Outrageous Requests
“How do you know this Oracle?” Donovan asked me.
“She was my last teacher.”
“Last? You flunk out elsewhere?”
“No. When you have proven you have the gifts, the will, and the ability to ride the Tides, you study under one of the Elder Oracles. She decides if you can ever take the vows, gives you your first tools, finishes your training. I trained in a few different packs. Acolytes move around. Different teachers, different circumstances.”
“How long were you away from your home?”
“Five years. I earned my title at sixteen.”
“That’s young, isn’t it?”
“A little young, but many who start never finish.”
“What happens to the ones who don’t finish? Go home?”
“They die.”
“They die.”
“If you’re powerful enough that you can become an acolyte, then you either finish the training or you go insane,” I said. “If you can’t control your gift, it controls you, and your Oracle sisters put you down instead of let you suffer that.”
“And most never finish.”
I shrugged. “Every Seer thinks they’re going insane when the gift comes on them. You get reminded when you start training that it will end badly if you can’t learn to control it, but it takes a while for it to sink in. You don’t make friends with other students.”
“Because they could die.”
I fiddled with a piece of string tied to one of the air vents on the truck. “You start to see it happen after the first few times. Recognize the symptoms.”
“Ever fear you were lost on the Tides?”
“Yes.”
“How frightening is it?”
“On the Tides, you’re all alone. No one can save you. No one is coming to help you. No one even knows you’re gone.”
Donovan leaned out the window and eyeballed the terrain. “They know we’re here.”
“How do you know?”
“Two too many random guys standing out by stalled cars.”
“I hadn’t even noticed.”
“That’s not your job, it’s mine. That’s why you’re driving.”
I was exhausted by the time we arrived at Elder Oracle Anita’s residence: a small cottage set out in the middle of an open field. There was a small, circular, spring-fed pond around which marble tiles had been placed. I had lived in the cottage my final year of training, serving as much as Anita’s personal maid as her student.
Cantankerous old bitch.
“The male must wait outside.” Anita’s crusty old voice stated from the door of her cottage.
“Yes, ma’am.” Donovan leaned up against the side of the truck. “As you say, ma’am.”
Anita gave him a sharp look and jerked her fingers at me.
With her were two acolytes. I knew those pained, long-suffering expressions well. The cottage still smelled the same: lavender, obsidian, dust, green tea.
She was a heavyset older woman now and moved with a limp in both hips. She wasted no time bringing me to the solarium overlooking the pond, and I sighed at its splendor. In the snowy winter night the pale blue, mineral-laden pond was a thing of beauty. There was nothing like it in IronMoon.
I took care to walk only where I would not disturb the wards and knelt in the familiar spot where I had received many hours of lectures (and brow-beating).
I set the folded copy of her summons. “I have come as summoned, Elder Oracle.”
Anita grunted. One of the acolytes fetched the summons and handed it to her. She unfolded it and waved it. “Where is the original?”
“The binder will be returned to you once I have returned to IronMoon,” I replied, careful to keep my head bowed in a respectful fashion.
She grunted. “So that dog thought I’d double-cross him, hmm?”
Obviously.
“Show me,” Anita told me gruffly. She tapped her shoulder. “Show me his Mark.”
I shrugged off my light coat and pulled off my sweater. The acolytes gasped in horror at the raw, cruel slashes. She, however, just grunted again and snapped a finger at the acolyte on the left. The woman scurried forward clutching a piece of paper. A drawing of the comet rune.
My heart beat faster, but I wore a bewildered mask. “What is this?”
“The reason you can’t mate Alpha Gabel,” Anita said.
“Oh?” I resisted the urge to wad up the paper and throw it at her. She was still a powerful Oracle herself, and the Moon could have shown her anything. She was loyal to SableFur, too. She’d never violate her Oracle vows, but if there was anyone who knew how to stretch the limits, it was Anita.
“I know about the broken bowls. From a vision.” She folded the paper and placed it on the little table to her left.
I didn’t believe the vision part of it for a second. She’d found out, or figured it out. “And because my bowls were broken I can’t be with Gabel?”
“Don’t you understand he destroys everything he touches?” Anita jabbed her finger at the piece of paper.
Bitterness washed the back of my throat. And now Anita wanted to save me from the monster? Why now?
She gestured with her hands. “I saw you wearing a necklace made of the shattered pieces of your obsidian bowl. Alpha Gabel placed it around your neck, and then a crown of more broken pieces on your brow. On the back of your hand, as you touch the center stone, is a brand. Balance has been burned into the back of your right hand.”
It was difficult to absorb this, and even more difficult to keep my reaction away from her. A crown? Balance? The Comet? Did it matter? Not especially. “You’re six months too late to tell me you’re worried about my being a monster’s mate. Where were my Oracle sisters when he did this to me? When he humiliated me and degraded me in front of everyone? But shattered bowls and a drawing of a rune so unimportant everyone’s forgotten about it, well, yes, of course, that means you have to intervene.”
Anita’s leathery old face constricted. “In another vision I am standing in a forest, in front of the shambles of an old hut. It has a thatched roof. It is very old. I go into the hut, and among the broken pieces, I found an old metal box. In the box was a ring. It had once been a promise ring, but the markings for Luna and Mother had been added to make it a pup-ring. In the center between the two signals was a spot for a stone, but the stone was gone. Under the band, was the ancient rune for the Comet, the destroyer.”
“What does this vision have to do with the one of me?” I feigned a minor scoff. “It’s not my ring.”
“You must not complete the mating with Gabel. Sever the tie and walk away,” she insisted.
I didn’t need to be too clever to know Anita wasn’t telling me everything. For all I knew, Alpha Magnes had asked a question, and the vision about the necklace was part of it, and he wanted to prevent Gabel and I from mating. That crown imagery probably didn’t sit well, so he’d used Anita to scare me off Gabel.
There was no clear link between the pup-ring vision and the necklace that Anita revealed, so either she was patching together pieces of a vision to try to sneak it by me, or she was leaving out some big details. “Anita, I’m not your novice anymore. I am an Oracle, and I’ve served as an Oracle for years. You’re going to have to do better.”
“I’m giving you a reason to call off a pairing with a man who took you by force,” Anita said.
I laughed at her audacity. “Are you serious? You’re six months too late. Where were you this spring? You didn’t summon me away from him or try to keep me safe. I don’t see you offering me sanctuary now. You just want me to call off my mating. For what? Because you saw me wearing a crown and had a vision of a ring that has nothing to do with me? Is Alpha Magnes offering me safe haven here?”
“No,” Anita said, like she hadn’t been prepared for the question.
“Then what do you think is going to happen? Do you think Gabel is going to let me walk away? I had to fight with him to even get p
ermission to answer your summons.”
“Gianna, as Gabel placed the necklace around your throat and the crown upon your brow, I saw packs on their knees before him,” Anita said, unwilling. “It was cold and dark on a rocky island in the sea. All around were water and wolves kneeling. Gabel is a comet. He brings destruction to us all.”
This had to be someone else’s question and answer, and I was getting edited snippets. I rocked back on my heels, eyed her, and lied again. “A comet? I don’t know that rune.”
“It’s fallen out of use. Back when we used to believe comets were harbingers of destruction.” Anita flicked her wrist. “Comets are destroyers. They destroy everything they touch. They smash into the world and lay waste to everything without regard for anything.”
“And you think Gabel is this comet? Why? That’s a big jump, Anita.”
“You must not mate with him. He will destroy everything he touches.”
“Wherever I will go he will find me.” I prodded around her to see if she would give me more details. We’d had the same vision—sort of—and I wanted to know more.
“You must listen to me,” she said.
I shrugged. Time to antagonize her. “You’re not saying anything very interesting. I’ve had the same vision of the house. I’ve seen the ring.”
“There is a Moon’s Servant in IronMoon. A gold wolf with blue-gloss tattoos,” I said. “Gabel might have taken me as tribute, and he is a monster, but he hasn’t acted against the Moon’s design.”
Anita’s old eyes hardened. She had expected obedience and wasn’t used to explaining herself. The acolytes shifted nervously. Anita’s lips twitched in a suppressed growl, then she finally said, “The inside of the ring was inscribed with three runes. Love, faith and balance. Every time I see you in a vision, Gianna, you have the balance rune, very tiny, branded on the back of your right hand. Even years ago, when you were my student, you always had that rune on the back of your right hand. Balance is almost never used. It means all things are as they should be or are intended to be. It’s not a rune Oracles find themselves using.”
“You never told me it was dangerous to use,” I said.
“It’s not dangerous,” Anita said, “except that when you ask the Moon to show you things plainly, it can be more than you want to invoke. There are things we shouldn’t see, Gianna, and doors we shouldn’t open.”
And that explained why the balance rune had worked so well for me: I had needed those doors open to see Gabel for what he was:
The Moon’s Comet.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” I asked. Pure curiosity, I didn’t actually care.
“Why should I have to warn you about a rune like that?” she scoffed. “It’s never a rune you’d use anyway. Many Oracles who try to enter the Tides using it find Her Eye closed.”
I wasn’t inclined to tell Anita I’d been using the rune regularly. Wasn’t her business the way I saw it. “So what do you suggest I do, Anita?”
“As I said. Cancel your mating.”
I gestured to my arm. “Sort of impossible. It’s not like SableFur has raised their hands to help me escape. Where am I supposed to go? He’ll find me wherever I am. He has Hunters, he rules most of the east. I’d have to go hundreds of miles before I was out of IronMoon, and I’ll still have this Mark on my arm.”
“I’m not in IronMoon, I can’t help you figure it out. Ask the Moon for help.”
“You think I haven’t?” I shouted. “You think I didn’t pray this rotted off my arm? You think I haven’t pleaded with Her? She hasn’t answered. It’s too late, Anita. I could have my pups in his belly now. All that’s left is a formality.”
Her expression turned ashen. She sagged back in her chair. “No.”
I snorted. “This is bits and pieces of another wolf’s visions. You think I can’t tell? You tell Magnes—because all this is his vision, isn’t it? That’s why I’m really here, because your Alpha doesn’t like that crown on any head but his—that it’s too late. SableFur missed their chance. You should have done something a long time ago.”
I stood. “I’ve been using balance. I’ve already seen the Comet. I’ve looked into the abyss. My bowls have been shattered, but my gifts are intact.”
Anita extended a shaking hand up to me, but she smelled of anger, not fear for my soul. “Don’t do it, Gianna. Can’t you see what he’s done to you?”
“You had your chance. I didn’t see my Oracle sisters coming to save me when he dragged me off to IronMoon and degraded me and humiliated me and carved me like a turkey! I can’t do anything but this!”
“If you mate with him you will destroy us all!” Anita braced herself on the arms of her chair and shoved herself to her feet.
“I already have!” My voice cracked. “We lost control of the Bond and consummated it months ago! It’s too late, it’s been too late!”
She shoved her finger under my nose. “Figure it out, Oracle. You will destroy all of us if you do this!”
The only thing Gabel was going to destroy would be SableFur.
My Mark thrummed, and the Moon spun in my awareness for the first time in weeks. She warned me to be silent.
It was time to go.
“As you say, Elder Oracle,” I said. “I will do what I must for the good of us all.”
I knew the way out of the cottage. I could have found my way in the dark.
Donovan, sitting on the hood of the car, looked up from his book. “All done?”
“Yes.”
“Good to drive?” He jangled the keys.
“Wide awake.” I got into the cab.
“So. How many lies did the old bitch tell you?” Donovan asked.
“One too many.”
Forward
“What did the old woman want?” Gabel asked.
“To tell me not to mate with you.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“Which is what I told her.”
Gabel raked his fingernails along his neck, lightly itching his skin. “I’m almost flattered she doesn’t like me that much.”
“So you aren’t going to heed her?” Flint asked over coffee.
“She didn’t tell me anything to convince me,” I replied.
Hix scowled. “A waste of time.”
I paced over to the window of the office and stared down at the training fields. The warriors had gotten started in their regular conditioning with Eroth leading the fray. “The Moon showed her the ring and rune, Flint.”
Flint sipped his coffee.
“I got snippets of a vision from someone else. Anita had permission to reveal enough to stitch together a story that would stop me,” I continued. “It had to come from high up in SableFur. Magnes, Adrianna, Lucas, someone. She saw the rune, too.”
“What rune would this be?” Gabel asked.
Flint gestured with his coffee cup. “The ancient rune for comet. It’s like the Death card of the Tarot.”
“It has her frightened, but not frightened enough to offer me anything. Leave Gabel, she told me, but was SableFur going to give me a place to hide? No. I told her she was insane. He’d hunt me to the ends of the world onto the Tides itself.” I turned around, hugging myself. “They’re going to try to stop the mating. Or do something. I told her it’s too late, we consummated the Bond months ago. She was almost in a panic.”
“Excellent diplomacy, buttercup. War with SableFur,” Gabel said with a quirked brow. “Tsk tsk. That ambition of yours.”
“There’s a spy in IronMoon.” I ignored his comment. “She knew my bowls were broken. She knew I obtained new stones.”
“Every pack has spies.” Gabel leaned on his desk. “That doesn’t concern me. SableFur didn’t know we’d consummated the Bond some time ago, and we just announced our intentions. They’re dealing with old information or rumors. What concerns me is why did they play their hand now?”
I grimaced at my own denseness. Obvious question. Not the what, but the why. Oracles didn’t sp
end a lot of time with the why. “I don’t know.”
Gabel pondered the puzzle further. “If she’s seen a shift in power that threatens SableFur, and you told her we had mated, why risk letting you live? Your death would have been simple and easy to justify. No one would have asked many questions.”
“I don’t know,” I said. The Destroyer Next Door breeding heirs from a legitimate Moon-accepted mate sounded like a cosmic call to action. Killing me would have killed Gabel, or if it didn’t, weaken him enough IronMoon could have been had without much difficulty. Yes, it would have been disgraceful, but a little disgrace to save the world? Easy trade. Once Anita had known I’d consummated the Bond, why risk letting me live?
Gabel watched me from behind his desk. He tapped his fingertips on the surface. My mind reminded me of those fingertips on my skin. I’d trade places with that desk. The Bond shivered and whispered I should do just that. “Buttercup, you’re keeping secrets again.”
“What she told me was from pieces of other wolves’ visions. I’m not going to relay some garbled, cherry-picked mess.” I said, unwilling to tell him SableFur believed he was the Comet.
“What did she offer you in return for leaving me?” Gabel asked.
I laughed bitterly. “Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “Nothing you wanted, or nothing at all?”
“Not even bus fare.” I sighed and leaned back on the couch.
Gabel’s fingers raked at the stacks of papers, then picked up a pencil and snapped it across the bridge of his fingers. Then he ordered Hix, “Nobody knows about this. Lady Gianna answered an Oracle summons. I sent her with Donovan, she left, she returned without incident. It’s Oracle business.”
Hix nodded.
Flint spun on his heel and walked away. Hix followed.
The door clicked closed.
“What game are you playing now?” I asked him.
“The SableFur are dangling this like meat in front of me.” His tone was as angry as the slow-broiling rage building within him.
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