Lynn Flewelling - Hidden Warrior

Then Brother was standing there beside him, watching him with hungry black eyes. Judging by the sudden cries and gasps, others could see him, too.

“Your clothes,” Arkoniel called softly. “You must take them off. Ki, help him.”

Brother hissed softly as Ki approached but did not try to stop him. Not letting himself hesitate or think, Tobin took off his sword belt, the studded coat, and shirt and handed them to Ki. Brother’s presence raised gooseflesh along his arms. The ghost stood close beside him, bare-chested now. Tobin quickly shucked off his boots, socks, trousers, and, after another moment’s doubt, his linen clout. Ki gave him a wan smile as he added them to his pile. He was scared, too, and trying not to show it.

“It’s all right,” Tobin whispered, pulling the chain over his head and holding it out to him. “Keep these for me.”

Ki closed his fist around the ring and seal and raised his hand to his heart, saluting Tobin as he retreated to his place with Tharin.

Naked, Tobin faced the crowd and felt for the bone shard. There it was, just below the skin. The tiny ridges of Lhel’s stitching were rough against his fingertips.

“Quickly!” Brother hissed.

Tobin looked into his brother’s black eyes one last time as he raised the silver knife. “Yes.”

Bracketing the lump with two fingers, he pressed the knife’s sharp point to the taut skin. He couldn’t see what he was doing, but his touch was deft. He grimaced as it broke the skin. Blood trickled down.

“Cut deeper!” Brother crooned.

Tobin cut again, twisting the knife, and searing fire shot through him as the tip found its target. He fell to his knees, and the knife clattered to the stone stairs beside him.

“Release me!” Brother screamed, crouching to show Tobin the bleeding wound on his own breast. Blood ran down his cheeks in scarlet tears. “It hurts! Finish it!”

Gasping, Tobin squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. The pain was too much.

“Now!” a woman shouted. “It must be now, daughter!”

Opening his eyes, Tobin saw the ghosts.

They stood in a circle around him, all of them crowned and all holding the Sword of Ghërilain upright before them. He didn’t recognize them—the tomb effigies had been too crude to capture their living features, but he knew who they were. Ghërilain the First stood there watching him, and his own blood-soaked grandmother. And that gaunt, sad-faced man beside them—he must be Thelátimos, the last rightful king.

Cool fingers brushed his brow. Tobin looked up into the one face he had seen before. It was Tamír, the murdered queen. It was she who’d called out to him, and she spoke again now. Courage, daughter. It must be now, for Skala!

Someone put the knife back in his hand. It was Ki. He wept as he knelt beside Tobin.

“You can do it,” he whispered, and retreated. He looked like he was sending Tobin to his execution.

Tobin raised the knife. Pain pulled his lips back in a snarl as he gouged deeper. He’d always imagined that the tiny shard would slip out like a splinter, but the flesh had grown fast to it, like a tree bole healing around a nail. He twisted the blade again and heard someone screaming. It sounded like Brother but his own throat was raw with it.

The tiny fragment came free, still sheathed in a pulpy shred of raw flesh. He scarcely had time to feel it between his fingers before a new wave of pain engulfed him, beyond anything he’d ever imagined.

White fire engulfed him, so intense it was icy cold. Caught in that inferno, he couldn’t breathe or think or scream or hear, but somehow he saw Brother, felt the spirit grappling with him, enfolding him, passing through him like a cold black shadow at the heart of that white fire.

And then the pain was gone and Tobin was curled in his side on hot, smooth stone in the sunlight. The ghosts were still around him, but fainter now, like shapes made of grey gauze. The stairs were scorched black in a great circle around him.

And Brother was gone.

Looking around, he did not see the shocked, silent onlookers, only that his twin was not there. He felt it, too; an aching emptiness filled him. There had been no farewell between them, no parting words. He had cut Brother from his body and the ghost had left him. Tobin could scarcely comprehend it.

“Tob?” A warm hand clasped his elbow, helping him sit up. It was Ki.

Tobin reached out to him, then froze in horror, staring down at the strange skin covering his arm. From fingertips to shoulder it hung in loose colorless shreds like a rotted glove. His whole body was the same; his skin was in tatters around him, flayed by the horrendous magic he’d unleashed. He rubbed gingerly at his left forearm and the skin fell away, exposing smooth, whole skin below. The wine-colored wisdom mark was still there, brighter than ever.

He flexed his fingers, brushed his hands together, and rubbed at his arms, shedding the old skin like a snake in spring. He rubbed at his face and felt a thin, dry mask pull away, leaving the crescent-shaped scar still visible on the chin. The fire had somehow spared his hair, but he could feel the old scalp pulling apart beneath it.

He ran his hands down over his chest and stopped, only beginning to fully comprehend what had happened. The old skin that covered his chest was pulled tight, bulging like—

Like a maiden’s bodice.

Shivering, Tobin stripped the old husk away and stared down at her small breasts.

Tobin was dimly aware of a growing murmur as she stood and looked down. Her boy’s genitals had wizened to dried husks. She pulled at the loose skin above them and they sloughed off and fell away.

Ki turned away, a hand clamped across his mouth, and she heard him retch.

The world was going slowly grey around her. She couldn’t feel the stairs under her feet anymore. But Tharin was with her, wrapping a cloak around her, holding her upright. And Ki was back, too, his arm tight around her waist. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

The priests and Arkoniel were there, too, and the cloak had to be opened, an inspection made. Tobin kept her eyes on the sky above their heads, too numb to care.

“It’s all right, Tob,” Ki murmured.

“Not—Tobin,” she whispered. Her lips were sore, and her throat was raw.

“Yes, she must take a woman’s name now,” Kaliya said.

Arkoniel let out a soft groan. “We never discussed that!”

“I know,” Tobin whispered. The ghostly queens were with her again. “Tamír, the queen who was murdered and denied. She came to me—offered me the Sword. Her name—” The grey fog rolled away and tears stung her eyes. “And Ariani, for my mother who should have ruled. And Ghërilain, for Illior and Skala.”

The ghostly queens bowed to her, then sheathed their swords and faded away.

The priestess nodded. “Tamír Ariani Ghërilain. May the name bring you strength and fortune.” Turning to the crowd, which had fallen silent again, she cried out, “I bear sacred witness! She is a woman, and bears the same marks and scars.”

“I bear witness,” the priestess of Astellus echoed, and the others with her.

“I call on you all to bear witness,” Arkoniel shouted to the crowd. “The true queen has returned to you! By the wisdom mark on her arm and this scar on her chin I verify that this is the same person standing before you now, but in her true form. Behold Tamír the Second!”

Won over at last, the people began to cheer, but even that could not drown out the rending crack that rang out behind Tobin. The ornate wooden panel over the castle door—the one carved with the sword of Sakor—split and fell away, revealing the original stonework below.

The Eye of Illior once more guarded Atyion.