Chapter 366 - 100: Direction

The stone pulsed again, and Destiny cried out.

Dane swung round to Vance. "Get your men off him. Now!"

For once the king didn’t argue. He barked an order and his warriors backed away from Marcus, but the cursed wolves were already drifting in, low and silent, filling the gap the warriors left. A dry branch cracked under a paw. Helena flinched at it.

Dane pulled Destiny behind him and locked an arm across her ribs. Henrik took the left. Helena took the right, lip peeling off her teeth. On the far side of the clearing the Alpha was shouting at his pack to hold, and the pack was only half listening.

Light bled between Marcus’s fingers. Red, then brighter, throwing the trunks behind him into hard relief.

Destiny’s hand found Dane’s forearm and her nails went in.

"Something’s wrong."

"Where?"

"Chest. It’s pulling." She was staring at the stone. "Dane, I can feel it in there. Like it’s got a hook in me and someone’s winding the line."

"Marcus, cover it."

Marcus dragged the cloth from his pocket and wrapped it twice around the stone, fumbling the second turn. The glow died under the fabric. Destiny held on through several ragged breaths before her shoulders dropped, and even then her fingers stayed where they were.

Then one of the cursed wolves went down.

It hit the ground hard enough to throw up dirt. Its hind legs scrabbled. A wet choking noise came out of its throat, and the others scattered from it, ears flat.

"Back!" The Alpha was already running. He dropped to his knees beside the animal. The yellow eyes rolled up to find him, and the mouth worked.

"Help me."

It wasn’t a growl. The Alpha went still.

Dane had heard of wolves who lost their human shape to Hollow Death. He had never heard of one getting it back. The front paw was shrinking as he watched, claws drawing in, fingers scraping and scraping at the dirt like something trying to dig its way out of itself.

"Can you hear me?" the Alpha said.

The wolf blinked.

"Please."

Beneath the wrecked snout, for a few seconds, there was a face. Then the fingers thickened and curled, the jaw pushed long again, and dark veins crawled back under the fur. The wolf threw its head up and howled. The sound went through Dane’s teeth.

The Alpha’s hands hung over the animal, not touching.

"Marcus," Dane said. "Uncover it."

"Are you—"

"I need to know if the two are tied together."

Destiny caught his hand before he could step away. Her palm was slick. "If it starts again—"

"I’ll cover it. Straight away."

Marcus peeled the cloth back. Silver lines flared across the stone, the red ran through them like something poured, and Destiny folded forward with a hiss. By the trees the wolf’s body locked, spine bowed off the ground.

"Cover it!"

Marcus wound the cloth on again. The wolf sagged and lay panting. Destiny straightened by degrees, one hand flat beneath her collarbone.

Twice, and her pain had followed it both times. Dane couldn’t call that coincidence. He also couldn’t say what came next.

Behind the pack a wolf whined and was hushed.

The Alpha got to his feet. "Give it to me."

Marcus dragged the stone against his chest. "No."

"You saw what it—"

"I saw her."

"Five minutes ago you were ready to bleed her," Henrik said.

"I wanted the curse stopped."

"You wanted to choose who paid for it."

The Alpha’s jaw shifted, but he didn’t answer. He was still looking at the cloth. Two years of his pack rotting around him, fourteen wolves who would never wear skin again, twenty-three in the ground, and now one of the fourteen had spoken. Dane watched him look and knew he couldn’t look at anything else. That made him more dangerous than he’d been an hour ago.

"We test it properly," Destiny said. Her voice came out thin.

"Later." Dane didn’t take his eyes off the Alpha. "Somewhere else."

"She doesn’t have later." Destiny tipped her head towards Aurora.

Aurora stood beside her father with one hand clamped to her side. The black veins had crept past her wrist, thin as ink in a wet page, and her skin had gone the colour of tallow. Her knee gave. Vance’s hand shot out for her elbow and she shook him off, hard.

"The stone comes to my camp," the Alpha said. "I have fourteen who—"

"I know how many."

"Then you know I can’t—"

"You can’t have it today."

"Enough," Vance said. "This is finished. My daughter goes home, and I decide what—"

"Your daughter’s standing right here."

Vance turned. Aurora had straightened, though it cost her. She took her hand off her side and it shook.

"Ask him what he wanted from you," she said.

"Aurora."

"Go on. Ask what he wanted you to become."

The Alpha’s eyes flicked to the pack and back. "It was one possibility."

"It was a plan."

Vance’s mouth closed. He looked at the ground between his boots, and Dane thought of Destiny in this same clearing with the king’s hand clamped on her arm. He hadn’t asked her either.

"I’ll go to the priestess," Aurora said. "She can look at me. She can look at that." She jerked her chin at Marcus. "If the stone does something, I’ll take it. But if either of you touches my father with it to find out—" Her breath caught. She swallowed and started again. "I’ll take it on my terms or I won’t take it."

"Silvercrest," Vance said, hoarse.

"My terms."

He nodded once, stiffly, like a man signing for something he’d already lost.

"You can’t walk out knowing what you know," the Alpha said. "You watched it work."

"It didn’t work on us," Destiny said. "It worked on one of yours."

"It’s all I have."

"You had me. You had a knife at my throat an hour ago." She had to stop and breathe. "I’d like to see you say that again with your wolves watching."

He opened his mouth. Nothing came.

Dane thought he might call the pack in. They had bunched up behind him, shoulders hunched, every yellow eye on the cloth in Marcus’s fist. Henrik shifted his weight. Helena’s growl started low and stayed there.

Then the wolf that had spoken began to drag itself across the dirt.

It moved badly, hind legs trailing, leaving two furrows behind it. It stopped at the Alpha’s boots and looked up. Held his gaze. Lowered its muzzle onto the leather.

The Alpha crouched. "I know," he said, too quietly for Dane to catch the rest.

When he stood, the desperation had drained from his face and something flatter had taken its place. "You’ll leave me with nothing."

Vance’s warriors lifted their weapons.

"You’ll leave my daughter alone," Vance said. "You won’t follow her for that stone."

"You can’t guard her forever."

"I don’t need forever. I need you to know our arrangement is done."

The Alpha stared at him. Then he turned to his pack. He didn’t order the attack, and he didn’t back down.

"Come."

They filed into the trees, the fallen wolf hauling itself up to trail after them, silent again. Dane watched until the last tail vanished between the trunks. The Alpha hadn’t given up on a cure. He’d only lost the quickest way to one.

Vance swung towards Marcus. "The stone goes with us."

"It doesn’t," Dane said, before Marcus could open his mouth.

"My daughter is dying. That thing may be what saves her."

"Then Aurora can ask for it. You don’t take it off Marcus, and you don’t take Destiny along with it."

"I’ve already agreed to carry Aurora to Silvercrest."

"That’s your business."

Dane figured he’d push. Instead the king looked at Destiny. "Will you come? Help my daughter?"

Her fingers closed hard around Dane’s.

She took a while. "I’ll think about it. I won’t come under your authority, and I won’t agree to any ritual before I know what it asks of me."

Vance’s face gave nothing away. "Then there’s nothing left to say here."

He called his warriors to ready for the road. Aurora followed him, glancing back once at Destiny. Dane couldn’t read the look, and he doubted Aurora could have explained it either.

He didn’t take it for peace. Vance had lost his deal with the Alpha and still wanted the stone. The Alpha had lost the king and still had his pack and every reason to come after them. And the stone sat in Marcus’s hand with nobody able to say why it had done what it did.

"Can you stand?" he asked Destiny.

"Yes."

"You sure?"

She nodded. Her lips had gone bloodless, and her knees weren’t quite locked.

He wanted her home, with a door between her and everyone who’d treated her like something to bargain with. But he’d watched a wolf find its voice, and that changed the arithmetic. Guarding the stone wasn’t enough anymore. They had to understand it before Vance or the Alpha found another way to pry it loose.

"Henrik." His Beta turned. "We take the stone back to BloodMoon. Nobody touches it unless I say so."

Henrik nodded.

"Send word to the priestess. Everything. The wolf, the cloth on and off, what happened to Destiny each time. I want answers about what we just saw, not another guess about what it did to me."

"I’ll see to it."

Dane looked once more at the dark gap in the trees where the Alpha had gone. Next time he wouldn’t come asking. He’d come with more wolves, and he’d have spent every night between now and then planning it.

Dane meant to be ready.