by Claudia King
Caspian gave her a hard look. “I think whoever did this fled the den to escape punishment. Perhaps the other found out and followed them. I can guess at where Narolen might have gone, but what if it was Vaya? Where would we begin looking for her?”
Kiren glowered at him, but he waited patiently until she responded.
“South, I suppose. Back toward home.”
Caspian nodded. “And I suspect Narolen would have gone west across the river toward Alpha Halau's territory. He knows that land well, always trying to pick fights with Halau's scouts when they cross paths. But where do we look, west or south?”
“Why not both?”
“You think Orec will spare the warriors for that? He wants his people focused on unity right now, not vengeance. I do not know what we will find, but I would like the numbers on our side if it turns to violence. Trustworthy numbers, at that.” He paced back and forth in contemplation. “I could summon Huntress Fern and her sisters.
“Do what you wish, I am going west. It was Narolen, I know it.”
“Kiren, we must be sure. This looks to me like it was Vaya.”
“Then you are wrong.”
Caspian shook his head in exasperation. “Sometimes I regret surrounding myself with women like you.”
Kiren began to walk out of the cave, but Caspian called after her.
“I won't let you go alone.”
“Kin will come with me.”
“I don't think so. You need at least one cool head among you.” The older male ran up beside her. “Hold yourself back till midday, then I will show you the way to the western valley.”
“The valley?”
“There are many in this land, but if Narolen is anywhere he'll be in the one he knows best. I hope this is some seer's intuition guiding you and not just blind loyalty to your friend.”
Kiren's first instinct was to rebuff him, but he was offering his help, even if it was done so reluctantly. Of all Adel's people, Caspian seemed one of the trustworthy ones. He was Netya's mate, and Netya, witch or no, had earned some measure of Kiren's respect. She only hoped she would not live to regret putting her faith in spirit-talkers again.
“Very well,” she said. “I will wait for you.”
No one bothered Kiren as she resumed her pacing around the bottom of the ridge. Even though her help would surely have been appreciated, the rest of the clan did not seem keen on speaking with her. She was, after all, an outsider and a friend to Vaya. Some of them probably suspected she had been involved in the burning herself.
Several hunting parties headed out into the forest while those who stayed behind sorted through the remaining food. One large storage basket typically held one meal for every mouth in the clan, and progress was slow in refilling the several dozen that would be needed to see them through till spring.
Caspian returned as the sun was reaching its zenith, just as he had promised.
“Well?” Kiren asked.
“I've sent word for Fern to take her huntresses south and search the forest. It would be a great help if you went with them. You know Vaya's tracks better than any of us.” From his tone it sounded like he already knew Kiren's answer.
“I am going west.”
“As you wish,” Caspian said. “Are you bringing that bow of yours?”
She considered for a moment, then nodded. If they ended up in a fight with Narolen she wanted every advantage she could get.
“Take the shape of your wolf then, I'll bind it over your back.”
Before Kiren could comply she heard the sound of hurried footfalls approaching, and she turned to see Kale running toward them.
“Kiren!” he called. “Where are you going?”
“After Narolen. He must have set the fire last night, and Caspian thinks he knows where he is.”
“You aren't going to fight, are you?”
“Not unless he gives us no other choice,” Caspian said, giving Kiren a stern look. “That is, if we even find him.”
“Vaya will be doing the fighting if she catches them before us,” she replied. “We should hurry.”
“I think they may have begun their fighting already,” Kale said shakily, opening his mittened palm to reveal a handful of snow spattered through with dark red. “I found this underneath the tree above the storage cave. There was some on the trunk, too.”
Kiren inhaled sharply. Blood, and not fresh enough to have fallen since dawn. Vaya's, or someone else's?
“We have to go now!”
“Wait, Kiren, your bow!” Caspian called after her, but she was already in the shape of her wolf, snow churning beneath her paws as she dashed toward the forest in the west.
—23—
One Night Ago
On the night of the challenge Vaya had sat watching the fire long after the others departed. She did not fear the violet flames Adel had conjured. Fire was fire, whether sparked from a stone or brought down in white arcs from the heavens. The worst it could do was burn you.
She must have sat there for a long time, for at some point Claw, cold and lonely without his alpha in the den, had padded back out into the snow and wormed his way into her lap.
Why had she hesitated? What had made her allow Kin to take her place? This was wrong. This was not her. She shook in anger, squeezing Claw tight against her chest as he licked the tears running down her cheeks.
“Is my time over, friend?” she asked her mute companion. “Was Great Rook the price for my strength? Have the spirits left me with a coward's heart?” The fingers of her left hand still tingled, throbbing in the freezing cold. Wounds she could endure, but now the wound was spreading to her thoughts, mingling with her cowardice and driving a spike into her heart. Who was she if not a great warrior? Not man, not woman. For a time she had thought she knew. She was Octavia's strongest huntress, loyal and fearless, willing to die for her clan. Now, as the strength faded from her crippled arm, she knew she would never again be the strongest of anything. It was not just the wound, she realised, it was more. She was no longer young. Not old but... not young. There would be other wounds, and they would hurt more. She would grow slower, the way all elder hunters did, and with that slowness would come caution.
She punched her tingling fist into the ground, groaning as pain shot up her arm and through her shoulder. Was this what seers saw? Always thoughts and visions of the future, the terrible, bleak spiral from greatness that no one, not even the strongest, could halt? How could she live, and how could she die, with these weighty thoughts dragging upon her spirit?
Claw whined and snuffled into her neck, and for a moment she felt respite from the anger. She sniffed away her tears and ruffled the back of his neck.
“We all wish we could be like you, you fool. Your eyes only ever see the world in front of you.”
Snowflakes alighted upon her face as she tilted it up toward sky. Black and empty, but filled with flecks of life. Like little falling stars.
“Are you cold, Claw?” she asked. “Me neither. This place is only cold when the witches are nearby.”
Vaya shuffled nearer to the fire and crossed her legs, clutching her left arm close and Claw closer. Her back was freezing, but the flames would keep her wolf pup warm. Anger danced in those flames, furious and resentful of the world around them. Perhaps, when she died, she would become a spirit of fire too.
“You hear that, my sisters?” she told the flames. “Be sure you are the ones who take me when my time in this world is done.”
Being with Claw helped. The playful motion of the fire helped. Thinking about her anger at Adel and Narolen did not. Yet when she returned to the cave with Kiren and the others, she would have no choice but to be angry again, for who else was she?
This strange, weakened soul who enjoyed the company of a wolf pup was not Vaya. She had no desire to go back to the cave. Not yet. She sat there, her rump slowly freezing against the cold ground, until the fire began to diminish and the snowfall stopped. A small drift of white powder had begun to accumulat
e on Vaya's body, speckling her shoulders and clinging to her hair. She brushed it away stiffly, rising to her feet so that she could stomp some feeling back into her legs. Perhaps it was time for her to leave this place. She could bring Kiren with her. The girl did not need to become a witch to win her mother's respect. She had proven herself more than capable as a huntress in Vaya's eyes, and the challenges of their journey had carved some well-needed discipline into the girl. They could even bring Claw. But the winter...
Vaya grimaced. On her own she would have gladly challenged the elements, but not if it meant risking Kiren's life too. And as hard as she tried to remind herself that Claw was little more than a wild animal sniffing after the woman who fed him, she could not bring herself to leave the pup behind.
“You're to blame for much of this,” she told him as he scuttled around her feet, clearly excited at the prospect of going running after a cosy nap by the fire. Perhaps a run would do them both good. Vaya's undercurrent of anger still burned strong, yet she had no desire to confront it. If only she had some way to take revenge on Adel. Some plan, like the poison before.
That memory, once a source of indignation, now filled her with shame. She did not want to do anything like that again. The urge passed almost as soon as it had manifested. Perhaps the proud huntress really had departed from her spirit that night.
With a click of her tongue she called Claw back before he dashed away in his eagerness. The snowfall had been heavy, and he still lacked the sense to avoid deep drifts without someone to watch him. The pair of them walked together for a time, Vaya with her head down and arms folded. Dim moonlight luminesced against the snow. The furore of the early evening had given way to a silent melancholy that enveloped the whole den. Or at least it seemed so to Vaya.
A flicker of movement stopped her in her tracks. Had that been the shape of someone running up ahead? At any other time she would have paid it no heed, but the night had put her in a strange mood. She crept forward, the snow creaking beneath her padded winter moccasins.
A line of fresh tracks in the snow. Claw began to sniff at the footprints, but before Vaya could see where they led a fresh bank of cloud rolled in to black out the moonlight entirely. Almost entirely. To her left she could see a faint orange flicker against the snow, a small point of reference amidst the fog of night. Rather than taking the shape of her wolf she decided to approach the glow on two feet, reaching out to touch the outcropping of rocks she remembered being on her left. Walking her tingling fingers across the stone, she let it guide her down the ridge, losing sight of the light for a moment as the protruding outcrop obscured it. When it hove back into view she was much closer, perhaps two dozen paces away from a flicker of fire that was casting its shadows out across the snow. She could hear whispers, too, and for a moment she stopped, sucking on her teeth sharply. It was a quiet sound, but one she had been trying to teach Claw to heed whenever she needed him to be silent. To her relief, the pup stopped scampering and held still.
A fire was burning in one of the caves up ahead, she could see that now, but whoever was inside had left their screen wide open. Another disagreement, perhaps? At the sound of Narolen's voice Vaya's teeth clenched and her anger rose.
“It's her!” the voice hissed. “She did this!”
“Who?” a female replied. It sounded like his mate. “Make sense and get your wits about you, you fool! We have to tell the alpha!”
“Shh, no shh!” A momentary shuffling of footsteps interrupted the conversation, followed by a muffled exclamation of protest. “Listen to me,” Narolen continued. “Va—Adel. The both— The one. No, if you'd just stop!”
“What have you seen?” A third voice said. Listening with her hunter's ears, Vaya thought she could distinguish the movement of four or five people in the shadows.
“This is Adel's punishment!” Narolen replied. “We leave our dens, the food burns! She warned us not to leave!”
“What curse has she put into your head?!” his mate said angrily after another audible scuffle. “Help me put this out before it spreads, and someone call the alpha!”
“You should listen to him, Murie. He was seeing the spirits earlier, just like the witches do. The den mother put visions in him.”
“Seeing the spirits... That does not mean he understands what they say!” the female replied, but she sounded less sure of herself than before.
“We must go,” Narolen said. “We must go now, before this curse deepens!”
“No, help me put out the fire, we can still stop it.”
“Don't! Spirit fire— It is spirit fire in there!”
Narolen stumbled into the light, gesturing frantically toward the flickering cave. His face glistened with a mask of sweat.
Claw let out a warning bark.
“Shh.” Vaya grabbed the pup by his scruff before he could dart forward and begin chewing at Narolen's ankles, but the bark had been enough. Four more figures stepped into the light behind Narolen as he moved forward.
“Who's hiding, spirit?!” the male called out.
Vaya began to creep backwards as quietly as she could, bundling Claw into her arms and sucking on her teeth to silence him. She had almost managed to slip behind the curving rocks when the clouds broke again. Moonlight swept across the den, casting all six figures into dim relief against the snow. Once more Claw barked.
“You!” Narolen's shrill voice barely broke a whisper. “She did this! She called the curse too!”
“More likely she set the spark herself,” Murie growled.
Vaya's shoulders tensed. “Look to your mate for that. I saw him scurrying about in the shadows. He has the fog of the spirit world in his eyes.”
To her surprise, Narolen's mate paused and looked at him questioningly.
“She is lying, yes? You didn't go into that cave when you were out here alone, did you?”
“Liar!” Narolen hissed. He took the shape of his wolf, spittle flying from his mouth as he lunged at Vaya.
Instinctively she curled away from him, shielding Claw with her body. Either by the grace of the poison still crippling Narolen's muscles or the clouds sweeping in to cover the moon, he staggered past her, scuffing against the rocks in the darkness as he tried to re-centre himself.
Dull though her anger might have been, Vaya had little choice but to give in to it now. Tossing Claw away from her, she allowed her wolf to rise up and take control. The beast burned like rasping flint beneath her skin as it stretched into her bones and swallowed up her clothing. She no longer needed moonlight to see her enemies now that she had her wolf's eyes. Flashing her teeth, she prepared to finish the challenge Adel had interrupted earlier.
Unfortunately for her, Narolen's companions were in no mood for a fair fight. No sooner had she coiled herself to pounce than she saw five wolves facing her down. The four others had flanked Narolen, protecting their groggy leader while he struggled not to stumble over his own paws. A growl tickled the back of Vaya's throat. There was little honour in a fight like this, but perhaps she could scare Narolen into submission if he was still suffering from Adel's curse. She took a step forward, but her weakened left foreleg crumpled as she tried to put weight on it. Narolen saw her falter and lunged again. Vaya had just enough time to hop back before he could swipe her right paw out from under her.
Curse this wound.
She limped away from the rocks, trying to keep her balance on three legs as the ridge sloped upward behind her. She could still fight, but not with the dexterity she was used to. What chance did she stand against five wolves? They had already begun to circle around her, not content to stand back and let Narolen fight on his own. If they got behind her she would be at their mercy.
This is stupid, the cooler voice, the unwelcome side of Vaya, tried to tell her. If I try, I will lose.
I might put Narolen in his place before they bring me down.
But what about Claw?
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a trail of small pawprints curving up and around
the outcrop. Murie's wolf, the one closest to getting behind her, followed Vaya's gaze in the same direction. A hungry flash of fangs spread across her maw.
I will kill you if you dare. The thought manifested itself in a dire growl, Vaya's feral voice rattling with anger. Murie snorted at her, then made a dash toward the trail of pawprints.
Forgetting the fight with Narolen, Vaya charged to intercept the other female, desperate fury lending strength to her legs as she bulled into Murie's flank and knocked her aside. Her opponent stumbled, but she was not willing to give up easily. She darted out of reach, using the nimbleness Vaya lacked to circle around the outcrop in a wider arc.
No, you bitch. Vaya's growl rumbled once again. Throwing herself forward on her one good foreleg, she made a loping sprint up the slope, circling around the outcropping at a tighter angle than Murie so that she could reach the top ahead of her. Claw's pawprints ended at the base of a nearby tree. A quarter of the way up the trunk the half-sized wolf was struggling to climb his way through the branches. Ignoring Murie and the others, Vaya made straight for him. She reverted from the shape of her wolf at the last moment, groped through the scratching twigs until she felt fur beneath her palm, and pushed Claw upward to the higher branches.
Falling snow pattered around her as she put a foot on the lowest branch, feeling it sway and bend beneath her weight. Then Murie was on her, sharp pain digging into her hip as the female sunk her teeth through Vaya's clothing. Claws scratched at the back of her tunic, struggling to find purchase and bite into flesh. Before that could happen, Vaya grabbed Great Rook's claw and tore it from the thong around her neck. A backhanded swing drove the point into Murie's muzzle. The female let go with a whimper. Clamping the claw between her teeth, Vaya pushed herself up and clambered hand over hand through the branches, using her left arm for support while the right hauled her upwards.
Twigs whipped at her face in the darkness, tugging at her hair and catching in her clothes. Whenever she felt fur touch her palm she gave Claw another push so that he always stayed above her, keeping a firm hold on the pup until she was sure he had his footing. The tree rattled and swayed as someone struck it from below. Branches cracked beneath her, and she felt the trunk list subtly to one side as yet more weight began to drag on it. A hand clapped around her ankle, its grip strong. Strong, but not as strong as the force of her heel slamming into the face of the man beneath her. He let go, dropping back down with a groan.
