14. Caliel

14

Caliel

I made my way through the Richin market, back to the gateway.

The three small pieces of human technology in my pocket weighed more heavily on my mind than my body—but if I got very lucky, and managed to do what was needed, two of them could save many lives.

The third only had to save one.

The gatekeeper tapped her foot, waiting for payment. A half-buried memory surfaced—I flipped my hood off, and she bowed her head before turning to prepare my departure.

This Slade guy was a seriously nasty piece of work. The broken memories that kept pummeling me turned my stomach. The fear in the gatekeeper's eyes spoke volumes.

I stepped through the gateway into Murkan's perpetual drizzle and shifted my right foot a little left to avoid a puddle on the cobblestones. Or tried to—the signals did not properly transmit. I stumbled and barely stopped myself from falling.

Gritting my teeth, I sent a pulse of my healing talent racing along the nerves connecting brain to feet. My life essence might be inside Slade, but I was far from confident that it would ever properly mesh, even with the resident actually dead. And the repercussions if it did not—death might be preferable to what I might become.

Best not to think about it.

My right foot seemed a bit better connected to me, for the moment, anyway. I concentrated, reaching for Bree.

How hard I had to work now to speak with her was disturbing. And I could not hear Riggs at all. Moving out of Bree's body had disconnected me from him.

I did not know whether to be relieved at that, or alarmed.

I got the camera and the recorder, I told her. I did not tell her about the third component of my delivery. It would only start an argument.

Her relief was likely more of a rush than the brief tingle I actually experienced. Sid has not returned yet, and Riggs was worried.

Are you okay? I asked.

Don't worry about me. The sword is keeping Icey under wraps.

Icey. A charming name for a very un-charming monster. But it was all I could do to talk with her—her mental voice was now so weak. Helping her shore up the wall against the Ice Drake was impossible.

I may have paid a very high price for the ability to touch her. But I would never forget the moment I looked up into her face.

Her beautiful face.

I had told myself that I had done this for her. But I now realized that compliance, cantankerous as it was, had been about me all along.

About what I craved .

I had reached up a hand and touched her cheek.

And something deep inside me had begun to sing. Being able to feel the softness of her skin, the way the perfect lines of her jaw lay just beneath it, looking into those marvelous eyes—had fulfilled a dream.

And I wanted more. Much more. This new body may not yet be fully mine, but it yearned for her.

Or maybe Slade had just been a sex fiend. I could not tell for sure.

She smelled like—sweetberry biscuits?

At the time, I had just accepted it. But as I staggered toward the stronghold, I walked past a rather damp Dire in beast form, and he smelled like quarrenberry cookies.

Which I was fairly certain could not be true.

By the time I had cataloged half a dozen mis-associated sweet scents coming from a fetid alleyway, I had come to realize that the damage to the smell-associated memories in my brain had been more extensive than I realized. And that Slade had been hiding an unexpected secret—an unhealthy obsession with confectionaries.

The shattered non-food-related memories were more of an issue. As I splashed my way along the street and through the stronghold's front entrance, I searched them for specifics that would keep me alive while in this guise—little facts like where my quarters were, and how I related to the various people I was sure to bump into.

What I did not expect was who awaited me in the hall outside my suite. The memories that surfaced were rife with an emotion I did not normally associate with Slade?—

Fear.

The figure outside my door was much like my new identity, only a bit less hulking. His hair was also pale and striped. But his eyes flared gold as he watched me walk toward him.

"You drunk?" he demanded.

I caught an unlikely whiff of dindric muffins before I managed, "Hello, Father. I got thrown into a stone wall by a Storm Drake. I have a horrendous concussion, and that I have survived at all is auspicious."

Karst's eyes narrowed. "You suddenly swallow a fuckin' dictionary?"

Dammit, Caliel. Bree, her mindvoice weak, but worried. You can't just look like him. You need to sound like him, too.

Oh. Right. I cleared my throat, and added, "What is fucking it to you?"

She groaned in my head.

I tried again. "Why are you fucking here?"

Better, she admitted.

The older shifter frowned at me and lifted a lip. "Victor just called me in. He has a job for you and the ‘weirdo birdman', as he put it." He handed me a roll of paper. "Blueprints for you. Merchant taking liberties, needs a lesson. No Dragons, go in on foot. It's flip side, so you can do it today."

Flip side meant that the destination experienced its night cycle while we did the day. "What about guarding the fuckin' ice princess?" I asked, rather proud of my slang that time.

Don't go too far, Bree warned.

"I'll look after it," he said, turning to leave. "Just get it done."

As I watched him go, I was suddenly uneasy. There had clearly been no love lost between Slade and his father. The memories I could access involved him being left at Drosfi to run things in Victor's absence. Why had Victor summoned him here?

The last thing we needed was me being supplanted to guard Bree. The serum was working, and I did not know when Victor intended to carry out his plan.

I did not need to be off impressing rogue merchants. I needed to be getting proof that Victor was colluding with the new Emperor. But to play this role, I had to "toe the line" as the humans said.

And only then, could we get Bree out of here.