“Well, see? That’s why I brought you along.” Rokan smiled, but it was a regretful smile that brought no light to his eyes.
A piercing cry sounded above them, a cry that sounded eerily like a human scream. They both looked up to watch a hawk spiraling upward in the air, higher and higher. A sharp pain ran through Isabel as she watched the dark shape against the blue sky; she had a sudden memory of soaring, of wings spread to catch an updraft, of folding those wings for the heart-stopping drop on unsuspecting prey. She imagined the edges of her body blurring, forming feathers to lift her off the earth.
“Spirits,” Rokan breathed, and she felt an almost physical thud as she was pulled back to earth—or back into her body—though since the horse beneath her didn’t stir, it must have been only in her mind. “What does it feel like to fly?”
“It feels free,” Isabel said.
Rokan turned his head and smiled at her—an astonishingly wide-open smile that transformed his face, stripping away any hint of seriousness, his eyes alight with wonder. Isabel jerked her gaze back to the sky, a sudden energy tingling through her. The hawk let out another sharp, piercing cry. That cry, combined with the spread of wings and the way it wheeled across the sky, formed a message: Danger. Human danger.
Isabel dismounted and knelt in one smooth movement. She pressed her hand against the grass, pushing at the dirt beneath it, closing her eyes. Subtle reverberations ran through the ground, and some part of her was able to pull out the ones she cared about, to know what they meant. A heavy weight, over the hills to the south. Stomping hooves. A horse.
Someone was watching the road to the Mistood. Waiting.
Isabel got to her feet and snapped her eyes open to find Rokan watching her, dark eyes wide, the way a man might watch a glorious sunset or the crashing sea. She felt alive with power, completely nonhuman; her skin might swirl away into mist at any moment.
“We have to go,” she said. There was nothing human about her voice, though it formed human words, and Rokan’s fingers tightened on the reins.
“Why?”
“This isn’t safe.”
Rokan was instantly tense, alert, and afraid. His hand moved to the hilt of his dagger. “What do you want to do?”
“I want,” Isabel said, swinging back onto her horse, “to go back to the castle. Now.”
They got back in half the time it had taken them to ride out. And this time she had no trouble with the galloping at all.
On the sixth morning, on her way up the tower stairs, Isabel met Albin coming down.
They froze for a moment, the sorcerer in his thick red robe that reeked of old potions, Isabel in a pale violet gown with her golden hair tied up in braids. Then the door to Ven’s workroom opened, and the apprentice stopped short on the threshold, all the blood draining from his face.
Isabel gave Ven a coldly impersonal look, then turned back to Albin. “I’m here to ask your apprentice some questions. I would advise you not to interfere.”
Albin drew himself up. “I don’t take advice from a creature like you.”
“Call it a warning, then.”
His face hardened, and Isabel realized that she had miscalculated. She hadn’t thought he would be foolish enough to once again test his strength against hers. But she hadn’t taken into account his reluctance to lose face in front of his apprentice.
She reached into her flowing sleeve for the dagger she now carried strapped to her arm. With her eyes on Albin, she pulled out the dagger and threw it sideways—not at Albin, but at Ven.
Albin would have been prepared with a magical defense. Ven only flinched and gasped, and the dagger thudded into the half-open door inches from his throat. Isabel had not looked at Ven when she threw the dagger, and she didn’t now. Instead she kept her eyes on Albin. “If I intended to hurt him, it would not be difficult. I’m merely doing what I was summoned here to do. I need some information about the prince’s magical protection.”
The implication—that she couldn’t force the information from him just as easily—would please Albin. Isabel waited a moment, then added, “I can have Prince Rokan order him to talk to me, if that would make this easier for you.”
Albin made a great show of deliberating, then jabbed his finger at Ven and scowled. “Answer her questions. But take care. She is an unnatural creature, with no human feelings, and the kings of Samorna are fools to believe they know her purpose. Don’t be swayed by her delicate form, and don’t make the mistake of trusting her for a second.”
Ven managed a nod. Albin fixed Isabel with another glare, then swept past them down the stairs.
Ven took a deep breath and touched the hilt of the still-quivering dagger, his hand shaking.
“I’ll need that back,” Isabel said.
“You could have—”
“Killed you?” Isabel cocked her head to the side, allowing herself a small chuckle. “I don’t miss.”
“No…of course not.” He took another breath, and the fear faded from his face, overshadowed by the awe she had grown used to—and started to enjoy—over the past few days. She smiled at him, and he grinned sheepishly back. Her smile wasn’t all calculation, either. There was something…easy…about being with Ven. She would have said she enjoyed his company, if such a thing were possible.
No human feelings. Not being human herself, she couldn’t assess the truth of that. But she was fairly sure the Shifter didn’t feel a need to relax, or to be admired by anyone other than her prince. And wouldn’t enjoy either of those things. She spent time with Ven purely because he was useful to her.
“Well,” she said, “Albin will want to know what my questions were. We should review what you’re going to tell him.”
Ven nodded, turned, and went back into his room. As she followed, Isabel pulled the dagger out of the door and slid it back inside her sleeve. It left a deep narrow gash in the dark wood, which would serve as a nice reminder for Albin every time he walked up these stairs to his room. Inhuman or not, Isabel allowed herself a brief, smug smile before she shut the door behind her.
Chapter Six
When the attack came, it was completely unexpected.
Rokan had been thinking it would be a relief. He was thinking it at the moment it happened—sitting on the dais with a goblet of wine in his hand, watching the dancers step delicately around one another at yet another of the endless banquets, frustrated because he couldn’t get caught up in the light-headed giddiness that was overtaking everyone else.
The room was crowded and well-lit by late afternoon sunlight, the scent of wine so thick it weighed on the air, laughter floating through the music. Everyone was flushed, everyone was laughing and eating, everyone but him. The danger pressed on him, weighing him down. Parties like these made him remember how effortless it had once been to forget his cares, and how impossible it was now.
Not everyone was dancing. The Shifter stood near the wall, as still as a statue, her gaze flitting around the room. He watched her eyes move from a group of ambassadors in furious discussion…to a pair of dancers who had announced their betrothal that morning…to a serving boy who had just dropped a platter of roast fowl…to a cluster of richly dressed northern dukes murmuring too quietly for others to hear. Back in his father’s day not one of them would have dared even murmur—except for Duke Owain, too high-minded to learn stealth, but Owain wasn’t here. He had excused himself from tonight’s banquet due to a mild illness, leaving his niece unchaperoned. For all the good that did Rokan.
Still, the thought of Daria lifted his spirits a little. He started to look for her, and at that exact moment he heard her scream.
The dancing and the music took a few seconds to stop, and by that time the screaming had stopped, too. Rokan surged to his feet, trying to see through the crowd. A woman started shrieking and was joined by another. They were backing away from a spot on the floor.
Rokan’s heart stopped. Without remembering how he had gotten there, he pushed through the crowd, rudely shoving a duchess aside, barely able to think about how Daria’s scream had been sliced off in the middle. He stepped between the two shrieking noblewomen—they went abruptly silent when they saw him—and stared at the place near the wall where Daria must have been standing.
Some glass shards lay on the thin gray rug, surrounded by rose-colored wine. Otherwise, nothing.
He turned to call the Shifter and saw that she was right behind him, her face calm but her eyes darting to the glass and the wine, then to the people all around. With her was the sorcerer’s apprentice, but not the sorcerer.
“What happened?” Rokan demanded.
One of the noblewomen answered him. “She was standing there, talking to me, and then she screamed, and then—then she was gone. Like magic!”
Like magic, indeed. The lady was a minor noblewoman from a seaside duchy, someone Daria couldn’t stand and would never have spoken to for more than a second. The jostling for position never stopped, even at a time like this. “Where’s Albin?” Rokan heard his voice rise and forced it into a semblance of rationality. “Where did they go?”
Isabel lifted her eyebrows slightly and glanced at the apprentice. “Ven? What can you do?”
The young man darted forward, knelt, and dipped his finger in the fast-disappearing wine. “I can track her. It will take a few minutes—”
“Then start now!” Rokan shouted.
Someone touched his wrist. Clarisse was standing at his side, two castle guards behind her. “Rokan, you have to calm down.”
He shook her off, suddenly aware of the reason for her warning—the mob of faces surrounding them, watching him, judging how he reacted to a crisis. He did not want to be aware of them. For a moment he hated his sister. “I don’t know what happened to her! I don’t know where she is or—”
“She’s in the castle,” the sorcerer’s apprentice said. He stood, his brow creased. “I can take you to her.”
“Rokan—” Clarisse said warningly.
“You stay here,” Rokan snapped at her. “Explain things.” There was nothing to explain, but Clarisse would manage anyhow. “I’m going. The guards will stay here and make sure nobody leaves.”
“You can’t go yourself—”
“I’ll go with him,” Isabel said almost dangerously, and Clarisse’s protest died on her lips. “Come on.”
They took off at a run. The apprentice was too slow, and Rokan almost yelled at him before he realized that he was concentrating hard as he ran. His breath came in short hisses.
“Ven?” Isabel said. “Do you know where you’re going?”
“I’ll know when I—There!” The apprentice came to a panting stop in the west hall, an almost unused corridor lined with rooms, with a few faded tapestries and a bare stone floor. A lock of hair flopped against his forehead, soaked with sweat. “That room. Over there.”
“That’s just an empty bedroom,” Rokan said, and started toward it. Then he jerked to a stop.
Isabel was holding his wrist. She stared at him, those eerie green eyes calm, her rose-colored gown stripping the wildness from her, making her appear ordinary and frail. But her grip was like steel.
He didn’t bother trying to break it. He inserted every ounce of command he possessed into his voice. “Let—me—go.”
“It seems clear,” Isabel said, “that this is a trap.”
“She’s in there!”
“I know.”
“She could die.”
“I know.” The grip, impossibly, tightened. “So could you.”
“I have to go in after her.”
“No.”
“Isabel.” He did try to break her grip then, an effort as futile as he had known it would be. He slammed the side of his hand down on her arm, and she didn’t even flinch. Her arm looked like flesh but felt like stone. The glittering bracelet dangled on her delicate wrist.