The Gray Wolf Throne

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “It should have been me,” Amon said, blotting his eyes with his sleeve. “I am your captain. I am responsible for your safety.”

  “You are responsible for the Gray Wolf line, remember? The line comes first, not the individual queen. Your father saved the line. I need you, Amon. I need a captain. If I’m going to build a queendom out of this mess, I need one person I can trust. I need you to be alive, understand?”

  Raisa leaned her head against Amon’s shoulder again. Neither of them said anything for a long while.

  “Where is the Wolfpack?” Raisa said. What’s left of them, she added silently.

  “Right now they’re assigned to the Queen’s Guard in the capital,” Amon said. “Awaiting orders. I’m hoping they can give us early warning of any plans afoot from the other side.”

  “If they are planning Mellony’s coronation,” Raisa said, “what will they do for a captain of the Queen’s Guard?”

  “Hmm,” Amon said, frowning, “I hadn’t thought of that. The knowledge about the linking has been kept within our family and the speakers of the temple. Mellony won’t know about it, and the Bayars won’t know, either.”

  “It’s always been a Byrne,” Raisa said. “They’ll want everything to seem as normal as possible. They won’t want to provide any excuse to question the succession. Beyond what’s already there, I mean.”

  Amon turned his head to look at her. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying don’t be surprised if they offer you the job,” Raisa said. “If it gets that far.”

  “No.” Amon shook his head. “There’s no way they would want me next to Mellony. They’ll choose someone more malleable.”

  “We’ll see,” Raisa said. “They won’t know you’re already named as my captain. They’re used to working around your father. You’re young, and they don’t know how capable you are.”

  “Like I would ever agree to that,” Amon said, sitting up straighter. “Serve as captain to your sister at the request of my father’s murderers.”

  “Amon.” Raisa put her hand on his arm. “You’re not supposed to know any of that. When they ask, be ready to say yes.”

  “What?” He stared at her.

  “If you say no, that will tell them everything they need to know. They’ll know whose side you’re on. They’ll suspect I’m alive, or at least that you know more than you’re saying. It will be your death warrant.”

  “That wouldn’t ever work,” Amon said, stubborn resistance on his face.

  “I didn’t tell you to actually serve,” Raisa said softly. “Just say yes when they ask, all right? Practice until you’re good at it.”

  “Hmmmph,” he said, not making any promises. After a pause, he said, “How did you get away? After my father was killed, I mean?”

  “After your father went down, Mac Gillen dragged me off so he could see to me personally. That probably saved my life. I killed him with your father’s dagger, took his horse, and made a run for it, hoping to make Marisa Pines before they caught up with me. After I was hit, I crawled in among some rocks. When I realized that the arrow was poisoned, I knew I was done for.” She tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact, the story brief and to the point. The guilt Amon carried was heavy enough as it was.

  “That’s the last I remember. I guess we’ll have to ask Han Alister the rest of it. Apparently, he showed up out of nowhere, saved my life with high magic, and brought me here to Marisa Pines.” She sighed. “Elena and Nightwalker don’t seem to believe that story.”

  Amon cleared his throat. “When you disappeared from Oden’s Ford, Alister and I—we talked some. I don’t know what to make of him. I don’t know what drives him, and I don’t exactly trust him, but…” He hesitated, but his relentless honesty drove him on. “He told me he was traveling back to the Fells to look for you. He’d go via Marisa Pines Pass, and I’d take the western route. So that explains how he came to be there.”

  “I don’t know what will happen when he finds out who I really am,” Raisa said. “If he even survives.” She shivered, and Amon put his arm around her, drawing her into his steady warmth.

  “It’s that bad?”

  Raisa nodded. “He looked…he looked awful, Amon. Willo doesn’t know if he’ll…She’s worried about him. My mother died, and I never got to tell her that I loved her, that I finally understood—just a little, anyway. If Han dies too, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  She was weeping again, surrendering to grief and pain and fear. “I lied to him, Amon. Day after day after day. I pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I allowed him to get close to me, knowing that we had no future together.”

  “You had no choice,” Amon said.

  “I could have trusted him,” Raisa said. “Now he’s going to question everything. He’s going to think that everything—everything was a lie.”

  “How do you know what his intentions were?” Amon said, blunt as always. “He has a reputation in Ragmarket, you know.”

  Raisa hesitated, unsure whether to go forward. “It’s hard to explain—my memory is so jumbled. But when he healed me, it was like he opened up to me. Like he had no secrets. Like I got to know him in a way that…” She trailed off, taking in Amon’s pained expression.

  “He is a wizard, Rai,” Amon said. “Remember that.”

  Raisa nodded, straightening, blotting at her eyes. “I’ll remember,” she said, recalling Althea’s warning: You must not allow yourself to be ensnared as Marianna was. “Anyway. What’s done is done. I should have been there for my mother, but I wasn’t. I should have died in the canyon, but I didn’t. In a way, this is a new beginning. We have to put all these regrets behind us and look ahead. We can’t spend energy on what might have been. If we do, our enemies will eat us alive.”

  She looked up at Amon hopefully. “We can’t change the past, but we can shape the future.”

  And as she said it, she realized that it applied to more than politics.

  She’d spent the past year yearning for Amon Byrne, agonizing over what would never be between them, immersed in regret. She’d pushed the issue in ways that were unfair to both of them.

  She remembered what Edon Byrne had told her, with the authority of someone who knew what it was to sacrifice love to duty.

  You serve, he’d said. You find happiness where you can. In love or not, you find a way to continue the line.

  She loved Amon Byrne; some part of her would love him all her life. But the way she’d handled it had prevented her from enjoying what she could have with him. He was her very best friend—had always been her very best friend.

  And she needed friends more than ever now.

  They slept side by side that night, arms wrapped around each other, as they had a hundred times as children. They were two wounded people—new orphans cut loose and lonely, and they needed each other.

  The magical barrier between captain and queen never interfered.

  C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

  WORD GAMES

  Han had slept in the Matriarch Lodge at Marisa Pines Camp nearly every summer of his life. The sounds and smells seeped into his pores, they soothed him, and had made him feel safe in a way he’d never felt at home.

  Now he was back here again, but this time, every sensation was painfully amplified. The pressure of a blanket on his skin was excruciating, the voices in the room clamored in his ears, he was hot, he was cold, his skin prickled and burned as if a thousand biting insects feasted on him. His eyelids felt like sandpaper, scratching his eyes. He wanted to shed his skin like a snake.

  When they took his amulet, they’d ripped out his heart, leaving a gaping hole where the magic poured out. Whenever people came near him, they hurt him, poured boiling water into his mouth, shredded his tender skin with hard, rough hands. They tried to boil him alive and freeze him to death by turns. He fought back. He tried to strike out at them whenever they came near, so they mostly kept their distance.

  When he thought he would drown in his own saliva,
they turned him over and let it run out of his mouth. Several times his entire body seized up, going rigid for minutes at a time. All of his muscles ached for hours after the spasms passed.

  When he opened his eyes and saw Willo, he fixed on her face and tried to speak, to plead with her not to let them torment him anymore. But his words never made it past his lips.

  Finally, they gave him back his amulet. It rested on his chest like a warm fire, just the right temperature, and he held on to it with both hands. It was his tether to the world. It kept him grounded, kept the flash circulating instead of leaking away. Now he heard a familiar voice speaking in his head, unexpectedly kind and soothing.

  Well, now, Alister, you’ve managed to survive in spite of yourself. There is a god that looks after fools, apparently.

  Crow? Nah. Not possible.

  Han tried to remember how he’d come to be at Marisa Pines. What had happened? Had he caught Mari’s fever again? There were some fevers that came back over and over.

  They kept pestering him with food and drink.

  And then he opened his eyes and found himself staring into Rebecca Morley’s face. She was waist-deep in water, hair plastered down, and steam rising all around her, like one of those fish-maidens in stories who ask riddles, and if you get the answers wrong they try to drown you. Rebecca had hold of his ankles, and Willo and somebody else held his arms, and they were lowering him into a freezing hot spring.

  He didn’t have any clothes on, but he was too muddleheaded to worry about it.

  Another time, he woke on dry land. Rebecca had some porridge on a spoon and was trying to wedge it into his mouth. Her hand trembled and tears stood in her eyes.

  Well, if it means that much to you, he thought.

  He opened his lips but kept his teeth sealed together in case it was blistering hot, but it was all right, and he opened his mouth farther, and she smiled like they’d done something fabulous together. She slid an arm around his shoulders, and Willo came in on the other side, and they managed to raise him up so he could drink without drowning. Rebecca put a cup to his lips. It was lukewarm tea, and he managed to keep it from pouring out the corner of his mouth, which had been a problem lately.

  He was embarrassed to have Rebecca Morley feeding him like a weanling. But her touch soothed him. It was good to rest in her arms.

  There was something he should remember about Rebecca Morley. Something had happened. Wasn’t she hurt? Hadn’t she died? Just now she looked better than him—dressed in a clan tunic embroidered over with gray wolves—too fancy to be wearing in a sickroom.

  He reached up and wiped away her tears with his thumb, but she just made more. And that was all he remembered for a long time.

  The next time he awoke, he found his amulet warm and humming. He looked up and there was Fire Dancer sitting next to his sleeping bench. Dancer had his hand on Han’s amulet, feeding it power while it fed power to Han.

  “What are you doing?” Han whispered. He was a little amazed when the words came out and Dancer heard and understood them.

  “I’ve been lending you power over the past few days,” Dancer said. “You seem to use yours up as soon as it appears. It’s one way I can help you heal yourself without getting poisoned.”

  “Oh.” Han considered this. The flash trickled in like rum brandy, and he felt better than he had in a long while. “Do I have to give it back?”

  Dancer laughed, though there were worry lines around his eyes. “We’ll see. Maybe I’ll be low one of these days and you can help me out.”

  Han felt more alert, his mind clearer, too, than it had been. And he was ravenous, even though his mouth tasted like a stable that needed mucking out.

  “Do you know—is there anything to eat around here?” he asked.

  Dancer grinned. “Please. You know there’s never anything to eat in my mother’s house.”

  A young man with a healer’s amulet appeared out of nowhere with a bowl of stew, a jug, and a cup. He set the food on a bench next to the bed and backed away, making sure not to get too close to Han.

  “Have I got something catching?” Han asked as the healer retreated.

  “You’ve been rough on Willo’s apprentices, I hear,” Dancer said. “You’re lucky anyone’s willing to come within arm’s length.”

  Han sat up, propping against the wall. Dancer unstoppered the jug and poured him some upland tea.

  “Don’t get used to being waited on,” Dancer warned, going back to stoking his amulet. “It’s almost over.” He wore clan garb—leggings and a deerskin tunic beaded in Willo’s distinctive designs, his amulet tucked discreetly underneath.

  “You mean to tell me they let two wizards back into Marisa Pines Camp?” Han said. “The Demonai must be going into spasms.”

  Dancer laughed again, and Han was pleased that he’d said something that made sense. Something funny, in fact. His brain felt like one of those lacy cheeses they sold at Southbridge Market sometimes—full of big holes in places where he used to know things.

  Han’s attention was diverted as someone pushed through the curtain from the next room.

  It was Cat Tyburn.

  “Hayden! You should see the blades they got in the market here,” she said. “But they’re all a bunch of copperhead thieves, the iron they want for a…” She abruptly stopped speaking when she saw Han sitting up.

  She dropped to her knees next to his sleeping bench, staring narrow-eyed into his face. “Cuffs! You awake? You an’t still crazy sick? I was beginning to think you was a Mad Tom for good.”

  Cat and Dancer were supposed to be at Oden’s Ford. What were they doing here? Cat especially. She hated the clans, didn’t she?

  “What are you doing here?” he said aloud. “You’re supposed to be at school.”

  “Me and Dancer came here to beat you senseless for running off without telling anyone where you were going,” Cat said. “We thought it would make more of an impression if we waited ’til you woke up.”

  “We weren’t that far behind you,” Dancer said. “Bird finally told me where you’d gone, and why, about a week after you left.” Anger passed across his face like a cloud shadow over a field.

  Hmmm, Han thought. Why had he come? And then he remembered: to find Rebecca Morley.

  He fastened on that. Where was Rebecca? How had he come to be here? What had happened? How long had he been lying here? That was one of the holes.

  “Four days,” Dancer said, as if he’d read his mind. “A lot has happened. A lot has changed.” He studied Han’s face to assess how clearheaded he was. “That’s why I wanted to stoke you up. There’s a lot of pressure from…well, from everyone.”

  “Pressure?” Han reached for the jug of tea, missing it on his first pass. He still felt tingly all over, his fingers fat and clumsy, though they looked their regular size. Concentrating, he reached again, took hold of the jug, unstoppered it, and poured, while Dancer watched, hands extended to catch it if Han dropped it.

  “The queen is dead,” Dancer said. “Maybe murdered. She fell from the Queen’s Tower a week ago.”

  Han blinked at him. Thought for a moment. “M-Marianna? That’s her name, right?” He looked up at Dancer for confirmation.

  Dancer nodded.

  “So. Guess I’m a little late.” Maybe he was out of a job. Maybe he could go back to Oden’s Ford and continue his schooling. The thought cheered him.

  But then he remembered the princess heir. “So, there’s a new queen, right?” he said, frowning.

  “Well, that’s the problem,” Dancer said. “The new queen hasn’t been crowned yet. It’s likely to come to a fight between the two princesses, Raisa and Mellony.”

  That was the name. Raisa. She was the one that had given money to Jemson’s Temple School. He didn’t know anything about the other one.

  And then another memory trickled back. Captain Byrne, shot full of arrows.

  “Captain Byrne is dead too,” Han said. Could Byrne’s death and the queen’s be conn
ected? “Did you know? He died in Marisa Pines Pass.”

  Dancer nodded. “I know. They brought Byrne’s body back, and the Demonai hosted an ábeornan ceremony last night, a funeral pyre. They honored him as a fallen warrior. Very unusual to honor a flatlander like that.”

  More memories. Rebecca Morley racing for her life. The ambush in the canyon. The poison daub.

  Han gripped Dancer’s sleeve and spit it out before it faded again. “Byrne and Rebecca were traveling together, in a party of bluejackets, when they were attacked. As far as I know, she’s the only one that survived.”

  A memory came back to him—a bone-deep connection, a shared memory, a linkage that bolted them, soul to soul, while he struggled to keep her alive. And wolves—gray wolves like wraiths, passing in and out of the trees.

  But had she survived? She’d been near death when they arrived. But he thought he remembered something about Rebecca and porridge.

  “Rebecca! Where is she?” Han asked.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Rebecca Morley,” Dancer said, glancing toward the door like he was afraid they would be interrupted. “There’s something you should know.”

  Fear prickled at the back of Han’s neck. He scanned Dancer’s face, looking for clues and fearing the worst. “She’s not dead. I could have sworn she came in to see me. She seemed all right then. She even tried to feed me something.”

  Was it possible all of his efforts went for nothing?

  Dancer was shaking his head. “No, she’s well, getting better every day. She had a nasty wound in her back, but you took the brunt of the poison, so she’s recovering faster. She’s coming in to talk to you, in fact. I just wanted to warn you that—”

  He looked up, startled, as the drapery at the entrance was twitched aside and Rebecca slipped through the opening.

  She wore full clan skirts that fell nearly to her ankles, tooled and studded leather boots, and a loose linen overshirt embroidered around the neckline and tied at the waist with a handwoven purple sash. Around her neck she wore a necklace of roses and thorns in gold, and her dark hair framed her green eyes like a soft, shiny cap.