He was a bird.
Then he was not.
Huge wings dissolved into broad shoulders and long arms attached to human hands and flexing fingers. Feathers dissipated into a torso that grew and elongated from the breast of a bird to the chest and abdomen of a man. He crouched over legs that simply uncurled beneath him, lifting him until he stood, head thrown back, body arching like he’d just awakened from a deep sleep. His palms turned up and his arms stretched wide, like he worshipped the sun that bathed him in light. Or maybe the sun worshipped him. Every inch of him was golden and warm—even his white hair reflected the burnished hue of sunrise.
He was completely unclothed and breathtakingly beautiful, and for a moment I could only stare, forgetting that the moment he turned, even slightly, he would see me, lying across the bed, watching him. As if I’d called his name, his head snapped toward me, and his arms fell to his sides. I watched as the black irises of pale avian eyes spread and became the narrowed, dark gaze of King Tiras.
I gazed at him, not even breathing, battling disbelief, and I watched as several emotions played across his face—doubt, shame, concern—before his supreme confidence won out, and he jutted out his chin and glared at me, ever the king, ever undeterred.
“You ran away.” It was such a peculiar thing to say, delivered with such perfect condemnation that I rubbed at my incredulous eyes and remained in the darkness I’d created behind my hands, certain I was still asleep.
If you are not a dream, will you please clothe yourself?
“And if I am a dream, would you like me to remain as I am?” he said wryly, but I heard the sound of movement and the rustle of cloth.
I nodded, then shook my head, then nodded again, my hands sliding to my burning cheeks, to my tousled hair, then to the wall for support, as I rose, refusing to look at him at all. I breathed deeply—once, twice, three times—then tried to dart past him out the cottage door, needing space, desperate for air, but he stepped in front of me and held out a hand like he was calming his horse. His tone changed to one of quiet pleading, as he pushed the door closed behind him.
“Don’t run away from me, Lark.”
I was pleased to see that he now wore breeches. He held a tunic clutched in the hand not extended toward me, and when he seemed satisfied that I wasn’t going to bolt, he pulled it over his head and tucked the billowing ends into his breeches. He then proceeded to pull woolen socks on his bare feet and shove them into a pair of boots I’d missed in the darkness. I could have sworn they were boots I’d seen before.
You’re a bird.
“Sometimes.”
You’re a Changer.
“Yes.”
Gifted.
“Yes.”
Like me.
“Like you.” He hesitated. “Do you see now? Do you understand?”
I stared at him blankly, lost in the maze of my unconnected thoughts. I didn’t understand at all . . . but I knew one thing.
You were the eagle in the forest . . . in Corvyn.
“Yes.”
You were injured. You had an . . . arrow . . . sticking out of your chest.
“The light helps me change, and change heals me. I just had to make it until dawn. When I changed from eagle to man, you were still lying there beside me.”
A few things started clicking into place, and he seemed to follow the train of my thoughts.
“I stole the clothes from the stable boy and a horse from your father. I rode back to where the army was camped, realizing that I’d almost died. Had it not been for you, I would have. I came back to find you, convinced you could heal me. When I realized who you were, and that you were unable to speak, I simply reacted, killing two birds with one stone, as they say. Your father has been plotting my death for as long as I’ve been alive. It was sweet justice that his daughter could save me.”
But I can’t.
“No. You can’t heal me from this. You comfort me. You help ease the agony, but you can’t heal me.”
I can’t heal what isn’t broken.
His eyes widened, and he took another step toward me. I wasn’t sure where my sentiment originated, but it seemed to stun him.
“I feel broken,” he confessed bleakly. Then he shook himself and squared his shoulders, readjusting his cloak of superiority.
“Changing used to be something I could control. I would feel it happening, and through will alone, I could beat it back. But in the last year it has become painful—resisting the change—and I give into it more than I used to. I don’t feel as much pressure to change in the daylight hours, though I can whenever I need to. I can when I am poisoned by plotting lords.”
I remembered him collapsing in the hallway. When you don’t resist . . . does it hurt?
“There is some pain, but it is fleeting, like the stretching of stiff limbs or the flexing of sore muscles. The second time you came to help me, it was overpowering, and I changed before you arrived in my room. When dawn broke, I thought you would see me, that you would see me become a man again. But Kjell heard my call and intervened.”
But you were sick . . . after.
Tiras nodded. “I had to fight to change back. For the first time ever, the sun rose and I didn’t become a man again. When I finally did, I was sick.”
Have you always been able to change? I’d never known anyone else who could change. Or maybe everyone just pretended to be normal.
“The night after your mother died, I changed for the first time. It was as if she recognized it in me. She knew.”
You will lose your son to the sky.
The prediction took on a whole new significance, and Tiras nodded as if he heard the words echoing in my memory.
“For several years it was a rare occurrence, and I grew accustomed to it. I almost convinced myself I was dreaming, though that became impossible after a while. It happened so infrequently, I believed I could hide it . . . from everyone.”
I couldn’t believe he wasn’t hiding it from me. He continued without pause.
“Kjell was the first to find out. Then my father. I hid myself here, in this cottage for a month, afraid of what he’d do. I’d seen firsthand how the Gifted were treated. I thought he would kill me. But my father died instead, not long after. And I became king.”
Why are you telling me this?
My voice sounded sharp in my head, whistling between my ears, and I wasn’t the only one to wince.
“I want you to understand, and I don’t want you to feel alone.” His voice was gruff, as if it made him uncomfortable to be kind.
And you want me to come with you to Kilmorda. You want me to help you. I thought of the conversation I’d overheard between him and Kjell.
He had the grace—or the arrogance—not to deny it.
“You can do so much more than move haystacks and scale walls.”
My eyes snapped to his, and his mouth quirked. “I saw you. Being a bird has its advantages.”
The thought made me sad, as if I’d been betrayed by a friend.
“If you run, Lark, I will bring you back. I need you,” he said without apology. “Jeru needs you.”
I need you. The words were so seductive. So tempting. I need you. No one had ever needed me before. So why did I feel so bereft that this king simply had need of me, nothing more?
I have always wanted to be of use, I admitted. He waited, clearly feeling the words I wasn’t saying. But when I didn’t give voice to them, he nodded, dismissing the questions in the air.