Rebel: The Blades of the Rose (33 page)

Hot humiliation and anger darkened her cheeks. “Everything that my brother and I did was for the tribe. Yet they were too weak, too soft. They were not willing to be strong and merciless. And for being what they should have been, my brother and I were cast out. For that,” she clipped, “I vow to see them punished.”

“Sounds selfish,” noted the medicine man.

“No,” she said proudly, drawing herself up. “It is righteous.”

“Exactly,” agreed Staunton. “As righteous as what we do in service to our country.”

Native woman and white man shared a look of mutual understanding. They alone truly grasped what it meant to dedicate oneself to the greater good. Strange that she would find that insight with a white man, her enemy. Yet it did not change her plans for the future.

“So, now that we've reached a true agreement,” Staunton continued, clapping his hands together, “it's time to plot our strategy.
All
of us.”

“Agreed,” Swift Cloud Woman said, allowing herself to smile. She could hardly wait for what was to come next.

 

Despite yesterday's bitter loss, despite the omnipresent threat of the Heirs, the group traveled this morning with a definite sense of lightness and purpose. Two of the three totems were in their possession and safe. For now. The third, final totem was within a day's journey. Yes, the Heirs still wanted her, but she would not allow herself to dwell in fear of them.

“I think,” she said softly, “we just might succeed in this mad venture.”

Nathan, sharing in her enthusiasm, flashed her a grin that set the tinder of her desire alight.

“Careful, Astrid,” warned Catullus, brusque. “Victory is never certain.”

Well,
there
was someone who wasn't quite as optimistic or in good spirits as she and Nathan. Catullus had been silent, verging on sullen, ever since waking. She had a good idea why.

No one, not even scholarly Catullus Graves, would be particularly chipper after sitting alone and listening to people make passionate love in the forest. She had tried to take him aside earlier that morning and, if not apologize, at least thank him for his forbearance. He hadn't given her a chance to speak. Instead, he loaded up his pack and marched off into the woods. She and Nathan had scrambled after him before Catullus stomped away entirely.

“I do know that,” she answered now. “Complacency leads to disaster. One of the Blades' tenets.”

Nathan nodded, understanding. “Take nothing for granted.”

Which she most definitely did not. As she and her companions threaded through the trees, following the path of the green river, Astrid could not keep her gaze from Nathan or stop her pulse from surging anew with each glance. Long-limbed and supple in purposeful movement, his body was known to her as intimately as her own. More, she knew the man who inhabited his sleek body, and when he caught her shamelessly admiring him, the heat flaring in his eyes nearly made her stumble. Or spin into the air like a loosened feather on a breeze.

Yet Catullus, surly as he was, spoke the truth. She was too seasoned a campaigner to fall into one of the most basic traps. So she kept herself alert to her surroundings, falling into old patterns of caution and readiness.

Silently, they pushed on through the dense, old forest, the path of trees older and more wise than any mere human could ever hope to be. She listened to the sounds they made, their branches and the millions of fine green needles moving against each other, whispering ancient secrets.

As they passed a particularly weathered, aged tree, Nathan inhaled sharply, snaring her attention. His eyes were bright, sharp, as though they could see beyond the veil of time.

“I feel it,” he said. His hand came up to hover over his chest. “Here. Growing stronger. A…rising, drawing me on. Up.” He looked up, searching through the branches for something only he could see or sense.

Her own heart leapt with excitement. They were getting close. And another evolution in Nathan had already begun. “The totem is calling you.”

Without speaking, he moved ahead, intent, and Astrid sensed it, too, the currents of power that flowed through the forest, the sky. She shared a glance of anticipation with Catullus, before Catullus remembered he was cross and walked on, his expression shuttered.

Afternoon, and the green river abruptly stopped.

They all stared up at the object blocking their path.

Nathan scowled, as if he could burn the thing down with the heat of his gaze.

“That is…rather tall,” Astrid said.

“Like a cannon is a rather big gun,” Catullus murmured.

A cliff, nearly a quarter of a mile high, towered over the three travelers. The cliff stretched toward the heavens, rocky face completely sheer, impassive, and flat. Nothing interrupted its indifferent surface—except a lone pine that grew halfway up the barren expanse. The tree pointed at an angle from the sheer face, toward the sky, isolated and proud.

And entirely inaccessible.

“Not unexpected,” Catullus murmured, looking up, as they all were. “But still, a surprise. I did not quite believe
anything
—aside from a titan—could be this tall.”

“It's there,” Nathan said, voice tight. “The totem. Held by the tree.”

Astrid paced forward and placed her hand upon the stone. “There is nothing to hold on to. No way to climb. Unless,” she said, turning to Catullus, “you've one of your ingenious devices in your pack.”

“Alas, nothing that might work here.” He looked almost sheepish at his oversight.

“Perhaps we could go around and try from the top,” she suggested. “Lower ourselves down.”

But Catullus shook his head. “We don't have enough rope.” He gazed at the movement of the tree on the cliff. “And the wind would dash anyone to pieces against the rocks.”

“And it would take too long to find a way around.” Astrid swore, knowing the totem was so close but impossible to reach. She and Catullus stared up at the solitary tree, which seemed to taunt them from its height.

“There's another way.”

Both Astrid and Catullus turned at Nathan's voice. He, too, was looking up, hands on his hips, expression focused, mouth a taut line.

“How?” asked Catullus.

Nathan's gaze snapped to his companions. “Fly.”

Astrid's eyes widened. They had discussed the possibility that Nathan could change into a hawk, but he'd been unable to make the shift. “Can you now?”

He began pulling off his clothing. “Don't know,” he growled. “But there's no choice. The totem's up there and we have to get it.” He threw the last of his garments to the ground, readying himself, and then shut his eyes in concentration. Ragged inhalations sawed from him as he forced himself to focus inwardly, drawing upon the fury he had felt when first transforming into his other animal forms.

Astrid and Catullus held their collective breaths, waiting.

Nothing happened. Then, the mist of his change began to gather. Astrid clenched her fists in readiness.

The mists obscured Nathan, then dispersed. Leaving him crouched and snarling as his wolf.

The growl he made was pure frustration.

“It's all right,” Astrid said, calm. “Try again.”

His golden canine eyes closed, and the mists collected around him. This time, when they dissolved, Nathan hunkered in the enormous form of his bear.

He growled again, a sound so enraged that Astrid almost believed he would charge her and Catullus. Yet he retained the man within, and changed back into his human shape. He made use of this form by swearing long and viciously. Even Catullus, who had heard some of the coarsest language imaginable, started.

She went to Nathan, seeing the anger overtaking him. Anger for himself, because he refused to let her or Catullus or anyone down, but was met with the iron of his own resistance. His scowl was for himself alone.

“Nathan,” she said softly. She placed her hands upon his face, gently forcing him to meet her gaze. The fury blazing in his dark eyes left her breathless, that he could turn such anger upon himself. “Stop.”

“I won't fail you,” he snarled.

“You will not,” she said, grave. “Nothing you do is a failure.”

Catullus, bless him, had moved away to give them some privacy.

Finally, Nathan dropped his gaze and said, so low his words were a rumble, “I don't know what to do.”

Her chest constricted. She could not imagine what it cost him to admit his fallibility, this proud man who was a born fighter. Yet he revealed the gap in his armor—to her, and only her.

She took one hand and laid it against his chest, feeling the hard throb of his heart within the enclosure of his ribs. He was hot satin beneath her palm.

“Here,” she murmured. “The answer is here. It took anger to release the wolf and the bear, but I think you need to find something else within you to free the hawk.”

“I don't know what that is,” he grumbled.

She pondered. “What is a hawk? What does it mean to fly?”

At first, more frustration crossed his face. Then he subdued himself and listened, quieting. “Freedom,” he said, after a moment. “The open sky. Lightness.” The storm clouds in his expression began to dissolve, giving way to stillness, and the beauty of him allowing himself peace was a sight beyond magnificent.

“Yes.” She kept her words soft but intent. “Find that in yourself. Whatever gives you that freedom.”

His breathing slowed, the fast pounding of his heart eased, and a slow, wondering smile illuminated him as he looked at her. He stepped nearer, then leaned close and kissed her with an aching sweetness.

“You,” he whispered against her lips. “
You
free me.”

The bright pennant of happiness unfurled within her. And then Nathan disappeared, enveloped in the mists of his transformation.

She felt the beat of wings, the lofting upward, and stepped back with a smile.

A handsome hawk hovered just above her—its wings a lustrous mosaic of russet and brown, tipped with black, its breast spotted tawny and umber, and the vivid red of its tail. She held out her arm, and the hawk alit, regarding her with its nobly shaped head and clear golden eyes. It held her carefully in its talons, though she knew the sharp claws could tear with no effort. The solid weight of the hawk surprised her a little, yet it was marvelous that such a relatively small body held all of Nathan.

“I knew you could,” she said softly. She stroked the front of its chest with the back of her fingers, finding him as soft as a lullaby.

The hawk ducked its head, then gave a short cry. She could have sworn he smiled at her.

“That's Lesperance?” Catullus asked, coming nearer.

The hawk flapped its wings in response before settling itself.

Catullus chuckled, shaking his head. “Think of all the money you will save on train fare.” Then, more seriously, he added, “Nicely done, Lesperance.”

Nathan made a small chirp of acknowledgment, then ruffled his wings as a signal. She understood. Stepping away from Catullus, she gave her outstretched arm a slight push. A brief grip from his talons, the force of his body urging upward, and then—

He flew. Nathan soared upward. His wings beat powerfully, lifting him higher. First, in expanding curves, learning what it meant to fly. And then he grew confident, forceful, taming the invisible territory of the air and making it his. He let out a cry, wild and limitless. She had never seen or heard anything as beautiful.

Her eyes heated, blurred.

You,
he had said.
You free me.

Ah, if only she could be up there with him, enjoying the liberty of flying. But she wouldn't begrudge him his own flight. She watched him as he grew smaller, wheeling upward, her own feet firmly upon the ground. Love, she began to understand, also meant letting go.

 

A dream. This had to be a dream. Countless times, he'd dreamt of exactly this: soaring, released from the earth, the whole of the world beneath him in a patchwork of green and gray, all around him infinite air, wind and cloud and sun. Boundaries dissolved, he was completely free.

He hadn't the fledgling's fear. The sky was his. He knew instinctively how to use his wings, when to push against tides of air, when to glide. Drunk with possibility, he wheeled and dove, making the earth small and large and small again. He laughed, and the sound was a hawk's cry.

Astrid should see this. She should feel it. To share the sky with her was exactly right. But impossible. He was the rarest of the Earth Spirits, able to take the shape of not one but three animals. And she was only human.

He saw her beneath him, watching him, the precision of his sight allowing him to see the golden strands of her hair loosening from her braid and trailing across her cheek. She seemed so tiny, so vulnerable, and the world so gigantic. He had killed for her. Would do it again without a second's hesitation. But her smallness was an illusion. No one stronger than Astrid, not in the whole of the earth.

In this new form, he could fight beside and above her, wherever the battle took them. And he would. First, he had to get the totem.

Within his hawk's form, he felt the totem's power as surely as he felt the sun upon his back. It called out to him with the strength of a hawk's cry.

Nathan turned to the single, defiant pine, growing proudly from the side of the cliff. He saw the totem at once, carefully nestled in the branches. The talon of an enormous hawk, nearly the size of an entire ordinary bird, a leather thong attached to it as with the others. God, would he have to battle a giant hawk, as he had the wolf and the bear? Didn't matter. He'd face whatever he must to get the totem and keep it out of the Heirs' hands.

He brought himself close to the tree, then perched upon the branch holding the totem. Using his own talons, he edged closer, cautious. At any moment, some supernatural hawk could come screeching to life, and he had to be wary. He glanced down, seeing Astrid and Graves far below, watching attentively.

Astrid gave him a slight nod and smile, encouraging.

He moved forward, then stretched out a grasping foot toward the totem. When he touched the totem, surges of soaring power flooded him, the sensation of flying hundreds of thousands of miles above the earth, the hunt and the kill, rising and falling through the air. Literally in his grasp was the might to command every hawk Earth Spirit, to tame their will and make their wings his own.

Another temptation, one he would fight just as he had fought and mastered the temptations offered by the wolf and bear totems.

He waited, grasping the enormous talon with his own, but no colossal hawk appeared. It might truly be this simple—if turning into a hawk and flying up the side of a towering, sheer cliff could be called simple.

The totem's size made it too unwieldy to hold in one of his talons. So he gripped it with both and prepared to take flight, bringing it to earth and ensuring its safety.

A familiar falcon's scream tore the air, and suddenly, it was upon him.

 

The falcon dove at him, screaming. Razor-sharp beak, slashing talons. It hacked at him everywhere—his face, his chest. A swarm of knifelike wounds, swathing him with burning pain. Wings slapped the air, a blur, as Nathan fought against the attack, balancing precariously on the branch.

He remembered this falcon—its shrill alert at the trading post had caused the Heirs to abduct him, and later, it had circled overhead, tracking and reporting their progress to the Heirs. Now, in his own avian form, he knew the falcon's thoughts, its pleasure in bloodshed, carefully cultivated by its masters. He saw in its mind its hunting without purpose, without the need to feed, but only for the amusement of killing. A specially bred monster. It wanted him dead, wanted the prize he clutched in his talons.

It launched itself at him, a frenzy of bites and tearing. In Nathan's talons was the totem. He had only his beak and wings to counterattack. Changing into his other forms wasn't possible. The branches of the tree were too slender to support anything other than a bird's weight. He had only the shape of his hawk with which to defend himself.

And so he did. He lunged and struck, aiming for the falcon's talons—the worst of its weapons. A satisfying scream of outrage when he hit home, tasting blood. Angry and surprised that its prey had the gall to fight back, the falcon charged, only to be forced back by Nathan's assault.

The falcon didn't give him much room as it flapped backward, but it was all he needed to take to the air. Better to fly than be cornered within the branches.

With a beat of his wings, he shot into the sky, the falcon in close pursuit.

 

“
Jävlar,
” Astrid hissed. She stared down the sight of her rifle, following Nathan and the Heirs' falcon as the two birds of prey wheeled in the air. The damn falcon had come from nowhere. Astrid had been careful to watch the skies and saw nothing. Yet here it was, attacking a hindered Nathan. She had to help.

Whatever distance Nathan was able to put between himself and the falcon never lasted long enough for Astrid to take a decent shot. Even if there was enough room between the two birds, not even an experienced riflewoman like Astrid could hit such a small moving target.

“Can you take a shot?” she asked Catullus, whose shotgun was also trained on the aerial battle.

“Too far up,” growled Catullus. “And they're spinning like trick kites up there.”

Astrid cursed again, burning with rage. Short of growing her own pair of wings, there was nothing she could do to help Nathan. Only watch as he fought for his life.

 

The falcon clung to him, a mass of feathers, beak, and talons, all ripping, scratching, thirsty for his blood. Without his own talons, he was at a loss to retaliate, to take the initiative. And that infuriated him. He could only dodge and defend as he clung to the oversize totem.

The totem threw his balance. Holding it hampered his maneuverability. The falcon, unencumbered, was a hell of a lot more agile, and that cost him.

He could lead it down. If he got close enough to the ground, he could shift either into human form or even wolf or bear. That gave him more options. And Astrid and Graves could protect the totem as he fought.

He banked and readied for descent. But the falcon saw what he meant to do, and its attack grew fiercer. It slashed at his wings, his talons. Scorching trails of cuts crisscrossed him, and he struggled to clasp the totem.

A better purchase was needed. He moved slightly to readjust his hold—the opening the falcon needed. Its knifelike beak stabbed at his talons. Reflexively, his grip opened.

The totem fell.

Damn it to hell.
He and the falcon plunged down, racing to catch it. But his injuries—including those from the day before, not fully healed—slowed him no matter how hard he pushed himself. He and the falcon sped downward, the ground growing closer, the falcon edging ahead.