“Fen,” Rosalea whispered back, looking into the large wolf’s eyes. Her breath caught as she felt pain throughout her body. It was like her magic was surging, maybe even boiling within her; her skin felt hot, and she felt as if her head was reeling. She went to put her hands to her head but felt like her body could not move. “You have to embrace it, Fen’s voice came into her head, like it was her own thought. “Embrace it, move with it. This is the truth for you. You must accept it.”

The boiling turned into pressure, a pulling sensation all over her: her fingers wanted to pull themselves into a more compact shape, while her arms wanted to lengthen and shift. She rebelled against it and tried to force it away. It persisted: she could feel it pressing through her body, insisting that she give in. She clenched her eyes shut, trying to rally everything she had to reject it. “It is the truth. Stop fighting the truth.” Fen said again. “There are times in life that you must stop being stubborn and relinquish control. If you cannot do it, if you cannot become yourself, you will die, Nadia.”

Nadia, the real name her mother had given her before Ieshans pretended she was someone else and gave her some other name. There was something achingly familiar in the wolf calling her name; a faraway memory of something she thought she should have remembered, but there simply wasn’t anything that she could actually remember. She felt like she was losing her grip on her identity. Whatever this was, it was going to win, no matter what she did. She felt her body lowering, like she was leaning forward, her hands reaching for the ground. She felt like her insides and her limbs were jerking and twisting; she felt the muscles on her face spasming and aching. What is happening to me?

“Become yourself,” the wolf’s voice persisted. “Let go.”

Rosalea relented. She gave in to whatever this was. The next moment, her… feet? … hit the ground. Her arms were oddly proportioned, straight and long… and black and fuzzy. She looked up at the wolf, who was now looking down smirking at her. “There you go! Not so difficult, now was it? Come on!” The wolf said as she spun around and ran away.

Rosalea felt compelled to follow. She jerked her limbs forward and nearly tripped on herself as her arms and legs struggled to work together. A few more staggering steps, and she was getting used to the idea that she seemed to have no arms and four legs. After a few more struggling steps, her brain caught up to her shape. She slowly trotted in the direction she had felt the wolf head in. “Come on! Or I shall nickname you sluggish one!”

Rosalea adjusted, she was lower to the ground; she had compacted and powerful limbs. She was built for running and built for power. She braced herself, took a deep breath, and ran. Once she began to run, it felt good. It didn’t take her long to catch sight of the tawny-colored wolf trotting a little ahead of her in the trees. She felt a little thrill of excitement from her liana feeding back to her as Fen ran.

Rosalea sped after her, becoming more conscious of her senses. The earthy smell of dirt mixed with the smells of creatures that passed over it and plants that grew on it. She grew conscious of hundreds of fresh smells and hardly knew how to recognize any.

“It will come in time. In time, you will learn to master this shape as well as your other one,” Fen encouraged her in soft tones, letting Rosalea catch up to her. She was wheezing for air through her open mouth, feeling the taste of the cold on it on a now rather different tongue.

“You exhausted me… before I got here,” she admitted, a little embarrassed as she promptly slowed to a walk, and the big tawny colored wolf next to her also slowed to a walk.

“I know that you are very stubborn, and I did not want you to have too much energy to fight what is good for you.”

Rosalea huffed, sat down, and stared up at her. “I did not realize that having a liana would fill my life with so much sass,” she complained. It was a light-hearted complaint. The sensation of tense emotions within her had entirely resolved, and that empty expanse within her magic and mind felt… right, somehow. She had been so alone all her life, but she was fully aware of this wolf, her liana, in a way that made her understand that she could not possibly be alone again.

“It is not my fault if you find the truth to be the same as sass,” her liana answered smugly. She lowered her nose to Rosalea’s, “You and I are connected until death. I will be with you, I will guide you, I will follow you, and I will speak only the truth until my days are done.”

Rosalea closed her eyes and stepped forward a little, leaning up against the other wolf. She was not cold anymore; she was not anxious. The feeling of being almost over-energized and manic was just tired relief. It was like there was a pressure in her center that felt full and at ease. Fen rested her head over Rosalea’s neck and shoulders. “Why could I not have had you in Mire? It was so terrible and empty, and I feel like I almost forgot what it is like not to feel that emptiness until just now.”

The wolf did not answer her, just let her creep a little closer to the warm fluff and sat with her, letting her gather her strength. Fen pressed her neck and head over Rosalea’s back. Even if she was not there then, she was here now, and having her here was soothing. Even with all the fur on her body, the setting sun was leaving things pretty chilly.

Suddenly, the moment ended. “Get up, we have to go. Right now!” Fen was on her feet, body rigid and arched, all the hair along the large wolf’s back stood up. “What are they even doing here? Hurry! Get up!” She nudged Rosalea roughly onto her feet, back in the direction that they had come.

Rosalea felt panic surge through her, not just from Fen’s behavior, but because Fen was panicking and Rosalea realized she was feeling it as well. It was a lot to process. She turned around and started trotting back the way she had come, looking back at Fen, concerned and confused. Fen suddenly snarled at something ahead of Rosalea, and when Rosalea looked, she backpedaled in a confused manner as she all but came face to face with a bear coming toward her through the trees.

Confusion.

Then.

Recognition.

The Ieshan mind magic struck hard, throwing her out of her shape. She landed on her side in the snow, a confused tangle of human limbs and clothes. She could not feel or hear Fen as they used the technique that they had developed to fill the air with mental interference. The bear stood up and became a man, striding toward her.

Ulric! The image of a cottage flashed into her head, of a man lying dead on the floor next to his own liana, of her mother who sank to the floor dead… trying to protect a child from this man. She remembered instantly how much she hated him!

A moment later, she was on her feet. Rosalea had the utility knife in her hand, and she was running at him. She hadn’t planned to. She hadn’t thought it out. She only knew that he had to pay for the murders he had committed, for the parents he had robbed her of, for how he had hurt her. He froze, meeting her eyes, and she reached him a second later. She brought the knife up, staring hard into his startled face; she was going for his throat…

She had honestly stabbed at him with all the force she could muster, and yet, as the blade nearly reached his skin, she halted.

Why? she internally screamed at herself, body shaking as she willed herself to drive that blade down, plunge it right into his neck!

There was no answer for herself. She simply could not do it. Maybe it was the startled, helpless look on his face. Maybe it was that she didn’t have it in her to kill him or anyone else. She trembled, the knife shaking in her hand as he stared back at her, frozen, for a few heartbeats. Two men caught up, coming out from the trees on either side of her, and tackled her to the ground.

I should have made him pay. A life for two lives is more than fair in any law! She quivered, her body screaming pain from all that had happened to it lately. She saw more Ieshans emerging from the trees. Ulric shook himself, the color returning to his face, and he walked around so that he was by her head. He knelt down. “Now, we are going to do what I said we would have to do the first time you attacked me,” he said softly, slapping her hard. Her face stung. Then he gently laid his hands along the sides of her head. “You are going to do what is right for your people.”

“NO!” she writhed and tried to summon magic to throw them all away from her, but they were kneeling on her arms and hands, and she could not do magic without moving with it. Animals emerged from the trees at practically every angle, transforming into men, holding her legs down, pressing down on her forehead, pressing down on her chest. She couldn’t move. Her heart beat frantically.

Ulric glanced up to where Fen was hovering near him, snarling fiercely, her hackles raised high, snapping and biting the air inches from his face. “You can’t hurt me. Calm yourself, it will be over soon enough.”

The wolf snarled at him, Rosalea had never seen anything so frighteningly wild in all her life. Ulric looked down at Rosalea and she saw his eyes grow distant. His hands on the sides of her face began to get uncomfortably warm, as did all the hands touching her body. Her heart felt like it was going to explode if it beat any faster. She closed her eyes, this was it. If she couldn’t fight them off, it was over. They were going to take away her free will for good.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I need to reach my inner world. Maybe I can just try to keep them out from there. That is how I found Kaylar’s spell… It felt like there was thick smothering interference between her focus and her magic. She was conscious of Fen snarling and biting… It is because of her. Interfering with her must be the same as interfering with me now.

Heat spread through her body and with it a buzzing sensation in her skull. Her mind was flashing back to Ulric teaching her bow and arrow for the first time. One moment, she could remember it clearly, and then suddenly it was just fading, as if blankets of blankness and emptiness were being layered over the top of it.

If I cannot defend myself, I will be lost forever! She pushed herself hard; she had gotten to her inner world almost every day for years now, so they couldn’t stop her. At last, she stood on the banks of her inner pool of magic. There were a dozen threads of red-vitae magic pressing into the surrounding water.

No! her desperation rose. Yet, even here, she felt like she was blacking out, like she was going to faint, and her heartbeat would not slow down. She flashed back to her first fuzzy memories of Genya, and one by one, they were being blanked out, like layer upon layer of numbing mindlessness were being placed over them…

She imagined and made a heaving upwards gesture, and magic leaped out of the pool and river and cocooned around what she perceived to be herself. A great pressure leaving her mind, but now it was being exerted over her barrier. She could also see how many spots they were pressing against. She felt staggered. Ten… eleven… twelve… she felt despair flood her. Her barrier nearly crumbled, and she summoned more, though the dark brown magic wall was cracking as fast as she solidified it.

It felt unfair. There was not even time to observe how her magic had changed now that it was complete. She barely knew her liana’s name. The barrier kept cracking and she kept burning through her magic trying to protect herself, not to lose even one more memory of something precious. Even so, the reality of the situation pressed in on her. There is no way I can hold against so many. There is no way I can win. It is over…

But she wasn’t willing to wholly give up yet. She didn’t know why Ieshans were here, but she did know that Kaylar promised her that she would be safe. Maybe there was a chance that if she could let him know where she was, send some kind of plea for help, he might come for her. Kaylar had only just one mind spell left on me for that brand. When she had practiced using it with him during their training, she only had to only focus on it for it to light up faintly and for Kaylar to confirm that he could feel it.

One of the men cracked through her barrier, and she could feel him reaching into her mind again. He was trying to force her to drop her magic entirely. She fought back, but she could feel her magic becoming spent and weakened despite herself. She envisioned the mark on her hand, and willed it to be charged with all her remaining magic. Please!

A moment later, she could no longer fight back and all went dark.

***

Kaylar was jolted by a sudden stab of Please! in his brain. He could always feel when the brands were used to call for him, but they had never conveyed any words along with activating. He was a little over wondering about weird things that Rosalea could do. No, it is more than just words, I can feel fear and desperation with it. The only reason she could be desperate was if she was in trouble…

Kaylar stopped what he was doing without much explanation, and he flew upwards, so that he could see the entire of his estate, even the isolated areas. Not knowing what to expect, he began summoning people to gem storage. Rhainnon, the friend who knew her best had a good grasp of imber magic. Yelena was also needed, as she could speak clearly with the animals and had good terra magic. Briar was also a friend, and good with plants.

He flew in the direction he knew she had called him from, but it felt like it had been a very long way off.

It took him more than two hours to find the spot, she had traveled more than thirty miles, and part of that had probably been as an animal. To his essa enhanced vision, he could see red on the snow. Residual mind magic, he realized with a sinking feeling. That can only mean that Ieshans somehow managed to find her here…

It was already dark, and even his eyes were not finding much movement in the trees. He landed as carefully as he could in the area, trying not to disturb too much of the prints in the snow, but it was obvious that there had been a lot of people walking around in this area. But she was gone less than a day. How could they have found her here?

He felt sudden doubts about Yelena, but she hadn’t shown even the slightest hint of duplicity with him. He watched her carefully.

He looked around, but saw no signs of men. Well, he might not, given what he was dealing with. He landed. He brought his four people out of gem storage. Rhainnon was attached to a bale of hay. Briar had a bundle of apples. Yelena was the only one without anything work related in her hands. All of them were looking confused and concerned.

“Rosalea is in trouble. I want each of you to help figure out what happened in this spot.”

Yelena crossed her arms and looked very cross. All the same, her eyes were scanning the trees.

Rhainnon paled. She looks worn, Kaylar thought sympathetically to her. First she wakes up one morning, and Rosalea is nowhere to be found. I explained to her that she would come back once she had liana literally just this morning, but Rhainnon never really believed Rosalea would come back on her own. And now I bring her here and tell her this…

Rhainnon closed her eyes, and he watched her imber magic flare up all around her, and Briar buried magic within the plants, trying to wake them and find out what anything might know.

Yelena was the first that spoke. She turned, looking a little pleased with herself, which she made no effort to conceal as she was the first with information. “The animals here tell me that half-people… er, Ieshans, came here. They had been tracking a forest-child?” She looked confused and her mouth was moving softly. “Yes, they say “forest-child,” whatever that means, but they agree that the forest child had silver hair.” Yelena frowned, focusing, lips moving without making sound, obviously trying to get clarity on something.

She looked up at Kaylar, and she was all frowns now, all of the smugness was gone. “They say the Ieshans had friends that could fly. They describe these animals as being really big, much bigger than any of them are, and at least one bear answered me, so that is really big. They say the animals have paws and tails, but also wings and beaks. I think… they are talking about gryphons?” she asked in really confused tones. “I thought they only lived in the northern mountains? You know with… the… the…”

“And these gryphons took Rosalea where?” Kaylar persisted, ignoring her refusal to name an entire clan of people that were related to the changers but viewed as traitors.

“That way,” she pointed west. “One of the animals said the Ieshans have been looking for her for a long time and knew she was here because…” she trailed off uncomfortably.

Because these very same animals told them where she was. Kaylar understood her discomfort perfectly. How long had animals been spying on the people in his home? I wish I knew what Uryan tribe she had spent time with. I wonder if it is still there.

Rhainnon paled and looked to Kaylar. “We have to go after her! Please!”

Yelena sneered. “Why should that be? She is finally going back to where she belongs!”

Rhainnon turned on her. “Belongs? Rosalea was always running away from people chasing her!”

Yelena sneered. “A Princess does not run from her people if she is not scum, like you, Uyran!”

“Briar?” he ignored the quarreling changers for a moment, but the plant mage just shook his head and couldn’t offer anything that helpful. He looked confused and worried.

“Argue later,” Kaylar bluntly interrupted the two girls that were getting closer to each other with body language projecting violence. He called the three of them back to storage. He took off again.

Ieshans have at least a two-hour lead on me. Can I fly faster than a griffin? He knew, he thought, for a fact, that there were no Ieshan castles or forts within a single day’s flying distance of his home. The nearest one was Castle Darius, and it was hundreds of miles away over a mountain range, and in the middle of a sandstone desert. It was a long, long way away.

I wish I knew more about timelines with her. How long was she with the Ieshans? Did she sort her magic when she was the usual age? Sooner? Later?

He wished he knew how long they were looking for her, and he wished he knew how long they had known where she was and had planned for this. If they figured out that she was in Mire, and the animals themselves were spies, then…? Yelena had come to him about a year ago, and he knew that she had fled to avoid marriage and to get away from her father, and that had gotten her captured by slave trading Myradulians. That told him that Rosalea had been missing for at least a year.

However, to his surprise, after mulling over all the different options and ways that time could fit together, he only ended up flying for another three hours before he found a fort. It was definitely new, the landscape around it was thoroughly scarred by use of terra magic, and he saw a lot of magic variety there. Probably means plenty of slaves. A large griffin perched on the roof of the fort, and it shrieked with alarm at the sight of him.

He saw all the different humans scrabbling along the walls of the fort, arming ballista and calling archers that loosed several successive volleys of arrows and missiles at him. The weather darkened and got windy.

None of this was of particular concern to Kaylar, who used magic to defend himself with barely a thought, but the sheer number of people willing to stand in his way was… off putting. More and more of them appeared. They’ve probably got her deep in that fort, and I’d have to level the place to get her, and how many humans would I have to kill to do it? Could I do it with that many of them there? As several more ballista missiles launched at him, and clouds sparked with promised coming lightning, he knew they had prepared for him.

It was obvious to him now. They knew she was Uryan. They knew she had to leave his watch at some point. They had waited. They had prepared because they knew he could fly. He had no idea what they were prepared with in that fort, but he was not prepared to risk it. If he got hurt or killed, then all three humans with him would die in his gem storage. There’d be a whole incident if he attacked humans and leveled a structure, even if they were Ieshan. He wasn’t sure he could justify it to the dragon council.

I just cannot justify it. I have to let her go. I am sorry, Rhainnon. We will just have to wait and see what the Gods decide.

***

Nashota put his hand on Ulric’s shoulder as they watched the dragon fly away. “You did really well,” he said, patting it. “Your family…” he stopped himself, patted Ulric’s shoulder again, “Thank you.”

Nashota left the wall.

Ulric took a deep breath in and sighed. It was only luck that I was able to kill those elves and save the griffin. The big beast settled on the roof again, growling and hissing a little as it too watched the retreating blue dragon. Though... none of the rest of it was. It had taken organization and effort to trace her to the Uryans, find out what the animals called her forest child, and track her eventually to Mire. The dragon thought he was hidden, but the larger predator animals in the area knew well where he lived because they dared not go there. It was a gamble that the dragon could not hang onto her when her Uryan blood made her go looking for liana, but one Ulric had always been confident that they could win it.

I will never let her fail, he thought to himself. He took a deep breath, clenching his fists, and he told himself again, I will never let her fail. We are the last.

So why didn’t he feel better about himself?