The Silvered

by Tanya Huff

“You can see me?”

  “I can.” She rubbed her face against his shoulder, savoring the burn as each new bit of skin settled. Turning toward the other end of the room, she rose on the air until she was level with the emperor. His gray body gleamed with points of blue and green and red and brown and gold and indigo. No silver. No one had tortured him. She pulled the iron rings from the walls, formed it into spears, and sent them through the bars.

  They flattened against a flare of indigo and dropped to the floor.

  “Amazing! But that’s metal-craft and I told you, I’m protected. You can’t blow me over, you can’t move all the water out of my body, you can’t wrap vines around me, or bury me, you can’t light me on fire, you can’t put me to sleep.” He hauled out the artifacts as he spoke. Mirian saw them as their power rather than actual physical things. She could see how that power protected them.

  “You can’t hurt me.”

  She tried anyway.

  She couldn’t set him on fire, so she cracked the walls—the tiles were originally clay and threw the metal from the pipes…

  …the water in the pipes.

  Air spun around him.

  He didn’t fall. He didn’t sleep.

  He was right.

  Exactly right.

  She let everything fall and said, “That artifact that protects you from Healing is limited. It only stops me from putting you to sleep.”

  The emperor smiled disarmingly from within a knee-high circle of debris and rubbed the gold light between his thumb and forefinger. “Well, yes, but healing is hardly aggressive now, is it? You can’t exactly heal me to death.”

  Mirian remembered the rabbit and smiled back at him.

  This time, no one was close enough to break his neck. He died thrashing, fingernails digging into his face, heels drumming against the floor.

  It didn’t take long. She hoped he was terrified. She hoped it hurt.

  Her Pack stood and watched silently as she rode the air back to the floor.

  Tomas watched as she made her way through them—stroking shoulders, heads, ears, calming them, if only for the moment, with her touch. He was as silent as the rest.

  “Tomas?”

  “You smell…There isn’t…words. There aren’t words.” He reached out and stroked her cheek with two fingers. A mirror of what she’d done. Only her fingers hadn’t been trembling.

  “We need to leave.”

  “How?”

  “This way.” Mirian meant to use the whirlwind to punch a clean hole through to the outside. She could feel the place where the weight of the palace no longer rested on the earth. When the dust settled, the north wing ended at the toes of her boots.

  People screamed in the distance. Behind her, her Pack twitched and snarled and snapped at nothing. If anyone had been in the north wing when it fell, she wouldn’t mourn them.

  “You didn’t mean to do that, did you?” Tomas sounded slightly amused. Or almost hysterical. Mirian wasn’t sure which.

  “Not exactly, no. Still…” Her body didn’t seem sure of how to take a deep breath. “…no point in wasting it. Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Still holding the boy, Tomas grabbed her arm and pulled her back from the edge. “We can’t take them to Aydori. They’re…” He was about to say broken, she could see it in his eyes, but he shook his head and said, “The boy’s the only one who can stay in skin for more than a moment or two.”

  The gray light that defined the boy had become muted. His head lolled on Tomas’ shoulder, his eyes barely open. And she still didn’t know how to heal. “Times are changing,” she said slowly, touching the boy’s fur, watching dirt and dried blood flake away from her fingertips. “Science and reason are taking over. Soon everyone will have a chance to abuse power, not just those given it by an accident of birth.”

  “You won’t abuse your power.”

  “Maybe not, but a sensible person would learn to control it. I need to find someone who can help. Help me. Help them.” Everyone needed help except…

  “Don’t say it. Where you go, I go.” His teeth were bared. “Tell me to stay behind and I’ll follow.”

  Mirian found it more comforting than she could say that Tomas had known what she was thinking. She barely recognized the inside of her head. Still…“You could go home, Tomas. To your family. I’m as much a throwback to an earlier time as the emperor was, but you can go home.”

  He shook his head as another slab of masonry fell from the part of the palace still standing and crashed into the ruin of the north wing. “We’re Pack. Where you go, I go. And Reiter said the emperor was insane, so you’re nothing like him.”

  Mirian glanced up at the body. Had he always been insane? How had it started? Said, “All right, then. We’re going to Orin.”

  * * *

  Reiter put the newspaper down and stood as Lady Hagen came into the room. It had taken a while, but he’d learned to think of her using her title. They weren’t friends.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Captain.” She lowered herself into the wing chair on the other side of the small table and nodded at the newspaper as he took his seat. “Are you back in the news?”

  “Not this week.”

  For the first few months, the Imperial papers brought into Aydori had featured him prominently. Reading the stack sequentially, Lord Coving had declared him traitor, accused him of releasing the abominations and the mages, of turning both sets of captives loose to destroy the palace and the Imperial government. It was only due to Lord Coving’s leadership that things hadn’t gotten worse than they were. He called for Reiter to be dragged back to the empire to pay for his crimes. He even suggested that the ancient traitor’s death be reinstated in this one case, and Reiter, when captured, be staked out in the sun. In the next issue, which looked to have been a rushed second printing later that same day, he accused Reiter of killing the emperor. In the next, it turned out that one of the scientists who researched in the north wing had found the body and took her findings straight to the newspapers. She had photographs. Reiter almost admired the adherence to scientific principles that led to her setting up a camera after finding the emperor’s body at the edge of the wreckage before raising an alarm. She not only had photographs of the emperor’s body, but files documenting everything that had been happening in the north wing. In later issues, the newspapers printed engravings based on the photographs—both of the emperor’s body and of the experiments he’d had performed. Lord Coving accused her of being bought. Then one of the men who’d been guarding the Mage-pack came forward and supported her story.

  “Bruised-thumb!” Reiter had no idea how Lady Hagen had recognized that feature in the engraving, but she’d been pleased by the guard’s sudden discovery of a conscience.

  After that, accusations flew thick and fast. The newspapers had to resort to broadsheets to keep up.

  What had the politicians known? And when? Why had they done nothing about it? Adeline Curtain was found and interviewed and became a bit of a celebrity. The emperor’s doctor came forward and even the Prelate took his moment in the sun, covering his ass with meticulously reported bullshit, rescinding the declaration of abomination. The church and the court expressed sympathy for all Imperial citizens murdered during this horrible loss of grace, but refused to prosecute their murderers because they had been, after all, doing nothing illegal at the time, the emperor’s word being law.

  In the end, Lord Coving sat in one of the five seats that made up the Board of Regents for the young prince—who would not be declared emperor in fact until his fifteenth birthday—and Captain Sean Reiter was still a traitor under sentence of death by more conventional means should he ever set foot in the Kresentian Empire again.

  Which seemed like as good a reason as any for him to work to keep the Aydori border secure. Through the influence of Lady Hagen and the others, Reiter found himself in charge of building a garrison for Aydori in the meadow by the bridge where he’d spoken to General Denieu. His official title was c
onsultant. He wasn’t actually in the Aydori army—he doubted they’d ever trust him enough for that, nor was he sure he wanted to put on the uniform—but because Lady Hagen and the others still called him captain, so did everyone else.

  During border negotiations, Major…no, Colonel Halyss had demanded he be turned over. The new Pack Leader and her council had refused, and the colonel hadn’t mentioned it again.

  The empire had withdrawn to the new Imperial Province of Pyrahn and were busy reinforcing the new Imperial border. Reiter doubted it would move during the life of this emperor.

  Of late, he’d been in the Aydori papers more than the Imperial.

  The Imperial papers had other stories to cover.

  Reiter rubbed his finger over an engraving of a young woman flying above a pair of wolves. He still lost the track of conversations if the people around him spoke too fast or spoke over each other, but he was fluent enough in Aydori to speak one on one. “There is a story about the Ghost Pack visiting Verdune.”

  “Lord and Lady.” Lady Hagen sighed, both hands laced over the curve of her belly. She was due soon. In the empire a woman of her rank would have left public life, but that wasn’t how it was done in Aydori. “What have they done now?”

  “They attacked a money lender in the night. Gave his money to the poor.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Verdune is too far into the empire. They wouldn’t have left Orin for something so foolish. They’re being blamed for things they couldn’t possibly have done.”

  There were a number of things they had done crossing the empire. In the early days, the stories of a flying woman and a pack of wolves with silver markings had fought with treason for the front pages of newspapers. They’d stopped a runaway coach, saving five. The wolves had herded the townspeople to safety while the woman put out a spreading fire. They’d rescued a flock of sheep from a spring flood. They’d found a little boy down a well and, according to his mother’s interview in the paper, he’d cried for three days wanting the silver doggies to come back. They released two donkeys from the millstone they’d been tied to their entire lives and flattened the mill. Reports varied on what had then happened to the donkeys. In more than one, they’d been eaten.

  The Ghost Pack probably hadn’t flogged a foundry owner, known to take advantage of those young and attractive and dependent on him for a living, then chased him into a manure pit. It had happened close enough to the line from Karis to Orin it couldn’t be ruled out, but it was the first of the stories not entirely tied to geography.

  “It’s not blame,” Reiter said, pulling his hand back from the engraving. “It’s myth.”

  Lady Hagen rolled her eyes, blue mage marks glittering. “Well, I just got another letter from Stina’s cousin in Orin, and myth sheared off half a mountain, blocked the river, and flooded the village. There’s a good chance he wasn’t exaggerating this time since after the last council meeting the ambassador from Cafren asked me if I had any information on the stories she’d heard about earthquakes from her side of the border. The Pack Leader is thinking of sending someone north to see what’s going on.”

  Reiter didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I can’t…”

  “Yes, you can.” The baby kicked hard enough, it visibly adjusted the drape of her dress. It was a soft butter yellow, perfect for early fall. Her husband had died in the attack on the border, but the Aydori didn’t wear mourning. Reiter tugged at a black cuff. He did. “The garrison is nearly finished…” She raised a hand as he opened his mouth. “Fine. The part we need you for is nearly finished. We lost too many to send Pack or Mage-pack up into the mountains. You’re the obvious choice.”

  “I’m expendable.”

  “Yes.”

  He’d helped free them, but he’d also been responsible for helping to capture them. And only four of the six had come home.

  “You’re hiding here, Captain Reiter.” She didn’t sound unkind, but neither did she sound as though she’d allow him to stay in Aydori. To stay hiding in Aydori. “There’s only one way to find out if you have a place in her Pack.”

  “And if I don’t know if I want a place?” There were songs about the Ghost Pack—in two languages—and rumors around Bercarit of a new opera.

  “In the Pack or the myth?”

  “Both. Either.”

  Lady Hagen smiled. Reiter had been in Aydori long enough to recognize the difference between a smile and a show of teeth. This straddled the line. “There’s only one way to discover that as well.”

  * * *

  Snow had already fallen on the upper slopes of the mountain, but in Harar, the largest settlement in Orin, the reds and golds of fall still lingered. Dusty happily dove through drifts of fallen leaves, chasing a sparrow he had no hope of catching. Mirian was guessing about the reds and golds—her world remained grays and silver—but anyone with eyes could see Dusty’s mood. His tail and his ears were up and his tongue lolled from his half-open mouth and every now and then he barked as though he couldn’t help himself—in spite of lessons in the need for silence on the hunt from every single older member of the Pack.

  The boy’s recovery had been remarkable. His fears were the fears of the Pack as a whole—none of them could face darkness—but his strengths were his own. The starved and wounded silent child Mirian had taken from the Imperial cell had become a curious, joyful, much loved heart of the Pack. He spent almost as much time in skin as he did in fur and in a few short months he’d become almost fluent in Ori. Not only had his nightmares stopped as long as he slept touching another of the Pack, but those touching him never woke screaming. Mirian had drawn up a complicated sleeping rotation that Tomas and Nine enforced. Fortunately, no one in the Pack had a problem with putting Dusty’s needs first.

  Currently on guard, Bryan and Dillyn watched him from the porch. Dillyn had his head down on his front paws, but his eyes were open and all his attention was on the boy. Matt and Jace had gone hunting. They hadn’t gone far enough from the settlement to actually catch anything, which was why Mirian could sense matching pissy moods as they returned. They hadn’t yet determined how far apart she could be from her Pack and still maintain the connection—no one wanted to be the first to suddenly find themselves cut off from their Alpha. And, in fairness, she didn’t want to find herself cut off from them.

  When the Pack Leader in Harar had curled his lip and informed her that kind of contact wasn’t normal for Alphas, only Tomas’ elbow had kept her from laughing. Laughter would be considered a challenge, and the last thing Mirian wanted was to end up responsible for the entire settlement. The Pack she had was responsibility enough.

  She could hear Jared and Karl behind the house, arguing as they chopped wood. Seventeen and eighteen, they could manage skin as long as they had something that needed hands. Stephen would be watching them from the wellhead, the silvered stub of his tail tucked under his haunches. Stephen seldom wore skin. The emperor had taken something from his insides as well—his belly fur split by a diagonal silver streak—and he’d almost died before they’d reached a Healer-mage in the mountains. Nine had changed and carried him the last two days, snapping and snarling at anyone who tried to share the burden.

  Tomas and Nine…

  Mirian frowned. Nine felt angry. That wasn’t unusual. Unless he was with Dusty or her, anger was a constant with Nine. He’d refused to tell them his name…

  “That man is dead. Nine will do.”

  …and he fought at the slightest provocation. The settlement’s Alphas had learned to steer clear of him. No, Nine angry wasn’t unusual, but Tomas felt unsettled and that couldn’t be good.

  Both Bryan and Dillyn rose to their feet as Mirian stepped off the porch. A gesture held them in place. The dead grass whispering under her boots, she crossed toward the path that led through the trees to the rest of the settlement. They’d been given land on the outskirts, half cleared, house half built and abandoned. Working together to make it habitable had smoothed out most of the Pack’s rem
aining twitches. Most. Not all.

  She’d acquired a few twitches of her own.

  “Just as you do not define the mage-craft, do not let it define you. If you fly everywhere, what use are your legs? You want to be the person you were as well as the person you are, walk. Sweat. Wait for strawberries to ripen the same as everyone else.” Hayla blinked eyes as much white from cataracts as from her scattering of mage marks and grinned toothlessly. “Don’t let young Master Hagen define your body, as enjoyable as that is. Define it yourself lest you lose it. You and the mage-craft are one, but you must be Alpha. Where are you taking those strawberries?”

  “You said…”

  “I said you should wait. I’m old and have a pitiful fraction of your power. Hand them over. Now, go pick up that mountain you dropped.”

  Before Mirian reached the path, Nine trotted out into their clearing and crossed to where Dusty was stalking a beetle. Hackles up, he turned to face the trees, saying as clearly as if he’d spoken, that whoever was coming would only get near Dusty through him.

  Tomas was in fur although the man with him wasn’t. He wore an Aydori greatcoat pulled tight under the straps of the pack rising behind his head.

  “Captain Reiter.” Not a question. And Tomas felt unsettled, not surprised.

  Nor did he look surprised after he changed and moved to stand by her side.

  “Miss Maylin. Lord Hagen.” Reiter had gotten better at ignoring skin and looking Pack in the eye although a fresh scar on his jaw suggested it had taken him a while to learn. “The Pack Leader sent me to check on you.”

  It was strange to see him in gray and white. The gold of his hair, the red of his whiskers, the blue of his eyes were gone. Mirian found herself missing color in a way she hadn’t for months. “To check on me?”

  “On all of you.” Reiter looked calm as he swept his gaze over the visible members of the Pack. Nine stopped Dusty’s advance with a growl, then growled again in Reiter’s direction.

  To Mirian’s surprise, the captain tipped his head to the side before saying, “Did you know they call you the Ghost Pack in the empire? You’ve become part of the stories people tell.”