Chapter 35

Iwalked with my dad thinking I would rather be swimming. It was much faster and the humans couldn't get to us. But all of us were together now because the Spirus was here. We were down mostly an entire tribe of Tempris, but the ones we did have just had their two feet.

Joron and Esylle could ride on the backs of a larger Theran, but they wanted to teach Sorcha. I wasn't sure how they intended to do that. She had shifting and fire mastered, so there wasn't anything we could teach her. As far as the friend she traveled with and the human she changed, none of us could do that. Trying to force it out of her would probably piss her off.

I wouldn't mind stealing her and taking her swimming, though.

My father told Sorcha that maybe one of the changes that she brought would be that tribe members would be able to choose their own partners. My father and Sono's said we could pick from all the available female warriors. Oris's dad just decided he was going to marry this awful girl he hated, and I wasn't all that fond of either.

I hadn't connected with any Tark girls my father would have approved. Sono hadn't either. Oris was kind of stuck with Pulvi unless Terros changed his mind. I wasn't upset Sono had mated with her like Oris was. If Oris thought about it, he wasn't either.

I just didn't think Sono and Oris were feeling the same pull I was. I'd only just met her and Sorcha barely knew me. I had way less experience with women than Sono or Oris because Tark culture was different from theirs. I wanted her and I to get to know each other better and I needed to know if she felt the same because I'd never felt this before.

When we stopped to eat, Sorcha and the friend she made left to find food. We all made a move to go with her, but Volaris stopped us. He told us Sorcha didn't eat like us and to let her go off on her own. I didn't really know what that meant, but Sono argued he had helped her before and he should help her again. Volaris ended up letting Sono leave when he pointed out he'd already found several things she didn't know were edible on Nestran.

The Tarks knew about finding food on land, but we mostly ate from the sea. Anything we found on land was just to season or highlight the seafood dish. We were too far from the sea for me to properly cook for her, but I wasn't sure what Volaris meant by not eating like me when she grew up on Idric Island. Oris was sulking, but we went to join everyone who wasn't hunting.

"Should we really trust Belisarus when he said we should go to Inanos? That place is cursed," Salis said.

"We aren't trusting him. We are trusting her. She is the one who said we should go there," I said.

"How could she know we should go there if she doesn't remember who she is?" Rivule asked.

I just shrugged. The Spirus legend had been passed down for so long, a lot of it had probably been lost. No one knew how she was supposed to come back and bring peace. If we ever had that information, we didn't anymore.

"The Spirus lived and died there. Belisarus kept a lot from us, too. He found the Vudos flute and never handed it over. Telling her to go there was probably another one of his secrets. That might have been one of the things he meant to tell Esylle and Sorcha if they ever made it to Idric, but he died first," I said.

Everyone started to spill back into the clearing. Frog and Sono started stacking wood for a fire. I went over to join them since all the kings and princes were sitting with them.

"Light this wood," Volaris told Sorcha. Sorcha looked at him like he was utterly insane. "I told you we would be teaching you to use your gifts. You will be learning every time we stop. I will find ways to teach you while we walk."

"I've been able to start a fire since as long as I can remember. Controlling it was the bigger problem," she said, staring at the wood. A small flame danced in her violet and green eyes, then there was a fire going under her stew pot. "I thought you were going to teach me things I don't know."

"We will. While the food is cooking, I want you to change this," he said, pulling a mouse he had caught out of his pouch. "We need to increase our numbers and you can do that."

"I still don't know how I changed Frog, and it took years to teach him to speak and act normally around other people. I don't know how I changed Tollam and I know he doesn't view it as a gift like you keep saying. He was pretty pissed about it. I mean, I'd been telling him he stunk like the goat in our yard the whole journey and then I turned him into a goat. He thought he was a big man who could hurt me. That was probably shit for his ego."

I tried not to laugh. The Barons had been trying to steal our magic for so long. From what I'd gathered, Folcard was the worst, and he was the entire reason Tollam was here. Sorcha finally gave them what they wanted, and she turned one into a goat.

"What were you feeling when you did it the first time? When you created Frog? I was there when you changed Tollam. Your emotions were heightened because you were going through your first Senso and he tried to attack you."

"I was angry at Belisarus when I created Frog. We had fought, and I went outside to play my flute. I was frustrated and angry. I was confused and feeling things I had never felt before when I changed Tollam. When he came at me, I could have burned him alive or changed into something and killed him, but I felt something inside that I didn't have to kill him. I didn't know what would happen when I touched him."

"We need to develop your ability to change creatures and people without you either being in danger or angry. It should be second nature to you. You did it before you came back, and you need to do it again."

"I'm not that person! If I change this mouse, it will take years to teach him so that he is like Frog. I can't create the army you want."

"You have Essos with you. You need to find that gift inside of you of giving thought. You can create the army we need; you just need to concentrate."

"Belisarus punished me for making Frog. Why did he watch me struggle to try to teach Frog when I was so young instead of telling me I could just touch him and do it? I don't think any of you realize how mad he was about it."

I was watching and not commenting. Sorcha got angry and frustrated. I had a feeling something happened with Belisarus when she made Frog that she was avoiding talking about because of Esylle. Sorcha had the mouse in her cupped hands, and I thought only I noticed that the air around her hands started to vibrate. She was doing it!

Before Volaris could speak again, there was a naked man sprawled across Sorcha's lap. He wasn't like her traveling companion. He was on the smaller side since he was a mouse, but he looked like any other Theran. He was shivering and shaking in fear.

I didn't know what Sorcha was going to do because I thought she didn't know, but I watched as a breeze surrounded only her and blew her hair back. A small flame flickered in her eyes and at first, I was worried she would burn him. She gently pulled the naked man into a sitting position and took his face into her hands. She rested her forehead on his and they stayed that way for several minutes.

When Sorcha finally released her hands from his face, she moved them to his shoulders and I watched the air stir around the naked man. To my surprise, purple robes like the Theran wore appeared on his body when the air settled.

Sorcha looked down at him expectantly. Had she figured out what she was supposed to do? We all leaned forward and watched the new Theran with brown hair. Theran were usually blond. The man fell forward with his face in her lap, weeping. We could hear him trying to talk.

She gently lifted him out of her lap. "Do you know where you are?"

"There were enormous animals in the woods. I was trying to hide. Then I saw darkness. When I saw light again, I couldn't move. I could feel myself changing, growing larger, and I didn't know what happened. Then you looked in my eyes and I knew. These hands look like yours. Do I look like you now? Can I ever go back?"

"I've only done this once before and it was different. He has never been able to go back."

"I can go back," Frog finally said. "I choose not to, and I never want to be that way again. I prefer the form you gifted me with."

"Frog, maybe I can do to you what I did to him, and you will learn things I never taught you."

"I'm fine the way I am," the strange man snapped, stalking off.

Sorcha got up to follow, but Volaris stopped her. "He doesn't want your help. Just let him go."

"He's upset! He was there for me every time I got upset or angry after I made him. I should go after him. Send someone with me if you don't think I should go alone!"

"Sono will go after him. He's been out with you several times to gather food and your friend should be comfortable around him now. You need to stay here and talk about what you just did. How did you know what to do to give him thought?"

She was still my age and quite beautiful, but for a minute, when she was staring down at the man she'd changed, she looked like a god reborn. Sorcha was sulking and looked furious right now. I honestly thought she had every right to be mad. She had done what they wanted after Volaris prodded her into thinking about what was probably a traumatic memory.

Frog needed Sorcha and Sorcha probably needed Frog. They were best friends and probably understood each other better than anyone here.

They all needed to stop thinking of the Spirus from the stories and think about who she was now.