Chapter Twenty-Seven – Mira
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mira
I turned and ran, the ground thudding as the beasts launched themselves through the trees. Cassius’s eyes widened and he reached for his sword, but he quickly dropped his arm, having seen the same thing I had: the thick, bony armour protecting their hulking bodies.
‘Shoot them!’ I screamed, hoping that my warriors could hear me. ‘Aim for their throats!’
Arrows whizzed through the air. But despite their size, the beasts were quick.
A single leap took them further than a dozen of my strides, and the beasts behind me weren’t the only ones.
More rushed into the clearing ahead, forcing the clansmen to retreat to the tree line as they continued aiming arrows.
A growl reverberated through the ground as one of their arrows connected with a beasts’ neck – but it didn’t penetrate the tough skin.
I watched the arrow fall to the ground in stunned disbelief.
‘What are you doing?’ Cassius hissed at me as I started to slow. ‘We have to run–’
‘There are more of them,’ I told him, my eyes on the shadowy shapes emerging from the forest.
I risked a glance behind me. The beasts had paused in their pursuit, knowing we had nowhere to go. But one among their number pushed through their ranks – even larger than its companions.
The approaching beast regarded me with its golden eyes. Those eyes narrowed as they shifted to Cassius.
I watched it prowl closer, wondering if I could get in a lucky strike before it took me down. Cassius tensed, and I knew he was thinking along similar lines, but I didn’t dare shift my gaze from the creature. When it was less than five metres away, it tilted its head. Considering me. Like it was–
Thinking.
I took a cautious step forward. The beast watched me steadily but made no move to attack, and somehow, I knew that it wouldn’t unless I attacked first. Cassius hissed something that I ignored.
My heart pounded as it pressed its snout to my chest.
No – not to my chest. Impossible though it seemed, it was examining my locket . I lifted it up, so the beast could see the engraving in the gold. The wreathed crown.
‘We mean you no harm,’ I told the creature, ignoring how foolish it felt to converse with an animal. Yet I felt certain this was no ordinary animal. ‘I am Kasmira Volaris, and these are my companions. We’re searching for the Council of Ancients.’
The beast humphed in what I took as acknowledgement and rejoined its companions, who backed away to give it space.
The leader. I had spoken to their leader, and it had somehow understood me.
I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t imagining this. But no – the beast was leading the others through the clearing towards me. I tensed, then forced myself to relax. Not to reach for my weapon.
‘You seriously want to trust those things? Are you insane ?’
I only glanced at Cassius for a second. But in the space of a blink, the leader’s snout began to shorten and widen, its body and shadow seeming to stretch in height and condense inwards–
I stared at the man in front of me, his shoulder-length ebony braids the same shade as the beast’s hide. And the armour he wore, the exact white of bone . . . The same bony armour that I had seen on him minutes earlier.
It was an effort to hold my ground. An effort not to look away from the man in front of me as his companions transformed, their forms writhing and undulating in my peripheral vision.
‘I am known as Conall,’ said the towering man in front of me. For the first time, I noticed the gold medallion he wore, engraved with the same symbol as my locket. ‘Welcome to the Council of Ancients.’
I hadn’t realised magic had a scent to it. But shifter magic possessed a tang – a natural scent that permeated the air around us, ancient and fresh and faintly reminiscent of pine.
That scent intensified as more shifters joined us, colourful birds swooping down from the treetops and transforming into women just as they reached the ground.
Unlike the bone armour worn by the men, they wore sheer tops woven from vines and decorated with wildflowers.
For skirts, they favoured the broad, yellow-green reeds I had noticed earlier near the stream.
As quickly as they transformed from animals into humans, the shifters’ presence transformed the treetop village into a home.
The shifters were already eating and drinking in front of the blazing fires, sharing skewers of roasted meat with my companions.
A few children raced up to where I sat at the central fire, eyeing me with as much curiosity as I felt towards them.
‘I’ve never met a queen before,’ a tawny-haired girl said, tilting her head in a very bird-like way.
‘That makes two of us,’ I said warmly to the girl. ‘I’ve never met a shifter before.’
She grinned at me in obvious delight, but then her tiny brow furrowed in confusion.
‘You mean . . . you can’t change? Not into anything?
’ At the shake of my head, she looked at me very seriously.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, pity thick in her voice.
‘It must be terrible to be stuck in one form forever.’
‘Vivica,’ Conall reprimanded, but he was smiling.
‘This is my daughter,’ he said to me. ‘Mine and Sionnach’s.
’ He gestured to the tall, imposing woman at his side, who was watching Vivica with amusement.
She wore an identical gold medallion to her husband, as did the five other council members ringing the fire.
‘It’s alright,’ I told Vivica softly. ‘It’s impossible to miss something you’ve never done.’
Vivica nodded solemnly back at me. ‘If you ever find that you do miss it, you should visit our temple. It’s a ruin now, but my mother believes it still holds power, even after the priestesses–’
‘ Vivica .’ This time, Conall’s voice was sharp.
‘Sorry.’ Before Vivica left, she whispered in my ear, ‘You can ask the Sorceress for favours, you know. She doesn’t always answer us, but she’s bound to answer you .’
I watched as she darted off to rejoin her friends, turning her words over in my mind and wondering what she had been about to say when Conall stopped her. No doubt something less than flattering about the Temple, which was hardly a surprise. I had come here prepared for wariness and distrust.
‘You can speak freely,’ I said, returning my attention to Conall and Sionnach, who seemed to be the only members of the council willing to address me directly. ‘What did the priestesses do?’
Conall’s mouth twisted. ‘They tore down our temple.’
‘People from across the Wilds used to come here to connect with the Sorceress,’ Sionnach explained. ‘But that was before the high priestess decreed there should only be one Temple, under her leadership.’
I frowned. Velanthe had never said anything about priestesses tearing down temples. No wonder there was a rift between the Temple and the Council of Ancients.
‘I will fix this,’ I promised, looking around the fire and holding each of the councillors’ gazes.
There were a mixture of ages and appearances, but each of them emanated strength and wisdom.
From what Conall had told me, their roles had been handed down from mother to daughter and father to son for generations.
‘You deserve to practise your faith as you choose.’
Their expressions were difficult to read, but I hoped they could see that I meant it – that I was willing to stand up to the Temple on their behalf. Maybe it would help lessen some of their animosity towards me.
‘Are the priestesses the reason you placed bones in the trees?’ Cassius asked, catching the end of our conversation as he approached the central fire. ‘It was clearly a warning of some sort. And given the warmth of your hospitality, that warning was not intended for us.’
‘Very perceptive,’ Conall observed. ‘Your spymaster?’ he guessed, glancing at me.
My lips curved. ‘Something like that.’
Sionnach moved aside to make room for Cassius, though I didn’t miss the wary glance she cast at him. Our arms brushed as he took his place on my other side, accepting a pewter cup from Conall.
‘There are factions amongst shifters,’ Conall admitted after a pause. ‘Most of us still worship the Sorceress and believe her descendants ought to rule.’ A brief nod at me. ‘But there are others who are less benign. They consider themselves agents of Fennec.’
I went still. I knew that name – had read it in the Sorceress’s grimoire.
‘You’ve heard of him,’ Conall said, watching me. ‘I presume you’re familiar with the legend?’
I thought of everything I had read about the Sorceress’s early life. How she had healed a fox, not knowing that it was really the beloved servant of a trickster god. How the god had courted her in the guise of a man, and won her, and then stolen her mortality so that he might possess her forever.
But the Sorceress had hated the god for taking away her choice, and spent her newfound eternity travelling the world and dismantling monuments to Fennec in every city she visited.
She convinced his acolytes to worship her instead, delighting in the knowledge that with every prayer she stole, her ex-lover grew weaker – while she grew stronger.
‘He was a god,’ I said carefully. ‘A trickster god.’
‘A god that could take animal form, like those who served him.’ Conall glanced at the other council members, and something seemed to pass between them.
As they nodded, he said to me, ‘Shifters are descended from Fennec. It’s the reason we’re able to transform – but trickster gods are notoriously mercurial, and they have little value for human life.
The shifters who worship Fennec make blood sacrifices in his name.
The bones are a warning that they will not find us easy prey. ’
My blood ran cold. Human sacrifice . That was what Conall was referring to – the threat his people faced.
‘Why haven’t I heard about this?’ I demanded, rising to my feet. ‘If you had come to me or the Temple–’