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"No!" Isabel said more sharply than she had intended "We don’t tell Rokan"
Ven frowned at her, puzzled "He’s counting on your abilities You’re putting hiht be more careful--"
"Rokan doesn’t kno to be careful," Isabel snapped Her fingers twisted in her gown; she loosened them with a deliberate effort "It would make no difference in his behavior"
"But why don’t you want him to know?"
"You really have to ask that?"
Ven’s hands thudded down on the table "You can’t mean to say you’re embarrassed!"
"Why can’t I?" Isabel de, isn’t it?"
"Embarrassment is a human eer, and irritation, and fear I feel all of those, don’t I? Why is embarrassment any more human than the rest?"
"Because it serves no purpose," Ven snapped, sla the book shut "Those other emotions are related to your loyalty to the royal family Your irritation with Clarisse, for exaure out whether or not she’s a threat to Rokan"
"The only reason for my irritation with Clarisse is Clarisse!"
"The Shifter is above--"
"Stop telling me what the Shifter is! I knohat the Shifter is"
"Do you?" He stepped around the table, and she saw that he was angry "Nothing I’ve read gives any indication that the Shifter can lose her powers They’re still there If you can’t use them, it’s because some part of you doesn’t want to"
Isabel opened her ed in short, curt bursts "You want to be human That’s why you can’t shift, that’s why you delude yourself into feeling these things, that’s why you care what Rokan will think when he finds out the truth I don’t knohat happened ten years ago, but it changed you You’re not the Shifter of legend"
"Sorry to disappoint you," Isabel said
He didn’t even try to deny it He shook his head and turned back to his books "There are millions of hu We live and we die and we fade away, and eventually nobody remembers us or cares But there’s only one Shifter, and she lives forever Maybe you should ask yourself if you really want to be huht Isabel stole a horse and rode back to her forest
It was ridiculously easy Nobody stopped her or questioned her One of the stableboys even saddled the horse for her She considered stopping off in the kitchens and asking for food, but decided against it The Shifter could fend for herself Change into a hawk or wolf and hunt for dinner, if she had to…
The prey e, and the crack of bone So warm and limp between her jaws…
Or if she wanted to
She rode out through the castle’s southern gate, hooves clattering on cobblestones, and spurred the horse into a gallop as soon as she left the city behind
It was a ht against an ocean of black The galloping was easier than before but still not co the soreness away every half hour or so Her horse became difficult about ten miles from the woods, and when they reached the first line of trees, he flatly refused to move on Isabel realized that the horses Rokan had chosen for his journey to su a palfrey, and no a would convince him to move forward She slipped out of the saddle, and the horse was gone before she could soblack wraiths of dust as he ran
She watched hiine that she was still on his back, then turned resolutely and faced the trees She understood the horse’s reluctance They see their doer ould dare walk between theht forcefully These woods are ood But the trees didn’t look any different
There you had the power of the Mistwood to draw upon, Ven’s voice whispered in her mind Maybe that makes a difference
Maybe it did Here in her woods, before Rokan came for her, she had knohat she was Had kno to be what she was, shifting her body as easily as fog, never staying in one shape long enough to be confused by it
The power of the Mistwood to draw upon…
Isabel sed hard and walked between the trees
On the third day they ca for her
She was still human She had not tried to shift; as soon as she entered the woods, the need to do so left her She did not have to prove what she was The forest accepted her, knew her: she was the Shifter She would shift when there was a reason to, not before She drank from a brook that flowed by a sunlit meadow and soaked in the mist that rolled between the trees and didn’t feel the need to eat
She knew every inch of the forest, every narrow path that twisted and wound its way beneath the silver branches, and this time her ankle wasn’t hurt This time--she admitted it, finally--she did not want to be found She waited until the pounding hooves were so close that she could hear the twigs cracking beneath the into a different fors and rose into the treetops as the horses ca
She should have shifted into a hawk, caught an updraft, and soared away They were nothing to her, the riders of the horses; even the one in the lead, with his angular jaw and determined dark eyes She was merely curious, and that was her mistake The sparrow perched on the lowest branch of a maple tree and watched
The second rider pulled off her hood Blond hair spilled over her black cloak, obscuring for a ive her a perfect target?"
"Be quiet, Clarisse I’ to listen"
"For what? You’ll be dead before you hear anything"
"She’s not going to try to kill us"
"That’s right She’s going to succeed"
"Would you be quiet?"
"It’s obviously not a good idea I was quiet when you first came up with the whole Shifter idea, and you see what came of that"
Rokan turned and stared at her "That was quiet?"