Fey 02 - Changeling (22 page)

And Islanders didn't talk any more.
 
She stood at the edge of the road, waiting to see if anyone would approach.
 
In the past, she could find a friendly house, sleep by the fire for a few days, and listen to all the gossip.
 
Now she had to keep to the shadows and hope that she would overhear words on the street.

Two small boys played outside a gray house near one of the abandoned warehouses.
 
A woman hung wash on a line behind one of the stone homes.
 
A man sat on a chair outside a nearby store, waiting, it seemed, for customers, any customer, to enter.

The news of the King's death had been greeted with silence.
 
Solanda wondered what Rugar had expected.
 
Wails of grief?
 
Cheers of happiness?
 
If so, he would be greatly disappointed.
 
If anything happened at all it was that nothing had changed.

No one seemed to care.

Even she, one of the more cynical Fey, could not have predicted that.

"Look, Mommy!" one of the little boys called in Islander.
 
"A kitty!"

The mother gripped a shirt to her chest as she turned.
 
Her face was filled with fright.
 
She scanned the area until her gaze fell on Solanda.
 
"Stay away from it!" the mother called.
 
She dropped the shirt and headed for the house.

For the poison.

The little boy was walking toward Solanda, his small companion reminding him that Mother had said to stay away.
 
But Solanda had seen that look before on childish faces.
 
The fascination, the lack of fear.
 

The determination to catch her tail and pull it.

She bounded off the road and headed back through the shrubs.
 
The other cat, a scrawny black Tom, leapt through an opening as she passed, hissing, spitting, and hitting.
 
She hurried past him, hoping he heard the child behind them, and knew enough to get out of the way.

When she reached the river bank, she glanced over her shoulder.
 
The little boy was bracing himself on the mud, using one hand as balance as he scrambled down the small decline.
 
His mother had emerged from the house, a vial of the Islanders' holy poison in her left hand.

"By the Powers!" Solanda snapped, not caring if anyone heard her speak Fey.

The Tom who was chasing her stopped in puzzlement, having never heard a cat make such a noise before.
 
She ran along the bank, careful to stay on the driest ground so that she would not leave tracks.
 
She ran as fast as she could, knowing there was nothing faster than she was when she moved like this.
 
Her sleek body was built for hunting and stealth, and she used it.
 
The only problem was that she would not be able to keep this speed for very long.

Then a wall loomed in front of her.
 
It was new, but poorly built, the supports toppling sideways, the wooden boards mismatched, leaving gaps in the sides.
 
She had been here only once before, and then the wall had been partially finished.

The Settlement.
 
They couldn't chase her in here.

She ran on a pile of stones that led out of the muck, glancing behind her once, and cursing when she noticed tiny wet cat prints on the surface.
 
Nothing she could do right now.
 
Nothing at all.

The Tom appeared over the rise, the small boy behind him, and the woman yelling as she followed them both.
 
Solanda chirruped at the Tom, hoping he would understand and get out of the way, then she dove through the small hole in the wall.

She landed on a pile of slippery, rotted boards.
 
Her paws skidded along the surface and she had to jump sideways.
 
The boards toppled after her, landing on the wet ground with a large thump.
 
Behind her, she could hear the woman yelling.
 
The Tom shoved his face in the hole, huffed at her as if disgusted by her choice, then pulled his head out.
 
She wished him luck.

Three Fey were looking at her.
 
She recognized two men as young Domestics.
 
The other was Burden, a tool in his left hand, a board in his right.
 
All three were thinner than Fey should be, their bones appearing prominently through their skin.
 
The buildings were poorly constructed and water-damaged.
 
The great hope of the Fey, Jewel's Vision of peace and harmony among the warring factions, reduced to this.

Solanda was glad for the first time to have Shadowlands.

The woman's voice echoed outside the wall.
 
She was yelling at her child to stay away, then she said something about doing away with threats once and for all.

Solanda sighed, and Shifted.

Her body stretched, losing its comfortable feline form.
 
The pull was almost erotic, the change subtle and great at the same time.
 
Her front paws stretched into hands, her back into feet.
 
Her back and legs lengthened, her ears moved, and her nose shrunk.
 
Her whiskers disappeared, and for a moment — the crucial frightening moment of each Shift — she felt blind.
 
Then her senses Shifted as well, and she found herself positioned awkwardly in the mud — hands and feet on the ground, backside in the air, head facing downward.

She immediately stood, wiped her hands on her bare legs, and faced her male colleagues.
 
The Domestics had seen Shifts before, and sometimes helped the Shaman with the birth of Shape-shifters, but Burden's magic was marginal.
 
He had probably never seen this before.
 

His mouth was open, his eyes wide.
 
He brought his chin up as if her change had not disturbed him, and that very movement told her that it had.

Solanda had to suppress a laugh.
 
She knew the effect she made.
 
She was so used to appearing naked in front of others that she was never uncomfortable.
 
Instead, she preferred to see whom it affected, if it affected anyone at all.
 
And young Burden was having trouble.
 
Shifters were the most perfect Fey, physically and magically, and the physical was getting quite a reaction from him.

She tossed her tawny hair over her shoulder, and stood up straighter so that her breasts were prominent.
 
Then she grinned.
 
"Does anyone have a towel?"

One of the Domestics nodded and disappeared into the nearest building.
 
The other grinned with her.
 
But Burden was still staring, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.

"Or do you think clothing would be more appropriate?" Solanda asked, unwilling to let this easy victim go.
 
"That woman did sound as if she were going to charge the gate."

"You were running from an Islander?" Burden finally understood that Solanda was baiting him.
 
His response had a bit of condescension in it, something Rugar had always hated about him.

"It is a prudent response when they are carrying the Holy Poison."
 
The mud had caked on her hands and legs.
 
The human body had its disadvantages.
 
She would love to crouch on a dry patch of ground and clean herself.
 
But she had to wait for towels and water.
 
She was still enough cat to shudder at the thought of a human bath.

That feeling would pass, of course, but not soon enough.
 
That woman was going to come into the Settlement, and how to explain a naked Fey?
 
Islanders probably never went naked, probably never even saw their mates unclothed.

She would have to ask Jewel the next time she saw her.
 
Odd choices.
 
Solanda had never, not in all her years of warfare, all of her traveling, ever considered mating with an enemy.
 

Although there had always been embarrassing moments when their Toms had looked appealing.
 

It was a rule among Shifters to avoid change during estrus.
 
Because of her involvement in Rugar's petty wars, she had sometimes been unable to follow that rule.

Burden was still staring at her.
 
Time to take the offensive.
 
"What is the matter, Burden?" she asked.
 
"Never seen a naked woman before?"

"Not covered with mud," he said.
 
His voice was calm, but he glanced away.
 

"Then you've missed one of the more delightful experiences in life," she said.
 
The other Domestic came out of the building carrying two towels and a robe.
 
She found herself suddenly grateful.
 
The chill in the air had penetrated her unprotected skin.
 
She never could understand why humans did not have fur.

The Domestic handed her the towels and Solanda wiped mud on them.
 
She almost wiped off her feet, then realized that was a cat trap — she had often stood on three paws in mud, cleaning one paw, and then putting it back into the mud.
 
Another embarrassing feline habit she would rather not think about.

She traded the dirty towels for the robe, and sighed as its warmth enveloped her.
 
Burden watched her, and she thought she caught envy in his expression.
 
She couldn't imagine being marginally magical — to have the height and appearance of a proper Fey but to have talents so minor as to be unnoticeable.
 
He was one step away from being a Red Cap — the small, squat caretakers of the dead who barely earned the name Fey by their Fey-like facial features.
 
They had no magic, no beauty, and no grace.
 
At least Burden had beauty and grace.

"I'd go to the gate," she said.
 
"That woman will probably want in."

"We usually don't allow Islanders here."

Solanda snorted.
 
So much for the great experiment.
 
"Frightened of them, Burden?" she asked.

"I'm not the one who came flying through a hole in the wall a moment ago."

Solanda resisted the urge to examine her right hand.
 
The cleaning instincts were not yet gone.
 
Instead, she shrugged one shoulder.
 
"One does what one can to survive."

"So you are frightened of them."

The boy really didn't know when to quit.
 
"No," she said.
 
"It is just that royal edict says cats must be slaughtered on sight.
 
Last I heard, Fey could roam the city with impunity."

"Burden!" someone called.
 
"We have company."

Solanda raised her eyebrows.
 
"You really should listen to your elders."

"You're not that much older than me," Burden said.

"Child, I remember when your father was born."
 
She pulled the robe tighter and walked toward the gate herself.
 
If he wasn't going to deal with this pesky Islander woman, she would.

The path was covered with mud, and she was relieved she hadn't spent the time to clean off her feet.
 
The mud was cool but soothing.
 
Her feet often ached after she made the Shift, partly because they weren't used to carrying all of her weight.

The other buildings that she passed were no better than the first ones.
 
Some actually had holes in the walls stuffed with cloth.
 
Burden may have had an idea, but an idea did not make him a Visionary.

Near the gate, the woman stood, surrounded by three Fey.
 
Solanda knew them as Infantry, had often run between their feet on the way to a battle.
 

The woman was shorter than Solanda, but she had a solidness that Solanda had come to associate with Islander mothers.
 
Childbirth took any slimness they may have had and replaced it with a stoutness that Islanders seemed to find comforting.