Author: Leah Cypess

He met her eyes. “You know now, don’t you?”

She couldn’t give an answer, which was for the best. No answer would do her any good. She crossed her arms, keeping them stone. His eyes were dark blue and deep set, his hair too long and tangled, and he was wearing dark clothes that had seen better days. He sat in an ornate chair, framed by elaborate green and gold brocade curtains, and he clearly belonged there.

If her stare was making him nervous, he didn’t show it. He stood, and she resisted the urge to shift herself taller. “You have been misled by imposters, Shifter. I am the rightful king of Samorna, and I am here.”

“I’m thrilled you could make it,” Isabel said flatly.

Whatever he had expected from the Shifter, it wasn’t sarcasm. His eyes flicked away from her face, then back, and he scowled. “You should be thrilled. Can’t you feel how wrong it is to protect the one you should be fighting? I knew you once, Shifter. You loved me.”

“I don’t love,” Isabel said, but a flash of memory told her it was a lie. She had loved him once—had loved a fierce young boy so brave it made her heart ache. But that had been years ago, and the brave young boy was older and bitter and carrying a deadly grudge.

He moved to the side of the chair, gripping its back with a callused hand. “I was a child, and I thought you loved me. You saved me for this day—so I could take my throne back.”

“Indeed? Then where have you been, all this time?” She meant to stay sarcastic, but the question came out angry.

He heard the anger—she could see that—but it didn’t frighten him. He ran a hand through his hair. “Nortingun. Sarswiss. Lafin. Six or seven of the most impregnable mountain fortresses. I moved every year, or more often than that if the dukes got nervous.”

Six or seven—and many more probably knew. The breadth of the conspiracy took her breath away. Oh, Rokan…

Rokan. She spun around, concentrating on the stone wall. After a moment, she saw Rokan right through the stone, moving up the stairway in flickers of red and white, trailed by the two guards who normally stood outside of his bedchamber. She realized that she was not using vision at all; she was sensing the heat emitted by their bodies. They had reached the landing on the stairs and were hesitating, not sure which way she had gone.

She turned to the would-be assassin, her heart pounding. “How did you get to the dukes?”

“You brought me to Duke Owain’s doorstep.” He took two long steps backward and rested against the wall. “And then you left. You were…you were hurt, I think. It didn’t look like you were hurt, but I think you were.” He watched her closely. “You know who I am, Shifter.”

And he was right. She uncrossed her arms. “Kaer.”

He smiled, his triumph so blinding it almost masked his relief. “Yes. It’s all clear now, isn’t it? It’s time to right the imposter’s wrong.”

“His father’s wrong,” Isabel said. “Not his.”

Kaer slammed his open palm against the wall. “I gave him a chance. I sent him a message, telling him to flee the realm or die.”

And that was how Rokan had known he was in danger. That was why he had come to her woods: for protection from Kaer—and to keep Kaer from getting to her first. That message had brought her here. For a moment Isabel wished fiercely that Kaer had just killed Rokan and never sent it.

And of course, Rokan couldn’t explain to the Shifter that she was protecting him from the very person she should have been guarding.

Her heart ached for him, even as she noted his progress through the walls. He was headed down the corridor in the direction of this room, the guards still behind him. The way his fingers were curled told her he was holding a knife, though her heat-vision couldn’t see the weapon.

She was at the door in a flash, pushing it silently closed. She turned, putting her back to the door, listening to the footsteps draw closer. She had to shift her ears to make them out through the thick wood, which was good; it meant Rokan wouldn’t hear her talking to Kaer.

“What do you plan to do now?” she said.

His head came up. Something in that movement—in the way the black hair flew back, the jaw jutted, the eyes flashed—was so familiar her heart skipped a beat. She had loved this boy long before she ever met Rokan.

She couldn’t kill him. Never had been able to. Even the first time she saw him, in her woods…she had thought, when she let him go, that she was making a decision. But there had been no decision to make.

“You know what I plan,” Kaer said. “To kill the imposter. Prince Rokan.”

Rage flared within her. But it died just as suddenly, leaving her empty. Behind her, on the other side of the door, the footsteps paused and then kept going.

“You should be helping me.” Kaer pushed himself away from the wall. “Me—not him! You’re my Shifter. You have to help me win my throne back.”

“I am your Shifter,” Isabel said. The words were oddly easy to say.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “In the woods you saved his life.”

He was staring at her the way Rokan sometimes had, back in the beginning. Warily. It cut more deeply, now that she understood how unnatural it was for a prince to look at his Shifter with suspicion in his eyes.

Now that Rokan no longer looked at her that way.

“Stop it,” Isabel said so fiercely that Kaer blinked. She stepped toward him. “Where were you, when I needed a prince to protect? What reason did I have not to believe him?”

His jaw set. “I’m here now. And I could be sitting on my throne by now, too, if not for you.”

Out in the hall the footsteps stopped, turned, and strode back the way he had come. Every muscle in Isabel’s body clenched. If she opened the door now and let him see her, this whole horrible mess could end right now. He had the guards with him…but Kaer had her. It would be no contest.

Rokan passed the closed door and continued to the stairwell; she could hear him making his way down the stairs, back to his bedroom, to wait for her. Isabel’s stone arms shifted back to flesh; she tried to fight it, but her sense of danger had passed, and her body wouldn’t cooperate. She let her spindly human arms drop to her side. When she spoke, her voice was resigned.

“Don’t be a fool. Stealthy assassinations are no way to convince anyone of your legitimacy. If you want your throne back, it has to be a well-staged battle—public, dramatic, and with a large number of the dukes’ men in the immediate vicinity.”

Kaer chewed the side of his lip, watching her, blue eyes wary. “Owain said the same thing. He thinks I should challenge him at his coronation. Do you think that would work?”

“It has a better chance than your knife-throwing escapades.”

He flushed, but his chin went up. “It will have an even better chance if you publicly support me. And the best way to do that, to remove all ambiguity, would be if you were the one to kill him. Will you do that for me?”

She didn’t hesitate. She knew, deep in her inhuman soul, whom she belonged to and what she was going to do. Hesitation would have implied that she had a choice, and that would have been yet another lie.

“Yes,” said the Shifter. “When the time is right, I will kill him for you.”

PART III

KAER

Chapter Thirteen

“He got away,” Isabel said in disgust, striding into Rokan’s bedroom.

Rokan was standing by the window, his dagger sheathed, holding a handkerchief to his shoulder. The handkerchief was soaked with blood and his face was white, but he spun around when she entered. “Are you all right?”

The question was too silly to deserve an answer. Isabel walked over to him and peeled the handkerchief away. The sharp, metallic smell of blood filled her nostrils. Rokan winced but otherwise stood perfectly still. There was a lot of blood, but no bone showing. Without remembering all the other wounds she had seen, Isabel knew this one wasn’t serious, though it was probably painful. She pushed away an instinctive sympathy and stepped back. “He disappeared before I could get close to him.”

“Sorcery.” Rokan swore under his breath and pressed the handkerchief back into place. The cloth was dark brown now; only the edges were still white. “Incredible. He went to all that effort to get me alone and then attacked me with the Shifter right there in my room.” He smiled at her, his eyes brilliant despite the pain that bleached his face white. “He must not know who you are.”

Isabel suppressed a wince. Kaer must have been waiting, not to find Rokan alone, but to find him alone with her. So he could force her to remember which side she was on. “You should have that wound checked,” she said, heading toward the door. “I’ll summon one of the healers.”

“Wait,” Rokan said. “You were gone for a while. You must have learned something. Tell me.”

“I was trying to find him,” Isabel said, glancing at him over her shoulder. “I learned nothing.”

“Could you see who it was?”

“You saw as much of him as I did.” Isabel was surprised by how difficult it was to continue the lie, even now that she knew how blatantly he had lied to her. She turned to face him. “Who do you think he was?”

Rokan’s eyes went opaque. “One of the dukes’ men, I assume. Or a hired assassin.”

Not telling her the truth was the smart thing to do, but Isabel still felt oddly hurt. “He said something before he vanished. About taking back what was his.”

“My father limited the dukes’ powers, and they didn’t think it was within his rights. But they don’t just want back what they had. They want what I have.”

Smart and fast. Isabel decided not to push it. Sure of her loyalty though he was, Rokan was quite capable of figuring out what had happened if she dropped enough hints. “We need to make them as frightened of you as they were of your father. You’re going to have to kill some people, you know.”

“No,” Rokan said, backing away from her, “I don’t know.”

“Even if I kill this assassin, they’ll send another.”

“Then you’ll kill that one, too.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Well, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

He sounded almost angry. Isabel tilted her chin and raised her eyebrows, and Rokan lowered his eyes. “Sorry. It’s just…sometimes I wish my father had never rebelled.”

He wasn’t the only one. Isabel walked over to the table and picked up a game token, turning it over in her fingers. It spun around and around, faster than any human could have turned it, so fast it was a black blur. “I would be needed anyhow. Even with a secure dynasty, a king will always have enemies.”

“There wouldn’t be a secure dynasty,” Rokan said, watching the token spin. “The king my father killed was destroying Samorna. He wanted to form an alliance with the Raellians—never mind that the Raellians are interested in conquering an empire, not making peace treaties. He was obsessed with consolidating his hold on the northern dukes and never seemed to notice that the south was on the verge of secession. Samorna would not have survived the rest of his reign.” He sighed up at the ceiling. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody remembers that now. The old royal family is all dead, and so is my father, so the only person they’re judging is me. But my father was right to do what he did.”

Isabel nodded and put the token down exactly where she had found it. Rokan pressed down too hard on the handkerchief and winced, and she started toward him, then held herself still.

“Do you want to be king?”

He straightened. “Of course that’s what I want.”

“Is it?” she said. “Kings don’t often get to ride alone, or marry for love. Or be free. You’re the one who wants to know what it feels like to fly.”