The Arrival (Birthright Trilogy #1) (55 page)

'And that’s a nisalph,' Rumal informed them in quiet tones as the girls watched the female.

'One of the kitchen helpers in the castle is part nisalph and you can recognize the green hair and green tinge to the skin. They usually live in trees, deep in the forest. Wood cutters always have to check before cutting down a tree, in case it's a nisalph’s tree. Otherwise, they can be very nasty.'

'Oh I saw him,' exclaimed Kassie. 'That’s Geldin right?'

Rumal nodded.

They moved to another stall and examined the wares. Alek queried about the disk-map again, and the owner nodded and turned to collect one.

'It’ll be very useful to the four of you,' he explained as he inspected the quality of the disk. After paying for it he passed to it Cat, and the girls crowded close to have a look.

I stared down at it. The disk-map was about the size of a small side plate and around the same thickness. The back was a dark wood and the front appeared to be a polished black stone, like obsidian. As the four of us stared, a picture began to develop. The image showed an aerial view of the markets and surrounding forest for several kilometers, and a variety of colored dots in the market area.

'You’re the red dot, Cat,' Alek explained as he looked over their heads.

'Who ever holds the disk will always appear on it as the red dot.'

'What are the other colors then?' asked Loi.

'Humans appear as brown dots, gifted creatures show as gold, woodland creatures show green, the blue dots are water creatures and so on. Any black dots means the disk-map hasn’t come across them before.'

'But it’s easy enough to train,' the stall owner butted in, anxious to prove its qualities.

'When you get close to whatever is causing the black dot you show the disk it by turning the polished face to the creature. It will then categorize it and remember it in the future.'

They nodded in acknowledgment and peered at it again. There was a mix of colors showing and it was fun to look at the map, then back up to the actual creature.

'Wow!'

Sian looked at where Cat looked and gasped softly. A group of centaurs moved past the stalls on the other side of the market. They looked just as she would have expected. Their ears were pointy and twitched just like a horse, but were positioned where a human’s ear would be, and in proportion. The young centaurs (foals?) that ducked around the adults were adorable.

We moved on exchanging impressed looks.

'So graceful,' murmured Kassie.

'And natural looking,' Loi shook her head. 'Very bizarre really.'

'Only for us,' said Sian, her eyes still fixed on them.

I continued to watch them and admired the unique clothing the females had on. Most wore fitted vests or tunic style tops but one had what looked like scarves, twisted and tied. When a very young centaur headed toward her it became apparent why.

The female knelt to the ground in a fluid move and untied a knot at her shoulder, exposing her breast so the youngster could feed. We hastily looked away and instead, looked at a stall that was close.

The stall owner was delighted and chatted away to Alek; you could see he was thrilled at having the Prince there.

'My goodness that Rayna is an isanith. You know she has a new male she’s interested in? Yes, she only recently moved in with him.'

Alek shook his head. That figured, he was very glad he’d called it off with her. He conversed politely with the stall owner, then they moved on. Cat had listened to the conversation and frowned again; he gave her hand a squeeze and arched an eyebrow when she glanced up.

'Hmm?'

'What’s an isanith?'

Alek chuckled and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, steering her past Rayna’s stall and toward some jewelry stalls.

Alek herded me toward a jewelry stall as he explained, 'An isanith is a type of faerie. There are hundreds of different types of faerie, but the isanith is a pretty basic version. It hunts insects and will even kill other faere if they’re small enough and not quick to get away. They have a nasty bite and a sting.'

'Eww. They sound like wasps, are they considered a pest?'

'Depends on where they are,' he smiled at me. 'They can be very useful to farmers if they’ve had an infestation of wetans or deni. But if they found a hive near their house then they’d get rid of it.'

'Oooh, pretty.'

I forgot the conversation in an instant and beamed at the gorgeous jewelry on display, making Alek chuckle. The girls and I examined each piece to the obvious delight of the stall owner.

The men insisted on buying a piece for the girls, though Cat refused to let Alek. Sian felt bad for him and touched his arm when Cat was preoccupied with examining something.

'Buy her a piece to wear at the ball and surprise her with it, she’ll love it.'

She helped him pick out a piece.

Kassie went to Cat’s side to make sure she stayed distracted as they selected the jewelry. Sian was pleased to see Alek giving the stall owner a genuine smile as she wrapped up the pieces and he turned to Sian.

'Thanks, it’s a great idea.'

She beamed; happy to have done something that would make them both smile.

Daron felt a twinge of annoyance at not having thought of it. Sabyn gave him a wry look which said the same. They followed the others to where Cat and Kassie were. They’d bought food from a selection of stalls for their lunch and explored the other half of the market as they ate. As they approached a clothing stall, he felt Sian stop short and tug his hand. He looked down, but she stared at something across from them.

'Daron, what’s that?'

She had her head cocked as she studied it.

He looked across and spotted what had caught her attention. It appeared at first glance to be a normal, human, female. But as you studied it, you got the idea something wasn’t quite right.

'Rumal, look at that. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.'

Rumal glanced over and whistled softly when he saw it.

'Do you think the Griff’s have spotted it?'

About to answer no, Daron spotted Loushka. She watched the ‘female’ with a playful turn to her head and her tail swished in the manner of a mischievous cat.

'Umm, Alek,' he called warningly.

Alek’s head snapped up from looking at me.

'Uh-oh.'

'What?' I looked around confused.

Why are we staring at the woman over there? Hold on, she looks a little odd. What is she?

I watched, along with everyone else, as Loushka and the other griffons surrounded it. The crowd at the markets seemed to know what was about to happen, and moved out of the way. The female started to get agitated and tried to dart around the griffons but they were quick and just pushed her back amongst them. She opened her mouth and … squawked.

'What?' The girls spoke together as they stared at it in surprise.

Loushka gave it a hard nudge and it stumbled across into Nesha, who shoved it across to Kerak. They continued playing this ‘monkey in the middle’ game as the creature got angrier and angrier. It screamed in fury and appeared to explode.

We gasped as a slender and furious dragon snapped and snarled at the griffons, who regarded it with amusement. It lunged at Kerak and bit his leg hard. There was a strange deep rumble, and I realized it was the griffon growling. The dragon quickly let go of Kerak’s leg and stumbled back on its hind legs. The strange looking dragon made a jerky bowing motion to the griffons who then allowed it to walk out.

I watched fascinated.

It was a dark yellow and had skin that was much scalier than Nnelg’s, and its hind legs reminded me of a dinosaur. Actually, it looked like a raptor of some kind, with an upright body and longer forearms. Grumbling, it stalked past us and headed for the woods. Just before it reached the woods it stopped, and we could hear the sound of energy being raised.

Before our eyes it transformed back into the form of a human woman and marched off into the woods.

'What was that?' Loi demanded to Sabyn.

'A quern. A shape-shifting dragon.'

She was impressed.

'Can it change into anything else?'

'Oh yes, they usually only take a human shape if they’re attempting to breed with a human.'

Loi’s eyebrows shot up at that.

'Why would they want to?'

'They have their reasons,' Sabyn winked at her. 'And they usually vary greatly, so I couldn’t tell you. You could go ask if you like.'

He laughed at the narrow look she gave him.

It was an interesting end to the day and gave us lots to chat about at dinner and before bed. I was so pleased. The incident with Rayna had left nothing but a brief bruise that Elena had dealt with when we’d arrived.

Today had been wonderful. It felt like I’d actually seen things and mingled with the real creatures of Elion and I loved the disk-map Alek had bought us.

Like I’d let him buy me jewelry, after all the money he spent on the sleeve and the map.

I needed to learn more place names so I could ask it to show me them. I felt completely satisfied as I drifted off to sleep and actually looked forward to training.

Elena decided to have us practice on control this week.

'We have the ball at the end of the week, and I do not want you too exhausted.'

Compared to the previous weeks training, this week was laid back, and the look on Iggy’s face when our weapons training was interrupted for a ‘beauty session’ was classic.

'What?' he half roared at the nonplussed looking Page.

'A beauty session in preparation for the ball of course,' the Page informed him. 'It will include a dress fitting, and the Archduchess requested it.'

Lieutenant Payton managed to keep a straight face but Lieutenant Rashid appeared to be biting the inside of his cheeks.

Iggy had turned a rather ruddy red and almost shrieked.

'I nearly have respect for them and then they leave training for a beauty session?'

'Yes,' snapped the Page. 'Now if you please, we’re running late.'