Excerpt: Old Magic

After an hour of lying in the dark, sleep still refused to shut her tired eyes. Her older sister, Mia, lay beside her in the bed they shared, breathing deeply. She never had any trouble falling asleep. It came as easily to her as breathing, it seemed. A talent of which she was jealous.
As quietly as she could, she rolled over, swinging her legs over the edge, letting them rest silently on the bare wood floor as they took her weight.
“Amy?” Mia’s voice was heavy with sleep. Amy assured herself that she was unaware of the fact that she was getting up. She answered anyway, in a voice that was barely a whisper, so that if she heard it at all, it would simply register as a part of her dreams.
“It’s okay, Mia. Just go back to sleep.” She stripped off her clothes, shivering in the chill air that managed to slip through the cracks of their poor home, permeating even through the heat given off from the still smoldering fire. She neatly folded her clothes and placed them on the table, then gratefully threw the light cloak over her shoulders. I’ll be warm soon, she reminded herself.
Hugging the thin material around her slim frame, she tiptoed to the door and unlocked it. The click of the lock coming undone seemed loud, but when she looked back, Mia was still sound asleep. With the door closed silently and relocked behind her, she took stock of her surroundings.
The neighborhood of the riverbank was quiet. Her little house lay nestled between two others, and the only view of the main street was mostly obscured by two other residences. The only sounds came from the soft lapping of the waves against the dock as the tide went out and the occasional dog. She shifted so that no one passing on the street would have been able to see her, and closing her eyes, she took a deep breath of salt air and focused her mind. The ground rushed up at her, and although she had done this many times before, the customary shooting pains were still a shock. But nearly a heartbeat later, it was gone, and the cloak fell around her. Gingerly, she stepped out of the material, and batted it toward the door, out of plain sight, with a paw.
Now that she was in her other form, she no longer cared about not being able to fall asleep. Being a cat gave her freedom that she didn’t have as a poor girl living by the harbor. She reassessed her surroundings with her heightened senses. She counted numerous smells and sounds that had been previously unavailable. She could now hear the ships gently creaking above the sound of the waves as they rocked in the harbor, gently bumping against one another and she could hear the guards talking quietly on the city wall.
Roaming the neighborhood was her favorite activity when she couldn’t sleep. Normally, she would go down to the wharf to watch the visiting sailors, over indulging, getting into arguments, but after roving down the length of the dock, her keen eyes registered no new trading ships, and the taverns and inns along the way were quiet. Not willing to go back home and wait for sleep, she headed toward the wall. She had only ventured within the city in this form once before, but she was easily able to find the small hole that had been dug under the stones. It was a tight squeeze, but she had learned early that cats could fit almost anywhere.
She emerged into a completely different world. The tunnel had led her into the guild district, where they worked almost non-stop. Her sensitive ears were assaulted by roaring fires, pounding metal, carpenters, orders shouted across shops, but she was able to process every one. As she slipped by the iron smith’s guild, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure, Carleton, Mia’s fiancée. He had been an apprentice smith for a few years, and was due to be promoted to a pre-guild member soon. Although his appearance was masked by heat waves and smoke, she could see his face and arms covered in a fine sheen of sweat and a look of intense concentration on his face. He turned to put the metal back into the fire, and she continued on.
As she moved explored further into the city, she came across other cats, most of them strays. She watched one walking across a thin garden wall, marveling at its balance. Although she had years of experience in cat form, she wasn’t a natural cat, and would never be quite as perfect as them.
The next cat she came across was a tomcat enjoying his latest kill. He eyed her warily, but she could tell he hoped she didn’t want to pick a fight with him. The form that she took was an especially large breed, and she matched many of the males in weight. But luckily for him, she didn’t have a craving for rat.
Turning the corner, she paused. She was close to the Lower High Road, which wound through the upper class residences and up to the castle. Unlike the guild district, the market was quiet, almost. It sounded like steel on steel, and men’s voices. She followed the noise until it sounded like it was right upon her. And then it stopped.
She looked around the corner. There were three men holding another up against the wall. Their clothes were poor and ragged, hanging loosely around their frames. A flash of silver caught her eye and she noted the blade against the man’s neck. This one was more richly dressed, but the only thing she needed to identify him was the green insignia on his sleeve, signifying that he belonged to the Prince’s Order, the group that made up the prince’s personal knights. His sword lay on the ground, stained with the blood of the five others that lay dead on the cobblestones.
“Good job, Wren,” one of the men whispered harshly, heavy with sarcasm. “You really know how to pick ‘em. He’s a knight for Minder’s sake.”
“And a pretty good one, too, if I do say so myself.”
“Shut up!” The knife just barely cut into the knight’s flesh, but a trickle of blood flowed down to stain his white shirt. “You’re just a kid. A spoiled, rotten, noble’s rat of a kid.” He did indeed look young, but she thought he was being unfair. The dead bodies was enough evidence to her that he was more than that.
“If you’re going to kill me, I would appreciate you to hurry up.” She was puzzled by his calm demeanor and she could tell that they were too, but she could also see the knife that the knight had slipped out of his sleeve.
“Just kill him, Wren. We take his money and get out of here!”
Living in the poor neighborhood, knowing how it felt to have so little, as these men so apparently did, she could identify with them. However, she never resorted to stealing or murder. And even if the young knight could survive on his own, if he didn’t make it, how could she live with herself?
Keeping to the shadows, she padded up behind one of them. Without a sound, she launched herself at the back of his legs, sinking her claws through the feeble fabric and deep into his flesh.
He yelled in pain and the knight took the opportunity to stab the one with the knife to his throat, which then clattered to the ground. She felt a hand close around the back of her neck in an attempt to pull her off. She let him, but also took gouges out of his skin. He threw her to the ground and aimed a kick in her direction, but she had already moved. Her side hurt where she had landed, but it wasn’t bad. She fluffed up, arching her back, and hissed. She watched his face as he seemed to remember who he should really be concerned about, but before he could move, the young knight placed the tip of his sword against his back.
“Yield, or you shall end up like the rest of your friends.” The knife fell from his hand and he raised his hands in submission.
“There’s something wrong with that cat,” he told the knight. The young noble smiled and looked directly into her eyes.
“I disagree. He saved my life.” She felt as if she had suddenly been shocked. No one had ever looked into her eyes when she was in cat form. No one ever paid her any notice. That was one of the things she loved. Suddenly afraid, she bolted, off of the main road and into the comforting shadow of an alley.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat against the wall, scolding herself for what she’d done. One of her personal rules was to never give anyone any reason to suspect that she wasn’t a real cat. That was the reason she usually stayed out of the city when she was in cat form. There were too many mages around. She didn’t know much about the Craft, but she assumed that at least some of them would be able to figure out that she wasn’t a normal city cat. But he thought you were a he, she assured herself. You saved his life, and he didn’t know the truth. No harm done. But somehow, she didn’t actually feel any better.
Not long after, she slipped down the path to her house, promising herself not to return to the city any time soon. She wrapped herself up in her cloak and then reclaimed her human form.