Of Truth and Beasts

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—”

A knock at the bedroom door stopped her, and then Chane called from outside, “Wynn?”

Such bad timing made her wish he’d stayed away a bit longer. She sat up, one hand stroking Shade’s neck as she placed a finger over her lips before she answered.

“Yes, come in.”

The door opened, and Chane stepped inside. The look of him startled her.

His face, though still pale, now had a hint of color. He looked ... at ease, yet more alert than earlier that evening. As if guessing her first question, he said, “A bovine, well outside of the city.”

After the full urn of blood left behind at the temple, Wynn took nothing for granted.

“That will work for you, taking just some life from an animal?” she asked.

He hesitated, and then answered flatly, “Yes.”

A strange grimace, a kind of revulsion, twisted his features for an instant. She’d never seen that before where his need was concerned. She felt a little guilty for doubting him, but not for long.