I bit my lower lip and focused on keeping my face calm. Kiery picked over the runes.
“Are the runes significant?” the First Beta inquired.
“I don’t know,” Kiery said.
How could she say that! I blurted out, “They tell a damning story.”
“Four runes out of a set of how many?” Kiery glanced up at me. “Maybe they do, and maybe they don’t, Gianna.”
“What are the runes for?” the First Beta pressed, tone curious.
Kiery tapped each off in turn. “Justice. Mates. Betrayal. Pup. Faith.”
Justice? That rune wasn’t justice. It was balance. It could be (and often was) translated as justice, but not in the literal sense. There was a rune for that.
Kiery hadn’t made a mistake. Anita had told her about my association with balance. Or the Moon had shown Kiery something.
Kiery didn’t look at me, she was looking at the First Beta.
The shreds of the Bond within me twisted. My voice cracked as my lungs struggled to breathe around the pain twisting inside of me. “Surely there would be memory of an Oracle who used a mirror and just went missing, or left suddenly.”
Kiery glanced up at me again, this time a sharpness to her expression. “I don’t know offhand. You have found something hidden, Gianna, but it could have been there for a long time. Glass mirrors have been around for hundreds of years. I will look into it. After dinner.”
Dazed, I gathered up the items. They were part of my test, and I was entitled to keep them in case I needed them to understand later tests. I bid the room goodbye, apologized for interrupting the meal, and went back to my room, with my subdued goons in tow.
I was grimy and filthy and cold, and the hot shower was amazing.
Victory.
The Grove: Meeting
Air like water currents woke me.
The Moon hung low in the sky, absorbing the whole window, throwing blue/silver light over the walls, washing, shifting, moving.
I slipped out of bed, moved towards my velvet-wrapped tools. The chunk of obsidian was gone, but my fingers, drifting through air, found the blue tourmaline spear.
The air pressed on me, pushing me down onto my knees, the currents closing my fingers around the stone.
**Look.**
~*~ Through The Stone ~*~
A tiny island of grass, suspended in a dark, endless void. The edges of the island simply ended, grass that stopped, the roots dangling into the void and flicks of dirt falling down. No sky, no ground, no walls. Just a little chunk of meadow, maybe ten feet in diameter.
“You’re distracted, buttercup.”
Gabel sat in the center of the island, watching me.
“You took your time,” he added.
“Gabel?” This didn’t feel like a dream, or a vision, or anything, it felt... real. Just like everything else the tourmaline had brought me to in the past. I looked around again, but there was nothing to see.
He held out a hand to me.
Could it be him? For the first time in two weeks the pain was gone, I could breathe, I felt him, aware of him again. The faint ache that permeated his body, the ache that hurt mine. I slid my hand into his, and he pulled me down next to him. Before I could react, he kissed me warmly.
This was real.
This was absolutely, completely, totally somehow real.
The dark void shifted and stars punctured the darkness. The sky began to rotate. Time ticking. We didn’t have much of it in this place.
“If She thinks this brief visit will mollify me,” Gabel told me, “she is wrong.”
“She knows what you are.”
“I like it even less that you think I’m doing what She wants.”
“Gabel, do we have to argue?” I had full awareness of him, my brain was clear, everything was so clear, so real, so plain. He was thinner. A hollow in his cheeks that hadn’t been there before.
“She dangles you in front of me like a bone,” Gabel said. He studied me, his fingertips moved over where the Mark had faded, then the sores around my neck. “Silver. The SableFur used silver on you. Is this how Oracles are punished?”
“All must believe,” I whispered.
“I believe, buttercup. I also do not like what I see.”
“There is nothing for that.”
He changed the subject, grasping for information in the stolen moments. “Where are you, buttercup?”
“SableFur’s heart. They had me with Anita, but I attacked her and she decided I was too dangerous to be around. I’ve passed the test of finding something hidden.”
“What did you find?”
“A few of your mother’s runes and a piece of her mirror. Gabel, was she an acolyte, or an Oracle?”
Gabel frowned. “I don’t know. She never spoke about anything from before. I didn’t ask. I didn’t know those are questions that get asked of parents. Maybe they do of humans, but not lupines. It is not... I suppose the easiest way to say it is the mind is not the same before the first shift. The curiosity is different. The things you ask about are different.”
The silence was like a warm summer night. He buried his head in my shoulder. I closed my eyes.
Gabel pulled back and looked down at me. “Does he suspect what you know?”
“No, not yet. I’m sniffing around something I shouldn’t be, but he doesn’t realize I know what I’m looking for. If the next test digs deeper, he’ll strike. He can’t let me get close to the truth. He has children with Adrianna.”
Gabel nodded. “That is reasonable. Do any other SableFur suspect?”
“No, and that is very strange. Anita knows, and I’m fairly certain Luna Adrianna knows, but nobody else has a clue.” I told him how I had handed over the findings at dinner, in front of the elder members of the pack, and nobody had reacted beyond gee-whiz curiosity. A mystery worth looking into, but hardly something that might involve any of them. “How can an Oracle just disappear without a trace?”
Gabel, though, was satisfied. “That gives you room while he sizes you up. When is the next test?”
“When the Moon offers it. I sent my obsidian chunk out for cutting, but I won’t have it for another month. I might have to use a mirror. I just don’t feel like I have much time.”
“I will pressure Magnes from the outside. If he is distracted by me, he’ll have less time to worry about you.”
That would only go on so long before SableFur swatted IronMoon. It couldn’t happen too quickly. Somehow, my work and Gabel’s had to collide at the same moment.
A red tinge colored the dome. “Dawn must be coming.”
Going back to the pain made me shake, and Gabel’s face drew in, suddenly gaunt.
The red dome washed down over us, a curtain of sky falling between us and the pain. The knots returned, made me scream as the darkness wretched me backwards towards the tourmaline anchor.
Gabel: The Enemy of My Enemy Is...
Aaron declined the invitation to sit. He stood in the center of the office. Gabel glared at him from his place by the window. The Master of Arms waited off to the side.
“You look like death.” Aaron believed the rumors Gabel had gone insane. The IronMoon Alpha had a twitchy edge to him, and while he seemed healthy at first, when he moved it was as if his whole body ached badly enough he could not disguise it, and his attention twitched as if something constantly distracted him.
Gabel asked, “What do you want? You came here under parlay, but I have little patience.”
“I want to discuss this tower you are building.”
“I see you have spies everywhere,” Gabel hissed.
“I don’t need spies when you’ve talked about it in the open.”
“You said you would stop me from building an empire. I beat you once, Aaron, what makes you think having a nice conversation will stop me now?”
Aaron gestured with one hand. “Because that was a cock fight.”
“A cock fight that meant nothing? You claimed you could smell my mate
’s lure-scent and that you would take her from me. That meant something,” Gabel growled.
“I can smell her scent. She smells of the night-blooming cereus,” Aaron retorted.
Gabel snarled. Flint flicked his left hand—a classic gesture to focus on the matter at hand. Gianna had begged him not to be distracted by the SaltPaw. He struggled under the agony and jealousy, then told Aaron, “You made the trip here. I’m listening.”
“SableFur.”
Gabel snarled, his face rippling with the flutter of a shift before he gained hold of his humanity again. “What about the SableFur?”
“Haven’t you wondered why they’re just letting you gobble up packs right to their northern border? Even the SableFur can’t ignore that.”
“They are SableFur and arrogant enough to think they can get away with it. They pried my Luna from me like a soup can lid,” Gabel spat.
“And have you not asked yourself why?”
“They are cowards.”
Aaron sighed with forced patience. “No. It’s because you’re doing Magnes’ work for him.”
Gabel froze. He stalked across the space. The name ripped fury off his skin, some dark and smoldering scent lifting to Aaron’s nose. “What did you say, IceMaw? I am not Magnes’ lapdog!”
Aaron didn’t budge. “You heard me. He used his Oracles to take your Luna from you. He lets you crush all the packs on this side of the mountain, and when you have done all the filthy work for him, he will pop you like a boil, come for my pack and my allies and crown himself King-Alpha with all our bones. He will not be a conqueror. He will be a hero.”
Gabel shifted backwards a degree. “How do you know that?”
“You’re the forest, I see the trees. Your little tower to the Moon has driven refugees flooding into SableFur. The SableFur don’t want them there. They aren’t SableFur. Yet Magnes refuses to raise a single finger against you despite the trouble you are causing his pack. Why?”
Gabel snarled. His vocal cords trembled on a growl and words he didn’t want to speak.
Aaron raised both brows. “The SableFur never get involved outside their borders. You don’t bother them, they don’t bother you. You are bothering them with your burned-earth policy. Think about it. If IronMoon does all the dirty work of crushing, conquering, and killing, that means Magnes won’t have to get his hands dirty. You’re destroying packs and stripping them of their names, and that plays into things perfectly. When SableFur does come for IronMoon, Magnes will crush you, and he will get everything by right of conquest. He’ll do exactly what you’re doing, only he’ll look like a damn hero doing it.”
Gabel’s eyes slid towards him. “But there are still packs under my control who are sworn to IronMoon under an older arrangement. If he takes IronMoon, those packs still exist.”
“So what? How many are there? Four? Five? Maybe he’ll liberate them. Maybe he’ll play them to betray you and you’ll destroy them for him. You are not being ignored. You are being played. Nobody is ever going to look between you and Magnes and call Magnes the criminal. You’re either the monster, or you’re the Alpha driven half-mad from his Luna’s betrayal—”
“She never betrayed me or her vows!” Gabel shouted. He stormed across the office, face twisting and fingers stretching, and with a roar he swiped at Aaron.
The IceMaw Alpha leapt back, ducked right. Gabel snarled, gathering himself just barely. Harming someone who had come under parlay was disgraceful. “She never betrayed me or those vows. It was all SableFur! When they couldn’t lure her away, they stole her! I was forced to do what I did for IronMoon because I still care about honor, and she will vindicate herself!”
Aaron strafed to the right, putting distance between himself and Gabel’s claws. “Oracles don’t let Alphas use them that way. She told you to go to hell.”
“This is your fault, IceMaw!” Gabel snarled. “You want Gianna for yourself, this is just you making a play to get her! You are the Alpha who sent that MarchMoon wolf here to lay the trap for Gianna! You are the reason all of this has happened!”
Aaron snorted in disgust. “I would never win my Luna with such deceit. Yes, I told the RedWater to hunt on your land. Yes, I told the MarchMoon to send the petitioner wolf here. I did it to undermine you.”
“And your strategy worked so well, didn’t it. Go crawl back to the south, Aaron. I’ll come for you in time. Enjoy your freedom. Or go crawl into bed with Magnes!”
Aaron didn’t move. “I will call no wolf my Alpha, my Lord, or my King. I am here because the SableFur are playing you, and when they’re done, they will come for me and my southern allies. Calling you King would be bad enough, but having Magnes steal the crown while being called a hero? That is worse. If I have to make deals with devils to prevent it, I will.”
Gabel withdrew slowly, backed up a step, paced one way, then the next, eyes never leaving Aaron. In an ugly tone he asked, “So what are you suggesting?”
“A temporary alliance. We work together to squeeze SableFur’s ambitions down to size.”
“Not a direct assault.”
“No. We secure the two access points in the south to destabilize the area. Their problem right now is in the north. Refugees taking up space in their northern lands. At the moment Magnes is ignoring it all. Pressure in the south will force Magnes to act when we want him to, not when he deigns to.”
“You mean GleamingFang and RedWater,” Gabel said. “I have GleamingFang in name.”
“Exactly.”
Gabel paused again, then limped over to his map, unable to completely hide the ache in his body. He gestured for Aaron to follow.
The IceMaw Alpha observed Gabel’s slightly hunched stance, then said, “I thought you repudiated Gianna.”
The name made Gabel flinch. He composed himself in the next moment and put his finger over RedWater’s territory. “What dealings do you have with Holden?”
Aaron hesitated. “If we are going to trust each other.”
“I am going to go for Magnes’ throat,” Gabel told Aaron. “He will not get mine. I do not care about anything other than destroying the SableFur.”
“I will never call you King,” Aaron said. “And I will never let you have SableFur.”
Gabel snorted a laugh. “Then there’s nothing to talk about. I want SableFur. Either under my foot or burned to the ground. You can have the ashes for all I care.”
Aaron looked at the map. His own IceMaw were on it.
“You want things to stay the same, IceMaw,” Gabel said, “but they won’t. Too much has been set into motion that cannot be stopped. I will crown myself with Magnes’ bones, or I will die trying.”
“And the rest of your pack?”
“The rest of IronMoon? The wolves no other pack wanted. They aren’t tame and civilized like you. They will obey. To the death.”
Aaron’s face bent into lines of anger.
“Enough.” Flint stepped between the two Alphas, voice calm. “Alpha Aaron, you have come a long way, and Alpha Gabel has a short temper. Stay the night, and once everyone has had a chance to think this over, revisit it in the morning.”
Aaron circled over to the map. Gabel seemed less frazzled that morning, but moved like he ached, which must have meant his whole body hurt far more than just an ache.
Gabel gave Aaron a long, long look, then repeated what he had said the day before, in a calm tone, “I will crown myself with Magnes’ bones, or I will die trying.”
“I do not believe we can dismantle the SableFur.” Aaron decided to humor Gabel for a few minutes. “Just contain them and disarm Magnes’ ambitions.”
Gabel said, “No. It’s personal between Magnes and I.”
“Because you believe he took Gianna from you deliberately?”
“No.” Gabel paused, then said, “Because Magnes is my father.”
Aaron rocked back on his heels. He studied Gabel a moment, sharply, and said, “I’ve heard it said you bear a resemblance to Magnes. Having met the wolf multiple
times, I agree. It’s hard to argue you aren’t his get.”
“You might be right about Magnes’ ultimate ambition, but you’re wrong about what is driving him now. I must destroy him, or he will destroy me. I will take his crown, or he will take mine. There is nothing else.”
Aaron frowned. “This does complicate matters.”
“My mother always told me my father had died in the winter, as many wolves do. I never thought anything more of it. Such is the mind of lupines. Gianna had a vision where she saw Magnes coerce my mother to stand for him, and when it resulted in a belly full of pups, he drove her away. My mother was an Oracle or an acolyte, so Anita must have known her, and Anita and Gianna have had some of the same visions from the Moon regarding this matter, and that I am the Destroyer, the instrument of the Moon’s vengeance. The Moon gave Gianna a vision where She warned Gianna that the Oracles would come for her, and I’d be forced to repudiate her. Put all this together, Aaron.”
“To what end?” Aaron pressed with care, wary of what Gabel was saying, or not saying.
Gabel barked a laugh. “That She needs us both where we need to be, and that’s not together. The silvery sky-bitch is going to regret the day I die, because I will have words for Her!”
“This still doesn’t make sense.” Aaron looked at Flint, who stood quiet and serene, blue-gloss tattoos on display.
“Gabel is the Moon’s Comet, the instrument of divine anger.” Flint answered the unspoken question. “That is the vision both Gianna and Anita had. Anita, apparently, has always known Gianna has a greater destiny than just being an Oracle. She is Balance, the point at which light and dark pivot. Oracle Kiery had a vision that Gabel would mate a Shadowless female, but the vision didn’t show Gianna as the mate. The SableFur promised to help the Shadowless get their girl back should it come to pass. Gabel apparently chose differently than the vision foretold. Anita then demanded Gianna leave Gabel for the safety of all. She refused, and that was when the Moon revealed the SableFur’s true motivation, and all of this was set into motion.”
Iron Oracle Page 13
