The fur tingled along my spine. “Canista’s Lights are important to foxes too. Maybe even to dogs and coyotes. The Mage is controlling Wildlands foxes. There are few left to fight him. If we could use the power of the lights. If we could somehow resist …”
Farraclaw tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I looked in the direction of the Raging River. The haze of the Darklands was lost from view. Yet the memory of the Mage still wove itself through me. Those acid eyes …
It was Lop who interrupted my darker thoughts. “Hares,” he whispered.
I blinked across the snow. They looked like large rabbits, but they stood taller. Their fur was white, except for the dark tips of their ears. In the moonlight, I spotted two near a stone ridge, while one tore along the grass. Already, Lop was stalking toward them. Farraclaw started edging the other way.
“I thought you only hunted large creatures like bison.”
Farraclaw shot me an uneasy look. “We do what we must.”
It was almost a fox’s response. I watched as they stalked toward the ridge, creeping closer to the two hares that hopped over the snow.
The third hare froze. It seemed to sense that something was wrong. Standing downwind of Lop and Farraclaw, it might have caught their scents. Perhaps it heard the shush of their paws on the snow. I sank low as it started hopping my way.
What was seen is unseen; what was sensed becomes senseless. What was bone is bending; what was fur is air.
The hare was a blur of light up ahead. The light grew stronger, filling my vision. I held the slimmer. Closer, closer … My nose caught the hare’s rich scent. Unable to control myself, I pounced. The hare gave a strange cry and leaped into the air. I sprang after it. It moved with speed, tearing past me on the snow, but it tripped in its panic and I threw a forepaw on its back. I pinned it down, breathless. The hare fought back—it was as almost as strong as I was. I gathered my maa, grappling to hook my paws around it, seeking out its throat. I bit down fast and hard. It bucked under my grip, then relaxed. A hiss in the air. A shimmer of light rose from its body and quickly faded into darkness. A few drops of blood colored the snow.
Its maa was fading.
I released the hare, licking it a couple of times. Its eyes stared vacantly. Looking up, I saw Lop and Farraclaw, each carrying a hare in their jaws. They took in my kill with wagging tails.
“You see. A fox is good for some things,” I said proudly.
We retreated behind dark crags, where we could feed without being seen.
“May the fallen rest in the peace of the forest,” said Farraclaw, before tearing into the soft flesh.
I gazed over the tundra. In the moonlight, the blood on the snow looked black.
I didn’t like the way Greatma was staring at me, worry etched into her muzzle. I wanted to pad past her to the den, where Isla was sleeping. She led me to the ivy that hung over the fence at the back of our patch. She beckoned me to follow her under its thicket of leaves.
I sat, gazing back at the den. “I was only playing.” The words sounded feeble.
Greatma slipped onto her belly beside me. “Not all games are suitable for young foxes.” She ran her tongue over her muzzle. “Not all games are safe.”
I didn’t want to meet her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Greatma sighed. “You were born early, before malinta. You and Isla both. Sometimes when this happens, it’s like a knot of maa has lodged in the cub’s heart. It unfurls as they growl. Such cubs are rare, you understand. They have more life source in them than a full-grown fox. They are able to do things that others can’t.”
My tail flicked and I turned to her, remembering the quiver of power that ran through my limbs. “What kind of things?”
“Their talents differ. Perhaps they run faster, climb higher than others. Some may be stronger. Others find their gifts lie in unknown lore. Untaught, yet by instinct they stumble into foxcraft.”
My fur spiked at my neck. “What’s that?”
Greatma’s stare cut deep. “I think you know.”
“What you saw just now … it was only play. I can make myself disappear if I try really hard. I feel a link with the earth and the air. I’m connected somehow.” I feared Greatma’s disapproval but I had to admit it felt good to share what I’d been feeling. Most of all, I wanted to tell my sister. I wasn’t really sure why I hadn’t. I’ll surprise her, I said to myself. When I’m really good, I’ll teach her what I know. But it wasn’t that, not really. I’d enjoyed having a secret. “Why isn’t Isla like me?” I asked. “She was born the same day.”
“Don’t underestimate your sister,” said Greatma. “Her maa is strong. Though not like yours … You have the touch of Canista in your eyes. I have seen it.” She gazed warily under the drooping ivy. “Others may see it too.”
“What does it matter if they do? It’s harmless really. I turn invisible. I make colors jump into the sky. Sometimes I think I can sense the edges of thoughts—Isla’s thoughts, not my own.”
Greatma stiffened. “You sense her thoughts? Yet in the same breath, you tell me it’s harmless.”
“I wouldn’t do anything bad. I don’t listen to her thoughts, if that’s what you mean.” I sat up, offended. “I’d never do that!”
Greatma stared at me a long time. I held her gaze. Eventually, her ears relaxed, pointing out to the sides. She stretched a forepaw—ginger, gray, and gold—just like my own mottled colors. “No, you wouldn’t. You have a good heart, Pirie. You don’t realize how it can be out there … You think everyone is like you.”
“What do you mean, Greatma?”
“You cannot know how others will respond to your gifts. What they might think. What they may do. You need to exercise caution. I don’t want you playing around with your maa anymore. I don’t want to see any foxcraft, any strange colors.” An edge had crept into her voice. “Do you understand me, Pirie?”
Oh, I understood. Understood she was trying to deny my gift. Trying to stop me from having fun. “You don’t get it,” I whimpered. “I have to do it. It’s part of me. I can’t just ignore who I am.”
“I’m not asking you to. Just … be careful. Are you aware that a light was hanging over you as you played with foxcraft? A strange, amber glow … Some might see it from far across the Graylands. You never know who’s watching.”
How could she take this away from me? “I’m only a cub. No one will care what I’m doing.”
“You are certainly young. Too young to realize the truth of this brutal world. There are those who will look upon your maa with envy. You must stop these games, Pirie. No more foxcraft.”
Anger rose in my throat. Why should I stop? I launched my maa through my thoughts, a tangle of ambers and reds. Colors started weaving through the ivy, lighting the green leaves. “You don’t know what it’s like to be different. To have this power, and then be told not to use it. You don’t know!”
Greatma’s eyes widened. “Oh, don’t I, Foxling?” A strange light pulsed in them, flashing white. The tip of her tail was silvery.
I sprang to my paws. Sparkles leaped off Greatma’s mottled coat, curling about the amber of my thoughts. Her voice echoed around me.
I was like you, Foxling. I was different too. But I learned to hide it, to protect my family. Foxcraft is dangerous: that’s what my own greatma told me. Be careful, Pirie. You don’t even know what you have. You don’t understand what it can do.
I gasped, scrambling back against a tangle of ivy. The colors fell away. The light faded in Greatma’s eyes. She approached me to nuzzle against my shoulder. I pressed closer to her, relaxing into the warmth of her coat.
“You’re like me,” I murmured.
“Yes …” Greatma whispered. “I have hidden it a long time. I do it to keep you safe. You’re all that matters, you and Isla, your ma and fa.” She started washing my ears very gently.
Suddenly, I was exhausted. All I wanted was to sleep by my sister’s side. I relax
ed as Greatma wrapped her tail around me and led me back to the den. “No one must know of our gift,” she urged. “Not Ma or Fa. Not even Isla. It will be our secret.”
* * *
I sat up between Lop and Farraclaw in the hollow beneath a spruce tree. From this position, I could see the dark outline of the tundra.
I lowered my muzzle. I felt closer to my brother—closer than I had since he disappeared—and yet I understood him less. All this time, he’d been hiding his talents from me, confiding in Greatma … Leaving me out. I’d thought of him as my double, my shadow; how well did I really know Pirie?
If I squinted, I could just make out the smoke that rose from the pools. How had Lop explained them? A restless fire beneath the soil. It still didn’t make much sense to me, out here in the freezing cold.
I drummed my paws in frustration.
There are too many things that don’t make sense.
What was I even doing here? Seeking some buried cache for a mad wolf king. How could I trust him to take me to Pirie? A wolf who had once been the greatest of his kind but now rambled about beetles and ravens, and hawks that didn’t even exist in the Snowlands.
My gerra is at war, I can scarcely think. Daily he attacks me, ravaging my maa, my very heart … I am not myself.
What exactly was wrong with the king? He had known of the Elders, had spoken of malinta. I flexed my forepaw. There was something familiar about him.
Something I couldn’t place.
Almost unwillingly, my mind returned to Pirie. I already knew he was in the Snowlands. Hadn’t the Elders told me as much?
I pictured Mika frowning, one long ear craned forward, the other twisted back. Her whiskers trembling like breeze-ruffled grass. The winds have spoken. He lives.
Alive, but where?
King Birronclaw had known that my brother had strong maa.
“Maha,” Farraclaw had corrected. “That’s what we call it.”
“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” I’d snapped back.
But I’d been wrong.
It does matter. A wolf would never say “maa” …
The dawning of a dark notion. Pirie playing with maa, exploring a power he did not understand. Greatma urging him to stop. What if he hadn’t stopped? How far would he go?
For a moment, I was back in the Wildlands, in Karo and Flint’s den before it was attacked. They were talking about the Taken, guessing at how the will might be stolen from a living fox. Karo had heard there must be flames.
I don’t believe it, said one of the old vixens. Foxes do not burn their gifts.
That was true. Foxes didn’t burn valuable things. We bury them. Like the king’s cache buried beyond the Ice Razors.
I jumped up. Specks of silver glittered in the frozen snow.
A fox is lost to the Elders, beyond the fur and sinew of the greatest of Canista’s cubs.
A whimper escaped my throat.
“Isla, are you all right?” Farraclaw was looking up at me. The blacks of his eyes were huge in the darkness. Not like they’d been in the glare of the sun. Then they’d shrunk to tiny dots.
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Foxes had eyes like cats. Under beams of light, the circles contracted to slashes of black. I frowned, my heart thumping harder. With a jolt I remembered the king as he’d lunged toward me in the cave. His eyes were gauzy, weeping at the edges.
In the light, their dark centers shrank into slits.
Fox eyes.
I recalled what Amarog had said to me.
Was it you who watched like the black-eyed skua? Who would pierce the sacred flesh?
“What’s a skua?” I asked.
Farraclaw gave me an odd look. “It’s a bird.” As an afterthought, he added, “It snatches its food from other birds. Even among its own kind, it is a thing without honor. An imposter, a thief.”
A chill sank through me. I thought of that rare and dangerous foxcraft … It should only be performed by the Elders. But the Mage knew how to do it. So did the Narral, his loyal inner guard. What if my brother had guessed at its secrets? What if he’d wanted to try it for himself?
Would Pirie really do something like that?
Staring out across the tundra, I had to admit that I no longer knew.
“You look troubled.” Farraclaw was watching me intently.
I ran my tongue over my muzzle. “I think I know what happened to your fa.”
I felt Lop stir on my other side.
“An illness,” said Farraclaw sadly. “It came on suddenly.”
“Not an illness,” I replied. “A …” I struggled to find the right word. “An accident … a game that went wrong. The melding of gerra between wolf and fox. A rare and powerful foxcraft, where one mind weaves with another. It can be used to control another’s will. They must have fought to overwhelm each other, neither winning, both growing weak and confused. Of course it was never going to work. Foxes and wolves are too different.”
“What are you saying?” asked Farraclaw.
I swallowed hard. “I think the king was pleached.”
I remembered what he’d said in the cave.
Only I am here. But never alone.
Farraclaw was eyeing me strangely. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Lop tilted his head. “Isla’s saying that a fox has somehow joined his thoughts with King Birronclaw Valiant-Oolf. That they’ve both become stuck, each presence vying for control.”
Farraclaw’s ears were flat. “Really, Isla? Can that be true?”
Greatma’s warning to Pirie came back to me. “I’m scared it is,” I admitted, looking down at my paws. “Your fa became sick at the same time that my brother disappeared. Pirie was good at foxcraft, but he didn’t know foxlore—he had never been taught about the dangers.”
Farraclaw stared at me. “So my fa was the wolf in your riddle after all—the greatest of Queen Canista’s cubs?”
“I think so,” I said quietly. “I think his mind may be trapped alongside my brother’s. It’s Pirie who sent me to the Ice Razors. He used words only a fox would, like maa and malinta. He’d heard of the Elders.”
Silence, I must find silence. I am not myself …
Farraclaw’s ears were flat. “The king mutters in confusion. He acts like he doesn’t even know who I am. But now and then there are sparks of clarity.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Imagine hearing two sets of voices, conflicting thoughts.”
“No wonder it’s made him mad,” said Farraclaw.
I didn’t know how to answer. What if it’s made Pirie mad too? I couldn’t bear to think about that. Slowly, I raised my muzzle to look at Farraclaw. I feared that the prince would be livid with rage. That my confession would fill him with revulsion—that he’d refuse to help, might even seek to harm my brother. But what I saw in his gaze was just sadness.
“My fa was not a popular king. His leadership was … ruthless.”
I remembered what Cattisclaw had told me about Farraclaw’s sister.
The prince flicked a look at Lop, who lowered his head. “But he was strong and brave. And he was—is—still my fa.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, reaching up to lick his nose. “Sorry that my brother could be so foolish, and that it’s taken me so long to understand where he was. But we’re close now, and it’s going to be all right. I’m going to unlock the secret of pleaching. I’m going to set them free.”
“Up ahead!” he yelped, beginning to run. “I think it’s the Ice Razors!”
It was late at night. We had walked through the frozen tundra under cover of darkness as the moon set in a velvet sky. At last, a shimmer of silver rose over the horizon. The Ice Razors gleamed like giant fangs, jagged and deadly. They stretched ahead of us into the darkness, twinkling against the night sky. Farraclaw paced toward them, his tail flicking.
“They look sharp,” said Lop warily.
Farraclaw paced the other way. He edged a forepaw through a gap between the Ice Razors.
The space was too narrow for a second paw. Ears back, he shuffled out onto the snow. “I don’t understand. My fa said the cache is here. He buried it himself. He must have found a way through.”
Lop’s voice was soft. “The king never left the Bishar.”
Farraclaw opened his mouth, but paused. When he spoke, it was to me. “The fox—your brother—did he come here to bury King Orrùfang’s cache? I cannot see how a wolf could manage it. If anything, he must have come here exactly because he knew wolves wouldn’t be able to reach the cache.” Farraclaw drummed his paw against a patch of frozen snow. “That is why my fa needed you to find it.”
“That makes sense I suppose.” It still seemed extreme. Such a long journey, just to make sure that whatever was buried was safe.
“What do you think was in the cache?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.” I hoped that was true. I placed my forepaws on the ice.
“Careful, Isla!” begged Lop.
With a light pounce, I was between two columns. Beyond them, I saw further jags of ice. How far did they continue?
“There’s no alternative,” I said quietly. “I’ll have to go on alone.”
* * *
It was hard leaving Lop and Farraclaw behind. I had grown used to their company—to the solid, comforting presence of the wolves. They promised to hide out by a cluster of nearby spruce for as long as it took. At least the wolves of Fang couldn’t pass where I was going.
I trod carefully over the ice, bracing myself so as not to slip. The razors were sharp enough to slice flesh. The columns wound over the land in a frozen maze. Where would I find the cache?
What has Pirie buried?
It still stung to think of all he’d kept from me. We were so close.
Eventually, the jags of ice stooped lower. Some splintered into deadly, pointed flowers, twinkling in the starlight. Others broke into steps that stooped closer to the earth. I slid down them, relieved to be off the Ice Razors. The land was grainy like sand. Instead of snow, the soil was crowned in frost.
The Mage Page 9
