Shades of Grey

ESTHEN— MARCH 1843

I felt my punch glass slip from my hands and shatter at my feet.

“W...what?!” I barely managed to stutter.

“Sir Rodag is a guide, he’s come to assist you on your journey,” Lord Remacus repeated slowly.

Rodag stood behind him dressed in beige robes native to Xanthar. His hair had grown over his dark eyes, which were staring at me with a sort of derisive amusement: he was revelling in my shock.

“I hope I can be of service to you, Miss Grey,” he said in his alluring voice before bowing regally. I was still unable to move and after a lengthy pause, Lord Remacus saw fit to leave.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to get better acquainted,” he said, walking away with a trite laugh. As soon as he had left the immediate area, I felt all power return to my limbs: a power riddled with rage at the infuriatingly handsome Lazarus before me.

“How—” I shouted angrily, but Rodag put a finger to my mouth and let it casually slide down my neck to my shoulder. Feeling his touch once again silenced me, which infuriated me all the more.

“Ssh. We cannot make a scene here. These people are fragile without their queen.”

I turned around, forgetting my anger, and looked around the populace of the party. Forma looked at me with horrified eyes when she saw me with Rodag: he had been the reason she had wanted to go back to the room. I looked at her crossly.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I warned.

She nodded meekly and casually rejoined the dancing horde as Rodag led me over to a nearby balcony, quickly shutting the doors, which allowed us some privacy and finally allotted me the chance to fully vent my anger.

“I saw you die!” I exclaimed hysterically. “I watched you bleed to death! You can’t possibly be here...unless I’ve lost my mind in grief and you really aren’t who I think you are and—”

His lips flew to mine, halting my screed and confirming his identity. He pulled away after a moment, leaving me in a speechless daze.

“You saw only what you had to see.”

I felt my muscles clench in frustrated resentment.

“You bent my sight to make me believe you were dead?! Why would you do such a thing?”

He gave me a knowing smile.

“Please lower your voice, Grey. My goodness, you can be difficult when you’re angry,” he mused.

“I’m only difficult when Nemorosa men make me spend a whole month in agony thinking they are dead when they really aren’t!”

Rodag’s eyebrows shot up.

“You were in agony?”

“Of course I was!”

A grin spread across his face and I found that a strange need to smack him grew instead of a desire to stare at him. This made me feel much stronger — I was developing a defence against his Ganymedian smile.

“Well, I do apologise for putting you in agony, but I had no choice. I knew you would not leave the island if you thought I was alive. I could think of only one way to get you to leave and that was to bend your sight and make you believe I had been killed.”

I felt my anger beginning to dull and my brief feeling of strength quickly died. I scoffed and folded my arms in a childish attempt to appear as though I still had my dignity. He did have a credible reason for lying to me, after all.

“Well, now you’re here!” I stated obtusely. He raised his eyebrows in playful perplexity.

“Yes. I am here and you seem less than pleased.”

I stared at him, waiting for a clever quip to come to mind. None came.

“Are you really going to guide me to Cronamia?” I asked after a beat of dumb silence.

He took a step toward me, daring to touch my elbow gently.

“Only if you will let me.”

I began to tremble as his hand slid up my arm and came to rest at the crook of my neck without so much as a whisper flitting into my ears.

“You’ve been stripped of your powers then?” I asked, guilt settling in my stomach.

“Yes. I was caught by my tribe and stripped moments after you escaped. I left the island soon after, sensing that you would need me eventually.”

His hands moved up my face and traced the lining of my mask.

“Will you let me see your face now? I’m no longer a Creature, by definition.”

Part of me wanted to tear the mask away and let him see, but the other half, the more sensible half, screamed at me to keep it in place. I wrestled with myself for several unbearable seconds as his fingers danced along the mask edge.

“I—”

A high-pitched, blood thickening scream suddenly interrupted my pitiful surrender. Both Rodag and I instantly turned and promptly raced back to the courtyard, only to find it in unmitigated chaos with Forma writhing on the floor in the centre of the madness.

“Grey! Help me!” She cried.

Forma’s shape was changing rapidly, as if someone was flipping a great cosmic, Protean switch. One moment she was a lion and the very next a dragonfly, a Centaur, a Troll, a spider; she was changing so quickly and into Creatures of such varying physiological difference I was afraid she would suffer permanent damage.

“Forma! What’s going on?” I shouted at her as I came as close as I could to her.

“I don’t know! Someone else has control! Do something!” she cried both verbally and telepathically as her voice morphed along with her appearance.

I shot a glance toward Rodag, who appeared equally horrified and equally at a loss for how to assuage the situation.

I looked back at Forma as she began to transform faster and faster, her screams reaching new octaves every few minutes.

I gasped suddenly as a wild plan came to me.

“What is it?!” Rodag inquired, shouting over Forma’s screams.

I ignored him and ran out of the courtyard back to our room as fast as I possibly could. Moving with such speed that I nearly knocked the doors of their hinges, I flew over to my uniform and pulled out my analgesic, my Ampoule Pistol and my Transa. It was generally advised to not use it on your Maisling, but I saw no other option. Once I had them in hand, I raced back to the courtyard, loading my analgesic into the Pistol as I went.

“Open your mouth!” I called to Forma, lassoing the Transa as I rounded the corner back into the courtyard.

She did and I threw the rope around her chest, pulling taute as the magic in the rope worked: Forma sat in the form of a beastly Sitak vampire, frozen with an expression of vicious pain on her dark, predatory face.

I carefully released the trigger and watched as the liquid flew in a thin stream right into her open mouth and after several seconds of continuous spray, I loosened the rope and we both collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

“Thank you,” she barely managed to whisper as she shifted back into herself, lying very still on the ground next to me.

“What happened?” I asked, ignoring the horrified and disgusted stares we were receiving from the nobles.

“I was dancing when a shooting pain suddenly ran up my back and began radiating in my skull. I then lost control of my body and I began to shift…so painful…so fast…”

My brow furrowed as I began to search the vast amounts of Creature knowledge I had for what could possibly give Forma such a seizure.

“What the hell?!” shouted one of the noblemen, breaking my train of thought. “What is this creature doing here?!”

“Please sir, it wasn’t her fault,” Rodag reasoned.

“It’s her fault that that dangerous thing is here, amongst the elite of Xanthar!” countered a woman as she pointed to me.

“We could have been killed!”

“What kind of beast is that, anyway?!”

I stood and turned to the people, rage boiling.

“Excuse me?! She’s not a beast! She is a Maisling Fairy and the two of us are about to rescue your queen!”

“Well, if she cannot control herself, perhaps it is best that you leave,” snapped a nobleman as he threw Forma’s and my belongings at my feet.

Murmurs of acquiescent annoyance spread around the courtyard. I looked around in frustration, stunned that I was being met with such enmity. I turned to Lord Remacus for help, but he only nodded with wide eyes: either unable or unwilling to counter the opinions of Xanthar’s nobility.

“Come, Grey, let’s go.”

“Right, to rescue the queen of the hospitable nobles of Xanthar,” I spat hotly, glaring at the nobleman. He showed no emotion.

I looked around at the people and then at Lord Remacus, who could barely stand under the weight of my aggressive stare. I lifted Forma from the ground after she had shrunk to her natural size and placed her in my pocket as Rodag and I coolly left the palace.