Korr reached up and grasped his Trinket. "Where?"
"It belongs to the Captain of the High Guard in Everfell," I said. "A wolf shifter named Asund."
Ethat snorted and sat up like a giant cat. He peered down at me, fireflies streaming out of his curled nostrils.
"Are you certain?" Korr asked, his handsome face drawing into a very serious frown.
"I am positive. Here, I'll show you how I know. Look at my Trinket." I fished out my Trinket. "Maybe there's some kind of conspiracy and the gods are punishing us for this. Maybe you high-breds can do something about it."
I brought Korr my Trinket, and pointed to the thorn that had been the one to match Asund's thorn. "See, here? This one. He was wearing one that matched exactly.I think the Temple is re-using the same castings and it doesn't mean anything. I've just got a whole Trinket, but you all got the thorns, and someone probably has the ball."
Korr pulled off his Trinket and laid it side by side with mine in his palm. His Trinket's thorn matched one of the thorns on my Trinket exactly. He handed it all to Itek, who compared it to his own Trinket.
"See?" I told Korr. "Go to Everfell if you don't believe me. Ask to see Captain Asund. He had come to my Enclave, and I saw the similarities, and tried to argue he was my consort. I was just distraught over Tynn and now I realize I was an idiot."
"Asund rejected the idea?" Korr said, while Ethat practically trembled, his sides moving with careful, deep breaths. Korr had never been so serious, his sky-like eyes peering deep at me, like I was a well of mysteries.
"They're identical," Itek told Korr, having used his superior eyesight to determine this. "She's right."
"Asund wasn't very kind about it," I said quietly. I touched between my breasts. "I wore my Trinket. That's why I'm calloused. I took it off when I got here and saw you two had Trinkets that matched Asund's, and realized it's all a lie. That the Churn is just a lie. And even if you're right about the perfect mate being perfect, that means all the high-breds will just get high-breds, and the Churn is really bullshit."
Ethat shifted his wings and tossed his head impatiently, snorting something.
Korr put his Trinket back around his neck. He looked at Itek.
"It would seem things have become interesting," Itek said.
"It would explain a great deal," Korr murmured.
I didn't care what they were interested in or what was worth explaining. "I'm leaving. I'm glad you and Itek are happy together. It's nice to know it's not total bullshit. But if this is any help to you getting the world sorted, I'm glad. Just leave me alone."
I shoved my Trinket back in my bag.
"Theia, wait," Itek said.
I grabbed a pillow and flung it at him as I passed the couch. "Thanks for making sense of it. Now at least I understand why your husband ground his cock against my back while we both watched you get naked."
Itek grinned. "Korr's not my husband, and it wasn't my naked ass making him hard."
"Not usually anyway," Korr said, amused.
"What? You two always wear your Trinkets. You—everyone in town thinks you're married!" I exclaimed, completely confused.
"That's an assumption they make, and we let them make it," Korr said. "We aren't married. We aren't mates."
"So you know the Trinkets are a lie!" I exclaimed. "You knew the whole time it was possible!"
"No," Korr said. "Ethat."
The green dragon darted to his rock nest, and dug through the rocks, then shifted into human form and lowered something around his own neck, and moved towards his brother.
"I—" I didn't understand.
He had a gold thorn as well.
I approached slowly, and lifted the thorn off his chest. He stared at me with such intensity I couldn't bear to meet his gaze.
His thorn was exactly like the others. Exactly like the ones on my Trinket.
"I was ordered to go into the Temple," Korr told me as I stared at Ethat's Trinket. "Our elders had decided that we'd been removed from the world too long, so, because I was of an age I should have taken a mate but had not, and was willing to come into the world, I'd go to Temple. My clutchbrother and I have never been apart, so Ethat came with me, even though we knew it might seperate us forever by the obligations of our partners."
I licked my lips.
"When we emerged," Ethat took over speaking, softly, "we both had the same Trinket. No one knew what it meant, except it was impossible we were mates. We are clutchbrothers. I left with Korr to solve the riddle—and some others—and in our travels, we met Itek, who had been told to undergo the Churn for the same reasons. Obviously, we are linked to the same fate."
Itek explained now. "Two dragons and a griffon travelling together would make it look like the clans were officially allied, which we aren't. So Korr and I wear our Trinkets openly, and allow everyone to assume we are partners, while Ethat remains in dragon-form, concealing his own Trinket and playing Korr's tagalong brother."
"It would seem there is now a fourth," Korr said. "This wolf-shifter Asund who is also bound to us."
"But... this doesn't make sense," I said, my mind spinning.
"No. We were also sent by our clans to figure out why the world is rotting," Ethat said. "To try to track down the fate of the lost hippocamp princess, and verify if she is truly dead or not."
"You don't seriously believe I'm her," I said.
"We aren't certain," Ethat said. "The fact you don't care for meat is telling. Hippocamps enjoy fish, but not land-mammal meat. It makes them unwell. However, we've met hippocamps, and you do not seem to be a hippocamp, and your claims you cannot shift are disturbing, and you are not exactly the correct age. But we are unwilling to rule it out."
"But what could finding the princess do to help the world anyway? Just get a new heiress."
"In reality? Nothing, except perhaps lead to something else to explain what's happening," Ethat said.
"This was interesting and all, but I've got to go. Good luck figuring out your Trinket collection there. And Asund's an asshole. So there's that. He'll get along great with you guys."
Ethat grabbed my wrist before I could move. "This Asund may have rejected you, but we won't."
"What?" I asked blankly.
"It is the only thing that makes sense," Korr said. "We are all for you."
"What?" Now he was talking crazy. "Nobody has multiple consorts. Admit it, Korr, you're just a horny lizard and Itek gets off on it, and maybe Ethat should go fly up north to find Asund. Sorry, Ethat, in advance, he's an asshole."
"My brother is somewhat indiscriminate in his tastes," Ethat told me. "But I am only interested in females. There is no chance this Asund is the mate the gods chose for me."
Korr snorted. "No, griffons are the indiscriminate fuck-birds. Dragons are not. Don't think I haven't noticed your interest in her, brother, but we both know Itek cannot do to my cock what she does. Wasn't Itek just ranting at me about it last night?"
"Indiscriminate fuck-birds?" Itek asked Korr dryly. He rolled his eyes. "No. Dragons are difficult to stir."
"Exactly," Korr addressed me. "Once something strikes our jaded, bored hearts, and we are moved to motion, it is forever. The intensity and desire that you clearly want. My brother and I have speculated before that we are meant to share a mate, since the gods know we never have been apart, and never wanted to be apart."
"Itek was a confusing wrinkle," Ethat said. "Korr and I hoped that it meant the gods would not force us to be seperated. We have known, either way, our perfect partners wait for us. We thought perhaps if not the same woman, siblings who did not want to be seperated and we could all dwell together. Here you are."
"We do not care why," Korr said. "And one for all of us?"
"I accepted long ago that whatever came of the three matching Trinkets would be strange," Itek told me.
"But our Trinkets don't match," I said softly. "You have pieces of a Trinket."
"Anyone with the courage to look and think for five seconds will see that your Trinket matches ours," Itek said impatiently. "There are no less than four thorns that match, exactly, your Trinket. And anyone who has been to the High Temple will recognize the meaning. You are the globe. We are the rays."
Ethat picked up my fallen Trinket.
"But why?" I whispered.
"Who cares?" Korr flicked hair over his shoulder. "It is so. We should fly to Everfell and find this Asund. Inform him of the grand news that he has been elevated from his dull life as a Captain to a god-ordained mystery to save the country."
"Is that what we're doing." Itek said dryly. Even Ethat looked long-suffering.
"Do I get a say in this?" I asked.
Korr smirked and approached, bending low to whisper in my ear, "I smelled you on that sponge."
I blushed purple-hot.
"I did terrible things to that sponge. Terrible, terrible things. All thinking of what you likely did to it, and wondering why am I jelaous of this sponge? Now I know."
I backed away from him. "You let Itek drop me. If I was really your consort you'd never have let him do that. You should have ripped his head off!"
"I wanted to?" Korr said. Ethat nodded.
I didn't know what to believe. They all seemed convinced—and it was the easiest answer to the problem.
"Perhaps she is a new pantere hybrid," Itek was saying. "Perhaps a pantere crossed with a hippocamp? Or a pantere-hybrid crossed with another hybrid?"
Korr dismissed this. "That does not explain why she cannot shift and does not like meat."
"The Hippocamps sometimes keep herds," Ethat said. "Perhaps there is some sort of curse that can be put on shifters to prevent us from shifting."
"And we would have heard of this by now, yes?" Itek disagreed. "Perhaps Korr was right. She is such a mutt of shifter species she cannot shift. Like black is all color, and white is no color, and you must pass all of it through a prism to see them."
"Ahhh," Korr said with a nod. "That makes for interesting possibilities with our young."
"Perhaps there is unicorn in there, and she can birth a unicorn?" Itek said.
Ethat shook his head. "All unicorn hybrids lose their horns."
"The hippocampi have horns."
"But their horns are not alicorn."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I waved my hands. "You just dropped me from way up in the sky, scared the shit out of me, and now you think I want to have your babies?"
"Well, eventually?" Korr said.
"Of course we want young," Ethat said.
"How many thorns are on your Trinket?" Itek took it from Ethat and turned it around, counting. "Do you think there are this many of us?"
"Perhaps?" Korr said.
"Hmm. I am not sure I like the idea of only getting laid every twelve days."
"You are so far ahead of yourself right now," I said. I snatched my Trinket from him. "You dropped me. You fucking dropped me knowing how scared I was!"
"Like I—"
Ethat and Korr shook their heads.
"We need to go to Everfell and find this Assund." Itek changed the subject.
"I don't want to find Assund," I said. "He won't believe it. I don't believe this. He's the Captain of the Guard. He's not going to leave that behind to come to Haven to live with you lot."
"Then I will kill him," Korr said.
"We will draw straws for the privledge," Itek said.
"So you are staying," Ethat said.
"I don't want to," I said. This was way too much crazy. The lower city seemed better than this. Get a job as a tavern wench, sell my pussy, try to get on a ship to somewhere that wasn't here. Anything but this.
"This is not a mystery worth unravelling?" Ethat asked, indicating the Trinket dangling from my fingers. "You argued that to Asund, didn't you. You knew right away that the thorn around his neck matched your Trinket. That he was for you. You felt it, didn't you. The emptiness that formed within you. The need, the hunger, the way you're aware of something perfect that now no other partner can possibly match. He was that to you, wasn't he."
I lowered my hand to my side, the Trinket softly swinging back and forth, the sharp thorns brushing the rough fabric of my pants.
"And we are that to you, aren't we," Korr said.
"You should stay and we will untangle the mystery together," Itek said.
Ethat paced slowly towards me, each step careful and guarded, twisting the silk gauze around his gorgeous body. I tried not to look. My body wanted me to look.
I backed up. "No. Don't touch me."
"You want me too," he said. "You want all of us to touch you."
"No," I said, backing up another step even as moisture soaked my thighs, and the motion sent jolts through me, and the shape of that emptiness became almost more than I could bear. "I can't be yours and the lost hippocamp princess. If I'm the princess, I'm supposed to belong to the Lord-Raven."
"Perhaps he has one of these too." Ethat matched me step for step, eyes narrowed and gaze sharp.
That was a hell of a thought. I paused to consider this. Maybe I was the lost hippocamp princess and there was some kind of curse that had robbed me of my shifting? How deep did this well of crazy go?
Ethat caught up with me, and moved to kiss me.
"I said no!" I ducked away, breaking the spell. "You can't go from treating me like a slug you were salting for amusement and dropping me and then thinking I want to fuck any of you!"
"But you—"
"My pussy does, but my mind says no." I pointed at my head. "And maybe all of you think with your balls, but I think with my head. Or try to."
"Brother," Korr purred. "leave her alone for now."
Ethat growled over his shoulder at his brother, his erection terrifying in size and absolutely not hidden under the folds of his gauze.
"You're all but drooling, brother." Korr grinned.
And here I'd been thinking Ethat was the sweet one... the man looking at me did not seem sweet or gentle. Violence and desire rose off him in a firefly haze.
"We will have to court her," Itek said.
"And make amends," Korr said.
"Have we really been that insufferable?" Ethat demanded of them.
Korr shrugged. Itek said, "The female says we have been, so we have been. This is her nest now, by the custom of my clan. And I believe yours?"
"We have done poorly preparing the den for our mate," Korr agreed.
Ethat snorted, frustrated and his erection not flagging at all. "Damn fuck-cat!"
"It was your idea too," Itek said. "Drop her, you said. Demonstrate she will not fall unless you toss her, you said."
Ethat shifted, waddling a bit in the back end as he did so, probably because his crotch had a lot of blood in one area. He clicked, aggravated, and went to pout on his warm rocks, haunches to us and tail curled around him.
Korr smirked. "Your pride is bruised, brother. Not often you have had a female reject you."
Ethat smacked his tail against the stones. Two cracked, and a bunch of fireflies zoomed around the room.
Itek chortled. "Be gentle, Korr, he has been celibate longer than you."
"Gentle? What is this thing called 'gentle'?"
"So you are staying?" Itek asked, joking aside, and returning to dead seriousness.
"What happens if I say I'm not?"
"We follow you around."
"Liars."
"Dragons are impossibly devoted to their mates," Itek said.
"And griffons?"
"It depends on the griffon, but considering you are my perfect mate, and I am yours, then you should know already. And if you are the lost hippocamp princess, then there are forces within this country—and perhaps world—who want you dead, and more importantly, never want us to discover the truth of what was done to you to strip you of your shifting. Those who know exactly who you are and will not risk letting you live now that you have found your way to Haven, and found us."
When he put it like that...