Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter (33 page)

"Where did you get the money for that tea bowl?" Solyn asked, at the mention of his worthiness. She glanced up at the shelf which held the glazed object, then looked at him.

"I had it on me," he answered, shrugging. "It didn't even cost a tenth of the money I brought. I did buy it with my own face, though, not Traver's. That way I could safely ask questions about the meaning of the various designs, as a foreigner. I didn't know if anyone in that town already knew him. I just... I want him out, and safe. And all of this over and done with, though it's such a mess, with so many secrets..."

Solyn cupped her hand on his shoulder. "We'll get him out. As for the basket trick, it's a clever levitation enchantment. You tug on the handle to lift or lower whatever the basket can carry. Originally, it was meant for just levitating normal contents, vegetables, flowers, clothing, and even rocks, but the variations in the spellbook I have includes uses for lifting a small human."

That made him frown. "You have baskets strong enough to carry an adult? He is
not
a small man. I should know."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll also apply a spell to reinforce the weavings. I've done it before. Trust me, I
know
they can carry me." Solyn grinned mischievously. "I tried it out myself a few years back. And for the record, he did, too, though he hadn't finished filling out with muscles at the time. It was one of those things where we, um," she confessed, chuckling quietly, "well, we almost got caught doing something we weren't supposed to."

"Oh?" Kenyen asked, wondering what amused her so.

"We were picking plums from the tops of someone's orchard trees."

She was rather cute when she blushed like that, embarrassed by her confession but also not fully repentant about it. Leaning close, Kenyen kissed her forehead... and realized that, for the first time, he
could
kiss her without restraint. It took a great deal of willpower to turn away from her instead of take advantage of their new, perfectly legal relationship. Rumpling his hands through his hair, he impatiently pulled his locks out of their braid.

"Right. Letters and spells. Work before play—what other spells do you have?" he asked her. "I've heard tales of mages putting people to sleep. Can you do that?"

"Umm... one person per spell, not several all at once, but yes," Solyn told him. "The ones I know are all standard Healing spells. I'm so familiar with two of them, using them on Mother's patients, I even can cast them without needing the focal words. Sleeping spells are more like regular magic, so they're easier for me to create."

"You may need to do that. I don't think they ever leave him completely alone. I visited in the daytime, and they had a shifter-dog sleeping over the trapdoor," Kenyen confessed.

"How did you get past it?" she asked him. "Or him, whatever?"

"By shifting into a snake. The holes I used were too tiny for an adult to stick their hand through, though," he added. "You wouldn't be able to get in or out the same way I did."

"Oh." She pondered that for a moment, then shook her head, her braid sliding over her shoulders. "No, I have a few spells for shrinking things, animals, even people but... I'm not very good at inanimate objects, and that's all I've tried so far. I wouldn't want to try it on a living being. My previous results were... uneven."

Her ring squeezed just as a door hinge squeaked in the hall. A moment later, a floorboard creaked. Solyn waited for the next board to make a noise, the one closer to the refreshing room door. Rolling her eyes, she flipped a hand at Kenyen, who caught on and shifted back into Traver-shape. That allowed her to reach for the lever and pull her door swiftly open. Luelyn blinked, mouth gaping visibly in the light from the lamp illuminating her older sister's room.

"
No
eavesdropping," Solyn ordered her sibling. She pointed back at her sister's bedchamber.

"I was just on my way to the refresher!" the young girl whined, pouting.

Solyn obligingly pointed at that door instead, her stern expression brooking no argument. Heaving a sigh, Luelyn marched off to the correct door. She banged the door shut behind her. That caused another bedroom door to open moments later. Reina poked her head out, more of a silhouette from the lamp in the room beyond than an actual, visible figure. She withdrew and shut the door after a moment, not saying a word.

Patiently, Solyn waited for her sister to finish; when Luelyn emerged, she found herself pointed across the hall, directed back to her own room. Only when the door had shut did Solyn retreat into her room once more. When she did, she found Kenyen arranging paper and ink on her desk, still looking like the wrong man.

A quick check proved he had selected the right weight for folding from among the different sheets stacked on her shelves. "You remembered the kind of paper needed," she noted, smiling. "Not many would know the difference."

"You did point it out back in the cave," he reminded her. "I may not be a mage, but I am curious about magic."

"Who do you want the first one to go to?" Solyn asked, pleased that he had taken an interest in her work.

"Manolo. He's the one I know best, and I want to send at least three to him—make it four," Kenyen corrected. "I'll picture points along the road here as I'm writing the letter. Hopefully the birds will find him at one of those spots. Then one again to the princess leading our group, and one to the fellow who went to the Mespak region." Pausing in thought, he wrinkled his nose and added, "And one to my brother on the Plains. It's a long flight, but someone outside this kingdom should know, and he is both Lord of Family Tiger, and mated to the woman who warned us about Family Mongrel's existence."

"You don't want to send word to your brother?" Solyn asked him, noticing the face he made.

"No, I do," Kenyen corrected quickly. He stared at the paper on her desk, trying to put his feeling into words. "I just... He's always been better, smarter, stronger, faster. Now that I'm trying to do something important on my own feels, it feels like a failure."

She touched his shoulder again, drawing his attention. "I don't see how writing to him is a failure. You're merely informing him of what's been happening all the way out here.
We're
the ones who can actually do something about this mess. We just need to figure out when and exactly how. We already have some ideas."

"Yes, we do," he agreed, lifting his brows at the reminder.

Moving back from the desk, he let her step up in his place and begin her preliminary enchantments. Then quickly moved to the stoneware jar on the shelf near the bed, where she had placed several slices of greenvein for his needs. Two sneezes escaped before he could swallow the first bite, but the itch in his nose did ease quickly.

The notes to Manolo, Ashallan, and Narquen were variations on the previous one. The letter to his brother, which required tiny, careful writing on a much larger square of paper, listed in some detail what Kenyen had learned and experienced so far, and a list of his goals in resolving the whole Mongrel matter. Shifting the curtain aside, he unlatched the shutters for her as she made the last magic-infused mark on each of the birds. With a rustling sound, they flapped their paper wings and swooped through the opening, disappearing into the starry night.

Resecuring the window, Kenyen relaxed his features once they were safe from any spies, his mind already turning back to the problem at hand. "I think the best time to attack would be at night. Preferably while they were distracted by a bonfire meeting. If it's night, they won't be able to see you fly away—though I do want to see that spell, first. If you cannot fly very fast, then it might not be a good choice, even at night," he warned her. "Shifters who can mold the right shape can fly as fast as a real bird."

She shrugged. "It's about as fast as a small bird, I think. I agree that night would be better than day, to help evade any pursuit. I'm not as sure about helping Traver to escape during a bonfire meeting. For one, we don't know when they'll hold the next one. For another, that might be a long wait. And for the third, I'd have to rescue him on my own, since they'd expect you to be there."

Wrapping his arms around her, Kenyen shook his head. "No, you're right. As convenient as it would be to have many of them all in one place, giving us a greater chance to slip away undetected, I'll not leave you to face them alone. Sleep-inducing spells or not, you shouldn't face them alone. I'm nervous enough doing that myself, and I'm just pretending to go along with their plans, not trying to double-cross them."

She hugged him back. "I'm just glad you've said they aren't hurting him. That gives us more time to figure out what to do. He shouldn't be left there, but there are only a few people I
know
aren't shifters. Untrustworthy ones, I mean. I know my parents aren't, because it's too difficult to fake being either a fully trained Healer or a blacksmith, but I don't want to involve them, either, in case the... the
curs
get their hands on them."

It felt good to hold her and be held. Kenyen mulled over her words, considering the possibilities. "What if we went tonight?"

Solyn lifted her head from his shoulder. "Tonight? Right now?"

"In an hour or so, when it's more likely the others are asleep," he murmured. "We
are
newly married, after all. Everyone would expect us to stay in bed, tonight."

"But I thought we
were
going to twine fully," she whispered, disappointed at the prospect otherwise. Her complaint earned her a kiss on her brow.

"We will.
After
he is safe. And after he knows that we are indeed wed," Kenyen added. "Although we really shouldn't, since it was done in
his
name, not mine."

"Husband,"
Solyn growled under her breath, poking the Shifterai in the chest, "I married
you
. Not him. He has no say in who I twine with, other than maybe asking me not to do it in front of him. Which I wouldn't, anyway."

His delightful new wife had a rather sharp finger, for all her nails were trimmed and thus blunt. Suppressing a grunt at the poke, he caught her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. "Then go find your spells and study them while we wait for things to settle down. We'll free him and then..."

"And then?" she prodded.

For a moment, Kenyen drew a blank. His gaze fell on the tea bowl, recalling her questioning his ability to pay for it. That gave him an idea.

"Then we'll find an inn and settle him at it with some of my coins. Somewhere far enough away, it'd be unlikely that he'd encounter anyone who knows his face. As soon as he's safe, you and I will return here, and I'll continue to pretend to be him while we wait for reinforcements," he said. "If they come after us in force... it'll be ugly. Shapeshifters who know how to fight are worse than feral livestock. All the horns, the claws, the teeth, and the ferocity, but with the full cunning of a human being directing the fight."

Solyn mulled it over in her mind. His logic was sound. "I think your plan could work. We know that bluesteel can prevent a shifter from changing shape, so I'll see what my father has in stock. Or maybe even find a way to convince him to make more of it. Or maybe there's a spell I can adapt that could force a shifter to stay un-shifted. I did get a new book the other day, and I haven't read all of it yet."

As much as he wanted to keep holding her, Kenyen released Solyn so that she could find the book in question. "You sound a little bit like my brother and sister-in-law. They're both mad for books."

That made her snort. Glancing over her shoulder, she shook her head. "I'm much more of a see-and-do kind of learner." Plucking the right book from the shelf, she turned and gestured with it. "Mother was able to teach me some of the basics, but mostly only what pertains to her branch of magic. Coaxing flesh to knit itself whole. Bolstering the body's defenses to thwart infections. Setting a broken bone so that it'll heal right. None of which have anything to do with... with controlling fire, or making paper birds fly, or... or scrying with a mirror.

"Which I
still
don't know how to do," she added in an aside. "Mainly because I can't make heads or tails of some of the terminology they use, though it's also because the best scryings are done with a glass mirror, and all I have is a small scrap of polished steel," she told him, lifting her chin at the framed piece of metal over the small washstand by the door. "There's enough of it different from what Mother does, it keeps tripping me up when I try certain things."

"Uh, is it
safe
for you to try some sort of containment spell on a shapeshifter, if you're that uncertain of the results?" Kenyen asked. He barely remembered to keep his voice low.

"Well, I wouldn't try it on
you
," she countered tartly, struggling to keep her own retort quiet. "I wouldn't try it at all unless it was an emergency... and only on the evil shifters. If something did go wrong, I'd feel less guilty if it hurt
them
. They'd deserve it." Subsiding, she shook her head. "I wouldn't think shaping flesh would be all that easy, but I'd still think it easier than shaping magic."