21.
There was no immediate way to know if Tirael’s claim was true, as DNA testing would take a couple of hours. Even if it was, Thalia would execute her half-sister the same as any traitor. Instead of responding to the furious taunt, she ripped the woman’s filthy sleeve and gagged her with it.
This victory was too hard-won for Thalia to allow it to be tainted. She hoped that most surviving soldiers hadn’t overheard about Tirael and Thalia’s kinship, and now they never would. For a moment, Thalia knelt beside the woman who’d claimed to be her sister, trying not to remember confiding in Tirael and asking for her help, like after they discovered the poisoned wine at the wedding feast.
Would Lileth have lived if someone else had summoned help? Eliciting that truth from Dr. Wyeth might push Thalia over the edge, so she decided to staunch that awful curiosity. It required complete self-restraint not to choke the life out of this treacherous bitch at once.
Thalia whispered, “You’re in no position to make threats or promises. The victor decides on their version of the truth, and in my story, you’re nobody, a failure just like your mother. But don’t worry. You’ll see her soon.”
Tirael’s eyes blazed with liquid loathing, but she was bound too tightly to react otherwise. Straightening, Thalia scowled at Ferith, who had struggled to the top of the walls despite a grievously injured leg. “You’re supposed to be with Dr. Wyeth,” she snapped.
The Noxblade shook her head. “Later, once this is finished.”
Thalia knew better than to argue. Even if Ferith was bleeding out, she wouldn’t stand for being locked out of dealing with a traitor. It had to cut deep, as Tirael had been her second-in-command, secretly scheming against them both. Accepting the inevitable, she said, “Send someone for my father’s sword.”
Largely ceremonial, the blade was too long for Thalia to use in battle. She’d trained on twin knives, perfectly balanced, but for some occasions, there was no substitute for the enormous weapon known as Lawbringer. The longsword had been in her family for almost a thousand years, the metal dull with age, its engravings stained with blood. By the way Tirael trembled, it seemed she understood what was to come.
When a young Eldritch rushed up with Lawbringer, he also had a wooden block, saving her the trouble of asking for one. Ferith came forward on her own and slammed Tirael’s head onto the square. Thalia raised the sword with both arms, conscious that she would need all her strength to make a clean cut. Though Lawbringer was preternaturally sharp, it still wasn’t easy to sever a neck clean through.
“For the capital crime of treason, you are sentenced to death. You’ve spoken your final remarks, so we only need to carry out that judgment now.”
Thalia sucked in a deep brace, raised the sword, and struck with all her might. Tirael’s head bounced away in a spray of red, and she fought against rising queasiness. So much blood. Daruvar might never be clean again. A ragged cheer rose from the Eldritch nearby, a keen, sharp victory call that spread among the survivors until the stones echoed with the chant. Her entire body ached, but Thalia responded, striding to the edge of the wall and raising Lawbringer overhead in a triumphant gesture.
She let the roaring go on for long, loud moments, then she signaled for silence. “Today, we won an important battle, but we also lost brothers and sisters who lost sight of our goals. Unity. Friendship. Life without prejudice. I’ll renew treaties with the Animari and the Golgoth, after we settle Ruark Gilbraith. Once I take his head, the other houses will follow me, and I hope we can move forward without more senseless bloodshed. There will be peace and prosperity ahead, if we fight for it.”
“My queen!” someone shouted.
At first, it was a lone voice in the crowd, but others took up the proclamation. “For our queen!” Until the fortress thundered with Eldritch approbation. Thalia hardly knew how to respond, but she lowered Lawbringer and acknowledged the clamor by posing with both hands on the longsword, bowing her head for a moment.
She couldn’t rest on her laurels, though. There was too much left to do. “All right, people. If you’re injured, prioritize amongst yourselves and see Dr. Wyeth. Those who are healthy, I need the bodies of our fallen in the courtyard. The traitors will be buried, not burned. Divide into teams and get order restored. Now!”
That broke the spell, sending the Eldritch scurrying. Thalia stepped back from the edge of the parapet and turned to Ferith. “Will you get treated, or must I threaten you?”
“No need. I’m not needed on corpse watch.”
To her surprise, the young wolf, Sky, stepped forward, offering her shoulder, and Ferith accepted the near embrace without hesitation. There was a certain air between them, as if they’d bonded during their captivity. It gave her a sweet feeling to see Ferith’s head nestled next to Sky’s. The two descended the winding tower stairs together, completely in sync.
One by one, Raff’s wolves shifted back and since it was cold as hell, they went to don their winter gear. Only he lingered in the icy wind, but before he could speak, she dug into her dirty pack and found the clothes she’d been holding for him. “Here, get dressed first.”
The fact that he did it on the wall, casual as anything, well, it was endearing. Maybe she was reading the situation wrong, but it felt like he didn’t want to leave her side long enough to tend to his own needs. Not because he was obligated, either. Nothing in their marriage contract stipulated that he had to care.
“You all right?” he asked, tugging the sweater over his head.
He was a mess of fresh wounds, smeared with blood, and she didn’t mind. When he opened his arms in a silent offer of solace, she curled into him like they were magnets holding an opposite charge. Thalia nestled her head against his bearded chin, relishing the scrape of his hair against hers. Raff stroked her back quietly for a few seconds.
“I’m not well,” she finally answered. “But I’m still here.”
“Sometimes that’s all we can do. Think it’s true? What she said.”
She shrugged. “It’s possible. My father had so many secrets. Just when I think I can’t hate him more…”
“I’m sorry, princess.”
“To him, I was never even a person, just a tool to be used in his grand design. When I began to think for myself, I enraged him, but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of me. Not when I was an emblem of his virility, sired from his loins.”
Raff stirred against her, and Thalia thought he was probably disgusted by these revelations, family secrets that she’d hidden until she was sick with their keeping. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“No, it’s good,” he cut in. “Well, the shit you’re saying, it’s terrible. No disputing that. But it’s fucking lovely that you trust me with it. I’ll be your vault, I swear. Nobody will pry your confidences from me, even with a hammer and chisel.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Sometimes, before, the pressure built until she had to find a place to hide, where she could scream until the throbbing stopped. Now, hearing his words, it drained away on its own, like he’d physically taken it from her head. Thalia leaned against him harder, marveling at how easily he took her weight. Like it was natural.
I can’t be without him now.
And it was such a terrifying revelation, completely unprecedented, and certainly not covered in the contract they’d written up. Raff hadn’t promised her emotional support in those documents, so this could stop at any time. Her heart skittered, racing in anticipation of that loss, and she pulled away.
“What’s wrong? You’re scared?”
She hated that he knew, that he could sense things about her so easily, when she was meant to be a glacier of a woman: immense, icy, and immovable. Mechanically Thalia shook her head. “Just…reaction setting in, I suppose. So much has happened.”
“Right.”
There was one important task left, anyway—something she’d sworn before she knew who the traitor was. Without hesitation, Thalia snatched up Tirael’s head by the streaming hair and impaled it on a spike jutting from the front ramparts, a message to the enemies who were surely watching.
You’re next.
Raff had rarely wanted a hot shower so badly, but he had to see to his fallen first. None of Korin’s people had been lost in the taking of Daruvar, but Sky had just informed him of Janek’s death. His knees nearly buckled when she led him to the old wolf’s corpse, carelessly stashed in a storage room like Janek was a sack of rice.
“He wouldn’t kneel,” Sky whispered from somewhere behind him. “I did. I’m sorry.”
Tears thickened her voice, and he turned, wrapping an arm about the little wolf as she broke down. He whispered words that were meant to comfort but not quell. She shouldn’t feel guilty about surviving, but he understood why she did.
“You did nothing wrong, pup.”
“They were going to ask for ransom from Korin, more drones and mines,” she went on. “I didn’t expect her to pay, not for someone like me, but…I didn’t want to die. I’m sorry.”
“Stop. I only wish Janek had bent with you. There’s no shame in bowing your head, if it meant your life, and I know damn well that your heart never strayed from Pine Ridge.”
From her fresh injuries, it looked as if Sky had been tortured repeatedly. Animari healed so fast that the last session couldn’t have been long ago, as she still carried stripes on her back and fresh bruises on her face. What the hell was that awful bitch trying to learn? Sky had no access to the inner workings of Pine Ridge security. If Tirael had known that and still hurt the little one, then the quick end she got with Thalia’s sword was too fucking good for her. Janek had known more, and maybe that was why he’d chosen to die as he did, no risk of betraying the pack.
He knelt and closed Janek’s eyes. The old wolf had been left to stare at the cold ceiling in death, and that gnawed at him. Ignoring the bullet in his back, he swung Janek up in his arms and carried him out of the dark. Korin was waiting for him in the courtyard, their vehicles newly parked beside the mound of Eldritch. These had to be the traitors who would be buried without ceremony, no burning to ease their passage to the next world, no songs or candles to guide the way.
“The cavalry came just in time,” he said to his second.
Korin might have smiled, except her gaze locked on Janek. “Not soon enough for some. Seems like you’ve seen some shit, packmaster.”
“Don’t call me that. We run this joint fifty-fifty.”
“So you keep telling me. Give Janek to me. I have to get back to Pine Ridge and kick some Golgoth ass.”
Raff froze. “There’s been an incursion?”
“Nothing serious. Yet. They’re testing our defenses. Mines took out an entire platoon, and I don’t think there are many more nearby, but I should be there since you can’t be.”
So much shit had happened so fast, he didn’t even know how much longer he’d promised to remain in Eldritch territory. Two months, maybe? Whatever, Korin was right; she had to defend the pack holding in his stead. And he completely trusted her to do it.
In response, he carried Janek’s body to Korin’s personal vehicle. “Get me some blankets. He’s been cold long enough.”
Fucking irrational, but those measures might restore some of the respect that the old wolf had earned through a long and worthy life. With reverent hands, Raff wrapped him up, head to toe. He’d probably never be able to forget the awful angle of his head or the color of Janek’s throat. They broke his neck and kept twisting. With Animari healing, it must have taken ages to die, and it would’ve been excruciating.
I’m sorry, old friend. I failed you.
Part of him wanted to ask Sky exactly when but knowing wouldn’t help or reduce his complicity. It wasn’t like he could go back and save him, so he stepped back and closed the Rover’s rear doors. He faced Korin with a neutral expression, he hoped.
“Give him full warrior honors at the service. I wish I could be there, but I’ll have to settle for visiting his ossuary when we come home.”
“We,” Korin repeated. Her eyes held questions that he couldn’t answer.
Raff resorted to an obvious truth. “It’s in the marital agreement. Thalia will spend three months at Pine Ridge once we finish here.”
Thankfully, Korin didn’t pursue whatever curiosity she might be nursing, and she was way too smart not to realize this wasn’t the time to roast him. “We’ll be waiting. Unless you need me to stick around, I’m taking most of the troops back with me. Do you have enough forces with the quarter I’m leaving and the Eldritch still loyal to Thalia?”
“It should be. If a full unit comes at us, the mines will decimate them. You only got to the fortress because you know where they’re placed.”
“True,” Korin said. “Take care of yourself.”
He glanced at Sky, hovering like a shadow near the walls. “I’m not sure what to do with her. She’s not all right.”
Korin sighed. “If I take her home now, she’ll read it as a vote of no confidence. I’m not sure she’ll recover from that.”
“Then she stays. I’ll ask her to read up on Eldritch customs, so she can take Janek’s place as my closest personal advisor.”
For a second, surprise flashed in his second’s expression, revealed in the arch of her brows and the tilt of her head. “That’s…unexpectedly wise. And thoughtful.”
He made an obscene gesture. “What, like I never came up with a good idea before?”
“You want an honest answer here, Raff?”
“I don’t know, do I?”
“Well, I’m giving one. It’s not that you couldn’t come up with good solutions before, more that you didn’t try. I’m not sure if it was because your old man brainwashed you into believing your head’s full of sawdust, but before you came to Daruvar, you seemed content to let me do the thinking, so you could keep drinking.”
“Ouch.” He wasn’t even pretending; that fucking did sting.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s a compliment, I’m saying you’ve changed. You’re stepping up…and I like it. Responsibility looks good on you, wolf lord.”
Raff mumbled something, stepping away from the Rover. “Get clear of the woods before nightfall. The mines can only protect you so far, so I’ll have a drone keeping watch until you get back to Pine Ridge.”
“Understood. Take care of yourself…and your new wife. I haven’t spent much time with her, but I can tell she’s a force to be reckoned with by the way she swings a sword.”
At Korin’s signal, the bulk of the wolf forces mounted up. The gates slammed shut behind the convoy, and he kept watch from the walls until the vehicles vanished from sight. Sky stood behind him silently, probably still stewing in her guilt.
“I have a new assignment for you,” he said.
Surprise lit her delicate features before she nodded. “Anything. I’m ready.”
As soon she heard, Sky headed to the library, where she should be safely immersed in Eldritch lore. Weariness set in, making Raff aware of all his aches and pains. He still wanted that shower, but he needed to talk to Titus, see what the great cat had in mind. If he didn’t have any plans, Raff had an idea there, too. Seemed like maybe Korin was right, and he was suddenly full of plans and schemes.
It’s because of Lady Silver. I’m trying to keep up.
If Raff was completely honest, he was trying to please her and make her proud, and never fucking give a reason to regret choosing him.