Gifted Page 3

  People turned and watched us curiously, and I tried not to be too obvious about watching back. They were as I’d expected, somewhat paler than my people, although most weren’t as milk-white as Damon. Most wore simple clothing in shades of green or pale yellow, so again, likely from what dyes were available around them. Most of their heads were topped with hair somewhere between mid-brown and what looked like actual gold, pretty enough to make me take a second glance, although I saw a few with Enorian-dark hair too.

  Damon had been so vague about actual numbers that I almost expected to see animals roaming the streets, or sitting outside alehouses having dinner. But I could just see people, hundreds and hundreds of people, and the only animals I noticed were chickens pecking around in the dirt, hopping out of the way to avoid our horse’s hooves. I did spot one large brown wolf trotting alongside a small child (although that could have been just a dog), a flash of huge pale wings on a distant rooftop, and yet another big brown bear, this time dragging in a bloodied carcass of what might have been a cow. I figured that the Veest knew who was their own, and who wasn’t – or else they really would be cannibals.

  As if guessing what I was thinking, Damon leaned forward and murmured, “Veest never turn into cows, or sheep, or any animal that chews the cud. The gift usually takes predator form.”

  I swallowed. And that was why my people were so afraid of his. “Good to know.”

  I saw my first animal-headed Veest just as we turned into the large courtyard of a building that seemed quieter than the rest, with only a couple of people moving in and out. At a small table nearby two Veest played what looked like chess, except one of the players wasn’t moving the pieces with their hands. They – it – was sitting with its grey arms folded neatly, and an enormous wrinkly grey hose-thing hung down from its face and gently picked up the pieces, moving them from location to location. It also had huge flapping ears almost the size of dinner plates, and I gave up on my attempt to look unimpressed. I stared.

  The Veest looked up from his game and stared back, looking past me to my companion. “Hi, Damon.”

  “Hi, Dasha. Who’s winning?”

  “Me, of course.” The Veest – and it was a female if I judged that voice correctly – triumphantly moved another piece, and the human male sitting opposite her swore.

  “What was she?” I asked in awe once we’d moved out of hearing range.

  “Elephant,” he replied succinctly. “And be aware, her hearing is excellent.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t said anything bad, surely? But I decided then to not say anything at all if I could help it. An elephant, whatever that was. Not pretty, and apparently showing off her ‘strength’ by staying in half-shifted form.

  We rode through an inner set of gates and if I hadn’t guessed that we were somewhere important before, I did now. All around us were people in action, moving purposefully about the multiple levels of the large stone building. We dismounted and I was led down a series of halls by a mostly silent Damon, my own nervousness growing with every step until finally we reached a door all on its own. It was small and plain, but Damon barely paused, taking the key that hung on the nearby hook and unlocking it. He opened the door just enough for me to see a couch and a rug, and a window opposite looking out over the city. “Just in here. I’ll let my uncle know we’ve arrived.”

  I stepped inside and that was when I saw my father, sitting at a desk with a long scroll unrolled in front of him and an ink-dipped quill in one raised hand. “Claire?”

  “Father!” I ran forward and into his embrace, noting with relief that he seemed quite well-fed. That was a good sign, right? But his usually clean-shaven face was covered in a short grey beard, and I recognised his clothing as the same he’d worn when he left a month earlier. At least it looked as though it had been cleaned. “Are you well?”

  “Well enough.” He stepped back to look me up and down. “You look well too, my dear, although I must say I’m a little sorry to see you here. But I thought if it was anyone, it’d be you.”

  “But the letter…” I stared at him in amazement. “Didn’t you write that if one of us didn’t come to marry a Veest, then you’d not be allowed to leave?”

  “Ah, yes.” He looked away awkwardly. “That is unfortunately true, but I would never sacrifice one of your lives for my own. I’ve been quite well kept here, although they don’t seem to understand the concept of shaving.”

  I lifted a hand to his scruffy cheek, and the hair was as short and prickly as I’d expected. I felt my eyes sting with unshed tears. “Why did you think it would be me?” I asked quietly. Was I expendable as Damon had said?

  Father set his hand over mine, and in that moment I could see only affection in his expression. “Because you’re the bravest,” he replied, sounding a little surprised. “And because you love me. I’d hardly expect any of the other girls to do it.”

  “Oh.” Was I the bravest, really? I felt my mood perk up a little, remembering how terrified Tabitha had been, and how everyone had regarded me as I’d left. Perhaps not so expendable after all. “Amadine would have done it,” I had to say. “She liked the idea of wedding cake, and getting to wear a white dress.”

  Father made a scoffing noise that perfectly summed up how I’d also reacted. “That girl,” he said fondly. “One day we’ll make sure she gets a wedding cake of her own, but not for many years, I would hope. Now as for you, Claire, I was just looking over the contract that would be used…will be used… if you decide to go through with this.”

  He glanced over to the door, seemed to note that it was still open, then strode over to close it. In a much lower tone he said, “I won’t blame you if you don’t want to, my darling. They’re not bad people – not like some I’ve met – but they’re not the same as us, even if they are in human form. My little girl…”

  I barely held back rolling my eyes. I might be short, but I hadn’t been his little girl since Mother died six years ago, and I’d stepped in to run the house (or tent, rather). “The emissary said that with the treaty we could settle properly in Rose Valley, without fear of being attacked any further,” I replied softly. “Do you think that they’ll change their minds?”

  Father opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Not as long as we don’t change ours, I don’t think.”

  I nodded thoughtfully, taking another look around me. As a whole, the room was certainly as nice or better than what we’d had back at the tent city. The bed was small but covered in a colourful quilt, and through a narrow doorway into a small connecting chamber I saw what had to be a garderobe. A small shelf on the wall held a neat glazed vase containing a single yellow rose. It looked like the one Father had pressed into the letter, only rather less squashed, and it reminded me again of why we were here. “I didn’t miss that you’d been locked in,” I said quietly.

  “More from principle than any attempt to restrain me,” he replied just as quietly. “Even if I got out of this building, how would I get through the city unseen? They’ve kept me in my usual clothes for a reason. No one else here wears brown.”

  Just then there came a sharp tap on the door followed by, “Meal’s ready,” in a female, Veest-accented voice; the vowels short and clipped in contrast to our slower speech.

  Father just about leapt forward. “Missus Babic’s brought the evening meal.”

  She proved to be a tall, formidable-looking woman in her late forties, pale as they all were, but I didn’t miss the admiring glance that my father gave her. That made me feel more secure than anything he’d said. I was following his lead in the way he responded to our – what, hosts? Captors? – and in spite of anything he’d said about our differences, he treated her with as much polite deference as he would any woman back home. She’d brought enough food for two, some kind of vegetable stew with rather tough bread, and we were left alone to eat it.

  “You have to dip the bread until it softens,” Father told me once he saw me gnawing at the lump. “They use it to scrape out the bowl.”

  I gave it a go, and it was far more edible that way, but I wasn’t yet halfway through my serving when the door abruptly swung open. Now they hadn’t locked it, but they also hadn’t bothered to knock first. I turned to see who’d come in, and my piece of bread fell right into my bowl from my slack fingers.

  I thought the elephant lady had been strange, but this was…I didn’t even know. The thing was big, probably bigger than my father and he wasn’t short, and it wore neat dark blue clothing in what looked to be expensive cloth, edged in fine gold embroidery. Black hair, very blue eyes, but that was the kind description.

  I’ll say ‘he’ from now on, since a female wouldn’t have worn breeches, right? He was covered in thick black fur from his head to the tips of his ungloved fingers, and two large, pointed ears stuck right out the top of his head, almost like a puppy I’d once had. But that was where the dog resemblance ended. He had a wide, flat black snout with a curling white tusk coming from each side, and those bright blue eyes blinked at me from amongst all that dark fur. A dog…pig…man-thing. Then it spoke, its voice as rough as its appearance. “What, you’re still eating?”

  I finally managed to close my mouth, but I couldn’t say anything. I looked across at my father, who seemed more rueful than horrified. “We’ve only just had the food delivered,” he said politely. “Has your father called for us?”

  The dog-pig-man grunted. Not like a pig, but like an impolite boy. “He told me to bring you to him. I can give you another ten minutes, but no longer.”

  Father looked at me. “You can finish, Claire.” To the Veest he added, “This is my eldest. She’s seventeen.”

  There was a brief silence where I just sat there with my half-full bowl of food, trying to figure out what to say. When Damon had t
old me not to react, I hadn’t pictured this. “Nice to meet you,” I said finally.

  The Veest blinked at me. “You look younger.”

  “I get that a lot.” But there were worse things than looking young.

  There was a silence where I wondered if I should comment on his looks, but didn’t dare. Then he nodded briefly and turned to leave. “I’ll be back.” He left as abruptly as he’d come in, and just before he vanished from sight I noticed the curling black tail sticking out from a neatly-cut hole in his breeches.

  Once the sound of his footsteps faded, I couldn’t hold in my reaction any longer. “Oh, my-”

  Father reached across and slapped his hand across my mouth, just like Tabitha had done yesterday to Amadine. He can hear you, he mouthed out, lowering his hand. Don’t say anything unkind.

  I swallowed back the explosion of words that wanted to burst forth. The elephant woman had been weird, but this was a whole new level of ugly – scary-ugly. “I never got his name,” I said finally.

  Father was still watching me seriously, and now I saw pity in his expression. “Kajus,” he replied. “His name is Kajus.”

  Kajus.

  “Oh,” I said weakly. “Kanut’s son.” I pushed away my bowl of stew, my appetite abruptly gone. So that was my betrothed. And he chose that form to meet me for the first time? He clearly didn’t know anything about human girls, because he was lucky I hadn’t screamed and thrown my bowl at him…or taken Missus Streeth’s advice about the best places to land a punch.

  Father nodded, and he leaned forward, his voice barely a whisper. “I won’t blame you if you change your mind now you’ve seen what you’re in for. I’ll find some way out of this that doesn’t involve you.”

  So I’d insult the Veest by turning down their ruler’s son because he was too ugly. Way, way, way too ugly. “Don’t be silly,” I replied, just as quietly. “I’m sure he doesn’t always look like that. He had…he had pretty eyes.” He just needed to be smart and actually show his human form, thank you very much.

  “Pretty eyes.” Father shook his head in disbelief. “Keep that attitude, darling. You’ll need it.”

  I would keep that attitude, I told myself stubbornly as we followed my beastly betrothed down the stone halls of the building. Heavens, his tail even wagged from side to side as we walked, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was like a dream – the dog-pig-man was to marry me, and he was even wearing boots…

  But that was his Veest form, I reminded myself over and over. They could look like humans, he just hadn’t chosen to do so right now because he was showing off, and he was probably not at all ugly once he’d changed. He had darker hair too than most Veest, and that pleased me. Although even an ugly, pale human would be a hundred times more appealing than this.

  We stopped abruptly enough that I almost ran into Kajus’s back. We were now in front of a set of large wooden doors, set in the same granite everything else was built of. Kajus gave them a sharp knock, then a gruff voice called, “Enter.”

  I’d thought it would be just one person – maybe a grey-furred version of his son – but inside was a whole room full of people, all sitting around a huge wooden table. Father was directed to the closest seat, and I stood behind him a little awkwardly. Kajus moved silently around to stand behind the man at the table’s head. And he was just a man; one with a thick grey beard plaited with blue beads and eyes of the same colour, and he wore dark red, something I hadn’t seen on anyone else. I even checked. There were several others in blue, a number in grey or green, but only one wearing red. Only one in Veest form, too, and that was my betrothed.

  Kanut studied me across the long table even as I studied him, and I finally looked down, not wanting to be rude. “So you’d be the brave girl who wants to marry my son.”

  Hardly when he looked like that. “I want peace,” I said when it became clear I was supposed to respond. “Peace, and a place for my people to settle and thrive. My father wouldn’t have written such a letter unless he thought this was a safe place for me to live.”

  “Hmm.” Kanut studied me again. “You’re just a wee, soft thing. Alden said you were sixteen.”

  “Seventeen,” I corrected patiently. “I’ll be eighteen in summer.”

  “Gracious,” I heard someone mutter. “Do they all grow so tiny?”

  I heard my father make a displeased sound, so I quickly cut in, “People come in all shapes and sizes.”

  The Veest ruler shrugged, waving a hand towards the murmuring room. “Well do we know that, little Claire. And if you lack stature, then your courage seems sufficient. So do you stand before us of your own free will to wed my son Kajus of Veestlun, not coerced by any of those back at your home, or even by Alden here?”

  “I’m here of my free will,” I replied calmly, although I felt anything but calm on the inside.

  Kanut looked over his shoulder to his beastly son. “Kajus, do you stand here of your own free will to marry Claire the Enorian, not coerced by any other person?”

  My betrothed paused only briefly. “I’m here of my own free will,” he replied gruffly.

  “Well. Good. Alden, man, you sign the betrothal contract, and we’ll have you up and off by day’s end,” Kanut told my father, the conversation apparently done. “You can begin settling the upper valley within a month.”

  “We could be there within a week if needs be,” my father replied. “Planting season’s almost over. I know we’d appreciate the extra time.”

  The others at the table had largely been silent until now, but now a blue-clad fair-haired woman called out angrily, “You’ll take what you’re offered, human! This treaty is based on our kindness, nothing more!”

  “And my willingness to give up my daughter,” Father replied, his jaw tight. “Why not allow what will cause you no harm?”

  “There are some living within the valley now,” Kanut said. “They need time to leave.”

  “Oh.” Father wouldn’t argue with that, and it was clear he hadn’t known. “Of course.”

  “But we will speak of this further,” the Veest leader added. “Kajus, take your betrothed and show her the gardens while it is still light.”

  His betrothed. Argh, that meant me. But I followed him out, and the door hadn’t even closed when I heard arguments burst out from within the room, and I looked back anxiously.

  “It’s the way they come to decisions,” Kajus said, barely looking over his shoulder at me. “Don’t worry for your father.”

  “Was I that obvious?”

  One corner of that pig-like mouth curled into what might have been a smile. “I can smell your fear.”

  Now that scared me, and I stopped short. “Really?”

  “No, of course not. Don’t be silly, I’m not a dog.”

  “Oh. Of course.” I followed his too-long steps along the hall, skipping to catch up as he reached an exit to an outer hall. The aforementioned gardens were close enough that I could smell them. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you?”

  “I’m a Veest.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said, and I could hear a little of my agitation in my tone. “I had noticed that. What kind of animal do you change into?”

  There was a long pause, then he replied, “I believe that my grandfather could turn into both a wolf and a boar. It was quite a gift.”

  “And you can take both forms at once.” I struggled to find a nice comment to make. “That must mean you’re very…powerful, right?”

  Kajus laughed gruffly, and I suddenly realised that his tone wasn’t necessarily from anger, but from the way his oddly-shaped mouth kept him from speaking normally. “Powerful? You could say that. Most people don’t, though.”

  “What do they say?”

  He turned away, one pointed ear twitching slightly. “They say I’m cursed.”

  With those odd words he took a long stride forward onto a leaf-covered path. There were fruit trees on either side of us, an orchard within a city; and I struggled to keep up in the receding light. My heart skipped a little in fear at being alone with him in this new place, but I set my trust in the thought that his character wasn’t like his looks. He didn’t seem beastly, not yet, anyway. “Because you can take both forms at once?” I asked again once I caught up. “How is it different from what Dasha did?”