Chapter One; Nightmare.

Verilidaine Sarrasri sat bolt upright in her bed, the sheets pooling around her waist. Her breath came in ragged gasps as her chest heaved in an effort to draw in enough air. The shirt she had slept in that night was soaked with sweat and she could feel tears dripping down her cheeks. The bed linen was soaked.

A small, warm body pushed its was under her right arm, it was one of the palace cats. She had come in to Daine's room sometime during the night and settled herself comfortably beside her on the bed.

"I'm fine now." Daine reassured her worried friend. "I just had a bad nightmare.

'Nightmare?' inquired the cat with all the confidence and arrogance of her kind, now assured that the two legger who was people inside was calmer 'What is that?'

"A picture inside your head." She struggled to explain, "That moves and frightens you."

'A very silly thing to have.'

"It's not something we choose to do." Daine rose from her bed and walked over to her window. It was always open so that the people could come and go easily. A nightingale came and perched on her window sill. She went through the same process of explaining to the bird why she was upset and awake in the early hours of the morning.

'Well, if you aren't going to sleep anymore, would you like to come and see my nest?'

It was mating season, in the middle of May and the woods would be lovely at night, and Softwing was very eager to show her his new chicks.

With a quick nod at the small brown bird, Daine pulled on her breeches beneath her night shirt. She didn't bother with boots; the outside floor was soft with grass and last fall's leaves. With a sigh she pulled her bow and quiver onto her back. Ever since Daine had arrived in Tortall along with Onua Chamtong, horsemistress to the Queen's riders, rarely did a week pass without her seeing some sort of immortal. Likelihood would be that any she saw tonight would not be peaceful ones, more likely that they would be Stormwings.

She pulled her necklace around to the front, it had an awkward habit of falling over her shoulders and resting on her back when she slept, making it uncomfortable when she rolled over. The claw of her mentor, the badger now hung on its leather thong heavy on her breastbone. Its weight was reassuring, while she wore it she knew that the temperamental badger could find her wherever she was in the Eastern Lands.

She crept along the dark corridor. She lived in the Rider barracks near the stables. They had just received a new group of trainees, about the same age as Daine, some a little older. They were all exhausted, both boys and girls, after Sarge and Buri had made them perform various exercises under their watchful eyes. Any slacking or cutting of corners would result in a bellow from the huge man and extra laps around the field while the horses looked on in amusement. As she passed the red and yellow doors she halted, checking that she hadn't disturbed the trainees.

When she left the wooden barracks, she followed the nightingale across the training fields, calling greetings to the horses that were awake and racing against those that cantered alongside her. This was her first night back at the barracks; she and Onua had gone to Cría in Galla, her homeland, to buy more ponies for the rider trainees. That might have been the reason for her nightmares she supposed, visiting her homeland, even if it was a good five days walk from the village where she had grown up, Snowsdale in the mountains. Some of the ponies she had known and brought back before she had visited Fief Dunlath with her friend Numair Samalin the mage, uncovering the treasonous plot against the crown, greeted her enthusiastically and she promised to return to play with them after seeing Softwing's nest.

The nightingale landed upon a branch as Daine left the herd behind her..

'Come Wing-sister!' He cried ' My mate is waiting for us higher up!'

Softwing flew up to a high branch where Daine could hear him greeting his mate joyfully. She began to look for a convenient way up to the nest. She had already placed her foot on a knot in the trunk and begun to pull herself up when she decided she would try a shape change again. The last time she had tried changing her shape to that of another animal; specifically a wolf, had been when she was hunting Lady Yolane of Dunlath down with Brokefang and the rest of the pack. Her hands and feet had ached for days afterwards, from all the running she had done. Her body had hurt as well, because the skeleton of a wolf, according to her wondrous book Numair, who taught her to control her Wild magic, had given her, was very different to that of a human girl. The number of legs for one thing. But Numair had explained that the pain would lessen with time and practise, as she became used to it. So she shed her outer garments, after looked around in the still night, to check that it was as empty of humans as she had thought it. Left only in a thin shirt that she had slept in and her loincloth, Daine leant back against the trunk of the tree, closed her eyes and began imagining and focusing on what being a nightingale was like.

She saw in her mind the brown and white wings and body of the small bird. She calmed her mind and slowed her breathing as she slipped into meditation and she imagined soaring high over the palace. She opened her eyes as her stomach felt like it was falling from the top of Balor's needle, the highest point of the palace. She saw everything around her grow rapidly as she shrunk. Daine glanced at her arms only to see them sprout feathers and to feel her bones splitting and reforming inside her new wings. In a few moments, Daine hopped out of one of her shirt sleeves and leapt into the air, flying as though she was born to it, if a little awkwardly. She swerved to avoid a branch and pumped her wings hard to climb up to the level of Softwing's nest. When she alighted upon the branch, she was tired and her shoulder muscles ached.

'Finally!' Softwing reproved. 'You took your time wing sister.'

'I'm sorry.' Daine apologised 'I'm not used to shape changing yet.'

'Well, you look better anyway, less like a two legger.'

'I am a two legger!' She laughed, although it came out of her beak as more of a chirrup

'Hmmmm.' The bird changed the subject, ' Was it a hard flight for you?' He asked.

'A little, but that was my first flight in control of the body.' The girl / nightingale explained. She had flown before, in the body of Huntsong the eagle, in the Long Lake, but she had only been a passenger. She had learned the basic skills of flight though; speed up, slow down, stop and turn.

'It is quite steep. But it stops any cuckoos or squirrels coming to harm our young.'  The nightingale pointed out. 'My mate, Songtrill, is waiting for us.' He led Daine along the branch in a series of small hops, talking all the time. She quickly decided that nightingales were as bad as foxes for their constant chatter. Daine saw the neat nest in the junction of two limbs of the tree. As she approached it, the bought began to sway beneath her, she stopped moving, reasoning that the wind would soon pass. But it didn't. The branch continued to shake beneath her and Softwing didn't seem to take any notice. Carefully, she began sidling along the wood, trying to reach the trunk before she was blown off, Softwing turned to face her,

'Are you all right Wing sister?' He asked, anxiously.

'I am fine Wing brother.' She replied, trying to hold on and reassure him at the same time 'It is just the high wind.'

'What wind?' He wanted to know. 'It is a still night.' It wasn't until then that she realised that barely a leaf was moving. That revelation was enough to make her start, a particularly violent swing of the branch threw her off.

and then

She struggled to fly, beating her wings frantically, before realising that all her feathers were gone, and her arms were useless for flying.

"Oh gods darn..." She hit the ground, and then knew no more.

You know, I am evil. The first chapter and already I am giving you cliffhangers. Well, sort of. Anyway… like? Let me know!!