Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Wynn hadn’t known then what that meant. But she did now. Through his mate, Lily, Chap had sent Shade. He’d sacrificed a daughter he’d never met to try to guard Wynn in his absence.

Wynn wiped away fresh tears, uncertain why Shade had called up this memory. Perhaps it was a reminder from Shade that she was the intended guardian and Wynn the ward, and not the other way around. And soon enough, they would be leaving the tenuous safety of civilization.

“Shade, pay attention,” Wynn said, lightly poking the dog’s rump.

As her fingertip sank through charcoal-colored fur, another memory erupted in her head.

Wynn was looking at herself, as if she were two separate people.

The other her looked too tall, as if Wynn was lower to the floor. The other Wynn glared down, pointing a finger at ... Wynn. She said something that came out like a series of sounds parroted without an understanding of the words.

Obviously, this was one of Shade’s own memories passed between them as Wynn’s finger touched the dog. All memories that Shade passed this way had problems when it came to spoken words—which tended to come out muted and dulled. This time, when the memory passed, it instantly repeated, and Wynn caught the words scolded at her ... by herself.

“Shade ... no!”

She jerked her finger back, so startled that she wobbled on her knees. The obstinate meaning behind the reflected memory was clear. Shade was telling Wynn no, quite plainly.

“Oh, you little ... Don’t you tell me ... !”

Wynn fell into mute shock as the greater meaning in the memory dawned on her. She had a sudden bizarre notion, so simple that at first she couldn’t believe it was possible.

“Get up,” she said, pushing on Shade’s rump.

Shade got up all right, and spun around with a snarl, but Wynn grabbed the dog’s face with both hands.

She tried to recall any word that Shade had heard often and that meant something important to both of them. She was just as careful not to let any true memory come to mind. She needed not just a person, place, or thing, but a concept connected to moments—to memories—with a like meaning .

“Wraith,” she whispered.

Shade’s hackles rose and her jowls pulled back. A cascade of moments involving Sau’ilahk, a mixture of both their memories, flickered through Wynn’s mind. It ended with Wynn’s own perspective of thrusting the ignited sun crystal into the wraith’s hood.

That was one word that Shade had heard many times—and understood. Likely, she understood far more words than she let on. This time, Wynn didn’t scold Shade for using memory-speak. Instead, she lifted one hand, touched her right temple with one finger, and then pointed more directly at herself.

“No Shade memory. Yes Wynn memory. Show ... Wynn hear ... wraith .”

Wynn lifted her other hand from Shade’s face and sat back, not touching the dog, so that Shade could not send her own memories—but only call up Wynn’s. The dog stepped forward, reaching out with her nose.

“No,” Wynn said. “No memory-speak. Wynn memory.”

Shade’s eyes narrowed an instant before the assault came.

Every moment in Wynn’s life when she had spoken of the wraith to anyone went racing through her head—too fast! It felt like the world was swirling around and around amid a living nightmare of black-cowled, black-robed, faceless figures. Nausea in Wynn’s stomach lurched up into her throat, and one fleeting, remembered voice sounded inside her head.

—wraith ... cannot be gone—

Wynn flinched, breathing hard. “Stop.”

Of course it would be that moment, so ugly and fresh, when Chane had come at her in the inner bailey wearing that horrible mask. But the sounds were nearly clear. Wynn held on to that memory herself, hoping Shade still caught it.

“No see ...” she said, and then touched her own ears. “Hear yes. Memory of words ... of wraith !”

Shade’s jowls trembled.

An echo rose in Wynn’s mind. Fragmented sounds came out of her own memories of Chane’s toneless voice, saying ...

—wraith ... not ... gone—

Wynn grabbed Shade’s face. “Yes ... yes, Shade!”

It was a broken set of words, and this would never be like talking with Chap. Shade could use only words found in memories that the dog understood, and unless they were touching, it could be only words Shade had ever heard in Wynn’s own memories. But this was still more than Wynn had ever hoped possible.

She’d found Shade a voice, stolen and broken as it was.

Another moment rose in Wynn’s mind.

Chane had come to her room that night to cryptically demand that she follow him out and leave Shade behind. The view in the memory was twisted, two views of the same moment overlaid from two perspectives—Wynn’s own mixed with Shade’s as the dog had lain upon the bed.

—Come ... Shade stays here—

Wynn stared at Shade, wondering what this recalled memory meant. Then broken words, still in Chane’s voice, shuffled in order and came again.

—Wynn ... stays here—

Wynn was so elated that she didn’t even think about what it meant. Shade was doing more than repeating memory words. She was using them to express herself for her own meaning.

Wynn hugged the dog, murmuring, “Oh, thank goodness!”

Then Shade let out a low rumble, and a flash of different moments rose to Wynn’s awareness. They were hazy, muted, and more garbled than any other past memory that Shade had shared. Wynn had experienced this before, the first time Shade had shared memories passed on by other majay-hì—by Chap to Lily, and then to their daughter.

Wynn saw through Chap’s eyes on the night the Fay had tried to kill her.

Lily’s pack of majay-hì scrambled over a massive, downed birch tree as its unearthed roots came alive. Those wooden tentacles lashed at them. Through Chap’s perspective, Wynn saw herself jerked out from beneath the downed tree’s branches by a root. She tumbled across the earth, her tunic torn at the shoulder, and lay there, barely conscious.

Wynn instantly let go of Shade, shrinking away. Those same broken words in Chane’s voice came at her again.

—Wynn ... stays here—

It had happened on a terrible night in the Eleven Territories when the Fay had been communing with Chap and realized Wynn had overheard them. A tainted mortal had been spying on them, and they’d tried to kill her.

Shade began to growl at Wynn. More fragmented words came, this time echoed in Chap’s strange mental voice from the night at the Sea Lion hearth, after Magiere and Leesil’s wedding.

—stay where many—

Shade lunged, shoving Wynn back with her front paws.

Wynn toppled and her back flattened against the dresser. A hodgepodge of differently voiced words came out of her memories.

—stay ... Wynn ... here ... no ... forest—

Shade was trying to command her with what few words she understood. Even in finding a flawed voice, it was unsettling how quickly the dog caught on.

Shade had always had her own purpose, one that Wynn too often forgot. Shade was worried about Wynn traveling where there were too few mortals for the Fay to fear being noticed.

“Oh, Shade ... I can’t stay,” Wynn stammered.

Words from her memories came instantly back.

—Fay ... kill ... Wynn—

Wynn threw her arms around Shade’s neck, hearing and feeling the dog’s distressed rumble. How could she reassure Shade when she couldn’t even do so for herself?

“We aren’t heading inland yet,” she whispered, though Shade might not understand all of the words. “I haven’t told Chane, but we were going farther down—”