Birds and Prey (7 page)

It probably made no sense to ask Haytham. If Naira, the princess’ elf, had been correct, he had no will, or at least no freedom, apart from Laire. But he was the only one in her strange, short, blurry memory who had been kind to her without condition – at least, so far. Who else could she trust?

In a low, rough voice, as if confessing her secret, Sade said: “Laire says that to make the pain stop, I have to kill the prince.”

“Yes.”

“There isn’t any other way?”

She felt Haytham’s body stiffen behind her. It took him a few seconds too long to reply.

“I’m sorry, Sade,” he said at last. “That is the only way I know.”

Sade let herself drift to sleep in his arms. The pain of the soul-bond throbbed deep in her, as the wind cried over the cave mouth.

She knew that she could not trust Haytham: not fully. But she could learn from him. And, when the time came, she hoped she would have the strength to make the right decision.

The next week was the most difficult in Sade’s -- admittedly short -- memory of her life. Haytham woke her before dawn. After a meal of smoked deer meat and the remainder of the previous night’s soup, he invited her to climb onto his back, and carried her to a narrow ledge overlooking a sheer drop. The wind was strong over the side of the cliff, and Sade’s hair, so artfully kept in Laire’s court, became a mass of brown frizz around her head.

Haytham’s shape-changing seemed a private thing, so after taking the bag from her back that she’d used to carry the supplies they’d need for the day, including his clothes, and leaving it as far from the edge as she could, she turned her back to Haytham and looked out over the world. In the distance, the yellow and red trees of the Edenost court rippled like a flame. Sade was too far away to see the actual structures within the leaves. Her gaze drifted from that familiar vision over the treetops, to where the red and yellow gradually shifted to a deep green. Something about that color comforted Sade, and, as she looked upon it, she forgot the wind’s chill.

“Are you ready?” Haytham asked. His voice startled Sade. She turned to him and nodded.

Haytham wasted no time.

“Watch my stance,” he said. He placed his feet widely, slightly beyond his shoulders, and bent his knees until they were in a forty-five-degree angle from the ground.

“This is your neutral ground,” he said, “until the wind shows you differently. Next, you will need to perform the three steps. Stay put and watch.”

Sade did as she was instructed. The steps seemed simple: one step right, lift the left leg, sweep, and then turn. Why had the princess had insisted that Haytham drag her to the top of a mountain to learn this? The hardest part would be fighting the wind to stay upright.

After watching Haytham run through the sequence a few more times, Sade said: “I think I understand.”

Haytham gave her a lopsided smile. “I doubt that,” he said. “But you will.” Sade blinked at him in surprise.

“Take your stance,” he told her.

Sade did as instructed. There was a rustle behind her, and Haytham said, “Close your eyes.”

Sade obeyed. She felt a soft strip of hide settle over her eyes, felt him tie it in a knot behind her head, effectively blinding her.

“Now, begin,” Haytham said.

The darkness drained Sade of all her earlier confidence. She was terrified. How would she keep herself from falling over the edge? All she could hear was the wind.

Doing her best to visualize, in her mind, where she had been standing before Haytham had tied the blindfold, Sade took her first, hesitant steps.

“Listen to the wind,” Haytham said, his low voice in her ear. “You’re to move with it, not fight it.”

Sade didn’t know how long she spent, that first day, trying to capture the wind. Several times, Haytham warned her in a neutral voice that she was close to the edge. And once, Sade stepped into nothingness only to feel his firm grip on her arm, pulling her back before she toppled over the edge.

“Oh, God!” Sade gasped, panting, her stance forgotten.

Suddenly Haytham had both his arms around her. His gentle hand stroked her cheek.

Sade turned her face up, toward where, in her blindness, she guessed his had to be. Though the pain of the previous night scared her -- though she knew that, somehow, he intended to betray her -- she still wanted to kiss him.

Come on, Sade! Girl, you know better. You’ve got to stop making these same mistakes.

The voice speaking in her head was hers, but not quite -- not the voice of Laire’s pet, but of someone who had lived her own life, and had some measure of self-understanding.

Sade’s reaction to the voice must have shown in her physically, because she felt Haytham’s body stiffen. He released her and took a step away, though she still felt him holding one of her hands.

“This way,” he said. “And try again.”

Inner voice fading and forgotten, Sade turned her energy again to struggling to learn the dance.

The next seven days went by in much the same way. They ate breakfast together, trained together, cooked together, and at night slept curled in each other’s arms.

Sade appreciated Haytham’s body. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with lean muscle that was a pleasure to run her fingers over when he was asleep. Once, she offered herself to him. But though Haytham was clearly interested, at least in body -- his arousal warm and semi-hard against her thigh -- he refused. Sade wasn’t certain if the refusal was a relief or disappointment.

Sade found that she loved the dance. When the wind filled her properly, the pain of her soul-bond faded. The darkness of the blindfold only focused her energy. She wished she could spend all her time dancing, but no matter how hard she tried, after a while her concentration faded, and she lost her steps. Still, she persevered.

The first week faded into a second, and then a third. Haytham took off her blindfold after a while. They used it again when she was learning new steps, but on other days, Sade could see the light and air around her, and she felt as if it fed her steps.

“You’re extraordinary,” Haytham said, at the end of the third week. “It’s as if you were born with wings.”

The compliment warmed Sade.

“How long can you keep the dance going?” she asked him, curiously.

“Continuously… an hour, maybe two.” Sade was impressed. “The greatest master I ever saw could keep up the dance for two days, but eventually the body succumbs. We say that when we die, the freeing of ourselves from our bodies allows us to dance forever.”

“That’s beautiful,” Sade said.

“Yes,” Haytham said, staring at her a touch too long. “I’ve always thought so.”

On the second day of their third week together, an hour or so into Sade and Haytham’s training, another Wind Dancer came. Haytham removed Sade’s blindfold (it was a day of new steps, and she’d been wearing it) as the bird landed on the far edge of the ledge in a streak of purple and black, limned in gold.

Sade averted her gaze as the bird shifted, leaving in his place a tall, golden-eyed man whose body seemed carved from onyx. Like Haytham, he didn’t bother with clothing; the only deference his body gave to the cold was erect, brown nipples.

He glanced at Haytham and Sade, and, with a raised eyebrow, said, “I trust I’m not interrupting, young hawk…”

Sade glanced at Haytham, who seemed riveted by the beautiful shifter.

“Marid,” Haytham breathed. “What are you doing here?”

“Aren’t you the one who promised to visit me upon your return?” Marid said. “But instead you waste three weeks entertaining yourself with this mortal. Unfair, Haytham, that you’ve sampled her first.”

His smile was wry and knowing, and even the briefest glance at Haytham’s face and body language made it clear that there was some intriguing history here.

Well,
this
is interesting,
thought Sade. She waited, feeling both the buzz or fascination and the prickle of alarm, to see what would happen next. She had the idea that she might just be about to get a long-denied glimpse into Haytham’s true nature and feelings.

From the way the shifter was staring at the new arrival, it seemed almost as if he’d forgotten she was there.

Sade found herself surprisingly unsure how she felt about that. But she waited for the tension, building sharply between the two men, to break, to find out what would happen next.

Sade never brought up what had happened their first night together, and neither did he. Instead, Haytham simply focused on teaching her the dance. He started her on the same exercises he had learned as a child, to teach Sade to be able to listen to and understand the wind.

For the next week, he took her to an exposed ridge, and had her perform the opening movements of the dance. The purpose of this exercise was for her to learn to use the steps and the words of the wind to understand what was happening around her. So, on the first day, he blindfolded her.

Sade came close to falling from the cliffside three times. Had she been a true Wind-Dancer, it would have been up to her to shift her form and fly back to him. But since she was not, and it was in both of their best interests for her to survive her training, he warned her instead when she ventured too close to the edge.

At night, they prepared their meals together, spoke of her training, and then slept curled together under Haytham’s blankets, close and chaste, like litter-mates.

For Haytham, it was a torture, having Sade so close -- having touched and tasted her once -- and to now be unable to act. But, he’d decided, better to be frustrated than to end an otherwise perfectly pleasant evening with a mortal sobbing in his arms.

After a few days, Sade learned to start a fire in the hearth, and picked up some basic cooking skills. Haytham was surprised at how well she took to the latter. So long as she wasn’t watching her hands, she chopped and sliced things with practiced ease, occasionally sniffing the soup with an expression of mild discontent, as though it were missing some essential seasoning.

It took a week for Sade to master the first steps of the dance, but after that, she proceeded surprisingly quickly. Haytham was beginning to feel some optimism about Sade’s abilities when, unexpectedly, at the start of their third week together, Marid arrived.

As always, the sight of Marid made it difficult for Haytham to breathe. He had loved the other shifter as a fledgling. Before Haytham’s wings had been bound to the Edenost Court, he’d hoped that they might become mates – or, as Haytham liked both men and women, find a female and form a triad.

Now Marid was a beautiful trap. And, while they’d shared the dance both in the air and in each other’s bedding, nothing further could come of it. He’d always been too interested in what the Edenost Court had done to save Haytham’s wings.

Marid shifted, his gold-limned plumage folding into human skin. Unlike Haytham -- who always found the change an agony due to how the Edenost Court had warped his natural magic -- Marid changed forms with liquid grace.

He stood before them both in human flesh. A touch of humor graced his full lips. “I trust I’m not interrupting, young hawk…” he said.

“Marid…” Haytham breathed his human name. “What are you doing here?”

Marid raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you the one who promised to visit me upon your return?” he said. “But instead you entertain yourself with this mortal.” Marid looking Sade up and down, an act that stirred in Haytham a confused muddle of feelings. “Unfair, Haytham,” he said, “that you’ve sampled her first.”

Haytham didn’t remember making any such promise. But there was no point in arguing it with Marid.

“I’m teaching her, that’s all,” he said.

“The wind dance? Indeed,” said Marid. “I’m sure the elders will have some… thoughts… about your teaching such things to a mortal.”

“It’s not their business, or yours,” Haytham said, though his stomach clenched at the words. In principle, he could, indeed, be shunned for teaching an outsider their traditions -- though Haytham’s geis to the Edenost Court had long kept him on the outside of most of his people’s traditions, anyway.

“Ah, Haytham!” said Marid, with a touch of a smile. “Don’t be cranky.” He approached Haytham. Haytham stood still a moment, reveling in the hint of Marid’s scent in the wind, and in the other’s long, athletic stride.

Marid avoided Sade entirely. He circled around to Haytham’s other side and slung an arm over his shoulder. Marid stood a good half-head taller than Haytham, so he had to stoop a bit to whisper: “You know I won’t do anything to hurt you. Much.”

Haytham felt, more than heard, Marid’s chuckle low in his chest. “If the mortal doesn’t want to play, then leave her a little – she looks old enough to care for herself. You and I can still have fun.”

The tickle of Marid’s breath over his ear was maddening. Haytham had to close his eyes a moment. It had been too long, with Sade warm in his bed every night, and no relief.

Much better, his body whispered, to spend some time with someone willing, someone whom he desired and who desired him. Someone who wasn’t soul-bonded to another. Someone with whom he could share pleasure’s sweetness and release in all its forms without guilt.

By the Peaks, he wanted to…

But the princess had asked Haytham to gain Sade’s trust, and even through his desire, Haytham could reason that abandoning Sade for a tryst with an old lover was probably not the best way to go about doing this.

“I can’t, Marid,” Haytham said.

He stepped closer to Sade and put his arm around her. “I’ve made promises,” he said.

“To this mortal? Or to those Edenost bark-clingers?” Marid shook his head disdainfully. “It has to be them. What have they done to you?”

Haytham felt a need to end this conversation, as quickly as possible. “It’s a geis,” he said. “I have given my word to train Sade.”

“And for that, what till you gain? Another decade of licking their feet? It’s disgusting, how you grovel for them.” Marid drew himself to his full height and glared down his nose as though he were in bird form, ready to drive his beak into Haytham’s heart.