Honored Vow

touch. If I couldn’t shift, it
    blasted through whoever was in my way.
    Amirah Fehr was threatening that which the nekhene found
    tempting, and trying to steal the true-mate of a reah. She screamed when
    the energy hit her.
    She was strong, but my moment of regret, of nurturing reah, had
    passed, and now I saw her with my nekhene eyes, saw only a rival for the
    affection of the tantalizing creature beside me.
    I stood, and Logan rolled forward to his knees, sitting back on his
    thighs, his legs folded under him. As I pushed my fingers through his hair,
    he leaned into my touch.
    Amirah screamed, and I heard voices from the gallery yelling,
    screaming.
    “She chose!” I heard the priest’s booming voice drown out all
    protests. “You heard him, we all heard him—he gave her a choice! Be
    silent!”
    Amirah collapsed in a heap, and I watched as she whimpered and
    whined, her body moving inexorably through the change from human to
    cat. Only myself and members of the Shu had the ability to stop the shift
    once it began. It was a strength that only a handful of panthers in the world
    possessed. I realized for the millionth time that my blink-of-an-eye shift
    and the mastery over it had nothing to do with being a reah and everything
    to do with the gift of being a nekhene cat. I was both humbled and
    thankful and closed my eyes as the rise in power made me tremble hard as
    fury slammed through me.

    180

    Mary Calmes

    Crane had taught me not to fight. Embrace the ebb and flow, back
    and forth, the roll of the wave. And even though I was afraid, because it
    would hurt if he was wrong, I relaxed and let the wall down inside and
    exhaled my fear.
    The reah that I was rose up, and I felt it instantly, the change, and I
    was me again. The nekhene in me went still and quiet, because the
    fighting was unneeded, as the mate of the reah remained and all was well.
    “This trial is concluded.” The priest’s voice boomed out, and when I
    slowly opened my eyes, I saw Amirah heaving, yowling, curled into a ball
    on the floor of the pit, shifted into a golden panther.
    “All of you, on the wall!”
    The snap of the whip of the sheseru of the tribe of Khertet moved my
    mate and the other two, and when Logan rose, his hand went tight around
    my neck, snapping my head back, lifting my eyes to his.
    “Reah,” he rasped, the voice rough, hoarse, and more snarl than
    speech.
    “Yes,” I managed to get out. “Yours.”
    He growled low and menacing. “Mine.”
    I nodded even as he gripped my throat. “Yes, my semel.”
    He let go at the same minute he swept me up off my feet and crushed
    me against his broad, rock-solid chest. I was carried to the side of the pit,
    and he shoved me back into the wall as he, too, pressed his shoulders
    there.
    The priest was in the pit moments later, twenty khatyu armed with
    traditional spears having run in before him, forming a phalanx of
    protection. Not that any of us had the energy to even lever off the wall.
    “Remove the panthers; inform the tribe of Ptahket, Taweret, and
    Girdaht that the heir is now semel. Scourge the reah, and at nightfall stake
    her outside at the base of the mountain. These are my orders, carry out the
    law!” the priest shouted.
    “Surely—”
    “Silence!” he yelled at the semel-aten. “No one may question the
    law; even you, semel-aten, and Amirah lost all rights for claiming when
    she chose not to submit to the reah of the tribe of Mafdet but to instead
    engage him. That is an individual challenge, the rules for which are finite.

    Honored Vow

    181

    To change in the pit without permission is scourging, followed by staking
    and death. This is maat .”
    “Your Grace,” I called over to him.
    He turned to look at me.
    “I beg you to contact the tribe of Ariat, speak to their current semel.
    Let him decide if he wants Amirah staked or sent to him to answer for the
    crimes against his house.”
    “Jin, the rules are—”
    “She would still be staked, perhaps, just not this night. Find out what
    he wants; the justice is owed to the tribe.”
    “Agreed,” he said, turning to Jamal. “See it done and speak to them
    that only on the word of the reah of the semel-netjer is this choice given to
    them.”
    We were all silent then, waiting.
    “The semels will now return to their quarters until they are called for
    the tomorrow’s trial of their sheserus.”
    More khatyu filed in, the priest obviously expecting the semels to
    resist being put back in