The Shadows of Night by Ellen Fisher Read Free Book Online Page A

opportunity.   Yet she couldn’t bring herself to flee without finding out which prince had been injured.
    The sound of worried voices drifted to her ears.   Gliding silently down the long, dimly lit hall, she peered around a corner.   A knot of people speaking in anxious tones stood ten feet away, and the scent of blood was strong enough that she could smell it even in her human form.   One of the group moved slightly, and she saw that the motionless body on the ground had long red hair.
    Prong, then, not Hart.   Hart was all right.   The unfamiliar, clutching sensation in her chest eased a bit.
    She turned and strode noiselessly for the door at the end of the hall.
     
    *****
     
    The door slid aside for her, and no magical wall impeded her progress as she slipped through it.   She walked across the wide swath of grass that surrounded the keep.   There were still a few Antler grazing on the meadow, their tails flicking contentedly, but she stayed far away from them, keeping to the twilight shadows cast by the large oak trees, and none of them saw her.   One of the silvery drones floated past her with a heavily laden basket of food, which it had presumably collected from the forest, but it did not seem to notice her presence either.
    There were guards at the gate, so she stood in the darkening shadows of the great stone wall, considering how best to get past them.  
    She was hesitant to try to get through the gate, even if she managed to distract the guards.   There might be another magical wall, or some other impediment.   The best option, she thought, was to go over the wall.   But it was so high that she could not have leapt over it even in her animal form.   Which made sense, as it was designed to keep the enemy outside.
    And she was the enemy.
    Undaunted by its height, she gave serious thought to the problem.   Near the wall stood an enormous tree with a thick trunk and spreading branches.   In her animal form, she could have scaled it in an instant.   In her human form, it was more challenging.   But she was a fair climber even without her claws.   She shimmied up the trunk, digging the arches of her feet into the rough bark to aid her progress, and quickly got to the first branch.   She scrambled higher, aided by the branches, until she was higher than the great silver stones of the wall.
    Concealed by the amber and crimson leaves, she slid carefully along the branch—her human form wasn’t as well balanced as her cat form, and she had no claws to help—until she was well past the wall.   Then she looked down at the ground.   Unfortunately, it slanted down from the wall in a rather steep hill, making it a very long drop.
    Not a problem in her cat form, but extremely dangerous for a human.
    But there was no help for it.   She contemplated the distance for a moment, then dangled from the branch and dropped lightly to the ground.   She let her legs crumple as she hit the turf, rolled, and came to her feet easily, uninjured.
    She considered trying to sneak through the town by sticking to the shadows, but realized that there was nothing in her human form to mark her as a Claw except for her gold-streaked hair, which wasn’t obvious in the gathering darkness.   Her scent was that of the Claw, but as long as no one passed her too closely, they would not notice in their human form.   Though the Kindred had a keen sense of smell, human noses were not as acute as animal ones.
    She walked through the town as if she was just another Antler, her long hair carefully draped to conceal the collar as much as possible.   She held her head high, as if she belonged in the town, but took care to keep a substantial distance away from anyone who passed.   No one looked twice at her.  
    Unfamiliar smells assaulted her nostrils, the smells of ale and unfamiliar foods.   Even the smell of vegetables and cooked grass was enough to make her stomach rumble.   She ignored her hunger and went on.   She wasn’t