Elf Saga: Bloodlines (Part 1: Curse of the Jaguar) Read online

  “No.” I hold up my hands with my own dark jaguar rosettes. My nails are shiny and black, but they’re as weak and round as anyone else’s. “I want to know what this jaguar curse is. What it really is, what it means, and how I can get rid of it.”

  She stares at me. “Get rid of it? You can’t get rid of it.”

  I shiver. “How do you know? Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I say so!”

  “I’m not a child anymore, Mother. Tell me the truth. All of it this time.”

  She holds up her claws again. “I did tell you, a hundred times. The spirit Raven made me into the jaguar knight so I could kill a mermaid. Mermaids are awful, if you recall. She was a huge ugly thing in desperate need of a hair brush and a breath mint, but I didn’t have either of those, so I tore off her arm. And then her head.” Then she whispers, “Spoiler alert. She died.”

  “I know, but…” I look around the quiet forest, as though I’ll see some sign to help me get the words right. I’m feeling hot and distracted, and my head is pounding. “...if you want to kill a monster, you just need a sword or a spell or something. But this Raven spirit thing transformed you into a jaguar warrior. And I’m like you too, it’s in our blood. But there has to be more to it than just some muscles and spots. It has to mean something more. And there has to be a way to get rid of it, to be normal. I need to know. Please.”

  She laughs at me, but she’s not amused. There’s a strange look in her eyes, and for a second, I get the feeling that she wants to run away.

  “Mean something? You want it to mean something?” She laughs that same weird laugh again, and shakes her head as she turns away. “You’re too old for faerie tales, Gen. Stop looking for morals and reasons. Life isn’t fair, the good guys don’t always win, and sometimes shit just happens. So go home. Go back to daddy, find a boy, and have a baby or something.” And she runs off into the woods, running like a wildcat, bounding off silently, and vanishing completely a moment later.

  I stare after her.

  I stand there, my hand still dripping with stream water, staring into the forest.

  I don’t know what I expected…

  That’s a lie. I expected her to spill all the secrets of the universe, to explain about Raven, and to tell me what it means to be physically transformed into a blessed warrior. I expected answers, mysteries, riddles, enlightenment. And I expected a cure.

  I didn’t expect to get laughed at.

  But this doesn’t change anything.

  I wipe my hand on my shirt, climb up into the saddle, and go after her again.

  For five more days I follow her trail, but we’re not going west anymore. She’s leading me north now, and she’s moving faster than before, away from the border, away from the Azterans. Where the hell could she be going?

  We’re in the Miroq province now, and here the mountains are gray with a little snow up at the top, and the forests are a bit cooler, a bit livelier. Rabbits and foxes and beaver run and creep through the shadows, while crows and owls and eagles perch overhead. Her trail skirts a handful of villages and I smell food cooking and hear children singing. It feels a bit more like home. It feels good.

  Then it rains. That sucks. And it just makes me want to be home even more. I miss my warm bed, and the smell of eggs cooking, and the soft music of the flutes coming from next door. I try to hum a tune, but I can’t remember more than a few notes of any of them. I guess that’s why I don’t make flutes.

  As the trail dips down through a gurgling stream, I spot a carcass through the trees. It’s some sort of pine drake, a dark green dragon only a little bigger than my pronghorn, with two thin tails and short, broad wings for flying low through the trees. The neck is all twisted and knotted like old rope, and there’s a jagged, bloody hole in the thing’s chest. I glance inside.

  She tore out its heart with her bare hands.

  Of course she did.

  It’s a fresh kill, so I’m still close behind her. I don’t know if this is supposed to scare me off, but I’ve seen plenty of dead animals in my life, so I ride around the drake without touching it, and carry on.

  Days pass. I stop counting.

  On a cold morning, as the mist lies thick in the forest and a fresh drizzle begins to patter on my head, I ride out from a stand of trees into a clearing down to the edge of a pond, and then I jerk my pronghorn to a halt because there is a tall black figure standing on the surface of the pond.

  Yeah, standing on the water.

  “Screw me sideways,” I whisper, staring at the cloaked figure.

  I’ve heard of this before, in one of Mother’s stories.

  It’s him.

  “It’s you,” I say in a shaky voice, too stunned to think of anything less stupid to say.

  “I usually am,” the figure says. The voice is sort of husky, more like a woman than a man, I think. All I can see is a pile of black rags, cloaks, and hoods. No hands, no face. But there is a glimpse of white where the face should be. A mask? It has to be him.

  Raven.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I say. “A woman named Lozen, the jaguar knight.”

  “You missed her,” says the stranger. “She’s two days gone now.”

  “Two?” I frown. How did I fall so far behind?

  “Not that you can catch her. She took our last crystal ship. Mokokari was heartbroken. He only has a few shards left, so it will take years to grow another one.”

  A crystal ship? Just like in Dad’s stories!

  “Why did she take the ship?” I ask. “Where did she go?”

  “She went to find Raven.”

  I freeze for a second, frowning. “But… aren’t you Raven?”

  “No, thankfully.” The black rags shake and shudder, and they collapse in a heap. The elf-like figure is gone, and now sitting among the black cloaks is a large white fox. “I am Inari.”

  “Inari?” It’s a talking fox. I think I remember this from the stories too, but it’s been years since Dad talked about this stuff. I think the fox’s tail is important. And there was a woman with a tail too, more than one, actually. She negotiated the Treaty of Wei Gan Shao and ended the dragon wars between Tenjia and Varada. Why can’t I remember her name? It seems like I should remember her name… “So, Inari, you’re one of the other animal spirits, like Raven?”

  “You can call me that. It’s true enough.” The fox doesn’t move its mouth to speak. It just looks at me and the words sort of just happen. It’s weird. And I can’t tell if Inari is a he or a she.

  “I’m her daughter,” I say, because I have no idea what to say. “Lozen’s daughter. My name is Genesee Marev.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Not terribly helpful, these animal spirits.

  “Can you… can you tell me about how Raven changed my mother? Can you tell me how to get rid of the jaguar curse?” I hold my breath, hoping beyond hope that this strange creature is about to tell me…

  “No.” Inari shrugs. “Sorry. None of my business, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh. Sure. Because that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”

  I stare at the fox as the little flicker of anticipation and excitement in my chest dies away into a cold gray cinder. My head is aching and I want to lie down.

  “Well, I need to talk to her, or to Raven, I guess. Where are they?” I glance around the pond for tracks, or a house, or a den, but there’s nothing here. I suppose I shouldn’t expect to see anything normal when I’m talking to a fox that’s sitting on the surface of a pond without making a ripple.

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?” I swear, I could smack this guy. You know, if he or she wasn’t standing on a pond.

  “Several years ago, Coyote went to find the lost city of Yas Yagaroth,” Inari says. “And then a year later, Raven went to find our lost Coyote. And now Lozen has gone to find poor Raven. I suppose you’ll go to find them too, now.”

  “Lost city of Yas Yagaroth? Where the hell is that?”

 
“It’s lost.” The fox gives me a funny look. “Lost means we don’t know where it is.”

  “I know what lost means, you ass.” I rub my tired eyes. “But if it’s lost, then how is Mother planning to find it?”

  “All crystal ships are grown from shards,” Inari says. “And all of the shards originally came from one crystal, long ago. They call to one another. So Lozen’s ship will guide her to Coyote’s ship.”

  “What about Raven?”

  “Raven is a raven,” Inari says slowly, head tilting to the side. “He can fly without a crystal ship.”

  I blink, too tired for a witty comeback. “Okay. So I need my own crystal ship to track down Mother’s ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t have any more?”

  “No.”

  “So… where do I get one?” Seriously, are all magical creatures like this, with the riddles and the half-answers? How do people not kill them more often?!

  “Hm. Tricky. But not impossible. Many years ago, I knew of an elf called Nadira dal Rezhiri who had a crystal ship.” Inari looks away toward the northern woods. “Perhaps she can help you.”

  “Nadira?” The name rings a faint bell. “The ambermagus! Dad told me about her, they were friends back in the day. She’s from… Aram.”

  Aram is on the other side of the world.

  Shit.

  I shrug and shake my head. Well, I’ve come this far... “How am I supposed to get to Aram?”

  “Take the steamer at the bottom of the cliff.” Inari nods toward the west.

  “What steamer?” I circle around the pond and just a few paces away I discover the grassy lip of a sheer rocky cliff dropping away from my boots. A hundred feet below me I can see wooden docks and a few dozen little homes, small fishing boats and nets, and one very large ship. An alchemist’s steamship. Amber stones glow along the railings, casting strange faerie lights in the sea mist.

  “How do I get down there?” I look back, but the white fox is gone.

  Of course it is. Dick. Probably thinks he’s so clever and mysterious. Or she. Or whatever.

  It takes me half an hour to find a safe path down to the water’s edge and to the little fishing village in the shadow of the cliff, but the people are friendly and they’re happy to take what’s left of my gold as well as my pronghorn, so I get a bunk on the steamer Pride of Garabad, and I try to get comfortable, and we set sail.

  For five weeks.

  Five stinking weeks, lurching across the western sea, winding around islands, wasting time in port after port, making pointless small talk with fishermen from dozens of different towns, wondering why the hell I listened to a talking fox, and waiting, waiting, waiting…

  One night we spot a pair of dragons swimming alongside us, two huge beasts with fins for feet and long necks that rise out of the sea to turn shark-like heads toward us. I grip the railing, wondering what Mother would do, wondering how normal people deal with monsters like these. But the dragons dive below the waves and we don’t see them again. And as I head back inside, I see two sailors turn and put away a large gun in an armored locker. I guess that’s one way to deal with monsters. I’ve never really liked guns.

  I’ve barely made it back to my cabin when I have another attack. My eyes ache and my skull throbs as I stagger to my bunk. Lying down helps a little, but the rocking of the boat makes the dizziness worse, and the pain seems to linger much longer, even though it doesn’t hurt as much. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one. Probably bad.

  The waiting drags on. When Dad used to tell us stories about traveling the world, fighting witches and nightmares and bring back unicorns from the dead, I guess he left out how long and boring the actual traveling was.

  When we finally reach Aram, I hurry down the pier into the town of Garabad like I’m afraid the ship will snatch me back and drag me out to sea again. I stumble around the stony streets for a few minutes to get my bearings, which is pointless because I can’t even begin to read the writing on the buildings or the signs, so I just start going up to strangers and asking, “Excuse me, but do you know Nadira dal Rezhiri? I’m trying to find an ambermagus named Nadira dal Rezhiri. Have you heard of her?”

  I get a few frowns, a lot of shaking heads. I have no idea if they’re telling me they don’t know her, or if they’re just trying to make the annoying foreigner go away. I can’t say I blame them. I don’t want me to be here either. And for all I know, they can’t understand a word I’m saying.

  “Are you all right, fair maiden?” a man asks.

  I turn to see four strange men and one even stranger woman casting concerned looks at me. Two of the fellas are big brutes in heavy Gallian armor, and they have with them an elderly Drogori in Urskayan rags and a little slimeball with a crappy mustache, and the woman… what the hell? All she’s wearing is some sort of metal underwear and a sword. On this very brisk autumn afternoon. I stare for a minute, and then I blurt out a laugh on top of a snort, which hurts my nose.

  “We’re strangers in this land ourselves,” one of the Gallian knights says. “On our way to slay a great demon, but if you are in some need…?”

  “Let me stop you right there, buddy.” I wipe my nose and wave him away. My head is pounding. “Don’t even start. I can’t deal with a bunch of cardboard cutouts right now. I have real, actual problems. So piss off. Go kill your naughty goat or whatever. And get that girl some pants!”

  They glare at me and then move along, revealing another stranger lurking behind them, a young man clutching a pile of books with his ink-stained fingers. He hesitates, and then says, “Nadira dal Rezhiri?”

  I blink at him. Is this idiot calling me Nadira?

  “You’re looking for Nadira dal Rezhiri?” he asks. He speaks the trade tongue with a heavy accent, so it takes me a second to realize that I can tell what he’s saying.

  “Oh, yeah. You know her?” I ask.

  “No. No, no. I have no dealings with her. I have never met her myself.” He shakes his head emphatically. “But I believe she lives about ten leagues north of here, I think. Or she used to. Near the village of Omoss.” He nods politely, and then hurries away.

  “Ten more leagues.” I sigh, and start walking.

  The next evening I walk into the village of Omoss, fifty stone houses in a hilly area full of goats and olive trees. I ask for Nadira one more time, and an old woman points me up a path to a house on a hill. As I start walking up the hill, I can’t help but laugh. I’m so tired I have to laugh. The house is a windmill.

  “If I see another one, it’ll become a theme.” I rub my eyes, unable to stop grinning. “I hate themes.”

  The climb up the hill is enough to make my tired legs ache, and I feel a slight wave of dizziness run through my head. As I approach the door, I hear singing inside.

  I knock.

  The singing stops, and a moment later the door opens.

  “Hello! How can I help you?” It’s a girl. She looks a little younger than me. Shorter and rounder, with a scattering of fierce freckles across her nose and cheeks. And she has green hair.

  Her green hair is very bright and very long, curling down over her somewhat large breasts. And her green hair is full of green leaves and flowers. Pink and purple tulips. In her hair. Not just tucked into a braid or something. I’m pretty sure the flowers are growing in her hair. And as she says hello, three faeries fly up from behind her and perch on her shoulders and head, clinging to her hair, their tiny naked bodies glowing softly with a pale green light.

  She’s a Feyeri. I haven’t seen one of them in years.

  “I, uh...” My head spins a little and my stomach gurgles. I haven’t eaten today. Come to think of it, I didn’t eat yesterday either. When did I last…? “Oh crap.”

  I remember falling. I don’t remember hitting the floor. Which is probably for the best.

  I wake up in a bed, sweating under a ton of blankets with a faerie sitting on my chest about an inch from my nose, staring at me. I blow at
it and it flies away.

  “Hello?” I sit up slowly, struggling to push the covers off. “Ugh, what are these blankets made of, rocks?”

  “Oh hey!” The girl with the freckles and flowers comes hurrying over with a steaming cup and a bright cheery smile. “Oh good, you’re awake. I was so worried. I mean, I’m still a little worried. You look terrible, honey. That forehead, you really need to moisturize. What happened to you?”

  “A boat.” I take the cup and drink. It’s a thick, soupy green tea with milk and lemon, and a dozen other things that probably belong in a salad, which I would not eat. I wince and set it aside. “A boat happened to me.”

  “Well, whatever hit you, it’s gone now. Scurvy, red fever, no worries. All fixed now thanks to my little green friends.”

  She’s got a faerie sitting on her necklace, right in her cleavage, and she’s petting my hair like I’m a lost puppy. And I wish she’d stop smiling. I also bite back the desire to tell her she’s wrong, that her faerie magic didn’t fix anything, not really. I’ve seen Feyeri healers before, when I was much younger. It’s true they can fix almost anything, but my brothers and I seem to be the exception.

  I pull my hair free of her, and she takes my fingers in her pink-gloved hands, her smile even bigger than before, and she whispers, “I know who you are!”

  “What?” I tense up. “You do?” This is how fights start back home, but this time I don’t have a pronghorn to get me out of here.

  “You’re Lozen’s daughter!” She looks like she just discovered a new breed of kitten to snuggle with at night, which is to say, too happy.

  I look down at my hand and see my jaguar spots between her gloved fingers. “Uh, yeah. Genesee Marev. Nice to meet you.”

  “Gen! Can I call you Gen? It’s so nice to meet you!” She shakes my hand wildly. “I’m Rajani. Rajani dal Rezhiri, at your service. Herbalist, barber, surgeon, gardener, and Feyeri priestess extraordinaire!”

  ”Yeah, I guessed that last bit.” I nod at her hair. “Dad told me about how it turns green when you join the sisterhood.”