The Bird and the Sword

  “It was the same with my hair. I changed, but my hair did not. One day it was black. The next day as white as snow. As white as eagle feathers. Soon I will have talons instead of toes and wings instead of arms.” His tone was wry but his golden eyes were bracketed with worry.

  When the healer asked permission to touch him, he agreed, his eyes on mine. I didn’t want her to touch him, and he knew it.

  “Stubborn woman,” he breathed, and the cage that surrounded my heart constricted until I couldn’t breathe. The healer smoothed her hands down his arms and across his eyes, her face calm and her eyes closed. She hummed, a low mellow sound, never varying from a single note, a lute with only one string, plucking away.

  “Why is she doing that?” Kjell murmured. Shenna’s eyes snapped open, but continued humming for several more seconds as she moved her hands.

  “It is the sound his body makes, the note he sings,” she responded eventually, and though she’d ceased humming, I could hear the tone continuing, fixed in her head like a dominant word.

  “It is the frequency with which his body heals itself, I am simply singing with him, strengthening his ability.”

  I reached out my hand. Tiras took it, and I closed my eyes as well, breathing my words into the note the healer sang, telling him to be whole.

  “I cannot heal him,” Shenna said, finally. Tiras sat motionless, Kjell paced, and I mourned.

  Why? My voice was a cry, and Tiras winced.

  “Because he isn’t ill,” she insisted. “His body sings with health and vigor . . . and strength.”

  “But he is becoming something else. It’s happening more and more often,” Kjell contended, anger masking his fear.

  Shenna shook her head again. “I know many Changers. It is never like this. It is always a choice.”

  “You know many?” Tiras asked, raising his strange gold eyes to the healer.

  “I know many,” she breathed, trusting him. Trusting us.

  “Bring them to me,” Tiras commanded, and Shenna looked to me, pleading for reassurance.

  I could only meet her gaze helplessly. I had no idea what he intended.

  “No,” she answered, shaking her head. “They would never come.”

  “Then take me to them,” he said. “And I will show them that I am one of them.”

  “Why?” Kjell interrupted. “Why would you do that, Tiras? Why would you expose yourself in that way?”

  “You will need allies when I’m gone,” Tiras answered, and this time his eyes did not meet mine.

  Resistance bubbled in me, denying, denying, denying.

  We left the city at dawn the next day, disguised much like we’d been before, dressed like villagers and artisans, veiled and quiet, carrying baskets and avoiding eye contact. We walked to Nivea, to the cottage of Shenna the healer, who welcomed the men with wariness, but extended her hands and some warmth to me, as if my gift and my disability comforted her. Vulnerability invited trust, apparently.

  “I have told the elders. They have circulated the news among the Gifted. Each will decide whether to show themselves or stay hidden. If they don’t come here today, we must accept their choice. I will not reveal them to you,” Shenna said firmly. Her parents were present, along with her great-grandfather, a man named Sorkin, who was so old he could stand next to the cliffs in Corvyn and blend into the lined, grey rock. But in Nivea, the rock was black and shimmering, like Tiras’s eyes had been before the change made them gold.

  Sorkin was a healer too, a man who’d lived through the reign of Tiras’s great-grandfather, a king even more feared and hated than Zoltev. He watched us with careful eyes, exuding both caution and hope. When Tiras bowed to him, the old man’s face softened the slightest bit. He reached out his hands and cupped Tiras’s face, not asking for permission, and he began to hum, just like Shenna had done the day before. After a time, he stopped, his hands falling away, the note ringing through the cottage.

  “There is no sickness in you, Majesty,” he murmured, his brow furrowing with distrust.

  “There is also very little . . . time,” Tiras said, and Sorkin studied him intently, not confirming or denying what Tiras claimed.

  Sorkin stepped away from the king, lifting his hands to my cheeks as well. “There is life in you, my queen.” His eyes cut to Tiras. “I can hear the hum of two heartbeats.”

  My breath caught. I had suspected as much, but shared my suspicion with no one, wanting to wait a little longer, to be sure. Now I had no doubt.

  “It is very soon, and the life is young. But there will be a child,” he predicted with certainty.

  I turned to Tiras, who took my hand and pressed a kiss on my palm where the prior had merged our blood months before. Joy trembled on his lips and took root in my breast. His pleasure was well noted by Shenna and the old healer, and their eyes warmed and their wariness ebbed.

  “Thank the Gods,” Tiras breathed, as if another bridge had been crossed, another battle won, and the roots of joy in my chest grew tiny thorns.

  “Thank the Gods,” the Healer repeated. “Now let us begin.”

  From the room beyond, a woman named Gwyn was summoned, a woman so ancient and so familiar, I could only stare. It was the old woman from the cathedral, the woman who had anointed my feet and had bade me wait on my wedding day. She bowed gingerly before me, and my spirits lifted with her smile.

  “When we last met, you were not yet a queen.”

  I curtsied deeply, grateful to see her again.

  “We meet again, and you are not yet a mother, though you will accomplish this too.” Her eyes moved to Tiras, and she acknowledged him with a deferential nod of her silver head.

  “Majesty, how can we serve you?” she asked him, though I suspected she already knew.

  “What is your gift, Mother Gwyn?” Tiras asked, bestowing the title with obvious respect.

  “I see things others cannot. I know things others do not. And I recognize the Gifted, Highness,” she said without artifice.

  You are a seer? I interrupted, surprised.

  She smiled at me, as though my voice in her head was pleasing.

  “My ears are not as sharp as they once were, but I hear you perfectly.”

  I bowed again. It is good to be heard.

  “I am a Teller, as are you, my queen,” Gwyn continued, answering my original question. “Though the things I see I cannot change. I can’t command the wind or water. But I know when a storm is coming.”

  “What is the king’s gift, Mother Gwyn?” Sorkin pressed her gently, steering the conversation to the matter of most importance. He wanted to know if Tiras was sincere.

  She tipped her head and studied Tiras, taking note of his golden eyes and his pale hair. “His gift is strange,” she reflected.

  “Aren’t they all?” Kjell cut in acerbically.

  The old woman simply smiled and nodded at the bristling captain of the king’s guard. “Indeed, good man. But your gift is not simply your ability to change, Majesty,” she said, directing her words to Tiras once again. He raised his brows and glanced at me.

  “Your gift is your will,” she said. I could attest to that. “People obey you,” she continued. “They yield to your demands. Even your brother, who bows to no one, would prostrate himself before you if you asked him.”

  Kjell scoffed but extended his hand, palm forward, as if to keep the woman at a distance. She closed her eyes briefly and almost sniffed the air, reminding me of Boojohni, before she opened her eyes and regarded Kjell patiently.

  “The gift of the Healer is the easiest to deny, especially among those who are comfortable with war and suspicious of love. There is power in you, young man,” she said softly, but she let Kjell be, and let us all make what we would of her words.

  Throughout the long afternoon, the Gifted arrived in small groups, as if the parade was being carefully controlled. We didn’t know where they came from. We didn’t ask. No gift was an exact replica of another. Each was different, each unique.

>   And the display was truly staggering.

  The Changers and the Spinners were most eager to share. Healing was a harder gift to demonstrate, and the Tellers impossible to verify. The future hadn’t happened yet, and none seemed to be able to use their words the way I did.

  A man the size of a boulder, who had to stoop to enter the house, spun stones into bread and fed us all. A child spun cotton into coal with a flick of his wrist. We watched a woman spin Kjell’s sword into a length of rope, and a rope into a snake. I jumped back, startled.

  “It is not a real snake,” the Spinner laughed.

  I watched it coil around itself and raised my eyebrows in question. It certainly looked real.

  “I can turn one object into another. But I cannot create life where there is no life. It is simply the appearance of life.”

  “What do you mean?” Tiras asked, and Sorkin explained.

  “Some say that the Volgar were created when a lonely spinner attempted to turn vultures into humans. It can’t be done. The Volgar may have human parts, but they don’t have human hearts. They have no souls or conscience. No ability to reason or love. There is no virtue. Only instinct. They simply became a different sort of beast.”

  “But the vultures are living things . . . unlike the rope,” Kjell interjected.

  Sorkin picked up the snake, and without warning, he pulled its head off. The frayed edges of the rope stuck out from the scaly body of the snake where the head had just been.

  “It cannot strike. It does not eat. It does not sleep. It does not have the instincts or the inner workings of a snake. It is a rope, animated by a touch. A man can become a beast. But a beast cannot become a man.”

  The room grew silent, and Tiras turned his eagle eyes on me for a heartbeat. “What makes a man a beast?” he asked quietly, addressing Sorkin but still looking at me.

  “His choices.”

  “Not his gift?” Kjell asked bitterly.

  “Not his gift,” Sorkin answered. “What a man does with his gift is the true measure.”

  Kjell had no response and the demonstrations continued. Lu, a little girl with green eyes and inky black hair became a kitten that scampered at my feet. A troll with a long, red beard became a goat that neighed incessantly and bit everything in sight. A boy named Hazael became a horse, all coltish legs and flowing mane, and a mother of three became whatever animal she wished, morphing from one to the other at the king’s request.

  They could all hear me—Spinners, Changers, Healers, and Gwyn, the only other Teller in the room.

  For every person who shared their gift, I shared mine as well, spinning a rhyming spell that made the dishes wash themselves, a sock darn the hole in its toe, a fire start, and a turtle fly. They clapped and marveled and begged for more, and I acquiesced, hoping it would be enough to soothe fears and build trust. But Sorkin was not deterred. At the end of the day, he made his demand of the king.

  “We have shown you our abilities. Now you must show us what you can do,” the old Healer demanded, his voice soft but adamant.

  I do not want him to change, I protested, raising my voice so all those present could hear me. The gathered Gifted looked at me in surprise.

  Every time he changes, it is harder for him to return, I explained, and shocked murmurs and unspoken questions rose in the air like dusty moths. I brushed at them, denying them and wishing them away.

  “Lark,” Tiras murmured, and I knew before I looked at him that my protestations were useless.

  “I’ve given my word,” Tiras said.

  “Perhaps when he changes, Sorkin and I will be able to better understand why there is pain,” Shenna offered, reaching out her hand to the king. Sorkin moved close as well, and Tiras bowed his head, as if receiving a blessing instead of invoking a transformation. They began to hum together—Sorkin and Shenna—but the mellow, low vibration Tiras’s body had emitted earlier in the day was now a high ringing. The Healers struggled to recreate it, straining for the pitch. Shenna started to shake her head helplessly, even as she breathed into the note, strengthening it, matching it.

  Then Tiras roared, throwing back his head and howling like his heart was being pulled from his chest, fighting the pull, only to be dragged away. Like millions upon millions of dust particles gathering and bursting and rearranging themselves, he disintegrated and became something else. His white hair clung to his head and neck like a silken hood, obscuring a face that suddenly ceased to exist. Then wings unfurled, even as his body melded into the air.

  It was glorious and ghastly, triumphant and tragic all at once. I fought the urge to weep and throw myself into the space where he had been that I might become what he was.

  Shenna and the old Healer fell back, as if they too had never seen such a thing, and Kjell opened the cottage door.

  Unlike the other Changers—the kitten, the horse, the goat, and the mother who changed effortlessly—my eagle king soared up into the cerulean sky, and he did not return.

  Lost.

  The eagle’s word made me ache.

  No. Not lost. I know who you are, I pressed, stroking the feathers on his breast.

  Lark.

  My name rose from him, and I knew he was telling me the same. He knew who I was too. He was still Tiras, beneath it all, and that was almost worse.

  “The king is asking for you, Milady,” Pia announced, popping into my chamber in the early afternoon a week later. My hands froze mid-air, the book I held slipping from my fingers. “He asked that you be present for a meeting with his advisors.”

  He is back? I pressed, but she didn’t hear me, of course, and she continued bustling around my chamber as if the king’s comings and goings were of little concern to either of us. I doubted she’d even noticed he was gone.

  I tidied my appearance in a rush and flew down the corridors and the main staircase to the room I loved most in the entire castle. But there were others assembled, and as I neared, I modulated my pace and pulled on my composure. I could hear the rumble of voices, and my belly flipped in anticipation.

  Tiras sat in the library, his brow furrowed, poring over records and ledgers, Kjell and two other members of the guard seated in front of him. When I slipped inside he greeted me, but didn’t look up. Kjell and the other men rose and bowed before dismissing me as well. I sat in my customary seat, a quill in hand, making primitive notes—wholly insufficient and childlike—as if I understood any of it. He wore riding gloves and boots that rose above his knees, as if he’d come in straight from the stables and gotten to work. No one commented on it. His presence filled the space and demanded attention, and his height and breadth made the room seem smaller and the day so much longer.

  We conducted the business of the kingdom for several hours, the stream of people in and out of the library making private conversation impossible, though I occasionally sent Tiras a humorous word or a thought, a bright butterfly to catch his attention. He didn’t acknowledge them, though occasionally his lips twitched and he rolled his eyes, making me believe I’d accomplished my aim.

  I exercised patience as he sought advisors, received updates, and worked with all the mania of a man on borrowed time. As yet another meeting drew to a close, Tiras referred to an inspection from the day before—a trip to the kingdom’s vaults and Jeru’s mines—and I sat up straighter, listening even as I grew more and more confused.

  When did you return? I pressed, not caring one whit that he was speaking.

  Tiras didn’t answer immediately, and I bridled my words, allowing him to finish his instructions to the surveyor of the mines. When his instructions became a new topic altogether, I interrupted again.

  “Tiras?”

  His golden eyes shot to mine then fell immediately as if the work before him demanded his absolute attention.

  When did you return? I asked again.

  “I returned three days ago,” he addressed me directly, though those present had not heard my question. “I visited the outposts and spent time on patrol. It had to b
e done.”

  Three days?

  My face and chest stung like I’d been slapped repeatedly.

  He’d been Tiras for three days. Not Tiras the bird. Tiras the man. Whole. Present. And I hadn’t known.

  “There is much to do,” he said flatly, though his eyes narrowed in warning, as if he thought I might start mentally pulling books from the library shelves and winging them at his head. The king’s advisors cleared their throats as if they’d suddenly realized there was a bit of a silent showdown underway.

  I swallowed, keeping my words in my chest so they wouldn’t flood my head and become angry spells, but they slithered and snapped, and I stood, unable to trust myself to contain them.

  The king’s advisors shot to their feet, parchment and scrolls falling to the floor. I acknowledged them, just a stiff jerk of my head, and moved swiftly toward the door.

  “Lark,” Tiras called after me. I ignored him.

  I donned my cloak and set out at a steady pace, making my way up the hill that led to the cathedral and beyond to the cliffs that guarded Jeru City. I didn’t wait for an escort. I was not a prisoner anymore. I was partially hidden beneath the large cowl of my cloak, and if anyone noticed me, they kept their distance. I kept my eyes on my feet until I reached the bell tower atop the church then stopped to catch my breath, peering up at it and waiting for the knell of the hour, signaling all was well as the sun sank beyond the horizon.

  The air was cold, and the bite against my cheeks matched the raw scrape of my breath. I’d noticed that when I walked briskly, my belly tightened as if to draw my child to me, to brace against the physical demands I was making on myself. It wasn’t unpleasant or painful. But it made me aware. It demanded I pay attention and not ignore the life growing in me, early as it still was. Tiras had the same effect on my heart. It tightened whenever he was away, demanding I remember, that I think about him, that I wait.