Asra hated the swamp even more than she hated the capital city.
The air was so humid she thought she might drown with every breath. Moisture clung to her coat and the open wounds on her thigh, and the soggy earth drenched the fur on her paws. The dense trees, tightly-coiled clumps of moss slung over their branches, closed in on her like prison bars.
Worst of all was the constant roar of thousands of frogs and toads. Their croaks were even louder than the swarms of insects. She missed her arid home, where her pelt stayed dry in the warm sun, where she could climb to the top of a rocky outcropping and see for miles, and where the only sound was the wind as it caressed desert brush.
There, she could be alone with her thoughts. Here, she could barely hear herself think.
The frogs didn’t even have the decency to be edible. She’d attempted several times to snatch one up, partially to satisfy the gnawing hunger in her stomach and partially to spite the damn things. When she finally caught one—a slow, fat bullfrog the size of a dinner plate—it urinated. She spat it out, saliva foaming all over her muzzle. She tried to wash the taste out by lapping out of a pond, but the stagnant water tasted worse than a days-old carcass.
Ciaran found the whole thing hilarious, and it was only when Asra flashed her fangs at him that he stopped laughing.
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess it’s just a dog thing. Every time we came through here, Bane would … ” His smile vanished, and he fell silent.
At first Asra was grateful for this. She hadn’t been able to get the man to shut up for more than a few seconds since she met him, and his voice was just one more irritation in the cacophony of the swamp.
But with Ciaran’s silence also came his foul mood. Each time Asra asked which direction they should go, he was short and snippy with her. Each time she growled a warning at him, and each time he shut his mouth and sulked like a teenager. She’d never admit it to him, but she much preferred him being a chatterbox.
As they neared New Port, a fresh source of revulsion revealed itself: an overwhelming malodor of decay and rotting eggs. Asra wrinkled her nose.
“What is that stench?” she said.
“Pluff mud,” Ciaran said.
“What mud?”
He pointed to the edge of the water, where tall grasses grew out of a mud so dark it was nearly black. Dozens of small crabs, each with one claw significantly larger than the other, scuttled across the surface. Asra raised a paw to shoo them away.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Ciaran said as he walked past. “You could sink and get stuck, especially as big as you are.”
Asra straightened and said, “It’s just mud.”
Ciaran shrugged. “Try it and find out. But I’m not sticking around to help you.”
Curiosity getting the better of her, Asra waved the tiny crabs away and pressed a paw into the strange substance. It was oddly fluffy and soft, as though she were digging through freshly ground flour, yet somehow wet and slimy. Intrigued, she pushed deeper, until something sharp sliced into her paw. She yelped and jerked her leg away, but the mud sucked in her paw like a tornado. She leaned back on her haunches, pain searing through her injured thigh, and yanked her paw free. Fresh blood mingled with the mud on her fur.
Ciaran watched the event without a hint of humor on his face. “Are you done?”
Asra growled to herself, then followed after him, her paw aching almost as much as her bruised dignity.
----------------------------------------
They finally reached New Port a couple hours later. The sky was a soft violet, dotted by the evening’s first stars, and the lights of the buildings glowed on the horizon like fireflies.
Only a handful of horseback riders traveled on the main road several hundred yards to their right. The sight of the small town only exacerbated Asra’s homesickness.
Asra stood at the edge of the trees and stretched her injured leg forward and back. It was sore, but the wounds had healed.
She dropped her pack on the ground and said to Ciaran, “Turn around. I need to take my fur off.” Nudity wasn’t a taboo back home, but it always made the humans uncomfortable.
Ciaran turned without a word, and Asra changed into her skin. She dressed herself with clothes from her backpack and fished out a shawl as she gave Ciaran the all-clear.
“Put this on,” she said, tossing him the shawl.
He held it open in front of him by the tips of his fingers, as though it were poisonous. “Why?”
“Because you need a disguise. And we need a story for who we are and why we’re here. Give me my glasses.”
“It won’t matter,” he said, passing her glasses to her. “People there will recognize me regardless.”
Asra dug through her bag for a pair of socks as she said, “Didn’t Vincent say he was taking over this town? We need to lay low. We don’t know who could be spying for him.”
But when she looked up, Ciaran had already started off towards the town.
“Hey!” Asra called. “I still need to finish here!”
Ciaran raised a hand and, without turning to look at her, said, “I’m sure you can catch up when you’re finished.”
Asra shoved her feet into her socks and shoes, muttering under her breath as she did so. She pulled on her duster and slammed her cow-herding hat onto her head, then headed off toward the prince.
By the time Asra caught up with Ciaran, they had reached the first buildings of the town. The streets were lined with quaint shops filled with seaside trinkets. Laughter drifted out of packed taverns, and the streets thrummed with both vacationers and residents. The air was salty, and Asra could hear the faint crash of waves against the shore less than a mile away, punctuated by the warbling of seagulls fighting over discarded food.
But Asra was more focused on the soldiers that dotted the crowds. She pulled the brim of her hat lower, hoping her ear wasn’t exposed. Judging by the amount of soldiers for such a small city, New Port must have been one of the newly-conquered states. She fiddled with the silver band on her wrist, prepared to throw it off at the first sign of trouble.
They soon arrived at a large manor that stood out like a beacon amongst the surrounding buildings worn by sea winds. Enormous, rectangular, with six marble pillars and two rows of five evenly spaced windows in between. The exterior was red brick, adorned with deep black shutters. There was a balcony on the second floor framed by an ornate wrought-iron railing, and lodestone-fueled flame lamps hung from each pillar. It was bigger than many of the mansions Asra had seen in the capital city.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ciaran said. “Nolan had it built a few years back.”
“Beautiful” wasn’t the word Asra would have used. “Gaudy” was more accurate.
“Awfully fancy for a checkpoint, isn’t it?”
Ciaran laughed. “No, it’s a resort. A vacation spot. Gods, I need a fucking drink.”
He started to head in, but Asra snatched his arm, wheeling him around to face her.
“A drink? We’re not here to party! We need to get back!”
Ciaran wrenched his arm away from her. He took a step towards her so that they looked eye-to-eye.
“Yes, Asra, a drink. I know that you’re used to all this bullshit, but I’m not. I just lost my dog, I watched three people be murdered, I watched you turn into—”
He glanced over his shoulder to check if anyone was nearby, apparently aware of how loud his voice was rising.
He turned back to her and finished, “Whatever you are. Not to mention finding out my ex is trying to kill me. I’ve had a long day, and I need a drink.” He brushed his sleeve off as though Asra had left dirt on it. “Like it or not, I am a prince, and I’m not going to let you order me around.” He turned on his heel and stomped inside.
Asra counted to ten in her head as she watched him leave, focusing on slowing her breath with each number. She gripped the silver bracelet so hard that her fingers grew numb. It was all she could do to not throw the thing away and snap Ciaran’s head off with one bite. She had to remind herself more than once that she only needed him until the king was dead, then she would never have to deal with him again.
She stepped into a wide entrance hall just as opulent as the outside, right down to the guards’ bright blue coats. As she stepped onto the white marble floors, the four guards standing there raised their weapons and issued a warning to her.
“Put those away,” Ciaran said, waving his hand at the guards. “She’s with me.”
The guards seemed reluctant at first, but acquiesced. Asra stepped past them and followed Ciaran to the first doorway on the left.
Inside was a ritzy lounge. High-ranking nobles lazed on the plush furniture, softly illuminated by cool blue lights. When they recognized Ciaran, they raced to their feet to bow, as if the first person to do so would be bestowed some great honor. Asra grumbled under her breath and headed to the bar to their right. When she pulled a barstool out, its legs squeaked against the floor far more loudly than she had expected, and she caught several irritated glares from the nobles.
The bar had a larger stock of liquor than most liquor stores. Asra had only seen most of these bottles locked behind display cabinets. Each one probably cost more than a month’s pay in this backwater town.
Ciaran was far more gentle when he pulled his barstool out.
“People are supposed to bow when a prince enters the room.”
Asra snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“You were the one throwing a fit about needing to lay low and not draw attention to ourselves. If you want to blend in, you need to stop being childish and play by the rules.”
The bartender approached and bowed to Ciaran. The man was portly and balding, and he was twitchy in a way that would have raised Asra’s hackles if she were in her fur.
“How wonderful to see you again, Your Highness,” the bartender said, though the quiver in his voice said otherwise. Asra moved her hands beneath the bar top, twisting the silver band around her wrist.
“I’ll have my usual, please,” Ciaran said. He waved toward Asra. “And whatever she wants.”
Asra considered telling him she didn’t want anything, but her presence was already unwelcome by the other patrons here. None of them bothered to hide their sneers towards her, and the bartender himself looked as though he was being forced to serve a wild animal. She didn’t want to draw more attention to herself, and though she would never admit it to Ciaran, she could use something to calm her nerves as well.
“Mezcal, neat.”
The bartender opened his mouth to ask a question, but Ciaran cut him off.
“Just give her the year-aged.” He watched the bartender work as he said to Asra, “Mezcal? I didn’t expect you to order something so pretentious.”
“It’s not pretentious where I come from. And you’re the one who ordered the year-aged.”
Ciaran took his drink from the bartender and said, “I’m going up to my suite to wash and change into fresh clothing. If you’d like to do the same, ask one of the guards.”
Asra grunted as he left. There wasn’t much point in washing when they would just be heading back out into the filthy swamp soon, anyway. She’d rather take advantage of the opportunity to stay off her feet for a short while.
Although it would be a relief to escape the surrounding nobles for a moment. Their scornful glares bore into Asra’s skin like hot embers. She sipped her drink and took a deep breath, and her eyes trailed off to the bartender again.
The man’s hands trembled as he worked, and he made far more clumsy mistakes than a trained professional in a fancy bar should. Asra slipped the silver bracelet off her wrist and slid it onto the bartop, trying not to wince against the loud music and conversation around her. She sniffed in his direction as subtly as she could manage.
The man reeked of the fear and stress adrenals that flooded his bloodstream. She glanced over her shoulder at the rest of the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. What did he have to be nervous about?
She turned back and slipped the silver band back onto her wrist. Ciaran’s voice startled her when he sidled back up to the bar.
“I figured out what the silver does,” he said. “It cancels out your power, doesn’t it? It prevents you from shapechanging.”
Asra glanced over her shoulder to the patrons behind them, then to the bartender. All well out of earshot. “Yes. And healing. And using magic. Helps me blend in with your kind.”
“It makes you human.”
Asra’s lip curled. “I’m never human. But … for lack of a better term, yes.”
“How does it do that?”
Asra shrugged.
Ciaran leaned forward to prop his chin on his hand, tapping his lips with his finger. “Interesting. You know, Vincent has been experimenting with silver. Something about it helping to defend against magic blowback when using lodestones. I bet he would know why it affects your people like that.”
Asra opened her mouth to warn him against sharing that information, but was cut off by her stomach’s loud grumble.
“You should eat something,” Ciaran said. “You haven’t eaten anything in five days, you know.”
Asra’s head snapped to him. “What?”
“It’s been five days since we left Windemere City. They must have used some kind of spell to keep us asleep for the whole trip here. Well, perhaps ‘asleep’ is the wrong word. More like frozen. If we’d just been sleeping, I’d already be … ” His brow furrowed, and he clamped his lips shut. He glared at his brandy as he swirled it in the glass.
“What?” Asra asked.
“Nothing,” he said, then took a sip. “I’m just grateful Thomson has been keeping his word.”
“What’s that mean?”
Ciaran swirled the brandy around in his glass once more. “Technically, I’m forbidden from leaving the palace. Nolan’s last orders before he left.”
Asra sipped her mezcal. The fact that humans were forbidden from doing something simply because someone else told them they couldn’t was a concept she would never understand.
But that was not what concerned her most about this news.
“Won’t that cause even more trouble for us when he finds out you’re gone?”
“I don’t think those orders have left the capital city,” Ciaran said. “I have a friend in the royal guard who snuck me out and is keeping the other guards from getting suspicious. Nolan has no reason to think I’ve left the palace.”
“He will when the nobles here start blabbing.”
“Yes, but by the time that reaches him we’ll be long gone, hopefully at our destination.” He sipped his drink. “You think I’m an idiot, but I know what I’m doing. I’ve dealt with this sort of thing for far longer than you have.”
He downed the rest of his glass, then held it up to the bartender. The man reached behind him for a new glass, but Ciaran said, “Same glass is fine, Steve. You know I’m not picky.”
“How far back does this little detour put us?” Asra asked.
The bartender dropped off Ciaran’s next drink. The prince took a sip and pondered for a moment before he spoke.
“It adds at least another two weeks, maybe two and a half. The main roads have to meander a bit to avoid the worst of the badlands.”
“Can’t we just go through the badlands and save time?”
Ciaran barked a laugh. “Oh, sure. If you have a death wish. They’re called ‘the badlands’ for a reason. Have you ever encountered a dragon before?”
Asra grunted. “We should probably get moving, then.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“We should probably rest here and prepare for the journey. It’s not going to be easy. You don’t seem to understand—”
A noble called for him from across the room, and Ciaran turned to wave. He turned back to Asra and said, “I need to speak with the duke. Try not to murder anyone while I’m gone.”
He left, and Asra calculated their time frame in her head. If everything went perfectly, they would arrive at Nolan’s fortress in roughly three weeks, which would offer about a month’s buffer before he launched his attack. A shiver rippled down Asra’s spine. Knowing her luck, that didn’t seem like anywhere near enough of a buffer.
She twisted in her seat to watch Ciaran. He laughed and gossipped with the nobles, each of them hanging onto his every word. She downed the rest of her mezcal. What did that spoiled brat understand of the gravity of their situation? He was only concerned with taking the throne for himself. He didn’t care about the lives that hung in the balance.
The thought turned her attention to Sophie and Liam, which then reminded her of her speaking mirror. She wrenched her rucksack from the floor onto the bar and tore through the contents until her fingers found the familiar leather case. She took a deep breath and pulled the mirror from the soft suede.
It was shattered. Asra’s heart sank to the floor. The lodestone, thankfully, was unharmed, but she had no idea when she’d be able to get her hands on another mirror. Until then, she wouldn’t be able to reach her friends.
She turned again to Ciaran. He was basking in the praise of sycophants while Asra’s people were unaware of the danger that loomed over them. She pushed herself away from the bar, the stool squeaking against the floor loudly enough to startle the bartender, then stomped over to the prince.
“Are you almost done here?” Asra growled in his ear. “We need to get moving.”
He stared at her for a moment, clearly pondering his next words to her. The gathered nobles pretended not to be bothered by her, but she caught the sidelong glances in her direction and the hushed words they passed to each other.
“I told you we were going to rest here,” Ciaran whispered. “We can discuss our next steps later tonight in private.”
“And you also told me that Vincent got us in your apartment because it was secluded. I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay here.”
“It’s also not a good idea to venture into the badlands at night wholly unprepared. Sit down and we’ll discuss this later.”
“Who is your friend, Your Highness?” asked one of the nobles. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
The man spoke in a heavy accent that Asra was unfamiliar with and uninterested in placing. He was bald with deep brown skin and nearly as many jeweled earrings as Ciaran. Judging by the look on his face, the nobleman was not impressed by Asra’s clothing or the odd glasses on her nose.
“Just my new assistant,” Ciaran said, with a heavy implication of no one worth worrying about.
“Your altruism is inspiring, Your Highness,” the nobleman continued with a tight-lipped smile. “So gracious of you to uplift commoners into the roles of nobles. I only hope they don’t start to think they’re of noble birth themselves.”
A few of the other nobles laughed, and Asra gripped her silver bracelet. The coward wouldn’t be so bold if Asra were in her fur.
Ciaran shrugged and smiled. “Wasn’t your grandmother a commoner? Good thing your grandfather was similarly altruistic, or you wouldn’t exist to grace us with your presence.”
“I meant no disrespect, Your Highness,” the nobleman said with a deep bow. “I’m only concerned for your safety. I would hate to see one of your charity cases turn on you.”
Ciaran smoothed his shirt, and Asra didn’t miss the irritation in the motion. “I’ll be sure to let Lady Ophelia know of your concerns with my ‘charity cases.’”
The noble opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, the woman next to him gripped his arm, piercing him with a warning glare. A vein bulged in the nobleman’s temple, but he said no more.
Ciaran turned to Asra and said, “You can wait for me in my suite. One of the guards will take you there.”
“You can take this with you,” the noble said, forcing his empty glass into Asra’s hands so abruptly that she grasped it on reflex. “And tell the barkeep I want another one on your way out. There’s a good girl.”
Ciaran tensed beside her.
“Asra,” he warned, his voice barely above a whisper.
But Asra had had enough. She threw the flute down at the man’s feet, the glass shattering and skittering across the polished floor. The noble jumped back, hand clutched to his chest, and the entire room fell silent. The tension shifted toward Ciaran; everyone wanted to know how he would react to Asra’s unruliness.
He squared his shoulders to her, and his voice was low. “You need to leave.”
Asra squared her shoulders to him in return. “You told me we were here to rest and strategize. All you’ve done is drink.”
“I’m not explaining myself to you. Go upstairs and wait for me.”
“I’m not your servant! You can’t order me around!”
“You are in my kingdom, on my property. You will abide by the rules.”
“You spoiled brat!” Asra snarled, gripping him by the collar of his shirt. “This isn’t a game!”
“You need to put me down, Asra.”
The guards from the front hall had arrived, and four rifles were now pointed at Asra. The rest of the room stood silent, transfixed by the scene before them.
Asra shoved him away from her, and Ciaran waved off the guards. She pushed her glasses back up her nose and looked out of the corner of her eye at the nobles gathered around them. All the nagging she’d done to Ciaran about keeping a low profile, and she’d likely just blown what little cover they had.
“Just a little misunderstanding,” Ciaran said to the room. “Nothing to worry about.”
The music and low babble of conversation resumed, and Ciaran called over one of the guards.
“Take her to my suite,” he told the woman. “I’ll deal with her later.”
She gripped Asra’s arm, but Asra pulled it away from her and stomped toward the exit.
Ciaran’s voice followed her out of the room: “Terribly sorry for the commotion. You know how difficult it is to find decent help these days … Wish she could at least handle her liquor … ”
Asra turned to glance over her shoulder one last time as she rounded the corner out of the lounge, and the bartender’s intense stare made her hair stand on end.
----------------------------------------
Asra paced the length of Ciaran’s suite for what must have been the eight-hundredth time. She contemplated—for what must have been the four-hundredth time—simply leaving without him. But she had no idea how to get back to Windemere City, much less Nolan’s fortress, and she’d certainly never faced a dragon.
She walked the perimeter of the suite, her eyes scanning every nook and cranny from the bedroom to the bathroom to the living room. The suite was sleek and minimalistic, its stark white walls nearly bare. The only splashes of color came from tall blue vases inside brightly lit niches in the wall and the blue curtains over the windows.
Asra thought again of the twitchy bartender. She wondered how long it would take him to rat her and Ciaran out, and how many other people here might be more loyal to Vincent than the crown.
She approached the window in the bedroom and peeked through the drapery. She was three stories up, with nothing but cobblestone beneath. Not an ideal jump, but a broken leg was preferable to a bullet in the head.
She headed to the small cold box in the kitchen. The inside was filled mostly with jugs of water and glass bottles of liquor and wine, along with a bottle of milk. She pushed the booze aside and stuffed all the containers of water into her bag. There was enough there to last them at least a few days, if they were careful.
Asra’s stomach growled again. Ciaran had sent up food a couple hours ago, but it was clearly his idea of a “clever” joke. The aroma of the flaky biscuits made her mouth water and her stomach do backflips, but the grape preserves that drowned the pastries prevented her from devouring them. A single bite could seriously poison her.
Asra was indulging in potential revenge scenarios when the lock to the front door clicked open and Ciaran stepped inside, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He reeked of brandy and the expensive perfumes of the nobles in the lounge.
When Asra made it clear she was not going to speak to him, Ciaran asked, “Care to explain that little display downstairs?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“You certainly do if you want my help getting to Nolan.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Well, unfortunately for both of us, you need my help. And if you’re going to receive my help, you’re going to behave like a civil member of society.”
Asra’s lip curled. “If ‘behaving like a civil member of society’ means I have to let a bunch of rich pricks treat me like a servant, you can forget it.”
Ciaran took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. It took him a moment to speak.
“What Duke Lambert did was … unfair,” he said. “You’re not a servant, and I would never present you as one. I’ve never particularly liked him in the first place.” He took another deep breath. “But you are a commoner—in his eyes, at least—and he is nobility, and that does mean he’s owed a certain amount of deference.”
“And you think that’s right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, Asra. This is the way things are. I simply play my part, just like you do.”
Asra snorted. “Yeah, lucky for you, ‘your part’ means drinking fancy liquor while a bunch of brown-nosers kiss your ass.”
“Do you think I enjoy entertaining these pompous bastards?” Ciaran asked with a bitter laugh. “Don’t you understand? If I don’t have the support of the most powerful nobles across the kingdom, my holdings will crumble within months after I take the crown. I’ll be deposed and executed before my arse has even warmed the throne.”
Asra clicked her tongue in mock sympathy. “What a shame that would be.”
Ciaran laughed. “All this time, I’ve wondered what kind of person you grew into. But you haven’t grown at all. You’re just as much of a child as the day we met.”
His eyes flicked to the cold plate of biscuits.
“I mean, really,” he continued with a roll of his eyes. “Do you think going on a hunger strike is going to hurt my feelings?”
“I can’t eat that, idiot. It’s covered in grapes.”
“Why would that—” His eyes widened. “Oh. Grapes are toxic to dogs.”
“Yep.”
His brow furrowed. “But alcohol is also toxic to dogs, and you drank that.”
“Alcohol is toxic to everyone, prince.”
Ciaran folded his arms, apparently needing a second to contemplate this. His eyes then shifted to Asra’s overstuffed bag.
“Are you planning on leaving tonight?” he asked.
“We might need to.”
“Asra, relax. Vincent isn’t stupid enough to try anything here.”
“You said something similar at your apartment.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ciaran said, throwing his head back. “You’re as paranoid as Nolan.”
Asra rounded on him, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Don’t you dare compare me to him!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Ciaran said, pushing Asra’s hand aside. “It’s your fault he’s like this in the first place! We were perfectly happy before you showed up in the palace that night—”
“I was kidnapped!”
“We both know that’s a lie. And now I may lose everything because of it. I’ve already lost my brother. My dog. After that fiasco downstairs, I may lose the throne. And it’s all your fault!”
They were close enough that Asra could hear his heart pounding in his chest, even through the sound of their heavy breathing. They said nothing for a moment, their noses less than foot apart.
“I wish you’d never shown up that night,” he said finally. “My life would be immeasurably better without you in it.”
Asra took another step towards him, closing what little space remained between them. She was used to humans yielding to her presence and body pressure, even if they weren’t sure why. But his face remained resolute, and he did not yield her any ground.
“Well,” Asra said. “There’s something we can finally agree on.”
Ciaran waved a hand at her, as if to shoo her away, and pushed past her toward the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Asra said.
“To change into my nightclothes. I’ll sleep on the sofa.” He paused with his hand on the door. “I just want this day to be over.”
And he disappeared into the bedroom without another word.
----------------------------------------
Asra wished Ciaran had just taken the bed. She had no intention of sleeping that night, anyway, and she craved a few hours without his presence in the room.
She paced the area in front of the door, her claws clicking on the polished floors, something that apparently annoyed the hell out of Ciaran.
“Do you ever trim those talons of yours?” he snapped. “They’re so damn loud.”
“Dogs have claws. Claws make noise.”
“Not if you trim them properly. Bane’s claws never made any noise.”
Asra grunted. Bane’s claws had been the tiny nubs of a show dog, useless for anything practical. But she wouldn’t argue with him any further. She didn’t want to remind him of the loss of his dog any more than was necessary.
Asra circled a spot on the area rug at the center of the room and flopped down, her eyes fixated on the door in front of her—the only entrance to the suite. She hoped her nerves would give her enough energy to stay awake, but the instant her elbows hit the ground, the exhaustion of the day overwhelmed her. Fortunately, the images and sensations that ran through her mind every time she closed her eyes—the crunch of bone, the gushing of blood, the pain that ripped through her flank as fast as the bullet—did more than enough to dissuade her from falling asleep.
“I don’t enjoy killing people, you know,” Asra said. “I just do what I have to.”
“Where did that come from? Guilty conscience?” Ciaran’s blanket rustled behind her. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
He went silent, and Asra’s head drooped. She fought to keep her heavy eyelids open, her gaze locked on the front door.
“What’s a convert?”
Asra’s eyes peeled open, and she craned her head back to look at Ciaran. “What?”
“You mentioned your father looking for converts earlier today, but you didn’t explain what they were.”
Asra’s first instinct was to tell him it was none of his business, but talking might help her keep her eyes open long enough to keep them alive. She doubted Ciaran would be able to do any harm with the information, anyway.
“Humans who have been bitten and become shapechangers.”
“You said you couldn’t change humans,” Ciaran said.
“We can’t. Dogs with the gift can. Normal dogs, I mean. Or foxes or wolves or … whatever.”
“I don’t understand.”
Footsteps creaked on the stairs outside. Asra’s ears swiveled forward, muscles tensed, then relaxed when she heard nothing else.
“There’s two ways to become a shapechanger,” she continued. “You can be born to two shapechanger parents—like me—or you can be bitten by a dog with the gift.”
“Which is?”
Asra sighed. She was so tired she could barely think straight, let alone form a coherent explanation. “Some dogs have a kind of magic. They can’t use it themselves, but if they bite a human, they could become a shapechanger. We call it the gift.” She yawned and forced her eyelids open again. “And the people who are bitten and survive are called converts. My dad would go to the city to look for them, to make sure they went someplace safe.”
“Do you get a lot of converts?”
Asra grunted. “No. My friend Liam was the last one, and that was over twenty years ago.”
She didn’t mention her people’s rapidly declining population. That was information he could do harm with.
“What if a human and a shapechanger had children?” Ciaran asked. “What would those children be?”
“Why would any of us want to do that?” Asra grumbled.
Truthfully, she had pondered the question herself, especially with the way her father supposedly got around the capital city. There had been not-so-quiet rumors back home that her father only took so many humanitarian trips to the city because he enjoyed having human lovers. She remembered her parents’ hushed late-night arguments about it.
Asra had been hopeful that she might discover a half-sibling somewhere, but she’d found no sign of one after nearly a decade in Windemere City. Either her father had been extra careful, or it simply wasn’t possible for humans and shapechangers to procreate.
Asra herself had engaged in a few short-lived flings with humans, but Asra wasn’t at any risk of having children of any kind. She’d made sure of that shortly after she arrived in the city.
Stairs creaked once again outside the front door, and Asra leapt to her paws. She sniffed and found the unmistakable scent of Vincent. Not strong enough to be the man himself, but strong enough that it could only mean bad news.
“Asra, relax! No one—”
“Shut up!” she hissed. Her ears flexed fully forward, straining for any sound. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to get in. That hope was dashed as the deadbolt on the door clicked open. She crept backward as a thin tool slipped through the crack of the door to push the swing lock open.
“Get up,” Asra whispered as she neared Ciaran. He now sat rigid upright on the sofa, eyes wide at the increasingly useless door. “Open the window.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have hands.” The swing lock made a soft tap as it hit the wall. Now only the lock on the knob separated them from the intruders.
“You’re not going to jump out, are you?” Ciaran asked.
“We both are.”
“What?”
“Open it!”
She heard a metal key slip into the slot on the other side of the door as Ciaran scrambled from the bed and fumbled with the window locks.
“Too late!” Asra shouted as the door burst open. “Move!”
Ciaran threw himself aside just as Asra lifted a hind leg and donkey kicked through the thick glass. Her bone and ligament shattered with the window, and she snarled through the pain. She snatched Ciaran by the collar of his shirt and turned to launch herself through the open frame. Sharp fragments along the opening snagged her coat and skin as she pushed through, bullets fragmenting the intact glass next to her.
She landed hard on the concrete below, pain splintering up her paws and legs. She bit down on Ciaran’s shirt and gritted through it as bullets whizzed past her head. Her claws scraped the cobblestone as she raced down the empty roads, clumsily adjusting her gait for her broken hind leg, until they reached the outskirts of town. She scented the trail they’d entered on and followed it back into the swamp.
Asra only stopped when the pain in her leg became unbearable. She dropped Ciaran to the ground and flopped over on her side, panting, tongue lolled out on the ground. Ciaran scrambled around the damp earth, then collapsed.
Asra lifted herself upright and sniffed the air. She couldn’t smell anyone for miles. There was only the stench of the swamp. She looked around for Ciaran and found him sitting cross-legged a dozen feet away, slumped over with his head in his hands.
“Hey,” she said between gasps. “I can’t go any more with this leg tonight. We’ll have to sleep here.”
Ciaran made no acknowledgement of her. Blood blossomed through his torn shirt and dripped down his arms, but Asra didn’t smell enough to be concerned about serious injuries. She didn’t want to smell it anymore than was necessary. It was bitter and pungent.
“We’ll need to take turns sleeping to make sure no one followed,” she continued. “You can sleep first. I need to keep an eye on my leg while it starts healing. There’s a blanket in my bag if you want it, but you’ll have to get it.”
Ciaran pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to grab the blanket out of Asra’s bag. He then shuffled back to his previous spot and plopped down with his back turned to Asra, pulling the blanket over him.
Biting insects swarmed them, and the damp earth would completely soak through her fur and Ciaran’s clothes by morning. The roar of amphibians was even louder than it had been that afternoon, and the way it drowned out any other sounds made Asra even more on edge.
It was going to be a long night.