Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [64]
“A cat,” I agreed. I’d had a cat once, hadn’t I? I liked cats.
The sun touched the horizon, and gold light flashed into my eyes. The Lady gripped my shoulder, hurting me—I didn’t mind. I’d never feared pain.
Mom clutched her knife. “Surely there is no need—”
My skin melted beneath the Lady’s grasp. Something caught fire within my bones—I screamed as they melted like iron in Jayce’s forge, melted into the mold the Lady pressed on them. I fell to all fours, and my scream turned into a cat’s growl. Not a small cat, like the cats I’d known. A hunting cat, bigger than a wolf. I paced, tail thrashing, strength coursing through me. The night around me seemed sharper than before, the moon brighter.
I flexed my claws. I needed to sharpen them. The Lady drew her hand away. I stalked toward a tall oak, snarling, and raked my claws against the tree. My shoulder screamed in protest. Some shadow within the wood shifted. A hawk cried and threw itself at me, but the creature’s wing failed it, and it sank to the ground.
The Lady sighed, reached down, and brushed her fingers over the hawk’s feathers. Silver light washed over the bird, and then Elin huddled, naked, on the ground, one arm drawn to her side. Arianna put her hand to my back, drawing me away from the oak. “There is no need for you to punish Karinna, my cat. As a tree she will die, as all trees must in this dying land, and it will not be without pain.”
Elin looked up at the Lady, her eyes wide. Arianna reached out and stroked my fur. I purred at the Lady’s touch. Power coursed beneath my skin, but I held it back—I could hold back for her. I wasn’t afraid, in this powerful body.
Mom stood just a few steps away, clutching her knife. “Liza. Give me some sign you’re still in there.”
Of course I was still in here. I was better now, stronger—surely Mom could see that. I opened my jaws in a toothy cat smile.
Elin struggled to her feet and took her grandmother’s hand. Wind blew her fine hair over her bare skin.
The Lady smiled. “Kill Tara, Liza.” Her whisper scraped the inside of my skin. “Kill her now, my powerful cat.”
I leaped, releasing taut muscles, knocking Mom onto her back. The knife fell from her grasp. Pain flared through my shoulder as something tore inside it, but that didn’t matter. Only doing as the Lady demanded mattered.
“Liza. You’re Liza.” Mom’s voice was hoarse as she fixed her gaze on me, as if she were trying to call me out of the cat, the same way I’d once called a boy out of a wolf, a girl out of a bird. But my mother was no summoner. I would stay a cat, filled with a cat’s power. I snarled and lunged at her throat. She threw her arm up, and my teeth dug through her coat sleeve to pierce flesh. The taste of her blood mingled with the taste of goose down and nylon.
Something stirred inside me at that. I drew back, memory bubbling to the surface. To do no harm. I was Liza, and Liza had spoken words—human words. Something about those words was important. They were a promise; that was it. I couldn’t break my promises. Yet it didn’t feel like harm, this flexing of strength, this drawing of blood. It felt like what I was made for.
Mom’s other arm slammed into me, knocking me aside with startling force. She leaped to her feet and ran. She’d run from me before; I remembered that. The Lady released Elin’s hand to step toward me—and fell, a remarkably graceless motion. Her dress had tangled around her legs, and its fabric bound her arms to her sides. Weaver work. Arianna struggled to her feet. “Kill Tara, my cat! Kill her!”
The words hurt as they clawed through my skin. I whirled and ran after Mom. That I was Liza, that I’d made promises—both were less important than that I was the Lady’s cat and needed to please her.
Mom wheeled around a trunk and ran back toward me. I bounded past, unable to slow down fast enough. By the moon’s light I saw the glint of steel in Mom’s hand once more. She leaped at the Lady in her tangled dress, and Arianna fell back to the ground beneath her. Elin pressed her hand to the Lady’s shoulder, holding her