The Silvered

Chapter Four

MIRIAN WOKE A SECOND TIME with the younger Lord Hagen’s face so close her eyes nearly crossed trying to focus on him. He had one enormous paw still pressed against her shoulder, so she assumed he’d woken her. Looking past him, she could see Armin sitting by the dying fire, his musket on the ground beside him, and his head down on his crossed arms. She couldn’t tell for certain if his eyes were open or closed, but had to trust that the younger Lord Hagen wouldn’t have risked waking her if it wasn’t safe.

“What?” she whispered when he leaned closer still, a silken ear brushing her cheek. He leaned back with a whuff of warm breath and jerked his head toward the leather thongs tying her hands around the tree. A little surprised he hadn’t already gnawed through the bindings, she frowned and realized that, while the leather itself would cause him no problem, Armin had tied her in such a way that there wasn’t room for the younger Lord Hagen to gain purchase with his teeth.

When he saw he had her attention, he crept silently around until his shoulder brushed up against her fingertips.

He had an itch?

She wiggled her fingers against his fur. He pushed back against her touch. When she pressed against a spot both sticky and damp and he flinched, she remembered Chard telling the captain that the dog had been injured and he could feel something still in the wound. She couldn’t, but with her movement so restricted that wasn’t surprising.

“They’re using silver!” That was the news the younger Lord Hagen had brought his brother at the opera. With a bit of silver shot still in the wound, the younger Lord Hagen wouldn’t be able to change and he needed hands to get her free.

Bracing her bindings against the tree, Mirian pulled herself as quietly as possible up into a sitting position. Well, half sitting, half leaning against the slender trunk. The bark was smooth and cool against her cheek as she rested and wondered how she was to get silver out of a wound in the middle of the night while tied and guarded, however laxly, by enemy soldiers? She didn’t have the mobility to use a knife even if she’d had one, which she didn’t, and besides, Captain Reiter’s observation about using a knife around dark fur on a dark night was a valid one—however little she wanted to grant him the acknowledgment.

Had she been able to reach her fingers down far enough, she might have been able to work the shot out of the wound like a splinter. Poking the younger Lord Hagen to get his attention brought his head around and he frowned, his expression so clearly saying get on with it that he might as well have spoken aloud.

Fine. Get on with it how?

Lower lip between her teeth, Mirian worried out an answer. Jaspyr Hagen had said she smelled amazing, reacting to her in the way Pack reacted to Mage-pack. If Tomas Hagen also thought she smelled amazing—and the odds were high he did as the two younger Pack at the opera had—then he had to think she was more powerful than she was. He therefore expected her to be able to use mage-craft to get the silver out. Fortunately for him, it would take nothing more than first and second level metals. Unfortunately, she had no idea if she had even first level metal-craft and, given that the Metals-master had refused to test her, the odds were very high she didn’t.

But unless she wanted to remain a captive of the empire, she had to try.

Bracing her fingers around the wound, she took a deep breath, tried to remember the one hundred and one ridiculous ways to center herself in her power—ridiculous because they were all essentially the same way—and froze.

The net!

The golden net had prevented the Lady Hagen and the others in the Mage-pack from using their abilities. It had also caused them pain it hadn’t caused her, but perhaps the amount of pain was related to the amount of mage-craft being blocked. Hardly surprising then that she didn’t feel it at all.

She gave the younger Lord Hagen an emphatic poke and when he turned to look at her, lips off his teeth, she dipped her head and whispered, “You have to take the net off me first.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Off my head.”

When he paced away, she thought he still didn’t understand, but he circled the tree and she felt warm breath on the back of her neck. Then a tug at her hair. The tugging grew stronger, moved from tugging to pulling, pulling to yanking, and she clenched her teeth to hold back a yell as what felt like a handful of hair ripped free. Blinking back tears, she nearly dislocated a shoulder twisting around in time to see him shake what looked like gold spiderwebbing from his mouth. Even in limited starlight, it gleamed. It would have been beautiful, but stuck to it was more hair than Mirian was comfortable losing and what looked like a small bird’s nest made up of evergreen needles and gobs of solidified sap.

She’d forgotten about her response to Lady Hagen’s warning. With the mess of her hair keeping the net from contact with her head, she might have been able to use her mage-craft the whole time. It wasn’t until the younger Lord Hagen pushed at her impatiently with a paw that she realized she was shaking with barely suppressed hysterical giggles at the thought of facing down four Imperial soldiers by lighting a candle and then blowing it out again.

Awareness of the incipient hysteria only made it harder to control. In a moment she wouldn’t be able to control it at all and the noise would wake Armin. Awareness of that didn’t seem to help and the small, rational bit of her that remained could only watch ineffectually as their chance to escape seemed lost.

Then the younger Lord Hagen bared his teeth and growled low in his throat. Mirian didn’t so much hear the growl as feel it reverberate through her body at every point they touched and her reaction was so primal it overwhelmed everything else. She froze again, barely breathing, unable to look away from the teeth inches from her face. The terror was instinctive…

And then she remembered.

The people of Aydori are part of the Pack’s protectorate. If they appear to threaten, they do it only to make a point.

The Pack and You had been a popular pamphlet at the university. Late night conversations about actual interaction more popular still.

If Mirian allowed the younger Lord Hagen’s point to stand, allowed him to believe she needed his protection like some kind of wilting heroine in a bad romance novel, it would define their relationship from this moment on. She needed his help, yes, but with that silver in his shoulder, he needed hers in return. Heart pounding, she swallowed, narrowed her eyes, and growled back at him.

He closed his mouth and leaned back to get a better look at her face. Given how little definition black fur and a dark night allowed, he was surprisingly good at looking annoyed; it was all in the line of his tail and the angle of his ears. She took a deep breath and refused to allow the hysteria to rise again. If she wasn’t fine, and she suspected she really wasn’t, she, at least, had herself under control.

After a moment, he moved and pointedly settled his shoulder back under her fingertips. Staring at his silhouette against the dim glow of the fire, Mirian took a deep breath and readied herself.

If he was to free her, the younger Lord Hagen had to change. In order to change, the silver had to come out. He couldn’t get it out himself, so she had to remove the silver.

It was really just as simple as that.

Pressing the first two fingertips of her right hand against the wound, Mirian closed her eyes. She didn’t need to identify this metal. She knew what it was; it was silver. Given its effect on the Pack, silver was, if not forbidden, a seldom used metal in Aydori. But, given its effect on the Pack, the university made very sure its students could recognize it—from raw ore to polished metal—in order to help protect those who protected them. As silver was expensive and since small amounts did damage disproportionate to size, the shot would most likely be the size of the birdshot her brother-in-law used to hunt partridge and quail.

This silver piece would therefore be tiny, round, but not necessarily perfectly smooth. It would be a soft gray with slivers of shine where friction had burnished it. It would be warm, trapped within the younger Lord Hagen’s body. Poison, but only because of where it was, not intrinsically of itself.

Another deep breath and Mirian suddenly realized the difference between knowing there was a piece of silver in the wound and being aware of the silver in the wound. She felt as though she could reach out and touch it. Hold it. As she could neither touch nor hold it where it was, it would have to come to her.

It seemed logical to Mirian that identifying a metal could only be the first step. Knowing there was metal in the earth—or a shoulder—was pointless if that metal remained in the earth—or a shoulder. High-level metal-craft could bend and twist and refine raw ore to a thing of use or beauty or the incredible tackiness of the iron dryad firescreen in her parents’ bedroom, but first it had to be in hand.

A trickle of heat in her fingertips and she opened her eyes in time to see a glistening silver stream roll over the younger Lord Hagen’s fur like liquid moonlight. When it hit the ground, it solidified again to become nothing more than a tiny dark shadow on the earth.

Tomas Hagen changed to skin crouched on the other side of the tree Chard had tied her to, the damp skin of his shoulder pressed up against her fingertips. Mirian found herself unable to stop staring at the gleaming curve of his buttocks.

Sooner or later every child in Aydori, Pack or otherwise, asked where the tails went. While she’d never been entirely happy with the answer—apparently, they just went—Mirian hadn’t thought about the question in years. Here and now, she couldn’t get it out of her head.

Although in my own defense, I’ve had a tiring day.

The memory of her mother declaring that exhaustion was no excuse for bad manners hit strongly enough that she snapped her gaze up and focused on the triangle of black fur that grew past the bottom of Tomas Hagen’s neck as far as his first vertebrae. She hadn’t seen the back of Jaspyr’s neck, not on two legs anyway, not without a high-standing jacket collar over the area in question, so she had no idea if this was standard among the Pack or if it was unique to the younger Lord Hagen. Did it feel the same, she wondered, as the fur he wore on four legs?

He was just over a year younger than she was. She’d sat through her mother’s list of the unmarried Pack so many times she should be able to recite his entire history, but that was all she could remember.

The knots securing her had clearly been tied so that they’d released easily under the correct pressure. The younger Lord Hagen just as clearly knew the correct pressure.

Free of the bindings, her hands dropped to the ground. Mirian sucked a breath in through her teeth. Her wrists burned as blood rushed back into the deep creases pressed into her skin. Moving slowly and carefully, trying not to cry, she folded her arms close against her body, hands curled against her chest as she worked mobility into her fingers.

Up close, the girl’s scent was nearly overpowering. She was dirty and her hair was weird and her gray eyes had no mage marks in them at all, but she smelled like home and like safety and a little like Danika. He needed to tell Danika what had happened to Ryder! She had to hear it from him. They had to get moving.

Grabbing both the girl’s arms above the elbow, Tomas hauled her to her feet. Although her clothes were damp, her skin was warm where he buried his face against her neck. When he realized what he’d done, he jerked back, face burning.

She wasn’t even looking at him.

She was looking past him at…

“Where’d you come from, kid?”

Tomas spun around to see the Imperial who’d been asleep by the fire standing only a few feet away. He’d been so caught by the girl’s scent he hadn’t realized the man was awake and moving. He was Hunt Pack! Forgetting to keep part of his attention on the sentry was a stupid cub mistake.

“I don’t want to hurt you, kid, so just stay calm.” The Imperial raised his left hand, palm out, musket loose in his right. How did the empire keep winning with idiots like this in the ranks? Had he forgotten he was at war? Who he was at war with?

Wool scratched against his side as the girl lunged past him to touch the Imperial’s forehead with two fingers.

“Sleep.” Her low voice had rough edges. She sounded like she’d been chewing twigs.

The Imperial blinked twice, opened his mouth, then slowly collapsed to the ground. He rolled up against Tomas’ legs, eyes closed, mouth open, chest rising and falling.

Before he could change to rip out the man’s throat, warm fingers wrapped around Tomas’ wrist and held on. Her breath hot against his ear, the girl whispered, “Change. I’ll hold your tail and follow you through the woods!”

“Wha…?” When he turned to face her, there were still no mage marks in her eyes.

“You can see in the dark. In fur.” She jerked her head toward the fire and the other three soldiers. Still asleep, Tomas noted, but that was luck alone. “I can’t.”

When she released him and spread her hands, her gesture said get on with it as clearly as if she’d spoken out loud.

She smelled amazing. But she was bossier than Danika, and his brother’s wife was Alpha.

His brother’s wife was a widow.

He changed and lunged for the throat of the mage-slept Imperial.

Only to come up short as two hands grabbed the scruff of his neck and yanked back. She’d taken him by surprise, or she wouldn’t have been able to stop him. That, and her fingers were dug in by the healing wound in his shoulder and were hurting him! He twisted free and turned to snap at her, catching the edge of her jacket in his teeth, tearing it free.

She stumbled back, arms flailing. When she’d regained her balance, she gave him a look he almost physically felt, turned on her heel, and ran for the woods.

“Armin?”

The captain was awake!

Fine. Not a problem. First, he’d kill the man at his feet and then…

The shot hit the ground by the Imperial’s head, spraying dirt over his face. Tomas could smell the heated silver pellets.

He turned and ran, his nose leading him along the path of the girl’s footsteps. Quickly catching up, he pushed past her, changed, and grabbed her arms to keep her from slamming into him.

“Fine! Hold my tail.” He tightened his grip. “But don’t pull it!”

“You’re hurting me!”

“I am not…Ow! You kicked me!”

“And I’ll kick you again if you don’t let me go.”

Tomas resisted the urge to shove her away as he released her, but only just. He opened his mouth to remind her that, if not for him, she’d still be tied to that tree at the mercy of the enemies of Aydori when he noticed her rub her arms, right where he’d been holding her.

He was Pack. Pack protected. He was more than Pack. Ryder was dead. He wasn’t the younger Lord Hagen any longer. He was Lord Hagen because Ryder was dead and Ryder’s son, if it was a son, hadn’t yet been born.

Lord Hagen would never hurt a girl he was trying to save.

He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but he couldn’t force the words out past the grief.

When she touched his chest, he started, unaware she’d moved.

“I won’t pull your tail. I promise. But we have to go now, Lor…”

He flinched.

“…Tomas. I can hear them shouting in the clearing.”

So could he. Better than she could, that was for sure. They were trying to wake the soldier she’d slept. They were distracted. Easy prey. Easy to kill. He needed to go back and kill them. Kill them all!

“Tomas! Tomas, listen to me, we have to run! They’re using silver! If you go back to kill them, they could kill you!” Her palm pressed warm against his chest. “Tomas! I can’t see in the dark. I can’t get to safety without you!”

The breeze shifted, blowing her scent into his face. He took a deep breath and felt the edges that had been pulling apart move back into place. When he met her eyes, she looked worried and frightened and confused, but she held his gaze until he nodded and looked away.

He changed. When he felt her hand close around his tail, he moved as quickly as he could away from the Imperials. He used to lead his cousins in the Mage-pack like this. He moved more quickly as she grew confident in him. Then they were running.

“Armin! Come on…” Reiter slapped the sleeping soldier lightly on both cheeks. “…wake up!”

“Sir.” Best’s hand, holding a canteen of water, appeared in his peripheral vision.

After a moment’s hesitation, Reiter took it and dumped it over Armin’s face. Armin sputtered, sneezed, and slept on. In the spill of light from a hastily lit lantern, he looked peaceful. Wet, but peaceful.

“Has he been mage hit, Cap? Did the girl do it?”

Turning to answer Chard, Reiter saw a glint of gold and, using the mouth of the canteen, scooped the tangle out of the dirt. There were two sizable hanks of hair attached to it, sticky with evergreen sap and needles. It hadn’t come off easily, but it had come off. So much for Geurin’s belief that the mages would be unable to remove the tangle without another artifact.

He frowned as two sections of fine chain swung free of the pattern. The ends of both pieces were blackened, the gold links of the broken segments misshapen. Not melted though, so it hadn’t been heat…

“Wait! Where’s the dog?” Chard’s question snapped Reiter’s attention off the net. “She better not have hurt the dog!” Chard pursed his lips to whistle but before he could make a sound, Best punched him in the arm.

“It wasn’t a dog, you ass. It was one of the beastmen, and it freed her!”

Squint narrowing, Chard glowered at the older man. “Yeah, right. A beastman who let me scratch its belly.”

“So you’d believe it was a dog.”

“Because it was a dog!” Stepping closer to the tree where the girl had been tied, Chard scooped the leather straps up off the ground. “See these, not chewed. Untied!”

“You saw the women!” The dim light couldn’t hide Best’s incredulous expression.

The beast had gold hoops in its ears. Her ears.

“What women?” Chard demanded waving the ties. “There was one woman!”

“This one’s had pups.”

“Not here, idiot! On the road! The women looked like people before they became beasts!”

“That dog didn’t look a person.”

“You are too stupid to live.”

“Enough!” Reiter rocked back onto his heels and stood, leaving the lantern on the ground and Armin lying beside it. Mage hit yes, but only asleep. Given what the girl had been through, she’d shown considerable mercy. Of course, there was no proof Armin would ever wake. “Dog or beastman, the animal is not our concern. The girl is. Chard, watch Armin. Best, you’re with me.” Best wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a big black dog.

“A beastman would’ve killed us,” Chard muttered under his breath.

He’d spoken quietly enough the others could ignore him and let the argument die. Besides, Reiter acknowledged silently, he had a point. They’d all heard the stories of attacks in the night. Of sentries who’d found everyone in camp dead, throats ripped out so silently they hadn’t heard a thing. Of farmsteads emptied of people and livestock both. Of travelers who disappeared, their torn and bloody clothing found strewn over the road.

They’d all heard the stories, but Reiter couldn’t think of anyone who’d actually witnessed such a thing.

Some of the cloud cover had cleared, exposing brilliant swaths of stars and a crescent moon that shed light disproportionate to its size. Scientists at the observatory outside Karis had declared that the moon had no light of its own, that it was no more than a large orbital body—which Reiter had translated as “rock”—reflecting the light of the sun. The recently appointed Prelate had been quick to deny the teachings of the Sun-as-metaphor and claim the science as proof of His mercy, throwing light into the dark. Reiter was not a religious man, but right now he’d take what help he could get. That said, they were lucky the girl hadn’t tried to cover her tracks. If she’d had time to be more careful, they’d never be able to find her.

“Captain, what if she’s leading us into an ambush?” Best was close behind his left shoulder, speaking so quietly Reiter barely heard him. “It’s said the beastmen run in packs.”

He also had a point. But if Chard’s dog was one of the beastmen, Reiter’d bet his life the…the creature was as lost as it had pretended to be. Soldiers’ pets roaming the battlefield after their master’s death quivered with the same barely contained sense of panic. Of not knowing where they belonged. If it wasn’t one of the beastmen, it might have gone with the girl because she was up and moving.

“If there’s a pack,” he told Best, “we’ll deal with it.”

“But, Captain…”

“I said we’ll deal with it. Our orders are to return with six mages. No one’s going to be happy to hear we had one in the tangle and she got away.” One in six or six in one. The Soothsayer’s prophecy brought to mind, Reiter suddenly realized the girl they hunted had to be pregnant. Empires rise or empires fall; the unborn child begins it all. Realized all the women under the tangles had to be pregnant. When wild and mage together come. They’d lain with beasts, but…

Was Chard’s creature the father? He was young, yes, but old enough for that. Remembering the girl’s reaction, Reiter would’ve sworn she’d never seen the beast before. Had she played them? He could have admired that had she not put his balls in the fire by escaping.

A surprisingly large part of him wanted to let her go. Bad enough to make civilians a part of a war, making war against the unborn was…

Empires rise or empires fall.

He was a soldier sworn to the protection of the empire. He was an officer sworn to the protection of the empire. He had his orders.

“Captain?”

“I hear it.”

She was moving faster than expected—although he should have expected it. With the tangle off, she had full access to her mage-craft again. And, she was determined. So far today, she’d survived an ambush planned by Imperial Soothsayers, a run to Bercarit, a river still dangerously swollen with spring runoff, and an ancient artifact specifically designed to stop her. Reiter remembered how annoyed she’d looked when she’d first been taken and couldn’t prevent a smile. She’d studied him, much as he’d studied her, her pale eyes narrowed with disapproval as though four Imperial soldiers rated no higher than the wrong-colored gloves. The smile disappeared as he frowned. He admired her no more than any other competent enemy.

She wasn’t moving quietly. With no breeze stirring the leaves or rubbing branches together, she was making the only noise in the wood.

Because Mirian had promised not to pull, when she needed Tomas’ attention, she released her grip on his tail and waited for him to notice. Three steps and he turned.

“I can’t keep going.” Her grip on a branch was all that kept her upright. Her thighs trembled, her knees threatened to buckle, and the pain in her side felt as though someone had stuffed hot coals under her ribs. “You have to find us a place to hide.” She paused just long enough to check that the sounds of pursuit hadn’t stopped. If they’d already given up…

They hadn’t.

“It’s dark,” she added, “once we’re not moving, they won’t be able to find us.

It was too dark to read Tomas’ expression, but his body language as he stared past her was clear.

“I know you could kill them now they’ve separated. But they’re still using silver, and I still can’t get away without you.” And there’d been enough killing today. The younger Lord Hagen was Hunt Pack; he wouldn’t understand why she wanted four of the enemy to live. Mirian wasn’t sure she understood it herself, only that four more bodies sprawled limp and bleeding wouldn’t bring Lady Berin and the others back. “Please, just find us a place to hide.”

He shot her a look it was too dark to decipher—the shifting silhouettes of his ears the only indication he’d turned—then he snorted and disappeared into the underbrush.

Mirian flattened the black ruffle along the lapels of her jacket and pulled the edges together over the white vee of her shirtwaist. Shaking her hair down over the pale oval of her face, she leaned back against the tree and tried to become one with the night. It was a phrase from the last novel she’d brought home from the bookshop on Upper Cryss Road. The hero became one with the night when he hunted. Of course, in the novel, the hero hadn’t had to deal with a swarm of insects that tried to make a meal off any bit of exposed skin. Novels, she noted, wondering how much noise she’d make if she slapped at the back of her neck, were nothing much like real life.

Over the high-pitched whine of the insects, it sounded as though pursuit had slowed.

Give up. Give up. Give up. It was a sort of a prayer, although Mirian had neither faith nor expectation that either the Lord or Lady were listening.

Her head fell forward. She jerked it upright and bit back a cry as something large brushed past her legs. And again! Tomas was Pack! He was supposed to be protecting her! Where…

Oh.

Teeth in her skirt, Tomas jerked her away from the tree. Mirian stumbled and nearly fell, but managed to stay on her feet by clutching at a handful of fur. They danced like that for a moment, shuffling about together in a half circle before she found her footing and was able to let go, murmuring an apology as she slid her hand along Tomas’ spine until she could close it around his tail.

He led her on what seemed to be a stupidly long, looping path; through a clearing, around to the left, over two fallen trees…

Was he lost?

….to a low rock face, a sudden splash of pale gray rising knee-high out of the darkness. Tugging his tail free, he dropped to his belly, changed, and crept out of sight. Mirian had to move right up to the rock and collapse to her knees before she could find the narrow opening and then flip onto her side to inch her way in, arms over her head, fingers scratching for purchase. Even in her exhausted state, Mirian realized the rock extended both vertically and horizontally far beyond what was visible.

When her right hand finally flailed about in the open, callused fingers closed around her wrist and yanked, nearly dislocating her arm. A second yank with the same result. Tomas’ help wasn’t moving her any faster than she could manage on her own.

The moment her left hand came free, she slapped at bare skin until he released her, muttering something rude under his breath. Mirian ignored him and concentrated on freeing her head. Skulls didn’t compact and it felt like she’d lost more hair and scraped a line of skin off her forehead shoving past the last bit of rock. Once her shoulders were in the cave, she exhaled, dug in the toes of her boots, braced her hands, and shoved.

Her mother had always wished she’d been more buxom, like her sister. Mirian had never been more thankful her mother’s wishes could not come true. There was a limit to how far even squishable body parts could be squashed and more buxom would have jammed her in the crack like a cork in a wine bottle.

To be fair, her mother couldn’t have envisioned this situation.

When her hips came free, Tomas grabbed her under both arms and, this time, Mirian let him pull.

“Stay here!” he growled when she lay panting, half propped against a curved rock wall trying to decide if it was worth trying to count her new bruises.

And then she was alone. In the dark. A musty smelling dark—animal musty, not closed-up rooms under dust covers musty. Drawing in her skirt, she cautiously patted the floor around her and felt twigs. Very dry twigs. With no bark. Maybe bones?

Did they have bears in Pyrahn?

There wasn’t a bear here now. Tomas would have seen to that, but that didn’t mean a bear wouldn’t come back when Tomas was somewhere else.

Somewhere else killing Imperial soldiers?

“I was covering our tracks.”

Her thoughts had been so loud she hadn’t heard him return.

Tomas frowned. He could smell blood. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t…” A rustle of cloth. She was probably raising her arm. It was so dark in the old den, he couldn’t even see gradations of black. “It’s a scrape. From the rock. It’s nothing.”

He knew the Imperials hadn’t hurt her. Not the way soldiers took what they wanted from the conquered. Not even Best, who’d clearly despised her. He’d have been able to smell the evidence if they’d forced her and then he’d have killed them. She wouldn’t have been able to stop him no matter how much sense it made not to risk four-to-one odds and silver shot.

His shoulder ached, but the itching told him he’d healed.

“You shouldn’t scratch at it.”

Fingers flexed over the scar, he froze. “What?”

“I can hear you scratching at it. It’ll scar.”

“It’s already scarred. And it’s not my first.”

She sighed, the gust of breath warm against his chest. This close, this enclosed, her scent was intoxicating, and he felt himself begin to respond physically. By the time he realized he was leaning forward, his face was almost tucked in the curve between her shoulder and neck.

“I don’t think you should…”

He snapped upright, his fingers pressed against her mouth. When her teeth touched his skin, he leaned back in, mouth against the curve of her ear, not even wondering how he could find the curve of her ear so effortlessly in the dark, and said, “They’re close.”

“Anything?”

“No, sir. I’ve lost them.”

Lost her, Reiter corrected silently. They still had no proof Chard’s creature was with her. They could barely see broken branches and crushed greenery; it was far too dark to see actual tracks and the tangle hanging off his finger gave no indication she was near. “She’s probably heading back to the border.”

“The beast could be leading her,” Best acknowledged thoughtfully.

“She’s a mage.”

“Yes, sir.” Clearly, in Best’s mind, a potential beast outweighed an actual mage.

“Let’s head back. We’ll try again at first light. She’s exhausted, she can’t have gone far.” If she’d collapsed under a bush, or in a hollow behind a fallen branch, they’d never find her in the dark. Once she’d stopped moving, they’d had very little chance. Even given the small amount of time he’d spent with her, he should have known she’d keep her head and not flail about in panic, allowing herself to be recaptured.

He checked his compass bearing—the dot of luminescence on the magnetic needle proof Imperial army scientists weren’t completely useless—and led the way back to the camp. As he slipped the compass into his tunic pocket, his fingers touched the strand of hair he’d pulled from the tangle.

“They’re gone.” Tomas kept his fingers pressed against her mouth for a moment longer, withdrew them hurriedly when her lips began to draw back. She wasn’t Pack, but that was a Pack reaction and even blunted teeth hurt. Given her previous reactions, he had no doubt she’d bite if he pushed. He guessed he liked that about her although she’d be easier to rescue were she more compliant. “We’ll rest here until dawn. Even if they keep hunting, they’ll never find us. Not in the dark and probably not in the light.” The lingering scent of its previous occupant had led him to the cave; no one in the Imperial army had any kind of a nose.

He could hear her breathing. She didn’t sound panicked, or shocky. She sounded tired.

“I’ll escort you back to Aydori in the morning,” he continued when it became clear she wasn’t going to speak. As soon as she was safe, he’d pick up the trail of the four Imperials and hunt them in turn. They were the enemy. They were part of the army who’d destroyed the Hunt Pack, killed his brother, and forced their way over the border into Aydori. They were only alive now because the girl needed him.

The girl who smelled so, so good.

He inhaled the scent along the soft curve of her neck, nuzzled into the hollow of her jaw, rutted once against her leg, unable to stop himself and…

…and…

“I’m moving outside air in through the bottom part of the entrance and pushing inside air out the top. Better?”

It hadn’t been bad. His skin so hot he knew he had to be flushing a deep red, Tomas shuffled back until they were as far apart as the small cave allowed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t far. If she hadn’t been able to disperse the scent, he was horribly afraid he wouldn’t have been able to control himself. “My apologies. I’ll…It might be better if I…” He changed and curled up into a miserable ball, trying not to think about Ryder’s opinion of such an appalling lapse into instinct. Willing to take the cuff he deserved if only to be able to hear Ryder call him an unthinking cub one more time.

Mirian eased herself down onto the floor of the cave until she lay curved around Tomas, her head on her folded arm, her other hand resting on thick fur near where she’d removed the piece of silver. Stretching out her thumb, she could feel the scar. The Pack healed quickly.

He wasn’t asleep.

If she had to guess, given how rigidly he held himself, she’d say he was too embarrassed to sleep. She supposed she should be embarrassed as well, after all, a young man she’d never been formally introduced to had just gotten intimate with her thigh, but after a moment’s consideration, she realized she didn’t feel embarrassed. Exhausted, in varying amounts of pain, emotionally stretched to the point where kindness would bring involuntary tears, but not embarrassed. After the day she’d had, she was almost grateful to have a problem so easy to deal with. Lady Hagen had adjusted the airflow to ease the Pack response to the promenade at the opera, so Mirian had done the same. She may have been stuck at first level, but air moved when she used mage-craft to blow out a candle, so, logically, she knew how to move air. In order for Tomas to regain reason and stop thinking with his nose, she did nothing more than move a little more air than usual. And if she had to visualize a candle to do it, no one needed to know.

Mirian flushed, becoming aware she’d been stroking the soft fur on Tomas’ shoulder in time with the rhythm of her thoughts. Although she stopped the motion—she didn’t have the excuse of instinct for her lack of manners—she left her hand where it was, needing the contact. Society could just cope.

Tomas continued to hold himself stiffly, painfully stiffly if she had to hazard a guess. Almost as though he were afraid to relax. Afraid of what might happen if he let go. Mirian knew that feeling.

And, maybe, his emotional state had nothing to do with her at all. Tomas Hagen had been in the battle that had destroyed the rest of the Hunt Pack, had run from the border to report to the Pack Leader, and then had run back to fight in another battle today.

Today.

Just this morning, she’d listened to the 2nd Aydori Volunteers sing as they marched toward the border. It seemed like a lifetime ago. There’d been a battle fought today and Tomas had been in it. She had no idea of what he’d seen. No idea of what kind of day he’d had before he’d appeared by the soldiers’ fire. Given the silver she’d pulled from his flesh, only an idiot would think he’d had a good day.

But she had no idea of how to ask him what had happened, or even if she should.

“I was looking for your brother.” Her jaw hurt so she spoke softly, her lips barely parted. He hadn’t asked either, but Tomas had to have wondered why she’d been taken by the soldiers.

Taken might not have been the best word, Mirian realized, her mouth gone dry and a sudden sweat beading out all over her body. She wasn’t a child. She knew how some men chose to prove they held power.

How long before Chard’s harmless interest became something darker? Or Best’s disdain found a physical outlet? Armin might do as the others did or he might turn his back, but he wouldn’t choose her over men he fought beside. Would Captain Reiter have allowed it? He seemed to be an honorable man, but all she knew of men were bankers and boys.

A quiet growl and she opened her fingers, releasing a tufted handful of Tomas’ fur.

“Sorry.” Forcing herself to stop panting, Mirian drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Things were bad enough; why borrow from the list of things that hadn’t happened.

“Those four men,” she continued, when she was certain she’d regained control of her voice, “they were part of a group of Imperial soldiers who ambushed Lady Hagen’s carriage on the Trouge Road. They killed Lady Berin and someone I didn’t know. She was gold; her fur was gold.” Beautiful, golden, sprawled on the road, bleeding. “They used the nets to control the Mage-pack and they intend to take Lady Hagen and four others back to the emperor. My parents’ carriage had stopped just up the road, so when I heard the shots, I went back and saw…” She paused and tried to untangle the story. “I already told you what I saw, didn’t I? When I heard they were being taken to the emperor, I ran to tell the Pack Leader what had happened. Bercarit was farther away than I realized, so when I reached the city, I remembered that the river came to the border and found a boat. I didn’t know about the rapids. I jumped out before I reached them and…” And nearly drowned, but, again, from the list of things that hadn’t happened. “…and they captured me on the shore. They thought I was Mage-pack, but I’m not.”

Even if just this morning Jaspyr Hagen had told her that promises made before a battle brought bad luck.

When silence was the only response, when that silence grew, and lengthened until it couldn’t be called a pause, when it had gone on long enough it was clear Tomas wasn’t going to respond, Mirian shifted into as close to a comfortable position as she could find and sighed. The younger Lord Hagen wasn’t her sister, having crossed the hall to her bedroom so they could share confidences in the dark. He wasn’t even a friend. They’d been thrown together by circumstance, and she had no right to resent his silence.

Then the fur shifted under her hand, flesh and bone changed—not quite instantly, she realized, this time not distracted by the visuals—and she cupped a bare shoulder, the skin cool and slightly damp.

“My brother…” Mirian felt his ribs rise and fall, as though he fought his own bones to breathe deeply enough for what he had to say. “My brother,” he tried again, “is dead. Killed by the weapon that destroyed the Hunt Pack. It was new. More power and a greater range. When we reached the battle lines today, I found it and destroyed it. Too late. I found…” Another deep breath. Mirian rubbed small circles on pebbling flesh as though he were many years younger, instead of just the one. “It exploded, the weapon exploded, and I was knocked out. By the time I woke, the battle had moved on, but I found…Ryder was…he was in pieces. Dead.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her mother’s belief denied; the Pack Leader would not be saving them. A tear dripped off the bridge of her nose and fell to join the rest dampening her sleeve. Dead. The Pack Leader was dead. What happened now?

“The battle had moved inland. But Ryder…I didn’t know what to do and then I saw them with you on the riverbank. I knew I had to rescue you.”

“Rescue me?” Mirian heard her voice rise, bouncing around the inside of the cave, and quickly lowered it in case Captain Reiter had doubled back. He was smart. It was the sort of thing he might do. She rubbed her nose against her sleeve. “I kept you from getting shot.”

“I untied you and I found this cave.”

“I took the piece of silver out so you could change.”

“I’m going to take you back to Aydori.”

“That’s tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he repeated. “Tomorrow, I’m going after Danika. She’s carrying my brother’s baby.”

Mirian frowned as she tried to remember Lady Hagen’s profile and failed to remember any indication of a pregnancy. She thought about arguing that the baby was decidedly as much Lady Hagen’s as his brother’s, but his brother was dead and he was grieving, so all she said was, “I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you?” He sounded angry, but even as emotionally flailed as she was, Mirian knew he wasn’t angry at her. “All I have left of my brother is the two of them. I have to save them.”

With the net off, Lady Hagen could easily deal with a few Imperial soldiers. With any luck, those soldiers would be on the edge of a cliff and she could blow them off it. All Tomas would have to do to save her, was remove the net.

Mirian rubbed at a sore spot on her head, felt dried blood under her fingertips where a clump of hair had been pulled out, and thought about her own tomorrow. Back in Aydori, whether Becarit had fallen or still stood, she’d have to get to Trouge. Her mother would want to know about Jaspyr Hagen. She wanted to know about Jaspyr Hagen, but was afraid to ask. As long as she didn’t know, he might be alive. And even if Mirian left out the river and the soldiers and Tomas Hagen, her mother would see the loss of the Mage-pack as a social opening. Mirian didn’t think she could stand that.

“Who is Pack Leader now?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” After a moment, “I don’t care.”

“Shouldn’t you…”

“No!” His teeth snapped together. Biting at the air. Biting at denial. Mirian could hear the quaver in his breath. “I’m getting Danika and the baby back. And the others,” he added after a moment. “All of them.”

All right.

“I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.” He shifted position. It was obvious he wanted to turn and face her. She was darkly amused that even with the breeze moving her scent from the cave, he didn’t trust himself enough.

“Alone you’re either a stray dog—and Best isn’t the only one out there who takes shots at stray dogs—or you’re a naked young man.” She used her most reasonable tone. Exhaustion helped. “I can act as your owner and keep you from getting shot, and I can carry your clothes. You won’t get far without me.”

“You’re a Soothsayer?” She could hear the curl in his lip.

“No, I’m sensible. If those soldiers are still hunting me, they’ll never think to look for me going toward the empire. If you want to keep me safe, that’s the best way to do it, and if you want to travel on four feet, it won’t seem strange to see a young woman with such a big dog for protection.”

After a moment, he snorted. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“Probably not.”

“Your family…”

“They didn’t stop me from trying to reach your brother.” Granted, she hadn’t given them the chance, but her mother had told her time and again not to ask questions when she already knew the answers. “They’ll be thrilled I’m going after Lady Hagen.” They’d be thrilled she was with a Hagen.

With a Hagen…If they ever found out she’d spent a night with Tomas Hagen, skin to skin—however little skin was involved—they’d be planning the wedding. Even if he’d stayed in fur the entire time, she’d never make them believe it. There’d be petitions to the Pack, speculations in the papers, arch looks over a hundred tea tables. And she did not want to go home to that.

Besides, the Mage-pack needed help, and it seemed there were only the two of them to provide it. Mirian couldn’t walk away from that now any more than she’d been able to up on the road.

She’d wanted her life to have a purpose.

Now it did.

“You’re warm.”

“What?”

“You’re warm. Your clothes were wet from the river and you should be freezing, but you’re warm. And mostly dry. The damp bits…” The heavy facing of her jacket pressed against his bare back. “…the damp bits are warm, too. It’s mage-craft, right? If you’re going to accompany me, I need to know what you’re capable of.”

She could hear the junior officer in his voice, feel it in the stiff line of his shoulders, recognized a retreat to what he was sure of. “First level healing. Body equilibrium.”

“You had to have been raising your body temperature all along. The net wasn’t stopping you, but you said it stopped Danika and the others.”

“Lady Hagen warned me. Well, not me specifically, but she sent words on a breeze, the net comes from above. I twisted my hair up with pine gum and twigs and then it got wet; my hair gets thatchy when it’s wet and…” Lord and Lady, she was babbling. “…and I guess it didn’t stop me because it couldn’t reach my head.”

“So a hat could stop it?”

“I wondered the same thing.”

They wondered together for a moment.

“You should’ve brought the net with you,” Tomas said at last.

“We should’ve brought the net with us,” Mirian told him. “Your fingers weren’t broken.”

It sounded like he’d picked up one of the twigs—or bones—and was fiddling with it. “One of us should have picked up the net.”

“Agreed.”

“Putting that soldier to sleep?”

Mirian blinked. Eyes open, eyes closed, there was no change in the darkness. “I don’t understand the question.”

“What put the soldier to sleep?”

“Second level healing.” She blinked again. Second level. Sleep gives our bodies and minds time to restore and renew. Sometimes the greatest gift a Healer-mage can grant a patient is the gift of sleep. Mirian had known what to do, she’d just never been able to do it. Perhaps all she’d needed was the possibility of having a Pack member shot with silver and herself recaptured by Imperial enemies—although, should she be given the chance, she didn’t think she’d mention that to the Healer-master.

“Your eyes have no gold.”

“Trust me, I’m aware of that.”

She heard him yawn. Yawned in response. She’d slept tied to a tree; she could sleep here.

“You smell amazing.” He sounded as though sleep had come on him suddenly and he hadn’t yet realized he was falling.

“Tomas…”

“What’s your name?” Another yawn. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Mirian Maylan.”

“I mean, really amazing.” He shifted, pushed back against her, and began to turn over.

Mirian closed the hand around his shoulder, hard enough she felt flesh dimple under her fingers. “Tomas. No.” She kept her voice gentle because it was comfort he wanted as much as anything and a part of her wanted it, too. Wanted to lose herself in something just long enough to forget. But he wasn’t a something, and it wouldn’t be right.

He stopped moving, made a noise she couldn’t identify, then pulled his shoulder from her grip and changed.

She could put her arm around him in fur, rest her cheek on his head, and if that wasn’t enough comfort to forget—for either of them—it was at least enough to grant them sleep.

It wasn’t the distance they’d traveled that had left them so exhausted, but the constant fight to retain balance with their hands tied behind their backs.

“It’s to keep you from using magic,” Hare, the marksman, had reminded her as he waited yet again for Murphy and Tagget to haul her back up onto her feet.

“I thought the net on our heads was doing that.” She’d layered her words onto a passing breeze, leaving a trail of information for those with the ability to hear.

Hare had merely shrugged, but Tagget had sighed and said, “It’s old. Captain, don’t trust it.”

“The captain isn’t here and I notice the lieutenant, who keeps nagging about how much time this is taking, doesn’t have to lift one of us back onto our feet when we fall.”

Murphy had snorted. “Catch an officer do something like work.”

Now the five of them sat awkwardly on the ground in a half circle, too far apart for private conversation, but close enough that even in the fading light Danika could see that Annalyse still looked too pale, Stina, who had a purple bruise on her forehead, still looked angry—Danika envied her energy—Kirstin looked as though she’d folded in on herself, and Jesine looked worried about Kirstin specifically, barely taking her eyes off her face and inching as close as she could.

Each of them had an Imperial soldier standing over them, musket ready. The other soldiers were setting up camp—reusing two of the three old fire pits. Danika wasted a moment wishing that Allyse had been with them in Bercarit. Not that she wished this captivity on yet another friend, but if the nets allowed first level mage-work, then a first level Fire-mage could light a candle. Or a sleeve. Or a pant cuff. Or a series of ammunition pouches.

On the other side of the camp, by the fast-moving stream where Kyne and Tagget were filling canteens, Sergeant Black and Lieutenant Geurin were talking.

Danika tipped her head so the breeze brushed over her right ear.

“We need to make better time tomorrow, Sergeant.”

“Private Murphy has a point, sir. If we tie their hands in front of them, they won’t fall as often.”

“And Private Murphy is giving the orders now?”

As pleased as she was that Murphy had done as she wanted, Danika thought Lieutenant Geurin sounded like her sister’s five year old, and a five year old with the power of life and death was a terrifying thought.

Smart enough not to answer what was so clearly a rhetorical question, the sergeant remained silent.

“Fine.” The lieutenant started across the camp, the sergeant falling into step behind him. When he stood in the center of their half circle, he smiled and said, “Call the squads back around them.”

Sergeant Black frowned, but obeyed the order.

With Murphy on her left, Tagget on her right, and Hare behind her, Danika tucked her chin in to her chest and watched Lieutenant Geurin through her lashes. He would think it made her look weak, afraid of him. She knew it masked expressions she might not be able to hide.

“Tie their hands in front of them. Do not,” he added before the men began to move, “allow them at any point to get a hand free.”

The dull ache in her shoulders turned into fiery pain as her arms moved in ways they hadn’t been able to all day. Annalyse cried out, and one of the men who held her arms made soft clucking sounds. Through her own pain, Danika made note of that sympathy for later use.

When they had all been retied, the lieutenant stepped forward, pinched Danika’s chin between thumb and forefinger and lifted her head. She gave serious thought to seeing if she could bite the end of his finger off, but, in the end, merely met his gaze.

“Translate this,” he said.

“Drop dead,” she said pleasantly in Aydori.

He nodded, not imagining for a moment a bound captive would argue and stepped away.

“You’ll notice your hands are now bound in front of you,” he said, and paused.

“The lieutenant thinks we’re so stupid we have to be told our hands are in front of us now,” Danika translated.

Jesine coughed.

Danika did not look over at Sergeant Black.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you can now remove the tangle and use your mage-craft against us. Well, you can’t.”

That, she translated as spoken.

“Attempting removal without a second artifact will cause extreme pain.”

And that.

“I realize you have no reason to believe me, so I’m going to prove it to you.”

Prove it? Danika shifted so she was not staring up at him at quite so acute an angle. “How?”

“By attempting to remove one of the artifacts of course. Now, translate.”

“Sir, I don’t think…”

“No one asked you to think, Sergeant. Translate, or it’ll be you for sure instead of a one-in-five chance.”

Danika showed teeth. “Then it’ll be me.”

“As you wish.”

She swept her gaze across the others and while none of them looked happy, she was Alpha and they’d abide by her decision.

But before the lieutenant could either step forward or order the net removed, Kirstin, who’d sat limp and unresisting while her bindings were changed, met Danika’s eyes and gave a nod so tiny Danika wasn’t positive she hadn’t imagined it. A heartbeat later, she dug the fingers of both hands into her hair, hooked them around the barely visible net, and screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.

Sergeant Black grabbed her bound wrists and yanked her hands free.

Kirstin collapsed as though she were a puppet in a winter pantomime and her strings had been cut.

“You!” The sergeant moved men aside so Jesine had a clear path. “Do what you can.”

Jesine was already moving.

The lieutenant opened his mouth, but before he could speak, before he could make a smarmy pronouncement on what Kirstin had done, before he could claim her pain as his, Danika said softly, “They have very good hearing, our beasts.”

The lieutenant’s mouth snapped shut. He glanced up at the darkening sky with wide eyes, looked for a moment as if he were about to order a march through the night, then he snarled, “Get those fires lit!” Turned and strode to other side of the camp.

Danika glanced at the sergeant, who nodded.

“Jesine?”

“Pulse is fast but strong. Her nose is bleeding, but I think it’ll stop soon enough. The net’s left white lines on her fingertips.”

“Burns?”

“More like frostbite.”

“I think the lieutenant’s point’s been made,” the sergeant said softly.

Danika nodded in turn. No one else would try to remove the net. But from the way the men glanced into the darkness between the trees, the way they jumped at every sound, her point had been made as well.

They ate the same food as the soldiers: dried meat, army biscuits, and water. The lieutenant had Carlsan heat water for coffee and the smell made Danika’s stomach roil, but she managed to keep her food down.

When she knew the lieutenant was watching her, she looked at the fire and smiled an I’ve got a secret kind of smile.

“Douse the fire,” the lieutenant snapped. “The beasts aren’t blind!”

“But, sir…”

“Douse it!”

Danika remembered hearing a lecturer at the university say that the first fear was fear of the unknown and the dark was the unknown’s representative. Everyone feared the dark, at least a little. Feared what the darkness hid.

The night was cloudy, no moon or stars, and the shadows under the surrounding trees were nearly thick enough to have substance. She could feel that fear rising from the men around her.

“If they smell us on you when they come…” Soft words to the breeze that circled the camp. Had there been a fire, some of the men might have tried to prove they weren’t afraid. Had they been anywhere else, those men might have been what the darkness hid.

Here and now, in the forests of Aydori, knowing that the beastmen were somewhere in the darkness, they had other things on their minds.

It was as close to safety as Danika could arrange.