The Bird and the Sword (22 page)

He actually grinned at me, as if my abilities thrilled him, and promised I could come and go freely, as long as I had a member of the guard with me at all times. I found, for the most part, it was easier to stay in my room.

Tiras made sure I had books on Jeru’s history, Jeru’s laws, as well as Jeru’s yearly crop yield and rainfall, and I read each tome with the commitment of the truly terrified. When Tiras could, he would read with me, allowing me to follow along with his hand over mine, tracing the words he was saying as I tried to take everything in. I was desperate to learn, and Tiras seemed desperate as well, spending long hours answering my questions and quizzing me on a thousand details that past queens of Jeru couldn’t possibly have known.

My only reprieve was when he Changed, disappearing for a day or two or three. Then I would miss him—though his presence and attention always came with a price—and the respite would feel more like a punishment than a reward.

When I complained about the endless instruction, he grew stern and quiet, making me more nervous than I would have otherwise been. He showed little affection, beyond an occasional smile and a peck to my hand, and I grew stiffer and colder as the day of our marriage approached, wondering if the kisses he’d given me that night in Kilmorda were the last kisses I would receive, wondering for the umpteenth time why he seemed so intent on making me queen.

It was on one such afternoon, Tiras instructing me on Jeruvian trade laws, making me follow along as he droned on about the art of negotiation, when the late summer heat and the tedium of our studies threatened to drive me mad.

This book is a waste of parchment.
I slapped it shut, narrowly missing Tiras’s fingers and dropped it beside my chair. A burst of satisfaction echoed in my chest when it clapped heavily against the floor, followed by immediate remorse when a page fluttered free.

I can fix that
, I offered meekly, but made no move to do so. Tiras sighed heavily, but rose to his feet, signaling we were through.

“Come,” he said, surprising me, and took my hand in his, pulling me from my chair.

Where are we going?

“You need a break from words.”

I practically skipped down the corridor from the library, and Tiras seemed equally as eager to escape.

“You’ve seen the watch tower, the siege tower, the arsenal tower, and the upper, middle and lower baileys. We’ve walked along the perimeter of the wall, inspected the ramparts and the parapets, and of course you’ve seen the dungeon,” he listed, smirking slightly.

You’ve still not taught me to fence or joust.

“If the day comes when Jeru’s survival hangs on her queen’s ability to joust, we will already be doomed,” he retorted dryly. “But if you’d like to spend some time in the yard, I can certainly arrange it.”

I think I would rather visit Shindoh.

“Wise choice. We’ll see the stables and the mews today.”

We visited the stables first, the enormous enclosure housing hundreds of horses at a time. The royal horses included mounts for the guard and the city constables, though they were quartered in separate sections. The king’s personal stables were connected to the main, providing easy access for trainers and breeders and stable hands. The scent of straw and earth and animal’s well-cared for permeated the air, and the knot of disquiet in my chest eased considerably.

I walked along the rows, greeting the horses with words they could sense and handfuls of oats, and Tiras trailed behind me, giving me names and pedigrees, until we halted in front of Shindoh’s stall.

“Shindoh is from a long line of Jeruvian Destriers. His sire was Perseus, whose sire was Mikiya,” Tiras said, stepping inside the enclosure and greeting the charger, who seemed happy to see us both.

Something niggled in my memory.

Mikiya. I know that name.

“Mikiya was my horse when I was a boy. He was battle worn by the time I was big enough to handle him, but we were born only days apart. My mother named him. Mikiya means—”

Eagle.

“Yes,” he said, surprised. Our eyes met over Shindoh’s back, and my throat burned with a secret I couldn’t quite remember.

“How did you know that? It is the language of my mother’s people, not a language of Jeru.”

I’m not sure. It is a word . . . and like every word, it has a meaning. I just . . . knew.

He handed me a brush and we worked without speaking for several long minutes. Shindoh radiated contentment, and it was contagious.

Maybe the secret to happiness is simplicity.

“There is a certain freedom in it,” Tiras agreed, and I asked the question that I’d often pondered.

When you are a bird, are you ever tempted to . . . fly away and never return?

“When I am a bird, I still know that I am a man. I know who I am,” he murmured, his hushed voice and the privacy of the stall making his answer seem more like a pained confession. Shindoh chuffed and butted him sympathetically.

Tiras knew who he was, but he was constantly being transformed into something else. I wished I hadn’t asked.

That would make it especially difficult to eat mice and rabbits.
I was trying to make him laugh, and he did.

“That is when I allow instinct to take over.” He winced. “I surrender to the bird. In the beginning it was extremely difficult.”

I couldn’t imagine it.

“When I first began to change, I was . . . frightened,” Tiras said, grimacing. “I didn’t know what to do with myself or where to hide. I found shelter in the mews until I started to figure out how to . . . adjust. My father’s falconer thought I’d been injured because I huddled in the rafters and wouldn’t fly. He left me dead mice and bits of raw meat. I couldn’t make myself eat them, even though I . . . wanted to. The eagle I’d become wanted to.”

Did you hate her?
I didn’t specify who I was referring to, but Tiras knew.

“No,” he said, and truth rang from his voice. “I wanted to. It would have been so much simpler to blame her.” He looked at me. “I blamed my father.”

“Come,” he said, giving Shindoh a brisk pat. “The mews await.”

I followed him eagerly. My father, like every lord, had falcons, though it was more a status symbol for him. He didn’t enjoy the hunts or the birds themselves, saying the falcons were vicious. I had been forbidden to go anywhere near the mews in Corvyn.

Where the stables had been full of light and warm animals, the mews were shadowed and cool, the quiet interspersed by cooing, fluttering, and the occasional shriek. The main level housed the falcons and hawks and was so spacious and lofty, the birds, perched and leashed on stands that looked like inverted pyramids on posts, could fly around the interior.

Tiras explained that an upper level—accessible by steep stairs near the entrance—was for the pigeons, trained to carry messages all over the kingdom.

A man hurried forward, removing a falconer’s glove as he walked. He was small and neat with a pointy grey beard that matched the color of his sharp eyes, eyes that made him look like the birds he trained. When he reached us, he bowed so low his forehead nearly touched his knees.

“This is Hashim. He is Master of the Mews,” Tiras introduced. “Hashim, this is Lady Lark of Corvyn.”

“Our future queen,” Hashim marveled, rising and beaming.

The title made my neck hot, and without looking down, I knew a flush was climbing up my chest and pinking my cheeks. I breathed deeply, commanding it to cease, and extended a hand to the man.

He bowed again, kissing my hand with great flourish. “The birds are molting, my king. As you know, it makes them irritable. I’ve hooded many of the falcons, but I would keep a good distance,” he warned, and Tiras nodded agreeably. Genuflecting, Hashim retreated down the long aisle and through a tall door, leaving us to do what we wished.

We moved through the rows of captive birds, but my eyes kept moving to the heavy beams that supported the upper floor, to the drafty corners where an eagle, who was really a frightened boy, could huddle and hide.

“I still come here sometimes, when I change,” Tiras said quietly. “Hashim is a good man. Gentle. He is always glad to see me. He believes he has tamed an eagle, and even gave me a name.” We stopped near the stairs to the loft where the pigeons were kept and turned to retrace our steps.

Mikiya
? The name was simply a nod to our earlier conversation, but
the burning sensation rose in my throat again, and I wondered if I was growing ill. I touched it gingerly, but the discomfort was already beginning to ease.

“Mikiya,” Tiras repeated, his voice a whisper. Then he shook his head. “No. Hashim calls me Stranger. More and more, that is what I’m becoming.”

T
he day of the nuptials dawned crisp and clear, and the city came awake with a rush. For most of the day, I was prepped and buffed and smoothed and tweaked, and finally, wrapped in a dress of the most luxurious, pale blue silk I’d ever seen. When the preparations were complete, the women stood back and nodded gravely, like arrogant artisans. Their work was done. They retreated with instructions that I “not touch anything” until the guard arrived to escort me to the castle gates to begin my procession.

But no one came.

The bells began to chime, a signal for the start of the ceremonial march, and I debated leaving my room and descending the stairs on my own, impatient that I must always wait for men. I imagined myself beginning the slow walk to the cathedral through the gathering crowd without following the proper protocols. But ceremony was everything to Jeruvians, and I dismissed the thought immediately. Something was amiss.

Then the whispers began, floating up from the streets below through my balcony doors. I cursed the ability that drew the conversations to my consciousness, as if the words belonged to me. They swarmed my tower room and stung me like angry hornets.

There is not going to be a wedding.

The king has changed his mind.

Her father objects.

Lady Ariel from Firi should be queen. She is the most beautiful woman in all of Jeru.

The Lady from Corvyn doesn’t even speak.

She’s a mute, poor thing.

The king is missing . . . again.

Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. The talk was incessant and painful. I shut the balcony doors and opened a book, replacing the gossip that whirred in my brain with something of my choosing, but I couldn’t concentrate, and I was suddenly afraid. I heard boots in the hallway, and Kjell rapped on the door before entering alone.

He was decked out in his finest, his boots gleaming, his hair slicked back from his handsome face, but he looked especially grim.

“I can’t find Tiras, Lady Corvyn.”

I set my book aside and rose with as much calm as I could muster, and I stated the obvious.

He couldn’t change.

He grimaced. He didn’t like that I knew the truth, yet his relief warred with his fear. He’d borne the brunt of the king’s secret for a very long time.

“I believe that is what has happened,” he agreed softly.

Have you seen him?

His gaze lifted, and I knew he understood. I was asking if he’d seen the eagle.

“
No.”

It is not against Jeruvian law to kill such a bird. What if something happened to him?

Kjell swore and stomped to the balcony, flinging the doors wide as if begging Tiras to fly through.

“Can you call to him? The way you did to the Volgar?”

I was stunned that he knew and wondered how many of Tiras’s warriors had heard me beckon the enemy in Kilmorda.

He is more man than an animal. The Volgar are simple. Tiras is not.

“He is not simple. But he is a bird as often as he is a man. Maybe more often,” he murmured, and my heart grew heavier in my chest.

I walked to the open doors and raised my face to the sky. Then I closed my eyes and thought of the white-capped bird with the sooty black feathers. I saw the span of his wings with the fiery red tips, unlike any bird I’d ever seen, and I asked those wings to bring him to me.

I concentrated on the word he’d given me when I’d followed him from branch to branch, wall to wall, as we walked through the night to the cottage in the woods.
Home
, he’d said.
Home.

Come home, Tiras,
I urged.
Come home.

But I felt nothing. No tendrils of connection, no whisper in the wind, no heartbeat. No warmth. The sun was beginning to sink toward the western hills, and wherever Tiras was, he was not within my reach.

I cannot feel him. If he is close by, he is not a bird.

Kjell swore, stepping back from the balcony doors and drawing me with him.

“The lords are insisting that the procession begin.”

They know the king is unaccounted for?

“Yes. And they want to publicly humiliate him.”

And me.

“They don’t care about you, Milady.”

Of course not.

“Their goal is to take down the king, by whatever means necessary, and tradition dictates that you must walk in order to be queen.”