Authors: Jasmine Walt
I should know, because as a shifter, or at least half-shifter, lust was a much bigger inconvenience to me than it was for a human or mage. Twice a year, shifter females went into heat and became insatiable creatures, consumed by the urge to mate and little else. The clock reset every time it was over, regardless of whether or not we were impregnated, but during the period in between our hormones ramped up bit by bit until we exploded all over again.
My time was coming soon, in a matter of weeks. Normally I didn’t concern myself overmuch with it, as I just found a reasonably willing male to take out my sexual energy on when the time came. But I’d never had my heart tangled up over anyone before, especially not someone like Iannis. When we’d first met, the attraction I’d felt had been instant, and I’d fought so hard to deny it that I’d blamed it on my hormones. But as time passed, I knew my impending heat was only partially to blame – the growing feelings in my heart had little to do with the growing heat in my loins, and in the past I’d always been able to distinguish between the two. The presence of someone in my life that I both wanted, needed, and couldn’t have in more ways than one, was really fucking with me. Sometimes I wished that I’d never met the Chief Mage, because then at least I wouldn’t be torn into two over the issue.
But I had met him, and even if I was conflicted, my life was in many ways better for having him in it. And besides, I owed him a debt that even rescuing him might not repay.
“Sunaya!” Elania greeted me in her throaty voice as she glided into the room. She’d changed and freshened up since I’d seen her in the infirmary – her thick, lustrous black hair was piled up atop her head in a complicated weave, her eyes were rimmed with fresh kohl, and the flowing red dress she wore matched her lipstick perfectly. Beneath one slender arm she held a long, rolled up piece of parchment, and in the other hand she carried a small wooden case. “I am glad to see you are looking better.”
“Thank you.” I stood up to embrace her – I figured as Comenius’s new girlfriend, and a helpful one at that, it would be smart of me to warm up to her. “The tonic you and Comenius whipped up worked wonders.”
“Of course it did,” she said, winking as she embraced me. The dark, exotic scent of spices and woman surrounded me, and I filed it away in my memory banks. “There is nothing I make that doesn’t do the job it is intended for.”
“Well I sure hope that confidence of yours extends to finding the Chief Mage.” I sat back down. I glanced at Comenius as he rejoined me, noticing the slight flush on his cheeks and the hint of lipstick on his mouth that he hadn’t quite managed to wipe off. Jealousy burned briefly in my chest – not at Elania for her relationship with Comenius, but rather that the two of them were happy, and didn’t have to fear judgment or flaunt convention to be together.
“We will find him,” Elania assured me as she dragged a scoop-backed armchair a little closer to the coffee table that separated the space between us. She set the roll of paper onto the table along with her small wooden case. The case contained various pouches and bottles filled with liquid and powder and herbs, as well as several rocks – some pieces of crystal and other semi-precious stones. She spread the rolled-up piece of parchment out on the table, then placed four chunks of crystal at the edges of the parchment. I recognized it as a map of the Northia Federation. Not a very detailed one, as it didn’t show all the different towns and cities, just the borders delineating the fifty states that made up the Federation.
“Are those stones supposed to mark cardinal directions?” I asked, pointing at the crystal.
“No. I’m just using them to hold down the parchment so it doesn’t roll back up again.” Elania’s red lips twitched as she reached for a black velvet pouch inside the purse. “Sometimes we read meaning into things that are not there.”
“Indeed,” I said dryly. I actually felt a little foolish, but I wasn’t about to show her that.
“It’s alright, Naya.” Comenius patted my knee briefly as he regarded Elania fondly. “Elania has many years of training, and you’re still starting out.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” I muttered, unable to keep the edge out of my voice. I didn’t mind that Elania was more competent than me – that would be like being annoyed at the sky for being blue. Rather, I was frustrated that I was so behind in my magical education to begin with. If my father, the mage who I’d inherited my powers from, had bothered to stick around long enough to teach me how to use my birthright, I would be able to rescue Iannis on my own.
Then again, if my father had raised and taught me like he was supposed to, I likely wouldn’t have ever crossed paths with Iannis in the first place.
I watched as Elania tugged on the drawstring of the pouch, then poured a fine white powder into her hands. A cloud of dust poofed into the air above her hand, and my nose wrinkled as the scent wafted toward me. It smelled like magic, and something human, like…
“By Magorah,” I exclaimed, “is that human bone?”
“Very good,” Elania acknowledged as she scattered the powdered bone across the parchment, careful to cover the entire surface. “An ancestor’s shinbone, to be specific. The bones of a dead witch hold magical properties, so we grind them up for use in certain spells and incantations, such as the one we are about to do.”
“Interesting,” I murmured, sitting back against the sofa – more to put some distance between myself and the disconcerting spell than to relax. I found what she was doing a little gruesome; not just the act, but the meaning behind it. We’d buried my mother after she’d died, returning her to the soil from whence she’d come so that she might serve as nourishment for other lifeforms. The idea of stripping her bones from her carcass and grinding them up to be used in spellcasting sent a shiver down my spine. I wondered if this was something mages did as well, and resolved to ask Iannis about it, if I managed to rescue him.
When
I managed to rescue him, I corrected myself silently.
“Alright,” Elania said softly. She dusted off the last remnants of bone from her palm, then held it out and looked up expectantly at me. “I will need your necklace now.”
I hesitated, my fingers toying with the charm. “The Chief Mage said that I shouldn’t take it off.”
“It’s alright, Naya,” Comenius said gently, his hand on my shoulder. “Elania won’t do anything to harm your
serapha
charm. She’s just trying to help.”
Nodding, I pushed my mass of curls over my right shoulder, then reached behind me to unfasten the necklace. My fingers trembled, so it took me three tries, but I finally got it off. As I handed it off to her, my chest ached a little, similar to the time when I’d first separated the tiny piece of my soul that I’d put into the matching charm Iannis had worn. That’s how
serapha
charms worked – you gave the other person a small fragment of your spirit, so that you were bound to them and would always be able to find them via the charms so long as they continued to wear them. The necklace I wore held a piece of Iannis’s soul, so it stood to reason that Elania could use it to locate him.
Elania dangled the necklace over the map and began chanting in a strange language. She moved her hand above the map, making sure to hover the stone over every state in a kind of zigzag pattern without actually touching the surface of the map.
“Ah,” she murmured as the powder covering a section of the map began to turn a cobalt blue. She stopped there, and we watched as the color spread out to cover the southern half of Mexia, one of the southwestern states that jutted up directly against the Federation border, just two states east of Canalo. “Here he is.”
I scowled as I stared down at the map. “That’s easily fifty thousand square miles of territory to search.”
“And much of it is uncultivated Coazi land,” Elania added, looking troubled.
“Coazi?” I tried to match the name with a memory. “Aren’t they a tribe?”
“Yes. I believe the Federation ceded most of the land in this area to them.” Elania handed the
serapha
charm back to me, then carefully swept the bone dust away from the area so she could mark it off with a pen. “I suggest reading up on the Coazi before you head into their territory. I know no more about them than any of the other indigenous tribes that populate the Federation.”
“Well, now would be a great time to have access to the Palace’s library.” I huffed out a breath as I refastened the chain around my neck. Relief spread through my chest as the stone came to rest against my breastbone, and the strange pain there eased. “I’m sure there’d be a tome in there somewhere that could tell me all about the Coazi, whoever they are.”
“I’ll see if there’s anything I can dig up,” Comenius said gently. “In the meantime, though, you should rest, Naya. The tonic we gave you will only last so long, and your body needs the time to heal itself naturally.”
“No way.” I shook my head, unable to even entertain the idea of falling asleep. “I’ve been passed out in that infirmary bed for who knows how long already. I need to focus on prepping this rescue mission.”
Comenius scowled. “Yes, and you’re already showing signs of fatigue again. You’ll be useless to the mission if you’re not properly healed and rested.”
“Alright,” I ceded reluctantly. The edges of fatigue were starting to drag at me, likely sped along by my use of the illusion spell. Using magic draws on my energy reserves, and if I were to venture out on my own to try and find research books I would have to disguise myself again, which in turn would sap even more energy. Not exactly conducive to preparing myself for a long journey. “I’ll chill out here for a bit.”
“I’ll get you a blanket and pillow.” Comenius patted my leg, then stood up and went into the bedroom. Elania went with him, and I could hear them talking quietly as I stretched myself out on the sofa. If I’d wanted to, I could have tuned in with my sensitive hearing and eavesdrop on them, but Com deserved privacy in his own home. And besides, my fatigue was growing with every second.
As I sat there waiting for him to come back up, I heard a soft thud as something landed on the sofa cushion next to me. Startled, I jerked toward the sound, then smiled at the sight of my chakram pouch and crescent knives sitting there. They’d returned sooner than I’d expected. Pleased, I reached over to grab my weapons so I could strap them to my thighs, but another wave of tiredness washed over me and my hand fell back to my side.
I’ll take care of my weapons later,
I thought as my eyes slid closed. Floorboards creaked, and Comenius murmured something as he tucked a blanket around me, but I didn’t hear what he said as I slipped into a fog. Images of Iannis falling from the sky, terror in his brilliant eyes as he reached toward me, rippled through my mind over and over, and I screamed in frustration that I was unable to move, unable to reach him at all.
Sleep.
Resinah’s cool voice echoed in my head, banishing the vision.
All is not yet lost, child. Now sleep.
“
I
don’t think
you should go, Naya. At least not by yourself.”
Scowling, I slammed the thick, dusty tome that Elania had brought in this morning, and scowled up at Comenius. “I’m not abandoning Iannis just because of a couple of paragraphs in an old history text.”
“That isn’t just some dusty tome – it is part of a trusted and valuable encyclopedia,” Comenius argued, sounding highly affronted. We were sitting at his dining table along with Elania, who’d arrived with a basket of freshly made scones and cookies. The food was especially welcome after going without for nearly twenty-four hours, though it would have been nice if there had been some meat too. “According to those
couple of paragraphs
, as you say, the Coazi are unpredictable in their treatment of outsiders, and they are ruled by shamans, some of whom are as powerful as mages.”
I scoffed. “Give me a break. From what I understand, they’re really uncivilized. Surely they can’t be that powerful.”
“Tribal shamans are not to be underestimated,” Elania warned, setting down her teacup and regarding me with a frown. “Their magic relies heavily on nature and spirits, but it is old and powerful. If you run across a shaman who considers you an enemy, you may find yourself outmatched.”
“Well then I guess I’d better be careful, but that doesn’t mean I’m staying here.” I huffed out a breath. “If Iannis is hurt and lying around in the wilderness, the last thing I need is for these Coazi to find him before I do.”
Comenius opened his mouth, presumably to argue, then froze as the doorbell rang.
“Are we expecting someone?” I asked, my senses prickling. Because we were on the second floor, there was no way for me to scent whoever was at the door.
“I ran across Annia yesterday and asked her to bring some of your things by the apartment,” Comenius said as he cautiously rose from his chair. “Perhaps it’s her.”
“I’ll come with you –” I began as he made for the door, but Elania placed her hand on my shoulder.
“You have a bounty on your head right now, Sunaya,” she reminded me. “Let Comenius answer his own door. He can handle himself.”
“Alright.” Forcing myself to relax, I grabbed a cookie and took a bite. Elania was right – there was no reason to risk myself needlessly, and this
was
Comenius’s place, not mine. I didn’t really have a leg to stand on if he didn’t want me answering the door.
Faint conversation drifted to my ears, and though the front door of the shop was too far away for me to make out the words, the cadence of the visitor’s tone was familiar. It took me a second to figure out who it was.
“Fenris!” I exclaimed, and in the next second I was through the door, bounding down the stairs.
“Sunaya!” Elania called after me, but I burst into the front of the shop, eager to see my friend. I’d felt bad about leaving the Palace before meeting up with him again, especially since the Council seemed to have it in for him nearly as much as they did for me. Thankfully, he looked like he was in one piece, standing next to Comenius in the front of the shop, dressed in his customary dark tunic and leggings.
“Good morning –” Fenris began, then let out a small “oomph” as I wrapped my arms around him and crushed him tight to me.
“Good morning my ass,” I chided as I squeezed him. “We both know this is a shitty morning. But I’m glad to see you. I was worried the Council mages had gotten to you or something.”
“As was I about you.” Fenris had frozen when I hugged him, but only momentarily, and his strong arms wrapped around me as he hugged me back. “I’m relieved you made it safely out of the Palace.”
“Let’s head upstairs,” Comenius said, double-checking the lock on the front door. “We can catch up in my living room and finish breakfast.”
I checked my watch as we headed up the stairs, and frowned. “Isn’t it time for you to open the shop soon?”
“I already called my employees last night and gave them the day off,” Comenius explained. “Word of the Chief Mage’s disappearance is spreading throughout the city, and panic along with it, so I decided not to open my doors today. Elania and I have already reinforced the protection spells outside our shops, as have many of the other shop owners.”
“Fair enough,” I said as we walked back into the apartment. We rejoined Elania at the table, Fenris seating himself next to me, and though I was glad to see him safe, I was also perturbed at the prospect that unrest was spreading throughout the city while I was cooped up and powerless to do anything about it.
“Despite living in the Palace all this time, I too was slated for arrest,” Fenris said with a tinge of bitterness. He accepted the cup of tea Elania handed him and selected a cookie from the platter. “I had to slip out of the Palace in disguise. All shifters are in danger just now, as well as anyone else suspected of sympathizing with the Resistance.”
“Shifters?” I demanded, scowling. “Why shifters? Humans are just as big a part of the Resistance.”
“Yes, but the shifter population is smaller and easier to target,” Fenris pointed out. “Not to mention that there are still a number of mages who think that shifters should have remained slaves to the mages, as they were originally created to be.”
I hissed at that – we were born out of magical experiments done with humans and animals, originally bred to be a kind of warrior race, and many of the mages still thought they owned us. If not for the Uprising, where our ancestors had revolted, as well as the assistance of mages who thought our subjugation unfair, we would still be slaves today.
“I should call Lakin, then,” I said, hopping up out of my chair to get to the phone in Comenius’s kitchen. “Make sure he’s okay.”
“You might not be able to reach him,” Fenris warned as I picked up the phone. “He’s probably got his hands full.”
The phone rang for several seconds before it connected. “Inspector Lakin,” a slightly breathless male voice answered, and relief swept over me.
“Boon,” I said, using his first name despite my better judgment – I knew Lakin had feelings for me, so I usually did my best to keep him at arm’s length. At this second, though, I was too happy to hear his voice to care about that. “How are things?”
“Crazy,” he said, sounding distracted. I heard some rustling in the background, like he was looking for something. “There are mages here, both from the Enforcers Guild
and
the Mages Guild, stalking the streets of Shiftertown with warrants and looking for any excuse to snatch our people off the streets and throw them in jail. My deputies and I have mostly been trying to protect the residents and get people to safety before they are taken.”
“By Magorah,” I muttered, gripping the receiver tightly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not really,” Lakin said dryly. “They’re looking for you too, and between your bad rep and the bounty on your head, you’d be caught the second you set foot here.”
I gritted my teeth again. Ever since my heritage as a half-mage had become public knowledge, the Shiftertown community regarded me with scorn and hatred. This largely had to do with the fact that most shifters disliked mages in general, so they viewed my half-mage status with a combination of disgust and jealousy, imagining that I enjoyed all kinds of unfair privileges as the Chief Mage’s apprentice.
“Well I’m going to bring the Chief Mage home,” I said after a moment. “So that should help with your situation.”
“All by yourself?” Lakin demanded. “I can’t imagine you’re going with the official search party, since they’ve got a warrant for your arrest.”
“Fenris is coming with me, and maybe Annia if I can convince her. But I’m going either way.”
“How are you even going to find him? You don’t have the kind of resources the Mages Guild does. You might be better off –”
“If you say ‘keeping your head down’ I’m going to reach into the phone and rip your throat out,” I growled.
There was a moment of silence. “You can’t actually do that, can you?” Lakin finally asked in a pained voice.
“I think we’d both rather not find out.” I let out a small sigh. Of course I couldn’t do that – I didn’t even know if such a thing was possible. But for all that Lakin liked me, he was afraid of my magic, and in instances like this it showed. “My talents would be of better use doing something like, say, rescuing the Chief Mage.”
“I would come with you, but Shiftertown is my first priority.”
“I know, and I’m not expecting you to.” Somebody needed to make sure the shifters stayed safe, and there was no one more qualified than Lakin for the job. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” Lakin paused. “You’ll let me know when you leave? And when you come back?”
“No guarantees,” I warned. “But I’ll try to keep you updated.”
“Good enough.” There was a weary sigh on the other end of the line. “Stay safe, okay, Sunaya?”
“You too.”
I hung up the phone, and then the doorbell rang again.
“This time it
has
to be Annia,” Comenius said as he hurried to answer the door.
A moment later, he walked back in with Annia, whose expression was downright thunderous. She had my travel pack slung over her leather-clad shoulder, and she tossed it to me underhand as she kicked the door closed behind her.
“This is officially the worst day ever,” she growled.
“For reasons other than the obvious?” I asked cautiously as I caught the pack. Damn, but it was heavy – she must have stuffed it to the gills. Annia might look slender and willowy, but she kept in good shape and was amazingly strong.
“Yes.” Annia snatched up a cookie and glared at it. “Somebody fucking snuck into the holding cells under the Enforcer Headquarters and slit Danrian’s throat.”
“What!” I jumped to my feet, and my pack slid to the ground with a loud
thump
. “You’ve got to be kidding. Danrian’s dead?” Warin Danrian was the local manager of Sandin National Bank. He’d been running an illegal fighting ring called the Shifter Royale in which he forced shifters who were indebted to Sandin to fight in the ring. He’d also nearly killed me by injecting a fatal dose of silver-laced drugs into my bloodstream.
“As a doornail.” Annia bit into the cookie with a vicious intensity, her dark eyes burning. “It happened while I was at the Palace with you.”
“Fuck.” I shoved my hands into my curly hair, fingernails scraping against my scalp. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t let him get the better of me –”
“It’s not your fault.” Annia’s voice was firm. “I would have eventually left the Enforcers Guild for some other reason – the assassin was probably waiting until I did to strike. Maybe I’d have gotten more information out of him, maybe not. But either way, somebody wanted to silence Danrian, and that was going to happen no matter what we did.”
“It’s that damned Benefactor.” I sat back down on the couch, taking slow breaths to calm my racing heart. Working myself up into a rage wasn’t productive. “Danrian said he was working with the Benefactor on a larger scheme that was coming to fruition soon. His confederates wouldn’t have wanted Danrian to spill the beans right when they were about to make their move.”
“Did they mean the attack on Iannis’s dirigible?” Fenris demanded, his yellow eyes narrowed. “Or something else, something more?”
“If there is something larger afoot, I have a feeling we’re going to find out very soon,” Comenius said, brows furrowed.
An uneasy silence descended on the room, and we all looked at each other, not knowing what to say. What if some other catastrophe hit Solantha while I was gone? Of course, Comenius and Elania were more than capable of handling themselves, but what about Noria? And so many of the other citizens who were just normal people trying to live their lives?
“By the way,” Annia said, breaking the silence, “I tried to pack everything you need in there, but if you have to go back to your apartment for anything, I’d be very careful. I had to do some serious sneaking to get into your place.”
“Let me guess,” I sighed, sitting down on the sofa so I could open up the pack and riffle through it. Inside were several days of clothes and toiletries, a set of knives, and a pack of jerky, amongst other things. Annia knew me too well. “My apartment is being watched?”
“You got it.” Annia plopped down in the chair I’d vacated and popped another cookie into her mouth. “Half of the Enforcers Guild is camped outside your place, and the other half is running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. The Courier is blaming the Mages Guild for the Chief Mage’s disappearance, and the public is fighting back so hard against all these heavy-handed arrests that several Enforcers have been badly wounded or killed. Many Enforcers are refusing to cooperate with the Mages Guild’s orders, and I can’t blame them. Everyone’s gone bat-shit crazy.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging my nails across my scalp. “We have to get the Chief Mage back before the city devolves into a war zone.”
“I’m all for that,” Annia said around a mouthful of cookie. She swallowed before adding, “Especially now that I can’t do anything more with the Shifter Royale case. Plus, I’ll get to cash in on that reward they’re offering. So what’s the plan?”
“We don’t have much of a plan,” I admitted with a sigh. “Elania cast a spell to pinpoint the Chief Mage’s location a little better, and we’ve determined he’s somewhere in the southern half of Mexia. But that’s about it.”
“That’s a good thousand miles away,” Fenris said, his brow furrowing. “It would take several days to get there even on steambikes. The coal and water charms powering them would likely buckle under the constant stress, and that’s not even factoring in the rough terrain we’d have to traverse as we pass through uncivilized territory.”
“Yeah, and there’s also the fact that my bike is still in Durain somewhere.” I blew out a breath in frustration. I really wanted it back, but the priority was to find Iannis right now, and searching for my steambike wouldn’t help. “I can travel pretty fast in panther form too, but not fast enough over such long distances.”
“What we need is an airship,” Fenris said. “And a pilot to man one.”