That night, Lucas got his way: Magnes needed to explain why he refused to move against Gabel, when it was obvious Gabel needed to be dealt with, and why he had shed blood with Aaron when he had ordered Aaron to deliver Gabel’s head. The matter was considered so grave that there was no pack meal that evening.
Word came to my ear that Luna Adrianna, citing the youth of her children, refused to attend, but sent her disdain.
The SableFur had a very large hall at the edge of their heart, like something out of an old saga, complete with carved wolves adorning the walls, and iron chandeliers burning overhead, suspended on long chains from the vaulted ceiling. Tapestries hung on the polished oak walls, and at the end of a long blue runner rug, was a raised dais with two antique wooden chairs.
The SableFur were quite serious when they said their rulers held court. This hadn’t changed for centuries.
I squeezed and pressed my way through the crowds. The RedWater wolves sat out on the middle of the carpet, getting a prime view, tails slowly wagging back and forth, ears perked.
The SableFur instantly recognized me as I inched forward, and pressed back to make room for me, more astonished I was present than anything else, and not sure what to do about it, but reluctant to make a scene. The hall smelled of warm metal, tallow, oil, wolf, and extreme anxiety.
Alpha Magnes was in one chair, alert but composed, waiting as the crowd milled about and sorted itself, and everyone settled into position. I managed to secure a spot one person deep, able to peek between the shoulders of the she-wolves in front of me. Magnes’ eyes swept over me, his gaze hard, but he otherwise didn’t acknowledge me.
My skin twitched, my blood hummed, and spinning in the back of my mind was the Moon, the knowing that the Tides pulled us out to sea, and we would either drown, or survive.
Lined up along the runner rug were the ranked members of SableFur able to be present. Lucas and Kiery were already there, Lucas directly at the foot of the dais, and Kiery on the opposite row, standing next to Second Beta Bernhard. She was ghost-pale in the yellow light, her face seeming gaunt with stress, but her resolve wouldn’t falter, and her courage wouldn’t fail.
She was an Oracle. Lucas was a warrior.
Magnes’ blue eyes swept over me again.
If you’re scared... good. You should be.
Then Magnes turned his attention to Lucas. He did not stand. “I am here, First Beta. You will excuse Luna Adrianna for not humoring this matter with her presence. You may speak what concerns you.”
Lucas separated from the line, entering the empty space on the rug, right in Magnes’ line of sight. “Why have you not attacked IronMoon? This morning you shed blood with Alpha Aaron of IceMaw, demanding the IceMaw bring you Gabel’s head, but you will not let me take our warriors across the border? Why does the IceMaw get this honor?”
Murmurs and nods and growls of agreement. A few warriors howled their desire for battle.
Magnes was unmoved. “As I told you, Lucas, it is not time yet. I do not trust Aaron. We have a fox in the henhouse, and he is a greater threat than that cur Gabel. This is not about Gabel, or the courage of SableFur warriors, this is about forcing the IceMaw to ultimatly expose himself.”
Magnes had dodged one volley. Lucas clenched his fists and plunged onward, his resolve not wavering. “Who is the Oracle that used mirrors?”
Magnes pulled back, face bewildered, shocked, annoyed. “Are you still on that? I do not know. Anita does not know. No matter how much you shout at her, Lucas, you won’t force an old woman to remember something she never knew.”
“She knew,” Lucas snarled, “and she’s protecting you!”
There was no gasp. There was just silence as if all the air had been sucked out of the room at once.
Magnes surged to his feet. “What did you say, Beta?”
Kiery stepped out of the line and spun to face Magnes. “Anita knows who the mirror and stones belonged to, so do you, and she’s protecting you. She confessed that much to Lucas and said she would never reveal the name.”
The silence was so complete not even the candles dared to flicker.
Bernhard and the others in Lucas’ little group didn’t move to intervene or add their voices. Had this always been Lucas and Kiery’s plan? To ring the bell, to die for it, and their hope fell to me?
I couldn’t let them die. I gulped. Stupid, stupid wolves!
Magnes’ shoulders clenched under his shirt. “I do not know what you think Anita is protecting me from, but I have never asked her to protect me. I do not get involved with the business of Oracles, Kiery.”
“This is SableFur business!” Lucas pointed at Magnes. “Get down here, Magnes! I will not let you destroy this pack!”
The silence shattered as SableFur shouted and howled and stamped their feet, but the howls were shock, or screaming for Lucas to be killed. There were no voices of support.
My heartbeat slowed as my heart pounded, like there was a fist clenching it over and over again.
“Betrayal!” Magnes’ roar rose over all of them. “Ambitious, aren’t you, Lucas? Did you promise Kiery she’d be a Luna if she’d take your Mark? Is that the only thing worth her giving up being an Oracle?!”
“I have seen your sin, Magnes!” Kiery shouted. “You cannot hide from the Eye of the Moon!”
“You have seen nothing!” Magnes shouted back. “Nothing but what your Lucas wants you to see!”
Nobody shouted support for Lucas and Kiery, not even Bernhard moved, no one spoke in favor of them. The crowd pressed forward. The senior members pushed back, restraining the furious tide. For now. Kiery glanced back at me, gaunt, pale, terrified, but resolved.
Her lips mouthed one word: run.
There might also have been a you stupid bitch in there, but that was probably implied.
Magnes raised his hand for quiet, and the crowd settled like snorting, stamping horses, the scent of blood-lust drowning everything else. “So this is how it ends for you, Lucas. You were such a fine First Beta. Until you weren’t. There will be no challenge, stupid wolf. Only your death, and that of your beautiful mate. How tragic. You finally convince her to wear your Mark, and she will die by your side. It’s sickening.”
All must believe.
If I was going to do anything, it had to be now.
Believe.
There was no chance I was going to get out of that hallway alive once Kiery was killed as a traitor. And even if I did, there was no way I’d make it to IronMoon or IceMaw before I was hunted down. Better to just die quick, ripped apart by an angry SableFur mob.
I shoved past the wolves in front of me and onto the carpet. The RedWater wolves padded alongside me, one just under each hand. They were a comforting, if ghostly, presence. Perhaps once I was dead I would run with them.
The crowd quieted, curious, humming with violent intent.
“Oracle Gianna,” Magnes said. “You didn’t take Aaron’s offer, hmm?”
“I wanted to see this through,” I replied, walking up the runner, shaking inside, but somehow my voice didn’t tremble. “I am here in SableFur because the Moon made it so. I have been beyond the Tides, Magnes of SableFur, and the Moon has shown me your sins. I have seen the secret Anita keeps. The reason you won’t attack IronMoon. The reason no one remembers the Oracle of Mirrors.”
The crowd snarled like a single, large beast.
“Have I not proven myself?” I asked them. “Have I not found your lost items? Did I not predict when debts would be paid, or not? Did I not find that which had been lost, and do I not have the Moon’s Mark within my eye? Did First Beta Hix not prove to you your Alpha deals in cheap spies and even cheaper pettiness to disgrace Lunas and Oracles?”
Snarls.
I nudged Lucas and Kiery aside, so that I was ten feet from Magnes, which was, honestly, way too close. He could spring on me and have me dead within seconds. “I was sent to SableFur by the Moon to destroy you, Magnes. I have seen what you have done. You know who that mirro
r belonged to, and so does Anita, and so does Luna Adrianna.”
“You have seen nothing, Gianna.”
“Look at my eye and tell me I have seen nothing! Tell me the Moon has not marked me!”
Magnes snarled at me, an Alpha’s threat. A threat that meant death for one of us.
But it had no effect on me. None.
Instead, I snarled back.
A ripple went through the crowd.
“Be silent and speak no more,” Magnes commanded.
“I claim the right to speak as an Oracle and reveal what I have been shown!” I shouted. “You cannot take that from me, Magnes!”
Bernhard spoke for the first time, calm in the storm, “She must be allowed to speak.”
“She will speak nothing of consequence!”
“Then it does no harm to let her speak,” Bernhard replied. “You cannot deny an Oracle the right to reveal what the Moon has shown her. She has vindicated herself, and even if Oracle Kiery’s honor is in doubt, there is no arguing with Gianna’s eye. Gianna is an Oracle. She will speak.”
“Are you afraid, Magnes?” I smirked at him.
“No,” he said coldly. “I am impatient.”
I judged the distance between Magnes and I again. I took a breath, then plunged forward. “You are Gabel’s father.”
The crowd, once again, went dead silent.
“You lured his mother to the grove where I found the mirror. You coerced her, had your fun, and when she came up with a litter of your bastards in her belly, you drove her away. Anita hid your secret, as did Adrianna, and hid your unsavory tryst from the pack. You are Gabel of IronMoon’s father, and the father of an unknown number of other pups who perished in the forest where he was born.
“You feel no paternal devotion to your bastard pup. You merely are waiting for him to conquer the east and the south, then you will swoop in, defeat him, and crown yourself King-Alpha with his and Aaron’s bones. Why be the conquering monster when you can be the conquering hero?”
I took a step forward, the silence bent entirely towards me, everyone listening, horrified, stunned, not believing, terrified. “The Moon has seen. Aaron saw right through you. Oh, you’re right about him. He’s been playing you like a cheap, pathetic pawn, and I’ve been using the Moon’s gifts to relay to Gabel your every move. I never predicted where Gabel would be. He told me, or I told him where he needed to be. And now, Magnes, I am here to send you to the Hounds. You just made things so much easier by foolishly letting Anita take the bait Lulu offered. You brought me right to your heart.”
Magnes laughed, “Is that a challenge, little Oracle? You, challenging me? What makes you think you have a chance in a trial by combat?”
I didn’t have a chance, but that wasn’t the point. “You are unworthy to lead, Magnes, and the Moon has sent me to remove you.”
“And why not just blight me Herself? This is all very amusing, Gianna, but obnoxious. You will never beat me, little Oracle, and even if you did, SableFur will never follow you. Adrianna is their Luna. Not you.”
“Adrianna knows your crimes. She is a party to them. She is just as guilty, and your two sons cannot inherit.”
“I am guilty of nothing, and if I was, I would never share my guilt with my mate, and risk her or our sons. You come for my family, little Oracle?”
“She knew every wolf who was here in SableFur. An Oracle disappearing suddenly would be noticed. Oh, she knows, Magnes. I know she knows. Her claim to the throne is invalid because of her crimes, as is your sons’!”
“I am going to enjoy ripping your eyes out,” he snarled at me, “and being done with Gabel’s rabid bitch.”
“I am your daughter-in-law, and he is your son.”
“I am guilty of nothing, and he is not my son.”
He stepped down off the dais, clothing ripping and stretching as he melted into his war-form. I had no choice, I’d have to meet him in war-form. I had challenged him.
“No!” Lucas shouted, “Not her!”
Believe.
The RedWater wolves shimmered brightly, like starlight touched the end of every hair on their bodies as they reshaped into ghostly war-forms made of starlight and ice.
Okay, I was about to sound crazy, but in three more steps, I was going to sound like a gurgling dead corpse, so who cared?
“I name my champions!” I shouted.
The RedWater wolves lunged forward, starlight-white forms solidifying into corporeal bodies, tips of fur glowing like a thousand stars, and they howled a bell-like cry that dropped half the hall to their knees.
The starlight wolves descended upon Magnes, consuming his dark form with snarls and starlight-tipped claws that melted and burned his skin as they pierced him.
Blood splattered the carpet, the dais, me, the wolves, everyone, everything, as the wolves tore Magnes into pieces.
Magnes, to his credit, did not surrender, nor howl in pain, but fought, biting and snarling and he succeeded in flinging one off him into the crowd. That one lunged back into the fray as his companion sawed off Magnes’ arm and flung it away in revenge.
The second wolf grabbed Magnes’ maw, snapped it open, then twisted. The touch of the starlight claws melted Magnes’ fangs, and the liquid tooth dripped from his ruined jaws.
Then, it was over.
Magnes’ mangled body lay in pieces on the ground, and in front of me were two starlight war-forms.
The silence in the Hall was complete.
The ghosts stepped forward, blood sliding away, leaving their forms unmarred and untarnished.
I hadn’t been able to save all the RedWaters from Gabel’s unjust punishment, but these two... these two I had saved, and they had agreed to serve the Moon’s purpose, and stay at my side. A little bit of light on that side of the scale. I smiled, knowing I would never see them again, and that when I returned to my room, their fangs would be gone. The Moon would claim them for Herself, and these two wolves would go to their reward, their souls safe forever.
“Thank you,” I told them. “Your souls can rest now.”
They bowed to me, and transformed into wolf-form, and bolted out of the hall, howling a song of honored farewell and joyful thanks.
I dropped my head and stood, shaking.
It was over.
Magnes was dead. Destroyed. Dismantled. His broken, smoldering, mangled remains strewn in a pile on the runner, everything soaked in black-red blood, the scent of bowels and death and bone thick in the air.
He was worse than dead. His fangs had been taken by the Moon Herself, turned to a strange, foul-smelling yellow-white liquid that burned through the carpet and now, as I watched, burned through the wood floor.
Lucas pointed at Magnes’ remains. “Bernhard. Find someone to clean that up.”
Kiery broke from Lucas and returned to her place in the line, and Lucas to his.
I raised my head, weary, done.
Lucas, however, gestured to the dais, to Luna Adrianna’s chair. “Luna.”
About the Author
Merry is an independent author living in the Napa Valley of California, with her husband and two cats.
She enjoys coffee, combat sports, casual games, low budget disaster flicks, and the very occasional 10K. In addition to writing novels she also posts free serial fiction on Wattpad.
Look for the third IronMoon book in 2019!
www.merryravenell.com
Also By Merry Ravenell
The IronMoon Series
The Alpha’s Oracle
Ice & Iron - 2019
Obsidian Oracle 2019
The SnowFang Series
The SnowFang Bride
The SnowFang Storm - 2019
Other Titles
The Nocturne Bride
Appendix
IRONMOON
Gabel, Lord-Alpha
Gianna, former Luna, Oracle
Flint, Master-of-Arms, Moon’s Servant
Hix, First Beta
Eroth, Second Beta
Romero, Second Beta (deceased)
Ana, veterinarian (human)
Donovan, Hunter
Gardenia, unranked (deceased)
Violet, unranked
Brian, cook
SABLEFUR
Magnes, Alpha, Gabel’s father
Adrianna, Luna
Kiery, Elder Oracle (primary)
Anita, Elder Oracle (retired)
Lucas, First Beta
Bernhard, Second Beta
Lulu, Hunter
ICEMAW
Aaron, Lord-Alpha
Carlos, First Beta
SHADOWLESS
Jermain, Alpha (deceased)
Rogan, First Beta, Gianna’s father (deceased)
Amber, warrior
MARCHMOON (destroyed)
Holden, Alpha (deceased)
REDWATER
Marcus, Alpha
GLEAMINGFANG (destroyed)
Anders, Alpha (deceased)
Other Minor Packs
EmeraldPelt
NightScent
SpringHide (destroyed)
SaltPaw (destroyed)
RockTail (destroyed)
Iron Oracle Page 27
