“We will meet alone, Nigil,” Kanika said authoritatively, and the male bowed and exited the room. Seeing that Donald and his Waresti had walked in, Kanika’s eyes widened. “I will not talk with these—males in here.”
Her voice trembled. Malukali turned and gave Donald a nod, indicating that she and Knorbis would be okay. After a moment of hesitation, Donald bowed and left the room along with the other Waresti.
“Thank you,” Kanika said, placing a hand on her chest and taking one of the seats situated around the small table holding the tea set. “I am sure you must think me without sanity. I know that I am not making much sense these days.”
“Please don’t worry about it, Kanika,” Malukali said gently as she and Knorbis took the other two seats at the table. “We know that you have endured much. We want only to help you.”
Kanika sighed. “Again, thank you.” She reached for the teapot. “I hope you will both join me in a cup of tea. I have found that such mundane tasks help calm me.”
“Of course,” Knorbis said.
Malukali knew that he, like her, wasn’t thirsty since they had only just eaten lunch a few hours before, but they weren’t about to upset the fragile female right then. When Kanika handed them cups and saucers, they accepted them.
“Sugar or cream?” Kanika asked.
“No, thank you,” Malukali replied. When they all had their tea, she asked, “How are you feeling, Kanika? Is there anything we can do for you?”
The other female fiddled with her saucer, appearing uncertain. “I have been having trouble remembering things,” she said in a quiet voice.
“We can help you with that,” Knorbis said. He exchanged a look with Malukali. “It would be painless and…we could avoid bringing forth any of your more painful memories.”
“You can?”
“Yes,” Malukali confirmed. She started to reach out to touch Kanika’s hand, but the Mercesti pulled away. Understanding, Malukali returned her hands to her teacup. “We have the ability to pull forth memories that have been suppressed by trauma.”
There was a long pause as Kanika considered this. To occupy herself in the silence, Malukali took a sip of her tea, noting its floral aroma. It smelled familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
What’s in this tea?
she thought.
Knorbis tasted it so he could answer her. Malukali’s head felt strange. It was when she started to see two of her husband and her tongue grew thick in her mouth that she realized she hadn’t drunk tea at all. They had just ingested a beverage made of the highly toxic koimoumai flower.
As darkness and fear claimed her, she had the final, certain thought that she would never see her husband again.
As afternoon approached on the day after the training session, Quincy walked in the front door to Sophia’s family home. He had long ago learned that knocking was unnecessary. The Kynzesti and their parents all came and went between their homes as they pleased. It made for a warm and welcoming family environment within the homeland, even if it was very different from what an Estilorian usually experienced.
Estilorians didn’t have issues with privacy, but there was a certain expectation regarding the respect of personal space. There wasn’t such a concept when it came to the Kynzesti homeland. Family was family, they said, and Quincy had always been the equivalent of family.
While he was honored by this distinction, he knew now that this contributed a great deal toward him failing to express his true feelings to Sophia. His love for her had begun when she was so young, as had his undeniable attraction to her. She had captured his heart with her unquenchable curiosity and sharp intelligence, then had all but slain him with her beauty when she grew into her mature form.
He had known that she—never mind her parents—wouldn’t understand his intense feelings for her back then, and he had wisely kept them to himself. But now that Sophia was old enough that his admission might not be seen as creepy or result in his death at the hands of her father, he had no idea how to begin to get her to think of him as anything other than an extended family member.
“Hi, Quincy,” Olivia greeted him as he walked into the kitchen. Her light green eyes caught his and she smiled, making the dimple in her left cheek appear. “I was just sitting down to a little snack. Can I interest you in anything?”
“No, but thanks,” he said, returning her smile. “I’m here to see if Sophia needs any assistance with the inoculation she intends to create today.”
“Oh, yes,” Olivia said with a soft laugh. “You know Sophia. She’s been hard at work on it since before the sun graced us with its presence this morning. I’m rather surprised she hasn’t come running down with a loud declaration that she’s finished yet.”
“I’m sure it’s just a matter of time,” he said.
“I’m sure you’re right, especially with Zachariah up there helping her out. He really seems to know what he’s doing.” She stacked cheese on a slice of pear and added, “I don’t know how he dragged Tate out of bed so early to get her to come over here.”
Quincy hadn’t ever experienced it before, but he recognized the jealousy that surged through him at the mention of the other male.
“Zachariah is here?” he asked mildly.
“Yes. He said something about testing the inoculation today. Sophia was very excited to see him this morning.”
Clenching his hands into fists, Quincy nodded. “Well,” he said in a deliberately level voice, “Guess I’ll head on up to the lab and see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Quincy,” Olivia said, reaching out and touching his arm. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” he replied. But even he heard the underlying tension in his voice. Frowning, he added, “I just don’t understand why everyone seems okay with Zachariah’s treatment of Ariana and Sophia yesterday. He
punched
your daughter.”
“I see.” She nodded. “Well, I can’t say that I would have wanted to witness that. I’m sure I would have been as bothered as you. But Sophia came home from the experience more enthusiastic about her abilities than I’ve ever seen her. Knowing that she can complete a partial shift and not lose all of her clothes in the process was very…freeing for her.” She smiled. “So, even though the methods were unlike anything we would have done, Zachariah managed to accomplish something remarkable.”
He supposed he saw her point.
“You love Sophia,” she continued, making him start. “Much as you love all of our children. It’s understandable that you feel protective.”
The feeling that struck him as he once again realized Sophia and her family would only ever see him as a close friend or surrogate family member was difficult to bear. He looked at the ground and cleared his throat. The thought occurred to him that the only way they might begin to shift their thinking about him was if he came clean about how he felt.
“You’re right, Olivia,” he said. “I do—”
“Get out of here!”
Quincy stopped mid-sentence as Sophia’s voice, followed by her laugh, bounced into the room from the stairs leading to her laboratory. She arrived just seconds later, followed closely by Zachariah and Tate. She wore a practical mauve tank and khaki capris, her hair up in a bun. Her cheeks were pink and laughter filled her beautiful eyes.
“There’s no such thing as a mermaid,” she said.
Her eyes were on Zachariah as they entered the room, but she looked away and spotted Quincy. Her smiled faltered. “Oh. Good morning, Quincy,” she said.
He couldn’t help but notice how stilted and formal she sounded compared with the more easy-going tone she used with Zachariah and Tate. “Good morning,” he replied. “Have you completed work on the inoculation, then?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, reaching over and stealing a piece of the sliced cheese in front of her mother. She deftly moved her hand when her mother tried to swat it. “We were actually on our way to see you at the clinic. You have the best implements to use to inject it, and we’ll want you to monitor the effects.”
Was that the only reason she would seek him out?
He couldn’t stop that thought from entering his mind even as he forced a smile. “Sure. Let’s go and see how you did.”
Sophia was a mass of nerves as they walked as a group to Quincy’s cottage. She had worked very hard on this inoculation. She
really
wanted it to be successful.
She told herself that it was her thoughts about her experiment and not Quincy’s nearness that had her jabbering like a crazed being as they crossed the forested path outside of her family’s home and approached the central training paddock and Quincy’s cottage. She absolutely didn’t wonder whether he thought that her ability to partially shift was cool or yet another sign of her weirdness. He had left the training paddock and not returned after she shredded Zachariah’s chest, so that was answer enough, she supposed.
“…we should know right away if it works,” she said before pausing for breath.
Reaching over, Tate rubbed her arm. “I know, Soph. You’ve mentioned that about four times already.”
Seeing Quincy give her a brief, questioning look, Sophia shut up.
“Hey, are you going to test Sophia’s inoculation?” Clara Kate asked.
She and a number of others, including Ini-herit, stood in the training paddock. Judging by the sweat covering all of them, they had been training pretty hard for quite a while. Clara Kate sheathed her blessed butterfly swords and started toward them, though no one responded to her.
“Cool,” she said. “I want to see how it goes.”
Noticing that the Corgloresti elder followed C.K., Sophia’s eyebrows rose. He sure did seem fascinated by her, even if he couldn’t make heads or tails of her.
“Okay,” Sophia said. “We’re headed to Quincy’s.”
They all walked the remaining fifty feet to the cottage. Quincy opened the door on the clinic side and moved so that everyone could walk in. Despite the fact that the structure was a cottage by design, the clinic was spacious. They were all able to fit in the exam room where Quincy kept his medical tools without being too crowded.
“Let me have the serum,” Quincy said to Sophia.
She handed him two vials.
“I thought we were testing this on Zachariah,” he said with a frown as he took the vials.
“We are,” she replied, her chin lifting. She was certain he would argue with her next statement. “And on me.”
There was a pause when it did appear he might argue, but eventually he just asked, “Why?”
Her defensiveness eased at his calm tone. She shrugged. “The serum needs to be tested on both full and part-Estilorians. Since I created the formula, I should be the second one who tests it.”
“It would seem to me,” Ini-herit observed, “that another Kynzesti would be a more appropriate test subject.”
Sophia frowned at the elder as Quincy hurriedly said, “He has a point. If anything goes wrong, we need you to be able to help fix it.”
But Sophia knew that Ini-herit didn’t say something unless there was a significant reason why, and her instincts flared. “That isn’t what you meant, is it?” she asked him.
“No,” he replied. “I was referring to the fact that your DNA differs from your kin.”
She wondered how the elder had drawn that conclusion. Yes, she could shapeshift and it was an unusual ability, but all of them had second powers as well as the ability to control an element. His statement made little sense.
“Sophia—” Quincy began.
“No,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “I want to hear this.” She didn’t turn her gaze from Ini-herit’s. “What makes you think my DNA is different from my kin? Do you know why I have such a different ability from everyone else? Why I was the only premature Kynzesti? Why I’m smaller and my hair and skin colors are so much fairer?”
“Sophia—” Quincy started to say again, but Ini-herit interrupted him.
“I imagine it is because your mother was struck with a cursed weapon while you were still in her womb.”
Never in a million years would Sophia have predicted that those would be the words to leave the elder’s mouth. For a moment, the only sound she heard was the sound of her blood pulsing through her head. Her vision tunneled until all she could focus on was Ini-herit’s unemotional silver eyes. A sharp, uncomfortable stinging sensation flushed up the back of her neck. Eventually, she looked at Tate, whose face was pale and her eyes wide.
“Is he lying?” she managed to ask.
Tate’s gaze grew watery, answering the question. But she slowly shook her head.
Feeling as though she wasn’t really standing there, Sophia swallowed hard. Then she looked at Ini-herit and said, “You’re saying that my DNA is cursed? That I’m even more of a freak than I thought?”
“Sophia—” Quincy began for the third time.
This time, she cut him off with a look. “You’ve always known,” she said, her tone biting. “You, of everyone, know our DNA. You
knew
I was different because of that curse.”
She read the truth all over his face. And then she finally, after all these years, realized why he saw her as such an abomination.
Because she was one.
Turning, she ran from the cottage. She ignored the hands that reached out to stop her, ignored the cries for her to wait. Deciding that she might as well be around creatures that felt more like kin to her at that moment than any being in the homeland, she shifted into her panther form and fled.
Domino seemed to know that Sophia needed comforting. She ran straight for the panther’s den and found him napping. It took only one nudge with her muzzle and a soft cry to get the cat’s attention. He opened a yellow-green eye, studied her for a moment and then got to his feet. Without even engaging in his normal grooming upon waking, he bounded off into the forest with the clear intent that she follow.
She gladly did so. In her panther form, she was half-controlled by the panther’s instincts. She had enough awareness to know what she was running from, but not enough to care.
That suited her just fine.
They raced through the forest, moving in a northern direction toward a part of the homeland she hadn’t ever explored before in this form. Her sharp eyes, heightened hearing and improved sense of smell made it an amazing experience. The autumn leaves covering the ground crunched beneath their paws, releasing the sweet and homey scent of organic decay. The cool air added a crisp and invigorating element to each inhalation. She saw the bark of the trees they passed with exceptional clarity, even noting movement if there were birds, squirrels or insects among the tree branches.