by Rose Francis
Lucia thought of her bonds to the foxes, to Conwynne, to Quinn. Could she pull on those bonds now for strength, for speed? She already felt a part of them, what more could this ritual do?
Conwynne continued up the trail, his stick locating loose stones and other hidden dangers. Angry tears carved rivulets in his dust-caked face. “Before he was the Suzerain, the man known as Wyatt mac Tyre was an alpha knight. He was full of passion, eager to help fight in the wars the council sent him into. He had little patience though, and a most displeasing manner. He was always angry. Quick to mock. Forever challenging those around him.”
“You knew him?” Lucia asked. She was careful to step where the old alpha knight stepped. As the path narrowed even more, every footfall became a gamble.
“You should have killed him back then,” Farid sneered, if the man was afraid of anything he didn’t show it. “How many lives would have been saved, old man?”
“You aren’t wrong. No one wanted to be pack with Tyre. He was too unpleasant, too aggressive. But what a warrior he was. He fought like a one-man army. And so skilled with the shift.” In a flash, Conwynne jabbed his stick into a hole Lucia hadn’t even seen in the side of the mountain. When he pulled it out, a thick rattlesnake was stuck to the end, its fangs embedded in the wood. The old alpha knight shook his staff over the gorge until the snake let go, falling with a plaintive rattle hundreds of feet to the stones below. “I’ve never seen the like of Wyatt mac Tyre, of the creature now called the Suzerain. He had a fighting style he developed himself, where he’d charge into melee as a wolf, and shift with every blow. Using the shift to dodge blows, to bite harder, to claw better.”
“But without a pack, without allies to draw on, his gifts were limited,” Lucia said, sensing where the story was going. “What did you do, Conwynne?”
The old man’s body tensed as if about to shift. His hands rippled, claws emerging and then sinking back into his flesh. “I taught him the ritual to force a pack bond. It wasn’t my choice alone, but the council disapproved. They feared he’d misuse it. They were right.”
Farid picked up a stone and hurled it off the mountain. “And then he formed an army and swept down out of the North to break the wasteland’s spine with his fists.” Farid spat at Conwynne’s feet. “You’re saying everything is your fault, old man? We should hurl you off the cliffs right here so you don’t go accidentally create another tyrant.”
“Would that make things better?” Lucia shouted at the pirate. They were all stopped now, the trail had nearly vanished into the raw face of the mountain. “We all make mistakes, Avar. We can’t predict what will happen when we try to do the right thing, can we? Sometimes an action taken with the best of intentions hurts those we care about.”
Farid smirked at her. “Apology accepted, your alpha-ness.” He bowed low, his hair dangling into the fluffy weeds that sprouted from cracks in the cliff face. When he stood, seed pods dotted his head like snowflakes.
“It is my fault. That is why I am here. There’s a chance I can stop him.”
“We should go,” Lucia said.
“You need to know, Tyre is different from other shifters. That’s why he always wins. He twisted the ritual’s magics. He draws life from those around him, strengthening himself. He perverted the bonds of pack, of community. He is a parasite. To fight him is to die.”
“So you’re saying we have a chance,” Farid drawled sarcastically.
“How can we stop him if we can’t fight him?” Lucia asked.
“We need to break the ritual. The reason he hates all other alphas, why he’s had them all killed, is because one cannot belong to two packs at once. And the bond formed from love, from compassion is so much stronger than the hateful mockery he wields.” Conwynne picked his way up the curving path. It arced around an outcropping then immediately widened so that ten people could walk side by side. “All who are pack, are protected from his evil.”
“Great. So her alpha-ness here just needs to get everyone in the world to be in her pack, and then the Suzerain will have no power?”
“That’s going to take a long time.” Lucia thought she’d feel better once the path was less treacherous. She was wrong.
“Come,” Conwynne said. “We must hurry. We don’t want to be on these cliffs when night falls.”
The entrance to Sierren was unguarded. The path swerved between white arches leading down into a narrow valley between two enormous peaks. Unless you were right on the narrow trail, you’d never notice it.
“You could defend this pass for months, years if your food held out.” Farid looked around. An eerie calm filled the air, punctuated only by the squawking of crows.
The sun was past mid-point in the sky and the mountain cast deep cold shadows over them as they descended through the gates into Sierren. A chill ran through Lucia. The air felt wrong. The path widened and dropped into a valley with a village nestled in it. Passages and windows honeycombed the very rock walls of the mountains. Sierren was a fortress, yet it was undefended, unmanned.
“Where is everyone?” Lucia asked.
“Come. Let us go to the prince’s home. We will find answers there.”
Walking through the street that bisected the village, Lucia saw feet sticking out of a doorway. She ran over, past Conwynne’s warnings, to find a woman sprawled on her back, her eyes open, her breathing shallow. Her skin was pale but for the sandy fur patches that marked her arms. She stared upwards uncomprehending.
“What could do this?” Farid asked. “It looks like she had a stroke.”
Lucia looked around, seeing more people collapsed in doorways, next to carts, at the borders of the street.
“The whole town has been felled,” Conwynne muttered. “Stay here,” he barked to Lucia and the pirate. “I will check for signs of the prince.”
Lucia recalled his proud face, his regal bearing. Conwynne had taken the memory crystal from her once they’d sailed, but she had a perfect recollection of his beauty. She didn’t want to see him paralyzed and dying like these poor suffering people.
“This is terrible. A whole city wiped out. All these innocent lives.”
Farid entered one of the homes, returned stuffing handfuls of coins into his backpack.
“You’re stealing from them?” Lucia was appalled.
“Hey, they don’t need the money anymore, do they? Money is for the living and in case you’ve forgotten what you saw in my head last night, your uncle will murder me if I don’t pay him off for the lifetime wages of twenty slaves.” Farid went through the pockets of a man collapsed behind a cart. “You promised me eleven thousand, girl. How are you going to pay up if the prince is dead?”
Lucia was about to tell him exactly what she thought of stealing from the dead, when a heartbreaking howl emerged from the prince’s palace.
“Conwynne,” Lucia said, as she ran to him.
The old shifter stumbled out of the palace doors, blinking in the light as his eyes struggled to adjust. He looked twenty years older.
“Is it the prince? Is he—” Lucia asked, helping steady the old man.
Conwynne shook his head. But the motion was too fast, too shaky. Lucia stepped away from him. The man smelled wrong, like burning hair. His skin began to curdle with the shift, but it was all wrong. Instead of the sleek white dire wolf form he’d taken before, he was now a towering giant wolf-man, red-eyed and growling.
“What the hell is going on?” Farid yelled, drawing his bolter.
“The grief is too much,” Lucia realized. “It’s changing him. He’s shifting out of anger, out of hate.” She stepped away from Conwynne, drawing her glaive. It was a ridiculous gesture. He had a lifetime of experience and she had what, three weeks of training? But she had to do something.
Conwynne roared and charged them, his monstrous padded feet clawing the stone with every step. He was incredibly fast. It was if the world had tipped on its edge and he was falling towards them. Farid fired two shots from his bolter, but the metal
bolts slid right through the man’s flesh without hurting him. He was in full shift, only silver could stop him now.
Lucia brought her blade up, knowing it wouldn’t help. But if not the glaive, then what?
She had an idea.
Seconds away from being ripped to shreds by her teacher, Lucia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and roared. With every inch of her body, with every drop of her alpha blood, she commanded Conwynne to stop. The power soared in her blood, she could feel the generations of alphas before her lending her their strength. The pack is more than just who you can see. The pack bond transcends time.
Conwynne stopped as if a leash had tugged his neck. He toppled backwards to the cracked pavement. His body spasmed and thrashed as he shifted back to his human form, commanded so by Lucia. Her roar still echoed across the mountains. If anyone else was nearby, they’d have heard it.
“We have to get out of here,” Farid said, backing away from the trembling shifter.
“He’s fine now. His anger is gone, or at least lessened.”
“That’s a mighty handy trick, Lucia.” The pirate’s eyes were full of wonder. Wonder for her.
She couldn’t deny she liked seeing him look at her like that. She liked it a lot.
Farid helped Conwynne to his feet. The old man’s clothes were in tatters. He looked at the ground, at the homes of Sierren, at anywhere but Lucia.
“What did you see in there?”
Conwynne swallowed hard. “I didn’t see the prince. Nor his closest men, such as I know them. But there are hundreds, maybe thousands here who are as good as dead. The Suzerain has gone too far. He needs to be stopped before he uses this weapon on some other village.”
“We need to run,” Farid said. “Get the hell out of here. What hope do we have against something that can do this?”
“Do you know where the prince went? Any signs?”
“There are a dozen red jackets in there, in the back, in the prince’s quarters. They were killed by more traditional means, by bolt and blade. If I had to guess, I’d say the Suzerain took the prince before using whatever foul device did this.”
“We have to find him. If we find him, we find the Suzerain’s weapon.” Lucia felt a fire in her bones. The gasping bodies around her were all people, with dreams and hope and loves. “Why would that monster do this? What possible threat could they have been?”
Conwynne sighed. “The prince is an alpha, like you. Though he lacks training. He’s grown up with no other alphas, so his gifts are immature. His powers are weak. And yet everyone in Sierren was his pack, his family. The Suzerain did this to strike at him. To destroy the bonds that hold us together. The Suzerain and his witch know nothing of love, of family. They see how hard it makes others fight and it terrifies them. That’s why they did this.”
As they spoke, Farid wandered the camp, likely looking for more to steal from the dying. Lucia watched him from the corner of her eye, wishing he could be a better man. He clambered to the top of the tallest building, taking the view of the entire town.
“We’ve got trouble!” Farid yelled, taking the ladders so quick he nearly jumped to the ground.
He sped past Lucia, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the archway that marked the edge of Sierren. Below, where the lengthening shadows overtook the valley, a massive mirrored pyramid floated in the air above the Letherine.
The silvered ship was larger than anything Lucia had ever seen. It was a flying mountain. A warship of unparalleled power.
“Nothing can be that big,” Lucia muttered. “It’s impossible.”
“How is it flying?” Farid asked. “I don’t see any rotors or hot-air balloons or jets.”
“What you are looking at,” Conwynne sighed, “is the Warmaw. Chief among the Suzerain’s fleet.”
“He has more of these?” Lucia asked.
“Not as far as I know. But he has other ships, none of which you’d like to meet in battle. It flies using the science of the old world. The Suzerain has been hoarding the old technology, refusing to share the bounties of his knowledge with the people.”
“What are they doing?” Farid pointed at the base of the floating pyramid. Hundreds of ropes dropped dangling to the ground around the Letherine.”
“I imagine they are capturing your ship.” Conwynne said.
“And our friends,” Lucia added.
“What are they going to do with my ship?”
“Whatever they want, I imagine,” Conwynne said.
“The weapon is in there. Isn’t it?” Lucia asked.
Conwynne leaned on her, his body weak after the terrible shift. “You can feel it, can’t you? I certainly can. Like a hole in the world sucking away life and joy.”
“We have to get inside. We have to rescue our friends and destroy that weapon.” She turned to Farid. His handsome face was hidden in shadow. “You’re a smuggler. How do we get in?”
The plan was straightforward.
They retrieved the soldiers from the prince’s quarters and stripped them of their red uniforms. Between the dozen dead men they had no problem patching together three outfits that fit them. Then it was a simple matter to walk down the mountain—so much faster than walking up it—and right into the massed mob of soldiers. Conwynne used his alpha tricks to hide them from sight until they were mixed in amongst the hundreds of men securing the Letherine. They hid on board Farid’s ship, quiet and still, as the groaning winches lifted them up into the the darkness of the Suzerain’s battleship.
Lucia took Farid’s hand in hers as they were swallowed by the maw.
Chapter 8
My Enemy’s Face
By the time the winches had finished hauling their ship up into the belly of the Suzerain’s battlestation, Lucia was shivering uncontrollably. It was colder than she was used to inside the Letherine. Was it the altitude or was the Warmaw itself frozen? Lucia didn’t know. But also it was just plain terrifying being up so high. And being surrounded by thousands of armed soldiers. And being this close to whatever weapon could sap the life from all of Sierren.
There were a lot of reasons to be afraid.
Conwynne was pale and haggard. He couldn’t shake what he’d seen in Sierren. The man was gruff and occasionally unpleasant and didn’t enjoy giving straight answers to simple questions, but Lucia still cared for him. He was pack, after all. And anyways, she needed him.
The sand pirate was the only one not entirely terrified by the turn of events. He seemed excited. Like he’d always dreamed of smuggling himself into the biggest and baddest ship in the world.
Lucia hadn’t even known the Suzerain had a fleet.
They needed a plan. They needed Conwynne. But the man sat in his stolen red armor, nearly catatonic. Lucia tried taking his hand, but it was limp and unresponsive.
“What’s wrong with him?” Farid asked.
“What do you think?” Lucia said.
“Never thought the old man had such weak nerves.”
“He was pinning everything on Sierren. He never thought about what could happen if they truly fell.”
“Can you do that roar trick again?” Farid asked, pacing about the hold. “Only, like, quieter?”
Lucia sighed. She didn’t have enough training. Her gifts were just awakening. There was so much she didn’t know. But it wasn’t like the first alphas had teachers, right? They figured out everything on their own. Hell, they invented magical rituals somehow. If a group of wastelanders could do that, surely she could shake her friend out of his catatonic stupor.
Lucia sat crossed legged before him, her knees touching his. She took Conwynne’s hands in hers and tried to let go of herself, to ease into her meditative state so she could see into his mind.
Darkness. A woman stands on top of a factory building while flames lick at the soles of her feet. Her armor itches but she can’t scratch. Her fingers are claws sharper than razors. Half the town is on fire but there are still survivors. Those who oppose the Suzerain, lord of all and high king.
The master will not be disobeyed. The woman scans the town with shifted eyes—wolf eyes—and everything is bright and clear in the night, except where the fire blinds her. Movement in the rubble. A family digging themselves out from where the master’s weapons had crushed their home like an egg under a hammer. There can be no survivors. No one in Kirkway can be allowed to live. The woman—the Suzerain’s dark witch—leaps off the factory roof like a shadow in flight, running toward the family with her claws extended.
Lucia fell back on the floor, scrambled away from Conwynne.
“Oh no, oh no,” she said. “The dark witch, Azra Moreno, is here. She’s on this ship. And I think I just alerted her to our presence. I looked into her mind and it was so horrible.”
Farid picked her up, held her close. His body radiated warmth and Lucia just wanted to snuggle into him, to burrow into his comfort.
“You can do this, kid. I believe in you.” His voice resonated with her bones, sending a twisty heat spiraling through her. Farid’s arms hugged her, but his hands couldn’t help but explore the roundness of her curves.
Lucia nodded but didn’t pull away. This was the closest they’d been and it was delicious. Why couldn’t they have found this closeness on the sands? Her heightened senses picked up the scent of Farid’s arousal. There was no time for this, for any of this. Lucia pushed away the pirate’s warmth and turned to face the old shifter heaped on the floor. If the witch knew about them, time was even more pressing. The time for gentle prodding was over.
“Farid, pick him up.” The pirate wedged his arms under the old man’s and strained, heaving him to his feet.
“Whatever you’re going to do, hurry. This old codger is heavier than he looks.”
She pressed her forehead to Conwynne’s, nose touching nose. It was an intimate gesture, but they were pack and she was the alpha and it felt right. “Awaken,” she said, focusing on the compassion she felt for the man, on the bonds of pack between them.
