Thea Harrison: Storm's Heart

“Niniane,” Rune said.

Impatient, Tiago shrugged. “Whatever.”

Rune clapped Tiago on the shoulder. “Well, go find her and make sure she stays okay.”

“You know I will.”

Tiago jogged up the stairs to the Tower rooftop. He turned his face upward to look full upon the bright orb of the sun. With a sense of unutterable relief he let his human form fall away, along with the shackles of the city. He lunged upward. Massive wings hammered down as he climbed into the air, and a thunderclap tore through the sky.

He slipped into the oldest, truest part of his soul.

He did not know his actual age, but he remembered soaring high above the Great Plains as vast herds of bison covered miles upon miles of land. The bison had once been his favorite prey. He would plummet from a great height, a murderous juggernaut that would slam down on the beast he had chosen and shatter its spine. The rest of the bison herd would stampede in a panic, leaving him to gorge in solitary peace as the wind undulated through an endless sea of prairie grasses under a colossal turquoise basin of sky.

He was known to many of the American Indian nations as the creature that commanded thunder and lightning, quick to stir to wrath and war, but his true identity was as a sojourner of the Earth. He would take flight for days on end, slipping into a fugue state as he watched oceans and lands scroll by underneath the glimmering shadow of his giant outspread wings.

When curiosity brought him to ground at last, he shapeshifted for the first time to walk among humans in a land filled with golden desert temples and palatial burial tombs of kings surrounded by cities of the dead. The humans clustered in a vibrant green fertile strip of land that followed the snaking path of a river like the folds of a silken dress molding to the curves of a voluptuous woman.

He mingled for a brief time with a small, dark, intelligent people who wrote of him in the Pyramid Texts, from the time of the Old Kingdom in Egypt. The people worshipped his winged form and called him a god of the wind. They claimed he brought with him the breath of life.

The people of Egypt had offered him everything a human being could desire, but he was not human. They tried to hold on to him with offerings of gold, and chains of worship, sex and dynasty, but he would not be chained or held. Only when the great winged serpent Cuelebre hunted him down, pinned him to the ground and spoke to him with patient beguilement and cunning intellect of a vision of a nation of united Wyr did he consent to listen.

Cuelebre had faced a formidable challenge with the oldest and strongest of the ancient Wyr. He could not bludgeon them into submitting to his rule and then hope to trust them in any kind of high-functioning level of governance afterward. Instead, he had to use persuasion to bring them to his side, to ask them to partner with him in the creation of a Wyr nation. Cuelebre coaxed Tiago into realizing that growth was inevitable for both humankind and the Elder Races. Civilization’s dance had begun an inexorable waltz across the world.

Tiago must participate in the waltz. He must change as the world changed or become irrelevant. He refused to be reduced or set aside in the new formation of the world.

Thus, long ago, he agreed to work in a sometimes fractious collective partnership. He grew to admit it did not lessen who he was but enhanced him and used him to their best mutual benefit.

He was a warlord. To an ancient people he was a god of storm and lightning, a prince of the sky.

He was Wyr.

Motel 6 wasn’t so bad. In fact it was kind of cute in a polyester sort of way.

Sure, it wasn’t the Regent, or the Renaissance, or the Ritz-Carlton. But the desk attendant had been cheerfully disinterested when Niniane had checked in, the prices were affordable and, most important, they had smoking rooms. Score.

On the one hand, there wasn’t any room service or those darling little liquor bottles in a small refrigerator. On the other hand, there weren’t any assassination attempts or a pending coronation. Hmm. Niniane wondered if they offered a twelve-month lease.

She limped into the room. She pulled her new sunglasses down her nose and took a long, careful look over the rim at the surrounding scene. The warm afternoon sun toasted the asphalt of the motel parking lot, and a fitful wind swirled dirt and exhaust fumes into a toxic soup. The motel was located near some interstate exit, along with several fast-food restaurants, gas stations, and a Walgreens. The sound of traffic was a constant in the background, but it shouldn’t be too disruptive once she had the door closed.

She couldn’t see or hear anything unusual in the motel’s immediate vicinity, and her sight and hearing, along with her sensitivity to magic, were inhumanly acute. She wasn’t up to a more strenuous inspection. A visual scan from the doorway would have to be good enough.

After she shut the door and put on the security chain, the first thing she did was kick off her stylish four-inch heels. Ah, thank you, god of feet. She set her sunglasses on the TV. The double room was either painted or wallpapered beige. It had bright bedspreads patterned with an insistent orange, a window covered with short heavy curtains that hung over a long thin wall air-conditioner unit, and a plain table and chair that were pushed against the wall. She dropped her shopping bags on the nearest bed, limped to the air conditioner and turned it on full blast.

Life had sure gone to hell since Dragos had killed her uncle. Oh, Urien had to die, without a doubt. She was glad he was dead. She just wished it could have happened in a couple of decades or so. This business about her becoming the Dark Fae Queen? She was so not in the mood.

She dumped out the contents of the shopping bags. The items chronicled a long, busy day.

She’d had a lot to do once she had killed her second cousin Geril and his two cohorts. First item on her agenda was to run away. The second item was to get stuff and keep running. She had walked into a twenty-four-hour pharmacy, bought bandages, a pair of sweatpants, sunglasses and a T-shirt, changed in their bathroom and walked out.

Sunglasses at midnight. Huh. Idiot.

Those had gone into her first shopping bag until daybreak. Then she stole a car and drove in aimless circles while she tried to think past the frozen tundra in her head. She stopped at a superstore and bought more stuff, left the stolen car in the parking lot and got a cab, took the cab to the airport where she got another cab, and here she was.

Her path had been so random, so erratic, made up as it was by stress-induced on-the-spot decisions, that she defied anybody to figure out where “here” was. Hell, even she didn’t know where “here” was, just that she was still somewhere in the greater Chicago area. Neither ride had been long enough to get her anywhere else, more’s the pity. She hadn’t wanted to imprint herself too deeply in the memory of either cab driver, so she had tried to keep both trips as normal as possible. She could always steal a car again and drive away from the area, but first she needed a few hours to recuperate while she considered what her next moves should be. At the moment she was too awash with conflicting impulses, pain and exhaustion to be sure of anything.

One shopping bag held her crumpled red halter dress and the matching evening bag that carried a compact powder, a lipstick, her wallet and two small stiletto knives. She kept the tips touched with poison and had a variety of places she could wear or carry them, in the side pocket of a purse, strapped to her arms, or underneath her dress and strapped to her thighs.