The Gray Wolf Throne

“I had only a brief window of time before your amulet was drained completely,” Crow said. “Several times we ran out before I could return you to where you were supposed to be.”

“Well, I thought I was losing my mind,” Han said. “What were you looking for?”

“I was only trying to stay ahead of you,” Crow said, biting his lip and shifting his gaze away. “You are a challenging student, Alister, always asking questions and demanding answers.”

“I don’t believe you,” Han said. “I think you were working your own plan. Were you maybe looking for a way to seize control of me permanently?”

Crow’s eyes glittered, signifying that Han had hit on the truth. “That would have been perfect. But impossible, it seems.” Crow closed his eyes, as if reliving it. “Can you imagine it, Alister? Can you imagine what it was like for a shade like me to experience the world again through all of your senses—vision and touch, and smell and taste and hearing?”

“I wouldn’t have gone to the library, I’ll tell you that,” Han said.

Crow laughed. “I like you, Alister. All of this would have been easier if you were unlikable. And stupid. You would have been considerably more tractable.”

“Tractable gets you nothing,” Han said, feeling like a country boy at market. Crow had dumped so much on him that he couldn’t quite see where the holes were. Questions rattled around in his brain.

“So. I have been uncommonly frank with you,” Crow said, interrupting his thoughts. “Now, tell me: why did you come back? Shall I assume that you still want something from me?”

“I’m on my way back to the Fells to go up against the Bayars and maybe the entire Wizard Council,” Han said.

“All by yourself? That seems ambitious even for you,” Crow said dryly. “What, exactly, do you hope to accomplish? Beyond flinging your life away.”

Han knew he had to give a reason that the cynical Crow would understand. A reason that would make Crow his ally, for now, anyway.

“The Bayars want to put Micah Bayar on the Gray Wolf throne,” Han said. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Mmm. The Bayars are nothing if not persistent,” Crow murmured. “It’s a pity young Bayar didn’t die in Aediion.” He paused, peering at Han through narrowed eyes to see if he’d felt the poke. “What is it between you and the Bayars? What did they do to you?”

“They murdered my mother and sister a year ago,” Han said. “They were all the family I had. And, recently, there was a girl, Rebecca. My … ah … tutor. She’s disappeared, and the Bayars are responsible. I think they did it to get back at me.”

Crow looked into Han’s eyes. “You poor bastard,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Damn my readable Aediion face, Han thought, scowling.

Crow laughed. “Let me give you a piece of advice—don’t go to war over a girl. It’s not worth it. Falling in love turns wise men into fools.”

“I didn’t come to you for advice,” Han said. “I came to you for firepower. The odds are against me. Even if you help me.”

“You’re coming back to me for help after what happened the last time?” Crow raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Everything is a risk,” Han said. “There’s a chance you’ll betray me again, but now I’m on the watch, so you’re less likely to be able to do any real damage. The risk from the Bayars, on the other hand, is real and imminent.”

Crow stood, legs slightly apart, head tilted, regarding Han as if he’d never really seen him before. “My, my, Alister, such big words. This young woman, this teacher of yours, she has polished you up, hasn’t she?”

Rebecca. Han’s gut twisted. In return, he’d likely gotten her killed.

“What’s underneath is still the same,” Han said. “I’m going to get what I want and nobody is going to get in my way. Including you. We do this thing my way or you’re out. Take or leave.”

“All right,” Crow said. “We’ll do things your way. But I will give you advice, and you can choose to use it or ignore it.”

“Fair enough,” Han said, his questions rekindling in his mind. “But first, I need to know—what happened between you and the Bayars, and when did it happen? Where have you been in the meantime? And how did you happen to choose me?”

“Does any of that really matter?” Crow said, turning away so Han couldn’t read his expression. “This is an alliance of convenience, nothing more. Isn’t that enough?”

“I’ve learned that whatever you don’t want to talk about is the thing I want to know,” Han said, thinking, If I know the why, if I know what drives you, I can better predict when I’ll get the blade in the back.

“As I said, if I tell you the truth, you won’t believe me.” Crow paced back and forth, his image rippling again, which Han had come to recognize as a sign of agitation. Was it such a horrible memory that Crow couldn’t stand to surface it?

“Try me,” Han said, as Crow continued to pace. “Come on. At least tell me a really good lie; you might convince me.”

“It doesn’t matter to you what happened,” Crow said. “It was long before you were born.”

You’re not even that old, Han thought, then remembered that Crow could be any age.

“Nothing you say can possibly shock me,” Han said. “But nothing happens until I know what your story is.”

Crow finally swung around to face Han. A bitter smile twisted his features. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see just how foolhardy you are.” His image changed a little, sharpened, came into focus. His hair remained fair, glittering, framing refined blueblood features—eyes the color of mountain asters and a good-humored mouth. As before, he looked to be only a few years older than Han.

His clothing had become more elaborate—a finely cut coat in satin and brocade, oddly old-fashioned, its champagne color a few shades darker than his hair. He was brilliant with power—handsome as a fancy on the make.

“You’ve asked what I really look like,” Crow said, turning in a little circle, extending his arms. “Feast your eyes. This is how I looked when I went up against the Bayars.”

The wizard stoles around his neck bore images of ravens, and his coat was embroidered with a device—a twined serpent and staff, angled through a crown engraved with wolves.

The device was familiar—where had Han seen it before?

“It was an exciting and dangerous time,” Crow said. “I was young and powerful, and I competed with the Bayars in every arena—politically, magically, and in”—here he stumbled over the words a bit—“in all manner of relationships. Just as it seemed that I had beaten them for good, I was betrayed, and the Bayars captured me. When that happened, I took refuge in the amulet I carried for so long.”

Han tapped his amulet with his forefinger. “You’re saying you hid in a jinxpiece?”

Crow smiled. “Immediate disbelief, as I anticipated. I so enjoy being right all the time. As I told you, I was an innovative user of magic. I hoped that the amulet would end up in friendly hands. Unfortunately, the Bayars realized that the key to everything they desired lay in the flashpiece. Though they have been trying to extract its secrets for more than a thousand years, they’ve been spectacularly unsuccessful.”

Han struggled to assemble the bits Crow had given him. It was like working a puzzle that doesn’t reveal its meaning until the last piece is in place.

Except the image that was forming was impossible.

As if Crow had read Han’s mind, an amulet appeared at Crow’s neck, hanging from a heavy gold chain—the mirror image of Han’s serpent amulet.

“I am the original owner of the amulet you carry now,” Crow said. “I had it custom made for me when I was about your age. I needed something powerful enough to conjure magic the world had never seen before. There is not another like it in the world.”

Han stood frozen, each word he might have spoken stillborn on his tongue.

“After Hanalea betrayed me, I dared not reveal myself to the Bayars,” Crow said. “So I’ve been lying imprisoned for a millennium. When the amulet came into your hands, I seized the opportunity. Naturally, I have done my best to make sure they don’t recover it.”

Han looked down at his amulet, tracing the serpent head with his fingers. He looked back up at Crow, his mind traveling to the end of that road. “You can’t be serious,” he whispered. “That can’t be true.”

Crow still smiled, but his blue eyes were hard as glacier ice. “My name was Alger Waterlow,” he said, caressing the serpent flashpiece. “The last wizard king of the Fells.”

Han stared at Crow, speechless, his mind frothing like a potion made with incompatible ingredients.

Crow inclined his head. “You look suitably stricken, Alister. I’ll leave you with that, then, and give you time to think it through before you do or say anything rash. I am, as you’ve no doubt figured out, always here and always available. Come back to Aediion when you are ready to partner with me. If that should ever happen.”

He gazed at Han for another long moment, searching Han’s face as if hoping Han might stay with him. Then he blinked out like a fivepenny candle.

CHAPTER THREE

BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS

During the long journey from Fetters Ford to Delphi, Raisa managed to forget, now and then, that she was furious.

Furious with Gerard Montaigne, the monster who held her friends in his grasp.

Furious with those at home who were conspiring to steal her birthright, by murder or other means.

Furious with Captain Edon Byrne, who seemed willing to sacrifice his own son for the Gray Wolf line.

Furious most of all with herself. Had she not left the queendom nearly a year ago, none of this would have happened.

But it’s not easy to remain angry while falling asleep in the saddle. Raisa would startle awake to find Captain Byrne’s hand on her back, preventing her from toppling to the ground. “Eat something, Your Highness,” he would say, handing her a sack of dried fruit and nuts. “Eating will help keep you awake.”

She would accept it without thinking, without remembering that she hadn’t forgiven him. By the time she remembered, he’d have spurred his horse forward or dropped back behind her, too far away for easy speech. She wasn’t speaking to him either, not unless absolutely necessary, since there was no predicting what might come out of her mouth.

Byrne drove them on like a man possessed—Raisa suspected that he’d have ordered them to ride all night if the horses could have stood it. As it was, they rose before light and rode long past dark—even though the days were growing longer as the fields greened around them and the lower slopes of the northern mountains lost their snowy cloaks.

Byrne had chosen to travel east, through northern Arden, and not directly north, as Raisa had thought to do. His reasoning was simple: “If Lord Bayar knows you were in Fetters Ford, he’ll expect you to enter the queendom via the West Wall. We need to do the unexpected.”

Arden’s forces had been drawn south, to fortify the border between Arden and Tamron, as Gerard’s sole surviving brother, King Geoff, awaited the results of the siege of Tamron Court. The countryside lay eerily quiet, as if the entire realm were holding its breath.

They couldn’t ride through the rough in the dark, so they chanced the Delphi Road through northern Arden, skirting the mountains, meaning to cross the lower Spirits via Marisa Pines Pass.

Raisa understood that speed was of the essence. There was no point in undertaking a long, arduous, dangerous journey through Arden and Tamron only to arrive home and find that her sister Mellony had been named princess heir in her place.

Besides, Captain Byrne wouldn’t want to spend any more time with an angry, moody, downhearted princess than he had to. And he was no doubt worried about Raisa’s mother, Marianna, the queen he was blood-sworn to serve and protect.

Raisa worried about her mother, too. Worry squeezed her insides like a too-tight corset.

Long days on horseback allowed far too much time for thinking. Raisa’s mind traveled faster than the horses—all the way to Fellsmarch, to the fairy castle on an island in the Dyrnnewater, to her mother’s privy chamber, where plans were no doubt being laid to take away Raisa’s throne.

An image of her mother and Lord Bayar came to her—their heads together over some critical document, Marianna’s hair like pale, beaten gold of the purest kind, the High Wizard’s silver and black as wood ashes.

When Raisa was at court, she and her mother had been like fire and ice, each intent on changing the form and nature of the other. Now Raisa hoped they could complement each other, each draw on the other’s strengths, become an alloy of steel, if only her mother would give her the chance.

Mellony couldn’t do it: she was only thirteen, and Mellony and Marianna were too much alike.

“Mother, please,” Raisa whispered. “Please wait for me.”

In her blackest hours, Raisa knew that it was all her fault—the crisis at home, the invasion of Tamron, and what would surely happen to Amon Byrne and the other cadets when Gerard Montaigne breached the walls of Tamron Court. If not for her, Edon Byrne would be home, where he belonged, looking after the queen, and Amon would be commander of his class at Oden’s Ford.

She’d lost Han Alister, too—their budding romance had been yanked out by the roots. He was the only sweetheart she’d ever had who hadn’t any agenda beyond that of young lovers everywhere. Even though they had no future together, he’d left a huge hole in her heart.

It seemed that everything she touched turned to sand. Everything she cared about slipped through her fingers.

In her dispirited state, she closed her ears to the reasonable voice that said, You’d never have loved Han Alister if you hadn’t left the Fells. Or gotten to know Hallie or Talia or Pearlie. Or learned what it meant to be a soldier. If you survive, you’ll be a better queen for it.

She nurtured her anger, fed it and indulged it, because it was her best alternative to despair.

She had to hope that Gerard Montaigne was still occupied to the west, keeping Tamron Court under siege. If the city hadn’t surrendered, the prince of Arden wouldn’t know she’d escaped. And as long as the city resisted, Amon would live.

Some pieces on her mental game board were still unaccounted for—Micah Bayar and his sister Fiona, for instance. She’d last seen them on the border between Tamron and Arden, during the battle between Tamron’s brigade and Montaigne’s much larger army. Had they escaped as well? Or had they died in the first skirmish of an undeclared war?

Raisa balled her fists inside her gloves, cranky as a badger with its foot in a trap. The Queen’s Guard learned to tiptoe around her lest they get an undeserved tongue-lashing.

The landscape grew lovelier as they left the sodden plains of Tamron behind and climbed into the foothills. Cypress turned to maple and oak, brilliant with spring foliage, and then to aspen and pine.

They spent the night in Delphi, the city-state between Arden and the Fells that supplied coal, iron, and steel to all the nations of the Seven Realms. The city seethed with refugees from Arden and Tamron, since only fools and desperate people would venture into the pass when snows still howled around the peaks and piled up in the high valleys.

Byrne took Ghost to a horse trader and swapped him for a sturdy mountain pony, better suited for travel through the pass in this season. The trader was so astonished at the bargain she’d made, she threw in a fine clan-made saddle and bridle with silver fittings.

Raisa’s new pony was a shaggy dappled gray mare with a white mane and tail. Raisa promptly renamed her Switcher, as had become her custom. She’d changed horses too many times in the past six months, and this way it was easier to remember.

That night, Raisa slept alone in a lumpy bed in a room rented to all eleven of them at the outrageous price of a crown a head. Her guard sprawled on the floor all around her like a litter of overgrown puppies. They were older than she, but not by much.

Some lay fast asleep, snoring and mumbling in their dreams. She envied their ability to drop off as soon as they stopped moving. Others played at cards or read by candles purchased for another crown apiece. If Raisa even went to the privy, Captain Byrne sent an escort along. She was never sure if this was to protect her or to prevent her running off. When she asked him, he replied, “To protect you, Your Highness. Of course.”

They left long before dawn the next morning, while stars still pricked the sky. Byrne hoped to make it through the pass by nightfall. In summer, that would be a challenging and arduous journey. In winter or spring, unlikely. Possibly foolhardy.

Above Delphi, the paved road became wheel-rutted dirt, and finally little more than a game trail, hedged on both sides by great granite boulders, the way so narrow, only one rider could pass between. Before long, patches of snow appeared in the shaded areas to either side of the trail. By midday, the ground was covered, and they traveled over packed snow and ice. By afternoon, the trail was drifted over in places where the wind swirled through.

Snow sifted down on them from junipers that overhung the trail, perfuming the air with their sharp, sweet scent. The forest would break the wind, at least, until they climbed above the tree line.

A storm the night before had glazed each twig and branch with ice, and they glittered in the sunlight as the breeze stirred them. The tracks of snowshoe hares and other small game crisscrossed the trail. Raisa flexed her fingers in her gloves, wondering if she should string the bow Byrne had given her, which she carried in her saddle boot.

They’d probably prefer she be unarmed, given that she was angry enough to shoot someone.

She had missed riding the mountain trails of the Fells more than she’d realized. In Oden’s Ford, she’d been consumed by work, with little time for pleasure riding. Her equestrian classes reflected the flatland style of warfare. Flatland cadets rode across a broad, featureless landscape in precise formation, wheeling their horses like so many deadly court dancers, bristling with weapons.

Raisa urged Switcher to greater speed, her lighter weight allowing her to outpace her guard. Up, up, up they climbed, splashing through rippling sunlight and shadow, icy evergreen branches whipping across her face, her breath pluming out and crystallizing in her hair and on her wool hat.

Raisa crested the upslope and reined in her mare.

The Spirit Mountains spread before her across a wide valley, fully visible for the first time: rank upon rank of peaks shrouded in snow and cloud. Green spires of fir and brilliant birch smudged the lower slopes. The cool blue of shadow on snow filled the valleys where the sun had not yet penetrated. Frowning gray granite summits were concealed, then revealed by streaming mist. The cold voice of the Spirits called to her, and something within her answered.

This was the dwelling place of her ancestors, blood and bone of the upland queens. And, somewhere ahead, the city of Fellsmarch lay hidden in the Vale. Somewhere ahead, her mother waited—the mother who might be planning to disinherit her.

Switcher stood splay-legged and breathing hard, despite Raisa’s slight weight. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, stroking the mare’s neck, knowing they had an even tougher road ahead of them. The southernmost Queen peaks were gentle, ancient matriarchs ground down by the witch winds that stormed down out of the north after solstice. These mountains were so old, their names had been forgotten.

But ahead lay brooding Hanalea, greatest and most terrible of all. Plumes of steam rose from the hot springs, geysers, and mudpots that dotted her shoulders where the fiery Beneath broke through the thin crust of the earth. Her name would never be forgotten, not as long as her people remembered the Breaking, and observed the N

ming.

To the south and west lay Tamron Court, where Amon Byrne was trapped by Montaigne’s army. Further east was Oden’s Ford, where Raisa had left Han Alister without saying good-bye.

Once again, the pain settled beneath her breastbone, squeezing off her breath. Not grief, exactly, but … well, yes, grief for the words that would never be spoken, for a love that would never be consummated, and for a friend whose life was in desperate peril.

Maybe it was better that way. Better for Han, at least. Assuming Raisa survived, she was destined for a political marriage. Han had already lost his family and most of his friends. Further involvement in the treacherous politics of the Gray Wolf court would likely get him killed. He’d been doing well at the academy in Oden’s Ford. Better that he stay there and forget about her.

Maybe he already had.

Gripping the reins hard, she stared straight ahead, drawing deep breaths, biting her lower lip, no longer seeing what lay before her.

As her guard surrounded her, she heard the creak of saddle leather, the rattle of hooves against rock, the soft greetings of horses. She breathed in the scent of damp wool and soldiers too long on the road.

“Your Highness.”

Raisa flinched, still staring straight ahead.

“Your Highness, please,” Byrne said. “I wish you would not insist on racing so far ahead.”

This time, she twisted in her saddle, looking into his wind-burnt face, now etched with concern.

“I thought you said we were in a hurry,” Raisa said.

“Aye. We are. But you should be riding in the middle of the triple, not breaking trail out in front. We cannot protect you if you ride out of sight of us.”

“Am I a prisoner who must be watched constantly?” Unable to control the quaver in her voice, she clapped her mouth shut and stared down at the ground.

Byrne gazed at her for a long moment, then turned in his saddle, waving the others back with his gloved hand, clearly preferring that they not overhear this conversation. “Take fifteen to rest the horses before we push on,” he called.

He dismounted, dropping his reins so his horse could lip at the sparse vegetation. Raisa dismounted also, taking shelter from the wind between the two horses.

“We are here to serve and protect you, Your Highness, not confine you,” Byrne said. The gray eyes reproached her.

Raisa knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t even trust herself to reply. Instead, she yanked her gloves off with her teeth. Working quickly, before her hands went numb, she tucked in the ends of frosted hair that had been ripped free by the wind. The skin on her cheeks and hands was already chapped, despite the layers of lanolin cream she applied morning and night.

“The Queen’s Guard serves the queen and the princess heir and the Gray Wolf line,” Byrne persisted, squinting into the distance, hunching his broad shoulders against the raw wind.

“And if our interests diverge?” Raisa dabbed at her eyes, hoping the cold would explain her sniffling.

To this the captain made no answer, for there was none. Picking a fight with Captain Byrne was as unrewarding as assaulting a brick wall. He stood, solid and unmovable, while you skinned your own nose.

“Perhaps we should talk about what happens when we arrive,” Byrne suggested, still graciously averting his eyes.

Raisa nodded, pulling her gloves back on. That seemed to be a safe topic, at least—her arrival in the Fells. Since it was beginning to seem like it would actually happen.

“I’ll stay a night, at least, at Marisa Pines Camp, until I know if it’s safe to go down into the city,” Raisa said. That, of course, presented its own risks, if what her mother had believed was true—that the Demonai clan favored setting Marianna aside and putting Raisa on the throne instead. Raisa was suddenly glad they’d decided to take the eastern route, rather than traveling past Demonai Camp. Except …