Thank you to all my reviewers! I was hoping you'd like it, but I wasn't expecting quite so positive a reaction: ) I do have one request though: If you're going to favourite or put alerts on my work, can you please review me too? It's not much really, you're already clicking that button in the bottom-left corner, and pressing a few more of the ones that are attached to your keyboard makes me feel all warm inside! No, really, it's only polite... Also, I'm going away for a few days, so I won't be able to reply to anything (or update) until Sunday.
These aren't my own characters, and this isn't my own world. These creations belong to Tamora Pierce. The twisted imagination is all mine though, and I wouldn't have it any other way!
Chapter 1
Numair frowned as he hurried through the Imperial Gardens. Why had he never thought to make a focus of his student? It would make tasks such as this a great deal easier, especially at a moment when time was of the essence. More to the point, why hadn't he told Daine about his simulacrum in the first place – then she might not have believed him dead. He needed to find Daine quickly; already he knew their Tortallan ship had set sail. How they would rejoin it in the Inland Sea he was yet contrive; for the moment though, his sole focus was on the search for his errant – or more likely, abducted – student.
Mind plotting furiously as he ran, Numair listed all the things he had on his person that could be used in place of a well-made device. Any possession of hers that he held… Numair grimaced. He had not even a handkerchief as evidence of his student's existence. For all his contingency plans, he had forgotten the most obvious solution. That would be rectified as soon as they returned to Corus, he decided. At one of the first opportunities, he would find himself something with enough of her essence to provide a suitable focus.
At least he knew one thing. Daine was active. She had clearly escaped Ozorne's first attempt at captivity. Already, smoke billowed from the Palace into the dusky night sky, and the flicker of flames could be seen from the west wing of the building. He had to wonder exactly what torrent of destruction she had released; he couldn't remember a time when Daine had ever really lost control of her temper, not in a battle situation anyway, but if ever there were to be a time, he supposed this would be it. He knew that she had been informed of his 'death' by Kaddar, who had been most shocked to see the mage alive and well when the prince had arrived at Lindhall's rooms in the university not long before dusk. The image the man had painted of the cold and calculating Daine did not seem to fit with the one Numair held in his mind of his student, but then, she had never been in a situation quite like this before. She may have acted largely on her own in Dunlath, but she had also been following his instructions. Here, she thought herself alone and abandoned and held captive by her teacher's murderer. Numair didn't even want to hazard a guess at her reaction.
He rounded a hedge, relieved to discover that his knowledge of the place still held true. If he was right, then he was nearing the menagerie.
Where there were animals, there was often Daine.
He stopped in shock at the sight that met his eyes. A body lay against the palace walls, and what seemed to be – suddenly, the knowledge of Daine's activities made itself very apparent to Numair. She had woken the dinosaurs.
He walked over to the charred remains of two skeletons. He squinted for a moment, trying to discern their species, before a quite moan behind him made him spin about. His eyes cast about in the gloomy light, trying to discover its source, before his eyes alighted on a man swathed in red.
For a long moment, all was still and quiet, the only noise to be heard the crackle of flames and distant screams. Numair was beginning to consider that the man had died, when the rumpled bundle made another noise.
This time he spoke.
"It's you, isn't it?"
Numair only shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."
"No," the man became more insistent as his body became weaker. "He put you to your death, only yesterday. I saw!" Even as his breathing became harsh, his voice laboured, the man seemed more and more certain of Numair's identity. "You were executed. But, if I can see you now, does that mean –"
The man fell silent. Numair glanced at him, before turning back to study the skeletons before him. The man was clearly delusional, and Numair couldn't blame him. Surely, his thoughts would be confused if he were about to die. The mage made another noise over his shoulder, and Numair glanced at him.
To his horror, a flickering rust red ball glowed in the man's hands. A speech globe.
Numair swore silently; he would be reported sighted. That meant he and Daine had even less time to consider their escape. It meant he had less time to find her. Breaking into a run, he sprinted towards the menagerie. Rounding another corner, he stopped dead in his tracks. A squad of Red Legion troops stood between him and his goal. Ducking back behind the hedge and pressing himself into it, he prayed he hadn't been noticed.
If the soldiers were posted on what he could remember as the sole entrance into the menagerie, there was no way he would be able to get inside. He also knew that the likelihood Daine was trapped inside was higher.
He couldn't cast an invisibility spell; he knew that there would be at least one trained mage within the group, not to mention those that guarded the gates. Similarly, he couldn't place an illusion on either himself or the group without a high chance of detection. He hated having to think on the trot; he often had a tendency to come to rash conclusions with nasty consequences, but he knew he could not blast his way into the menagerie without drawing considerable attention and opposition to himself.
Fly, he thought suddenly.
If he could not pass the men normally, there was one thing he could do. He could go over them. A bird, however oversized, would likely go unnoticed at a moment like this, and it was the best way he could find to avoid detection. Taking a deep breath, he let his magic flow around his body, filling him completely before taking on the form of the hawks of his Tyran homeland that he had studied for so long. His lungs changed shape, his other vital organs fitting themselves around them, his ribcage and spine shrinking and adjusting as his bones hollowed out and shrank, hairs turned to feathers. He winced at the grating pain that accompanied the change, reminding himself that this was one of the primary reasons he did not accompany Daine on flights as she was so often asking him to do. When he knew the change was complete, he flexed his wings, testing the muscles in them and the ability of his Gift to sustain the change. Pumping his wings for a second, he took off in his faltering fashion into the darkening sky.
He had begun to have given up hope of finding Daine in the menagerie at all when he remembered the immortals' enclosures. Surely there the spells would be far stronger than those that contained the animals, and there was less chance of a guard if Ozorne had had any hand in their making. Swooping low over the entrance, he scanned the contents of the cages closely, until he found what he wanted.
Daine sat on the floor of the cage adjoining to that of the Stormwings'. Curled into the foetal position around a sleeping Kitten, no doubt feeling the effects of being caged, and more than likely in furious conversation with every animal in the surrounding area, her face was pale and her eyes blazed cold, her anger apparent even from the air.
Numair alighted on the edge of the platform, ignoring the flare of the magic surrounding the bars. Cawing to attract her attention, he watched her slowly sit up, a curious expression on her face.
She crawled to the edge of the cage, wincing as she tried to put her hand between the bars to reach him and pulling it back sharply.
"How come I can't hear you, wing-brother?" she whispered.
Numair mentally shrugged, half-wondering whether she would be able to, and surprised she didn't recognise him. But then, she thought he was dead. Daine, he tried. It's me.
Slowly she backed away from the bars. "No," she whispered.
Numair dropped to the ground and let his natural form reclaim him, as it had been clamouring to do since he forced himself into the hawk-shape. "Daine," he said again, this time aloud.
"Oh Gods."
"I'm real sweetling, I'm real."
"But – Kaddar said you were – he said they –" She shook her head, as tears filled her eyes. The sentence was too horrible to complete.
"Magelet, I swear to the Mother Goddess that it's me. They executed my simulacrum – an extremely good one –" he added as she opened her mouth. He smiled softly at her, half in attempt to reassure her, and half at the fact he knew he had taught her so well, "– one I had been working on for months."
He could see the indecision in her eyes. She glanced over her shoulder at Kitten, and then back at him desperately, her flickering eyes asking for help. "How do I know – how do I know you're real? You could be a simulacum!"
"Simulacrum, magelet."
"If you're correcting my words, you must be real," she grumbled.
He laughed. "And whilst my simulacra might be embedded with my Gift, I doubt very much they could do what I have just done." He clasped his hand to the bars that contained her as she edged towards him. She reached out to touch him, before snatching her hand away again; Numair wasn't sure whether it was because she didn't believe it was him, or the sting of the shield on the cage. "What's happened to Kitten?"
"He spelled her – I dreamt it."
Numair nodded. "The dreamrose. Kaddar said," he explained at her quizzical look. "We can work out how to break the spell later. First things first," he told her. "I need to get you and Kitten out. I don't suppose they left you a key in there?"
She glared at him, climbing to her feet. "Very funny," she muttered.
Numair tried to smile reassuringly at her, looking round distractedly as he spoke. "Once you're out, you can help me get out of this Gods-forsaken country at last."
"What about Kaddar? Ozorne will surely arrest him after this! We can't leave him here, Numair."
"Magelet, at the moment my prime concern is to get you safely away from here. Kaddar is a mage in his own right, with many allies behind him. I'm sure he's quite capable of looking after himself until he and the Gods can find a way to dispose of his uncle."
"I think I was supposed to be the Gods' way," Daine muttered through the bars as his Gift flared through his body and he began the process of testing the cage.
He ignored her as his magic spread into every corner of the cage, surrounding her completely. He sensed rather than saw Daine sink to the ground next to Kitten. This would be hard for her; cages were not one of her fondest forms of accommodation. "Not long now, magelet. We'll be out of here soon, I promise," he murmured to her. His Gift filtered through the metal bars, systematically searching for a flaw in Ozorne's working. This was most unlike his former friend; the spell was completely Ozorne's – no one else had aided him in building the cage.
There were only several methods to break the spell in that case. Killing Ozorne was not an option: the emperor was nowhere in sight, and Kaddar was likely to be more willing to seek a diplomatic abdication from his uncle.
There was one thing for it. Numair would have to break the spell completely, although it was possibly the most inelegant option of them all. Pouring his entire Gift into the metal surrounding his student, he forced his magic through the spell, seeping through it to search for the weak points in the spell. Focusing on the cage, he pushed with his magic, exploiting the flaws and overriding them with his Gift, the bars disappearing with a sudden snap. His Gift pooled on the ground and then streamed comfortably back into his body.
Clambering up onto the platform, he breathed a sigh as he sat down next to the quivering Daine, taking a tailor's seat next to his student. "You all right, magelet?"
"Mmm," she nodded. He reached over to pat her knee, but she shied away from him slightly and towards the sleeping Kitten.
He reached out a hand to her, his upturned palm waiting. She hesitated for a moment, and then tentatively placed her hand in his.
Numair laughed out loud and swept her into his arms, holding her tightly as she sobbed softly in his arms. "Sweet," he murmured to her, "it's all right now, it's all right. I'm here, you're safe now. Oh, sweetling." He knew, if she'd been quite feeling herself, she would have hotly disputed that fact, but for the moment he was relieved to have his arms wrapped around her and hers round him. After she had calmed down, he released her, and handed her a handkerchief from his belt purse, retrieving one for himself to wipe the sweat from his face.
"Always concerned for your own vanity," she muttered.
"I'm to take it you're feeling better then?" he enquired lightly.
"Glad it's gone. I thought my head was going to pop with that spell you did. What was it?"
"I had to force his magic out of it. Not so hard when you have a superior Gift," he stretched.
"You're as bad as him when it comes to your ego. Are all mages like that?"
Numair yelped. "I resent that comment, Veralidaine Sarrasri. I am nowhere near the stage of his most Imperial Majesty's level of egotism. Now, magelet, I'm sure that Ozorne knows I've just broken his spell, and as nice as it would be to remain here for the remainder of the evening with you, we'd be finishing the day accompanied by the Imperial Guard. Seeing as I've just got you out of here, I'd prefer not to do it again. Any suggestions?"
Daine was silent for a moment as she contemplated their escape. Finally she sighed. "Animal or extinct skeletons?"
"Can you communicate with them?"
"No, not really, but I can use the animals to bring them to us. Or –" she broke off.
"Or?" Numair queried.
"Well, we could, but it depends how much of your Gift you have left… We could – shapeshift," she finished slowly.
Numair thought, testing whether his Gift was capable of another change after the evening's activities. "If we fly to the Zekoi, I can replenish my magic in the water there. From there, it's not a long flight to Thak's Gate, maybe an hour at most, and we can meet the ship beyond. I can manage," he assured her.
"You're sure?" Daine checked. "I don't want you falling out of the sky or killing yourself."
"I'll manage," he repeated.
"And Kitten?" she asked, holding the sleeping dragon's form protectively to her chest.
Numair pulled his cloak from his shoulders. "We'll make a sling from this. Do you think you can carry her?"
"She's light enough."
Numair nodded, and bundled his cloak towards her. Quickly she folded the material, placing Kitten in the middle and knotting it so the dragonet would not be able to fall. Knowing that he couldn't spare much more of his Gift, he sealed the cloak with a spell and passed it back to Daine as she tested the weight in her hands.
Suddenly her head snapped up. "The bats say Ozorne's just left the Palace, and if he's going for an evening stroll, then I'm a Stormwing," she blurted out quickly.
In the space of a breath Numair had lost his human form, returning to the hawk-shape he favoured when he transformed. He cried out, testing his vocal chords in their new forms as much as urging Daine to hurry her change. Within seconds she had shrunk and was by his side, having chosen the form of a sparrow hawk for speed.
Experimentally Numair took off and circled the remains of the cage which had formally imprisoned Daine. His short flight had been ungraceful and inelegant, merely a means of finding Daine as quickly as possible. Now they would need to travel a long distance, and Numair needed to know he could manage that before he considered it. His wings flapped frantically at first before he gained the rhythm he needed. Finally, feeling ready, he called to Daine, who had been sitting on the ground watching his fumbling efforts.
Adjusting her claws around her bundle, she took off effortlessly and flew round him in a fast circle before flying up into the air quickly, the cloak held safely in her talons. Show off, he grumbled to himself. Finding a suitable air thermal, he glided up until he reached her height, pumping his wings to keep up with the faster bird. Daine glanced back at him, and then dropped back so they flew together.
Looking down, Numair could see most of the Imperial Palace, the creatures Daine had awoken still wreaking their own unique form of havoc. The released animals of the menagerie were hampering the efforts of the Imperial Guard to regain control, and he could see hyenas closing in on Ozorne and his ring of protection. He could only hope, for Daine's sake, that none of the animals were hurt by their activities tonight.
A strangled noise came from Daine to his right, and he looked round anxiously, hoping she was not distressed by the activities below her. She emitted another cry, and then dropped fifty metres in height so she could view the events below her in more detail. Numair, trying to ignore the jolt in his stomach as he declined quickly, swooped down to join her. He wished he had some way of warning her to stay out of sight; the birds they were in the form of weren't native to Carthak – even if they had been, Daine was carrying Kitten – and if he saw them, Ozorne would know them for who they were immediately, and no doubt he and his mages would try to blast them out of the sky, with Numair powerless to defend them. He didn't think he could sustain a shield around them whilst also keeping his body forced into a foreign form.
Uttering a cry, he tried to grab her attention and pull them away from the ground and up, but all he succeeded in doing was attracting the notice of the people on the ground below them. With a silent curse, he realised who they were.
Ozorne was surrounded by a squad of the Imperial Guard. Screaming in rage, he launched a ball of emerald green fire at them. Numair dropped quickly to avoid the blast of power, as Daine shot upwards through the air.
Cursing himself for drawing attention to them, and Ozorne for not giving him time to practice his rusty flight skills, Numair sped quickly onwards and away, trying to watch over his shoulder for Ozorne's lethal fire balls and for the spears now being thrown by the soldiers on the ground.
Daine swooped down to the same height as him, spiralling gracefully down, her bundle trailing behind her. Numair could hear Ozorne's demands for their capture, and felt the rush of hot air as an emerald ball shot past him.
To the river, he thought. If we just make it to the river we'll be safe. The river was his safe haven for the moment, even though it would not be a safe enough distance away from Ozorne. It would at least put the palace walls between them.
Suddenly Daine shot past him, trailed by a flame of green fire. Distracted for a moment, remembering a horrible thought, Numair didn't see the flame that trailed him too. Feeling an agonizing pain in his left leg, he hurtled to the ground. He could just see the river; all he had to do was make it to the river...
