Shift (19 page)

The drop hit Zachariah’s tongue. Both Uriel and Panakeia hurried back. Zachariah’s throat moved in a swallow.

He surged to his feet, grabbed his tomahawk and looked around with a fierce expression on his face within the span of a second. “Tate,” he said, looking at Uriel.

“She appears to be gone, as is Ariana.”

The elder’s words had the confusion and fear that clouded Tiege’s mind finally starting to clear. Anger quickly took its place.

“The Wymzesti poisoned me,” Zachariah said.

Uriel frowned. “I had hoped otherwise.”

“How long have I been unconscious?”

Tiege answered, “Ariana left to come and speak with Tate about twenty minutes ago.”

Zachariah clenched his jaw and ran a hand through his hair. “I cannot sense her,” he muttered.

Startled, Tiege realized that he couldn’t sense his sister, either. He hadn’t even thought to tap into their blood connection, which told him he needed to get his head on straight. He wasn’t doing Tate or Ariana any good by failing to think clearly.

“What are you still doing here, you blasted beast?” Zachariah snapped, looking at Nyx. “We have talked about this. Come here.”

He stalked a short distance away. The kragen padded after him, her demeanor subdued. Tiege struggled to hear what the Mercesti said. All he made out was “Tate” and “important.”

Zachariah’s red gaze moved to the Waresti elder. “Which direction?” he called out.

“We believe they went west.”

After issuing a few more words to Nyx and sending her through the trees, Zachariah glanced back at them. “What are we waiting for?” He turned to follow the kragen.

“Wait,” Tiege said as another thought occurred to him. He looked around in every direction, but sensed no movement outside of the Waresti guards. With an increasing feeling of dread, he asked, “Where’s Sophia?”

Uriel and Zachariah exchanged a glance. They both turned in opposite directions and began scanning the ground as if they knew each other’s thoughts. Not wanting to feel useless, Tiege also started walking again with his gaze focused on the ground. His heart felt like it beat its way up into his throat as the facts finally sank in.

Tate and Ariana were gone.

“Here,” Zachariah said a moment later. He lifted a feather from the ground. “There is only one blonde eagle of which I am aware.” He studied the tree next to the feather’s location, then glanced over to where he had been found on the ground. “I believe she saw what happened.”

“You think Sophia went after Tate and Ariana?” Tiege asked. The idea gave him hope.

“Yes.” Zachariah turned. “And now we need to follow her and Nyx.”

Tiege matched Zachariah’s stride as they hurried to the edge of the forest so they could extend their wings with all of the Waresti traveling with them. “I haven’t ever tried to connect with Sophia using our Gloresti blood. She’s my cousin, so the connection is going to be diluted.”

“You will get me to Tate.”

Zachariah’s voice brooked no argument. Tiege couldn’t fault him for wanting to get to his sister. He was just as determined to get to her and Ariana, so he didn’t comment. He saw the break in the trees ahead and said, “I just can’t believe
archigos
Knorbis has done this. Do you suppose he thinks he’s keeping Tate and Ariana safer this way? That he has an alternate plan?”

“I do not know, nor do I care,” Zachariah replied as he replaced his tomahawk in its holster so he could take flight. “I am just grateful that I am already a Mercesti.”

“Why?”

“Saves me the hassle of converting when I kill him.”

Sophia kept herself as much in the mind of the eagle as she could. That was all that stood between her and abject terror.

She was alone, and as far as she could tell, all that stood between the most powerful Wymzesti on the plane and Tate and Ariana’s well-being. Of all the possible problems she might have anticipated on this journey, this hadn’t even remotely occurred to her.

Why had Knorbis done this? He hadn’t converted to a Mercesti, so he apparently didn’t intend to kill her cousin and friend, nor did he believe he was leading them to their deaths. Maybe he intended to use them to find the scroll piece himself for some reason. He might have foreseen something that prompted him to isolate the two females from their protectors so that he could prevent it.

That was really all she could guess. In the end, she was left with the fact that none of this made any sense and she had no idea what to do.

They weren’t flying in a straight path, which worried Sophia. They had changed course a number of times throughout the day, telling her that the Wymzesti elder was either trying to throw any followers off-course or he had no idea where he was going. She had to believe the former. Knorbis didn’t do things without a well thought-out plan.

Another concern, Sophia quickly realized, was that whatever the Wymzesti elder gave Tate and Ariana to drink had boosted their speed and endurance. Sophia had never seen Estilorians fly as quickly as the three of them did, which told her that the elder had ingested whatever he’d given them, as well. They had been flying for hours without any signs of tiring or intent to land.

Fortunately, the harpy eagle was a fast bird. She could reach speeds of up to fifty miles per hour and could keep pace with those she pursued without difficulty.

Unfortunately, Sophia was reaching new levels of exhaustion. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hold the shift much longer.

She couldn’t help but remember the time a couple of months ago when Quincy brought her outside the area of protection surrounding her homeland so he could teach her to fly. That was when Tate was taken by Nyx, and Sophia had followed her in the form of the harpy eagle just like this.

And just like then, she was going to fail to reach her cousin.

Acknowledging the fact that she was going to have to abandon Tate and Ariana when they needed her most left Sophia with a fiery ball of anguish in her chest. But she knew that to continue on was suicide. She was losing the hold on her shift while miles up in the air. Whereas before she had known in the back of her mind that Quincy wouldn’t ever let her fall, now she had no such backup.

I’m sorry
, she thought toward her cousin and dear friend.

Then she started looking for a place to land that might afford her some shelter while she recovered her energy. The ground beneath her was marshy flatland. Wide mounds of brown grass rose up between what amounted to little more than puddles. She would make a ridiculously easy target to any Mercesti who happened to fly by.

A fresh wave of exhaustion hit her. She briefly lost her shift, falling nearly twenty feet in her Estilorian form before managing to recover. Her vision blurred as she tightened her hold on the eagle form. She had to get to the clump of dead-looking trees she saw in the distance.

Though her speed was significantly less, she changed her course and headed for the trees. Up, down. Up. Down. She commanded her wings to move.

By the time she got to within a few yards of the trees, she stopped flapping and allowed herself to coast in, angling her wings to fit among the spindly branches that spread like skeletal hands in every direction. She tried to find some kind of grassy clearing and belatedly realized that the trees were swamped by murky water. If she landed, she might drown. There was no way she’d be able to move at this point.

Just when she decided she would have to land in a tree, she lost the shift. Her collision with the water was loud and ungraceful. The cold shock was enough to prevent her from sinking immediately into unconsciousness, however.

That meant she saw the group of beings standing nearby when she managed to drag herself to a shallow and roll onto her back to keep the frigid water out of her face.

Just before she passed out.

Bertram thought he was losing his mind.

He had been curious about the large bird following the Wymzesti elder and the two females. It changed direction whenever they changed direction, and it was an unusual golden color that caught the limited moonlight as it moved.

Although the bird was quite a distance ahead of him and Tycho, he could easily make it out against the night sky with his enhanced Mercesti night vision. Tracking it soon became their only option to catch the two females. Bertram realized that whatever the elder gave the females to drink, it caused them to fly impossibly fast.

The bird, however, had sharp vision and speed on its side. It was able to keep its distance while still maintaining their course. As the sun rose and the day progressed, the bird remained in the air without landing once. That gave Bertram another clue that there was something different about the animal. So when it veered to the left and clearly out of the flight path of the others, he wondered why.

And then the bird wasn’t a bird. It was a blonde, naked female falling through the sky.

Wondering if he had been flying so long that he was in the grip of some kind of waking dream, he cupped his hand to his mouth and issued a coo-like signal to draw Tycho closer. He had a split second to decide whether to try and follow the Wymzesti elder and the two females or change course and follow the bird that might not actually be a bird. He quickly concluded that there was no possible way to reach the group. He couldn’t even make them out against the horizon at that point. So he followed the bird.

Tycho quickly caught up with him, always having been a superior flyer. “What are you doing?” he hissed when he approached. “We will lose them!”

“We already have,” Bertram countered. “You know that we will never catch them. Yet that bird tracked them. It seems to me the bird might be able to pick up the trail of the two females once it has rested.”

“You are giving up the two females that Eirik wants us to retrieve for a
bird
?”

“Do not talk to me as though I have no sense. This is no ordinary—”

He cut himself off as they watched the bird fly into the marsh. In a blink, there was no need to complete his thought. There in the water lay the blonde female.

And she wasn’t alone.

Tycho slowed to fly beside Bertram. “Okay…you were right,” he said.

From their distance, Bertram couldn’t make out many details about the female outside of the fact that she was fair and petite. “I wonder if she is somehow akin to Metis?”

“It could be possible. I have never known another being to shift between forms like that.”

“I do not recognize any of those around her. Do you?”

“No.”

Bertram considered this and shuffled it in among the other facts in his head. Then he shrugged. “Well, we have little choice now but to wait and see what this group does with her. If she is in league with them, perhaps we can negotiate a way to make use of her abilities in our quest.”

“Why would they want to work with us?”

“Simple,” Bertram replied. “They will not want to incur Eirik’s wrath. We will explain our mission and what has happened to those who have gone against him. They will surely do what they can to support the most fearsome Mercesti in existence.”

Skye’s labor started just a few hours after Quincy finally fell asleep following Amber’s delivery. Fortunately, Estilorians required little sleep to recharge. He was alert and ready to help bring her twins into the world.

Skye was a talker. She kept her nerves level by talking with her sisters and their husbands through the lavender barrier. She chatted with Caleb, who wasn’t much for idle chit-chat, especially at such an intense time, and she always drew Quincy into the conversation.

“What do you think of the names I’ve picked out, Quincy?” she asked from the bed. At the moment, she was sitting up in it. “Willa and Wesley.”

He grinned. She always went with the same first letter when she named her twins. “I think they sound perfect. As long as you have another boy and girl set of twins this time.”

“Oh, I will,” she said with a bright smile.

She was right. Willa and Wesley arrived into the world without incident. Fortunately, Skye’s faith was so strong that Quincy’s efforts were practically unneeded.

He began his routine cleanup as the happy parents engaged in the important bonding that would need to continue over the coming weeks with their babies. Only when he made an unusually loud rattling noise with his tray of instruments did he realize that it had gotten rather quiet. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Gabriel exchanging glances with his wife that said all was not well. Amber held Jack, since the close contact was needed this early in the baby’s life. Olivia also held Devon.

“Quincy, I’d like to remove the barrier now,” Gabriel said.

His heart feeling too heavy to pump blood, Quincy swallowed and nodded. The light faded a moment later.

Still holding his tray of instruments as though not knowing what to do with them, he watched as the siblings gathered around the bed. They congratulated Skye and Caleb and took a moment to bring all of their children together, briefly touching their heads together and generating a synergy that only existed for the Kynzesti. None of them knew exactly what it meant or how it worked, but they had instinctively done it since their firstborn children arrived.

“What happened?” Quincy asked when he couldn’t wait any longer. “I’m sorry, but I have to know. Is everyone okay?”

Now, Gabriel briefly closed his eyes and then opened them to look around at everyone. “I didn’t want to say anything until we had done our ritual. It wouldn’t have been right.

“I received word from Uriel a little while ago. Something has happened.” He looked at Skye and Caleb. “We don’t know why, but Knorbis has taken Tate and Ariana away from the group. He poisoned Zachariah and used his power to induce sleep on some Waresti guards.”

Skye gasped, her face pale. “No. Knorbis wouldn’t do that!”

“It appears he did.”

Then his gaze shifted to Olivia and James. Without Gabriel saying a word, Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. Quincy felt his grip on the tray loosening as he braced himself for the blow.