’s what he was trying to do when…when we first met.”
Kett’s head snapped round. “The ritual that killed everyone but you and me?” she scoffed. “Bit of a shitty ritual.”
“Well, maybe it went wrong. He’s not that great a Mage.”
“No wonder he never taught you anything,” Kett sniped.
“Agreed,” said Bael, with a faint smile. “But-”
“A shapeshifter and a Nasc?” piped up Lya, her kelfish voice high and melodious. Everyone looked at her. “Is it a ritual for absolute power?”
There was silence.
“How do you,” Bael asked, his voice low, “know about the ritual?”
“Your mother was obsessed with it. Well, I assume she was your mother, unless there were other female Nasc Magi around about twenty years ago.” She glanced at Dark, who shook his head. “And she was mated to a male Nasc Mage too. He had a lot more power than her. She wanted more. So she found this ritual, an ancient ritual. Part of the prophecies about our god. It was written in kelfish runes. That’s why they hired me, to translate it.”
A terrible suspicion formed in Kett’s mind. A kelf killed my mother. “Can you remember it?”
Lya nodded. “You’re going to ask me to write it down, aren’t you?” She made a face, sighed and took a notepad from her pocket. With a sideways glance at Striker, she added, “But please destroy it afterward. Words have power to kelfs, especially words like this. If they’re left written, even if no one reads them, they have power. They…they warp and control.”
“Did you destroy the copy my parents had?” Bael asked, his voice hoarse.
“No. They’d already sent me through the Wall by then.”
“His parents sent you through the wall?” Tyrnan asked, amazed. “You said it was a wizard.”
“Wizard, Mage…what’s the difference?”
Bael rolled his eyes.
“You never told me you worked for a Nasc!” Tyrnan said.
“Well, who else would have me? I killed a human.”
“Did you kill my mother?” Bael asked sharply.
“No. I killed a man named Grevlick, who owned a forge in Skavsta, and who beat and starved his kelfs.” She fixed Bael with a steely look. “You can’t break the skin of a kelf, but beatings hurt all the same.”
Bael glanced at Kett, then down at the table.
Lya frowned at the piece of paper she’d been drawing on then looked up. “Here. This describes the ritual. There’s a chant to be said, but I haven’t written it.” She paused, glancing at Striker.
“Oh please,” he said. “I got more power in my eyelashes than I could get from any bollocky kelf ritual.”
Kett held out her hand for the pad and when she got it, stared in shock.
“These symbols,” she began, and looked up at Lya.
“Tyrnan asked me about some of them. But not in the right order, not with the right…context.”
“They were on the walls of the cave. In Nihon. And…” Kett paused, and Var climbed off Bael’s lap and trotted down the table toward her, his claws clicking on the polished wood.
“And?” Bael urged.
“They were in my dream too. Recurring dream.” Crawling over Bael’s naked body. Maybe she didn’t need to add that part.
He said nothing to that, but he did get up and move to lean over Kett’s shoulder. He was very close, reading the pictograms Lya had drawn. Very close, very hot and very wrong.
Var sat in front of Kett, a small mongrel dog, tail wagging and eyes hopeful. Kett ignored him.
Bael straightened up.
“Kett,” he said softly. She kept her eyes fixed on the paper. “Kett, look at me.” Var nudged her hand with his soft, whiskery nose.
“Why?”
“I dreamed those symbols too. I dreamed you were with me, and those symbols appeared on your skin.”
Kett felt herself go very still. There was no possible way he could have known what she’d dreamt. She’d mentioned the symbols to her father but she’d told no one they’d appeared on Bael’s face and body.
Everyone was silent for a while then Striker, sitting opposite Kett, shoved Var to one side and looked at the symbols.
He laughed.
“Oh, I suppose a ritual involving painful death is funny to you, is it?” Kett snapped as Var, whimpering, leapt into Bael’s arms.
“Of course it is, pet. But what’s funny about this is how no one’s read it right.” He looked at Bael, who was holding Var, now in cat form, and stroking him soothingly. “Did your mother ever achieve this ultimate power?”
“If she had, she’d probably still be alive,” Bael said coldly.
“Right. Peck,” he addressed Lya, who scowled. “You said she was using shapeshifters and Nasc, right?”
The kelf nodded. “She got it wrong.”
This time they all stared at Lya.
“This symbol here,” she said, tapping the paper. “The Nasc interpreted it as ‘shape’ or ‘form’. But I told you-context. It has a looser meaning. They asked me to read it in Leaclii, which is the language of my tribe, but it was meant to be spoken in the ancient language. The meaning is subtly different.”
“How different?” Bael asked. Kett’s heart was thudding in her chest.
Lya chewed her lip. “In Leaclii, tvåskriva maskin krydda mittefiende formabyta.”
“Two creatures,” Tyrnan translated slowly, “two opposite creatures…who can…change?”
Lya nodded unhappily and went on. “And in the ancient language, na varda duan chimeron salasth sa fierna.”
Tyrnan gave her a blank look. The kelfs had never taught anyone their ancient language.
“Two creatures who are enemies,” Striker said, and Kett wasn’t really surprised he’d understood. “Enemies who can change their appearance.”
There was another silence.
“I don’t see the difference,” said Tyrnan.
“I do,” Bael said. He looked right at Lya, who looked right back at him.
“Kelfs and Nasc,” Chance said.
“But a kelf can only change its color when it’s a child,” Tyrnan said. “As an adult, it’s fixed.”
“Unless you’re a kelf who’s been ensorcelled by a Nasc Mage,” Lya said, her eyes still on Bael. “Your father experimented on me. Precisely what he thought he was doing when he sent me through the Wall is anyone’s guess, but I was still really only a kelfing at the time. I could still change my color.”
“The way a young Nasc can still change his shape,” Dark said.
“Whatever he did to me, it left me a mutable creature. I’m old enough to have grown kelfings of my own now, but…” Lya changed her skin color from blue to red, her hair from green to yellow, and her eyes through a spectrum of colors that made Kett feel slightly nauseous. “I can still change my color.”
“Do you think he knew?” Bael asked. “About the ritual, about needing you?”
Lya frowned and eventually shook her head. “He wasn’t terribly interested in the ritual. He said he would participate in it, because she couldn’t, not if she was the one performing it. But while she hunted down a shapeshifter, he experimented on how to send a kelf through the Wall.”
“No one else has managed it,” said Tyrnan. “Even Striker can’t do it.”
Striker snorted and lit up a cigarette in a manner that suggested such a thing wasn’t even worth bothering about.
“But no one else who’s tried it was a Nasc Mage,” Bael said. “That’s the thing. A kelf and a Nasc have never teamed up like that before.” He turned to Kett. “Do you know what this means?”
“You’re going to stop beating up kelfs?”
“No. Well, yes, but I mean-they don’t need you anymore.”
“Aye, but they don’t know that,” her father put in.
Kett rubbed her aching shoulder. “A great comfort. Thank you.”
She paused for a moment and looked around the table. She was tired. She was depressed. She was in pain. And she wasn’t needed.
She shoved back her chair, knocking it into Bael, and stood up.
“Right then,” she said. “I’ll be off.”
She hadn’t gotten three paces outside the room before Bael caught up to her.
“Kett, wait.”
“Fuck off.”
“No, listen.”
“Fuck off.”
“Kett-”
“Fuck.”
“Please.”
“Off.”
Var, all of a sudden a full-grown tiger, leapt in front of her. He filled the wide corridor, his eyes like solid amber, his tail swishing.
“I’ve fought tigers before,” Kett said.
“Yeah, and see how that worked out?” Bael moved to stand in front of her. “Kett, just listen to me a minute.”
“No. Your ritual doesn’t need me. You can’t possibly have anything to say to me.”
“My ritual-” Bael began, teeth gritted, but he calmed himself. “Look, you and I know the ritual doesn’t need you, but Albhar doesn’t. He’ll still be after you.”
“I can take care of-”
“No one, in this state.” When she started to protest, he interrupted again. “Have you even been able to change your shape since you got here?”
She folded her arms and glared at the floor. “I haven’t tried.”
“Try.”
“Fuck-”
“Albhar put an enchantment on you so you couldn’t. I can lift it.”
“I could get Striker to do that.”
“For what price? Just stand still a minute.”
Kett narrowed her eyes. “You could be putting a mojo on me.”
Bael looked at her with terrible sadness in his eyes. “You don’t-” he began, and broke off, sighing. “You never trusted me, did you?”
“I never trust anyone.”
“Why, Kett?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Kett snapped, and attempted to push past him, but Bael caught her arm and yanked her against the wall, pinning her there with his body.
“Get off me or I’ll rip your throat out with or without the help of fangs,” she spat.
But Bael spoke in some other language, something lyrical, and Kett felt the same sensation she had when Striker had freed her from the spell the first time.
No, not the first time. She’d been freed from this spell once before that. She’d heard those words once before.
Her skin rippled, changing to fur, feathers, scales, her fingertips growing claws, shrinking again, her whole body reveling in its flexibility. Bael, never letting up, watched her from a distance of about six inches.
“I’ve heard those words before,” she said, holding up one hand and slowly turning it into a tiger’s paw.
“The spell was on you that first time,” Bael said, “when we were in the cave. There was one on me too but I shook it off. Who did it for you?”
“Striker,” Kett said. “But he didn’t use words. And that wasn’t the first time I’ve been under that spell.”
Bael had hold of one of her wrists and one of her arms. Her free hand turned into a gryphon’s claw and she considered using it on him. But instead, she held it in front of his face and turned it to stone.
Kett had always found it more difficult to change one part of her body than to mimic an entire shape. Turning every inch of skin to the texture of stone was easier than changing just her hand, and she still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent well, so she did her whole body.
Bael was still holding her against the wall, but as the crackle of stone spread over her skin, his hands flew away from her as if she’d burnt him. His face twisted with horror, his whole body flinched. His eyes were wide with revulsion, shock and fear. Var shrunk against him, once more a small dog, whimpering with fear.
“Kett,” Bael croaked, like a man witnessing a massacre. “Gods, no. Please!”
Kett turned herself back, blinking. “For gods’ sakes, Bael, you look like you’ve seen a corpse.”
He touched her, tentatively, as if he was terrified she might break. When she failed to shatter into a million pieces, he grabbed her and hugged her to him, breathing hard, burying his face in her neck. Kett thought he might be crying.
He was strong and warm and close, and for a moment she let herself relax into the pleasure of his arms. But only for a moment. He might not have been the one to lock her in the tower, but he’d hardly protested Albhar’s intentions.
“Get a grip,” she hissed. “I was only trying to show you-look, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Bael said, looking up. “Believe me, Kett, it does. In my dream you were made of stone, and you crumbled to pieces. I thought-”
“You dreamed of me made of stone?” Kett asked sharply, and Bael nodded, looking wretched.
“I dreamed of you made of stone, and you turned into a-you looked like you’d been…”
“What?” Kett asked sarcastically, trying to disentangle herself from him. “Left in a tower cell for five days with no food and water?”
Bael flinched. “Left in a tower cell for five months with no food and water.” His eyes met hers, and they were tortured. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“And that makes it all right, does it? If you thought I was some anonymous stranger that you’d left to die? That’s sexy, Bael. That’s really hot.”
He flinched. “I was angry. I was hurt. You might have some memory of why.”
Kett felt her face burn.
“You have no idea of the agonies I’ve been through since I saw you there,” Bael said softly. “Day and night, visions of you. Nightmares. Your body just rotting away as I watched. Like the dead grown old. I thought-it was telling me you were going to die, and then when you turned to stone…”
He buried his head in her neck again, and Kett, frowning, let him. It was only when the door from the breakfast room opened and Tyrnan looked out, eyebrows raised, that she made Bael move.
“We need to talk,” she said, gesturing to her father that it was all right. A direct lie. Kett couldn’t really remember any instances in her life when things had been less right, but she really didn’t need Tyrnan’s interference.
Tugging Bael upstairs to her bedroom, she shut the door and leaned against it, shoving her hands through her hair. Funny, but it was one of the hardest things to change.
“Sit,” she said to Bael, gesturing to the bed, and he did. “Stay. Good dog.”
Var, still a dog but rather larger, gave her a reproachful look and leapt onto the bed to rest his head in Bael’s lap.
They were both silent a while. Kett, her leg aching, limped over to the dresser for a jar of liniment then hesitated. What the hell. Bael could see her naked without jumping on her. He thought she consorted with whores.
The fact that she actually had didn’t make her feel any better.
She kicked off her boots, tugged off her trousers and dealt Bael a severe look. “My leg hurts,” she said. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”
“I wouldn’t anyway.” He hesitated, watching her sit at the other end of the bed and start to rub liniment into her thigh. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Hurts like buggery. Well, not actually like buggery, that’s not really so bad. But, you know. Hurts. A lot.”
“I tried to fix it.”
“How?”
Bael frowned. “I don’t know. I just…wanted you to be better. To stay alive.”
Please get well again. Just stay alive.
“Sure, and I’m the Maharaja of Pradesh,” Kett said, shaken.
“Actually, funny story,” Bael said. “I used to know the Maharaja of Pradesh.”
“No you didn’t,” Kett said wearily.
“Did too. Fat man. Smelled of curry.”
“Harem of concubines younger than his daughter,” Kett said absently.
“You know him?”
“We’ve met.”
She poked at her leg a while, trying to think of what to say. All this bullshit between them. Maybe if she’d just been honest in the first place, none of this would have happened.
Yeah, like she believed that. But maybe it was worth a try anyway.
“The thing is…”
Bael looked at her encouragingly. Var nuzzled her hand and she found herself scratching the soft fur at the top of his head.
“The thing is…”
Var licked her fingers encouragingly.
Tell him you were the barmaid. Tell him you didn’t fuck Giacomo. Tell him he’s probably right and you are his mate.
Tell him…
He left you to die.
Bael touched her hand and she looked up, her eyes meeting his. His eyes were so green, impossibly green, shining like emeralds.
“The thing is,” her voice came out as a whisper, “there’s so much you don’t know.”
“Then tell me,” Bael said.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start anywhere.”
Var, cat-shaped again, slid onto her lap, his fur silky against her bare skin. He looked up at her, eyes as green as Bael’s, and purred.
Kett dug her fingers into his fur, and started talking.