Kjell’s meager belongings had been moved from the garrison to the king’s chambers shortly after his unexpected ascension. He’d quietly allowed it, knowing he could not remain where he was, bunking with his men while managing a kingdom. And he had wanted to be closer to Sasha.
King Aren’s possessions were whisked away, his rooms stripped of his presence, and the heavy furniture repositioned to make the space feel new. Kjell had never been in the king’s chamber before Aren died, and the furnishings didn’t matter to him. Still, the echo of the old king in the quarters made him feel like a usurper, and he never remained in the chamber for long.
One night, a week after Tiras’s departure, feeling over-tired and under-appreciated, Kjell walked through the queen’s gardens, staring up at Sasha’s rooms and feeling like a love-sick fool. The fruit had been harvested, the trees pruned, and the chill of fall permeated the moonlit air. He didn’t want to return to the castle or sleep in Aren’s rooms, so he tossed his cloak upon the ground and stretched out beneath an apple tree, his eyes on the flickering light from Sasha’s window and the silent sentries on the ramparts. Jerick was on the queen’s watch tonight, his bow in his arms, his shoulders straight, facing her window like he’d been instructed to do, and Kjell let his eyes drift closed, weary but reassured that all was as well as it could be.
He dreamed of Sasha and their marriage announcement in Jeru, of her gold dress and her fiery tresses, of her happiness and her soft touch. He awoke to hands on his skin and lips on his mouth, and kept his eyes closed, believing he still dreamed. But the hands that roamed his body were aggressive, the lips dry and abrasive, and the breath that fluttered against his mouth tasted of blood. When he lifted his bleary lids, it was not Sasha’s face above him.
Lady Firi’s hair still wreathed her head in a coil, evidence of her preparations and her blatant trespasses the night of the celebration, but that had been more than a fortnight before, and Kjell wondered if she’d spent the last weeks as an animal, never changing into human form. Her plaited hair only accentuated her nakedness, making Kjell long for the matted curls and wild length, if only to shield her from his eyes.
She scampered back, putting space between them, and licked her lips as though she too had noticed their texture. Kjell sat up slowly, cataloging the weight of the new blade in his boot, the speed at which he would have to move, and the odds of bringing her down with a well-thrown dagger. She increased the distance, sensing his intent.
“There was a time when you welcomed my presence and my touch, Kjell of Jeru,” she purred. “You will welcome it again.”
“There was a time when you wore clothes, Ariel. There was a time when you smelled sweet and kissed softly. A time when I didn’t know who you really are. That time has passed,” he replied.
“No, Kjell. The time has finally come. This kingdom is yours now. These people are yours. They will bow down to your every wish.”
“And to you?” he asked.
“Yes. I will be your queen.”
“No,” he said. “You will not.”
She pouted playfully. “So serious. So stubborn. So foolish. I can be whatever I wish, Kjell of Jeru. King Kjell of Caarn,” she mocked. “I was the little brown mare you purchased in Enoch. I was the gull who stirred the Volgar. I was the black adder in the grass, the wolf in the Corvar Mountains, the squid in the sea.” Her eyes flashed with temper. “I didn’t want you to die, but you almost killed me. I could have tossed you all into the sea.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked, easing to his feet. She stepped back again, and moonlight pooled around her.
“I didn’t want you to die. I wanted you to be afraid,” she said. “You are afraid of me, Kjell. And fear is even better than love.”
“And you will make Caarn fear you as well?”
“If I must. I have been following you for a long time, Kjell. Years. Waiting for the things the Star Maker showed me to come to pass. Then you found her. And I realized that she was the Seer who’d seen visions of you becoming a king.
“I tried to toss her over the cliffs so you could not heal her, to strike her in her sleep so you didn’t know she lay dying, to attack when she was alone. But she is never alone. You’ve kept her so close and you care so deeply. Do I mean nothing to you?”
He was silent, and her eyes narrowed with irritation.
“I have been made an outcast in my own country. But in Dendar . . . I can have everything I want. Even you. Imagine my surprise when there was no one here.” She laughed, incredulous. “What good is a kingdom if there is no one to bow down before you? If there is no one to rule?”
“So you’ve continued to wait.”
“Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter, wait for him, his heart is true,” she sang, parroting the old tune. “You’ve brought them all back for me. You’ve defeated the Volgar. And I don’t have to wait any longer.”
An arrow, straight and long, pierced the air and sank into her shoulder, knocking her forward. Kjell lunged, drawing his blade as he closed the distance between them. An angry scream tore from her throat and became the shriek of a falcon, flapping and rising into the sky. The arrow fell as she climbed, insulted but uninjured, and Kjell could only watch her go with a frustrated bellow, his knife in his hand, the Changer shrouded by the night.
Jerick joined him a moment later, breathless, clutching his bow. “I missed, Captain. I’m sorry. She stepped back, and I had a clean shot.”
“You didn’t miss, Lieutenant.” Kjell swore. “She is simply hard to kill.” Fear billowed in his chest, and his legs quaked, a delayed reaction to the Changer’s presence. His eyes found the light of Sasha’s window, needing to reassure himself she was unharmed. He realized suddenly that no one stood watch on the ramparts.
“I need to see the queen,” he clipped.
Jerick nodded, not questioning Kjell’s request, but he gave a report as they walked. “Isak is on duty outside her chamber. Her window is closed, Kjell. The Changer did not enter. All is well.”
They pounded up the broad stairs and through the corridors, but Isak was not at the queen’s door. Instead, he stood outside Aren’s old chamber, watching them approach with dawning confusion.
“Captain?” he queried. He looked at the heavy door at his back as if it had beguiled him. He rapped on it sharply.
“Majesty?” he called.
“Why are you standing guard over the king’s chamber, Isak?” Jerick asked, his voice uncharacteristically sharp.
“The queen went inside and closed the door, Majesty,” Isak explained. “I’ve stood guard here since.”
Kjell pushed into the room. The door was unbarred and the chamber beyond was empty. He rushed to the bathing chamber, to the wardrobe, to the narrow staircase that led to the king’s private wine cellar. Kjell stared at the steps with growing horror.
“She never left this room, and no one went in,” Isak insisted behind him.
“Kjell, there is a man at every entrance. Everyone is accounted for,” Jerick reasoned.
“Everyone but the queen,” Kjell said, trying desperately not to shout. “Did you ever leave the door, Isak?”
“No. I was here the entire time. I thought she was with you, Captain. I . . . was . . .” Isak stuttered. “I was trying to . . . respect your . . . privacy.”
“She went through the tunnels in the cellar. She left the castle through the tunnels Jedah made before the battle,” Kjell breathed, fisting his hands in his hair.
“Why would she do that, Captain?” Isak cried, incredulous.
“Isak,” Jerick moaned. “You know why.”
Sasha, who never let Kjell’s men take him for granted, who threw herself over him to shield him from Volgar talons, who conspired to drug him and leave him in Brisson to protect him, who worried about the cost of his gift and her inability to spare him from suffering. Sasha would walk into the forest calling Lady Firi’s name if she thought she could save him. Of that he had no doubt.
“How long? How long has it been since anyone saw her?” Kjell whispered, angrier at himself than the trembling guard. Kjell had stayed away to give her clarity, to give her time, to shield her from his impatience and his longing. And she’d slipped away.
“An hour, Captain,” Isak answered, his lips tight, his eyes pleading for forgiveness.
“Find her,” Kjell begged.
Isak descended the wine cellar stairs to enter the tunnels, his hands glowing and his feet quick, but Kjell did not follow. He knew where the tunnels led, and crawling through them on his hands and knees would take too long. Kjell ran from the castle keep, Jerick and a dozen of his men at his heels, but they separated at the edge of the woods, his men fanning out into the forest. Kjell hesitated, knowing he could not run in blind terror and hope to find her. He breathed, closing his eyes and pressing his hands to the bark of the watchful trees, petitioning them for their guidance and their direction. For a heartbeat his legs buckled and his head bowed.
“I am Kjell of Koorah. I carry the blood of Caarn. Please . . . help me find the queen.”
The tree beneath his hands trembled, or maybe it simply moved with him, shuddering in dread and fear, but a long thin branch lowered and stretched, a skeletal finger pointing deeper into the grove. Kjell ran, not questioning the wisdom or instruction of the woods, and after several steps, he realized where he was.
Maybe Sasha had simply gone to sit beneath the bows of Aren’s tree, making peace with what had passed. But the hour was late, and Kjell’s instincts screamed that solace and silence among the trees was not the queen’s design; Sasha had not slipped into the wood to kneel in remembrance in a sacred grove.
A twig snapped and a soft wind stirred, and for a moment he was certain he had found her, the gossamer spill of her dress like silver moth wings, dancing in and out of the light. He breathed her name, quickening his pace, but something made him hold his tongue.
It was Sasha’s dress, but it wasn’t Sasha.
Ariel of Firi darted through the grove, clothed in the queen’s raiment, as if his words in the garden had pricked her vanity and her humanity. The gown pulled at her breasts and dragged through the underbrush, collecting bits of leaves and sticks that tore at the pale garment. The trees warned silence, but his heart could not comply. It thundered in his ears and sent his blood roaring through his veins as he crept forward, following the Changer.
Then the curious moon stepped out from behind the clouds and illuminated the clearing where Aren had crowned him king. Sasha waited there, bathed in moonlight, her bearing both regal and resigned, her unbound hair melding against the deep red of her dress, and her hands hanging loosely to her sides. She didn’t hitch her skirts to flee, look to the trees for a place to hide, or call his name for rescue. She simply stood in the center of the grove, watching as Lady Firi approached, wearing her dress, as if she’d been expecting her all along.
Kjell drew up, struck by the terrible beauty of the scene, of the vicious serenity of the woman he loved quietly facing the woman he feared above all else.
He didn’t know whether to charge through the trees, upsetting the hushed balance of life and death that permeated the grove, or to hold back, drawing his bow, and trusting in his ability to make the shot.
“It is time for you to go, Changer,” Sasha said, her voice calm and oddly kind.
“It is time for you to die, Saoirse,” Lady Firi crooned. The glee dripped from her words like the Volgar blood had seeped through the vines. She circled Sasha with scorn and confidence, smoothing her borrowed dress and prancing as though her feet were clothed in bejeweled slippers and not caked in the soil of Caarn.
Then the gown puddled and pooled, abandoned like snake scales, as Lady Firi grew claws and her face became feline. Silken black fur rippled over crouching limbs and a curling tail. She scampered up the wide base of Grandfather Tree and skulked along the widest bough, positioning herself above the queen.
It was the form she had taken during the battle for Jeru City. Kjell had seen her perched on the parapets, watching havoc unfold around her. She’d left her mark on Queen Lark but had been denied the kill, interrupted by an archer’s arrow and Zoltev’s wrath. She had shifted from shape to shape, purging the arrow in her side before reassuming the panther’s grace, stalking along the ramparts the way she now padded along a low-hanging limb.
Sasha took three steps back as if bracing herself for battle. Then she lifted her chin to the Changer, an unmistakable challenge that evoked a bellow from Kjell’s lungs, a denial that rang through the trees as he began to run, too far to save her, too close to deny the events unfolding before his eyes.
The panther leaped, a black slash against the pale light, her teeth barred, claws protracted, and Sasha raised her arms—almost as though she meant to embrace the beast—and was knocked to the ground. The cat roared, the sound like a thousand swords unsheathing in unison, and covered the queen, swallowing Sasha beneath its superior size.
Kjell hurtled through the trees, releasing one arrow after the other, screaming as the whistling shafts flew wide and long, missing his target. He flung his bow as he threw himself at the Changer, wrapping his arms around the body of the huge cat, rolling as he heaved the weight from atop the queen.
There was no resistance, no yowling flex of muscle or slashing teeth and claws. Kjell released the Changer and scrambled free, his eyes on the inert beast, shock and disbelief replacing the horror in his chest.
His blade, the blade he’d pressed into Sasha’s hand before the second Volgar attack, protruded from the panther’s chest, skewering its heart. He crawled to Sasha’s side, running his hands over her body, begging the Creator for mercy and assistance.
She was gasping for breath, her eyes black and bottomless, her lips parted and panting, and Kjell moaned her name, the palms of his hands stained in blood and trembling with denial.
“Sasha,” he begged. “Sasha, Sasha, Sasha.”
Her breath shuddered and caught, then caught again, and her eyes fluttered closed in relief.
“She stole my breath, Captain. That is all,” she whispered, her voice hitching on every word. “I am unharmed.”
He caught her up, embracing her, feeling the warmth and the wet of spilled blood between them, a reminder of near death and deliverance. He began to shake, and she held him, pressing her lips to his neck, wrapping her arms around him, reassuring him.
But he needed distance between his beloved and the beast.
He half-crawled, half-staggered, dragging Sasha with him, moving so his back was braced against Aren’s tree, Sasha across his lap. They watched as the inky black of the panther’s fur became the pale skin of limbs and legs, the rise of a feminine hip and the fall of a narrow waist. Ariel of Firi, wrapped in the length of her matted hair, lay unmasked in death and stripped of her gift. The knife did not fall from her breast, expunged by the change, but remained buried deep, the hilt glittering and wet.
“All is well, Captain. It is done,” Sasha soothed.
“You saw this. You knew this day would come,” he cried, the knowledge flooding him as his heart quieted.
“I knew there would be a battle,” she confessed. “And she would not protect her heart.”
He started to laugh, incredulous relief robbing him of breath and sense, and then his laughter became a rasping moan, and he felt the heat and slide of tears down his cheeks, washing the blood from his skin and the fear from his heart.
“You are weeping, Captain,” she whispered, and he heard the tremor in her voice as she clutched him to her.
“I am healing, Sasha,” he said, and her mouth found his, administering her own cure, tasting the salt of past sorrow, relieving the weight of old wounds. For several moments he returned her kiss, gratitude falling from their tangled tongues and urgent lips, hushed whispers and professions of love moving between their mouths.
He rose, drawing her up with him, wanting to be free of the grove where his queen had faced the Changer and kings went to die. But Sasha held back, stepping from his arms and turning back to the dead woman with the same compassion she approached everything else.
“We cannot leave her here,” Sasha protested. “Not like that. This is a sacred place.”
“I will send Isak to turn her body to ash. He has suffered this night. He will be relieved to see it end.”
“I think we should ask the trees,” she said, turning to the largest oak in the grove. With complete confidence, she pressed her palms to the bark, speaking with the firm authority of a monarch.
“I am Queen Saoirse of Caarn. I carry the blood of Caarn. I ask that you return the body of the woman who lies dead beneath your boughs to the earth from whence she came.”
Like the day on the road to Caarn, a day that felt like a lifetime ago, the ground quaked beneath their feet, and the biddable tree exhumed its roots. Enormous fingers shook off the soil and curled around the body of the Changer, dragging her into the earth and swallowing her whole. The ground trembled again, the leaves sighed, and Ariel of Firi was no more, freeing him at last. Even the furrows were softly filled, the loose dirt sliding back into place as the roots retreated with their dead.
Sasha moved to his side, slipping her hand into his.
“You carry the blood of Caarn?” Kjell asked, not understanding.
“I am carrying the blood of Caarn,” she said, her eyes rising to his.
He drew back, gazing down at her, still flummoxed.
“Your child—a child of Caarn—grows within me,” she explained gently.
“My child . . . grows . . . within you,” he stammered.
“Yes, Captain.”
He staggered, and Sasha steadied him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He pressed his lips to her hair, to her cheeks, dropping to his knees so he could press his hands to the slight swell between her hips. Then he pulled her toward him, replacing his hands with his mouth, reverent and reeling. For a moment he could only pray to the god of fortune and the creator of all things. He didn’t pray with words but with the overflowing of his spirit, his lips pressed to the womb of the woman who stood before him.
“I have not forgiven you for coming out here alone,” he whispered against her body.
“You will,” she said, stroking his hair.
He swept her up, needing to be as close to her as he could, and began walking back to the castle, weaving through the forest, her body clutched to his chest.
“I can walk, Captain,” she murmured, her head tucked beneath his chin, her lips touching his heart.
“I want to hold you a little longer,” he said. And she did not deny him.
The sentry above the rear castle gate cried out in alarm as he saw Kjell approach through the trees, the queen in his arms.
“Majesty!”
“Open the gate. All is well,” Kjell called.
“You should let me walk, Captain,” Sasha pressed. “You will frighten everyone.”
“I don’t care. I will do as I wish. For once, I will do as I bloody wish.”
Sasha was right. She often was. The guard poured from the castle and the grounds, their search for the queen ending back where it began. They rushed to Kjell’s side, distressed, peppering him with questions that Sasha fielded with calm reassurance.
Padrig, his long robes streaming after him, was not far behind.
“Is she injured?” he asked, trembling, his eyes clinging to the blood darkening the red of Sasha’s gown.
“No. But we are in need of your services, Spinner,” Kjell said.
“Anything, Majesty,” Padrig said, nodding eagerly.
“I wish to marry the queen.”
Padrig gaped and Jerick snorted.
“N-now?” Padrig stuttered.
“Now.”
“Can we change our clothes, Highness?” Sasha asked, her voice mild but her eyes dancing.
He hesitated, unwilling to let something as inconsequential as clothing detain them. He would not wait any longer.
“I will not make vows covered in Ariel of Firi’s blood,” Sasha insisted softly. “And I will not marry the King of Caarn in the dead of night, as if I am ashamed to be his queen. We will welcome all of Caarn—all of Dendar—to witness the marriage.”
Kjell sighed, still not releasing her. “Soon?” he grumbled.
“Soon,” she reassured.
“If we can prepare for a battle in two days, we can prepare for a celebration in the same amount of time,” he insisted. Padrig opened his mouth to argue, but Kjell silenced him with a look. “The day after tomorrow, I will marry the queen, Star Maker. Let it be written. Let it be done.”
“Kjell of Jeru, son of Koorah, King of Caarn, will wed Queen Saoirse of Caarn, daughter of the late Lord Pierce and the late Lady Sareca of Kilmorda. May the God of Words and Creation seal their union for the good of Caarn,” Boom announced from the watchtower, shouting the words to the quaking trees, the impatient king, and to all the people of Caarn.
Kjell worried the people would not come, that the queen would be ashamed, and the celebration shunned. He wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t abide it, and had already drawn up his first royal edict to make sure it didn’t happen.
But all of Caarn came. They came bearing flowers and well-wishes, food and song, and when Padrig raised his arms to the heavens, declaring the couple man and wife, the people wept. The King’s Guard wept too, baptizing the moment their captain bowed his head and kissed his queen, reaching the end of one journey and eager to start another.
The festivities interrupted by the queen’s warning less than a month before were cheerfully resumed, long life and true love were toasted without reservation, and faith in the future of Caarn was joyfully reestablished. But when the villagers departed and the castle was cloaked in slumber, the king held his queen in the soft light of the closest stars, repeating the promises he’d made beneath the cliffs of Quondoon, when he’d been lonely and she’d been lost, and the future had not yet been fulfilled.
Kjell whispered in Sasha’s ear, sing-song and coaxing, “Can you hear me, woman? Come sing with me.”
“Come to me, and I will try to heal you. I will try to heal you, if you but come back,” Sasha sang softly, the melody sweet, the lyrics heartfelt, and it fell from her lips in a husky plea.
“Come to me, and I will give you shelter, I will give you shelter, if you but come back,” he added, picking up where she left off. His lips brushed the lobe of her ear, and he felt the shudder that swept from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Her heart galloped, her skin grew damp beneath his, and he continued to chant, making the promise all over again.
“Come to me, and I will try to love you. I will try to love you, if you but come back.”
He heard a single, solitary tolling that grew between them, around them and within them, deep and demanding, and Kjell lifted his voice, grasping the pitch and pulling the tone from her pounding heart. It grew and grew, and still he hummed until her pulse resonated in his skin, in his skull, behind his eyes, and deep in his belly. He was euphoric, vibrating with sound and triumph, his hands smoothing back crimson hair from speckled cheeks and staring down into eyes so dark they appeared infinite. Their gazes locked, and for a moment, there was only reverberation between them.
“I saw you,” she whispered, her body quaking and her fingers caressing his face. Kjell leaned in, filling his hands with her hair and his mouth with her kiss.
“I saw you,” he said against her lips. “And I never looked away.”