Mistwood

The bracelet…it was worth a try. Anything was worth a try. Even though the hall was silent, Daria’s scream echoed in his head. “Shifter,” he snapped, “by the power I have over you, by the bracelet I gave you, by the Shifter’s Seal you took from me—let go of my hand.”

Her fingers opened slowly, reluctantly, peeling away from his wrist. He backed away from her, unable to believe it had actually worked. “Stay here.”

She shook her head angrily. “I will protect you, like it or not. I don’t have a choice. And you—you are the king of Samorna. You have no right to die.”

“I don’t plan to die.”

“You have no right to risk it. This is what they expected—that you would act like a reckless child. They want you, not her. It’s your responsibility not to walk into their hands.”

“Sorry, Isabel, but I’m human, and I do have a choice.”

“Then make the right choice!”

He turned away from her and snapped, “Ven!”

Ven raised his hand. The door burst, taking half the wall with it.

Daria sat on a plush chair near the bare bed, her hands bound behind her back, her dark hair half piled on her head and half straggling down her face. She let out a sob and screamed, “Rokan!”

“Don’t!” the Shifter shouted, but it was too late. He was already moving forward. He saw Daria smile, but even if he had understood what it meant in time, he was moving far too fast to stop.

When Ven raised his hand, Isabel felt a sizzle run down her spine. She saw the door splinter apart in slow motion, and knew what Rokan was going to do as soon as she saw Daria. Without thinking, she sprinted past him through the remains of the doorway.

A movement at the corner of her eye. A scent. She turned to face it just as a heaving mass of fur and teeth hit her in the chest.

She went over backward, the creature on top of her, her heart pounding—not with fear, but with shock at the thought that she had almost let the prince go in, that it could have been Rokan the beast attacked. He would have been dead by now. The creature’s teeth had closed over her neck the second it hit—but she had been ready, some animal instinct from when she had hunted, and her neck had turned to stone. The thing had hurt its teeth and now sprang away from her with a furious yowl.

Snowcat. Another shock. The size of a small horse, deadly at the best of times, worse when it was scared. Nothing could fight a snowcat—

—except another snowcat, Isabel thought, and grinned fiercely as the beast sprang.

But there was no snowcat to meet it; there was only a slim blond girl who had forgotten about the powers she didn’t have. Expecting to be a cat, she had half-risen to meet the creature, growling. By the time she realized, it was too late for any of the tricks she could manage. She landed on her back with the cat on top of her, its hot breath blasting into her face. A claw ripped open the side of her arm, trailing such fiery pain that she screamed and raised her other arm to push it off. Curved teeth tore through her forearm.

It will go after Rokan next. She shifted her legs, making them stronger than humanly possible, and kicked. The snowcat yowled in surprise as it tumbled halfway across the room, but it landed on its feet. It crouched, heavy muscles rippling beneath white fur, and snarled at her.

She shifted her arms, ignored the pain that lingered even though the wounds were gone, and jumped to her feet. It was a leap that would have been impossible for a human, but at the time it was instinctive. She landed right in front of the cat, so fast it had no time to react. One quick step sideways, another leap, and she was on its back, her stone-like arm wrapped around its neck and pressing against the jugular.

The snowcat went mad, twisting, biting, scratching. She held on, shifting grimly and swiftly, repairing each gash and bite and scratch. The cat rolled, trying to crush her; her body went stone for a second, long enough to live and hang on, not long enough to avoid pain. The pain was a problem. She could feel the burning scratches, the ripped muscles, the crushed bone even after they were no longer there.

She held on, and after what seemed like forever the cat was still, a bloody mass of hot fur. Most of the blood was hers. She got to her feet, shifting the last of her wounds away, shifting her hair and skin at the same time. Cool, impassive—with the same unruffled expression she wore at court functions—she strode away from the huge cat’s corpse. Beneath the bloodstained gashes in her gown, her skin was white and smooth. She was the Shifter, and everything hurt, but nothing would show.

She had just fought a snowcat and won.

Who cares? I’ve probably been a snowcat. But she couldn’t help the flush of triumph that went through her. She turned to Rokan.

Rokan was gone.

Ven stared back at her through the ruins of the doorway. There should have been awe in his eyes, but instead there was something else…something she didn’t recognize and didn’t want to analyze. She hesitated, then blurted, “Where is he?”

“He went to see if he could catch Albin,” Ven said. He, too, was cool and unruffled.

“Catch—” But she realized before she finished asking the question. Only magic could have brought the snowcat here and kept it docile until the right moment. Cats were notoriously difficult to manipulate with sorcery. It would have taken powerful magic.

Albin must have thought that even the Shifter might lose to a snowcat. Underestimating her again. She couldn’t summon up even the faintest hint of smugness.

“Albin knows spells that could have taken him halfway across the world by now,” Ven said. “But I guess Rokan had to try.”

Still not liking the expression on his face, Isabel turned away from him and started toward Daria. Who was also gone.

“Spirits!” Isabel snapped. “When—”

“Just now.” Ven’s voice was still infuriatingly calm. “He must have taken her. Fairly dangerous spell, that, even when the person you’re taking is cooperating with you.”

Cooperating with you. It had not been a kidnapping. Daria hadn’t shouted a warning, even when Rokan had been about to walk in and the cat had been about to spring.

“Spirits,” she said again, more softly. “He really loved her.”

Ven shrugged. “Do you worry about the king’s feelings, or only his life?”

“Not all dangers are obvious,” Isabel said randomly. She had no idea what it meant, but it sounded good, and Ven was beginning to annoy her. And he was still watching her. She snapped, “What?”

“You didn’t shift.”

Long pause.

“I didn’t have to.”

“So?”

“So why should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

Talking in circles had its uses. It had given her time to come up with an answer. “I didn’t want Daria to see.”

Ven’s eyes went so narrow she could no longer see their blue. “I saw your face when the cat leaped. You didn’t have time to take that into account.”

“You wouldn’t have had time. I did.” Isabel tried her enigmatic smile, despite a sinking feeling that it wasn’t going to work this time.

Ven said nothing. He merely stared at her for several seconds—a long, hard stare, clearly not liking what he was seeing.

Isabel stared back, fairly sure that her expression was the same.

Chapter Seven

Isabel caught up with Rokan halfway down the stairs, on a dimly lit landing with a tiny window cut into the thick stone wall. The guards from the ballroom had finally made it halfway up the stairs, and the landing was a confused mass of frightened, sweaty, panting people. Rokan was shouting at the guards to let him through, and though half of them were trying to obey, the other half were trying to reason with him. When Isabel leaped onto the stair above the landing, Rokan was drawing his sword.

She reached around him and grabbed the sword by its blade, shifting her hands to stone as they closed around the sharp edges. She pulled the sword from Rokan’s grasp so deftly that he didn’t at first realize what had happened. He stared at his empty clenched fist, then whirled around.

Isabel flipped the sword into the air and caught it by the hilt. A few of the nearer guards flinched or ducked, but Rokan stood right where he was and glared at her.

“It’s probably not a good idea,” Isabel said, “to draw a weapon on your own guards.”

“I have to find Albin!”

“And you think he went back to the ballroom?”

“I need to get to Clarisse—”

“Clarisse can’t help you. Albin could be anywhere by now.” Interesting, the difference between humans and Shifters; the same rage that made Rokan’s eyes blaze like coals was turning her into ice. She met his gaze without flinching. “If you want to find out what happened, you need to focus on the people still within your reach. Have your soldiers arrest Owain.”

He swallowed hard, turned, and issued a few short orders to the guards. In addition to arresting Owain, he told them to seal off the castle and organize a manhunt; wasted efforts, but Isabel didn’t try to stop him. By the time he finished and turned back to face her, he sounded almost coherent.

Isabel handed back his sword. He took it and sheathed it without ever moving his eyes from her face. They were wide and bewildered. Isabel’s heart lurched. This was a hurt it was too late to protect him from, a hurt beyond the Shifter’s ability to salve.

Beneath her sympathy, though, she was angry. Daria was someone Rokan had chosen to love, and even before her betrayal, she hadn’t been worthy of it. If humans were going to care so deeply, they should be more careful about whom they decided to spend their affections on.

“Isabel—” Rokan began, and his voice cracked. “I should have—”

Yes, you should have, she thought fiercely, but she didn’t say it. She wasn’t angry at Rokan—or at least, she shouldn’t be. She should have watched Daria more closely. If she was what she was supposed to be, she would have stopped this before it happened.

“Go find Clarisse,” she said. “I’ll make sure Ven is trying to discover how Albin did it. Once Owain is in custody and you’ve calmed the court, we’ll meet in the south gardens.”

For another moment Rokan stood there, his hand still on the sword’s hilt. Then he took a deep breath and set his shoulders. “Right,” he said, and turned to the remaining guards. “Two of you with me. The rest go ahead and make sure the way to the ballroom is clear. Let’s go.” The guards exchanged glances, and he raised his voice—just a notch, but it was enough to make them scramble to obey. “Now.”

He looked back at Isabel. “Why the garden?”

“Albin wouldn’t expect us to meet outdoors now that it’s grown colder. He won’t have set up any spells there.”

Rokan nodded. “I’ll be there, then.”

Isabel let a smile touch her lips but go no further. She bowed her head briefly. “As will I, my prince.”

Ven was one step ahead of her. By the time Isabel reached the room where the snowcat’s corpse lay stretched across the floor, he was already working a spell. She stopped in the doorway and watched him.

Ven stood with his eyes closed, swaying unsteadily on his feet. The air around him was full of shimmering translucent colors, like sunlight seen through lowered eyelashes, patternless and beautiful and threatening all at once.

Ven drew in his breath and opened his eyes, and the colors vanished. Isabel steeled herself for the expression on his face.

But Ven merely shook his head and said, “I can’t find him, Isabel. I’m sorry.”

“Do you know how he did it?”

“Yes.”

“Then that will have to do. Come with me.”

She was glad of the excuse to turn away, but when he stumbled into step next to her she regarded him more closely. His mouth was slightly slack, and his eyes seemed to have a hard time focusing.