Chapter 4

Iwas confused and upset. I hadn't meant to tell the tall man a fucking thing, but hearing the riddle the tribes gave and their reaction to me was upsetting. Now it wasn't just that Belisarus kept a lot of secrets. He lied to me. They didn't want to hurt me at all. They almost seemed in awe of me and kept wanting to touch me. I lost control and told the tall man things I wasn't supposed to tell him.

I was surprised. Belisarus always yelled at me about controlling my emotions. If I got upset, he sent me to my room because he didn't want to deal with me. He always made it seem like I wasn't supposed to. But I didn't always lose control of my fire. Sometimes, I just got mad, and he still didn't want to deal with me.

I got upset in that dank, foul dungeon and it was actually a good thing. I ran my mouth because I couldn't help it and the tall man stopped being afraid of me. I didn't like the way his fear smelled or felt. It made me want to run away or worse, hurt him. And I didn't want to hurt anyone.

Leodos didn't smell afraid anymore. Well, there was fear there, but it wasn't because of me this time. He smelled more worried than anything and I actually understood it. There was a lot I didn't understand about the mainland, but I got this. Anything could happen with us walking to Esylle's rooms and the humans didn't like him any better than they were going to like me.

Leodos finally asked me about Frog and I wasn't sure if I should tell him how Frog came to be. It would probably make him afraid of me again because Belisarus was very much pissed at me about it.

"Belisarus wouldn't let me talk to anyone. If the market boy came, I had to hide. Frog was my only friend. Until you and Eyslle, Frog and Belisarus were the only people I've ever talked to."

Which was fucking sad and lonely, but it was how it had to be. Frog was my best friend and I wouldn't let anyone hurt him. I could hide here, but he couldn't.

Leodos blocked us with his body as he snuck us through the palace. I knew he was more worried about Esylle than me, but it was still kind of nice. There were two human guards outside an ornate door, but they didn't smell like they were bad people. Leodos made something up about who we were and we were let in. The doors led to the princess's chambers. She was pacing the room and looked like she had been since we'd been down in the dungeons.

"Is she Lisana?" she asked, wringing her hands.

I had no idea why she thought that. I felt nothing when I called her. Belisarus was mean to me sometimes, but it was because I was being reckless and could get us all killed. I didn't really think he was a cruel man. When he was speaking about her when he asked me to deliver this message, it looked like he had fond feelings for her. He wouldn't keep her child from her.

"I'm not your daughter. I felt nothing when I called to you. I don't know why I was told to touch you. I thought we might be related somehow and maybe he asked me because it would answer some of the questions he never answers for me. Or that you would answer and trust me with the message he sent."

"You felt nothing because I was fighting you! I could feel you calling and it was strong. My daughter had very distinctive ears and eyes. You have both. I don't know who else you could be but her."

"She doesn't know who she is," Leodos said, finally speaking. "She can do things no one should be able to do. Sorcha tells me she was taught she can only call to blood relatives, but she also knows nothing about herself. Belisarus keeps secrets from her the way he did with you. The tribes had an unnatural reaction to her, and they all gave me the same riddle when I asked them to approach her. She is somehow important to them. I don't know who or what she is, but in the wrong hands, she could be dangerous. She's just a girl who doesn't know who she is, and she doesn't actually want to hurt anyone right now. She said she came with a message because she was promised answers and didn't want to come here."

Leodos barely knew me and he seemed to get me. Even now, Belisarus would say shit to me like he was worried I was going to fly off and slaughter everyone on Idric. Hurting people was my biggest fear. Leodos seemed to understand that better than the man who raised me.

"Why did you fight me when I called to you?" I asked Esylle.

"Because I had just watched you turn from a swan and then you were calling my blood like a Tempris. Looking at you was like looking in the mirror. I needed you to slip because I needed to see your true eye color. My daughter had one violet eye and one green eye."

Which I only even knew I had because one day, I got curious and looked in Belisarus's shaving glass. He never thought it was important to mention, but there were also a lot of things he didn't feel the need to tell me.

"I don't know who I am. I don't know what I am. I don't know how we are connected, but your daughter wouldn't be able to do what I can do. I'm sorry, but I'm not her. My eyes can easily be explained away by one Tempris parent and one Theran. Your family has never mixed with Theran and even if they had, it wouldn't explain my other abilities."

"Then what is your message for me? I don't know why he would send you to me knowing you can call to me and ask you to touch me. He would know what I would think."

"He doesn't tell me anything. I've been asking for as long as I remember. I've always been told to never go as far as the stone wall in our yard and then I'm being told the only way I'll get the answers to the questions I've been asking is if I come here and touch you. He has a message for you that he wouldn't tell me. He wants to give it to you in person. He says things will start happening here, and it's not safe for you. He wants me to bring you back to Idric and then he will tell you the other message."

"What could he possibly have to tell me? Is there another Tempris girl where you live?"

"There's no one else where I live except me, Belisarus, and Frog, who followed me here even though I told him to stay home."

"Why is he so strange looking?" Esylle finally asked.

Frog straightened up proudly. "I'm a perfectly normal man."

"I don't want to tell you about Frog because the tall man who just interrogated me is finally starting to smell like he's less afraid of me. And please don't talk badly about my friend in front of either of us."

"You can smell fear?" Esylle asked.

"I can do anything the Therans can do. I smelled the tall man when he was disgusted to touch me, I smelled him the entire time he was afraid of me. He smells concerned now, but I think it's for you. I think he still doesn't like me."

"He just doesn't know you," Esylle said.

"He doesn't think I should exist."

I didn't know how I could have forgotten Leodos was in the room since he was so tall, but he finally made to move toward us and I remembered he was there.

"I don't know what you are, but I'm not going to put you out of existence. And I don't know how you are the way you are, but the similarities between the two of you are eerie," Leodos said. "I think you should go back with her to Idric, but I want to go and you need to bring several guards that you can trust with you. Belisarus said things were going to happen here and I think I started them when I revealed her to the tribes. If I had known how they were going to react, I wouldn't have done it. She needs protecting as much as you do. She's just a kid who doesn't know who she is, despite what she can do. She could have hurt me and she didn't."

"I told you from the start I wasn't here to hurt anyone. I only would have hurt you if you hurt Frog and I only would have knocked you out long enough for me to get him out of there."

"You're very protective of him."

"He was the only friend I was allowed to have growing up."

I didn't tell them the other reasons I had to protect Frog, and I thought Frog knew well enough not to, but then he just blurted it out and exposed both of us.

"She made me," he said, sounding proud of himself again.

I grabbed a pillow off Esylle's little couch and threw it at him. He knew better. It wasn't just me that was in danger here. Frog batted the pillow away and stuck his tongue out at me. Arse. He totally did that on purpose.

Leodos started looking suspicious of me again.

"He's too old to be your son. How could you have possibly made him?"

"Frog, you know we don't talk about this with strangers," I hissed at him.

"But they aren't strangers anymore!" he said happily.

Frog wasn't stupid, but neither of us had been around people before. All we knew was each other and Belisarus. Frog looked like a man in his thirties, but I was pretty sure I was older than him. Or, at least, I'd had conscious thoughts longer.

"If we had been allowed to leave the house and talk to other people, you would know why you can't say these things to people! You said you followed me to protect me. Quit shooting your mouth off and behave!"

"If you won't answer, he seems willing to talk to us," Leodos said, towering over me again.

He was the tallest man I'd had ever seen before, but I hadn't met many people. Belisarus and Frog weren't very tall, but I could see that Leodos was tall compared to everyone I'd seen on Nestran so far. Belisarus also refused to tell me how I'd made Frog, just that I shouldn't try to do it again.

I didn't know how I did it in the first place, much less how I was supposed to prevent doing it in the future. I thought Belisarus would send him away, but he was too strange looking to send out of the house and he couldn't even speak for the longest time. Belisarus allowed me to have this one friend. Frog was the only person I could talk to and confide in that I worried I was different, but Frog adored me and thought I was perfect as I was. He didn't see the things I could do as strange or different.

Before that day in the garden when I made him, he knew nothing about anything. When I led him to Belisarus and tried to explain what had happened, he wouldn't answer any of my endless questions about how this had managed to happen, he just got angry with me and told me to fix it.

Leodos must be used to intimidating people with his height because when he was trying to frighten me, he would stand closer to me so that he was looming over me. He wasn't repulsed by me now, but I could smell curiosity coming off of him.

Belisarus was so mad at me about Frog. Leodos seemed to react to me differently than he did and Esylle still thought I was her kid. They might not freak out when I told them about Frog, but I had very little experience with people. This could be what tipped the tall man over the edge where he really did want to hurt me.

"Will you please stop trying to threaten me with your height?" I finally asked him. "We both know what would happen if we fought. Why is Frog so important to you?"

"You weren't immune to my arrow. The only reason it hit your wing and not your heart was because Esylle startled me when she yelled not to hurt you."

"And I'm guessing you saw what happened when you took the arrow out of my arm. I still have the upper hand, no matter how much bigger than me you are."

"Are you telling me you can't die?" Leodos asked, looking very concerned.

"No one has tried before. I'm guessing I can since I've always been told to hide."

"What if you can't? What if you were told to hide because you were always intended to be used as a weapon?"

I sighed.

This part was simple. I already explained it to Belisarus years ago, and I honestly felt more like some kind of experiment than his ward.

"I can be hurt. The arrow in my arm hurt enough to make me pass out. That's the only reason you were able to get me to that room and remove my clothes. Just because it heals itself doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."

"You can heal yourself?" Esylle asked, giving me a strange look.

"Why does what I can do matter to either of you? If you come back with me, I can protect you. Why do you need to know every little thing I can do? I don't know what any of it means."

"Rivannus always seemed to heal quickly. It was never instantaneous, but his wounds seem to heal quicker than most humans."

"You aren't still going on that he was hiding something, and she's Lisana, are you?" Leodos asked.

"Belisarus never tells me anything, but surely he would have told me I was being sent here to meet my mother if I was her. Especially when I was flat out refusing to go early on. You think I don't want to know who my parents are? Maybe they could tell me why I am the way I am."

"Then why else would he tell you to touch me and call to me? You look like me."

"How can I be related to your family when you can only do one thing?"

"I think Belisarus has those answers. I think you need to escort the princess back there because I've most likely started something with the tribes exposing you to them. I need to go for protection for both of you. I think we need to find a few trusted guards to take with us for extra protection.

"Humans can't know about me. I wasn't intending on telling you anything. What kind of questions do you think they will ask when they see Frog and me?"

"How did you make him? Why do you call him Frog?" Esylle asked her.

I didn't know why I was having a hard time keeping secrets from this woman when I just met her. There was something about Esylle that I trusted, and we were somehow related. I didn't want Leodos to hear, but I had a feeling he wouldn't leave the two of us alone together.

"I wasn't allowed to have any friends growing up. Belisarus wouldn't let me leave and no one could come over. If someone did knock on the door for any reason, I was supposed to hide. For some reason, no one was supposed to know I was there, even if I hid my hair and eyes and didn't do anything odd in front of them. He knew I was lonely and wanted a friend. He wouldn't answer any of my questions, but he tried to keep me entertained by reading me stories. One of my favorites was about how a princess kissed a frog and it turned into a prince.

"I don't know how old I was other than fairly young when I got into an argument with him after he told me that story because I wanted to go into the village and he wouldn't let me. I went out into the garden and played my flute. He gave me a bone flute when I was very young and taught me to play it. As I played, several frogs surrounded me. I was still angry, and I was young enough to think there might be some truth to the stories he told me.

"I picked up a frog and kissed it and it turned into the man you see, not a prince. I took him inside and showed him to Belisarus and he demanded I change him back, but wouldn't tell me how I changed him in the first place. I couldn't change him back into a frog because I didn't know how I turned him into a man. I tried kissing him again, but it didn't work.

"He was angry with me and only told me if I couldn't fix what I did, I needed to teach him. Frog has always been very protective of me because I changed him. He wasn't supposed to follow me here and Belisarus was supposed to keep him at Idric."

"Have you managed to do this again?" Esylle asked. She didn't look afraid of me at all. She looked curious, but not in a bad way.

"I don't know how I did it in the first place to do it again. When I play my flute in the garden, generally animals flock around me. I don't know what it means, but I was told I wasn't allowed to play it on the mainland until you had agreed to come back with me and we were on our way back to Idric."

"Can I see this flute?" Leodos asked.

"It's in a bag hidden in a tree I slept by last night. I can get it when I go outside to sleep tonight and show it to you."

"What makes you think I would allow you to sleep outside?" Esylle told me. "You're family, you're sleeping in the castle with the rest of us."

"That's too dangerous for you," I said, surprised she cared enough to want me to sleep inside.

"If I'm leaving with you to go back to Idric, you need to be seen sleeping in the castle. It will look suspicious if I leave with you after no one has seen you around here."

"I also don't like it here. It's too big and the humans fucking stink."

Leodos let out a huge guffaw.

"Um, thanks?"

Oh, I was bad at this people stuff.

"Not you. You actually smell good. Not the human servants either. It's the people dressed in nice clothes. I think they are the Barons? Most of them smell like bad people. There is one that dresses the fanciest that smells like he doesn't like washing so he covers it in perfume. And he also smells like a bad person."

Leodos started laughing, and I didn't know if he was laughing at me.

"That's Baron Folcard. You don't have to have Theran senses to know the man hates bathing and covers it with cologne. And you're right. Most of them are bad people."

I leaned in to whisper because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to say this in front of a princess.

"I don't think he properly wipes his arse after he shits either."

Leodos roared with laughter. I didn't know anything about Baron Folcard except that his stench was really bad, but Leodos didn't like him either, apparently.

"Are you going to tell them about me?" I asked.

So far, everything Belisarus had told me about Nestran had been a lie, but I knew I could have just gotten lucky about meeting nice people so far. Those Barons smelled like they probably would have hurt me.

"No, we're not," Leodos told me. "And you need to be careful not to reveal yourself."

"How do you suggest I do that if something bad happens?"

"If something happens to us, you do nothing," Leodos warned. "You let me and the guards we bring take care of it."

"You're only human. Some of you could die while I do nothing."

"We may be human, but we managed to win the war so long ago. As far as they should know, you're a small, harmless girl."

I was a little annoyed. I spent my whole life being told I wasn't a small, harmless girl and that I needed to stay away from people. The tribes didn't want to hurt me, but Esylle was one of them, too. If they saw us, she would give them pause. I could chase off any animals we came across. Human soldiers were just going to fuck things up if the tribes had wandered off their lands and ran into us.

My thoughts were interrupted when King Joron burst through the door. Ah, shit. I remembered Esylle had been supposed to meet with Barons this afternoon and it was getting late. I could tell he was pissed and about to say something about duty, but then he noticed Frog and me.

"Who are these people?" Joron asked. "Are they why you are not where you are supposed to be right now? Why does this girl look like you?"

I could see he was about to lose control, so I let my magic slip so he could see my real hair and eyes. I didn't make it a point to stare at myself in Belisarus's shaving mirror. There was no point in obsessing about what I looked like because I didn't think anyone was ever going to see me. Now, my face and eyes seemed to be all anyone wanted to talk about.

I knew what he was about to say. I was tired of trying to explain I couldn't possibly be their missing princess, so rather than explain, I drew myself in and changed into a simple house cat. I peered up at him from the rug and fully expected him to be afraid of me, but he wasn't. I smelled a lot of different things I didn't recognize because I hadn't been around people. I didn't really know what I was picking up from Joron because I'd never smelled it before.

I hated it when Belisarus refused to let me talk about what I was feeling and dismissed me to go outside or sent me to my room. I worked a lot of it out with Frog, but Frog only knew what I had taught him. I didn't particularly want to sit here and let anyone else speak for me, but I was a little tired of going over this.

"She doesn't know who she is, but I think she is Lisana. Belisarus sent her to me with a message and told her she could only give it after calling to me. She can call to me, so she's something to us."

I sighed. I tried to distract myself by licking my paws. If we could just leave this place and get back home, Belisarus could tell me what I wanted to know and give her whatever message was so important.

"How is she Lisana if I'm looking at a cat? I agree that she looks exactly like you at that age and the eyes are right, but our family has only ever mixed with humans. The humans wouldn't tolerate it if one of us married into the tribes and the tribes don't like that kind of thing either."

Thank you! I wasn't possible unless there was some secret village somewhere where there were still Tempris and a lot of tribe members were breaking their own rules.

Joron didn't comment. He looked down on me at the rug and finally spoke to me.

"Are you going to speak for yourself or are you just going to sit there as a cat and let everyone else speak for you?"

I sighed and turned back into a girl.

"I don't know what else you want me to say."

"Did he send you knowing what was happening today? That I was asking her to pick a husband? Esylle leaving now instead of remarrying is going to cause problems."

"I don't know if he knew or not. He never tells me anything, but I don't think he intended for today to be the day I showed up. He had been trying to get me to deliver this message for weeks and I kept refusing because I've always been told how dangerous it is for me here. I didn't see why he couldn't get someone else to come and he kept insisting it must be me. The only reason I agreed to come was that he told me he would finally answer all my questions about who I am and why I am the way I am. I didn't know what was supposed to happen today until I got here."

"If you aren't Lisana, why did he insist it be you that come and call to her?"

"If I was really Lisana, how could I do what I can do? Do I need to turn into some sort of bird and fish in front of you to convince you I'm not her?"

"Lisana is the only child in our family's entire history to go missing like this. You can't see why we would ask? You look like Esylle."

"He won't tell me, but Frog and I talk. I think there is a village your family, the humans, and the tribes don't know about where people are breaking the comingling rule. There are either Tempris there that survived the war or one of your ancestors had a child out of wedlock and that child ended up there. It would explain the resemblance. They might all have eyes like mine there."

That was the best theory Frog, and I had come up with after Belisarus sent us to bed. It was the only thing that made sense.

"I think Esylle needs to go to Idric and find out what all of this is about. You know how Belisarus is with his secrets. He has the answers to all of this," Leodos said.

Joron's eyes had never left my face since I had turned back from the cat. "Why did Belisarus send you and not come himself if he has a message he can only deliver in person? Why does Esylle have to make the long journey to Idric where she can't defend herself once she is there?"

"Belisarus is old now," I said. "His legs swell up and sometimes he can't get out of bed. He couldn't have made this journey even if he wanted to. I don't think he will be here for much longer. If his legs aren't swelling, his chest hurts. He's old and white now. If you want his message, we should leave soon."

I'd been watching his health decline for the past few years. He taught me how to forage for food, but that wasn't going to do me any good in our cottage. I knew how to make the healing tonics he made for money to feed us, but I didn't know how to have the market boy shop for us and no one who trusted Belisarus and his tonics actually knew me and that I was just as good at making them.

Leodos spoke again. "Whatever message he has, I think it concerns Esylle, Lisana, and how this girl is related to you. Maybe what she just told us, about his declining health, is why he wants to tell Esylle now. If this girl is Lisana, and I'm still very conflicted if she is or isn't, Belisarus has that answer. If she is, somehow Lisana, despite everything she can do, Belisarus has the answers why and Esylle doesn't have to do what she is not wanting to do, which is remarry."

Joron's eyes finally left my face to rest on Esylle. He looked at her sadly. "What if you get there and he knows nothing about Lisana and this girl is right about some village? I see your eyes and I know you have all your hopes that this girl is her. What if you go and just get hurt all over again?"

"Do you have guards you can trust?" Leodos asked Joron. "The girl knows not to reveal herself and Esylle has been hiding it long enough not to expose herself. We need maybe five well-trained guards in addition to me in case word has gotten back to the tribes about the girl and they try to take her. I worry what they intend to use her for based on their reaction to her."

"You'll have five guards in the morning and can leave then. I'll give an excuse to the Barons here as to why Esylle is not meeting with them, and I'll make up a story as to why she's gone to Idric. Don't stay there long. Get his message and come back here as soon as possible. If this girl is not Lisana, we need a marriage soon. She needs to change her clothes because she can't wear those robes without questions."

Not knowing how I was able to, I thought her clothes into clothing like I had seen since I'd arrived as Joron stalked out the door.