The Silvered

Chapter One

SENSES NEARLY OVERPOWERED by the scent of sweat and gunpowder and onions, Tomas followed his nose through the 1st Aydori Volunteers, searching for his greatcoat. When his uncle, Lord Stovin, had ordered the Hunt Pack out before dawn, Tomas had left his coat folded on lieutenant Harry Kyncade’s saddle, up out of the dew. His cousins might think it funny to hide his uniform, mask the scent, force him to hunt it out, to go naked or stay in fur, but not Harry. Since their first days at school, they’d been as inseparable as duties and responsibilities allowed, and Tomas trusted Harry to keep safe the only clothing he had with him.

Unfortunately, the 1st—along with the remains of the armies from the overrun Duchies of Pyrahn and Traiton—had moved into battle formation while he was gone and Tomas had only a vague idea where Harry was.

He felt the soldiers’ attention on him as he passed. They might not know for certain who he was, but, given that he currently looked like a black wolf, they knew what. For many of them, this had to be the first time they’d seen a member of the Pack so close. Because they couldn’t know how acute his hearing was, he chose to ignore comments on his size, his color, and the unfortunate fact he had burrs in his tail.

“Finally decided to join us, Lord Hagen?” Harry’s voice cut through the ambient noise.

Tomas raised his head. Harry stood by his pony, a little apart from his men, holding the missing greatcoat.

Two quick steps and a leap over the head of a sitting soldier, too startled to do anything but swear, put him at Harry’s side. He changed and turned at Harry’s gesture, allowing the other man to slide the sleeves up over his arms, grimacing as the fabric came in contact with filthy skin. He needed a long bath and the vigorous application of a scrub brush.

“If you mean did I decide to spend the remainder of the day sitting around with you doing nothing,” he replied, tightening the belt and turning, “then, yes.”

“Then I’m thrilled to give the pleasure of my company.” Reins looped over the crook of his elbow, Harry straightened Tomas’ collar. “Where were you? Off chasing rabbits?”

“I wish.” Not that he’d have objected to a rabbit; the duckling he’d grabbed on the riverbank hadn’t been much of a meal. “Scouts got sent out just before dawn.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose until they almost disappeared under the edge of his plumed shako. “And?”

“And nothing,” Tomas admitted. He nodded across the river at the Imperial army lined up and waiting, helmets gleaming in the afternoon sun. “They had sharpshooters with those new rifled muskets stationed along both flanks. Shitheads were shooting anything that moved. No one could get close.”

“They shot at you?” Eyes, flecked with Fire-mage red, gleamed as Harry ruffled Tomas’ hair. “But you’re so adorable.”

“Shut up.” At eighteen, he remained slight enough he could pass in low light as a very large black dog, but he drew the line at adorable. Leaning against the shoulder of Harry’s pony, he scratched at the mud drying on his left foot. The Imperial army would have expected scouts from upstream, so he’d crossed downstream where the banks were marshy and found himself expected anyway. “They’re waiting for something.”

“Really?” Harry snorted, and gestured expansively at the surrounding Volunteers, who pointedly ignored both young men. “I wouldn’t have guessed, given that we’ve been waiting for them. This is no way to run a war.”

Straightening, Tomas rolled his eyes. “Next time I talk to my uncle, I’ll tell him you think you could do things better.”

“Ass.”

“Idiot.”

They turned together to stare at the command post. Harry’s men had taken up a position close enough to Command that Tomas could see Lord Stovin, one bare foot up on a stump, talking with General Krystopher, military commander of the Duchy of Pyrahn. General Lamin, leader of the Traitonian army, was conspicuously absent.

General Lamin had a problem with the Pack and had been heard to refer to them as no more than vicious animals.

Lord Stovin had been forced to show teeth to prevent the younger members of the Hunt Pack from provoking an incident. As it was, Tomas knew for a fact that after the no more than vicious animals comment made the rounds, his cousin Jared had honored the Traitonian Lancers with a visit, panicking their horses. The sturdy mountain ponies used in Aydori were exposed to the Pack from birth, but nothing panicked enemy—or allied—cavalry like a large predator suddenly up close and personal.

Before the Duchy of Traiton had been overrun by the Imperial army, General Lamin’s prejudices hadn’t mattered much. But the Imperial army had pushed the retreating Traitonian army over the border into Pyrahn and kept pushing until the elderly Duke of Pyrahn had brought his grandchildren into Aydori for safety and asked for help. Where only a few short months before there’d been two independent Duchies as a buffer between Aydori and the Kresentian Empire, now there was a river. And not a very deep river at this point, Tomas noted.

There was a bridge about a quarter mile southeast, but the Imperial commanders had concentrated the bulk of their forces at the shallows rather than be caught in the shooting gallery the bridge and the road, deep in a rock cut, would become. In answer, the 1st Aydori and the Hunt Pack had set up on the ridge across from them. The ground angling down to the river was rocky and steep, but the Hunt Pack didn’t care and the 1st held the high ground—they could wait for the Imperials to come to them.

Tomas frowned across the river. Adding insult to injury, they were facing barely half a division of the Imperial army. Of the three divisions, the regiments that made up the Shields never left the heart of the Empire, the Spears were quelling rebellion in the northeast, so the emperor had only the Swords to aim at Aydori. Or those Swords not bringing the Imperial boot down on the recently conquered Duchies, at any rate.

“I wonder if that’s why they’re hanging back so far.” Squinting didn’t bring their colors into any better focus, but there had to be cavalry. There was always cavalry. “So their horses don’t spook if the wind comes back up.” There’d been heavy gusts of wind in the early morning, but, by the time the sun reached its highest point, the air was barely moving.

“Possible. But it looks like mostly infantry and artillery over there. You don’t end up ruling most of this continent by being stupid enough to send horses against you lot.” Harry bumped Tomas’ shoulder. When Tomas growled softly, Harry laughed. “Yeah, you’re tough. Besides, even if they were loitering about close enough for our nine pounders to reach their lines, that’d still be too far for an Air-mage to send scary wolf scent.”

“If they were close enough for our artillery to hit them, their artillery could hit us.”

“And that,” Harry snorted, “is pretty much the whole point of war.”

“Danika could do it.”

“To my knowledge, your sister-in-law has no experience with artillery.”

“What?” Tomas twisted and stared. “Is your hat too tight again? I meant that Danika could send our scent across to them!”

Harry grinned.

Tomas felt his cheeks heat. Harry had never let differences in social standing stop him from pulling Tomas’ tail. “Oh, bite me!”

“Not likely. You bite back. Besides, moot point,” Harry reminded him. “Your brother would never allow Lady Hagen anywhere near a battle in her condition, no matter how powerful an Air-mage she was.”

“True.” Tomas sighed and returned to trying to force an explanation for the delay by power of will. He hated waiting.

“Maybe the Imperials took one look at us and were so scared they shit themselves and we’re waiting for the laundry to return their trousers.”

“They didn’t smell scared.”

“Joke, you ass.” Harry drove his elbow into Tomas’ ribs. “If we don’t move soon, the sun’ll be against us. Go tell Lord Stovin I’m willing to lead a sortie against their lines. Draw them out. Prove to him I’m the right man for Geneviene.”

“You haven’t enough mage-craft for the artillery,” Tomas told him, elbowing back. Most of the Fire-mages in the army were artillery, but poor Harry hadn’t been able to pass muster. “What makes you think you have enough mage-craft for Geneviene?”

“Love makes my fire burn hotter.”

“Oh, puke. She’s probably going to marry Gregor.”

“What’s he got that I don’t?”

“Fur.”

“I hope he gets mange,” Harry muttered sulkily. “I hope he…”

Raising a hand to cut Harry off, Tomas stepped forward. “Something’s happening.”

A pale blue bulge rose above the heads of the closest Imperial ranks.

“What the…?”

“I don’t know.”

It continued rising until it looked like an upside-down teardrop.

“What’s that underneath it?”

“I don’t know.” Squinting, Tomas leaned forward. “A basket? Is it mage-craft?”

“If it is, it’s not like any I’ve ever heard of.”

Another time, Tomas might have needled Harry about testing too low to get into the university, but something about that thing in the air made him uneasy. “If they’ve put one of their long nines in that…”

“Too heavy,” Harry interrupted and, although he sounded as sure of himself as he always did, Tomas could smell the beginning of fear.

Tomas glanced over at his uncle. Lord Stovin had his eyes locked on the Imperials, one hand on Colonel Ryzhard Bersharn’s shoulder. Ryzhard, married to Stovin’s oldest daughter, was one of the most powerful Air-mages in Aydori. Not as powerful as Danika, but he was here.

After a long moment, Ryzhard shook his head.

What did that mean?

An Aydori lieutenant galloped in from the south, his pony sitting back nearly on its haunches as he hauled on the bit. Tomas thought he recognized the officer attached to General Lamin. Ears pricked forward, he tried and failed to separate words from the noise. The lieutenant was still talking when General Krystopher pulled out a telescope and turned back toward the Imperials.

Telescope.

“Harry.” Tomas reached out blindly, and closed his hand around Harry’s wrist. “If they’ve got a man with a telescope in that thing, they could see right into our lines. Locate our commanders.”

“Yeah?” Harry sounded calm, but then Harry always sounded calm. “And how would they get the location back to the ground?”

“Air-mage. Either up in the basket sending their voice down on a breeze or on the ground listening to the breezes and non-mage observer’s voice. Or both, just to be sure; it’s really up there.”

“The Imperials think they’re too good to use mages.”

“Then they write the coordinates on a piece of paper and drop it in a weighted pouch.”

“Fine. Doesn’t matter. We’ve already established we’re too far away for the artillery to…” Harry pulled free of Tomas’ grip and took a step forward, his pony following. “Now what?”

As the first few ranks of Imperial infantry peeled back, Tomas’ hands fell to his belt, working the buckle free. Whatever was about to happen, he needed to be back with Lord Stovin and he’d get there faster in fur. He saw sparks, heard a whistle…

“Incoming!”

Several voices.

“We’re too far for artillery!”

Harry.

The blast wave slammed Tomas face-first into the ground. Something heavy landed on his right leg, pinning him. He felt it jerk from multiple impacts as he fought to get free. He could smell smoke and blood and shit and gunpowder. Over the ringing in his ears, he could hear screaming.

Finally, scraping skin off against the ground, he dragged his leg free and rolled over to see that he’d been trapped by the bulk of Harry’s pony. Its head and one shoulder missing, its body had absorbed a number of small balls of shot from a secondary explosion.

Silver.

His lip curled off his teeth as he fought his way out of his sodden greatcoat and changed.

The scents separated into their component parts and his nose took him to Harry, lying in a crumpled heap against his pony’s head, both legs gone at mid thigh. He changed again—this needed hands—and grabbed up the reins to tie off the stumps.

Harry’s fingers touched his wrist. “Don’t bother.”

“You’re in no shape to cauterize them.”

“Idiot. Can’t cauterize myself.”

“Then shut up.”

“Tomi…”

“Shut up.”

Even in skin, he smelled Harry’s bowels let go. Felt Harry’s last breath against his shoulder. Let the reins drop from shaking fingers.

Changed.

Spun on one hind foot, nails gouging the dirt, and raced for the command post. Lord Stovin would have orders. Lord Stovin would…

He heard another whistle.

Saw General Kystopher point. Saw Lord Stovin change.

The blast flung him head over tail.

“Mirian, concentrate! I can barely see you.”

Mirian frowned at her sister’s image in the small, brass-bound mirror propped up on her dressing table. “I am concentrating.”

On the other end of the mirror-link, Lorela’s face grew larger as she moved closer in. “So you are. Sorry.” An extreme close-up of an embroidered handkerchief momentarily filled the glass, then Lorela’s face reappeared, much more sharply defined. “One of the boys spilled his milk this morning. I didn’t realize how far it had spread, and it’s impossible to keep this place clean when…”

Mirian let the monologue drift into background noise as she searched her portmanteau for her jewelry case. Her mother wanted her to wear her pearl earrings tonight and had refused to listen when told they’d already been packed. Hardly surprising since her mother refused to pack.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Miri, not with Lord Hagen here. The Pack Leader will keep us safe.”

“Miri! Are you listening to me? You have got to convince Mother and Father to leave Bercarit tonight!”

All right, that she should have been paying attention to. Apparently her sister’s stories about husband and children had segued into a topic of actual note. Pushing her hair back out of her eyes, Mirian turned to face the mirror again. “Leave the city?” She pitched her voice higher, imitating their mother. “The Pack Leader says there’s no need. Aydori will not fall to the empire.”

“Cedryc says the Imperial army will be over the border before dawn and marching on Bercarit before breakfast.”

Mirian rolled her eyes. “Has Cedryc turned Soothsayer now?” When Lorela didn’t answer immediately, she frowned and leaned closer to the mirror. “Lore? Has he?”

“Of course not!”

Mirian waited.

Finally, Lorela shrugged, her face expressionless. “He has dreams sometimes. When he’s asleep. That’s all.”

Soothsayers eventually went insane, their minds in the future, their bodies in the present; Lorela wouldn’t have admitted it even if Cedyrc had been having waking dreams. All things considered, Mirian didn’t blame her. “So if he’s not a Soothsayer,” she said lightly, and noted the way her sister’s shoulders relaxed, “who do you think Mother and Father will believe? Lord Ryder Hagen or your charming but otherwise unremarkable husband?”

“You have to make them believe.”

“The Pack Leader is never wrong,” Mirian muttered wearily.

“You’re ready to leave.”

She glanced down at her portmanteau, a little impressed the mirror-link had depth of focus enough to show it. The blue Air-mage flecks in Lorela’s eyes hadn’t changed and her sister had never been more than fourth level, merely maintaining the link was already at the edge of her abilities.

“Miri…”

“Traiton fell.” Mirian drew a line through the spilled powder on the dressing table. “Pyrahn fell. My mage-craft may be too diffuse to be viable…” The opinion of her kinder professors; the less kind accused her of being lazy, stubborn, and superficial. Occasionally all at once. “…but no one ever said I was stupid. We’re only seventeen miles from the border and refugees have been arriving for weeks.” Bercarit’s hotels were full of people from both Duchies with money enough to pack up and escape the advancing Imperial army, and the streets were filling with people who’d left without anything more than a desire to survive. “Mother says the refugees are proof positive the border will hold.” Mirian thought they proved only that Pyrahn had fallen. “But it’s not just the refugees,” she continued through gritted teeth. “The Hunt Pack is on the border and the Pack leadership has come to Bercarit in case defending the border requires their personal touch. Mother and Father couldn’t possibly miss this chance to present me at the opera like a dressed side of beef!”

With four and a half years and a dead brother between them, Lorela had carried the weight of their parents’ expectations until her marriage to a young man she’d met at school had taken her out of the social advancement game. It would never occur to her to say Mother and Father just want what’s best for you. Their father wanted the Pack’s business at his bank. Their mother wanted to be invited to all the best parties. The only way that would happen was if their remaining daughter married into the Pack.

“They think because my mage-craft was strong enough to get me into the university, it’s strong enough to attract a member of the Pack.”

“Have you told them you won’t be going back?”

Mirian frowned, and bent to grope among the folds of a sprigged muslin day dress.

“Miri?”

What she thought might be the pearl earrings turned out to be the two polished bone buttons that closed the top of the bodice.

“Miri!”

“No!” She straightened so abruptly that Lorela’s image flickered. Drawing in a deep breath, Mirian forced herself to concentrate. Forced herself to calm enough to anchor her end of the link. “No,” she repeated quietly, “I haven’t told them. It seemed a little pointless what with Emperor Leopald suddenly deciding this year would be all about conquest. Besides, you know how Mother thinks. I was tested, I was accepted, I was schooled. I can, therefore, attract a member of the Pack.”

“Well, you won’t,” Lorela said bluntly. “Not with only first levels. So, it’s the opera and parental disappointment tonight. What about tomorrow?”

Mirian kicked the portmanteau shut. Tomorrow she’d try again to get her parents to leave the city, to head to Trouge, higher up in the mountains where the land itself would give the Imperial army pause. Of course, as long as the Pack leadership remained in Bercarit, the odds were high her parents wouldn’t be moved and she’d be expected to smile and dance and pretend that disaster wasn’t on the doorstep. “Tomorrow,” she sighed, “never comes.”

“Tomorrow, I’ll take Jaspyr and Sirlin down to the border and have a sniff around.” Shifting the brass candlestick that held a curling corner in place, Ryder Hagen stared down at the map spread out over the sitting room table.

Danika sighed, set down the book she’d been trying to read, and stood, shaking out her skirt. Ryder had spent the afternoon studying the map, pacing, studying the map, arguing with his cousins, studying the map, changing, and pacing some more. Although her husband weighed the same in both fur and skin, an agitated wolf took up considerably more space and the room, even emptied of half of its owner’s overly fussy furniture, was not large.

“The Hunt Pack will have closed with the Imperials this afternoon,” he continued. “There should be news by morning. Tomorrow…”

“Tonight,” Danika interrupted, wrapping both hands around Ryder’s arm and tugging him around to face her, “we are invited out to dinner before the opera and a reception after. You’ll be expected to be in clothing.”

“My greatcoat…”

“That’s a field uniform and you know it.” She allowed him to pull her close, her hands sliding up and around his neck. “Tonight requires trousers…” She kissed him before he could protest, then continued kissing him after each piece of required clothing. “…and shoes and a shirt and a jacket and a cravat.”

Dark brows drew in. “If I have to change…”

“There should be no reason for you to change at either dinner or the opera, but if there is, I know for a fact you can get out of your clothing in…Ryder!”

“As I’m already out of my clothing, it seems a pity to waste this opportunity.” His grin, twisted by the scar he’d gained in the fight that made him Pack Leader, was distinctly wolfish as he carried her over to the settee.

Danika thought about protesting the time or the place but, as Ryder’s callused fingers began unbuttoning her bodice, she chose not to. She needed to begin dressing for their evening’s engagements and the unlocked sitting room door meant any of the Pack members in Bercarit with them could walk in, but in a very few months she’d be in no condition for semi-public lovemaking on an extremely uncomfortable piece of furniture, so she might as well enjoy it while she could.

As though he were reading her mind about the furniture, Ryder flipped them so she straddled his lap.

“Better?” he asked nuzzling her throat.

She buried her fingers in the thick, dark mass of his hair and tugged. “Much. Now get on with…Oh!”

After, lying on the wool carpet, not entirely certain how they got there, Danika turned her face into Ryder’s shoulder and murmured, “Why now?”

She felt as much as heard him laugh, a rumble deep in his chest. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific, love.”

“The empire. There’s been peace for four years, why did the emperor suddenly toss out the Treaty of Frace and decide to attack Traiton?”

“Why does that shit Leopald decide to do anything? Ego. He hates there’s still free people not kissing his ass.”

“It’s just…” She laid her hand on his where it cupped her belly, warm against her cooling skin.

“I know.”

They’d been married for almost seven years. Danika had begun to fear that she would never be able to bear a child of the Pack when Jesine—the Pack’s strongest Healer-mage and married to Ryder’s cousin Sirlin—had told her she’d finally caught. And now, with their first child on the way, the Imperial army was as close as it had ever come.

“Tell me they’ll be stopped in Pyrahn, that they won’t cross into Aydori.”

“They’ll be stopped in Pyrahn.” She felt his mouth against her hair, his lips warm, his breath warmer. “Would you be this close to the border if I thought differently?”

No. She wouldn’t be. As Pack Leader, Ryder’s duty was to Aydori; he could send the Hunt Pack into battle, but he couldn’t cross the border himself. Bercarit was his compromise. It would, after all, be the first city attacked should the unthinkable happen. He’d asked her to accompany him as much for politics as a dislike of being apart. Clearly, in spite of the Pack Leader’s presence, there could be no real danger or the Pack Leader’s wife and unborn child would be safe behind stone walls, high in the mountains in Trouge, the ancient Aydori capital. And she’d much, much rather be here, even considering the drift of dark hair she could see under the settee. If Ryder had shed that much since the housemaid had last swept the room, he wasn’t as sure as he sounded.

They’d left the bulk of the Imperial army before it had entered Pyrahn, had traveled quickly across country, and slipped across the border into Aydori about forty miles north of Bercarit. Their first day in enemy territory had been spent angling carefully toward the east road out of Bercarit to Trouge; toward the road a forced evacuation from Bercarit would have to take. The dense woods had made the men skittish, all of them familiar with the tales of the giant beastmen who kept Aydori safe. As the day went on, and the largest animal seen had been a small, white-tailed deer bounding away in terror, the men had begun to calm and, finally, to laugh at their fear.

“Cap’n?”

Pulled from his thoughts, Captain Sean Reiter shifted his focus to the man who’d fallen into step beside him. “Sergeant Black.”

“Scouts say there’s a river up ahead.” The sergeant shoved a branch out of the way with his musket and waited until the captain passed before he released it. “Not a deep river, like, but running fast. No way to avoid being seen while we cross if there’s anyone about.”

Reiter glanced up. The thick canopy prevented him from seeing the sky, and the shadows by the ground were either too constant or too broken to be of any use determining the time. He took a reading, mentally marked his path, tucked his compass carefully into a pocket, and pulled out his watch. Just past six. They’d lose the light soon.

“Can we cross after dark?” He snapped the case closed.

“Like I said, Cap’n, she’s running fast.” Black spat, cleared his throat, and spat again. “Wouldn’t want to risk it in the dark myself.”

“We’ll cross it by squad, then. No more than three men visible at once. You cross with the first squad. I’ll cross with the last.”

“Four men visible, then.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. I’d never have managed that math on my own.”

Black grinned. “I live to serve, sir. And Lieutenant Geurin?”

Reiter snorted and lengthened his stride to clear a fallen sapling. “Lieutenant Geurin believes he walks on water, so put him in the middle of the river directing traffic.”

They walked in silence for a few moments.

Lieutenant Lord Geurin, Viscount Tribuline, had been a pain in Reiter’s ass from the moment he’d been assigned to this mission. He resented that Reiter, his superior officer, had been promoted out of the ranks. He expected blind obedience from men with significantly more time in, men who’d been handpicked for this assignment by General Loreau because of their skills rather than their bloodline. Reiter’d be willing to bet serious money that Geurin had been the sort of boy who’d spent his school days bullying the weaker boys and snitching on the stronger.

Dumping him in the middle of the river sounded like a great idea.

However…

“He goes across with Four Squad. I’ll have him check that the tangles crossed safely when he gets to the other side. That’ll keep him busy until I get there.”

“Tangles affected by water are they, sir?”

“Could be.” Reiter knew Black could handle the young lieutenant, but that would lead to the men taking the sergeant’s side—more than they were naturally inclined to anyway and, eventually, that would lead to trouble. Inspecting the tangles, the ancient artifacts given to them to neutralize the mages, would suit the lieutenant’s sense of self-importance.

“Figure they’ll still work? Them being so old and all.”

“They’d better. Or it’s going to complicate things.”

“Complicate.” Black punctuated the word with another mouthful of saliva. “Murphy says there’s Soothsayers behind our orders.”

“Does he?” Murphy had a habit of stating the obvious. Shields were never deployed outside the empire and seldom outside the capital unless the emperor went on progression. The regiment acted as the palace guard, they supported the city guard, and they spent one fuck of a lot of time looking martial to impress the empire’s citizenry. But every man on this insertion team had been pulled from the Shields. Some of them, like Reiter himself, had only just been rotated in. All of them had been happy for a chance to be more than ceremonial soldiers, but the point remained—Shields were never deployed outside the empire. Only Soothsayers could convince the emperor to interfere to that extent with the natural order of the Imperial army.

“I’m thinking the lieutenant knows more than he’s letting on,” Black added. “Being part of the Court and a cousin of the emperor and all.”

Distant cousin by marriage, as Reiter understood it, but the little shit did have the smug air of a kid keeping secrets. He moved a dangling caterpillar out of the way with the barrel of his musket and realized he could hear the river. They must be close. “We have our orders, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When we capture these mages and return them to the empire, we control the beastmen. We control the beastmen, we spend fewer men taking Aydori. It’s as simple as that.”

Black’s snort spoke volumes about how they’d both been in the army long enough to know it was never as simple as that. But all he said was, “If you say so, sir.”

“Is that thunder?”

Mirian closed her mouth, reply cut off by her mother’s raised hand. With her head cocked to hear beyond the evening sounds of city outside the carriage, thin face bracketed by the emerald feathers trailing from her hairpiece, Mirian thought her mother looked a bit like a startled peahen.

She caught her father’s eye, realized he was thinking the same thing, and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“Lirraka…” He leaned forward and placed a hand gently on his wife’s knee. “…the sky is clear. It’s only the wheels rumbling over the cobbles.”

“No.” A dismissive shake of her head set the feathers swaying. “I have mage-craft enough to know thunder when I hear it in the distance.”

“Ah, in the distance.”

“Yes, Kollin, in the distance.” She blinked, slowly, deliberately, drawing attention to her eyes and their few flecks of green. Given how very few they were, Mirian thought drawing attention to them wasn’t the best of ideas, but her mother clearly disagreed, having gone so far as to dust her eyelids with green powder. “But distant thunder may not remain distant. What will we do if it’s storming when we leave the opera?”

“There’s umbrellas in the door pockets, Mother, we can…”

“Oh, yes, umbrellas.” Lip curled, she made it sound as though she were expected to stand under a canopy of dirty rags. “We cannot carry umbrellas into the Opera House, Mirian, what would people think?”

“That we wanted to stay dry?”

“We would be perfectly capable of staying dry if you’d studied harder. It’s a simple, low level Air—stay dry in the rain—and yet you can’t seem to manage it.”

“I can blow out a candle from across the room.”

A disdainful sniff. “First level.”

“I can light the candle again,” Mirian pointed out, knowing she couldn’t win but was unable to stop herself.

“And again, first level.” Her mother’s thin fingers pushed a curl back over Mirian’s ear, then pulled it forward again. “You squandered your year at university. First levels in everything but Metals and no second levels at all? Honestly, Mirian, next year I expect you to pick a discipline and apply yourself. The Pack expects their mages to shine.”

This was not the time to explain why next year wouldn’t be an issue. Not in the carriage on the way to the opera. Not when her parents’ reaction would become fodder for the city’s gossips.

“Did you see how the Maylins were looking at their younger girl? I wonder what Mirian’s done to disappoint them now.”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? The university released her.”

“Poor Lirraka.”

“Poor Lirraka? Poor Kollin, he might as well close the bank.”

Definitely not the time.

“Mirian, stop slouching.”

She straightened and endured her mother twitching at her bodice—forcing the neckline lower, higher, then lower again. “The Imperial army is in Pyrahn,” she began.

“And the Pack Leader is in Bercarit,” her father pointed out. “I think we’re safe.”

“Pack Leader or not…” And honestly, it wasn’t like he could perform miracles. He was, when it came to it, flesh and blood, the same as everyone else. “…we’re only seventeen miles from the border. We should…”

“We need to use this opportunity the Lord and Lady have granted us. We have never had so many members of the Pack in Bercarit.” Her mother’s tone declared this was the final word on the matter. “Unless you know something no one else does?” The words hung between them, taking up all the extra room in the carriage, then her mother wrapped her hand around Mirian’s wrist and added, tone now speculative, “You don’t, do you? Your marrying into the Pack would be preferable, but if your father and I were able to provide them with a good Soothsayer, I’m sure they’d be grateful. In fact, as there’s no telling what member of the Pack you’d attract, that might…”

“I’m not a Soothsayer, Mother.” Her father, at least, looked relieved she didn’t face insanity. “And I’m not going to attract a member of the Pack.”

“Not with that attitude, you’re not. I’m not sure about this hairstyle on you.” She poked a finger into the mass of tousled curls. “It looks disheveled.”

“Isn’t it supposed to look disheveled?” Mirian sighed. Her mother’s maid had spent half an hour torturing her with a hot iron and pins, the chambermaid who usually assisted her having been declared too inexperienced for such an occasion.

“Artfully disheveled,” her mother sighed. “You look as though you just climbed out of bed. With Lady Hagen setting the fashion for golden hair and your hair so entirely unremarkably brown, we’ll have to use what we have. All things considered, a little suggestiveness can’t hurt. Once you’re part of the Mage-pack, you can cut it all off, and I’m sure that will make you happy.” As the carriage came to a stop, she leaned in, a fingertip on Mirian’s right cheek, pulling her eye open wider. “Still gray. Paler if anything,” she sighed. “We’ll have to hold to the knowledge that your entrance tests were strong and I’ve made sure everyone knows that. Brush against them when you get the chance,” she added as the door opened. “The Pack is very tactile.”

Even if Mirian had been able to respond, her protest would have been lost as her mother emerged from the carriage, one hand in her husband’s as he assisted her down the step and the other trailing shawl, and reticule, and attitude. As Mirian stepped out a moment later, she was surprised to see her father waiting, and put her hand on his with a smile.

“Your mother has spotted one of her particular friends,” he said, with a nod toward the wide plaza outside the Opera House and familiar green feathers bobbing above a cluster of women.

“Father, if I can’t attract…”

“You can do anything you put your mind to, Miri, and my bank can very much use the Pack’s attention. Smile, be pleasant. You may not be this season’s fashion, but you’re a pretty girl; it’ll work out.” He tucked her hand in his elbow as the carriage pulled away, its place taken immediately by another. “So, why no first in Metals?” he asked as they started up the broad steps.

“Pardon?”

“Your mother said you had a first level in everything but Metals. Why no Metals?”

“The Metals-master…” Had been scathing about her inability to stay with one craft and had refused to examine her. “…felt I wasn’t suited.”

“Well, I’m sure he knows best.” He patted her hand then released her as her mother reclaimed him.

“Stop dawdling, Kollin, I want to be seated before the Pack enters so we can see who’s attending.”

Mirian dropped back behind her parents, smiled at a truncated greeting from a friend hurrying past, and paused between the wings of the huge glass-and-wrought-iron doors. The sky over the city was clear, but, as much as she hated to admit it, her mother had been right.

She could hear the bass rumble of thunder in the distance.

The tragic love story of Onnesmina was the gem of the Bercarit Opera Company and they hauled it out for polishing every other season. Mirian had seen it half a dozen times and not even Emilohi Okafor, the visiting soprano—lauded in the program for her beauty of tone and dramatic acuity—could capture her complete attention.

Lord and Lady Hagen were in Lord Berin’s great box, across the theater and a tier lower from the much smaller box that came with her parents’ subscription. Lord and Lady Berin, who had grandsons with the Hunt Pack, were the height of Bercarit society, and Mirian’s mother had fought to get the box with the best line of sight. It looked as though the Pack Leader and his wife had been accompanied by every member of the Pack currently in Bercarit.

“If there were only a way of telling which of the men were unattached,” her mother muttered, peering at the box through her opera glasses. “Do you feel an attraction to any of them, Mirian?”

“I don’t…”

“Well, you won’t if you keep staring at the stage!”

Catching a sigh behind her teeth, Mirian directed her own glasses away from the stage to Lord Berin’s box. With the glasses, the blur her own eyes would have offered at that distance resolved itself into individual faces all staring enthralled at Okafor whose performance was definitely giving those who’d never seen Onnesmina before an amazing introduction to the opera.

“Well?”

“No, Mother.”

“Try harder.”

A second glance showed they weren’t all staring enthralled. Lord Berin appeared to be dozing and Lord Hagen seemed distracted. All things considered, Mirian found that unsettling and watched the Pack Leader with an intensity that made even her mother happy.

At the first intermission Lord Hagen was up and out of his seat almost before the curtain had closed. The male members of the Pack charged out of the box after him, leaving the women to follow more sedately.

Mirian found herself nearly lifted out of her seat and dragged onto the upper concourse, her mother’s hand like a steel band around her wrist.

“The Pack will, of course, have gone to the café in the lower lobby,” she said, moving purposefully toward the stairs.

Wishing for the courage to dig her heels in, Mirian lifted her skirt in her other hand, trying not to step on her small train and end up taking the stairs headfirst. “Your subscription doesn’t allow you into the café,” she pointed out a little breathlessly as they reached the lower level.

“We don’t need to go in. We’ll just walk by so they can get your scent.”

“Mother!” Feeling the blood rush to her face, Mirian began to wish she had taken the stairs headfirst. A fall would have been significantly less embarrassing. It didn’t help that the makeup of the crowd swirling about the wrought-iron barrier between the café and the lobby suggested the idea was not her mother’s alone.

“You mark my words, Annalyse. In your lifetime there will be a Pack member on the stage.”

Danika kept half her attention on the discussion going on across the small table between Lady Berin and her granddaughter-in-law—the Pack loved opera and many of them had amazing voices, but not even the youngest and most rebellious would do anything so vulgar as take to the stage—and half her attention on her husband standing over by the far wall. He was deep in conversation with Neils Yervick—his wife had sent her excuses and Danika had to admit she was just as glad not to have her attention split by Kirstin’s sharp tongue. While their verbal fencing often made her more boring social obligations bearable, tonight the Imperial army was at the border and Danika neither wanted nor needed the distraction.

Among the uniformed men surrounding Ryder and Neils, she could see General Narvine of the 2nd, Colonels Greer and Aryat of the 2/2 and 2/4, and a number of younger officers she didn’t recognize. To a man, their expressions whether talking or listening were so completely neutral, she shivered. She could almost hear Ryder instructing them to hide their reactions from the surrounding civilians.

Tucked behind her own mask of polite interest, she noted that while facial expressions might be under control, some Pack members were visibly agitated, shifting their weight and pulling at their clothing. Jaspyr, usually among the most levelheaded of Ryder’s cousins, worried the three pewter buttons on his jacket in and out of their holes, his fingers in constant motion. What news had they heard that…?

“Lady Hagen?”

Danika turned toward the soft touch on her arm to find Annalyse had shifted her attention from Lady Berin—now arguing the lack of vigor in recent hunts with the equally elderly Lady Evanjylan. When Annalyse inclined her head toward the front of the café, Danika followed the younger woman’s line of sight and suddenly understood Jaspyr’s problem.

The mass of people passing back and forth in the lobby outside the café was almost entirely made up of mothers and mages of a marriageable age. A quick glance around the café confirmed the unmated Pack members were most affected by the scents rising from the crowd.

A word to one of the officers of the Opera House and Danika could have the crowd dispersed, but that hardly seemed fair as she, herself, had caught Ryder’s attention as part of a similar promenade. Here and now, however, the Pack needed to remain focused on the security of Aydori. Reaching out with power, she combed through the air currents and redirected them so that they flowed from the café to the lobby.

After a moment, she glanced back at the men surrounding her husband in time to see Jaspyr move his hand away from the front of his jacket, the buttons now securely fastened. When she shifted her gaze to Ryder, he caught and held it long enough to nod his thanks before returning to his conversation with General Narvine. The general nodded in agreement when Ryder stopped speaking and, although Danika couldn’t see the general’s face, must have said something in turn as the lieutenant beside him snapped to attention, pivoted on one heel, and all but ran from the café.

That didn’t look good.

Behind her, Annalyse drew in a sharp breath, and Danika remembered the younger woman’s husband was with the Hunt Pack and the Hunt Pack had met the Imperial army some hours before.

The Pack healed so quickly they were very hard to kill. Silver poisoned them, but they’d been careful to keep that knowledge from their enemies.

Still, only three months married and hours without news…

Reassurance would be meaningless as Danika knew no more than Annalyse did, so it would have to be distraction. Tugging on the cuff of her lace mitten as she turned, she waggled the fingers of her right hand and said softly, “Forced by circumstance to a public display of mage-craft, how very vulgar.”

Annalyse’s green-flecked eyes widened, then she smiled. A polite smile, a society smile, but it lifted a little of her distress. “As the Alpha Female, Lady Hagen, you set the fashion. At least, that’s what Geoffrey told me when I joined the Pack.”

“So I cannot, therefore, be vulgar?” Danika lifted her cup and grinned over the rim. “That could come in handy.”

This smile reached Annalyse’s eyes, crinkling them at the corners. “My much more vulgar solution would have involved washing the scent from the air.”

Sixth level Water at least, Danika realized, setting her cup down, and she clearly had a more delicate touch than most Water-mages managed. “You could actually make it rain inside the building?”

“If there’s moisture enough. With so many people and the ceilings so high…” She waved off her ability to perform an impressive bit of mage-craft, her gaze sliding past Danika’s shoulder, back to the men around the Pack Leader. “Do you think something has happened? Something bad?”

“Of course something bad has happened,” Lady Berin growled. “To the Imperials. The Hunt Pack will have sent them howling home with their tails between their legs.” She reached across the table and gripped her granddaughter-in-law’s wrist, the back of her hand grown hairy with age. “Our Geoffrey will be back in no time. Isn’t that right, Lady Hagen?”

If she’d been born Pack, Danika would have bared teeth at Lady Berin’s tone even as she was aware she was demanding reassurance, not challenging. Instead, she smiled carefully and said, “The Hunt Pack is the best Aydori has to offer.”

Lady Berin nodded in satisfaction, but Danika could see that Annalyse knew her words meant nothing at all.

Mirian spotted an acquaintance from school and maneuvered her mother alongside. Given that Bertryn wouldn’t be competing for the same attention from the Pack, her mother settled in beside his mother, leaving the two of them to follow obediently behind.

“Better odds for me than you,” Bertryn murmured, as the four of them reinserted themselves into the slow moving promenade.

“True enough.” Behind the wrought-iron barrier, the café’s small, round tables were surrounded by women, born Pack and Mage-pack. The male Pack members stood together by the rear wall, talking with men in uniform. Probably officers of the 2nd. Mirian wished she could see their expressions, but distance made that impossible. Judging by their posture, they weren’t happy. And why would they be? Seventeen miles from the border…

Air currents shifted.

“Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Bertryn glanced down at her, irises dominated by rich brown flecks. He’d had five levels at the end of first year, and the Earth-master had practically refused to allow him out of her sight. Rumor had it that she’d cried when he left at the end of the session. All things considered, asking if he’d felt Air move had been a stupid question.

“Never mind.” Mirian waited until they’d turned and started back again before saying, “What are you even doing here? I thought after graduation you were going to return to the university to teach?”

He shrugged. “I’m the eldest of eight and the only one with any power; teaching won’t help situate them, but getting into the Pack will. With so many of the Pack in Bercarit, this is an opportunity. Given your…”

Mirian frowned into the pause.

“…difficulties,” he continued diplomatically, “I’m a little surprised to see you.”

“My mother wants invitations to better parties.” His brows rose at her tone, and she sighed. “Sorry. Being a part of this is just…”

“Frustrating because it’s futile?”

“Entirely.” More than he knew. The air currents now blew the mage scent away from the Pack. Glancing into the café past a couple of giggling girls who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, their eyelids stained Healer gold, Mirian found herself looking into a pair of very blue eyes. It only lasted for a moment and the movement of the promenade broke the connection before Mirian realized that the eyes were Lady Hagen’s.

Lady Hagen was said to be the most powerful Air-mage in Aydori.

If she hadn’t shifted the scent, she’d approved it being done.

Why would…?

Because she hadn’t wanted the Pack distracted.

That couldn’t be good.

“Mother.” Pulling her hand from Bertryn’s elbow, she touched her mother’s shoulder. “We should…”

The gong for the end of intermission rang out on the upper level, amplified by a low level Air-mage in the employ of the Opera House.

“We should take our seats, yes, Mirian.”

“No, Mother, Lady Hagen…”

But the rest was lost in the chaos created by just under a thousand people returning to their seats. Back in the box, Mirian tried again.

“You’re being ridiculous,” her mother hissed under the sound of the orchestra, nodding toward Lord Berin’s box. “Would Lord Hagen be at the opera if there were any danger?”

“If he didn’t want people to panic.”

“There is nothing for anyone to panic about. Now be quiet!”

Teeth clenched, Mirian watched the curtain rise for the second act and wondered if she were the only person in the Opera House putting two and two together and actually arriving at four.

When Onnesmina finally ended, with the lovers reunited and a final aria sung, Mirian found herself with her hand firmly tucked into the angle of her father’s elbow and her mother close up on her other side as they made their way down the stairs to the reception in the lower lobby. Their clear concern that she might make a run for it was almost funny, and Mirian amused herself during the descent by imagining the dash through dark streets, her hair spilling down, her satin slippers worn through, one glove lost and abandoned in the gutter. She’d reach the house, push past Barrow, who’d be so astonished to see her an emotion might spill past his perfect butler facade, then she’d lock herself in her room and…

And what?

Might as well stay here.

Her stomach growled.

At least there’d be food.

During the last act, the wrought-iron barriers that had previously separated the café from the lobby had been moved to create a corridor those not attending the reception could use to exit the building. At the entrance for the favored, an employee of the Opera House checked their invitations, then stepped back and bowed.

Mirian thought her mother might have enjoyed the bow just a little too much.

In a room filled to capacity, with everyone wearing the same loose, easy to remove clothing dictated by Pack fashion, it still wasn’t hard to identify the visiting members of the Pack. Like those of the Pack who lived in Bercarit, the visitors were so much more present. Those not in the Pack outnumbered the Pack about ten to one, but the latter dominated the room with a vitality and an assurance no one else could match.

Although the four women and three men who were Mage-pack came close. Mirian suspected she could actually see the power surrounding them if she squinted a little.

They had the power—mage and otherwise—to actually accomplish things, to not waste their lives on clothes and card parties and social positioning. She objected to the way her parents felt they could use her to solve all their problems and she objected to time wasted on futility—as she was clearly not suitable—but she had no actual objection to being a part of the Mage-pack. Who would?

“Miri. Stop squinting!” The accompanying pinch was more to ensure her attention than to cause pain, but it hurt nevertheless. “And keep your head down, so they can’t see the lack of color in your eyes. Kollin, isn’t that Regin Fortryn, from the Council? He knows Lord Berin, and he’s certainly borrowed money enough from the bank. We shall have him introduce us.”

Fortryn seemed pleased to see her father—not always a given when someone had “certainly borrowed enough from the bank”—and the two were soon happily deconstructing the city’s finances.

Her mother waited, more or less patiently, until it became obvious no introduction to the Pack would be immediately forthcoming, then she tugged Mirian aside and murmured, “You must be hungry.”

Most of both Pack and Mage-pack had gathered around Emilohi Okafor—as beautiful and charismatic offstage as on—but there were four young men—three members of the Pack and a lieutenant from the 2nd—standing at one end of the buffet table. As it was nearly midnight and she was hungry, Mirian didn’t bother pointing out that, given how close they were standing to each other, it was unlikely two of the young men would be interested in her.

And besides, there was always the chance she’d meet the lieutenant’s gaze and they’d fall desperately in love. The thought of her mother’s reaction to a match with a junior officer who was neither Pack nor mage kept her amused all the way across the room and she was still smiling when she accepted a white china plate and a linen napkin from the server stationed at one end of the tables.

Given the number of Pack at the reception, the dishes were heavily skewed toward small pieces of meat on sticks, nearly all of it cooked. There were also tiny meat pies, a plate of cold tongue, several varieties of cracker, and three platters of tiny cakes made to look like sleeping lambs, chicks, and piglets. Mirian picked up three sticks of chicken and two of beef, added a puddle of sauce to dip them in and moved out of the way, her back against one of the lobby’s marble pillars.

Ignoring the young men her mother had sent her to attract as well the trio of giggling girls suddenly surrounding them, Mirian searched the crowd for Lord Hagen. He couldn’t have gone to the border; there were still far too many officers of the 2nd around, but where…?

“Lord Hagen, is it true? Is it true that the Imperials are at the border?”

Mirian stiffened. The young woman’s worried voice came from the other side of the pillar. She swallowed a mouthful of chicken and began to inch sideways.

“I think that’s a given.” Lord Hagen’s reply lifted the hair on the back of Mirian’s neck. “Or we wouldn’t have been able to hear their artillery.”

Not thunder, then, as they’d arrived at the opera. Cannon.

“But that,” the Pack leader continued firmly, “is all we know.”

Another step brought her far enough around the pillar to see Lady Hagen link arms with a mage no older than Mirian and draw her away, speaking quietly. She thought it might be the youngest Lord Berin’s new wife, but as she’d only ever seen her pass in a moving carriage, she couldn’t tell for certain. Lord Hagen watched them go, eyes locked on his wife as though he were memorizing her in this place and time.

Dark eyes under a mass of thick, dark hair—in spite of the scar that twisted the corner of his mouth, he was handsome enough, Mirian allowed, but it was the sense of barely contained energy that drew her attention. He was like a thunderstorm just before it broke, the potential for danger barely harnessed.

“And who do we have here?”

Mirian spun on one heel and looked up. Pack member, definitely. Amused, fortunately. The same dark eyes as Lord Hagen, his hair the pale gray his fur would be and short enough the points of both ears rose through it.

One pale gray brow rose. “Your eyes have no color, but your scent…” He leaned toward her, nostrils flared. “What makes you smell so good?”

His proximity made her cheeks flush and her heart beat faster. He was close enough she could see the puckered edges of the scar that ran down his cheek over his jaw to disappear under his collar, and he wasn’t young, thirty at least, with a fan of lines bracketing his eyes.

When it appeared he wanted an answer, she managed a shrug and lifted her plate up into his line of sight. “I have no idea, my lord. Perhaps it’s the beef.”

He blinked, looked down at the food, then laughed and straightened, putting a little more distance between them. “Perhaps it is. I am Jaspyr Hagen.”

The Pack Leader’s bloodline. Her mother would be thrilled. And insufferable. Mirian sent up a quick prayer to the Lord and Lady that her mother wasn’t watching.

“And you are?”

“Mirian Maylin, my lord.”

His nostrils flared again. “Would you share your food with me, Mirian Maylin?”

There were undertones to that question that raised goose bumps on Mirian’s arms and a look in his dark eyes that made it hard to breathe. Mouth suddenly dry, she wet her lips, realized he was watching the movement of her tongue, and thrust the plate toward him. “I would be honored to share my food, Lord Hagen.”

“Jaspyr.” He picked up one of the beef sticks. “Or people will think you’re talking to my cousin.”

His teeth were very white.

Well, of course they were.

“Jaspyr, what are…? Hello!” One of the young men who’d been at the end of the buffet charged around the pillar, and only Pack reflexes kept him from knocking her over. His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. “Wow, you smell amazing.”

“It’s the beef,” Mirian sighed.

Jaspyr laughed again and Mirian felt her mouth twitching in response. When the younger man leaned closer, Jaspyr grabbed his shoulder, turned him away from the pillar, and gave him a little shove. “Go away, Bayor.”

Bayor kept turning until he faced them again, looking startled. “It’s like that?”

“It could be.”

“She has no mage marks.”

“She’s standing right here,” Mirian snapped.

Both men turned to look at her, Jaspyr smiling, Bayor frowning slightly.

“Jaspyr, Ryder wants you to…” The young man racing around the pillar slid to a stop, one hand clutching Bayor’s jacket for balance. His eyes widened and his nose twitched. “Is that her scent?”

Mirian rolled her eyes. This was getting ridiculous.

“Yes,” Jaspyr told him. “It’s her. Now take Bayor and go.”

At first Mirian thought it was Bayor growling, and then she realized the sound came from the far side of the lobby, by the doors.

A woman screamed.

The crowds parted, and a black wolf raced through Bercarit’s finest, straight for Lord Hagen. Claws skittering on the marble, he managed to stop at the last moment and become a young man, covered in mud and bruises, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath.

“Tomas!” Lord Hagen closed the distance between them, gripping the young man’s shoulders.

“The Imperials, they’re across the border.” Voice rough, Tomas sounded on the edge of tears. “Everyone is dead. The 1st, the Hunt Pack. Ryder, they’re using silver!”