The Wolf's Mate: A Tale of the Holtlands, Book 2

by R. F. Long

  Shan waited, watching them, watching the others uncoil in relief and even laugh a little. Their children were safe. That was all that mattered.

  He studied their surroundings covertly. The cavern that formed the cells was not as vast as that occupied by the Enchassa, but it was large enough to hold four separate cells, with wooden bars separating them. All but this one were empty. There were no Fey’na here, none but him. As he had feared.

  “They’re all gone,” Doria said, her voice still trembling. “There were just a few Fair Ones here when we were imprisoned. But the Fell…took them away. One by one. Even the…the young. Especially the young. That’s why we knew we had to get our children out.”

  Shan nodded absently. “I came in vain,” he muttered. “Or perhaps it was indeed a trap all along. We were led here. Like lambs to the slaughter.” His head throbbed and he swayed where he stood.

  Doria caught his arm and helped him sit. “When they feed, they draw something vital from your spirit. You need to rest.” He wanted to shake her off, to deny the rest that his body needed to recuperate, but she was right.

  “Very well,” he conceded, “but if they come…” He shook his head. The fog of exhaustion already threatened his consciousness, even as he lay down. “Though I sleep only lightly, if they come and I do not rouse, wake me as soon as you hear them.”

  It was all he could do. That, and trust that the Holters would not decide to do away with him while he slept.

  ***

  Warm fur, damp with melted snow, brushed against him and Anala made a little whine deep in her throat. She licked his face, her breath washing over him, stirring him to a wakefulness that was not true wakefulness. How could it be? He knew she was dead. And yet she stood before him, her eyes studying him, her tongue lolling to one side, as if she grinned at him, as if she laughed.

  He reached out and his fingers touched fur. Beneath his touch, her heart beat. He pulled himself to her and buried his face in her warmth.

  “Get up,” said a voice deep inside his head. “Get up, Shan. She needs you. You would not leave your mate in jeopardy, would you, young wolf?” Her cold nose nudged his face and shoulder, pushing him away. “There is treachery in more places than one. There is danger. Go to Jeren now. Get up!”

  He tried. He struggled against the darkness which suddenly clung to him with talon-like nails, the darkness which kissed his lips and drank down his spirit, robbing him of all strength like a black leech.

  The Enchassa laughed and her voice rang through his body. He convulsed, his body and mind straining for escape, for salvation, but her grip on him was strong, so impossibly strong. Even as he slept, she drained him, as if a line of darkness tethered his soul to her, as if he would feed her constantly until he was nothing but a lifeless husk.

  “Get up, Shan!”

  Doria! It was Doria’s voice, her hands shaking him, her terror ringing in his ears.

  “They’re here!”

  He jarred into wakefulness, just in time to see the Fell’na warriors slide like ghosts from the shadows and open the cell. They moved so quickly that even as he lurched upright, they seized the remaining Holters.

  Doria screamed, striking out at them as they laid hands on her. Shan didn’t think. He didn’t have time. He moved as fluidly as his enemies. While they held their prey, they could not turn to shadows. His fist smacked into the face of the nearest, the one holding Doria, and felt a surge of satisfaction at the crunch of bone and the flow of black blood. Staggering back, the creature’s hold on Doria relaxed and Shan pulled her free, throwing her behind him.

  Two Fell’na dragged Leithen towards the door, the bull of a man struggling valiantly but in vain. Shan sprinted towards him, his own body the only weapon he had. He leaped, his feet hammering into the side of the Fell’na nearest. It dropped beneath him and he launched himself off it, hammering its face into the stone floor. At the same moment, Leithen shook himself free of the other and Shan slammed into it, rolling across the slick stone as he grappled with it. Teeth and claws tore into his skin but he wrapped his fingers around its throat and began to squeeze. As it weakened, he smashed its head back against the stone with a sickening crack and it fell still.

  Doria seized him, pulling him up. Leithen brandished a length of wood ripped from the enclosing wooden pens, and the remaining Fell’na chattered and withdrew, turning to wisps of smoke and shadows. The others were gone, with them the Holters. Two more souls, helpless and damned.

  “Are you all right?” Doria blurted out, her hands rubbing his shoulders and arms as if in an effort to assure herself he was indeed still real. “Did they hurt you? Are you injured?”

  He was bleeding, and he felt ragged, a torn and shredded spirit in a torn and shredded body, but it didn’t matter. He was alive. They were alive and one of their enemy was dead. Just one. And the other Holters were gone. The moment of elation wavered and failed, crashing down around him.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said. “Get after them. We have to save them.” She tugged on his arms, but they hung like lead, no longer under his control.

  “Let him go, lass,” said Leithen. “He did what he could.”

  “But the others…”

  Leithen shook his head, silencing her with that movement alone. “Let him be. There’s nothing we can do for them now. Be thankful they didn’t take us too as intended.”

  “No!” she shouted. “No! I won’t just give up like that, Leithen!” And then she did, sinking to the floor in a puddle of skirts and misery where she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Shan closed his eyes and forced his breath to be calm. Despair was an enemy too, and in some ways far more damaging than the Fell’na. It could steal even the will to fight, and that was all they had left to them now.

  “Don’t,” he told her, pulling her hands away from her face, smoothing his thumbs over the palms of her hands. “Don’t, please. We will find a way out. And if I can, I will help them, before it’s too late. Don’t give up now. Not you. You have the heart of a wolf, the spirit that will not bow. Please. You of all people must not give up.”

  And then they heard another voice, small and desperate but insistent.

  “Shan? Shan’ith Al-Fallion, is that you?”

  It came from a crack in the wall.

  Leaving the stunned Doria and Leithen, Shan approached the gap and peered into it. The crack led to a tunnel so narrow only a child could crawl through it.

  A face gazed back, eyes impossibly bright in the darkness, and a grin dangerous in its recklessness. “Shan? Are they all right? Are my family there?”

  Before he could answer, Doria shrieked and threw herself towards the gap. “Devyn? What are you doing here? We told you to run, to get away! Devyn!”

  The Wolf's Mate: A Tale of the Holtlands, Book 2

  Chapter Eight

  It was still dark when Lara shook Jeren awake.

  “She’s here,” her friend said in reverent tones. “She came early. The Seers too.”

  Jeren pushed her hair out of her face and struggled to grasp what Lara was saying. “Who came?”

  But Lara just glared at her. “Ariah, of course. We have to hurry. She and Indarin have been talking for an hour already. She wants to see you.”

  “I…oh…” A hundred things flocked to the fore of her mind all at once—things she needed to say, what she should wear, how she should present herself. But she only asked one question—the first and the last, the all-important one. “Is Shan back?”

  “No. And Ylandra’s absence has not gone down well. The Seers are most annoyed, I think, as they supported her election as Sect Mother and this could be taken as a grave insult.”

  At one time, Jeren might have felt a small thrill of triumph, but the thought of Shan not having yet returned with Ylandra quelled that. Without him, this just seemed all the more difficult. But he would want her to do it, wouldn’t he? He was her mate. She felt it with all her heart and soul. If there was the slight
est chance that Ariah could release him, return him to her, she had to seize it with both hands.

  “I need to change,” Jeren said, her mind already reeling through all the diplomatic scenarios that might help her plan her strategy.

  “As simple as possible is best with Ariah. Be as you are, and speak plainly. The truth, Jeren. That is the key.”

  Jeren pulled on the silvery-grey tunic and trousers of suede-like material that the Sh’istra’Phail favoured and wrapped the wolf skin trimmed in River Holt blue around her shoulders in defence against the chilly predawn. The necklace which she had used to decorate it she left behind, hidden beneath her bedroll. It had no place on her today.

  From the edge of the encampment she could see the Holters emerging from their own tents, alerted by the simmering excitement of the Sh’istra’Phail camp. Vertigern stood watching her, Elayne his constant shadow, but it was Torvin who jogged after her, concern turning his features stark. Jeren didn’t pause or slow her gait but he still fell into step beside her.

  “Who arrived with that party, Jeren? What’s going on?” He sounded like a child, overeager, excited.

  She didn’t have time for this. “Go back to the others, Torvin. We can talk later.”

  “But my place is with you. I’m a Roh, a sworn Body Servant to your line.”

  Another claw from the past to pull at her, to draw her down an unwanted path. To accept the service of a Roh would be as good as admitting she saw herself as Lady of River Holt. There were only two ways to do that—at Gilliad’s side or over his dead body. She might as well take up the sword and call for all-out war.

  “Go back, Torvin,” she growled, fixing her gaze ahead. Lara fidgeted nervously beside her as if wishing for a weapon. “This is not a Holt matter.”

  “If it involves you, Jeren,” he protested, but then corrected himself, “Lady Jeren, please—look, I…I brought something for you.”

  Something in his voice gave her pause and sent chills down her spine. “Now is not the time.”

  “Later then. Please, meet me later.”

  Jeren rolled her eyes. No getting out of this, it seemed. No escape. “All right then, later. Now go back to the Grey Holt camp before one of the Sh’istra’Phail decides you’re planning to attack Ariah.”

  He started and blood drained from his face.

  Jeren muttered a curse to herself. She hadn’t meant to mention Ariah at all. Now it would be all over the Holters’ camp as soon as he got back there. But what else could she do. “Go!”

  At long last he obeyed her. Jeren gritted her teeth and watched him go. Every time she turned around, someone wanted something from her. Shan alone had never made such demands. Thinking of him brought other memories—his touch, his kiss—and tears stung her eyes.

  I will do this , she promised herself. I will make Ariah understand. No matter what she had to do, promise or even if she had to beg. No matter what.

  As Jeren approached the central fire, four robed figures appeared from the edges where the shadows still clung.

  “Seers,” Lara whispered.

  Jeren sensed her fear. Magic users, serpent-born, ostracised by the other Fey’na, just as the Sh’istra’Phail were. She had imagined it might make them more understanding of each other, but all she saw now was naked hostility on both sides.

  “Hold, Jeren of River Holt,” said the foremost Seer, his voice flowing like molten silver. “A word, if you will.”

  “She has been summoned to Ariah, Fethan,” Lara cut in sharply.

  If the interruption upset or angered him there was no sign on Fethan’s impenetrable expression. His silvery eyes flicked briefly over Lara and then, dismissing her, returned to Jeren.

  “The Seers have read in the ether how great a font of magic lies within you, Lady Jeren, and with what ease you tap into it. Your actions with it have been to the greater good. I want, on behalf of your brethren, to offer you an alternative path. Come with us, be one of us, and those things you fear need never come to pass.”

  All too clearly she heard her heart beating while he spoke. It echoed through her head as Fethan’s silky voice wrapped itself around her. Words fell through her mind—Shan’s words of love and trust, Gilliad’s words of hate and possession—but Fethan’s words threatened to drown them all out. She gazed into his eyes, his handsome, placid face, and caught a brief glimpse of another future, filled with calm restraint and the wonders of magic.

  A future life entirely loveless. A life without any prospect of Shan. Her life if she failed to sway Ariah. No matter what path she chose.

  She flinched back. “I am Sh’istra’Phail.”

  “Not yet.” He smiled, unruffled.

  “I am Shan’s wife.”

  “And yet he is not here. I am told he has been bound to Ylandra by the duty of Service.”

  “That’s what we’re here to discern,” said another voice. It was young and ancient at the same time. It floated on the breeze like the first glimmer of dawn, and when Jeren heard it, her heart filled to overflowing with almost forgotten hope.

  From the fireside rose a figure no bigger than her, small and slight, dressed in a gown of white. Silver-blonde hair tumbled down her back, past her waist, glimmering like moonlight on water. Ariah seemed to glide or dance on the air as she walked. When she smiled, her features were childlike, yet she radiated power and experience. More than that, she radiated love.

  “Fethan feels you should not be here.” Ariah reached out for Jeren’s trembling hands. “Many of the Seers do. And yet Indarin says you have the capacity to be not just a Sh’istra’Phail, but a Shaman too—a rare mix of warrior and mage. Your own people have travelled unbidden into our lands to win you back, and Shan’ith Al-Fallion tied himself to Ylandra in order that you might stay here.”

  Ariah closed her eyes, her hands still gently enfolding Jeren’s. She breathed in once, twice, and Jeren sensed the air around them shimmer with energy. She reached for it with her mind, and her own innate magic responded, trying to categorise it.

  Ariah laughed softly. “Not the reaction of a warrior, Jeren. And yet…perhaps, the right one. For you at least. What do you want?”

  “I only want Shan back.”

  “And if that is denied?”

  Jeren shook inside. This was her chance, her one chance. The idea that she might truly lose him was impossible to take. It made her want to scream, to howl, to attack. But she locked the panic inside, deep inside, and took control.

  “I want nothing,” she replied at last, though her voice shook. “There would be nothing left for me.”

  Life without Shan would be no life at all. She knew that now, recognised and accepted it. She would endure, survive because he would not wish her dead, and one day—one day in the far distant, bleak future—she might even find it in her to smile again, but it would not be a life.

  Ariah said nothing, just opened her eyes, gazed into her face and held her hands. It seemed like an eternity before she smiled thinly and turned to Indarin. He had risen from the fireside, watching the two of them intently.

  “I see what you mean, my friend. Your brother’s heart was probably lost from the moment he first laid eyes on her.”

  Jeren’s numb hands slipped from Ariah’s and she stood helpless, her prayers jumbling together in her mind. She stood there, like one of the statues surrounding the Burgeoning Well at home, coldly beautiful façades of stone without a heart or breath. Her future, if she lost him. Gods help her, she couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t!

  Lara’s hand on her arm jarred her back into reality.

  “Then you’ll release him?” Indarin asked.

  “I must also speak to Ylandra. I cannot release him unless he is here. Have they been located?”

  Indarin shook his head and Jeren’s heart fell like a stone.

  Lara spoke. “Ylandra is…” For a moment Jeren expected another outburst, but this time, faced with Ariah herself, she reigned in her personal feelings. “She is blinded in this matter.�
�� Nonetheless, Ariah’s gaze silenced her.

  “You hate her very much, Lara. Why is that?”

  “It was because of her my father was lost.” Lara lifted her chin to take the brunt of the question.

  “And because of that, you came here? What other path would you have taken, child? A craftswoman, perhaps?” Ariah smiled. “Blame plays tricks, Lara, and revenge requires two graves.”

  Undaunted, Lara did not back down. “With all due respect, Ariah, this is not about me. Ylandra has no place being Sect Mother. She’s proven it through her jealousy and self-centred actions.”

  “Hush, Lara,” said Indarin. “I have already made this case.”

  “Yes,” Ariah replied, her voice still calm. “And with less wild passion. I must hear her side of things too, Lara. Desire aside, if she felt the need for a bound guardian, there is no warrior to match Shan. In the cold light of logic, she picked the prime candidate.” Then Ariah met Jeren’s eyes again and her voice softened. “But I will grant you that cold logic is not always the best way to make decisions. Jeren, I must meditate and pray on all this. Ylandra and Shan must be found and must speak. And you and I…”

  Fethan coughed impatiently and Ariah’s lips hardened, almost imperceptibly. Only Jeren stood close enough to see that.

  “All the world wants to make a claim on you, Lady Jeren. Or so it seems. We will have to divine the path for which you are fittest. This evening you will accompany me. You will stand before the Vision Rock and then we’ll see. It’s the only way. Go now, you may want to prepare yourself. Indarin will help you.”

  Jeren nodded and Ariah returned the gesture, her nod perhaps an attempt at encouragement. She turned away and Jeren bowed her head, dismayed, shaken, and yet somehow still hopeful. Ariah’s voice jerked her alert once more. Jeren looked up to find the pale woman’s eyes gazing intently at her once again.