Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (19 page)

           
Gisella frowned. Lifted a hand. Her
nails, like Lillith's, were silver-tipped. And they ripped a hole in the air to
replace it with living flame.

           
Cold, cold flame . . . and a lurid
Ihlini purple.

           
Gods!

           
She ripped the air apart but a
handspan from my face.

           
I lurched back awkwardly, trying to
escape the flame.

           
Off-balance, I fetched up against a
chair, overset it, went over myself, rolling, trying to get up before she could
send loose another blast of icy, encompassing flame.

           
"Gisella—no!" I heard my
brother shout.

           
"But I want to," she said
simply, and I wrenched sideways, thrusting up an arm to shield my blinded eyes.

           
Flame licked out, caressed shrinking
flesh, charred wool and linen . . . singed the reddish hairs upon my forearm.
Backward I scrabbled, gulping air; came up against the stone wall and was
stopped. "Gisella," I gasped, "no!"

           
Sparks
hissed form silvered fingertips, winking
out even as they fell. A crackling aureole of livid lavender gloved her slender
fingers. Godfire," she said, "do you see?"

           
Ian took a step toward her. Stopped.
I did not blame him. No man, facing a girl as irrational as Gisella, would want
to go closer to her,

           
What has Lillith done to her? What
has that witch done to both of them?

           
"Ian," I began,
"wait—"

           
He thrust out a silencing hand.

           
Gisella's eyes were fixed on me in
an opaque, unwavering stare. Diamonds glittered. "Lillith said you would
be mine."

           
Gods . . . do they expect me to wed
this girl? Do they really expect me to bed her?

           
Ian's hand motioned for me to stay
precisely where I was. Decisively; he was Ian again. And for the first time since
Gisella's attack, I looked at my brother instead of my cousin.

           
He stood rigidly before her, in three-quarter
profile to me. He was intent only on Gisella, marking her posture, her position
in relation to me, to the rest of the room, to him. Like me, he was unarmed,
but I knew, looking at him, even lacking knife or bow he was as lethal as he
was with them.

           
An odd juxtaposition. They were very
like one another, Ian and Gisella, reflecting kinship as well as racial
heritage. Again, it was I who was so different. Lirless, even as Ian was, but
still so very different.

           
Slowly, Ian stretched out a hand to
Gisella. Their fingertips nearly touched. Gisella gazed at him fixedly, as if
she sought to judge his intentions. Still the godfire clung to her hand.

           
And then his, as he touched his
fingers to hers.

           
Ian?

           
"No," he told her gently.
"Loose no magic at him, or you will surely anger the gods."

           
"Gods?" she whispered.
"Gods?" Like a striking viper, her other hand shot out and clawed at
his face. In its wake I saw the afterglow of flame slicing the air apart as
easily as steel. Ian caught her striking hand. The other he claimed as well. By
the wrists he held her, nearly suspending her.

           
She cried out angry curses I did not
know, fearing them Atvian or, worse, Ihlini invective. Such curses could summon
demons.

           
From rigid fingertips ran blood,
raisin black. Or fire; I could not say. It ran down fingers to wrists and
spilled onto Ian's hands. Gisella laughed even as he cursed.

           
I scrambled up, thrusting myself
from the floor. Against both of us, surely, she could not persevere; I moved
toward them both, intending to aid Ian however I could.

           
Gisella saw me. Her eyes, swollen
black in the muted candlelight, shrank suddenly down to pinpricks. Yellow, so
yellow, filled with the ferocity of a beast.

           
And so she was. Even as Ian cried
out against it, I saw the precursor to the shapechange. A ripple. A blurring.

           
The sense of a shattered
equilibrium. And then the void, so all-encompassing, as it swallowed the woman
whole and spat out the mountain cat.

           
She struck out, clawing, ripping the
air where Ian had been only a moment before. She was black, black as pitch,
with tufted ears pinned against wedge-shaped head.

           
Yellow eyes glared at us with a
feral intensity.

           
I have seen housecats, enraged,
huddle back as if in fear. And I have seen the subtle sideways twisting of
their heads; heard the eerie wailing of their song; sensed the awesome
magnificence of their rage. In Gisella, that rage was manifested as clearly as
was her madness.

           
She struck out twice more, slashing
with curving claws.

           
Had lan not been quicker, she would
have shredded wool and flesh. She did not try for me. Ian was her target.

           
He moved as only a Cheysuli can
move, with a grace and fluency of motion echoing that of the cat herself. I
wondered if it was born in the blood or came with the lir-bond. I thought the
latter. I had none of my brother's grace. But then, he had none of my size-She
screamed. It lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. It was the cry of a
hunting mountain cat who has decided on her prey.

           
I can slay her, I thought dazedly,
leaping behind the overturned chair even as Ian lunged back against the wall. I
can slay her and end this madness.

           
But to do that would end the
prophecy before its final fulfillment.

           
One man of all blood shall unite, in
peace, four warring realms and two magic races.

           
But how does a man get children on a
woman such as Gisella?

           
"Gisella!" shouted Alaric
from the doorway.

           
Almost instantly, she was back in
human form. She twisted hands in heavy skirts, backing away even as her father
advanced. "No," she said, "no. Please? No."

           
The yellow eyes, once so filled with
a virulent anger, now reflected the fear of a disobedient child discovered.
"It is so hard not to—"

           
Alaric caught slender shoulders in
slender hands.

           
Gisella's hands splayed across her
cheeks as she tried to look away from his angry face. "Again," he
said curtly, "again. Will you never learn, Gisella? There are reasons for
what I forbid."

           
"I will learn," she
promised, "I will. But—sometimes I have to do it!"

           
"Even against your father's
wishes?"

           
She threw back her head and laughed.
Laughed. And then she wrenched out of his bands and faced him as defiantly as
she had faced us. "You are only angry because you cannot shapechange! Oh,
no. Not you! Not even Lillith can." Throwing out her arms, Gisella let her
head fall back against her spine. She spun in place. How she spun, my poor, mad
cousin. "I can," she sang, "I can . . . and nobody else can do
it!" Spinning, spinning, she crossed the floor. Gold and diamonds spun
with her, all aglow in the candlelight. And then she stopped short, so short;
so close to Ian her skirts tangled on his boot tops.

           
"Not even you can," she
told him cruelly. "Not since Lillith took your lir."

           
I looked at the Lord of Atvia.
"She is mad," I told him. "Quite mad."

           
He smiled calmly. "But you will
wed her anyway."

           
"Wed me!" his daughter
cried. "Niall is to wed me!"

           
She left Ian behind and came at once
to me, locking hands into the fabric of my doublet. "They have told me I
must wed you and be Queen of Homana. Wilt you make me Queen of Homaaa?"

           
Gods. One day I would.

           
"Gisella," Gently, I tried
to unlock her fingers. "Gisella, I think there is something I must discuss
with your father."

           
"Why?" she cried. "He
will only say you should not shapechange, either. He is always telling me
that." She jerked her hands from my grasp, locked arms around my neck.
"Niall," she said, "when will we be wed?"

           
"As soon as he takes you to
Homana," Alaric told her smoothly. "Once all the celebrations here
are finished."

           
I peeled Gisella away and set her
aside, confronting Alaric squarely. "There will be none," I said
briefly. "By the gods, you fool, why were we never told? Why was this
travesty allowed to continue? Do you think I wish to wed that?"

           
"Does it matter?" he
asked. "You will. Because your prophecy demands it." Even as I
started to speak he silenced me with a gesture. "Turn your back on my
daughter, child of the prophecy, and you twist that prophecy. Perhaps even end
it precipitately." He smiled. "In addition, your father will discover
me on his doorstep. Armed. With at least five thousand men-at-arms. Is that
what you wish to see?"

           
"Twenty-five hundred," I
countered bitterly. "Liam has promised me that much."

           
Alaric's brows rose. "The truce
already broken? Ah well, I have other plans. I doubt Liam would be so willing
to levy war against Atvia when all of his kin are slain . . . including his
wanton sister." He smiled. "I thought that might get your
attention."

           
"You do have an informant in
Kilore—"

           
"Informants," he
corrected. "Assassins, more like. A word from me—or a beacon fire on the
cliff—and the royal Erinnish eagles are dashed to the rocks below." Alaric
smiled. "I might even have it done tonight."

           
Gods— I bared my teeth. "Why not?"
I asked. "What good do they do you alive?"

           
"I have been advised it might
be best to play this game carefully." Alaric shrugged. "I am not so
proud that I cannot accept assistance from someone more—patient—than
myself."

           
"Lillith?" I demanded,
"Aye, patient! And what else is she, my lord?"

           
"My mother," Gisella said
promptly. Almost instantly a hand flew to cover her mouth; she looked at her
father fearfully. "But—that is not really true ... is it? You told me—
"

           
"I told you the truth,"
Alaric answered evenly. "Bronwyn bore you, Lillith raised you." He
smiled. "How else could you combine Ihlini illusion with the Cheysuli
shapechange?"

           
"Illusion," I said,
startled. "None of it was real?"

           
Gisella thrust out a hand. Fingers
snapped open. Even Alaric squinted in the glare of the blinding flame,
"Real," she said flatly. "Real!"

           
"Real," he agreed
patiently. "Of course it is, Gisella."

           
He looked at my brother and smiled.
"Lillith wants you, Ian. Had you not better go?"

           
Before my eyes I saw my brother
diminished. He said nothing; indicated nothing by posture or movement, but he
could not hide the revulsion in his eyes. For himself. Not for Lillith.

           
"Rujho—" I began.

           
Ian did not even look at me. He
walked past me and out of the room.

           
Alaric laughed. "Interesting,
is it not? To see a Cheysuli humbled?"

           
"Not lan." But even in my
ears the declaration sounded hollow. "Do you intend to humble me?"

           
Alaric glanced at his daughter.
"Gisella. The game."

           
She smiled delightedly. Eyes alight,
she put out fisted hands. To me. "Choose."

           
"Not too quickly," Alaric
cautioned. "Wait a moment."

           
He moved behind her, resting hands
on the bared flesh of her shoulders. Then he smiled at me, and I saw the game
was on. "Should we humble you, Niall, as Lillith has humbled Ian? Could
we? You are very different.