Ward & Weft

by Parker Foye

  Claws ripped into his sides, and Griffith’s world became sharp with pain and snapping teeth. Struggling, he yanked an earthshaker warding from his outer pocket and wiped it over his head wound, bracing himself as he slapped the warding down. Dirt exploded upward, showering them with stones and soil and making the wolf whimper as it took the force of the blast.

  I’ve always loved that warding.

  Disoriented, the wolf staggered to its feet, shaking its great head. Shoving himself upright, Griffith slipped his arrowhead charm between the fingers of his right hand and readied a fire warding in his left. When the wolf stepped forward, he struck one against the other and thought of Llywelyn, the way he’d sparked the light warding.

  Something tugged behind his breastbone and the seaglass charm smouldered at his hip. He smelled fire an instant before the warding flared into life. It was like holding the sun in his hands.

  Griffith knew burnt fur and terrible whimpering would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  He set his jaw. If he lived long enough for regret, he’d find a way to bear it.

  The Keeley wolves nearby eyed him warily. As human, he was the weakest in the field. As warden, he was trouble.

  Griffith bared his teeth at the cowards and shoved once more into the fray. He saw Bethan and Jonno fighting together against four Keeley wolves, Efa and Angharad holding their own against another set, Ifanwy and her mother in flashes of dark fur and snapping teeth. Wherever he could, he used wardings, until his hands were littered with cuts, his skin pink with rain and blood. It wasn’t enough.

  It had to be enough.

  Minutes or hours or days later, shivering with cold and fatigue and wishing for a cup of Llywelyn’s terrible fucking tea, Griffith stumbled across Llywelyn, still grappling with Emery.

  And losing. Llywelyn twisted on his back with Emery above, clawing at his unprotected belly. Exhaustion rolled from him in waves, strong enough Griffith could taste it.

  Fear and love tangled in Griffith’s chest, and he threw himself against Emery’s broad back, clawing through his ruff and trying to wrap his arms around Emery’s throat. Emery rolled over in an attempt to shed Griffith, but Griffith held on with every scrap of strength he had. He didn’t try to find a warding. Didn’t dare release his grip on Emery’s throat. Breath came harsh in his throat as he stole Emery’s.

  Eventually the wolf staggered and dropped, but Griffith didn’t release him. He clung until Llywelyn made him let go, using human hands to help Griffith unlock his arms from around Emery’s throat.

  “That’s enough. You did it. It’s enough,” Llywelyn said, soft.

  Feeling untethered, Griffith did as bid. He slid from Emery’s back and doubled over, throwing up what little remained in his stomach. Spitting to clear his mouth, he swiped blood from his eyes. Llywelyn rubbed his back with small circles. At their feet, Emery’s chest rose and fell with stuttering breaths, but otherwise he didn’t move.

  No one else attacked. Griffith looked over Llywelyn’s shoulder and his breath caught. Across the field, the Keeley pack were shrinking away from a dozen strange wolves fighting on the Hywel side.

  “Angharad’s Council.”

  “Thank all the saints,” Llywelyn breathed. “Please tell me that’s it. Tell me we’re done.”

  Griffith’s voice froze in his throat. With a shaking finger, he pointed beyond the fighting wolves to the enormous figure crossing the broken line. Magic shrieked in his mind, and by Llywelyn’s wince he’d been similarly afflicted.

  Or maybe he winced at the size of the new wolf. Twice as big as any of them, with snowy white fur that made its yellow fangs seem more brutal in comparison, the beast leisurely swiped aside a wolf from his path. One of the Keeley pack, crumpling around a tree. The others quickly got out of its way, Keeley, Hywel and Council alike. Their fighting paused, as if none were sure any longer what they were fighting for at all, with such a creature on the field.

  “You said Emery was the second. Didn’t you?” Griffith asked, not taking his eyes from the enormous wolf.

  “He never said a name. Called him alpha.”

  “No true alpha would treat his pack like that.”

  No true alpha would work with Morgan.

  Griffith’s breath caught. How had he forgotten about Morgan until that moment? The biggest threat of all?

  “I have to go. I have to find Morgan,” he said, touching Llywelyn’s hand.

  Llywelyn raised his arm, stopping him. He gestured toward the Keeley alpha. “It’s not safe.”

  Griffith wanted to protest none of them were safe, or would ever be, unless he found Morgan. He didn’t have chance before a small black-furred wolf streaked by them and leapt onto Keeley’s back, sinking their teeth into his throat and holding on even as Keeley tried to claw free. After a moment, Griffith recognised her.

  “Isn’t that—Is that your mother?”

  “He wants Hywel territory. He can’t have it.” Llywelyn stepped forward, as if to help, but his knee buckled. He cursed. “I should help.”

  “Wait. Is that—”

  “Ifanwy,” Llywelyn confirmed as, on the other side of Keeley, another familiar wolf approached, low to the ground. He resettled at Griffith’s side. “As it should be. Alpha’s mate and alpha’s heir. A true contest for our pack.”

  The fighting completely stopped as everyone watched Ifanwy dodge a swipe from Keeley’s claws and dart between his forelegs, sinking her fangs into his throat from beneath. Keeley bellowed in pain and tried to claw his tormentors, but his blows came to naught and he slowly started to buckle under their assault. Blood painted his white fur like something obscene. Griffith wanted to look away, to move, to do anything but watch the great wolf die.

  But Llywelyn had said “our pack.”

  It might have been an accident. Yet despite the rain and fear chilling his bones, Griffith was warm. And when finally Keeley succumbed to the twin assault, Ifanwy’s triumphant howl set fire to his blood. Victory, she declared to the sky and all who could hear her. My-pack. She flipped her tail at the fallen Keeley and switched into her two-legged form, embracing her mother, both sharing in success and the confirmation of her status, witnessed by Hywel and Council wolves. Angharad and the others edged closer, some limping, their tails drooping with weariness, and she welcomed each with a fierce embrace. Each one victorious.

  Now that was an alpha. Ifanwy ferch Hywel.

  A surprised bark made Griffith start. He twisted around, staring at a Keeley wolf scrabbling for purchase as an invisible force pulled her back, her claws raking furrows in the wet ground. Griffith exchanged a glance with Llywelyn, looking as puzzled as Griffith felt, before another yelp got his attention. And another, as one by one, all of the Keeley wolves were dragged toward the broken segment of the boundary lines.

  Griffith stepped aside and watched, fascinated, as even the unconscious Emery was drawn inexorably toward the line.

  “The territory claim has been resolved. There’s a Hywel alpha,” Llywelyn said, realising as Griffith did.

  “How do—”

  Griffith fell silent as the horse screamed at his belt. Blood rushed from his face. Again he’d forgotten Morgan. As if in response to his despair, the rain redoubled its efforts, soaking him anew. Wiping water from his face, Griffith cursed under his breath, only for his words to freeze in his throat when Llywelyn’s cry of pain cut through him like claws. Griffith twisted around, trying to see through the rain and exhaustion blurring his vision. Where had Llywelyn gone? Had Morgan taken him? Panic made other senses sharp, and when Llywelyn screamed again, Griffith ran toward the sound, stumbling to a stop at the lightning tree.

  It had been years since he’d faced Morgan while awake. Soothing the horse with an absent finger, Griffith wished he could calm his furious heart as easily. Morgan held Llywelyn by the throat in
one hand, pressing him into the trunk of the lightning tree where roots burst from the earth to keep Llywelyn bound. In Morgan’s other hand he held a knife, and as Griffith watched he twisted it into the soft flesh of Llywelyn’s side. Griffith had laid kisses there only hours before. His hands curled into fists.

  “Let him go.”

  Morgan laughed, showing his brown teeth. “I don’t think I shall. I saw how this one looks. He’ll go for a fine price.”

  The wolf on the table.

  Griffith had dreamed Morgan’s threat enough times he knew he would rip Morgan’s throat out with his bare teeth before allowing it to become true.

  He stepped forward. Someone howled. A long, wavering note. No voice Griffith recognised. Morgan’s hands twitched, spilling a fresh bout of blood from Llywelyn’s precious skin. Llywelyn struggled against the roots holding his arms awkwardly around the tree. But for all his strength, he could do little bound without breath.

  “Let him go or I’ll kill you,” Griffith said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice.

  “You’re no match for me, apprentice. For all your tricks. Where are your ghost dogs now?” Morgan sneered. “I should have known. Your unnatural sympathies for their kind have turned you against me. A waste, Jones.”

  “Against you? This is my home!”

  “This place is a sad mistake of history.” Morgan tapped Llywelyn’s jaw with his fingertip. With a gasp, Llywelyn spat in Morgan’s face, but Morgan didn’t react. He seemed to look beyond Llywelyn, like he wasn’t human enough to cause insult. “But it’ll sell.”

  Griffith stuttered in place, stymied with inaction. Llywelyn’s chest heaved for breaths and Griffith didn’t know what to do. He shoved his shaking hands in his pockets, searching through bonebreakers and earthshakers, fire and shadow. He needed something big enough to destroy Morgan utterly. “It.” Llywelyn wasn’t an it, he was the man Griffith loved.

  As Griffith fumbled, Morgan scoffed. “Are you truly this useless? To think I imagined you had potential. But you made this creature your locus. A corruption! I’ll do you both a favour in killing him.”

  As soon as Morgan said it, Griffith knew it to be true. He froze, cold with realisation. He’d made Llywelyn his locus. He hadn’t meant to—hadn’t known such a thing was possible—but truth was harder to avoid than a charging bull. Magic had tied them together sure enough, but it had been Griffith directing the thread. His desires had doomed them both.

  Llywelyn snapped open his eyes and laughed raggedly in Morgan’s face. With a great heave of exertion, strong enough Griffith’s chest bruised with the reciprocal punch of magic, Llywelyn yanked the lightning tree from the earth. Birds erupted from nearby nests and small creatures scuttled from the roots, startled by the change in their habitat. Morgan stumbled backward with a cry as Llywelyn wheeled the sheared tree in his direction, roots dangling like nerves from a tooth, before dropping it with a roar.

  Llywelyn dropped a moment after, chest heaving like a bellows. Griffith dashed to his side, barely sparing the staggering Morgan a glance before dropping to his knees.

  “You lunatic.” Griffith pressed a tremulous kiss to Llywelyn’s clammy cheek. “You perfect lunatic, what the hell did you do that for?”

  “Wanted to see his face,” Llywelyn rasped. “Is it true? Am I your locus?”

  Griffith nodded, feeling wretched. “I didn’t mean to, I swear it.”

  “I’m glad. That I could be that for you.” Llywelyn frowned as a cough overcame him. Blood spotted his lips. “Bugger.”

  Griffith brushed away the blood with his thumb, wondering wildly how to tell if someone had ruptured themselves. Did he know a warding for that?

  “Bit my tongue. Don’t worry.” Llywelyn’s eyes crinkled at the corners. There were the beginnings of lines there, etched by joy.

  Griffith wanted to grow old with Llywelyn. To learn every line on his face.

  Resolution set within him like stone. Pushing to his feet, Griffith faced the man who’d haunted his dreams for years. Who’d poisoned his past and threatened his future. Who’d turned magic into something terrible, for nothing more than profit.

  As if he knew every thought in Griffith’s head, Morgan curled his lip. “You think you can best me alone, boy?”

  Griffith thought of the huge white wolf, defeated by Ifanwy and her mother. Emery, felled by himself and Llywelyn. Bethan and Jonno. Efa and Angharad. Pack.

  “I’m not alone, though,” Griffith said. A simple fact, though it had taken him a long time to realise.

  His hand went to the arrowhead, the flint, the little horse. The seaglass linking him to Llywelyn like some people had wedding bands. There were wardings in his pockets, and magic under his skin. Griffith prepared the first warding and stepped forward. For the pack.

  Without warning, magic surged from him in a wave, tugging at the space behind his breastbone and making his skin thrum with power. It rumbled under his feet and split the ground in a jagged line, like an overpowered earthshaker. Griffith heard baying as opaque white smoke rose from the crack in the earth, resolving into the bodies of large hunting hounds with distinctive red ears. Savage delight ripple through him, a feeling not entirely his own, at the naked fear on Morgan’s face.

  “They’re not real,” Morgan said, raising his hand, wardings fluttering from his fingers as he staggered back. “They’re a dream you sent.”

  The hounds bayed. Griffith shivered. If fear had a voice, it was theirs. He had no idea where the hounds had come from, had been meaning to start with fire and see how that went.

  “They’re no dream,” he told Morgan, trying to sound confident instead of terrified.

  As if a signal they’d been waiting for, the hounds bayed again and began to move. They didn’t rush. Didn’t run. Rain slid from their backs as they prowled forward, more like cats than dogs, stalking Morgan’s stumbling steps in no hurry at all.

  Griffith remembered what stories said about the hounds of Annwn. That they’d run their prey to ground, until they could run no longer.

  That approach likely bred a lot of patience.

  “You should start running!” Griffith yelled, raised his voice to cut through the noise of the hounds and rain.

  Morgan didn’t say a thing before he turned and fled. With a joyous and terrible chorus, the hounds surged forward.

  Apparently, they do run.

  Stepping carefully over the split in the earth, ground made treacherous by rain, Griffith firmly set aside all questions of whether he’d accidentally summoned the actual hounds of Annwn and what that might mean. Instead he helped Llywelyn lean against the felled trunk of their lightning tree, checking for any injury he might be able to help with. As he did so, the rain finally began to ease.

  Llywelyn slapped gently at his hands. “Stop prodding me. You’re no damn healer.”

  “I might be.”

  “And pigs might fly.”

  Griffith pulled a face. “And here I thought wolves respected wardens. You never spoke to my grandmother this way.”

  Reaching up, Llywelyn tucked a strand of Griffith’s hair behind his ear. A useless gesture, since the rain had plastered his hair to his face. And a precious one, as he moved to cup Griffith’s cheek, smoothing his thumb beneath Griffith’s eye.

  “Because you are pack, Warden Jones.”

  Pack. Not something declared lightly. Not something to be heard lightly, either. Llywelyn spoke softly, but Griffith’s heart would hear those words for the rest of their lives.

  Their long lives.

  Not done with declarations, Llywelyn continued. “I want to stay. Here. Not because I have to stay, because of obligation or magic, but because I want to. And I want you with me. In the pack. By my side.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “If Ifanwy lets us. Since she’s officially alpha now. Council-wi
tnessed and all.”

  Griffith’s laugh burst from him like sun after a rainy day. He pressed kiss after careful kiss to whatever part of Llywelyn he could reach. “I don’t care where we are, as long as we’re together. I love you. More than I thought possible.”

  “More declarations of love.” Llywelyn grinned. “Maybe Ifanwy was right about us.”

  Not protesting in the least, Griffith laced their fingers together and settled against Llywelyn’s side. They sat in silence as the clouds cleared and the forest began to resettle. Them alone, in the same place they’d played, parted and found each other again.

  Fitting that the lightning tree had become part of their story. Maybe the Hywel pack would grow again, in the land they’d reclaimed for their own, and the day’s fight would become a legend like Llywelyn had always wanted them to have. Loss and love, as much a part of the land as the magic—the true magic—beneath it. He’d have to visit his grandmother’s memorial and tell her what had happened. Visit Daffyd and spin the tale for him. They were as much a part of the day as the rest of them. Pack is pack is pack.

  Llywelyn sneezed, bringing Griffith thoroughly back to the here-and-now. He shook their joined hands.

  “It’s damned freezing out here, cariad. Don’t you wardens know how to make a fire?”

  Griffith rolled his eyes.

  They never mention this part in the stories.

  But he hoped they might. One day.

  * * * * *

  To purchase and read more books by Parker Foye, please visit their website at parkerfoye.com.

  Now Available from Carina Press and Parker Foye

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  1

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