The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 5: The Gift of the White Moon, Part 6

New as they might be, her wolf instincts saved her, breaking her fall as any loping wolf might land when leaping from a high ridge during a fierce hunt. Leaping on all fours, howling again, a shocking burst of pleasure rippled through her body at the sensation of the night wind in her pelt. In a graceful lope she descended from the Maathinhold into the city, and from there to the orchard, collapsing on her side, panting deeply, her amber eyes glazed, glorying in the delicious scents of the orchard -- apples and bitter roots and musty trees and the tantalizing leavings of small forest creatures to tempt a she-wolf's palate.

When she awoke to a gray dawn, she was fully human again -- and naked. Her own satchel she found easily enough, but it took her what felt like hours to find Tacen's: a rectangular crate stamped with a smeared Swiftfoot token. The whole time she searched she was in a near hysterical terror of discovery, dressed in nothing but her cloak, her bare feet complaining and stinging from the sharp twists of roots and leaves and prickers on the orchard ground. When she opened Tacen's crate she cast aside her own cloak, taking instead his larger one, hoping she might be less recognizable in such poorly fitting clothes. She spent that day sticking to the forest preserve and the adjoining farmland, not resting until she came upon a sleepy smallhold toward nightfall. She wondered if she would change again, but it turned out not to be so. It seemed she would have a few weeks to prepare for the eventuality.

Never before in her life had she thieved, but she did so that night with no compunction at all, knowing there were far worse things to become than a thief. She pilfered eggs and swallowed them raw; thought of breaking a chicken's neck before realizing she hadn't the faintest idea how to build a fire to cook it, much less dress and butcher it.

Sooner or later she supposed she would eat one raw.

The smallhold's humble stable she approached with dread, fearing the horses would bolt in terror from her. They merely watched her with curious brown eyes, tails idly swatting at flies. She didn't know if their lack of fear was because the stories of such things weren't true, or just that she was too new a wolf for the horses to scent (or perhaps they did scent what she was, but found her no more dangerous than a newborn cub), but either way she thanked the gods. She saddled the youngest, healthiest looking horse and, hoping it would be enough, took from her satchel a ruby pendant, looping it around the handle of the stable's door where it could not be missed.

A village slept nearby, the furthest Carala had ever been from Talinara by herself. She thought it might be Whiteoaks. She tried to remember what she knew of the Imperial highways, studying the crossroads at the center of the village. A simple patrol of two town militamen passed her, but if they had been ordered to search for the princess they apparently considered the poorly-dressed figure on horseback an unlikely candidate to be her.

The risk was awful, but she didn't know what else to do. "Excuse me," she called to the militiamen. They turned to look at her with plain, honest faces. These were no Imperial soldiers. Likely a few different farmers and townsfolk took turns manning the watch. "Is this Whiteoaks?"

"It is," said one of them. "Did you want a room at the inn?"

Carala shook her head. "No. I must ride very far tonight."

The militiamen exchanged a glance, perplexed by her highborn manner of speech. But in the end it was none of their business, and this young woman who looked like she'd spent the night in the woods was obviously no threat. Two days later they would hear the news that the Emperor's youngest daughter had vanished , and both men decided independently to say nothing about it. The Emperor seemed unlikely to forgive their failure to detain someone who might have been the Princess Carala for so flimsy an excuse as they'd had no idea the Princess Carala was missing in the first place.

Carala had a good head for maps, and knowing this was Whiteoaks let her get her bearings. If that was the Emperor's forest preserve to the north, then the road to Gallowsport ran south, and the road to Munazyr ran southwest. She slumped on her stolen horse at the village center, trying to decide which route to chance. She knew of two living cursewrights, and one who might or might not be dead.

Finally she clucked to her nag, guiding her southwest. The Gallowsport cursewright must have been the man who had been working with Tacen, and so she thought she would be mad to trust him -- and besides, she had no idea what his name might be, and he was undoubtedly in hiding. Munazyr was one of the biggest seaports in the world, and if she couldn't find Ammas Mourthia there, or if it turned out her father was right and he had died years ago, then she could book passage to Summervale. And unlike Gallowsport, Munazyr was not beholden to the Malachite Throne. Even if the authorities there knew she was missing, they would have no obligation to return her to the Emperor. Sitting at that crossroads, she determined not to return to her father until she had found a cure.

As Carala began the long journey to Munazyr, she recalled a wonderful memory of her eldest brother. Perseun was on leave from whatever high profile assignment his father had set him -- it had been some naval matter around the Straits of Twilight -- and was visiting the Chalcedony Palace for the celebration of her coming of age. Quite a few of her siblings had been there, including Sarai and Silenio and even Vetilius. Poor Ursus had already lost his head by then. The others had returned home (or in Sarai's and Vetilius's cases, had not yet moved out of the Palace) to enjoy the ceremony, but had paid her little heed beyond the perfunctory gifts and congratulations. Perseun, though, had delighted in speaking to her, and she had been instantly taken with him, maybe because he was so old: a full twenty-three years older than herself, and so at the time almost as old as Silenio was now. Speaking to him was more like speaking to some exotic uncle freshly returned from distant kingdoms than it was like speaking to her eldest brother.

Perseun had spent a great deal of time in and around Munazyr, and had many tales to tell of the grand old city, all of which Carala listened to with absolute raptness. She had never forgotten how he described it: "Imagine the Anointed Realms on one side and the Sultan's kingdoms on the other, an eagle and a soaring kite, two great and angry birds of prey clutching at and fighting over a great jeweled egg. That egg is Munazyr and the Straits. But the birds don't realize they're fighting over a dragon's egg until it hatches and burns them both to ashes."

Her eldest brother had said that as she had sat beside him, dressed in the elaborate jeweled robes and crown a noble girl wore when she was deemed a woman in the eyes of the Graces, staring at him with awe and a love she felt for none of her other siblings, not even Sarai. So it was of Perseun she thought now, hoping to feel some trace of his love and his wisdom and his bravery. Maybe a dragon's egg was what she needed to fight the monster that now lived in her blood.

The journey had taken a little over six weeks, and in that time she employed every method of travel from her own two feet to horseback to carriage rides to, yes, streaking under the white moon on all fours, the wind high in her midnight fur, the satchel of clothing and jewels clutched in her jaws. Until, exhausted, starving, and on the verge of rolling over and giving up her search completely, she passed through the walls of Munazyr at the Peddlers' Gate, and found her way to a temple of the only god she dared to believe in now, the God of the Book.

So Casimir found her three days later, and so she now found herself in an abandoned temple of the Graces, hoarsely relating to Ammas Mourthia one of the strangest tales he had ever heard in his life.