Daughter of the Wolf (Pathway of the Chosen Book 2)

by Cat Bruno

  Within moments, the mind-lock was complete.

  When he dropped his hands, the boy looked at him with renewed fear, then glanced around blankly. With little time, Corni hurried to explain what had occurred.

  “Jarek, you are with Prince Delwin and his men. He is no friend to you, but you will pretend that he is. Let none know of your true identity, for you will not long survive in the King’s City if it becomes known. Learn what you can, all that you can, and strengthen both sword and sky. I mean you no harm, nor will I, if you see me again. If you have need of me, seek out a dark mage. Any will know how to find me. Learn and grow, Jarek, until the time comes.”

  “What time?” the boy grumbled, his words thick and his eyes wide, as if he had just woken.

  With a smile that showed sharpened teeth, Conri answered, “To take the throne.”

  Before the boy could speak, Conri was gone, drifting away from the fire and toward the edge of the camp. To his left was a tent, larger than the others that dotted the camp, and he knew it must be Delwin’s. His eyes darkened, yet he kept walking, thinking of his promise to the child.

  When he saw the wagon, the same one that Caryss had brought to his compound, Conri stopped.

  Then walked toward it, deliberate and slow.

  As he neared, his hands, pale and white, the hands of his moon mother, grayed.

  He did not struggle. Not this time. Not here. Soon, his long fingers were covered in fur, soft and silent. His dark hair shortened, edging a silver-white face, fur-covered now too. His nose lengthened, his teeth sharpened further. Arms became legs, and he dropped to the ground, dirt beneath his paws.

  Behind him trailed a tail, a sliver of moon, arched and dipped in night.

  When he leaped into the wagon, he made no sound. When his teeth seized the King’s neck, he made no sound.

  As he bit into the frail man’s skin, blood spilled from Herrin’s neck, silently. The king’s eyes never opened nor did he cry out. His face, scarred and lined, was splattered with blood, his lips red, his cheeks dotted.

  The tunic he wore, once a faded blue, was nearly black with blood, sticky and smelling of steel and salt. Herrin had not once moved, peaceful in sleep. He, too, made no sound.

  Dropping the King from his grasp, Conri jumped back. His jaw wide, his long tongue licked the blood from his lips. His dark eyes began to lighten, his paws, tipped in red, shed their fur. Four legs became two again as his tail disappeared.

  His face, man once more, remained blood-streaked, smeared and stained with the blood of the King.

  Conri lunged from the wagon and fled.

  War had come.

  *****

  Epilogue

  “Can’t you see how she is struggling? Have pity, Otieno, and take the sword from her.”

  The mage’s words were true ones, yet Otieno scowled. “While she rests, her enemies gather.”

  With a laugh, Aldric told him, “She has not yet seen her fifth moon year, diauxie, yet everywhere she goes, she must drag that sword with her.”

  “The more she carries it, the sooner she will be able to raise it,” the man dryly answered, undeterred.

  Aldric looked to Gregorr for help, but the fennidi offered none, nor did Sharron, who was more mother to the girl than any of them.

  With a sigh, Aldric groused, “When Syrsha rules, I will be beside her while you three will be in the kitchens.”

  The child laughed, smiling broadly, her tanned cheeks high and her green eyes bright under the Cossiman sun.

  “None of them can cook, Aldric!” she squealed. “But I will find jobs for them. Otieno can clean my sword, and Gregorr can tend to my gardens. And Sharron, well, she can take care of the epidii.”

  “The epidii?” Aldric asked.

  “Gregorr told me that I shall have as many as I want when I am queen.”

  Her voice was high, song-like, and even Otieno smiled.

  “To be queen, you must first learn to lift that sword, little one,” he told her, hiding his amusement.

  “I want my other sword back,” she huffed, her lips full and pouty.

  “The other was the blade of a babe. You are nearly five now, faela, and five moon year-olds must not use toys for swords.”

  Aldric had heard Otieno say similar words many times, and he knew the sense in them, yet still it pained him to watch Syrsha walking from the square with the large broadsword being pulled behind her, arms too weak to lift it back into its sheathe.

  They had been in Cossima for nearly five moon years, and the city had become home. On three sides was sea, yet to the west was land. A great wall had been built, and few arrived but through the ports, as they had, moon years prior. Their coin had allowed them to purchase a home several blocks from the city square, one with a large courtyard where Otieno and Syrsha could often be found. Gregorr and Sharron had quickly established a reputation for healing the town’s sick and injured, and a room had to be set up near the front of the house to accommodate all their visitors.

  Aldric spent his time in study, or teaching the girl the ways of the mages, which early on she showed talent for. When she began to talk, she was well-versed in several languages, and all of them came to her with ease. Cordisia seemed far, yet she spoke Common and Eirrannian as if she had never left. None could teach her the language of her father, yet she knew it nonetheless. None asked her how.

  Cossima itself was a unique town, and their group fit in well, despite Otieno’s dark skin and Gregorr’s green. There was talk that soon they must depart, yet none was in a hurry, as Syrsha thrived.

  When they arrived back at the house, sun-bleached and gleaming, Syrsha’s cries interrupted his musings.

  “Can I drop it now, Akkachi?”

  “One must never drop her sword,” he chastised.

  With a huff and a whimper, she continued to drag the sword behind her, over the painted tiles, and into the house.

  “Do not look at me like that, mage,” Otieno told him. “You have spent too many moon years for hire to not know better.”

  “Ofttimes, you forget she is a child,” Aldric countered.

  With his soft brown eyes on the mage, Otieno warned, “I forget nothing. She is a child. A child of the wolf.”

  *****

  Queen of Stars and Shadows,

  Book Three, Coming December 2016

  Not for the first time, he found her dozing with a sword in her lap. Reaching for his own curved blade, Otieno neared, surprisingly silent as his thick boots crushed the half-browned grass that separated student from master. Across her face, waves of black tresses hung, tinted red by the midday sun, serving as mask and helm and obscuring her gaze.

  Her chest rose softly, he watched, as her sky-colored tunic flitted near her pale neck.

  Beside her lay the faded leather armor she had worn for the last moon year. Speckled with blood and streaked with dirt, it appeared well-used, as he knew it to be. Yet, piled in a heap just outside of her reach, the armor was now useless.

  And her neck unguarded.

  He did not pause as he pulled his sword from its sheathe, without sound, gently, as if it was no more than a feather.

  The girl leaned against a long-branched tree, its ferny leaves offering a shaded veil against the cloudless sky. Dank air wetted his skin and his long braids stuck to his damp face, but Otieno’s fingers did not move from the hilt of the sword.

  Steps from the girl now, he smiled. With a lunge forward, he thrust the tip of the scimitar toward her ivory neck.

  He missed, as she rolled away from him, already on her feet behind him, as graceful and fast as the desert cats they had seen the moon year before on a rare trip outside the city.

  Laughing, the sound young and high, she called to him, “You smell of roses and sage. As you often do after an evening spent in the bathhouse. Even in slumber, I knew that you had come.”

  With a shrug, he pointed toward her armor and asked, “What good is it unworn?”

  “It slows me down,” sh
e explained. “I only wear it because you insist that I must.”

  Her own sword, larger than his in length and width, was cupped between slender fingers, its sharp point resting on the grass. Long before, she had learned to keep it near. When she had not, the punishment was severe. He had been a difficult teacher, as for the last fifteen moon years, had trained her without much respite. There were others to offer the girl instruction on mage-craft and the healing arts  Sharron, Gregorr, and Aldric. But, it was he alone who would keep her alive.

  “Faela, you will one day face an enemy who is even quicker than you. Just as there will be many who are stronger. Do I need to explain again how the well-balanced fighter is the enduring one?”

  She did not reach for the armor as she answered, “I mastered the spear moon years ago, Akkachi. And the scimitar as well. Even you must admit to being impressed with my skills with the Greatsword. Few can wield it as I do.”

  The girl was more than student to him, and had been since her birth, moon years before, across the seas in Cordisia. He had watched her mother die, along with the girl, although he had been too far to offer aid. From the back of an epidiuus, he had witnessed the Crow slice open Caryss’s throat. His screams that followed had caused his voice to fall silent for nearly a quarter-moon after, and it was not until they had reached Cossima that he once again spoke.

  Shaking his head to free himself from the memory, he asked her, “What is it that you are seeking? I know you well enough to understand this game, faela.”

  Her mother had named the babe Syrsha, an Eirrannian name, yet none here called her so. They had long sought to keep her hidden, and most knew her in Cossima as Kali, a name out of the East, aptly given because of the child’s midnight-hued hair. But even then, Aldric, Gregorr, and he rarely called her anything but faela, for they all recognized her to be a child of the wolf.

  It was only Sharron who spoke to her of Cordisia and in the language of the North. Just as it was only the Northern healer who whispered the girl’s true name as she told tales of Caryss. Sharron had known the girl’s mother the longest, yet even she could not tell Syrsha much of her mother’s story. Aldric, the mage, perhaps knew the most of the girl, for he understood more than any of them about the Tribe and Conri, the High Lord of the Wolves and the girl's father.

  Fifteen years removed from Caryss’s murder, the story was still a painful one and difficult to discuss. Even less did they speak of the High Lord or Syrsha's god-tainted blood.

  Any news from Cordisia came from what Aldric could learn on his morning trips to the market, and most of it of late was dire.

  And the girl knew as much.

  Before she could answer, he stepped close and chastised, “I know how weary you grow of Cossima, but it is not yet time to return to Cordisia. With Crispin’s death, Delwin became king, and, with that, war will come.”

  He did not need to explain how much had changed with Crispin’s death. Since their exit from Cordisia, he had ruled as king, following the murder of his father as the hands of Syrsha’s. A tenuous peace followed, despite Delwin’s insistence that the Tribe be destroyed. Word had come that while Crispin sat the throne, Delwin built his army even stronger, offering rank to mage-trained soldiers. He also expanded the Lightkeepers, tripling their numbers and opening the royal coffers for their use. With mage and Lightkeeper at his side, Delwin grew anxious, Aldric believed.

  Within a moon year, war between Rexterra and Tribe would come, he reminded her again.

  “It is not to Cordisia that I want to go," she countered. "There is little more for me here, Akkachi, even you must recognize that. I have thought long on this and know where it is that we must visit.”

  Pulling his hair from his mahogany face, he scowled at her. “You have convinced the others that it is time to depart.”

  He watched as she forced her own pale face to reveal nothing.

  “The others agree that we must soon leave. Even Aldric, who warned me that Delwin has renewed his interest in finding me. The reward for my capture would give a man a small kingdom, Otieno. We have stayed too long here, and many suspect that I am not Kali.”

  Syrsha’s eyes, unforgettable and gem-like, stared at him, and he knew the game that she now played. Even aging and without practice, Aldric had taught her well. There would be few who could fool the girl, even those mage-trained.

  “You waste my time, girl. Be out with it,” he finally insisted.

  She was little more than a child, yet of late she thought herself more. In their safety, she would become reckless, he suddenly realized. Even now, the girl found herself to be undefeatable. When she looked away, swinging the heavy sword until it lay across her back, where she sheathed it, Otieno’s cheeks burned.

  In his anger, he nearly reached for his Greatsword, yet soon she was speaking and his clenched fists hung at his side.

  “I have heard tales of the Sythians and of their skills with the bow. I have learned much here, but the courtyard offers little room for archery. Aldric has told me much about them, and they are but a half-moon ride north from here.”

  A long hiss escaped his full lips. “The bow is the coward’s weapon.”

  “You are wrong. It is the woman’s weapon. The Sythians need no men to lead their armies, for their aim is rarely off and their horses swift and strong.”

  “All women need men, child.”

  Her laugh echoed off clay bricks and faded grass as her teeth, straight and shining, gleamed bright. Otieno could not stay his hand as the bells of her laughter rang around him. Without armor, Syrsha was no match for the Greatsword, so he grabbed the short broadsword from near his hip and raised it. Just as quickly, the girl had daggers in each hand.

  The courtyard quieted, but her emerald eyes dazzled with amusement. She would let him strike first, he knew, stepping toward her slowly as he watched the leather-hilted daggers crossed in front of her. As the broadsword came toward her, Syrsha would attack, dodging his charge with a roll until her daggers were near enough to press into his skin.

  Instead of circling the sword above her for a downward slash, the diauxie ducked low, throwing his shoulder to the ground and spinning, until his hands were near enough to her legs to pull her down. In her surprise, she offered no counter.

  Before she could recover, he pinned her hands above her head, the daggers sharp but unthreatening. The girl was strong, more so than most men. She was god-kin and no easy fight. Yet he was no ordinary man, either.

  With the broadsword in his strong hand, he brought the hilt toward her, striking her hard across the cheek.

  Syrsha cried out and struggled to free herself. The right side of her face was red and puffy, but Otieno cared little.

  Rising on his own, he told her, “You have grown lazy and predictable in your insolence. Have Sharron tend to your cheek.”

  She began to argue, but he again lifted the sword, as if he would strike her anew where she still lay.

  “We will make way to Sythia within the moon. Tell the others.”

  As he walked away from her, Otieno could hear her shouting at him.

  “You are not my father, akkachi!” she screamed, her voice edged in shadow.

  He did not turn around, nor did he call out to her.

  I am not your father, he thought. The High Lord would have left you bloody and silent.

  ****

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